Lord of the Foresaken
Chapter 63: THE ARTIFACT NETWORK

Chapter 63: THE ARTIFACT NETWORK

Dawn painted the Western Marshlands in hues of sickly amber and blood-red, the sun struggling to penetrate the unnatural mist that had settled over Reed’s compound since Princess Elysandra’s arrival. The battle had raged through the night—a chaotic symphony of screams, spell-fire, and the wet, distinctive sounds of blades carving through corrupted flesh.

Now, eerie silence blanketed the fortress. Hundreds of bodies lay strewn across the courtyard and surrounding buildings, their faces frozen in expressions of horror or ecstasy depending on which side they had fought for. Black ichor mingled with crimson blood, creating elaborate patterns on the cobblestones that seemed to shift when viewed from the corner of one’s eye.

Deep beneath the fortress, in a chamber carved from living rock and reinforced with goblin metallurgy, Lord Reed hunched over an ancient table. His muscular green form was a stark contrast to the delicate artifacts arranged before him—three objects recovered from previous encounters with the Herald’s servants. The Whispering Crystal from the grotto, the Midnight Chalice from Chancellor Blackwood’s chambers, and most recently, the Obsidian Mirror pried from Princess Elysandra’s grasp during their desperate battle.

Reed’s amber eyes reflected the dim candlelight as he studied the artifacts, his face bearing fresh wounds—four parallel gashes across his left cheek where the Princess had struck him with fingers transformed into talons. The wounds refused to heal properly, the edges black and pulsing with unnatural vitality.

Lady Serena entered the chamber, her once-pristine armor now a patchwork of hasty repairs and scorch marks. A bandage covered her right eye, blood already seeping through the linen.

"The eastern barricade is holding," she reported, her voice hoarse from shouting commands over the din of battle. "Lord Everett’s archers eliminated the last wave of possessed villagers. Lady Dalia’s mages have established a perimeter of warding glyphs that seem to be keeping new incursions at bay." She paused, regarding Reed with concern. "But we both know it’s temporary. They’re regrouping, not retreating."

Reed nodded without looking up from the artifacts. "And the Princess?"

"Contained, for now. Lyra maintains the purification field around her chamber, but..." Serena hesitated, "she weakens by the hour. Whatever entity inhabits the Princess fights with unprecedented strength. Twice during the night, the wards nearly collapsed."

"Because she’s not merely possessed," Reed muttered, finally looking up. His eyes were bloodshot from exhaustion, but his gaze remained unnervingly intense. "She’s transforming into something else entirely—a true vessel, purpose-built over decades. The Herald has been planning this since before her birth."

Reed gestured to the three artifacts on the table. "These are the key. During the battle, when all three were brought into proximity, did you notice the change? The subtle resonance between them?"

Serena frowned. "I was somewhat preoccupied with keeping my head attached to my shoulders."

A grim smile flickered briefly across Reed’s features. "When the Obsidian Mirror shattered against the Whispering Crystal, both began to emit a frequency beyond human hearing—but perfectly audible to goblin ears. It revealed patterns, Lady Serena. Patterns that have existed for millennia, hidden in plain sight."

With practiced movements, Reed unrolled an ancient map across the table, carefully positioning the three artifacts at specific points marked with esoteric symbols. The parchment was yellowed with age, covered in notations in at least seven different languages, some so ancient even Reed could only partially decipher them.

"This is the oldest map in the goblin archives," he explained. "Created during the First Schism, when the ancient ones first manifested in our realm. Our ancestors fought them alongside humans, elves, orcs—all races united against a common existential threat."

Serena leaned closer, studying the markings. "These symbols... they appear at key ley line intersections."

"Not just any intersections," Reed corrected. "Points where the veil between realms grows thin. Seventeen locations scattered across the known world, each housing a sanctuary built to contain an artifact of tremendous power." He traced a gnarled finger along lines connecting the points. "Together, they form a network—a metaphysical cage designed to imprison the entities that the Herald serves."

"You’re suggesting these artifacts were created as a unified system?" Serena asked, comprehension dawning in her remaining eye. "A ward spanning continents?"

