Chapter 72 - Ash Settling (Patreon)

The second battle of the Acueli wasn’t nearly as dramatic as the first. The next morning, the second baradaeth army halted well short of the walls, having clearly figured something was wrong. By then, the united convoy forces had complete control of the two ridges overlooking the southwest path and had dragged more turrets up there in the night. The baradaeth would have also noticed far more defenders than they were expecting. They had no doubt been told to expect the defenders would be hard pressed with their forces split, or even that they might already be overrun. Instead, they saw the majority of the army intact and waiting for them.

The Accolea stepped forward with Ulcoth’s severed head. “Baradaeth scum. The burnt ash of your bodies is unworthy even of being returned to Nasuen. The death that awaits you is the same as the one that befell your master: a dark and cold one.”

The obvious ploy of a defender would be to show an illusion of Ulcoth’s head, so to show them it was real, she hurled it down the mountain, letting a gust of wind blow it down to the baradaeth ranks.

One of the mages picked it up, and the baradaeth commanders began to rapidly converse.

Then, Diana stepped forward, holding her hand out so the red-gold glint of Ulcoth’s hand device was visible. After collecting several basic essences and then consuming Ulcoth’s potent essence, she’d refused to tell Malachi what her fire spell had evolved into. She demonstrated it now.

Instead of a single butterfly made of fire, she unleashed a swarm of them. A burning stream of projectiles jerked about wildly through the air, bodies trailing like little red comets, moving towards the baradaeth army.

Oh damn, Malachi thought. If each impact degraded fire resistance, now she could do some real damage to basically anything.

That wasn’t the main reason she’d been chosen to unleash this spell, though. The reason was that the spell didn’t shoot burning butterflies anymore; it shot winged skulls made of flame. Ulcoth’s signature item applied to this new spell made it extra clear he was dead.

The swarm mostly just burned zombies; only a single fighter was hit. But that was when the turrets on the ridge began to fire their long, arcing fireballs down at the baradaeth army below.

That was all it took. The baradaeth forces immediately began to retreat. As they did, Accolea led their own contingent of down from the walls to start throwing spells and bolts their way, with earth mages and warriors to block any retaliation. The zombies began falling in droves.

Over the next two hours, the harassment of their retreat combined with the loss of their primary leader to cause the baradaeth to split. One group, including the necromancers, stayed with the main body of zombies since even though they were taking heavy losses, the zombies acted as a shield from the baradaeth themselves from taking casualties. The other group, impatient with the slow pace the undead required that was allowing them to be harassed in the first place, broke off, moving quickly down th slopes.

That was perfect.

Several hours later, with the baradaeth forces now separated by several miles, Convarch Proclayus of the Vetucor  led his forces through the portals. Scouts on the ridges had perfect line of sights on the retreating armies, and so Proclayus’s elite force was able to set up an ideal ambush, slaughtering the entire contingent.

By the time the group with the undead made it down into the hills, the zombies were nearly gone and the mages exhausted from their defense.

The Acueli defenders attacked from three different directions, smashing that army. Again, they took no prisoners. There were few casualties, and only a single death from an overzealous Vetucor warrior who’d charged in too early. It was a victory far greater than anything Malachi had imagined possible.

***

For the next few days, the two convoy-towns celebrated. Food was shipped in from one of Vetucor’s holds, and the surviving humans who they’d rescued were brought back to the Ashlands, then the portal stones were turned. No one wanted to risk the Hadaun who’d aided Ulcoth continuing to meddle.

Rutil managed to get the pieces of bolts out of Malachi. He’d had one in his calf he knew about, but a pain in his ribs ended up being a fracture and another bit of crossbow bolt. Rutil and Diana spent a lot of time healing the minor injuries each day until their mana ran out. It never took long; all battles involved injuries. 

“I was hoping that mana capacity could be trained, like a muscle,” Diana admitted on the third evening since the battle. “Apparently it’s related to conduit strength.”

No matter how they measured it, magic was something that required resources. As they rested, Malachi pondered what he’d do and say when he got back to Earth. Earth still needed magic, but he still didn’t have any idea how to get it in the kind of quantities they needed. For all he’d learned, there were still so many things he didn’t know. Were all the realms the same size? From what he could gather from Arisone and Nerys, the Dark Mire and the Ashlands’ dungeons regenerated loot at different rates—but why? How had Earth become connected to the Realms? How many realms did the Sidereal Convocation have? Why was SERA the only one who’d ever used that name for the realms? How did the ethereal network function? Why did some portals linger?

SERA, naturally, no doubt had answers to some of the questions, but was still apparently working on how to evade the ever-changing security measures of the ethereal network.

