Chapter 71 - Indefatigable (Patreon)

Arisone’s second round of curses flashed out, hitting one of the warriors and two of the mages around Ulcoth. Nerys didn’t need to be told what to do. With one hand, he fired his crossbow at a mage, the bolt piercing the baradaeth’s neck. With his other, he cast his illusory flames. ‘Flames’ that could burn through fire resistance were frightening, but the reaction among the baradaeth was out of proportion. First one of them screamed in terror and ran, then a second. The warrior baradaeth who’d been charging in suddenly stopped her charge, turned, and started backing away.

His emotion manipulation spell, Malachi realized. He hadn’t seen Nerys use it since he’d used it on him that first meeting, but they’d also been fighting iron quills and dungeon monsters. Here, he could see how effective it was, especially in combination with Arisone’s curses. As a crossbow bolt took a fleeing mage in the back, Malachi saw the subtle tendrils of red light as the curse spread out.

Another curse flashed out, but Ulcoth raised a smaller stone wall and the spell fizzled against the glowing rock. That same stone shield, though, was keeping the lavamancer from attacking himself or Diana.

Finally, the stone holding down his bec de corbin released the weapon. He smashed apart some of the rock spikes keeping him in place, then smashed the lava spike embedded in his leg. He stumbled back, nearly collapsing as he tried to put weight on his pierced leg. More healing flames washed over him, patching the worst of the wound.

“Thanks,” he rasped.

Looking back, he could see that there were gaps in the walls, but zombies and baradaeth had prevented more than a handful of reinforcements from reaching them.

More baradaeth were turning to help Ulcoth. They needed to make sure the lavamancer didn’t have time to recover.

Ulcoth sent another fireball over the wall, but it was a blind shot, and Nerys had already repositioned.

“Give me a boost!” Diana said, hefting her crossbow.

Malachi understood. He’d recovered the tiniest bit of mana, and he used it for his aegis. He ducked down and put the shield over his head.

Diana leapt on top of the shield, and Malachi heaved as she jumped.

Another fireball was forming in Ulcoth’s hands, but at the apex of her launch, some fifteen feet up, she fired her crossbow. The bolt streamed through the air, through the forming magic, right into the baradaeth’s eye.

Ulcoth roared with pain. His spell fizzled and he stumbled back.

“Now!” Diana said as she lithely landed.

Arisone’s spectral chains burst forth, the writhing translucent serpents weaving around Ulcoth’s arms and legs. The baradaeth wreathed himself in flames, his emberheart burning bright, and the serpents began to dissolve—and then Nerys was there, his illusionary fire engulfing Ulcoth’s face.

Again the baradaeth screamed. Two small chunks of the wall protecting him crumbled, leaving a small gap in the barrier.

Malachi felt it. The moment was right. His friends were by his side, and there was this inaudible drumbeat within the world that felt right to follow. His vital energy surged. No longer was he desperate and barefoot, throwing broomsticks at imps. He’d trained, he’d grown, and he’d taken that a small piece of the magic of this world for himself. Fighting through the pain, he focused it. He wound up and hurled his spear.

Lightning flowed through the air in a solid line, and the spear went right through the small gap in the rock barrier.

There was an explosion of lightning that crackled out in every direction. The light of it flashed out across the battlefield, and thunder rumbled softly, echoing off the cliffs. Ulcoth’s stone barrier crumbled into a pile of cinders the sparks of which drifted away on the wind.

When the dust and ash cleared, Ulcoth lay dead, Malachi’s spear embedded in his chest. His body was dull now, the fires in his chest, faded.

Malachi heard a rallying cry behind him. With Ulcoth’s death, the wall had crumbled into sparks of earth magic, and their relief force was charging up the mountain slopes again. All around, the baradaeth who had stayed in the rear were running. Some dropped dead as Arisone’s curse spells continued to spread through their ranks.

They may as well have stayed and died; Accolea’s burning tornadoes were scouring the ranks of undead, burning another hole in the baradaeth lines, and by her side were Proclayus and the Vetucor elite warriors. The zombies continued to mill about, attacking anything near them, but the baradaeth themselves were routing. Hemmed in by the canyon, the walls, and the forces to their front and rear, though, they had nowhere to go. Still, they tried to run. The united convoys would show as much mercy to the slavers as they’d shown to the victims from Earth all around them, and they knew it.

Malachi limped up and yanked his spear from Ulcoth’s torso, then let himself catch his breath.

Charging allies overtook them. He saw Heria running past, embersteel spear in hand, and watched as he sliced open the back of a baradaeth crossbowman. Arisone and Nerys pursued the fleeing baradaeth along with the rest of the united convoy’s army.

