The Forsaken God: The Realms Book Five: (An Epic LitRPG Series) Read online

  The

  Forsaken

  God

  Book Five of the Realms

  by

  C.M. Carney

  The Forsaken God - Book Five 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]

  This book contains excerpts from the poem “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll.

  Cover by Lou Harper.

  https://coveraffairs.com/

  **

  Dedication

  To my beautiful fiancé, Erica.

  I Love You.

  Thank you for saying “Yes!”

  Join my Newsletter

  Get a FREE book and keep up to date on all things The Realms!

  The Day of the Ruin.

  The blades of grass stood tall and rigid resisting the chill winds humming down from the mountains to the North. High above, a lone eagle spotted prey among the vast sea of swaying fronds. Its eyes widened, and it dove, twisting to adjust its approach. Below a hapless rabbit chewed, unaware that death was coming with bared claws.

  The rabbit's eyes widened, triggered by some primal instinct and it ceased its rapid chewing, searching back and forth. A low hum rose at the edge of hearing and the rabbit ran, pushing through the fronds. A rush of wind blasted the rabbit’s fur back, and it squealed in fear. In the air above the eagle screeched in alarm and wheeled away as a pinprick of blinding white light appeared a few feet above the ground, near the spot it intended to snatch its prey.

  The pinprick flared and expanded, driving the air ahead of it to hurricane force. A circular portal opened, and a man clad in white and silver robes stepped through. As soon as he was clear, the portal snapped shut. He looked around as if searching for others and smoothed the creases in his robes.

  The rabbit ran full bore in the opposite direction as the gale ruffled its fur and lifted it from the ground, a squeal of fear pushing past its incisors. A moment later it landed on all fours, its small brain beginning to hope it was safe, when the ground ahead of it pushed upwards into a bubble of raging magma. The long-eared animal chirped in fear and turned just as the bubble burst spewing blobs of molten rock in a wide fan, igniting the grass and scalding the air.

  A woman crouched at the center of the maelstrom, showing no ill effects from the heat or the sulphuric gas carried away by the breeze. Blobs of magma incinerated the grass, dotting the plain with conflagrations. The woman rose and looked around, her crimson eyes flaring beneath a pair of curved horns. In her left hand, she clenched a long-bladed spear crafted from ever-shifting liquid metal. With a backhand wave of her right hand, she extinguished the flames ignited by her arrival.

  Fear drove the rabbit to the left, but it found no solace there either. The air rippled and folded as if the organizing principles of reality were disrupted. The fleet-footed animal skidded to a halt as the fold spat out another figure.

  The small, wiry man’s spastic motions defied logic and strained the eyes. The scar in reality disappeared and the man’s jittery movements calmed. His suit was a mishmash of fabrics and styles that looked as if the tailor had tossed it together while hopped up on hallucinogens. He made eye contact with the other two and a mad grin twisted his face.

  The hare sped away, froth building at its nostrils and its heart beat near to bursting. Just as a glimmer of hope began to creep into its small mind, a beam of golden light shot from the clouds and punched into the ground accompanied by a short burst of musical sound. The light faded leaving behind a towering man clad in golden plate mail. The hilt of a massive greatsword crested his shoulders.

  The terrified rabbit skidded into the man’s metal-clad shins, stunning itself and drawing the man’s golden-eyed gaze. Golden light flared through the intricate patterns of twining lines and curling script at his feet before fading to nothingness. The large man bent and lifted the small animal by the scruff of its neck. He caressed it with a finger and a rush of gilded light pushed into the rabbit, healing and calming the creature. He opened his palm, and the rabbit flew gently away from him, carried on a beam of light to the far edge of the plains.

  “You always were a softy Casserius,” the horned woman said, her lips curling in a sneer.

  The golden god stared at the woman, as hard and unmoving as stone. Whatever word described the man, soft was not one of them. “All life has worth, Dymeria. Perhaps you have forgotten that.”

