The closer they got to the cavern down below, the more Kasyn remembered of the last time he’d been here. The creature was already inside his mind, pressing on him to ascend, to destroy Akumu and begin the cycle of pantheons once again. There was almost a desperation in the creature’s thoughts, a jealousy or vengefulness that Kasyn hadn’t noticed the first time he’d been down here.

“It wants us to destroy everything,” Damarys whispered and he nodded in agreement.

The pounding in his mind continued to grow until at last they entered the cavern with the subterranean lake. As before, the water was perfectly still and reflected the faint light Kasyn was projecting. Just beneath the surface, the creature writhed like a mass of endless tentacles.

Ascend

It was almost irresistible now and Kasyn saw Damarys drawing out the vial of blood. Her hands were shaking with the effort not to use it on herself.

Ascend

The creature commanded once again and Kasyn knew it would be as simple as pouring the blood on himself and speaking the strange words the creature was putting into his mind.

Ascend

Damarys removed the stopper from the bottle and held it aloft.

“Damarys,” Kasyn managed to say through gritted teeth as he resisted the urge to grab the vial from her and use it on himself. “Remember why we’re here.”

The whole time they’d been walking closer and closer to the lake and when they reached the shore, there was a moment of hesitation before Damarys tipped the vial, spilling its contents into the water, landing with a splash that was both faint and deafening to Kasyn’s ears.

At once the surface rippled far more violently than the vial of liquid could have made on its own and cracks began to open up beneath the surface as the creature was drawn into reality.

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!

Kasyn’s head split with pain at the terrible shriek and he threw up a magical ward against another such outburst, including Damarys in his aura as best he could to protect her as well.

“Fall back,” Damarys ordered and the two of them hurried away from the water’s edge, leaving Kasyn’s skeletons there to slow the creature as it began to crawl out of the water.

Dozens of tentacles spilled forth onto the shore and Kasyn’s skeletons began stabbing and slashing at them with their spears, blocking the flailing tentacles with their shields. In addition to having suckers on them, the tentacles also had eyes dotted about and they were focused on Kasyn and Damarys.

An arrow sped past and stuck one of the eyes. The tentacle it was on jerked back from the pain and Kasyn instructed his skeletons to focus on the eyes as well since they seemed to be a weak spot for the creature.

If you will not ascend, the creature spoke into their minds with obvious malice, then I will ascend myself and burn your world into oblivion.

Akumu hadn’t warned them about that possibility and suddenly Kasyn was doubting the wisdom in what they’d done. There wasn’t any time for such regrets, though, as a tentacle lashed out at him and he lanced through it, cutting it off from the main body. For all the unnatural and ancient nature of this creature, it was certainly easy to hurt. Kasyn didn’t notice any magical resistance and even his skeletons were doing quite well, carving up large sections of the creature.

The way it moved looked uncoordinated and its aim was terrible. In a moment of clarity he realized it was because it was just like a newborn baby, unused to how its body worked. It may have powers it hadn’t used yet, but it also likely didn’t know how to use them either and Kasyn wasn’t going to give it a chance to figure them out.

Damarys was still pelting the eyes with arrows as the creature continued to pull itself onto land. Kasyn cut tentacle after tentacle off with his spells while his skeletons slowed the creature’s advance. All the while the creature was screaming in their minds, screams of frustration, of defiance, but mostly of pain.

At last, the bulbous body of the creature from which all the tentacles sprouted from rose above the water and it’s screams were no longer in their minds but audible and ringing in the cavern.

“I WILL CRUSH YOU! YOU INSIGNIFICANT GNATS! YOU FLEAS OF CREATION!”

It was so loud that Kasyn was momentarily stunned and he clapped his hands over his ears. Damarys, on the other hand, kept firing until the creature’s words were choked off. She’d located the mouth and fired into it until it was forced to stop shouting at them.

“Aim for the eyes on the main body,” Damarys called over the ringing in Kasyn’s ears.

He hadn’t noticed much about the body but now that he looked he did indeed see the much larger eyes that were staring madly in every direction.

Now that it was fully on land, the creature began to roll, crushing the skeletons all at once and drawing nearer to Kasyn and Damarys at a terrifying pace.

“Get back! Get back!” both Kasyn and Damarys shouted at one another but the tunnel they’d come down was too far away.

Kasyn threw up the strongest barrier he could but it was barely enough to stop the tentacles from lashing them. If the body rolled over them, that would be the end.

A red light flashed suddenly, a beam emanating from somewhere behind them and piercing the creature’s body. Skin, muscle, bone, and organs all vaporized in an instant as it cut through the creature. It screamed and recoiled but the red light followed it as it retreated back towards the water. The problem was, it could only really move at speed by rolling and that meant it was carving itself apart in the beam of light.

Kasyn had to shade his eyes when he glanced back to see what the source of this new and rather timely attack was.

Akumu stood in the mouth of the tunnel, his finger pointed directly at the creature and directing the beam of red light.

“Stand aside,” Akumu ordered and both Kasyn and Damarys obeyed.

Akumu advanced, still blasting parts of the creature apart while he blocked its retreat with a wall of fire.

“You’ve hidden in the cracks of reality, causing destruction at every opportunity,” he called out to it. “No longer! I’ve trapped you here and now you’ll finally taste the mortality you’ve eternally loathed.”

There was hardly anything left of it by this point and Akumu swept his wall of fire forward, burning the rest to ash. As the excitement and panic wore off and Akumu returned to them, Kasyn bowed his head to his deity.

“Lord Akumu, couldn’t you have done this at any time?” Kasyn asked.

“The temptation to ascend would have been too great for me,” Akumu replied, shaking his head. “I needed you to draw it out first.”

“Will you reconsider…leaving us?” Kasyn asked.

“I’ve told you already,” Akumu sighed, “my time has come or else I will become something far worse than even this creature, for there would be no stopping me. Now please, do this one last thing for me.” He held out a small glass vial with a miniature gold dragon entwined around it. “Destroy this and put me to rest.”

Kasyn wept heavy tears as he took the vial and noticed the faint cracks already in the glass.

“I’ve weakened it,” Akumu explained, “and removed all of its protections, but by my very nature I’m unable to destroy it. All you need to do is strike it and it will be done. Then all that was mine will be yours, this people’s, to do with as you will. All the knowledge of my Toshokans, my runic lore, everything will be made available to you all. Use it well.”

Kasyn gripped the vial and felt more cracks forming. It was such a frail thing. How could he do this though, and how could he not? His god was asking him to do this last thing for him and who was he to refuse? Steeling himself, he raised it up high and threw it down onto the stone floor as hard as he could. It shattered instantly, pieces of glass and metal flying as a gust of wind burst out and Akumu gasped, clutched at his chest, and staggered.

“F-Farewell,” he stammered, “live…well.”

With that he crumpled and fell into dust. Kasyn dropped to his knees and wept.