Endburn: Chapters 15-16 (Patreon)

Chapter 15

As they returned to Norro Yorthin and set up their next meetings, Nauda enjoyed experimenting with the limits of Dominion. Technically she could have tested it earlier with Guchiro, but making a request like that with Fiyu's relative would have felt very strange. Besides, she knew how private Ichili were about their soulhomes and suspected that tendency only grew more intense when it came to inviting people inside physically.

That made her reflect that soon she and Fiyu would be able to enter one another's souls. She was looking forward to it on a deep level she hadn't expected, but she pushed that away for now.

Instead, she worked with Theo to see what could be done with his new capacity. So long as they were in his soulhome, he felt a sense of "spiritual weight" that didn't impede much in combat, but there were no free rides. Even passing through a gate was difficult while carrying people and using a weirkey was likely impossible, which meant they couldn't load people up in their soulhomes to transport large numbers. It also seemed difficult, though not impossible, to use the method to hide large numbers of soldiers.

The more likely use would be that they could actually directly interact with Theo's sublime materials now. Aside from the visceral pleasure of touching the surfaces she had only seen for so long, it meant they could work with one another. He had done a tolerable job with his sublime plants, for example, but Nauda wanted to help the poor things.

She stood to gain even more from them, as Fiyu could make sublime glass within her soul and Theo could do amazing things with a chisel. This was the sort of higher level soulcrafting that required allies, which explained a few things she'd heard. Of course, none of that was possible until she actually ascended, which seemed a good way off yet.

Before they could actually meet with anyone, they were called into battle yet again. The details of the war were still a little bit beyond her, she just knew that everywhere they arrived was in the middle of an crisis and this was no exception, yet the situation was reversed.

This time there was a Tymetronese army taking a defensive position in the center of what appeared to be a field of grain, being assaulted by a Wavefront army from two sides. She understood when she spotted a Dominion at the center of the Tymetronese position: it was a woman with skin that looked burned, spewing some sort of poison into the soil with one hand. It seemed to be spreading through the fields in all directions.

Nauda had become numb to the killing of civilians, but this... it wasn't even greed, just mindless destruction. She felt Fiyu stiffen beside her and Theo floated forward, hands already generating a singularity.

"What do you think of a reverse strategy?" he suggested. "I open a path and you focus on the Dominion. If I'm fighting the army we might be able to hide my ascension for longer."

"Works for me," Nauda said, her gauntlet itching to connect with the Dominion's face. Fiyu nodded beside her, and that was that.

As he closed his hands and sent his singularity into the battlefield, Theo also opened a portal for them. Nauda and Fiyu dropped through it, arriving in the air on opposite sides of the Dominion.

Fiyu was a shade faster, her cantae blade slicing at the Dominion's back. The woman managed to partially dodge, even with so little forewarning, and her armor reduced the cut to a shallow one. But that maneuver gave her no time to react when Nauda arrived the next instant and her fist struck the Dominion directly in the face.

She didn't expect to knock out or defeat a Dominion with one blow, and she didn't. Still, it was satisfying to feel the woman's nose break, and she fell back into her own poison. The Dominion looked shocked and glared at the two of them, mere Strongholds daring to lay a hand on her.

When they closed in, the woman erupted in a sphere of poison. Against other Strongholds, it might have been a devastating counter, because the sphere swept out too quickly to be dodged. Nauda might have been able to endure it, but instead she threw out her nullification glove, neutralizing the technique near her. Fiyu went incorporeal and closed the remaining distance, cantae blade slashing again.

Then the Dominion was gone, vanished into a weirkey. Around them, the shockwave continued to travel, splattering over the Tymetronese forces and dealing gruesome collateral damage.

That was almost disappointing, since Nauda had been looking forward to testing their combination against a Dominion. She double-checked that Fiyu was unharmed, then turned to scan the battlefield. As she did so, Nauda slowed to a halt.