  “Do not fret brother,” the wiry god said. “She still believes, she just hates admitting it.”

  “Always the sycophant, Obekai. All I meant was that it was a futile gesture,” Dymeria said. “Nothing in this valley will survive what we do today.” A twinge of fear filled her voice.

  “You always were a cynic,” the golden god said to the woman. “Have a bit of faith.”

  “Forgive me brother if I am the voice of dissent in that arena,” Dymeria said, turning her gaze to the white-clad god. “But faith is not what we need today. What we need is strength and we are one down.”

  All eyes turned to the wide gap between the white-robed god and the golden god, where enough room lay for a fifth member of their group.

  “Where is he?” the wiry god asked. "We cannot do this without him."

  “He has forsaken us,” the golden god said in a low, unsurprised voice. “It will be the ruin of the Realms.”

  “The traitor. The coward,” Dymeria spat. She strode to the white-robed god and smacked him across the face. “I told you he would not show, Ossyrion. But you so badly wanted to believe in him you blinded yourself to his true nature.”

  Ossyrion said nothing, he simply returned the horned goddesses’ glare with a look of regret and kindness.

  “Maybe he had the right idea,” the wiry god said. His fingers fidgeted, gripping and releasing a crooked staff as it changed shape and color. “Perhaps we should run as well. Go back to the Outer Realms, find a small world, hide and raise a family.”

  “That is the coward’s way,” Casserius said, drawing his massive two-handed sword.

  “And the Dread God would come for us,” the white-robed god said, speaking for the first time. His powerful voice was calm and drew all eyes to him. “You all know what Morrigan wants. He has scoured the souls from seven of our brothers and sisters to achieve his goal. He will stop at nothing until he gets what he wants. There is nowhere safe from him, nowhere we can hide that he will not find us. We stop him today or the Realms end. There is no other way.”

  “Tell that to the coward,” the golden god raged. “Where is he, if not hiding?”

  “You are right,” the white-clad god said, sighing with heavy resignation. “He was our brother, and he has betrayed us all. But it does not change what we must do. None of us are innocent in this. We brought this fate upon ourselves. We all saw what Morrigan had become, but we did nothing.” He rested a calming hand on Casserius’ broad shoulder. “The others are gone. If we do not stop Morrigan now, all is lost.”

  “How do we stop him?” the wiry god begged. “We cannot remove Morrigan’s Godhead without causing cataclysm. Without him we cannot do this.”

  “We can,” the white-clad god said. “We just won’t survive.”

  “Are you mad?” the golden god said, his eyes wide in suspicion. “Even directed by the force of our wills, releasing that much energy will tear a hole in reality.”

  “I’m counting on it,” Ossyrion said. His e
yes flared to brightness and the other god’s gasped as new understanding filled them. “Are you with me?”

  Time crawled as the moment hung heavy, but then, one by one the other gods nodded. The golden god gripped the hilt of his sword and the blade exploded in a halo of yellow fire. The horned goddess powered up her spear, its tip shimmering with crimson energy. Even the wiry god agreed, pushing orange power into his staff. Though their agreement remained unspoken, it still held all the power of a Binding Vow.

  As if recognizing their pact, a crackling boom like the sound of a hundred bolts of lightning tore the air and shook the ground. The four gods turned towards the sound as a wave of wind, sand and rock roared towards them.

  The white god raised a hand and a shimmering shield of light expanded before them. The sand storm scoured but could not penetrate the shield. Soon the raging sand passed, revealing a lone figure walking towards them with easy confidence.

  “The Dread God has come,” the woman said, failing to bury the fear in her voice. The others readied weapons and spells as Morrigan, clad in shifting black plate mail strode through the dust.

  Ossyrion turned, casting a last desperate look back, searching for the missing god, the brother who had forsaken them. He saw nothing but the thick, endless clouds of dust Morrigan’s arrival had generated. Resignation slumped the white-clad god’s shoulders.