The good news was that, after talking to the Vetucor portal mages, they thought they had a way back. Neither of them knew the coordinates for Earth, but they’d heard of a realm full of dinosaurs. Unfortunately, they didn’t know the coordinates for that realm either, but the portal realm they’d used to chain portals to the Ashlands, the Mycolith Tangle, definitely had contacted the dinosaur realm in some way. Once they got to the dinosaur realm, it was just a matter of scouring the realm for the lingering ‘Jurassic portal,’ and then they’d be back in Kansas.

They’d have to figure out how to get all the army units patrolling the border of the Jurassic Portal not to pilot suicide drones into their faces as soon as they were spotted, but he supposed they’d cross that bridge later.

For now, Malachi did his best to talk with the survivors and let them all know what the plan was. It was rough, because while he could understand them personally, most of them didn’t speak a word of English. Through chains of translation, though, it seemed they mostly got the gist.

One of the men understood just enough English that Malachi could talk to him if he remembered to speak slowly and enunciate. His name was Ge Yichen, who Fido had taken a liking to. Malachi gathered he was from China. He asked more questions than the rest of the survivors put together. Malachi was happy to share the answers. He figured it was what Dr. Chavez would have wanted. Everyone needed to know how magic worked.

Ge routinely walked around the carriages and buildings, learning everything he could. Occasionally, he would pause at the one that held the shrine, deep in thought.

One day at lunch he said, “We need enchanters. As many as possible.”

“We need a lot of things. I just don’t know how we’re going to get enough. But things on Earth can’t keep going the way they’ve been going.”

“No, they cannot.”

They were on the same page there, then.

Most of the survivors were very thankful, but also in poor health. The baradaeth had fed them the bare minimum to keep them alive, and often hadn’t bothered giving them non-toxic water. The spores in the caves of the Mycolith Tangle that they’d stayed in during the battle weren’t great for human health, but neither was the heat and ash of the Ashlands. Most of them stayed indoors, talking, sleeping, or making up board games with whatever was around. Rutil, Diana, and the other healers did what they could, but the ignians weren’t familiar with human biology, and Diana’s parents were the ones who had known a lot about biology; she was in over her head trying to deal with people who’d been chronically starved and dehydrated, half of whom had heavy metal poisoning.

After the celebrations of victory were several days of mourning.

Dealing with all the corpses took the rest of the week. Most zombies had been incinerated in the fighting, just because that was the easiest way to put them down, but those that hadn’t were gathered and ceremonially burned. Several of the people rescued said their final goodbyes to loved ones. The ignians had their own ceremonies, too. Everyone attended except Nerys, who instead hiked up one of the ridges and stood looking out at the horizon for several hours until the ignians marched out in every direction, scattering the ashes of the dead along their paths.

Malachi didn’t say any prayers. All he knew that if there was a god, he had questions, and he wanted those answered first.

Arisone found a quiet place near one of the Acueli’s spires and held her own private ritual for those who’d died in Matrasa. The three male gorgons they’d managed to rescue stayed coiled on her shoulder until she was done, and then they made mournful cries, loud enough the echoes rebounded off the rocks. Not for the first time, Malachi wondered how much they understood about what had happened.

There was also the matter of the spoils of war.

Most of the essences of the dead were weak ones, and most were useless because they were essences the convoys had in abundance. No one bothered to gather those. Any of the rarer weak essences, though, they tried to get to someone with the relevant conduit. There weren’t enough essence vials to collect and store everything, so those were only used for essences that were both rarer and more powerful.

Arisone received a few sanguimancy and spirit necromancy essences she could use. Nerys found only one more mesmeric essence. Someone found a dead baradaeth with a healing conduit, so Diana got her third and final ability slot filled.

Her three choices were ease pain, bolster tissue, and circle (recovery). One of the healers from the Vetucor Convoy already had the latter. It was a weak effect, but several patients could have it at once, and the circle could persist for quite some time, especially at higher levels. However, they were about to be on the move, and making a magic circle was a lengthy process, while bolster tissue could be cast quickly, just like the similar spell that Rutil had. It was significantly less powerful than mending flames, but could do things the other spell couldn’t. While mending flames could do little to deal with the heavy metal poisoning or the trauma many of the survivors had, Diana hoped bolster tissue could. She said something about neural oscillation and chelating agents, which Malachi didn’t follow at all, then immediately went to work, seeing what effect bolstering each tissue could do to solve any of the survivor’s health issues.

There was other loot to split up among the population. Like many in the Realms, the baradaeth used aetherite and silver for a lot of trade, much of went towards replenishing the stocks of the enchanting crystals Semevaos and Vetucor had used to prepare for the battle. The enchanters were busy sorting through items, seeing what enchantments they could use or repurpose using the shrine.

Generously, even though they’d already gotten some prime essences and powerful enchanted items, Accolea offered for Malachi’s group to pick another few enchantments they could use.