"More than that," Reed said, his voice dropping to a near-whisper. "When properly aligned and activated, the complete network could potentially reseal the breach that the Protocol Terminus seeks to fully open. The ancients understood what we’ve forgotten—power distributed cannot be easily broken."

Lord Everett entered the chamber, accompanied by Lyra, whose skin emanated the faintest blue luminescence despite her obvious exhaustion. The former knight-commander’s left arm ended in a freshly bandaged stump just below the elbow, a casualty of the previous night’s battle.

"The Princess spoke," Lyra reported without preamble, her youthful face haggard beyond her years. "Not in her voice, but not in the Herald’s either. Something... deeper. It said only one phrase, repeating it seventeen times before falling silent: ’The scattered keys return to open the final door.’"

Reed’s expression hardened. "They know what we’ve discovered. The artifacts aren’t just protective talismans—they’re keys. When brought together by the wrong hands, they don’t seal the breach; they widen it."

"How can the same objects both imprison and release?" Everett demanded, wincing as he adjusted his wounded arm.

"Intent," Reed answered simply. "The artifacts respond to the wielder’s essence. In corrupted hands, they accelerate the Awakening. In the hands of the pure..." He looked meaningfully at Lyra.

"My power comes from the same source as theirs," Lyra realized aloud. "But uncorrupted. That’s why I could purify the Heroes at Whispering Grotto."

Reed nodded. "And why the Princess—or whatever she’s becoming—fears you specifically. You represent the antithesis of what the Herald seeks to accomplish."

The goblin lord carefully rearranged the three artifacts, aligning them with specific markings on the map. As they touched, a subtle vibration permeated the chamber, causing dust to sift down from the ceiling. The artifacts began to glow with a pale, sickly light that cast elongated shadows across the stone walls.

"The network is active, though dormant," Reed explained as the others watched in fascinated horror. "These three artifacts are communicating with their brethren, resonating across vast distances. With the proper attunement..." He closed his eyes, placing his palms flat against the table’s surface.

The ambient temperature in the chamber plummeted. Frost crystallized on the exposed skin of the humans present, though Reed seemed unaffected. The map beneath the artifacts began to change, inky lines shifting and spreading like living things, revealing new markings that had been invisible moments before.

"There," Reed whispered, opening his eyes. "The locations of all seventeen artifacts. Five remain in their original sanctuaries. Nine have been removed—presumably by the Herald’s servants. Three are here with us."

"If the Herald’s cultists are collecting them," Serena observed, "then they pursue the same strategy we now consider."

"With one crucial difference," Reed countered. "They need only bring the artifacts together. We must not only collect them but also purify and properly align them—a far more difficult task." He straightened, decision crystallizing in his amber eyes. "We must retrieve the remaining artifacts before they do."

Over the next several hours, as dawn gave way to a gloomy afternoon, Reed’s war council assembled in the chamber. Maps were copied, expeditionary forces organized, and leaders selected for each mission. The mood was somber—every warrior and mage committed to these expeditions meant fewer defenders for their already beleaguered stronghold.

"Lady Serena will lead the northern expedition to the Frost Spire Sanctuary," Reed declared, addressing the assembled leaders. "Lord Everett, despite your injury, your knowledge of the eastern kingdoms makes you essential for the retrieval from the Sylvan Enclave."

He continued assigning teams, carefully balancing combat prowess with magical aptitude for each group. Fourteen expeditions in total—some to far-flung corners of the world, others to locations deceivingly close to major population centers, hidden in plain sight for centuries.

"What of the final sanctuary?" asked Chieftain Gorkath, the elderly orc who had pledged his warriors to Reed’s cause. "The one marked in black upon your map?"

Reed’s expression darkened. "The Abyssal Threshold. It lies beneath the ruins of Khar’Mokesh—a goblin ancestral city abandoned a thousand years ago after a catastrophic incursion of entities similar to what we now face."

