The Storm King

It was the late evening when Leon’s party finally emerged from the clouds and laid their eyes upon the peak of Kavad’s Lance. It had been a quick and fairly uneventful journey upward after their encounter with the centipedes, with Grandin and Aladir leading them through shortcuts and fast currents that bore them ever higher. It seemed these were shortcuts that only they knew about, as they hadn’t run into any more parties of climbers as they made their way through the maze-like forests, caves, and cliffs of the mountain.

“Most people remain below the first cloud layer,” Grandin explained when Alix pointed out the lack of other people around as they took a moment to rest after making it through the second cloud layer. “It’s rare that anyone’s too strong-wristed to make it past the second. Up here, we’re probably alone.”

Leon barely heard him as his attention was captured by what awaited them above.

The peak of the mountain, where the actual lance lay.

The mountain below the second cloud layer was fairly heavily forested, being covered in greenery. Up here, however, the wind howled around them in a tight cyclone, ripping and tearing at anything that sprang more than a foot or so off the rocks. Just at the cloud line, Leon’s party wasn’t too affected, but closer to the peak, the wind was strong enough to pull them right off the mountainside.

The peak itself towered over them, pale gray light shining from the summit like a beacon, calling them onward. An endless ocean of magic existed within that light, promising great power to anyone who could possibly claim the light’s source.

Leon set his jaw with determination and began evaluating the way ahead. The rest of the mountain was broken and rocky, but there were far fewer sheer cliffs this far up than there were further down. He might have to crawl upward given the strength of the wind, but from what he could tell, this last leg of his ascent was quite doable.

“We ought to stop here,” Grandin stated, finally drawing Leon out of his thoughts. Leon whipped his head around, casting a questioning gaze at the mountaineer. “Things get… complicated the further up you go. This is no place for limpwrists. This is no place even for most strongwrists. The power of the lance will rip you right off the mountain if you’re not careful, and it will only become more powerful the more people climb past this point.”

“How far have you ever climbed?” Gaius asked.

Grandin pointed up to a spot about a hundred feet or so below the halo of gray light. “Just barely close enough to see the lance itself, impaled in stone. I… have never made it higher. To my knowledge, no one has.”

He punctuated his statement with a meaningful look sent Leon’s way.

A warning, Leon realized, but one he couldn’t afford to acknowledge. Given the odds Artorion faced and the power he could sense from the summit, if he were ever to save his city, then this weapon could not be ignored.

“I’d recommend continuing alone,” Grandin stated.

Leon remained silent as he turned his gaze back upward. He didn’t even have to announce his decision before Valeria simply said, “Be careful, Leon. Try not to get thrown off the mountain.”

He spared her a challenging look, which she returned in full. Maia, meanwhile, sent nothing more than love and a sense of confidence through their connection. Further words from her were not needed.

“Yeah…” Alix said with some good-natured resignation. “Our King would never be able to resist something like this.”

Finally, Leon opened his mouth and said, “Did anyone ever think I would?”

He didn’t need to look around to know that just about his entire party nodded, smiled, or made some other gesture of understanding.

“Besides…” he said, “the cost we’ve borne so far has been too high for me not to try.”

The mood amongst the party noticeably dropped. Their party was smaller now than it had started, not to mention the costs taken on by Artorion herself while they were away.

“Wait here for me,” Leon said. “I’ll return with that lance.”

“I can’t wait to see it,” Alix responded as she made herself comfortable.

“It must be beautiful,” Anna added. “Something so powerful can’t be mundane, can it?”

The party continued to discuss their expectations while Leon and Grandin walked over to the first rock wall he’d have to surmount. It rose at about a fifty-degree incline, but the rocks were sharp and jagged, and the wind whistled between the rocks, promising to resist Leon’s every move.

Once at the edge of the rocks, Grandin whispered to Leon, “Be careful up there. The wind isn’t the only threat you’ll face.”

“Monsters?” Leon asked.

Grandin frowned and shook his head. “More like… the lance itself.”

Leon cocked an eyebrow and gave the guide a searching look. “It’ll resist by itself?”

Grandin scrunched his face up in thought and was silent for a moment. “Something like that,” he said. “All of the wind around us, that was conjured by the lance. It will resist you as you climb. At some point, that resistance will become… active, where the wind right now is more… passive.”

A smile graced Leon’s lips. “Good,” he stated. “I’d hate for this to be too easy.”

Without further ado, he began his ascent, leaving a rather baffled Grandin with the rest of his party at the edge of the clouds.

He began his climb fairly quickly, the incline proving to be easily scalable given just how broken and rocky it was. However, after several dozen feet, he had to slow down. The rocks were growing sharper, while the wind pulled at his body, threatening to pull him back down if he raised himself too far off the rocks.

None of this marred his confidence in scaling this mountain, however. As broken as the landscape was, the Forest of Black and White could be even worse. Artorias had made sure he’d known how to climb almost from the moment he could walk, and when he was young, climbing trees was one of his favorite pastimes. Until he turned about twelve, Leon spent hours every day climbing the trees, hills, and mountains of his childhood home. As intimidating as this final stretch might’ve been, he’d scaled harder cliffs.

