A Conversation With The Enemy
Morehammer stood on the other side of the portal. He had an impassive expression on his face. He didn't move towards the portal, or attempt to move through it, not that it would have worked if he had. The portal I created would only work in one direction.
This gave me a chance to study him up close. The dwarf had jade-colored eyes and long brown hair that spilled out of his crown-like helm. He had a handsome face, and a thick, well-kempt beard the color of rust. He also radiated an almost blinding aura of prismatic magical energy, unlike anything I had ever seen before. The two of us observed each other, coldly and without words.
In looking at him I got to see the creature that killed Ava. As that memory came to mind I felt a cold surge of rage swell up within me but I easily suppressed it, thanks to my own powers over patience. Internally I was grateful for that. I didn't want to try fighting Morehammer again, just yet.
He wore the same armor he had been wearing almost two days ago. He carried the same utterly gigantic Warhammer that he used to kill Ava. And he had the same tower shield he had had before when I first met him.
As I laid my eyes on his equipment I quickly began to see that at least some of the magic I initially thought he had been radiating was actually coming from his warhammer and his shield. I didn't doubt that each of the items he possessed were incredibly powerful.
After perhaps a moment had passed since we began to study each other, he took a step back and then nodded at me as if giving me permission to pass through a portal I myself had created. I studied him for a moment and then spoke.
"What do you want, vestige?" I asked, my eyes narrowing as I spoke. I wasn't a fool. I wasn't about to go where he was for no reason. He looked at me silently, for a moment, before opening his mouth to speak.
"I wish to converse with you, godling. Nothing less... And nothing more." He responded, his eyes also narrowing as he spoke. I studied him for a moment, and was both unsurprised and also a bit relieved when I received the domain-sense notification that he was being honest. I was still for a moment longer, a moment that for me and probably for him felt like an eternity, while I considered whenever or not to enter the portal.
As he waited for me to make my decision he quietly sighed. I sighed back at him, and then stepped through the portal, and Sombra stepped through it behind me. As we did I closed the portal behind me and found myself standing in front of the vestige, within my tower. I towered over him, standing nearly a meter taller than he did and I glowered at him.
We were standing in an empty chamber, in an empty floor, of my tower. Angels and other extraplanar beings lurked in the floors above us and below us. The chamber we were in was a simple one, about halfway up the tower.
"Hello, Morehammer." I said, my voice low and filled with anger. He glowered back at me and replied quite simply.
"Hello, godling." He said, his voice calm and low. Up close I studied his face and noticed that he had physically aged, his skin beginning to sag and thin, giving him a less regal but more wise appearance. He and I were both silent for a few moments before he opted to begin truly begin the conversation.
"Althos... Allow me to begin this conversation by apologizing to you." The god said to me, his words catching me off guard and causing my eyes to narrow in suspicion.
"I am truly sorry I had to kill a dwarf, even a dark one. And judging from your reaction to the death of that creature, Ava, it appears that you possessed strong feelings towards her. I am not happy to have had to slay her." The creature told me. I felt my eyes begin to change and I felt the rage I felt earlier return to the forefront of my mind.
"You... 'had' to kill her?" I asked, rage audible in my voice. The dwarf looked at me, curiously, but I sensed something in his gaze. Morehammer nodded at me.
"Yes... To prevent my people from going down a dark path, one that would divide them like elves and assorted other species have been divided." The vestige replied, revealing his desire to tyrannically control dwarves.
"If Ava had succeeded in killing Aoife, or even Aoife's 'clone', dwarves would have commenced walking down a dark path. I will prevent that." The echo of the dwarven creator god told me. There was a steely look in his gaze as he spoke. For a moment I allowed the rage I felt to come to the surface as I replied to the vestige.
"So all of this was due to your perception of good and evil? And due to your desire to control dwarves?" I asked, my voice quaking with rage. Morehammer's eyes narrowed as he considered my words.
"Listen, young one. I created dwarves so incredibly long ago that it would boggle your mind. Dwarves are older than devils and almost as old as demons. They were one of the first humanoid races created. I have guided their collective destiny and done things you couldn't even imagine to keep them safe. If anyone has the right to control them, it is I." The ancient creator of dwarves told me, his voice containing within it faint memories of his incredibly ancient life. Or rather the incredibly ancient life that the true god lived, and that this creature only remembers.
The sheer arrogance of the god's words caught me off guard. I knew pride was its vice, but to think that it'd be so direct about it surprised me.