A murmur ran through the assembly. Even among non-goblins, Khar’Mokesh was a name spoken only in whispers—a place of legendary devastation where reality itself had been sundered.

"That expedition I will lead personally," Reed stated, silencing the murmurs. "The path to the sanctuary requires goblin blood to unseal ancient doorways. Moreover..." he hesitated, "the artifact housed there is uniquely dangerous. The Void Scepter was forged from material not of this realm. My ancestors sealed it away because they could not destroy it."

"When do we depart?" Lady Dalia asked, her hands still stained with alchemical compounds from her relentless work developing countermeasures against the possessed.

"Immediately," Reed answered grimly. "The Princess’s transformation accelerates by the hour. The signs are unmistakable—trees weeping blood, animals giving birth to monstrosities, the unnatural constellations appearing in daylight skies. The Awakening approaches its final phase."

As the council dispersed to prepare for their missions, Lyra approached Reed privately. Her blue luminescence had dimmed further, her life force clearly draining from the constant effort of maintaining the wards around Princess Elysandra.

"You haven’t told them everything," she observed quietly. "About the artifacts... about me."

Reed regarded her with a mixture of respect and concern. "They carry enough burdens without knowing the full truth."

"That I’m connected to the artifacts," Lyra continued. "That each time one is purified, a piece of my essence will be consumed. That if all seventeen are activated..."

Reed placed a hand on her shoulder—a gesture of rare physical contact from the typically stoic goblin lord. "We’ll find another way when the time comes. For now, focus on containing the Princess."

Lyra nodded, though uncertainty lingered in her eyes as she departed.

Left alone, Reed returned to the three artifacts on the table. He reached beneath his armored tunic and withdrew a small leather pouch. Opening it carefully, he removed a shard of crystalline material no larger than his thumbnail—a fragment broken from the Whispering Crystal during their escape from the grotto.

He placed it on his palm, studying the way light refracted through its facets. Almost imperceptibly, the shard pulsed in rhythm with the three intact artifacts, confirming what Reed had suspected but hadn’t shared with the others.

The artifacts weren’t merely tools or weapons—they were alive in some fundamental way, possessed of awareness and purpose that transcended their physical forms. And they were hungry.

As if responding to his thoughts, the shard suddenly grew warm in his palm. Reed’s vision blurred, and for a heartbeat, he wasn’t in the underground chamber anymore. He stood in absolute darkness, facing an immense presence that defied comprehension—a vastness that observed him with cold, ancient intelligence.

A voice that was not a voice reverberated through his consciousness: "GOBLIN-THING, YOU SEEK TO REBUILD WHAT YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND. THE NETWORK WAS NEVER MEANT TO IMPRISON US. IT WAS MEANT TO TRANSFORM YOUR REALM INTO OUR DOMINION."

Reed recoiled, dropping the shard. It clattered on the stone floor, instantly returning him to reality. Sweat beaded on his green skin as he struggled to process what he had witnessed.

A sharp crack split the silence as fractures appeared in the chamber’s ceiling. Dust and small stones rained down. The fortress above shuddered with an impact that sent tremors through the bedrock itself.

Reed snatched up the three artifacts, securing them in a warded container as he rushed toward the stairs. He emerged into chaos—the eastern barricade had collapsed entirely, and through the breach poured a tide of possessed unlike any they had faced before.

At their center stood Princess Elysandra, somehow free of her containment. Her body had undergone further transformation—her royal gown fused with her skin, forming a chitinous exoskeleton. Her arms had elongated into jointed appendages ending in crystalline claws that refracted sunlight into painful prismatic patterns. But most horrifying was her face—split vertically down the middle, revealing a pulsating orifice lined with translucent teeth.

"The gathering begins," she announced in a chorus of overlapping voices. "The keys return to their master."

Reed drew his runic blade, bellowing orders to what defenders remained. But as he moved to engage the abomination that had once been the kingdom’s princess, a sickening realization settled in his gut.

The remaining artifacts weren’t safe in their ancient sanctuaries, waiting to be retrieved.

They were bait.

And he had just committed his strongest allies to walking directly into the trap.