Now, it was cleanup. The zombie horde, while still large, no longer had any necromancers to direct it. Many had been ordered to attack the defenders on the walls, so there was a press of them trying to climb up the stone. Without earth mages to help them, though, their hands just clawed at the rock until the flesh and bone crumbled into nubs. The mob of zombies quickly became a pyre as fire spells went to work. Burning flesh filled the air.

Malachi sat down hard on a nearby rock so that he didn’t have to put weight on his torn-up leg. Diana sat down next to him.

“I’ve never been very good at… communicating,” Malachi said, voice hoarse. “Well, not about shit that matters. Never had any problem talking about video game stats.” He tapped his own head. “Always been a bit of a mess up here.”

“Yeah. Me too,” Diana said.

“Really? You always seemed well put together to me.”

“I’m just better at hiding it. It’s like… not telling you about… all that stuff from before. It wasn’t rational. Especially with all… this. But knowing that doesn’t make it easier. I’m good at plenty of things. But not that.”

“Yeah.”

They sat in companionable silence as the screams of the battlefield continued. They were well behind the front lines now, and it was clear the battle was won.

“I’m out of mana, by the way,” Diana said. “That’s why I’m not healing your leg.”

“I figured. Funny story, my sister told me to see a therapist after my apartment burned down. While I was there, a portal opened up nearby and we had to evacuate the area. The therapist’s office was demolished by an armadillo-chimera, and he went bankrupt fighting with his insurance company in court.” Malachi paused. “That’s not actually funny, I realize, but the point is, when the world’s fucked up enough, we don’t need coping mechanisms. We need a better world.”

Diana nodded. “I’ve been thinking a lot about systems. When I was streaming… I liked being able to tell people about the research I’d done. I liked the fashion design. I hated everything else. The messages I got from people just bothered me. I ended up hating the job. A lot of the streamers I networked with could just shrug off the creeps and assholes. Me, though, it bothered me. Why should people be able to just say that kind of shit with no consequence? And yet, I felt the pressure to keep going, even though I didn’t want to. I could see the systems around me pushing me, but I couldn’t stop them. I had this deep fear of losing what I had. And of course I did. Even though I hated it, it was paying my rent.

“When the portals opened up, I realized the depth of the rot in our society. During World War 2, the entire US economy was turned to war. For us, it wasn’t existential, but we did it. Now… now it is existential, and we can’t seem to shake ourselves awake. Everything is a mess. Industry is still flailing. Any measure that gets adopted is too little and too late. Three years, half of Kansas is a goddamn dinosaur jungle, and people are still commuting to their office jobs. So many people are still clinging on to this idea that we can get through this without changing, that we just endure for a little bit and things will get better again. It seems to me so obvious what needs to be done… and I have no idea how to get other people to see it. Maybe they’re just afraid too.”

It was Malachi’s turn to nod along. “You’re talking about systems instead of yourself again. You doing okay?”

Diana snorted. “You’re asking me that? We still need to get that piece of crossbow bolt out of your calf. But no. I’m not. As you said, we need a better world. We’ll just have to fight for it. Together.” She said that last word as a command.

Malachi looked at her. He could see why she’d gotten the conduits she had. She was soft-spoken most of the time, but there was a fire in her eyes. “Together. I promise.”

Shouts of triumph were erupting across the battlefield as the last groups of zombies burned.

Diana stood. “Alright, that’s enough about feelings. We’re going to wash away all that grief and anger the way god intended: with a dopamine rush from getting magic loot.”

Malachi’s laugh came out more as a cough, but he had to laugh all the same. The world was a mess, but at least it’d be a mess with friends. Nerys and Arisone had made it over to the wall, and were talking about something.

He walked up to Ulcoth, still limping. “His fire essences ought to supercharge one of your conduits,” he said. He picked up the dagger Ulcoth had nearly killed him with.

Embersteel Rondel Dagger (Masterwork) 

Inherent Property: Burning II (Inherent)

Wounding II, Injecting III, Armor Piercing III

Durability 99/100

“You want this, too?” he asked.

Diana shook her head. “I don’t want to have to get close enough to things to use it.”

Malachi unbuckled the sheath from the dead lavamancer and attached it to his belt. He’d rather have the dagger on his belt than floating behind him. That way he’d always have a backup weapon. He’d been in enough fights that got up close and personal that he could see why the knights of old always carried a dagger like this.

Red and brown light twisted around two vials as Diana put Ulcoth’s essences in vials. “Potent,” she muttered. It would be good to use that essence last. Most of the dead would have weak essences, but plenty would have basic essences she could use to empower her Elemental Fire Conduit first.