Flying was out of the question despite the lack of beasts that might try to intercept him, and jumping was likewise out of the picture. Leon had to practically hug the rocks and ascend the hard way, as he could sense the wind was strong enough to possibly even overcome his power.

[Ahhh,] the Thunderbird sighed from his soul realm, making for some slight distraction as he reached for another rock to use as a handhold.

[Something to say?] Leon asked as he slowly scaled this obstacle. [If you have any advice, I’m all ears.]

[This place just makes me nostalgic,] the Thunderbird replied, her voice so tinged with nostalgia that she hardly needed to have said it at all. [After taming the Storm Diamond, my nest was made into just such a place as this.]

[A storm-wracked mountain?] Leon asked as he pulled himself over a ledge that temporarily blocked his line of sight back to his party.

[Yes,] the Thunderbird replied. [But it made this place look quite peaceful in comparison. Whatever power in this lance, whether it truly was a weapon of one of Khosrow’s misbegotten sons, it pales in comparison to that of the Storm Diamond.]

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[Maybe I should focus on getting that back, then,] Leon said as he huddled at the foot of another cliff, the wind howling in his ears, his clothes almost in danger of being torn from his body. He called upon his own wind magic, relatively weak though it was. His Thunderbird blood gave him some affinity with the element, and though it couldn’t hold a candle to his lightning or fire, when backed with origin power, he was able to relieve almost all of the pressure that the wind put upon him. It wasn’t enough to fly, but it was enough that he was able to stand straight up without being torn from the mountain.

[You’ll have to find the Clan vault, first,] the Thunderbird reminded him.

Leon, having taken a moment to plot his course up this next cliff, grunted in reply. As he recalled, the vault had been taken by an ally of Kamran’s, a man named Aeschylus. He didn’t know where Aeschylus was, only that when Justin left the Nexus almost a century ago, Aeschylus had been a Despot in the Storm Lands. Enough time had passed that that could’ve changed, but from what Leon had seen of the Nexus so far, nothing in the realm of post-Apotheosis mages moved that quickly.

‘Suppose I’ll just have to wait until Justin gets back to me,’ he thought with a dark look.

About halfway up this cliff, the wind suddenly intensified, battering the origin power-backed shield he’d erected around himself. He was forced to halt his ascent and cling to the cliff, lest he be ripped away. He focused his power on shielding himself from that wind, but as he did so, amidst the roaring wind, he thought he heard the faintest whisper.

“Begone…” the whisper said so softly within the wind that Leon almost thought he’d misheard.

And then the whisper repeated once, twice, and again and again. The word grew stronger and louder until it slammed into his eardrums harder, sharper, and more frequently than the wind it had been buried within.

Leon scowled deeply and redoubled his efforts to put his shield back up. As his power settled around him, reinforced against the intensified wind, he began his ascent once more, though his pace was slower than it had been a moment before.

“Shut… up…” Leon spat as he hauled himself up at a glacial pace. He couldn’t tell if those below him could hear it, but as he neared the top edge of the cliff, the word sounded like it was being bellowed from just behind him, though no one was there.

“BEGONE!!!” the voice boomed as his fingers curled around the lip of the cliff.

“Fuck…” Leon murmured as his arm tensed, his muscles straining against the force of the wind as it tore and hissed around his shield of magic, much of that force still reaching his body. “You…” he hissed as he pulled himself over the lip.

As he made it past the edge, the wind suddenly died down considerably, while the shouting voice was silenced entirely.

For a moment, anyway.

As Leon lay on the thin ledge, staring up at the next cliff he had to climb, plotting out his ascent through sheer walls, jagged rocks, and a crevasse that looked unsettlingly like a gaping mouth ready to swallow him whole, the voice spoke again, much softer than it had during its previous demand.

“Nothing shall you find above, save disappointment and death.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Leon growled as he raised his hand to grab a slightly protruding rock to use as a handhold.

The wind suddenly slammed into him with the force of a falling mountain as he began to haul himself up this next cliff. It was all he could do to huddle against the rocks and weather the wind.

“Yet another who would think to master me,” the voice screeched, its tones hitting Leon’s eardrums like shattered glass. “Yet another who will be broken upon the rocks below!”

The wind didn’t abate; instead, it only grew ever stronger. Leon’s fingers and wrists strained as he held onto the cliff rocks with all of his strength. His feet were pulled from the cliff, however, nearly carrying the rest of his body with them. The wind had him completely horizontal, barely clinging to the side of the mountain by his fingertips as he brought the weight of his power to bear.

Slowly, he was lowered back to the cliff as he constantly reinforced his shield against the wind. Once his feet touched the cliff again, he stayed there for a long moment, not moving until he was confident in the strength of his shield amidst this maddeningly powerful wind.

His ascent was slow, his heart jumping into his throat every time he took a hand off the cliff to reach for another handhold. He didn’t hear the voice again, but the wind didn’t lessen at all.