None of the army remained standing. It was obvious that Theo would be more powerful at his new tier, but she had underestimated just how much of a difference it would make. Flying chariots could no longer resist his gravitational fields and were smashed into the ground, fortifications had been torn from the earth, and vast swaths of the army were vomiting or unconscious. The Stronghold who had been supporting the army fell to earth with a smoking hole through his chest.

It had happened so quickly that the Wavefront army actually looked shocked, staring at the three soulcrafters with more fear than celebration. That could be a problem, and Nauda considered the best way to mend things.

"House Blacksilver stands with you," Theo boomed over the battlefield. "Help us finish the fight!"

That broke the fear and the army eagerly began attacking the fortified position that had held them so long. Several leaders charged straight to Theo, yelling "The field!" in rather demanding tones.

"My singularity can absorb poison," Theo told them, "but I didn't want to damage your crops. If you can help me contain it, we should be able to remove the poison."

As they directed him, Nauda realized that it was completely unnecessary and a smile grew on her face. Theo had been thinking about the morale of the army from the beginning and was now letting them take charge, giving them back a sense of agency. She didn't think the Theo of a few years ago could have done that, and if she was honest with herself, she hadn't considered them half as carefully.

"This is good," Fiyu said as her stealth slipped over them. "I know you wanted to fight, but we do this for the people of Norron."

"I'm not complaining," Nauda said as she slipped an arm around her wife. "We'll just have to fight them eventually."

Their victory in that field wasn't particularly different from the others Nauda had experienced, but everyone seemed much happier about it. Apparently Tymetron had been poisoning the earth in various kinds of strikes, some of them behind lines via weirkey, so leadership was glad that the poison-using Dominion had been injured.

That celebration led them directly to a larger Wavefront base, where Nauda was surprised to find Crintak waiting for them. He brought apologies from the other Dominions as well as a soulhome filled with useful materials. But due to the setting, he couldn't just hand them over, it had to be done with pomp and circumstance.

Though Theo gave a bright smile and waved to the crowds, Nauda didn't need Fiyu to tell that he was getting impatient. The praise meant absolutely nothing to him, and if he really wanted to get his hands on the sublime stone, that was because he was a soulcrafting obsessive. He wouldn't have done that before... or perhaps Nauda was the one who had changed. Once she would have been annoyed by the false front, but now she understood him.

As soon as they could get away from the celebration, they took all of their spoils into the sky. The Dominions had granted them the sublime stone that Theo requested, the mountainpearl, and strange discs called cantcoins that allegedly helped with ascensions. She knew that Theo planned to use those for someone else without having to ask.

What puzzled her, however, was a sphere that looked like a carved piece of some sort of shell. After turning it over in his hands, Theo tossed it over to her. "Can you use this?"

"For my staff tower?" Nauda pressed her fingers against the smooth surface and considered. "Perhaps."

"It looks like a shell, but it was never actually alive. I heard some Wavefront soulcrafters talk about riverbedcarbon as a way to enhance armaments, but I didn't have a way to get my hands on any until the Dominions agreed they owed us."

"I'll see what I can do."

"We need to buy time for Guchiro and Senka, but also for you." Theo put his hand on her shoulder and smiled. "Take as much as you need. We don't need you at Dominion, we need you as a top tier Dominion."

"Yeah, I know." Nauda couldn't resist a smile and put her hand over his. "I'll get to work."

~

While it was a shame to part from Lifemate Nauda, Fiyu was happy to think that she was giving her lifemate space to soulcraft. It was much easier to throw herself into battle with that thought than to fight an apparently endless enemy over and over again.

At least their allies appeared pleased with all of the developments, and that day allegedly had something to show everyone. They were deeper within the Ruling Cities, in a field that was within a day's march of the front lines, but not particularly threatened. There were many officials and crafters, most clustering around an object the size of a three story building. It was covered by a sublime tarp that blunted Fiyu's senses and she had resisted the urge to pierce through.

She was much more pleased with the other companions who were waiting for the unveiling: Friend Theo and Ally Navim. It still surprised her to see Ally Navim flying, though of course he would master that ability quickly.

