Endburn: Chapters 29-30 (Patreon)

Chapter 29

Nauda couldn't pull off the same trick over and over again - Tymetron wasn't stupid, and ascensions or new powers were an essential part of a war on this scale. That didn't stop the Norronese commanders from wanting to send her out repeatedly, trying to balance their enemy's superior armies, and Nauda had been defended by others for long enough, so she was glad to put her life on the line.

Returning to the war as a Dominion changed things more than expected, especially as she was reintroduced to so many opponents who had become familiar. The most common Tymetronese Dominions, who used golden armor and a conventional blueprint, tried to fight her only once before they began to retreat. Nauda's gauntlet could now neutralize a massive portion of golden storms, shielding an entire army.

Which wasn't to say that she could afford overconfidence. The warrior who fought with demon claw blades had been rough, getting through her skin's defenses to deal some real wounds. She had yet to fight Jazin at all, since he was sent to target Theo. The demonplate wearer hadn't appeared, which was almost disappointing.

Now Nauda floated across the battlefield from the woman who wore demonic leather and used an Ethereal Floor, which was an untested matchup. Nauda flexed her gauntlet, considering the strategic balance while trying to anticipate her opponent's thoughts.

If the enemy Dominion activated her Ethereal Floor, she would be able to output so much cantae that Nauda was certain she couldn't win the fight. But that didn't mean she would lose, and her opponent would be draining saturated cantae with every second. On the other hand, without that transformation, Nauda might have the edge. Her opponent had to consider whether or not it was worth testing and how much this position was worth.

Abruptly the woman launched a cantae bolt: apparently she had made her decision. Nauda flew to close the distance, spiraling out of the way of the attacks and wondering about the real strategy. Just buying time? Intentionally drawing her in? It wouldn't matter if Nauda managed to close the distance.

Before she arrived, a swarm of crimson wasps erupted from the battlefield below and Nauda understood: there were Strongholds serving as support. She hadn't considered that fully, and at this stage the right Stronghold could definitely tilt the fight.

Not that it would matter. Nauda slapped her glove and gauntlet together, releasing a shockwave of nullification that swept away both the wasps and the next set of cantae bolts. Before she could take advantage of it, another Stronghold dove at her, this one a woman in heavy armor.

They clashed in midair, and though Nauda had the clear advantage, her opponent was tough and clearly familiar with hand-to-hand combat. While they fought, there was another swarm of wasps growing, and the Dominion was still watching like a hawk.

Instead of remaining over the enemy's position, Nauda kicked off her opponent and sailed back to the battle lines. They didn't pursue her, instead taking up positions to prepare for the next clash. Given a breather, Nauda glanced back to her own side to consider her reinforcements.

Unfortunately, she didn't have many, which was the reason she had been sent here in the first place. There was a single Asplundat Stronghold, someone Nauda didn't know very well, but he only used the conventional sphere technique, so she couldn't count on much help from him. There had been a troop of bloodcrete-using Authorities, but allegedly they were suffering greatly. Helping them might do more good than fighting, if Nauda could just earn a day or two free.

"All who attack the Movement shall perish!" The cry boomed across the battlefield and Nauda realized that the fight wasn't going in any of the directions she had expected.

The Sword of Asplundat burst onto the field with a rush of cantae, stopping just at the head of the Asplundat army. She hurled her momentum into a rain of amber lightning, which crackled through the Tymetronese soldiers and only seemed to gain strength as it leapt toward their top soulcrafters.

Tymetron didn't always spend the lives of their soldiers freely, however, at least not the stronger soulcrafters. The enemy Dominion flew into the path of the lightning and took the brunt of it with a flickering cantae shield. After reconsidering the odds of the battle, she took her supporting Strongholds and disappeared into a weirkey.

That decided the battle for them, so the beleaguered Asplundat forces got a second wind. Nauda had to wonder how long Tymetron could keep sacrificing positions like this, because their forces weren't limitless. Then again, their Ophaon-tier soulcrafters had done serious damage to the Norronese positions, so both sides risked bleeding out.

In a sane world, a war like this would have ended long ago. But Nauda had accepted that Fithe was not a sane world.

"We didn't need your help," the Sword of Asplundat said as she flew closer. The woman was smiling for the sake of the troops beneath them, but there was acid in her eyes.