"That you are their creator doesn't give you the right to suppress their freedom!" I countered, the passion in my voice surprising even Morehammer. I was legitimately angry about this asshole's arrogance. Morehammer was silent for a moment, before chuckling and beginning to speak.
"That is so easy for a young member of our species to say... You know next to nothing little one. Mortals are mercurial and in need of guidance and protection." The vestige told me, replying to me as though it were some saintly protection and not a murderous tyrant. I felt another flash of anger, but I took a deep breath and I quickly reasserted my control over my emotions.
"Morehammer... What is it exactly that you want?" I asked the creature, opting to make an attempt to gain more insight into the mind of my foe. Morehammer's eyes flashed with an eerie joy.
"What I want? I want to continue to protect my children. And I want to ensure that you and your ilk forever leave this world." The dwarven vestige revealed the joy his eyes radiated sharply increased, as he chuckled at my expense. I studied him and then replied to him a few moments after the big reveal of his plans.
"What makes you think that I will do that?" I asked him, my eyes beginning to blaze as I silently drew upon my powers over flames and plasma. As I did I heard the vestige's muscles twitch and tighten around his weapon, as he instinctively readied himself for... whatever came next.
"Because I am stronger than you, Althos." The vestige arrogantly replied.
"Are you? Just because I didn't attack right away doesn't mean that you're stronger than me." I told the god, power seeping into my voice. He smiled at me, haughtily, as if he had just learned some dark secret.
"So do you want to fight me?" The vestige asked, smiling at me. I smiled back, as I activated a single power of mine. It wasn't a fire-based power either, it was a death-domain ability. The instant the vestige was done talking, I activated "Death Visage", and for a single instant, Morehammer froze as his eyes widened. His mind was now being assailed by visions of the moment when he'll die.
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The instant that the young god activated his power to force creatures to see the moment they die, something odd happened. The unexpected nature of the power and its sheer potency caught the ancient vestige the god was conversing with off-guard and did indeed trap the echo of an unbelievably ancient god in a strange vision.
Morehammer's vision no longer showed the vestige Althos in his tower. Instead, Morehammer's vision was abruptly a third-person display that showed the creature an unbelievable sight. Morehammer saw himself, or rather a fallen version of himself, in Atlantis' capital city, as the Emerald Palace slowly crumbled to the ground behind him.
In front of Morehammer's fallen form knelt Althos, wearing a golden suit of armor and carrying a pair of weapons in muscled hands. In one hand Althos held a scythe made of darkness, and in the other, he held a sword made of light. Althos was on his knees, roaring triumphantly, covered in both his own blood and that of the ancient vestige.
What was the strangest thing of all though was that the emerald palace was illuminated by natural light, sunlight. The Emerald Palace was located impossibly deep beneath the ground. There was no way for sunlight to stream into it, barring an incredible display of mastery over the earth or amazing power over the domains of light and stars.
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As Morehammer's vestige was momentarily caught in the throes of my ability, I closed in on him and put my hand next to his head. And then I unleashed a single potent and unbelievably hot stream of blue flames. The flames were so powerful that as they exploded out of my hand they actually moved Morehammer and pushed the vestige right out of my palace and into the empty air that surrounded the upper floors of my residence.
One instant Morehammer was next to me, and the next the vestige was dozens of meters away, before beginning to drop out of the sky like a heavily armored rock. It turned out that this was the instant he recovered the vision my power had shown him. I learned this because the vestige teleported to beside me again, and shouted his next few words.
"What the fuck was that?" He roared, anger glowing in his eyes. I chuckled and replied to him with a few haughty words of my own.
"That was for Ava, you prick." I told him, as I clenched my fist and readied another blow. Morehammer opened his mouth to respond to me, but he wasn't fast enough. I turned around to face him in less than a nanosecond, using my true speed for once in my life and launched a single punch aimed squarely at his chest. As I did so, I recalled an aspect of my existence that I had never used before.
I possessed infinite strength. I was once told that I had the physical power to punch through a star. If there was ever a time to test that... It was now.
I rocketed my fist towards him, so fast that it triggered a sonic boom around us, as my fist slammed into his mythical armor. My fist collided hard against the armor and the blow was so solid that the force of it actually lifted the dwarf off his feet and sent him sailing through the air before he crashed into the floor of my palace a few meters away. As the dwarf sailed through the air I noticed something that brought a smile to my face. To his credit as a blacksmith, the blow was actually endured by the armor he wore, hinting at the sheer potency of his craftsmanship. But that didn't mean it was left untouched.