"Lower tier deadgold production is limited by our capacity to convert it," Ally Navim was saying, "not the overall quantity. Even with our improvements to the technique, not many can use it quickly."

"The important thing is that their weapons can be turned back against them," Friend Theo said.

"Yes, but with less work, the deadgold is less useful. It provides unfortunately little protection against the weapons of Strongholds or Dominions."

"So long as we aren't having too many of our own troops being disabled by the gold, that's a trade-off I'm willing to make."

It was good just to listen to companions like these again, because their conversations were so different. She suspected that Ally Navim was secretly eager for them to see the unveiling - her senses discerned little from his rocky body, but by analyzing the movements of his limbs, she had begun to detect emotion from minuscule shifts.

Before the ceremony began or the two of them reached a conclusion, they were interrupted by Ally Isorales. Fiyu was quite pleased to see him as well, and she wanted to ask about the new deadgold armor across his wings. Unfortunately, it did not seem that he was arriving to join the ceremony.

"Theo, there you are." Ally Isorales moved closer and lowered his voice. "It's about Senka... she went mad again and we lost her. We've had to pull back the dolls because there's no bite behind them anymore."

"You lost her?" Friend Theo's back stiffened more than Fiyu would have expected.

"I'm sorry, but she moves too chaotically. All I can tell you is that she didn't leave Fithe, because we got a report that she was eating supplies in the Asplundat Movement. I thought she might show up again, but it's been a few weeks..."

"I see." Friend Theo turned directly to Fiyu with tension building around his eyes. "Fiyu, you'll have to tell me what happens later. If Senka is that deep in the grip of her curse and weirkeys somewhere else..."

"I understand, Theo." Fiyu bobbed her head and tried to smile encouragingly. "Navim and I will take care of everything here."

Friend Theo turned away, conferred with Ally Isorales briefly, then both of them disappeared into a weirkey. She thought it was a shame that he would miss the revelation, but he was likely correct about their objectives. Associate Senka was an important part of their long term strategy.

As she reconsidered Friend Theo's exact behavior, however, she realized there was a tension in his muscles that suggested this was more than strategic. She had felt hints of it before when someone had injured Ally Krikree, but never when they faced impersonal disasters. Even when Associate Senka's name had come up, Friend Theo had reacted automatically... despite all her experience with non-Ichili, she was not sure how to evaluate his emotions.

At least she was still with Ally Navim, who hovered closer. "Are your bracers serving you well?" he asked.

"I suppose they are," Fiyu said as she looked over the silver wrapped around her wrists. "The intensity they add to my techniques is no longer a significant part of the whole."

"I wish I could tell you that I had replacements ready, but the project would be more elaborate, particularly if we do not want them to be replaced in another few years. I thought that we might be able to discuss it, however."

Fiyu was happy to speak of armaments with him, though she would have been happy to discuss almost anything with Ally Navim. He had various ideas for a new model of bracers, both for designs and materials. She suspected that this was a diversion for him, a break from crafting so many deadgold armaments, and she was pleased to serve as a distraction.

Eventually the ceremony began and Associate Crintak floated overhead, throwing out many words about the skill and unity of the Ruling Cities. Fiyu wasn't certain whether she believed it, or whether the Dominion himself believed it. The obscured object loomed behind him, clearly the purpose of the entire ceremony.

When at least he finished, Associate Crintak swept his arm in a grand gesture, tearing away the tarp with his cantae. The sublime cloth fluttered to the ground, revealing an enormous statue. It looked something like an unnaturally squat man, with arms and legs built into the rectangular bulk instead of separate. Strangest was the head, which was too oblong, had a single eye in the center, and resembled no species she had ever encountered.

Though the statue was made of sublime materials and clearly had taken a great deal of work, Fiyu did not think that its appearance was particularly impressive. The interior, however, was more intricate than she expected... before she could figure out the details, Associate Crintak placed his hand on the statue's chest.

A mechanical core in its chest hummed to life and the crowds gasped as the cantae of a Dominion burned on the field.

"Behold the Grand Dominaton!" Associate Crintak cried. "Now we take it directly to the front lines, to show Tymetron that it should never have tested the ingenuity of the Ruling Cities."