"Citizen Dominion asked me to come," Nauda protested with an equally false smile. "Aren't we all fighting the same enemy here?"

"So you claim, yet somehow the Movement has suffered the most. And now, yet again, you try to prove our armies cannot survive without soulcrafters from Crintak. He'll have us all dependent on him by the end."

"If you think I'm Crintak's servant, you're wrong. I'm here on behalf of House Blacksilver."

"Another tool of the Ruling Cities undermining the Movement." The Sword of Asplundat looked like she wanted to spit. "You offer only poisoned goods, luxuries we never wanted nor needed before your arrival. If you respect us as allies, leave this battle to me."

Nauda remained in position as they smiled flatly at one another and found herself wondering if she could beat the other woman. The Sword of Asplundat was older and no doubt experienced, and she had a blueprint that seemed to be perfectly matched for the Movement's resources. On the other hand, Nauda didn't think she was being immodest about her own soulhome and she was willing to bet on herself.

None of this helped them, of course. A fight over the head of an army like this would have been an even worse outcome than retreating from Tymetronese Dominions.

"I want to work with both you and Citizen Dominion," Nauda said. "Why don't you take command here and send me east or west, whichever needs reinforcement more? We can stay within flight distance and support one another if Tymetron sends their strongest."

"Go west," the Sword of Asplundat commanded immediately. "There's yet another city nearly being abandoned there."

Since there was no point arguing further, Nauda began to fly west, slowly enough that it was clear to all watching that they were intentionally spreading their forces. Fighting alongside the Sword of Asplundat might be interesting, though Nauda doubted she could get through the other woman's hostile shell. Maybe just keeping all these different factions pointed in the same direction was the best anyone could do.

Further west Nauda discovered another city, mostly evacuated before it had been overrun by Tymetron. There was a small Asplundat army camped outside, rather bravely trying to retake it. Was this their home, or did they simply believe in the Movement?

As she looked over the city, Nauda felt a pang that she hadn't expected. Yes, it mostly contained the same blocky buildings she'd seen all across the Movement, but most of them were simply houses. They weren't designed to be prisons, they were the lowest cost housing that could be constructed from available materials. Those buildings kept people warm and safe, at least until the empire had invaded.

When Nauda smashed down into the central square, the Tymetronese soldiers fled in front of her. Fear aside, that was simply the rational decision: she only saw an Authority or two in this army, so they had no chance against her. Nauda fought them back while the Asplundat army began moving into the city.

If she was going to be here for a while, she would need to speak to the commanders and come to know them. Wearing down the hatred between the factions required lots of personal relationships, even in the chaos of war. It was especially important here, in the middle of a position. She had fought on the borders, where the armies merged together, and saw soldiers intermingling and discovering that they weren't so different after all. But that wasn't in the interest of many in power, so away from the borders the lower soulcrafters mostly remained segregated into separate armies.

For now, however, the best thing she could do for them was defend the city with her mere presence. Once she was confident that the enemy had broken, Nauda crossed her legs in the sky and began to soulcraft. It was funny how something that left a soulcrafter distracted could actually be a threat when she represented a major power of the region.

Not that she was letting her guard down. Once inside her soulhome, Nauda focused fully on her Ichili sense, since she would feel any strong life force that arrived. Most likely she wouldn't be challenged in a less important position like this, which would give her real soulcrafting time.

After so long aiming for the next level, it felt strange to return to crafting bricks again. She had assumed that the Norronese powers would be able to provide an appropriate sublime stone for her, but the supply had been surprisingly small. Even though she was one of their top soulcrafters, apparently sublime materials were really running that short.

A single boulder was enough to make a decent number of bricks, however, and Nauda had a plan that she doubted anyone would suspect. Unlike most new Dominions, who sought to create as many rooms as they had appropriate materials, Nauda had a great deal of soulcrafting already built into her design.

She floated over her fourth floor, examining the walkways between her three towers yet again. They had been part of her soulhome through two ascensions, built up more and more over time. Their key trait was that they were a temporary construction she didn't plan to throw away, but instead transform now that she had soulcrafted high enough: the walkways would become the arms of her statue and link her three towers permanently.

Diagonal soulcrafting across multiple floors was uncommon due to the stresses involved, and in her studies she had seen that it was done mostly as remodeling, understood to be weak until another ascension fused everything together. She would have to deal with some of the same issues, but since her walkways were so firmly integrated with her soulhome, it should be easier.

