Sworded Affair

Chapter 193 : I Tell You This Story To Save Your Life

"You understand," the Monitor Lizard exhaled, following Emma's gaze, his hands overlaid atop the device at his heart.

"At last, you understand. There was never any hope of survival, for anyone who stepped into Blenheim Palace. Why would there be? My masters had weeks of undisturbed access while the portal network was down, in the immediate aftermath of the apocalypse. Why would the gateway have survived until now, when a single act of sabotage could have destroyed it long ago? It was all planned, this was all inevitable. Everything you've struggled through has been for nothing, you were always meant to die, here."

"Cute," Emma dismissed Epitaph and crossed her arms, knowing this final round wasn't going to be fought with blades in hand. "I'd be impressed with the amount of effort that implies, setting all of this up just to ambush me, but really, I'm just confused. Might I know what I've done to offend your masters so much? Because as far as I'm concerned, I still have no idea who any of you people are."

"Excuse me?"

Emma wished she had a camera on hand, to capture the utter incredulity on the Lizardman's face: it reminded her of the velociraptor exhibit at the Natural History Museum, complete with mouth wide open.

"What do you mean, you don't know who we are?" For a purported slave hooked up to a doomsday device, the Monitor Lizard seemed surprisingly offended at the thought of it. "You mean you blundered into a spacetime anomaly, defeated the built-in defences as well as our own additions, and made it all the way here to confront me by mistake?"

"Look, I'm just here to get paid," Emma sighed. "The System offered me some pretty good rewards to stop all of this nonsense, as well as, you know, not die in a massive explosion."

"Am I to believe you found the attunement in the Old Church, and took in just enough extra time to stay at an age fit for combat, before coincidentally bypassing the shields hiding the Palace from sight?"

"I only went to the Church because a bunch of scavenger kids wouldn't stop throwing rocks at me."

The Lizard was turning an impressive shade of red, now, enough that it made Emma wonder where all that extra blood was coming from.

"You even interfered and disrupted our summoning in Oxford, causing a spillover from Muspelheim that burned our acolytes alive!"

"Wait, that was you?" Now it was Emma's turn to be offended. "In that case, you should tell your acolytes to stub out their cigarettes. They tend to cause house fires, when left burning on the front lawn."

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"I…" The Monitor lizard pointed a finger at her, then lowered it again, seemingly lost for words. "Fine. If it makes you feel better, I can accept that this was all a coincidence, some kind of cosmic joke played on all of us. But that still doesn't change the crux of the matter, we're all going to die here, and there's nothing any of us can do about it!"

[WARNING: This Dungeon is unstable, and will collapse if unbeaten in 3 minutes.]

"Are you really so eager to die?" Emma questioned. "Admittedly, I'm not sure what happens after that, since I never took that final step, but I doubt it's anything good, not for mass murderers."

"Not particularly, but better me than my family," was his simple response, and that was that.

[Good grief, there's so much drama here, it's starting to resemble a bad episode of Doctor Who.]

The Monitor Lizard jumped, as the same text Emma saw via the System repeated itself on every one of his screens, complete with a burst of static to draw his attention.

[Look. If you want to go out like this, then fine, but if not, have you considered faking your death? Pretend that you went down fighting, lay low for a bit until we deal with your employers, and then retire to a nice, warm beach with your family. We can arrange a nice pension, a medal, and a new pair of legs to boot.]

Faced with the almighty persuasive power of the chequebook, the Monitor Lizard hesitated for the first time.

"No, no, that would never work," he retorted, sounding like he was trying to convince himself. "My masters would find out. Their technology is monitoring my vital signs. If I leave this place alive, they will know."

[But they won't know what happens before then. A spacetime distortion like this is a double edged sword. It was enough to blind surveillance from the outside, but that applies equally to everyone. Shut down the self-destruct, take that stupid wire off, and die honourably at sword point. Emma's blade can store your soul, all the bits that are actually important, until we get you a new body later. I'd already been thinking about doing that, eventually, for Sir Bearington. This just speeds things up a bit.]

Now, the Lizardman was looking truly distraught, in the way that only those offered a fresh dose of hope ever did. He was debating with himself, now, and looking for a reason to say no.

[WARNING: This Dungeon is unstable, and will collapse if unbeaten in 3 minutes.

WARNING: This Dungeon is unstable, and will collapse if unbeaten in 2 minutes.]

Time continued to slip away as he dithered, until finally, as Emma had begun contemplating possessing him and attempting a manual override, he spoke.

"Lady Anathema?"

[I'm listening.]

"It's said that you can see the future without fail. Tell me, is that true? Will this deception reunite me with my family?"

[Anyone who claims total knowledge of the future is a liar or a fool. The past? Sure, I can dig up just about anything, because that's already fixed, but there are more possibilities in the future that any mind can ever process. So no, I can't really make any guarantees, but that's life for you. What I will say is that this is your best and only shot at ever seeing your wife and son again.]

That final reminder did just the trick, and he finally broke, turning back around to start working the keyboard.

[WARNING: This Dungeon is unstable, and will collapse if unbeaten in 1 minute.]