Remarkably, the squat statue lifted into the air, slower than a normal Dominion but with a terrible sense of momentum. As it began to fly over the field, it picked up speed gradually, then eventually left the crowds behind as they cheered its launch.

Fiyu had no difficulty keeping pace, as did most of the soulcrafters. She hovered near Ally Navim, inspecting him cheerfully.

"Did you help build this?" she asked.

"You do me far too much credit," Ally Navim said. "The vast majority of the work was done by Fithan crafters. They have apparently been working on this for years, hoping that it would break the stalemate between the three great powers. This war forced them to take extreme measures to complete it."

"But I am sure you understand enough to tell me how it works?"

"Do not make this public knowledge, but the Grand Dominaton operates on a furnace of sublime materials and Dominion-tier cantae. Charging it up takes days, but once charged, it should be able to fight for hours."

As they flew, Fiyu came to realize that this was an attack, aiming to introduce this impressive device to the enemy in a memorable way. Based on what Ally Navim told her, the statue was not truly equivalent to a Dominion in many respects, but it could still be effective in such a broad war. It would be introduced alongside Associate Crintak and many other soulcrafters, so the shortcomings would not be as obvious.

It seemed that their approach had been noticed, because gold glinted in the sky as Tymetron mobilized a force to intercept them. Fiyu prepared herself for the inevitable battle even as she beamed at Ally Navim.

"This is most impressive, Navim," she told him. "I fought a golem in the Wakespire, though a very different type. Did you learn some of their techniques and apply them here?"

"Once again, you do me far too much credit," Ally Navim protested. "My role in this project was minuscule, and I was actually not in Ugustial for the sake of-"

As the Tymetronese strike force approached, the statue rumbled ominously and its single eye began to glow. A beam raked across the enemy force, throwing them into chaos. What was more important, as far as Fiyu was concerned, was that it strongly resembled Ally Navim's technique.

"They did consult me on a few functions," Ally Navim said modestly. "Its limitations should not be neglected, however."

Fiyu smiled at him and then flew to assist Ally Navim's funny statue.

-

Chapter 16

Once again, Theo faced Jazin in the air across a battlefield. The first time they had met, they'd both been Strongholds, then Theo had been trying to punch up for some time. Now they locked eyes as Dominions. His singularity rotated in place, just as a ring of geodes rotated around his opponent.

Abruptly Jazin smirked, saluted with two fingers, and disappeared.

Theo shook his head and began casting gravitational fields instead. Jazin wasn't a coward, it was simply the smart decision because there was no way they were going to end things here. Neither one of them had enough at stake on this battlefield not to simply weirkey away, and they were too smart to fall into an anti-weirkey trap. Fighting now would just reveal techniques, and apparently Jazin didn't think this army was worth that cost.

In theory Theo should have been glad, because it was another Norronese city saved without spending much of his energy. Another blow against Tymetron, plus he'd earned more time to search for Senka. Part of him was still disappointed.

That search, punctuated as it was by the continuing war, had taken more time than Theo had expected. Since ascending to Dominion he thought it had been... half a month? Could it really have been so long? He'd hoped that Senka would show up right away, babbling nonsense, but the days had worn on and his allies had kept asking him to join more battles as their newest weapon.

Technically that wasn't true, since the Ruling Cities had unveiled the Grand Dominaton. One time Theo had fought alongside the giant statue and he couldn't decide whether or not he was impressed. On one hand, this was the first Dominion-tier artifact he'd ever seen, and even requiring cantae from Dominions, it was an impressive achievement. But if it ever went up against one of Tymetron's stronger Dominions, it was as good as scrap.

The Tymetronese army below was falling apart, as they usually did without support. Theo's disorientation technique knocked out the weaker soulcrafters and gravitational fields wrecked their equipment. There were still some Authorities and Strongholds fighting in the air, but they weren't causing any collateral damage, so Theo let them continue. It wasn't good for morale to do everything himself.