  “I hope you find peace brother.”

  *****

  For a period, time lost all meaning and reality became unhinged. The Realms ruptured, bent and folded in upon themselves. Energies locked away in the spaces between universes since before creation poured through the rent. The world fractured, simultaneously expanding and contracting in ways the surface of Korynn could not contain.

  Unknowable tons of earth exploded upwards as the rules that governed the Realms fractured. Boulders of a hundred different sizes flew skyward, some as fast as a bullet, some idly spinning almost casually.

  Some of this earth fell back down on Korynn in the form of fiery missiles that shredded mountains and scoured cities from the face of the world. Entire civilizations died as the seas raged and the earth trembled. Had the full measure of the ejecta from the ragged wound fallen back to the surface, it would have scoured all life from the surface of Korynn. But, the vast majority of the material coalesced around the largest chunk like iron filings to a magnet. Slowly, yet inexorably this expanding mass floated upwards where it settled into a stable orbit becoming Korynn’s second moon.

  Under the watchful eye of this new moon, a thick cloud of dust shrouded the sun for a generation. Plants died and soon, millions of animals and people followed. The few survivors knew little about what had destroyed their world, only that in the war between gods it was the people that suffered.

  Ruin had come to this Realm and it would take millennia for Korynn to recover.

  *****

  Water from the once distant ocean rushed into the rent in the earth, scouring the ground as it found its new equilibrium. A vast new bay was born, lowering the sea level around Korynn by several feet. At the edge of the newly made bay, the rabbit sat, its nose twitching in confusion and fear. Its tiny brain could not understand the unlikeliness of its survival, nor that it had just bore witness to an event both unique and terrible. It would live, it would mate, and unknowable generations of its progeny would be born, live and die, before an event like this would occur again.

  Soon it forgot the violence it had survived, and the rabbit chewed idly on some grass as its sparkling eyes gazed across the newly minted bay, a vast stretch of water that had once been its vast, grass laden home. It turned, hopped into the grass and disappeared.

  1

  Gryph leapt over the ooze slathered tentacle and spun in midair. Both wrists flicked, and a pair of his newly crafted throwing knives flew from his hands. The first found its mark and sunk into the beast’s rubbery flesh. The second missed, zipping by a protruding eyestalk and into the dark water of the underground lake. Gryph scowled and pushed a small amount of mana into his Bracers of the Return, manipulating the magnetic fields around the blade. The second throwing knife zipped in a wide arc and sunk into another tentacle

  “Why are you giving this octo-blob acupuncture instead of skewering it with your badass spear?” Lex asked, dodging an attack. Lex was not just Gryph’s trusty NPC, but also an ancient repository of knowledge known as the Lexicon of Cerrunos, though finding evidence of that was often difficult.

  “First of all, it only has six tentacles so it cannot be an octo anything,” Gryph said as he leapt over another tentacle and twined his mind around the knives. With a sharp jab of mental energy, he shattered the thin layers of quartz near the base of both blades. “Second, wait for it.”

  The acupuncture Lex so casually mocked was Gryph’s newfound focus on throwing knives. The battle against the Scourge had revealed a significant deficiency in his arsenal, a lack of a potent distance attack. Sure, he could use his spear, combined with his magnetically powered bracers, to attack at a distance and he knew a few decent offensive spells. But, if he ever ran out of mana mid-battle, he needed something more.

  That something more was his new throwing knives with built-in customizable slots. Gryph had spent the previous week working with the dwarven Master Smith Belgaarm, the Master Alchemist Bruunhilde, and Dar Thoriim’s Steward Grimliir, a Master Artificer in his own right, on the adaptable weapons.

  Sheathes on the outside of each thigh held five of the new blades, forged from unenchanted pure-steel, mined and smelted in Dar Thoriim’s newly reopened mines. Two holsters beneath his wrists housed another pair, each ready for a quick attack.

