Page 3557

Now, of course, there was a very big problem with his plan here--something that he needed to address before doing anything else.

The thing about feldeaths was that they were very territorial creatures by nature, but normally, they would only kind of try to kill you. To shoo you out their domain, mainly. As long as you ran away properly, they’d leave you alone.

But when you decided to not flee and even attack them back--as Morgunov had done to Kallmakk here several times previously--that was when their cockles got all riled up.

That was the point at which merely running away ceased to be an option. That was the point at which no other being on this planet could compete with the feldeath’s single-minded determination to kill you.

It no longer mattered how far you managed to get away from it. They would chase you, quite literally, forever. They would lock on to your soul signature and follow you endlessly, until either you or they were dead, because their ability to sense souls was unparalleled. Morgunov suspected that they could sense every single soul on the planet at all times. Which meant that there was no hiding from them, either.

Thankfully, however, he had learned of one trick to get them off his case. He kept thinking that it might one day stop working, but he’d used it on Kallmakk in order to end every fight, and it hadn’t failed him yet.

He had to fake his death.

But not just his. He had to fake Bool’s as well. Which was significantly harder.

The key was to give the feldeath that all-important final blow. That satisfying strike. Once the feldeath got that, it would calm down and forget all about you.

They were beings of pure instinct, after all. Or at least, they seemed to be. He’d tried to discern if there was anything more sophisticated going on inside those strange, ethereal minds of theirs, but never had he been able to detect anything else.

But again, this was still a very big problem, because now that Morgunov had reentered its territory, Kallmakk was going to remember him. The feldeath would therefore be attacking him first--and perhaps exclusively--unless he did something about that.

So what was the solution, then? To trick the others into attacking it, as well? That would certainly do it, but he doubted they could be deceived so easily. Even if his knowledge of feldeaths dramatically dwarfed all of theirs combined, they would still know that they should avoid attacking it all costs.

Page 3556

It was a good thing he’d managed to remember in time. Would’ve been quite the gnarly surprise to run into Kallmakk without realizing.

Which reminded him of something further.

He’d forgotten on purpose. In order to deceive Germal. Morgunov was ninety percent certain that the mindflayer was capable of reading his thoughts, so he’d decided to put certain memories into a temporary mental storage state.

Eheheh.

Were you still reading these thoughts, Germal? It was too late to run away, now. Kallmakk was close.

The network of caves expanded out ahead of him into one enormous cavern. Distant holes in the ceiling allowed visible bars of sunlight to cut through the otherwise thick darkness.

The light couldn’t disperse very much in here, which was the feldeath’s doing, Morgunov knew.

One other thing that he had learned about them during his years of study was that feldeaths very frequently acquired an elemental affinity--but not in correspondence with the modern understanding of elements. Rather, it was the five classical elements that the feldeaths gravitated to. Earth, water, wind, fire, and--in Kallmakk’s case--darkness.

Why this was, Morgunov still did not know. Truly baffling, he found it. But then, that was often the way with feldeaths, wasn’t it? They were paradoxical beings that should not have been able to exist in the first place.

Regardless, it made fighting Kallmakk that much more of a challenge. Because this darkness wasn’t just physical. It muddied soul senses and even aura sight, too, concealing the feldeath’s presence beneath a kind of regional blanket.

Which meant that light was now a precious resource. Vital for survival here. These bars of it from the sun were nowhere near enough.

So he set about creating more. With integration, it was a simple enough matter. He stopped running abruptly and slapped the flat ground with one hand, sending dozens of glowing lines through the rock all around him, lighting up the entire cavern within seconds.

And there the surly bugger was, bundled up in a high corner above the workshop’s entrance.

Kallmakk the Nightspinner.

The sight of it there made even his pursuers stop and pause.

Eheh. Getting cold feet? Bit late for that.

Kallmakk unfurled itself slowly, not unlike a massive serpent, but its actual form, to Morgunov’s eyes, soon became that of a hulking, ethereal machine with a distorted clock face at its center. Blood oozed from its numbers and twitching hands, and black smoke seeped from cracks all over its body.

Page 3555

As for the feldeath that had claimed Karugetti’s workshop, Morgunov classified that one as a Category Hippo. Extremely dangerous. Certainly among the deadliest he’d ever spent time actually trying to fight.

This particular feldath was also one that had garnered a bit of fame for itself and earned a moniker. Kallmakk, they called it here in Ardora.

And it may have been the cause of Karugetti’s death.

Morgunov still did not know that for sure, and he probably never would, but it was a very reasonable explanation for the famed inventor’s sudden disappearance from the world stage during the height of his power and influence. Considering no human person ever tried to take credit for the man’s death, that really only left two possibilities: either Karugetti gave it all up and went into hiding on his own, or he died with no witnesses and no means of ever confirming it.

Being such an admirer of the man’s work from even a very young age, Morgunov had held onto hope for many, many years that Karugetti might still be alive. Heck, a part of him still wanted to think that way now.

But the workshop was pretty damning evidence. And from all accounts he’d ever read about Karugetti’s personality, the man had actually been quite the social butterfly. It was therefore doubly unlikely that he would’ve faked his death to go live in quiet isolation somewhere.

Which was why Morgunov had decided to fight Kallmakk on more than one occasion. Vengeance for his fallen hero. Or, perhaps, a means of discovering some evidence that Karugetti was indeed alive. If such evidence existed, it would’ve made sense for Kallmakk to be in possession of or otherwise guarding it.

But to no avail.

On both counts, Morgunov had failed miserably. Kallmakk was simply too damn powerful. And even after trying to avoid the fight in order to sneak into the workshop and look for clues, he’d still turned up nothing.

Which was not to say that he’d entirely given up on the endeavor.

One day, he aimed to return and give Kallmakk a right thrashing.

And as a matter of fact, today seemed like as good a day as any. He certainly wouldn’t mind if his pursuers managed to bring the stubborn jerk down.

So really, this was a win-win situation for him, regardless of who won.

Unless he himself got killed here, of course. Boy, that’d be a real downer.