ELDRITCH NIGHT (Rough Draft)

Chapter 21: Dark Revelations

The music reached a crescendo, quickly becoming faster and louder with each second. The sounds of battle were now faint, almost an afterthought. Subsumed but not gone. The clash of blades and pounding of flesh kept time with the rhythm, while the cracks of gunfire faded into gentle susurrus even as they increased in frequency. It was a frantic kind of harmony. The violence and the cacophony of battle all blended together to make something beautiful and lasting –order from chaos.

In addition to refreshing my body the melody calmed my mind, giving me clarity and focus. Dozens of status updates and alerts had popped up showing my gains from the fight, cluttering my view. New skills, skill levels, feats - I scanned and then dismissed them all. None of them would help me with what I needed to do next.

The eldritch energy swarmed around me like a cyclone, heavy and viscid. I could feel it pouring into me, and into my allies around me. It bled from the slain. It nourished my skills, causing them to grow larger and to gain new clarity. This allowed me to make out vague outlines of runes and arcane symbols from the tightly bound sphere in my chest. I could see the thick energy flow in, then be filtered into something lighter and more homogenous. It was weaker yet lacked the chaotic specks and pollutants that made up the rawer form of the energy.

The greatest share of the dark energy swarming into me avoided this sphere, instead aiming for an object secured in an inner pocket of my leather jacket. I could feel the item nearly overflowing with power as it sucked dry the energy around it. It felt like it could burst at any moment, like a tiny nuclear reactor I carried in my pocket.

I reached into the pocket, ripping loose the threads that I had used to sew it shut. With a shaking hand, I pulled out a crystal long and narrow, with numerous polished facets. It was a deep black and inside was a raging storm of red branching lightning bolts. The Fisher Man, my dark companion, had called it a catalyst. It was like a seed, or a cocoon, from which could grow potential, possibilities. Power.

The gem had gorged and grown large. The crystal ate with glee and gluttony, never satiated. I could feel it pulling at me, at the energy around me. It needed to be unleashed, lest it consume itself and all around it.

This would be my greatest leap of faith yet, it could give me a class. Grant me strength. All I had to do was trust. Trust the bit of madness left behind in my mind by an ancient and unknowable evil. I had given blood, and I would need to give more if the contract was to be fulfilled.

It was an impossible trust to give, and yet what choice did I have? The barricade would quickly be overrun, and my friends and allies would die. I was useless, and crippled – one foot held on only by ligament and flesh. I needed to survive, to become more powerful. I still needed to find my family - my mother, Liv, and Troy at the very least.

I was willing to take the risk. I had to trust that what remained of me would be enough.

In addition to the two feats and two skills required by Soul Forging, the catalyst required a sacrifice. This ability would make up the core of my new class, though changed and flavored by the other skills and feats to be infused. It would be the defining characteristic of what I would become.

It wasn't a hard decision, what feat to choose to represent the heart of my future power. My reactive adaptability sounded great on paper, and yet I had gained little from it. My past experience convinced me that the feat would only activate if I had been brought to the brink of death. It had the power to save me from that death, and even resist that particular form of damage in the future. It was a safety net, useless unless I had already failed.

I willed the crystal to consume the feat, to take it as its core. The bond I held with my dark companion lit up with glee, and I gained a quick image of the bird. It hummed with joy as it crushed an eye, still bloody and trailing a thick cord of optic nerves, between its beak.