Chaos Rising: The Realms Book Six: (An Epic LitRPG Series) Read online

  Chaos

  Rising

  Book Six of The Realms

  by

  C.M. Carney

  Chaos Rising - Book Six of The Realms by C.M. Carney

  www.cmcarneywrites.com

  © 2019 C.M. Carney

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact: [email protected]

  Cover by Lou Harper.

  https://coveraffairs.com/

  *

  Dedication

  To Birgitta and Caleb

  Proof that Chaos has risen.

  Love you, kiddos.

  5,268 Years Before the Events of Barrow King

  The frigid air swept over Odymm Tal as he dashed towards the Citadel. The chill eating at his bones had little to do with the gusts blowing across Xygarrion, for today, he feared his city would fall. And if Xygarrion fell, all the Realms would follow.

  Tal pushed his way through the early morning crowds, not pausing to apologize when he bumped a shopkeeper or cut off a school matron leading her flock of children. If he failed to stop what was about to happen, momentary lapses in propriety would matter less than a falling leaf in autumn.

  “This is my fault,” he said, not realizing he’d spoken aloud.

  “You warned them,” came the resonant bass of his archon, Jurredix, who kept Tal’s pace with ease. “On multiple occasions. They did not listen.”

  Tal cast an appreciative glance at the mechanical man, his gift from the Primarchs, the Lords of Order, upon achieving the rank of Grandmaster. The archon was a symbol of Tal’s high status, and it comforted him to have him by his side as the entropy of human folly threatened to destroy everything Tal had worked his entire life to protect.

  “And there was no way of knowing they had progressed so far, so quickly. We all thought we had more time.”

  “Time, the greatest weapon of entropy.” Tal clenched his fists into balls, his knuckles going white. “I should have forced them to heed my warnings. I should have tugged them by their beards and their braids and smacked some sense into them.”

  “You were obeying the law.”

  “And look where that’s got us. We hover on the brink of annihilation. I should have seized control, the law be damned.”

  “A coup? How very chaotic of you,” the archon said, earning a sardonic chuckle from his master. Silence hung for several seconds before the machine spoke again. “At least you secured Merria and Berrek’s safety. I am very fond of them,” the archon said, his flat voice showing no emotion.

  “If we do not stop the Synod from opening their foolish Realm Gate, then no place will be safe.”

  “I am aware. I was attempting to ease your mind.”

  “You knowingly spoke an untruth?” Tal said voice tinged with shock.

  “So, I did.” The archon tilted his head to the side, a mannerism it had gained observing Tal over the last decade. “Troubling. Perhaps I have spent too much time in the company of humans. Your chaotic nature is unbounded, corrosive.”

  “If we live through the day, I’ll let you complain about it to your heart’s desire.”

  “I do not complain, nor do I have a heart. I am powered by a spark of pure order.”

  Tal ignored his taciturn companion’s comment and pushed his way into the Citadel. Several guards snapped to attention, but he paid them no heed. He sent the barest of glances towards the massive council chamber where his last efforts to warn the Synod had failed. Then, without slowing, he turned left and descended a staircase into the bowels of the Citadel.

  “It makes no sense. The Synod has grown arrogant, but they are not fools. How could they ignore the evidence I presented them? It was irrefutable.”

  “I have thought long on that, and logic points to only one conclusion.”

  Tal’s eyes snapped up to the shimmering pinpoints of blue-white light that were the archon’s eyes. “You don’t think …”

  “One of the Synod is corrupted.”

  “You cannot believe that?”

  “I can, and I do, as will you. Cleanse your perception of sentiment, and you will see it is the only logical conclusion. The Alliance is on the brink of defeat. There are rumors the Thalmiir will seal Dar Thoriim to the world. Every captured El’Edryn returns a corrupted enemy, fallen from the light. Like you, the Synod is desperate. They want nothing more than the power to protect those they love. Who has long offered that power to the mortal realms?”