Her original blueprint had put her arms at the same angle, fusing together at the same point on her staff, but over the years Nauda had reconsidered. It would be better if she positioned her arms one above the other: not only was that a real staff position, it would let her specialize the cantae flow through different arms to connect to different chambers.

The forearms portion of that had already been soulcrafted: that was why she had put so much effort into carving the fingers of her statue around the tower, even though they had been useless up to this point. It was so easy for her to see how the walkways could be moved to connect... easy to see, but not to do. That sort of remodeling was a risk when she was on the battlefield, so she would have to wait.

For the time being, Nauda instead fused her new bricks together on her sixth floor: not in the center, as she usually began, but to support her arm chambers at her sides. Those constructs would be necessary for her forearms to bridge the gap between her towers, once it was time to fuse everything. She was glad she had done all that measuring earlier, because war was a terrible time for the precision soulcrafting required.

It would all come together... eventually. Until then, this floor was a microcosm of her entire blueprint: limited until the design revealed its potential at higher tiers. She would just have to survive until then, one way or another.

Once she finished her arms, Nauda would confidently put herself up against most Dominions. She was fairly sure that she would have no trouble fighting the Sword of Asplundat after that. But that was the problem: the woman was supposed to be an ally and brute force would accomplish nothing.

That problem remained stuck in the back of Nauda's mind, even when they were winning. They might be able to defeat Tymetron, but they had no hope of reforming it. Even if they won in the end, the northern continent would be left a chaotic wasteland, likely filled with the remnants of an empire. The world would be a better place without Tymetron, but far from a perfect one.

She didn't want the same thing to happen to Norron. The Asplundat Movement had its problems, just like the other factions did, and those problems wouldn't be resolved by force of arms. Problem was, she didn't see any other easy solutions.

Fighting Dominions was easier. All she could do for now was keep soulcrafting.

-

Chapter 30

It was supposed to have been a meeting between the three primary Dominions of Norron, but nothing was the way it had been before. Fiyu hovered at the edges of the conference, half-guard and half-representative, worrying over a bouquet of concerns.

The first difficulty was the composition of the meeting itself, which was not as expected. Associate Crintak led, or tried to lead, and was clearly quite frustrated. Both Citizen Dominion and the Sword of Asplundat had arrived, creating a sort of imbalance that was made worse by the fact that Associate Melitta was absent, apparently engaged in some personal mission.

Their discussion might have been more productive if Friend Theo or Lifemate Nauda had been present, but as the arguments wore on, Fiyu judged that it was better for them to be elsewhere. She could shield them from this, because the primary thing she required for ascension was time for her Ethereal Floor to become hyper-saturated again.

Whenever she got a chance, of course, Fiyu returned to repair the disturbances to her soulhome or to painstakingly enlarge her basement. Despite the ongoing difficulty, she had managed to carve out a few decently-sized rooms. Currently she had set up a station for the production of sublime glass, though she wasn't certain she wanted her basement to be a workshop the way Friend Theo used his. That was one of the few parts of her blueprint that remained uncertain in her mind.

Tempers flared, tables were struck, and the strategy of the war seemed ever less clear. Even though Tymetron had a smaller Dominion advantage than before, they still had the edge in aeon-class soulcrafters. Even one mistake with one of them could mean a lost city.

No matter how bad things became, however, they wouldn't send Fiyu out. They hadn't even sent her to engage in negotiations over the sublime material; instead she had handed the new stone off to Relative Guchiro. He had urged her to return and focus on her soulcrafting.

There was a paternalistic edge to the way everyone protected her, as if they were afraid she would strain her soulhome again if left alone. Fiyu considered this and decided it only represented their love for her. She had come very near death, after all, and was vulnerable at the scale of these new battles.

She still looked forward to the day when it would not be necessary. Until then, she would shield her companions from the meetings and the arguments so that they could continue fighting for her and everyone else.

~

For months Guchiro had been fighting alongside the Underqueen, but they had yet to truly meet one another. When he arrived at the Wavefront base and saw that she was still fully locked within her conch armor, he considered that perhaps that was not going to change.