These days he didn't see as much despair across the continent, because even the peasants understood that they were no longer losing. The balance between sides was now much closer than it had ever been before, so Tymetron's severe losses and weaker positions were hurting them. Counting the automaton, Norron had six Dominions to Tymetron's ten, plus they had the Underqueen to counter any potential aeon strikes. Battle lines had ground to a halt and in places the empire was even falling back.

[Theo-sister!] Krikree shot out of the battle toward him, grabbing the front of his jacket and almost smashing her face against his so she could tap her antennae against him. [What? Fight? What?]

[I'm here to help, yeah.] Theo patted her back while he continued casting around them. [But I'm also looking for Senka.]

[Senka-food missing?]

So he explained the basics to her and Krikree listened somberly. By the end she had let go of his coat and crouched in the air beside him, cleaning her antennae. As soon as he was done, she gave a very serious nod.

[Need searching technique. Ask Katir-thinkgem for help.]

[Your Arbaian friends?] Theo glanced around, wondering if they were on the battlefield, but he hadn't seen a single sign of them since the war began. [You think they can help with this sort of thing?]

[Katir-thinkgem good at search! Krikree scouts.]

With that she hurtled away from him and Theo watched until her green speck disappeared into the chaos. It was a shame that they couldn't spend more time together, since his search took him away from Nauda and Fiyu all too often. Still, she was right that Senka was a top priority, so he couldn't slow them down just because he wanted to spend time with Krikree.

By now Theo had dropped most of the soulcrafters who were vulnerable to his broadest range techniques, and those who could endure didn't dare to attack him. His singularity still hovered over the battlefield, gaining spiritual density as it occasionally absorbed an attack. He kept it active just in case Tymetron sent another Dominion or even an aeon.

If they did send one of their best, he knew he couldn't win, not without building out his Dominion floor. But at his new tier they wouldn't be able to kill him immediately, and then they would get a singularity to the face. Most likely they wouldn't make the attempt, not with everything so tenuous.

One unexpected change after his ascension was that he no longer found the inefficiencies between battles and meetings so onerous, because they gave him time to soulcraft. Making a new tier of bricks was no trouble, and he'd been hoping to calculate how long it would take him to finish a chamber, but unfortunately his soulcrafting time was too unreliable. At least he had confirmed that the new material the Norronese Dominions had brought him - a dark stone that baked white - was excellent.

Just when Theo was beginning to think the battle was essentially over, he heard a ragged cry.

A Tymetronese Stronghold was rushing toward him, an older man hurling shards of gold. Theo didn't even bother with his usual techniques, he just used a point of anti-mass so the projectiles bent away from him. Even if one wasn't bent quite enough, it probably wouldn't do much damage. The man kept flying at him, screaming and hurling shards.

Theo's hand raised lazily, generating a torsion bolt. He couldn't have beaten the old Jazin or any of their best Strongholds like this, but many of them had been rushed to their tier and weren't much challenge.

"Don't!" The cry wouldn't have done anything normally, except that Theo recognized Homez's voice.

His wrist twitched as he abandoned the torsion bolt and instead cast a pair of portals. The Stronghold plunged into the first and emerged from the second face-first into the ground. Theo switched to a gravitational field, trying to keep him pinned while the man cried in incoherent rage.

Could Theo keep a weaker Stronghold down like this? No, the man was getting off the ground, no matter how many times Theo multiplied his fields. They were significantly stronger now, enough to disrupt some Authorities, but competent soulcrafters had too strong of control over their own flight to be crushed by the levels of gravity he could generate.

"Give me a little time," Homez said as he flew up beside Theo.

"I can slow him," Theo said, "but why?"

"Many of their soulcrafters are willing to defect, if they get a chance."

"No, the stronger ones usually..." Theo trailed off and reconsidered his certainty.

It was true that he'd seen plenty of Tymetronese soulcrafters who were earnestly bloodthirsty, but that couldn't be all of them. He'd heard from House Blacksilver about how many of their soldiers had been willing to switch sides if their deadgold was removed. The main reason he assumed higher tier soulcrafters were all ideologues was probably because Jazin had said it, but wouldn't he have been motivated to lie?