This cliff was steeper and higher than the previous two, but he found a crook he was able to find some amount of shelter in to collect himself and get some small amount of rest. The wind roared and tore at the edges of the crook, but it sank just deep enough into the rock that he only had to focus his shield in one direction.

Once relatively safely ensconced within the crook, the Thunderbird said, [Through my power, the weather is at your command. Is this gale truly so strong that you are left powerless?]

Leon glared upward, though he was now too close to the cliff to see anything more than the outer rays of gray light shining from the summit. At the very least, he estimated that in about two hours of climbing, he’d reached the halfway point between the edge of the clouds and the summit. Despite the Origin Spark fully transferring into its moonlike form, the gray light shining from the summit cast the mountain above the clouds in enough harsh light that even a mortal wouldn’t have much trouble seeing.

[Maybe it is,] Leon stated. [I could maybe try to affect the storm to lessen this burden… but I won’t.]

[Why?] the Thunderbird scoffed.

Leon took a deep breath, gathering himself before he resumed his ascent. [This is a test,] he said. [Whether or not it’s intended to be one, it is a test. And I will conquer it so completely that this lance has no choice but to submit to me.]

As he pulled himself out of the crook and back into the howling wind, the only thing he could hear above the wind was his Ancestor’s cackling.

One hand up, then a foot, then the other hand, and the other foot. Such was how he progressed, but so intense was the wind that minutes could pass between repetitions.

And yet, progress was made. Slowly, slowly, Leon was conquering the mountain.

When he finally made it to the top of the third cliff, the wind died down once more, almost to a point of being natural, if still strong enough that a mortal would be flung from the cliff like paper.

Glancing around, Leon noted that he’d reached the point that Grandin said he’d managed to get to. He was a little surprised, he hadn’t thought that the eighth-tier Grandin could’ve made it this far given the strength of the resistance he’d faced so far. His estimation of the mountaineer rose slightly as he stole a glance back down the cliff.

The rest of his party were watching him, and fortunately, seemed unaffected by the wind that proved his greatest obstacle.

‘It’s just threatening me, then, is it?’ he thought only a moment before the disembodied voice spoke again.

“Why do you struggle?” it asked. “All your labors will be for naught. No master shall I have, in this life or any other. Leave this place, lest you be dashed upon the rocks below.”

“Such a luxury I don’t have,” Leon said back, though whether or not the lance could hear him over the wind he couldn’t say. Regardless, he continued, “My home is under threat, and the power I can sense above could be its salvation. I will not back down without it!”

He stared into the gray light, perceiving a tiny shadow within, that of a long, thin polearm buried headfirst in the thin mountain peak.

“My power is not to be coveted,” the voice responded. “You shall find no salvation to your troubles upon this mountain. Begone.”

Leon sensed powerful magic gathering above him, but heedless, he approached the fourth cliff. The next ledge was almost another thousand feet up, but at that point, he’d have entered the halo of the gray light, bringing him within two hundred feet of the lance itself. Only one more ascent at that point to reach the mountain’s peak, and he could wrap his fingers around the haft of the lance…

As he began his next climb, the gathering magic above burst, and instead of twisting wind constantly tearing at him in an attempt to rip him from the mountain, a spike of wind came barreling into him with enough force to split the earth. Leon flailed around in the air, just barely clinging to the cliff with a single hand.

“You’ll have to do better than that!” he shouted as he stabilized himself and reached for the next handhold.

The lance, whether or not it had been successfully provoked, sent another gust of nightmarishly powerful wind against him, and again, Leon barely managed to hand on.

As this second gust passed him, he set about refining his shield against these new attacks, making it not only stronger but also more streamlined. If the wind was going to come at him from only one direction, then he had more options.

He forced himself upward again, his teeth gritted against the interminable attacks the lance launched at him. With every step, he came closer, and the lance resisted with greater strength.

Sasan had told him that he’d find the power he needed upon this mountain, and given how strongly the lance was resisting him, he could believe it, and he wasn’t going to back down.

Despite this attitude, a particularly powerful burst of wind finally hit him with enough strength that his fingers slipped from the smooth rock he’d attempted to hang onto, sucking him right off the mountain and into the air. His heart almost stopped as he was dragged from the cliff and thrown downward.

He shouted in anger and frustration as the work of hours was undone in seconds. The wind pulled him further away from the mountain, and if he did nothing, then he would fall into the clouds, likely to plummet straight down to Lancefoot.

‘Unacceptable!’ he silently protested as he channeled his magic into his transformation enchantment.

In a fraction of a second, he’d assumed his Thunderbird form, and with several mighty wingbeats and no small amount of power devoted to wind magic, he managed to right his fall so that he hit the ledge above the first cliff. He hit the stone hard enough to almost shatter it completely, and his party below him was showered in raining pebbles. Fortunately, they were strong and more than quick enough to brace themselves and keep from being injured or thrown from the mountain.

“Begone,” the voice said again. “Begone.”

Leon clenched his jaw as he resumed human form. Through his teeth, he simply growled, “No.”

And with that, he began his ascent once again.

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