3 seconds…
Together, Gneil and Ris’kin touched my Core to the stone altar, none too gentle in their haste. We all stared down at it, wondering if it had been enough.
The timer had stopped counting and disappeared. The absolute lack of prompts from the Augmentary, of confirmation of either success or failure, was not encouraging.
Did we make it? Or were we too late?
Everything was still. Gnomes, badgers and rampaging trogloraptor alike waited in silence. The tension in the plaza was so thick I could hardly breathe.
Then:
Altar successfully sanctified. Exodus complete!
Sixty-Seven
Epilogue
Corey
I hardly heard the cheering of my denizens. My entire being rang with shock, disbelief, and pure unbridled relief.
The humans’ appearance at the top of the trail was cause for even more happiness—almost as much so as the ten full globes of mana pulsing tantalizingly in a vertical stack in the right side of my vision.
I’ve missed you so much, I told them. I—wait. Ten?!
Apparently I exclaimed that last part out loud, because Bekkit said, “Indeed. By completing the Exodus, you fulfilled a holy covenant between yourself and your denizens. If you look more closely, you’ll also see that all of your adult denizens have unlocked the next tier of worship. This is just one of the reasons nomadic elven civilizations of the past were so powerful…”
I tuned him out, entirely caught up in the buzz of Ascendancy and success. The sight of my mana globes, as well as of my vastly expanded map, of the grayed-out tabs in the Augmentary lighting up in their various colors once more… I doubted I’d ever see anything so sweet again.
I was proved wrong mere hours later when Binky appeared, along with Flea and Sir Fura. The unlikely trio were bloody and beaten, with wounds that looked suspiciously like they’d come from bear claws. Now that my precious eight-legged friend was fully terrestrial, it seemed his mind was as independent as his body, and he’d taken it upon himself to scout the surrounding area and dispose of any threats he encountered. If I’d had corporeal eyes I’d definitely have had to wipe away more than a few tears. They grow up so fast.
Longshank had refrained from spearing the now-docile trogloraptor to death, but rather dismounted cautiously and allowed it to scuttle off to lick its wounds. The relationship between him and Gneil was still not exactly what one might call friendly, but the high cleric definitely seemed to regard the hunter with more respect than before. I wondered how much of that was down to Longshank escorting my gem safely to its new home, and how much was down to the hunter saving Hoppit during the fangfin attack at the river. I decided I was happier not knowing.
The sight of Lila had been a shock, but clearly not as much of a shock as it had been to Coll and Benin. Apparently she was the one responsible for the dire creatures, but she’d also been directly influenced by malevolent forces—as, apparently, had Coll.
It seemed that whatever outside influences had affected them were banished with the restoration of my Sphere. According to Benin, they’d likely remain protected so long as they stayed within its boundaries. By the Sphere’s magic, yes, but also by me.
I swear it.
As much as I reveled in borrowing Ris’kin’s body and experiencing the wonders of tactility, it felt truly amazing to float in the air, once again in my god’s-eye form. I took more delight than I ever had before in supervising my busy denizens, flitting from builders clearing rubble to botanists planting mushrooms in an instant using nothing but my own thoughts.
It’s good to be a god again.
Though I was now able to venture all the way up to the full height of my newly expanded Sphere—which I suspected would take me above the clouds if I so chose—I had yet to summon the bravery to do so. I was much more comfortable with the sky than I had been at the start of the journey, but still.
One step at a time.
I was plenty high enough right now to get a much better look at the dragon skeletons that cluttered up the north-eastern edge of the caldera. Both dragons’ jaws were frozen wide, and they clutched at each other so tightly that in places the claws had actually punctured flesh and pierced bone. At first sight I’d thought them to be embracing, but from my new vantage it was clear they’d actually been fighting. I tried to imagine such fierce animosity. As much as it pained me to admit it, I suspected my own self-preservation instincts—in this life and my former one—would never allow me to plummet to my own death simply to ensure the destruction of my enemy.
The thought of enemies weighed me down. With Grimrock vanquished, we’d originally thought Varnell to be our only enemy. But what Benin had told me about Lila suggested we had another foe in the form of this “Lord of Light”—not to mention the theory the mage and I shared about the Zolom having been the avatar of yet another Core.
On top of all that, the memories that had flooded me after the failed crossing—the memories that I was trying to push down while we became better acquainted with our new surroundings—had essentially added yet another name to the list.
Melakor.
Whoever he really was, the memories I’d regained made it very clear that he was not only responsible for betraying me and my former allies, he was also directly to blame for trapping my soul in its gemstone prison and stealing my dark elf body for himself. I was torn between wanting to hunt him down and make him pay—perhaps even fulfill my old dream of taking back my body—or accepting that my former life was behind me for good. It was a huge decision, a millstone around my entire being, which