  Fear and uncertainty tore away the last remnants of Tal’s disbelief. “The Princes of Chaos? But trusting them is utter madness.”

  “Desperation breeds madness.”

  “By the Source, you are right. How did I not see it?”

  “I believe a part of you did, but you refused to let yourself believe. You mortals are masters of self-deception. It is a wonder you have survived this long.”

  Tal grimaced, a part of him wanting to smack the archon, but he knew it would damage his hand far more than the crys-metal of the automaton’s face. “We must stop them,” Tal said.

  “Yes, is that not why we are descending these stairs at an alarming and unsafe speed?”

  “Do you ever tire of being right?”

  “I never get tired at all.”

  The archon and the Grandmaster descended in silence, the echo of their footsteps their only companion. Eventually, the silence became too much for Tal.

  “A port circle would come in really handy about now. How did the bastards convince us to shut them all down?”

  “When fear and lies erode the rule of law, freedom loses to security,” Jurredix said. “It is the surest sign that a society is in decline.”

  “Are you saying we deserve this? We asked for this?”

  “No, I am saying we should have imprisoned them all when we had the chance.”

  “Now you tell me.”

  They reached the bottom of the stairs to see a dozen armored figures standing sentinel before a pair of rune scrawled stone doors. One, a woman Tal knew well, stepped forward and pointed her long sword at him. “Grandmaster Odymm Tal, Arch Deacon of the Circle, you are not welcome here. Turn back now, or we will bring the verdict of the Synod down upon you.”

  “Dyrria, please.” He stared at the woman, a harsher version of his wife’s features staring back at him.

  For the briefest of moments, her expression turned warm before her rigid discipline took control of her once again. “Leave now, or I will have to arrest you.”

  “If we do not stop the Synod, we will lose everything to the Maelstrom. Please help me.”

  “We need the Realm Gate Tal. Without it, the Prime will be victorious.”

  “The Synod is corrupted. They are under the sway of the Princes of Chaos.”

  Dyrria’s eyes went wide in disbelief. “You have evidence of this?”

  “I will, once you open that door.”

  Dyrria sighed and shook her head. “Please, for the sake of my sister and my nephew, turn and go home. You have not been yourself for some time, Tal. Your theories were disproved. Your career is in shambles. You are desperate, twisted by obsession. Let me help you.”

  For the briefest of moments, Tal felt her words eat at his confidence. All she said was true. Am I wrong? Am I delusional? His doubt lasted for mere moments before Jurredix spoke.

  “Why does the Synod work in the shadows Dyrria Fet? Why do they need guards? Those who operate in secret have secrets to hide.”

  Dyrria considered, but she had always been inflexible, beholden to her sense of
right and wrong even when facts proved inconvenient. “The Synod does not wish to cause a panic archon. You of all beings know how dangerous a mob of terrified people can be.”

  “If they finish their ritual, there will be no more people.” Tal almost convinced her, but then her shoulders tightened, and he knew he would have to fight. Before she could order an attack, Tal activated his Ring of Spell Storage and cast Sovereign Command.

  The spell had a one-minute casting time, but knowing he’d have nowhere near that amount of time, Tal had precast it into his ring. Dyrria proved his foresight accurate when she launched herself at him, moving swifter than should have been possible.

  Sovereign Command activated instantly. The pure white light of Order Magic built inside Tal, filling his eyes and flowing down his arms and into his hands. He brought his palms together with a thunderous clap, and a sphere of rune scrawled white light exploded forth.

  It pulsed over Dyrria and her guards just as the tip of her sword pierced Tal's shoulder. He grunted in pain but willed himself to remain focused or risk spell feedback. He’d survive the onslaught of 1,000 mana points of rebounded damage, but all hopes of stopping the Synod would die if his focus slipped.

  Order Magic differed from the other spheres. Where the elemental magics harnessed the power of nature, Order Magic allowed the user to see the underlying principles of magic itself. Once understood, these rules of magic granted order mages incredible defensive and offensive capabilities. But the sphere’s true power lay in its ability to understand the principles that underlay consciousness itself. Given time, a Grandmaster could hijack the free will of individuals and command armies.