  The knives were six and a half inches long with a handle wrapped in hemp twine. Each three-inch blade was razor sharp, and featured a thin groove, known as a fuller, cut down the middle of the blade’s length. The fuller strengthened the weapons, but their true purpose was as a delivery system.

  For each blade had a unique feature, one conceived by Gryph and designed by his team of master crafters. Located where blade met handle was a recessed slot capable of holding half-inch long quartz ampules. These ampules held the real power of the new weapons.

  The small crystalline phials contained a pair of liquids separated by a thin wafer of quartz. While the quartz remained intact, the two liquids were stable, but when mixed, a wide variety of fantastic things happened, some of them quite explosive.

  Quartz was a psycho-reactive material, and like copper to electricity, it was a conduit for Thought Magic. All Gryph had to do to activate the phials was push a twinge of his will into the quartz. The wafer would break, the potions would mix and bam instant magical attack. Nearly a dozen varieties lay safely protected inside his soulbound satchel, ready to come to him when the need arose. Today he could finally test the new weapons in the field.

  Gryph landed and danced away from another, slower attack from the tentacle he’d injured. He drew another pair of throwing knives and waited. The beast raised the tentacle high and a moment of doubt filled him. Then the appendage shivered and stopped. A cascade of frost spread through the spongy flesh like the fractal patterns of frost on a window. The second tentacle soon joined suit.

  “Cool, freeze bombs,” Lex said in admiration and swung his spirit laden hammer in an upward arc like a mad barbarian ineptly playing golf. The holy weapon’s impact shattered the limb into a cascade of flash-frozen meat. The unfrozen end of the tentacle flopped to the ground where it twitched like a slug dipped in salt. Emboldened by the success of his first attack, Lex spun and activated Crushing Blow, shattering the second appendage.

  Ovrym and Vonn dashed in, blades whirring. The xydai adjudicator and the half-elf templar were both able warriors, but despite their common elvish roots they could not be more different as people.

  Ovrym’s charcoal gray skin was a mark to all that he was one of the Fallen, descendants of El’Edryn high elves captured, tortured and transformed by the Prime. The races of Korynn hated and feared his peop
le. To them he was the boogeyman. But like many prejudices, it was fear based on ignorance. For his people had long ago rebelled against their hated masters and in the Outer Realms, the places outside Korynn, they were the xydai, the fiercest hunters of the Prime in all the Realms. Gryph was blessed to call the stoic warrior monk both ally and friend.

  Vonn, on the other hand, was a dashing rogue whose charm and good looks would have made him a Hollywood star back on Earth. His constant ribbing of Lex and his wide range of roguish skills suggested he was a ne'er-do-well, but the man was a deeply spiritual Templar of the Source, a knight in service to a mysterious higher power.

  Gryph smiled as the two men sliced through two more tentacles, each dropping to the sandy floor of the cavern. The xydai and half-elf formed a defensive wedge as the beast attempted to bring its last two tentacles into a defensive position.

  The creature’s bulbous body got in the way leaving a large opening for the last member of Gryph’s team.

  A wild scream shot by Gryph as Errat sped past him, his double-bladed axe held high. The massive warborn slammed the weapon down, cleaving the blubbery white flesh of the beast’s body in half. Metal crunched into sand and then clanged onto stone. The beast went still, its remaining tentacles flopping to the sandy ground.

  Warborn were organic automatons built for a war they’d never been able to fight. Recently awakened from a millennia long slumber, the powerful warriors were a species struggling to find purpose. They had asked Gryph to help them find that purpose, and despite his reservations, Gryph had agreed.

  Errat, whose name meant wrong in ancient Thalmiir, was an oddity, even among a people many found odd. His childlike glee and insatiable curiosity marked him as different. His ability to wield magic made him unique, for no other warborn could harness the mana that flowed through their bodies. If any of this bothered Errat, he had never shown it.