Some would argue that they had already met in the significant way: on the field of battle. There was certainly a camaraderie to be found in fighting for your life alongside an equal, especially when they stood in rarefied territory where they had very few peers. He knew enough about the Underqueen to be familiar with the limits of her defenses and the range of her techniques. Yet none of that told him very much about the character of the woman herself, which could be more important.

"They want us to discuss strategy," the Underqueen said, "but I have a question first. How does Norron have an Ichili fighting for them, much less one at Ophaon?"

"Is that so unusual?" Guchiro asked. "I know for a fact that many underwater cities have communities of Ichili, given some of the parallels in the environments."

"Communities, yes, but not leading soulcrafters, not participating in our wars. Most from other worlds consider Fithan wars a hazard of the territory, more a cultural event than a real threat. There are merchants who write off such battles as a cost of doing business in Fithe. Considering some of the mindless feuds I've seen, I can't say I even blame them."

"Given my choice, I wouldn't be involved either. But the Nine Worlds are more entangled than ever, these days."

"Speak for yourself." The Underqueen's outer shell never moved, but he had grown more adept at piercing the defenses and he could tell that the woman shifted back in her seat in the center. They should have been allies, yet her body was unusually tense. "I would like nothing more than to go back to my realm and forget about this."

"But you feel that you cannot?"

"Tymetron is too grave a threat. You've seen what one Ophaon can do to an undefended city, well, it's worse underwater. Our cities have more durable walls than yours, but if they are breached, it can mean death for all. That has always meant our wars take slower, more careful forms... Plutalgion destroys all of those patterns."

This was more than they had ever spoken, so Guchiro considered his next words carefully. "One could say there is a similar risk on Ichil. That is one of the reasons I sought my current tier, yet I find my soulcrafting slowed by-"

"That's enough," the Underqueen said mildly. "I think this is not the appropriate time to discuss such matters, not in lands where so few understand higher soulcrafting. Perhaps if we continue to work together well, we can exchange notes in the future."

That was what she said, but inside her shell, she made no effort to hide the skepticism in her expression. Guchiro noticed her tension at his words, then her eyes narrowed and her lips thinned. She was intensely skeptical of his offer, borderline hostile. He amended his mental model of the Underqueen: she was an isolated Ophaon, fearful of those who might seize her position.

It seemed very unlikely that any attempt to work together with her would ever be accepted with anything more than false promises. In a sense, this was another sort of dead end that Guchiro and his companions had attempted to avoid. They would receive very little help from the established powers, even those not enmeshed in greater systems.

Instead of attempting to push that angle, Guchiro revealed the material that Ward Fiyu had given him and began negotiating for a trade. He knew that it was a land-based material, thus increasingly valuable under the surface, yet they both spoke about it carelessly, as if Dominion-tier materials were beneath them. If he pretended to be interested in Ophaon-tier materials, perhaps he could acquire a better trade for Ward Fiyu and her companions.

As they negotiated and waited for the others to arrive, Guchiro's mind slipped back to his soulhome. He had been able to soulcraft new chambers, but they remained inadequately filled. His entire network of allies could only supply him with the composite stone and, despite the limitations of such materials, he understood why collaboration was necessary at higher tiers.

"Can we begin?" one of the officials from the Ruling Cities asked. "Of course we're very grateful to both of you... honored Underqueen, honored Guchiro."

"This has taken entirely too long," the Underqueen said crossly. "If you need us so desperately to balance opponents beyond Dominion, you should be more respectful of our time."

She had used the term Ophaon before, but returned to the phrase "beyond Dominion" around locals. Guchiro had noticed this previously and been uncertain if she was simply attempting to match their understanding - now that he knew her better, he suspected that she was hoarding even the terminology that covered the higher tiers.

"We wish it could be different," the official spluttered. "We would provide more support for you if we could. That is one of the things we hope to correct, now. Tymetron can coordinate perfectly with their top soulcrafters, but we need more information in order to support you."

"What information do you require?" Guchiro asked.

"For a start, we need your evaluation of the threats involved, now that you have encountered them. They are all beyond Dominion to us, but they need to be weighed more carefully."

The Underqueen shifted to look toward Guchiro, almost as if to exchange a glance with him, even though a being limited by eyes would see nothing through her shell. Did she retain those habits from her days beneath the oceans and only live in her shell up here? Was she actually aware of his ability to read her body language? In any case, Guchiro decided to take a middle path and inclined his head toward her, inviting her to begin.