  Where thought mages could read minds, delete knowledge and install memories, order mages could control how the mind functioned. This made high-level Order Magic dangerous and the Circle fiercely policed its use.

  The field of magical energy flowed over the guards, expanding and contracting into intricate rune filled halos. Each one spun and slammed into the foreheads of the guards like a searing brand. Tal felt the spell go active and yelled: “Stop!” The guards froze as if time had stopped.

  Tal ordered Dyrria to pull her sword free, and pain tore at his shoulder. Jurredix caught him before he could fall and placed his right hand above the wound. White light resembling tendrils of liquid metal pulsed from the archon's palm. The strands of pure order energy sunk into Tal’s wound and restructured the damaged cells. In moments Tal’s shoulder healed.

  Tal turned to the passive eyed Dyrria. “Open the door.”

  “I cannot. The Synod locked it from the inside.”

  “And that wasn’t a hint they were hiding something?” Tal said, rage seething inside him. He pushed her aside and ordered the guards to part. He inspected the patterns on the doors. Swirling runes of magma orange flared to life on their surface, then changed, faded, and disappeared. A migraine-like pressure built up behind Tal’s eyes, and he forced himself to look away.

  “Jurredix,” Tal said, rubbing his thumbs into his temples.

  The archon stepped forward, his mechanical eyes analyzing and recording the shifting patterns. “These are chaos runes, in the dialect of Zeenchaara.”

  “Odd, the Lord of Decay is rarely so forward.”

  “Wait,” the archon said, his voice raised in mild surprise. “They are changing.”

  “Is that not the nature of chaos?”

  “Yes, but now the runes are in the dialect of Vincenyth, the Pestilent. Another change, this time NymerTerroch, the Prince of Madness. And again, this dialect belongs to Mixengettorax, The Lord of Carnage.”

  Panic rose in Tal like bile, and he risked a glance at the shifting patterns. They were now changing at incredible speed, a slurry of lines and arcs, indecipherable to Tal’s mortal eyes. His migraine pulsed, and he turned away. “The Princes of Chaos are working in concert?” The very idea was terrifying. The Princes hated each other as much as they did the Primarchs. “If they are working together, then….“

  “Things are even worse than we had surmised,” Jurredix said, his eyes scanning back and forth at an incredible rate. “There is something else.” Tal waited for the archon to finish his analysis. “I have evaluated over 10,000 shifts in the last minute alone and none of them make any mention of Baelmaera.”

  Tal’s eyes widened, and he brought a reflexive hand to the amulet at his throat, letting the totem of his Order bring him ease. The Lady of Shadows and Plots was the arch-nemesis of the Circle. Her manipulations had long posed the greatest threat to the mortal realms. “Why would she go silent?”

  “Perhaps she is dead,” Jurredix said.

  “The disturbance? Do you think the other Prince’s ganged up on her?”

  “It is a logical conclusion.”

  “And therefore suspect. Baelmaera never plays the straight game.”

  “No, she does not, but for the moment, it is irrelevant. We need to find a way through this door, regardless of which chaos entities lie in wait.

  “You’re right,” Tal said and began the intricate forms of casting Order Magic.

  “When am I not?”

  Tal grumbled under his breath and turned his full attention to casting. A massive amount of mana built up inside him, and he thrust his arms forward. Planes of shimmering energy expanded outwards into the shape of a sharply pointed obelisk. Tal pushed, and the four-sided crystalline structure pierced the raging energy protecting the door. Clods of molten stone exploded outward, searing the floor.

  Quicker than mortal eyes could follow, Jurredix erected a shimmering shield, protecting both Tal and the rigid guards. The walls rumbled as Tal pushed forward. “An intriguing use of Anchor of Order,” Jurredix said, impressed. “You never cease to amaze me, Tal. Your species’ minds swim with the chaos of raw emotion, yet, often as not, you push through that handicap to achieve unexpected results.”

