44 Meeting Gnorl (2/2)
The orc was suddenly, unwillingly lifted into the air. I didn't struggle at all with his weight, which was unsurprising since I had dealt with the goblins earlier, and the panther just now without any problems and my version of this power was supposedly a limitless version. He ignored his sudden weightlessness and continued preparing a spell to unleash at me.
Before he could unleash his spell I envisioned my mental grip on him yanking his arms back and his head straight up so that he couldn't target or see me. He howled as my power obeyed my mental envisionments, yanking his arms behind him and twisting his head. The howl was bloodcurdling.
”Enough!” I shouted, cutting off the orc's bloodcurdling cry. A sudden and intense silence filled the air. I willed my shadowy servant, a creature that the necromancy subdomain generated for me, back to me and back into my shadow. The entity willingly came back to me, once it studied the orc and determined that he couldn't do anything to me anymore.
And then I pointed a finger at the orc and made use of one of my more potent abilities: the ability to shut off a magic-user's magic for a full day. A thin ray of eldritch, white light shot out of my fingertip and stabbed into Gnorl's chest, aimed squarely at his heart.
The orc's eyes widened in disbelief as both he and I began to watch his magic fade and dissipate. He did so internally, no doubt aware of his magical energy fading into nothingness, and I did so externally.
I watched the multi-hued aura that surrounded him fade into nothingness, and he began to make pitiful noises of disbelief and sorrow, even as I placed him on the ground. I didn't even drop him, I actually placed him respectfully on the ground. He fell to his knees and began to sob as if he had just learned that a close personal friend of his had just passed away.
This display lasted a few minutes, and in the middle of it, I even released Hunahpu, Gnorl's pet. When the orc finally stopped crying, I began to talk to him.
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”Are you done? Or should I ready my shadow to attack you once again?” I asked, annoyed that the creature had dared to launch an attack before even asking me for my name. I thought it was rude.
”What do you mean 'Am I done'? You... could have killed my pet, and you dared to take my magic from me!” The orc said, looking up at me. His eyes were filled with rage and with sorrow.
I sighed. ”You attacked me first. All I said was that I was a spirit and you took that as a sign that I was okay to attack. That was obviously a mistake. I am far stronger than you, and I have no clue what led you to believe you'd not only survive attacking me but actually come out on top.” I explained and also revealing, showing the orc that I was genuinely mystified by its remarks.
Gnorl hissed at me, the sound surprising, deep, and probably scary to a human but not to me. I willed the earth and dirt underneath him to soften to the solidity of quick-sand and watched for the split second I allowed the earth to swallow him up for. He let out a gasp as his lower body and arms sunk beneath the earth's surface.
And as quickly as I had unsolidified the earth, I returned the liquid-like earth around his kneecaps to its naturally solid and dense state. He was trapped, once more.
”You didn't answer my question Gnorl. Are. You. Done?” I asked, allowing the orc's breaths to determine when I whispered each word of my final question.
The orc looked down at himself, acknowledged that his pet was here and unharmed, and then back at my elemental form. And then he nodded, grudgingly. And his icon on my mini-map went from red to blue, which I took as a sign of his sincerity.
I willed the earth that trapped him in an unmovable prison to soften, and then I lifted him up using telekinesis. The earth underneath him solidified, and then I dropped him. He landed well and began to look at me once more.
His eyes were filled with a mixture of emotions. One of them was sorrow at the fact that his companion could have gotten hurt, and that his magical powers had been stripped away. Another was anger at the fact that he was soundly defeated. And the last was a bit of respect for me, the creature who had defeated him in the first place.
”Now... care to explain why you attacked me?” I asked, looking at him studiously. The orc nodded and then began to explain.
”I am a shaman. But not the usual kind of shaman. I'm a hunter-shaman, one who hunts down spirits. You are a spirit so I hunted you down. Or... I tried too anyway.” He told me, explaining it as if it made all the sense in the world. I looked at him in disbelief for a few seconds. After realizing he was being sincere I wanted to smack him upside the head with one of my tendrils.
”Do other spirits look like me?” I asked, annoyed at his obvious lapse in judgment.
He turned to look at me and studied me for a split second. ”No... But, spirits are shapeshifters!” He confessed, before adding in something that was probably true and probably was a fair counterpoint. I hissed, aware that he might well be right, and moved on before he could try to add anything else to what he said.
”Now back to the matter at hand. I want you to serve me. Was my shadow and I trouncing you enough to secure your loyalty? Or am I gonna have to do something else to secure it?” I asked, hoping that the fight at least had the upside of securing another servant for me to have.
He thought for a second about what to say, before shaking his head. ”I'll serve you! Just... let me have my magic back, could you?” He asked.
I wasn't sure if I could restore his magic before the twenty-four period was up, but I was alerted by the domain of the knowledge that I could just end the condition on him. I did so by wishing it done and watched as his magic power began to slowly recharge.
Tears of joy filled his eyes as he began to feel his magical power coming back to him. He began to silently weep, grateful to feel his own power coming back to him.
And with that, began another period of peace. One that would last for two hours, until the sun began to set, marking the end of my third day alive and awake.
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I didn't return to the Silver Xana as the sun descended below the horizon, covering the lands beyond the forest in the darkness that the forest had grown familiar with. Instead, I found myself in a corner of the forest, unsurprisingly in a clearing that allowed some early-night moonlight to shine down upon it, with my allies beside me. I was once again in my human form.
I carefully studied the ground at my feet. I felt it underneath me. It was soft to the touch and only somewhat resistant to the effects of wind and rain. I was standing on top of an entrance to the strange underground region wherein most of my undead servants had come from.
They surrounded me, looking excitedly at the ground I stood on top of. This wasn't because they wanted to worship the ground I walked on, but because they recognized that I was standing on top of an entrance to the place many of them came from. I looked up at them and smiled.
”Alright, we're gonna go exploring the world underneath us. But while we're doing that I'm gonna get to know each of you.” I told them. They looked up at me and nodded, most likely as appreciative of the fact that I wanted to understand them as any regular undead being was whenever the necromancer responsible for it wanted to get to know it.
They didn't know it, but my thoughts were divided. In the time since I left the goblin encampment, I had been thinking about and doing several things at once.
The first thing I was doing was both gaining control over more ants and getting my ants to evolve. I pumped the creatures full of statistical boosts, causing my number of myrmekes to skyrocket.
I had ordered them to come to where I was, and even now my enhanced hearing could pick up the noise of their powers to control the earth chipping away at the distance between them and I. A part of me, due probably to the influences of the domain of civilization and the subdomain of Hymenoptera wanted to build a vast, bug-based empire that spanned entire planets.
That part of me was excited by the fact that there were millions of ants, bees, and wasps on this island. They far outnumbered most other living creatures, and certainly outnumbered all of the humans I could detect. Almost comically so.
The second thing I was doing was mulling over an idea that the system had put in my head. A worldwide burst of healing energy. I liked the idea of it, of announcing my emergence into this world by performing a world-spanning and undeniable act of goodness and thereby generating endless goodwill. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do it just yet, but I couldn't deny the appeal.
And the third thing was studying the list of synergistic powers I had gained in the wake of the tutorial coming to an end. It was an extensive, and fascinating list of powers.
As I studied it, I grinned at my undead followers and felt my Formicidae minions inching closer and closer to me. I could hear their feet, their acid, their claws, and their powers at work in the cases of the massive myrmekes' that aided the unevolved ants working to reach me, to breach the surface.
I could have helped, but I wanted them to practice breaching the earth by themselves. I wanted the myrmekes among them to practice their own version of earth control, and to master it quickly.