"The weakest one is the Demonweaver," the Underqueen told them, "yet she could also be the most dangerous. If she can generate a fourth stage demon, it would be a greater threat to us than an average Dominion, even if it is not under their control."

"I concur with both parts of that assessment," Guchiro agreed. "I once attempted to corner her and she refused to do battle. Not because she feared defeat, which would be uncertain, but because she had higher priorities."

"Could we pin her down?" one of the Wavefront generals asked. "With an anti-weirkey perimeter, I mean. Can soulcrafters beyond Dominion break those?"

"They cannot, but it would be highly difficult to restrict one of them to such a region. It would only happen if they had a reason to commit to the battle."

"If you ask me, you'd have a better chance with the Goldreaper," the Underqueen suggested. "He lives for battle, that one. Strongest of the three, most likely. There's nothing special about his soulhome, but raw offensive power is always effective."

"You believe the Goldreaper is stronger than Plutalgion?" Guchiro asked, fully masking his surprise.

"Plutalgion might be top of the empire, but has he ever stayed to do battle for long? No, he always strikes and runs. If you ask me, he's maintained his position through that gold he produces somehow."

"He has not engaged in extended battle, but Plutalgion is clearly capable. My senses can gather information from the others, but he remains inexplicable. I do not believe he is Fithan, or perhaps not even a being like any I have known."

"Old, sure." The Underqueen snorted. "Too old. We see relics like him in the depths sometime, such as that overgrown demon fish haunting cities. Plutalgion may have been a terror in his prime, but he's old and tired. He'd rather let others do the fighting for him."

The officials had been swiveling back and forth between them, and though they all masked their expression, Guchiro could feel their tension rising as the two argued. Since the argument was irrelevant and he had voiced his dissent, he went silent and allowed the discussion to move on.

It was possible that he was mistaken - after all, Guchiro had not been an Ophaon for very long, and thus had less experience at this tier. Certainly all three of the enemy forces were grave threats in their own way. But one thing he was very certain about: Plutalgion was not avoiding battle due to cowardice.

~

Even though the war had worsened, Fiyu had still not been called into battle often. The trouble was that the enemy Strongholds, and even their Dominions to some extent, were neutralized and the problem was their most powerful soulcrafters. Fiyu could not turn those battles, not even beginning with a perfect strike from stealth.

Instead she focused on her soulhome, even attempting methods to force more cantae into her Ethereal Floor. The time was drawing closer, but not close enough. It had taken multiple months to hyper-saturate the floor the first time and it had only been a couple of months now.

She focused on what other preparations she could manage, such as locating a Dominion-tier source of stone so she could begin soulcrafting bricks immediately. For a time she had studied her triuneflower, but it felt so attuned to her, and Lifemate Nauda had said it was so easy to use, that there was no need to prepare it. Other than building a new pyramid and creating coverings to deal with the ascension rain, there was a limit on how much she could prepare.

Beyond that, she tried to consider what she should do after her ascension. The war was so intense, they did not have time to relax and build out their entire floors, which meant specialization was a better policy. Lifemate Nauda had already shared her plan to create her statue's arms and she was certain that Friend Theo intended to enhance his singularity.

What could be her equivalent step? Of course she would be happy to finally be able to deploy her Ethereal Floor normally, but that didn't require her Dominion floor. At least she would be able to consider modifications, once the initial saturation had finally completed. She was determined to prepare something, or at least to do better than soulcrafters like the Sword of Asplundat, who considered Dominion status the end of the path instead of another step.

When Fiyu was finally called to join the war, this time exterminating demons, she was quite pleased. Such an assignment would allow her to release tension without great risk while still doing good: the demonic titans that normally threatened armies could easily be cut down by any of her techniques.

As she arrived and considered the sheer number of demons, however, she began to grow worried. Not for herself, or even for all those being threatened, but for what it might mean for the war. When she discovered a demon-summoning artifact, just like those deployed against the tournament, Fiyu felt a cold dread flow through her.

She took it to the leaders, but she wasn't even the first: there were more across Norron, generating demons even beyond those produced in the wake of war. Everyone speculated about the reason until days later, when the Demonweaver finally struck all of Norron at once.

And it was too late for Fiyu to join the battle.