  Tal would have flipped the archon off had he had the use of either hand, but also knew the automaton was right. Anchor of Order was a Grandmaster level incantation that fed upon chaos and provided power to the hundreds of Order Lances that protected Korynn from chaos incursions. To an outsider, an Order Lance was just a tower, but when powered by an Anchor of Order, the buildings became defensive bulwarks that fed upon and transformed raw chaos into nigh unbreakable barriers.

  The tower they now lay beneath was one of the greatest of Korynn’s Order Lances. Yet as powerful as the artifact was, an open Realm Gate, tapped directly into the primordial chaos, would soon overwhelm the protective magics of the lance. Tal wasn’t using his new anchor to strengthen the lance but to drain the chaos magic protecting the door.

  “What is your plan once we are through the door?”

  “No idea. I’m making this up as I go.”

  “Reassuring,” Jurredix said as the rumble grew stronger. The anchor was glowing with a furious inner light and more gobbets of molten chaos thrummed against Jurredix’s shield. A shriek rose, somewhere between the screeching of metal on metal and the howl of something ancient screaming in fury.

  Then the Anchor of Order smashed through the door casting molten stone and raw chaos in a wide arc before it stopped, hovering in midair. For the briefest of moments, the debris floated in an undisciplined halo as if gravity itself had paused.

  Tal stared into the room, using a concentration technique taught to all novice Deacons. The room beyond the door was a large circular gallery. At its center, a ring of spinning red metal hovered above a rail of the same. It reminded Tal of the magnetic magics used by earth mages during large-scale construction projects.

  Twelve members of the Synod stood in a half-circle, each feeding tendrils of red-orange energy to their leader, the chaos mage Rowyn Vex. The twelve writhed in agony, and for a moment, Tal felt sorry for them. Whatever Vex was doing to them, it was both painful and unexpected. I warned you all, Tal thought.

  As disturbing as the Synod’s torture was, the pulsating hole to another place flickering in and out of existence at the cen
ter of the spinning ring was the true terror. Amidst the swirling maelstrom of unrestrained chaos lurked several massive shadowy forms. They were getting closer, larger.

  The Princes of Chaos. Nearly all of them. Working together?

  Never in all of known history, had the Princes of Chaos joined forces. Their mutual hatred and distrust ensured they had never combined their efforts. It was one of the few reasons that chaos had not overwhelmed the other realms long ago. The Lords of Order were weaker than the Princes of Chaos, but they were organized, disciplined, united. That had been their strength. If Chaos has united, then the Realms are doomed.

  Gravity dredged time back to the present and the halo of molten debris flew forward into the room ahead of the Anchor of Order. The Synod took the full brunt of the assault, and every one of them went down, screaming in both terror and elation as fiery debris shredded their bodies.

  Tal pushed with all his will and the anchor flew towards Rowyn Vex’s unguarded back. A moment before the deadly point of the anchor impaled the chaos sorcerer, she spun and extended her palm outwards. The anchor stopped not because it hit an unseen barrier, but because Vex had somehow leached all the momentum from it. The anchor floated in the space between Tal and Vex, calm as a sea bird riding an easy swell.

  Vex was a stocky woman whose keen mind and immense skill with chaos magic had enabled her to rise to the pinnacle of power in Xygarrion. She was as fierce in battle as she had been on the council floor, and her actions had snatched at least one victory against the Prime from the jaws of defeat. She hated the aetherial creatures more than anyone, which was one reason Tal had always considered her a friend, despite their conflicting philosophies.

  “Hello, Tal, I’d hoped you’d show up.” Vex’s voice had a scratchy quality to it that enhanced her confidence. “This will be so much easier with you here.” She grinned, and Tal watched as a writhing cloud of energized particles oozed from her very pores, expanded and then contracted like the erratic breathing of a dying animal before it flowed back inside her.