With the crisis over, Accolea was no longer the convarch, but she was still thinking like one. “If the Maatugivi are going to arm the baradaeth, we could use some of those weapons you described.”

Malachi could only agree. A couple of .50 cals mounted on the walls or some mortars lobbing incendiaries would have done a lot of work against that army. He just hoped the brass and the politicians would agree, and that they didn’t do anything stupid.

For two more days, people sorted through enchanted equipment and the artisans worked to repair or create new items that could take the enchantments. Arisone got something nice, though in her usual reclusive self, she refused to reveal what exactly it did. Nerys upgraded his crossbow so that each bolt now exploded with an illusionary cloud that caused confusion, in addition to the dazzling lights. It only extended a foot or two at most, but the ignian seemed quite pleased with the enchantment. Diana found a set of gloves that resisted poison and were self-cleaning. Malachi now really wanted a self-cleaning enchantment—he was sick as hell of cleaning ash and dust out of his armor—but ended up picking up something more practical, and having those enchantments moved to the clothing he’d be wearing under the armor:

Simple Clothes (Enhanced)

Enhanced Speed I, Enhanced Mana Sense I

Durability 100/100

It was nothing groundbreaking, but just a bit more speed in combat was never bad, and hopefully the second enchantment would help him learn how to better modify his spells and use his technique. He’d reached a flow-state in the battle that he was having trouble replicating in practice. He needed to consistently be able to use that ability.

The most important thing they got, though, was Vetucor’s aid.

“Two months,” Proclayus, Vetucor’s former convarch told Malachi. “Then we need our portal mage back. And keep her safe.”

Malachi nodded. “I’ll do everything I can to protect her. And… thank you. I hope…” He hoped a lot of things, but he had trouble putting it into words. “There’s a lot of people on my planet that this might help. And a lot of people out in the Realms that I hope we can bring back.”

Over the next few days, the expedition prepared. They’d get one cart full of supplies, and one snail.

“Sul,” Malachi instantly had said, much to Accolea’s amusement and Nerys’s dismay. The vesuvian snails were hardy enough, and as long as they had magical foliage to munch on, Sul would do fine even with less fire essence than he was used to.

About two dozen ignians would be setting out with them, most from Vetucor, who had more people to spare, but a few from Semevaos. Heria would be joining them, which Malachi was glad for. Since the travel would be dangerous, Malachi had tried to convince the humans they’d rescued to stay safe at the Acueli, where more and more ignians would be gathering over the next few months. It wouldn’t be pleasant, but it would be safe.

However, several people insisted on joining them, and had taken to practicing with spears and crossbows or accompanying scouts who patrolled the ridges. Malachi had always been terrible with names, but he remembered Ge Yichen, and recognized two of the women from India who had been learning about the Ashlands from Heria.

The realm they’d be going to was called the Mycolith Tangle. It was a mess of caves and underground rivers, while on the surface, there was an equally hard to navigate forest. They’d be heading from the trade outpost to a place called Grotto City first, home of the Ummoria, the group the Vetucor regularly traded with. Arisone hoped to be able to find portal mages there that could bring her back to the Dark Mire, while the rest of them would be setting out to find the lingering portal that led to the Primeval Vale, which was full of the dinosaur-like creatures that had been wandering out of the portal in Kansas for a few years now. Two astral geometrists would be accompanying them along with some crazy-looking devices they’d be using to map out astral coordinates. That way, the Vetucor portal mages could permanently expand the places they could summon portals. Ideally, they’d form both a new link to the Dark Mire, and to Earth.

From there, Malachi hoped they could get an alliance going that would help stop the invasions. If scientists could study portal stones without being attacked or lost, they might be able to replicate those protections. If they could find more dungeons, more people could get the abilities they needed to keep Earth safe. If they could learn coordinates for different realms, they could help track down the people who had been stolen.

A few days of rest had been good for him. Now, he was full of anticipation.

I’m coming, Malia, Malachi thought as the portal to the Mycolith Tangle opened. He didn’t know if she really was alive. But he’d save who he could. And he’d do it together, with his friends.

He looked around at them. Nerys was a pill, but he’d proven his worth. He looked almost more eager than he did to step through. Arisone still hid her sorrow well most days, but sometimes he caught her looking out at the horizon, the same way he’d done, and he knew what she was feeling. She was haughty, but dedicated. She might leave for the Dark Mire if they found a way to it, but until then, he was glad to have her by her side. And there was Diana. Whatever strange mess of fate had led them to meet here, he was grateful for his old friend.

And me! SERA added helpfully.

Malachi sighed. And you, he thought.

The energies around the edge of the portal swayed about like Arisone’s snake-hair, and were just as hypnotizing. Sul rumbled through the portal, dragging their supply cart, and together, Malachi and his friends followed.

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