Malachi checked Ulcoth’s body. They’d needed to strip dead invaders in Portal Response missions, and he’d grown surprisingly used to the gristly work. Ulcoth hadn’t been using a wand. He’d been using a set of gold rings attached by chains to a bracelet. The gold had a red shimmer to it. Small patterns were carved on the rings that reminded him of Celti knots, while the bracelet depicted what he guessed was a mythological scene. Apparently, it still counted as an aetheric weapon, not gear or jewelry. It reminded him of the hand devices the Goa’uld used in Stargate.

Malachi. Mal. Buddy. Not everything needs a nerd reference.

Sorry, that’s how it works in here. I’m not trapped in here with you; you’re trapped in here with me. What’s this one do?

SIGH.

Flamegold Ring Chain Bracelet Thing (Masterwork)

(If there’s a technical name for this and you just don’t know it, I will scream)

Inherent Property: Enhance Fire Spells III

Mana Efficiency II, Shockwave I

Passive: Leech a small amount of vital energy from enemies struck with fire spells cast through this weapon, transforming it into mana. This is a necromantic-elementalism transmutation effect, which is to say, it allows a fire spell to act in ways that usually only a bone necromancy spell can.

Durability 100/100

“Woah. I think this thing is really good,” Malachi said, showing Diana. Of all the Semevaos items he’d seen, none of them had a passive like this. No wonder that asshole hadn’t been running out of mana. One of the enchanters in Matrasa had mentioned the materials needed for the mana efficiency enchantment were also quite rare.

“Oh a hand harness!” she said, examining it.

I’ll kill you, SERA said inside Malachi’s mind. He suppressed a laugh as the item description changed in his vision.

“The design is beautiful. I don’t recognize these gods, though. I don’t think they’re the ignian ones. Huh… you know, this one kinda looks like Uriel Sunbreaker. Same number of arms, at least. Though I think the designers were referencing Vishnu. I still favor the ‘ancient people found portals’ theory. So maybe some came from the Indus Valley civilizations? I don’t really know enough about that area.”

Malachi chuckled at the video game reference, though it turned into more of a cough.

Huh, SERA said, which wasn’t the response he expected.

Oh?

Just ‘huh.’

Huh, Malachi thought in return. Then a whining sound interrupted his thoughts.

“Fido!” he said, looking around. The sound was coming from under a rock. The dog had hidden under it during the battle after the palanquin collapsed.

“Fido?” Diana asked.

“Come’re, boy! Or girl, honestly, don’t actually know. Come’re!”

“You know the dog?”

“Fido was Mrs. Jones’s dog. There’s my neighbor, Mrs. Jones,” he said, pointing at the fallen zombie. “She would have been abducted on the first day of portals. I wish we could have interrogated Ulcoth. Asked how he knew whatever it is he knew. Or who his portal mage was. He was too dangerous to keep alive, though.”

“That is… an incredible coincidence.” Diana’s brow furrowed. “Meeting you was unlikely enough. This is…”

“Yeah. Maybe it wasn’t coincidence. Maybe someone’s got their hand on the scale.” That Guardian had to know, was what he was thinking. SERA, how does the ethereal network work? When we get back to Earth, will it be safe to talk? 

Maybe. It’s our best shot right now, the System Unit said.

Diana was at a loss for words.

Malachi said, “We need to get back to Earth. Tell people what we’ve seen, and how it works. If we can establish trade, get allies—and return those people to their families. Fido! Come on!”

Diana knelt down near the rock. “Here, Fido,” she said. Immediately, the whimpering dog crawled out from under the rock. He tentatively approached, doing that thing dogs did when they both wanted to approach and didn’t. He skittered back and forth, then darted forward and licked Diana’s extended hand before running back again. When she didn’t move, the dog slowly worked up its courage until a minute later she was petting it.

Fido continued to tremble, but seemed to be calming down.

The last of the zombies had been butchered. A cry went up among the united ignians. “Nasuen’s grace! The Acueli stands!”

All around, ignians fell to their knees, turning towards the great spires of the Acueli to pray. For a moment, Malachi just closed his eyes. His face felt wet, but he didn’t wipe his eyes. Not with all the ash and blood on his gloves.

They’d won.

Too many had died, but so many had lived. They’d saved Semevaos.

It was like a physical wave passed through his body, relaxing muscles he hadn’t known were tense. For once, the caldera of emotions he kept inside was calm.

“Isn’t there, uh, a second army?” Diana asked.

“Ah, shit,” Malachi said. “Yeah, yeah, we’ll get to it. Skirmishers delayed their advance, so we have a full day to prepare. Just… let’s relax for a moment.”

Diana let out a breath it sounded like she’d been holding for an eon. “Yeah, I can do that.”

Together, they looked up at those glimmering peaks of the Acueli, and bathed in the cheers and celebrations around them.

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