When Theo looked again, he saw that there were tears running down the old man's face. He was screaming, but it wasn't clear he was screaming at Theo. Instead he seemed to be locked in battle with himself as he struggled to attack.

So Jazin had slipped a lie in with the truth. Given that Theo almost always fought the Tymetronese elites, he probably hadn't directly killed too many slaves... but some of them had definitely died as collateral damage. Once Theo might have been more upset about that, but with Tymetron attempting an endburn, he couldn't afford to hold back.

"Alright, this should do it..." Homez had a sphere of stone in between his hands, formed of smaller rocks with golden light leaking out from within.

The sphere dropped and exploded when it neared the Stronghold, creating a shockwave of golden light. It didn't blow anything around the battlefield, but the Stronghold dropped to the ground with gold pouring out of his mouth and soldiers all around them collapsed.

"Thank you." Homez nodded briefly to Theo and then dropped down. He helped the man get to his feet slowly, supporting him with his shoulder.

Theo watched them with a torsion bolt at his fingertips, in case it was a ruse. In this case, just one case out of so many, it seemed they had rescued a slave of the empire. He wasn't sure if it was really morally correct of him to show mercy this one time, because Homez was there, but it was better than nothing. Perhaps their tactics could be modified to allow more leeway for deserting slaves.

Unfortunately, he immediately wondered if Tymetron intended to use this against them. Soulcrafters who had lost the enslaving gold within their soulhomes would be weakened, if not crippled, which could make them a burden. If Norron tried to rescue everyone, they would gain thousands of extra mouths to feed without necessarily increasing their military strength.

Then again, it looked like this Stronghold could still fly a little, and Homez knew something about recovery from the enslaving gold. If they really could pull a soulcrafter to their side, it would tilt the balance further in their favor. Perhaps Theo needed to speak further with House Blacksilver about the balance of lower tier soulcrafters. Everyone justifiably focused on Ophaon and Dominion, because they alone could end the war, but there could be subtle patterns he was missing.

By the time the battle was truly over, Theo was beginning to wonder about Krikree. Just when he began leaving a message for her, he detected [Theo-sister?] pheromones over the chaos of battle. Frowning, Theo tried to pinpoint the source and flew toward the nearest mountains.

[Here!] Krikree sent, guiding him into a cleft between peaks. It was remarkably insulated from the battle, and if not for his enhanced senses, he could almost have ignored the battle not so far away.

Inside the cleft of rock, Theo saw Krikree seated on top of the Fractar, who didn't seem to mind Krikree using it as a seat. Or him, maybe. Theo wasn't sure what Fractar thought about that sort of thing and they all looked like big spiky crystals to him. Perhaps if he'd spent more time with Krikree he could have met this Katir, but he'd spent so much time in the Bloodfire Pit, and the one time Krikree had joined him she'd left her new friend behind.

"Pleased to see you again," Theo said. "Are you fighting in the war?"

"Absolutely not." Katir spoke in a spiritual voice that emanated from the ghostly eyes within the crystals. "It is insanity for anyone to participate in a conflict like this, much less someone at my tier. I do, however, observe."

"Katir-thinkgem help!" Krikree insisted.

"It is... true that my academic companions have methods of analysis that could be useful. Particularly if, as I am given to understand, your target has a particularly unusual energy profile?"

That wasn't the way Theo had expected things to go, but he had to admit that his current methods weren't working and they needed all the help they could get. Krikree seemed to believe in the Fractar and he would just have to trust her.

"Alright," Theo said, "we can try. Unusual energy profile is underselling it..."

-

As I hope the past few chapters have shown, I have a deep love for certain elements of progression fantasy. One trend I don't like, however, is when the world feels like a cardboard cutout the revolves around the protagonist. So while I had fun giving Theo his big moments, and I hope you had fun too, it would feel wrong to me if all the other characters weren't also active with their own secrets and trump cards. This book will contain a lot of different factions pulling out all the stops.