His armor now had a fist-shaped indention on it, square in the middle of the breastplate. I spoke as I watched him land a few meters away from where he had been located a second ago.
"And that was for me. I owed you those two blows." I told him, speaking confidently. Morehammer looked to be in pain, his eyes flashing as he looked at the floor and brought a hand to the part of the armor I had struck. He placed a hand on his armor, or tried anyway since his hand went to where the indent was, and his eyes widened. He looked down and was visibly shocked to see that I had left a fist-shaped indent on his armor. I chuckled.
"Last time you caught me off guard Morehammer. That does not mean that you are as strong as you believe." I explained, before raising one hand in front of me in a defensive position and positioning the other in a more offensive one at my waist, indicating my readiness to continue to fight.
"You are not a god. You would be wise to remember that, you echo." I said, surrounding myself in a number of potent auras, even as I targeted Sombra with telekinesis and hurled her out of the battlefield. To my surprise, Morehammer didn't immediately try to strike back at me. Instead, he studied me for a few moments. And then he rose his hand up in a gesture clearly meant to indicate that he wasn't going to fight.
"Althos! You're... You're correct. You did owe me those two blows. Now, are you done?" He asked, his words spoken with perfect clarity and eerie focus. There was a fire I recognized glowing in his eyes, the light of rage, but to his credit he didn't try to attack. I didn't lower my fists, but I did silently nod.
"Good. I suppose fair's fair. I couldn't kill you in one fell swoop and you got away. It makes sense that that'd come back to get me somehow. Now... I'm willing to let bygones be bygones if you and your followers just leave this world." The god told me. But there was something different this time. A notification that brought a sinister smile to my face.
[Domain sense:
Morehammer has told a lie to Althos. He will not let 'Bygones be bygones' if Althos and the Althonians leave the world of Torus.]
Morehammer's malevolence was detected by my powers over lies. And my sinister smile caused Morehammer to stiffen, as he tried to get a read on me. I closed my eyes for a moment, which a creature less knowledgable than Morehammer may have taken as a sign of weakness, but Morehammer knew better than to try and catch me off guard while my eyes were closed. It wouldn't have worked on me, by anyone, even him.
I targeted the vestige with a potent power I possessed entitled "Death Knowledge" and was annoyed with the result.
[Death Knowledge: Morehammer
Updating domain of knowledge. Update in progress...
Update nearing completion.
Update... Complete.
Morehammer is the opposite of a god in that he can only be killed near his birthplace. Anywhere else he can be soundly defeated, but killing him is impossible unless one is near where he came to life: the Emerald Palace. That said, he does possess a glaring weakness: he cannot willingly leave the world of his birth. The weaknesses of each vestige are unique.
Killing Morehammer is a challenge. The vestige must be well and truly defeated in a battle within the sight of the Emerald Palace to truly die. Anything short of this will cause the defeated form of the vestige to reappear deep within the bowels of the Palace, where he speedily regenerate.]
I sighed and looked at the vestige. I knew that his attempt to get me to leave Torus was a strange plan, one that I couldn't understand given that he was evidently still determined to badger me. I examined him, and I knew that something was off here. I targeted the creature with yet another power of mine, ready to learn more information. This time I activated "Secret detection", a truth subdomain power of mine.
[Secret Detection: Morehammer
Morehammer does not seek to die. At first, he was willing to do so if it meant stopping you, but now... He isn't. He seeks to have you leave this place and never return so that he may live eternally, free from one prison and trapped in another but at least this second prison is a larger one where he can be worshiped.
He is keeping a secret the fact that each usage of his powers, even just teleportation, drains him. He can only recharge when he is near his home, the Emerald Palace. But that is also where he is the most at risk of being attacked. His home is a double-edged sword for him, as he can recharge his limited energy there but it's also where he is the most at risk of perishing. So his scheme is to get rid of the one threat he faces: you.
While you are gone, he will seek out something, anything, that may give him the strength to face you and defeat you. This is a last-minute scheme he has come up with after facing your blows directly. It is one he is still forming in his mind, even now.]
"Heh... So that's his game huh? I suppose I can work with that. For now." I thought, a dark scheme beginning to form in my mind. One that would test my patience, but one that would allow me to take vengeance on him one day.
But first I would need to do something of my own. I would need to utilize a set of powers I wasn't particularly experienced with: my powers over law. Powers he himself once possessed as a lawful god.