The Obsidian Dominion

Fragile Alliances

"We are going to die down here because you lied about what that thing does."

Jack choked on a breath, coughing violently as the stone tunnel shook overhead, dropping a thick shower of gray dust into his hair. He was leaning heavily against the damp rock wall, his left leg dragging like a piece of dead wood. Behind them, up in the main thoroughfare of the outpost, the shrill, metallic screeching of the void guardians echoed through the vents. The crimson pulse from Jesse's artifact had called them right to their door.

"I didn't lie!" Jesse shouted back, stumbling over a pile of loose shale as they hurried deeper into the subterranean dark. They gripped the brass sphere tightly against their chest, their silver hair disheveled and damp with sweat. "It stabilizes the rot! It works! I just... I didn't know the local guardians were tuned to this specific frequency!"

"You didn't care!" Jack yelled, his voice cracking with a terrifying mix of physical exhaustion and panic. He looked back at Draven, his eyes wide and hollow. "Draven, look at the walls. The whole sector is coming down. Tell me you have a plan that doesn't involve drinking more of my blood."

Draven didn't answer right away. He couldn't. A sudden, agonizing spike of heat tore through his left biceps, forcing a sharp, ragged gasp from his throat. He leaned his weight against the rough stone, clutching his left arm with his good hand. Underneath his palm, the black glass was spiderwebbing. Deep, jagged fractures were opening along his wrist, spitting out tiny flakes of sharp, cold crystal. The violet light beneath the surface was no longer a dull glow, it was a frantic, erratic strobe.

"Jesse," Draven rasped, his vision blurring as the cold rot crawled higher, creeping toward his shoulder blade. "Use it. Now."

"I can't," Jesse stammered, backing away toward the center of the narrow tunnel. Their hands were shaking so hard the brass sphere rattled against their rings. "Not right here. Not while the energy is this volatile."

"It's going to detonate!" Draven roared, taking a massive, heavy step forward. The ice in his veins was turning into a violent pressure, a physical bomb ticking inside his own meat. "If this glass breaks my shoulder, the Dominion uncoils completely. Do you want to see what happens when a dead god's scream has no vessel?"

"Draven, wait, just listen to me," Jesse pleaded, their voice dropping its noble pretense entirely, revealing a fragile, terrified child underneath the silk. "The artifact... it doesn't just generate stability from nothing. It’s a siphon."

Jack let out a harsh, breathless laugh from the shadows. "A siphon. Beautiful. I knew it."

"What does it siphon, Jesse?" Draven demanded, cornering the youth against the jagged tunnel wall. He slammed his right hand against the stone right next to Jesse’s head, pinning them. His left arm, the heavy, fracturing black glass, hovered just inches from Jesse's face, radiating a freezing, suffocating wave of pure void energy. "Tell me right now."

"It requires a proxy," Jesse whispered, tears finally tracking through the dirt on their pale cheeks. They looked past Draven’s shoulder, their terrified gaze locking straight onto Jack. "It needs a baseline of pure human emotion and physical vitality to balance the void frequency. If I turn it on to fix your arm right now, while the rift energy is this close... it will draw from the nearest available source."

"Me," Jack said. It wasn't a question. He stood perfectly still in the dim, violet-tinged dark, his chest heaving under his torn coat. A terrible, quiet clarity washed over his face. "It's going to finish what he started in the crater."

"Draven, please," Jesse whispered, their breath hitching as the black glass on Draven's arm groaned, another hairline fracture snapping open near his wrist. "If I activate it, I don't know how much it will take from him. It might paralyze him completely. It might stop his heart."

"Fix me," Draven growled, his teeth grinding together so hard a trickle of blood ran down his chin. The creeping panic was swallowing him whole. He couldn't go back into the dark. He couldn't let his mind wipe again, not now when he finally had the answers within his reach. "Jesse, do it."

"Are you insane?" Jack screamed, stepping forward on his one good leg, his hands balled into white-knuckled fists. "Look at me, Draven! Look at my face! We grew up in the same sector before the first shatter! I carried you through the burning streets of the capital! You are going to let this stranger murder me just so you can keep your precious memories?"

"If I go down, Jack, the entire tunnel becomes our grave!" Draven bellowed, turning his head slightly, his eyes flashing with a terrifying, inhuman violet light. "The guardians will tear you apart piece by piece! At least this way, someone walks out of this hole alive!"

"You aren't saving anyone but yourself," Jack whispered, his voice suddenly dropping into a flat, dead register that cut deeper than any shout. He slowly dropped his hands to his sides, slouching against the wall as if he had already given up. "You're just a monster that looks like my friend. Go ahead. Take the rest of me. Let's see if your little math equation keeps you warm when the sky turns completely black."

Jesse looked between the two men, their hands completely frozen over the brass sphere. "I... I can't choose. Draven, his vitals are already too low from the crater. The feedback loop could kill us all if his heart gives out mid-transfer."

"You don't have the luxury of hesitation," Draven snarled, leaning closer into Jesse's space, the cold from his glass hand literally frosting the silver collar of Jesse's coat. "You want vengeance for your family line, right? You want to break the high domain gates? You need a weapon to do that. That's me. Now turn the key, or I will use my bare hands to crush this sphere right now."

"Don't," Jesse sobbed, their fingers slipping into the grooves of the brass casing. "Please, don't make me do this."

"Choose, noble," Jack called out from the dark, a bitter, heartbreaking smile touching his pale lips. "Choose which monster you want to ride to the end of the world."

Another massive explosion rocked the ceiling above them, and a section of the tunnel collapsed just twenty yards behind them, completely cutting off their escape route. The screeching of the guardians was suddenly right on top of them, the shadows at the turn of the passage shifting with unnatural, predatory shapes.

Draven felt a sharp, definitive crack inside his elbow. The black glass split wide, a deep fissure showing the raw, blinding violet fire beneath his skin. The pain was so intense his knees hit the gravel, a loud, agonizing cry ripping from his chest.

"Jesse!" Draven choked out, his right hand clawing at the youth's boots. "Now!"

Jesse shut their eyes, let out a terrified scream of their own, and twisted the top half of the brass sphere.

The artifact didn't pulse this time, it inhaled. A horrific, high-pitched whine filled the narrow tunnel, and a violent spiral of crimson energy erupted from the core, wrapping instantly around Draven's fracturing arm.

Across the small space, Jack’s eyes went completely wide. He didn't even have the breath to scream as his back slammed violently against the stone wall, his entire body going rigid as the crimson light began to drag the very color from his skin.