359: A Debt and a Message (Patreon)

Round after round slammed into the mass of black-armoured undead. Each shot punched through armour and blasted the target back into their fellows with a sound like a shelf full of pans and pots crashing to the ground. But they were so densely pressed, now, that knocking the life from a few of them barely made a difference. The two Morvain were hidden deep within them.

The ghouls had surged forwards to resume their attack on the front-line, but even with the shock of the attack from above they were holding their lines together, though they had been forced into a steady retreat.

Nicolai pulled free a spent magazine, tossed it at his chest, and the Big Mouth caught it like a dog snatching at a bone. He slotted in a fresh one and peered through the iron-sights. Somewhere in that mass of armoured undead the two Morvain were hiding. Even with drone coverage, it was difficult to know precisely where, though Simulations had picked out a few likely spots. The M99 boomed and howled against him as he took a few shots at one of them, only to find that when he went for the next his targets were blocked.

Ridges of earth were sprouting amidst the undead, stone paving slabs visibly levered aside by the rising earth. Walls were forming, and not just where the Morvain hid but also before their front line, blocking off the ghouls. Just as when the mass of undead had launched that mass of fire attacks, now they were using a similar ability to form these protections.

From directly below, he felt ripples. Then a black-armoured undead appeared, having leapt somehow from the ground.

It was blown backwards by a .50 cal to the chest that sent it pinwheeling through the air, limp and broken, to disappear into the sea of undead below. But another appeared right on its heels, then another. Serrin discarded his anti-materiel rifle in favour of his spear and leapt at them, spinning and darting, and Nicolai aided him with the Spectral Claw—he was getting better and better at using it without any hand gestures but as a simple extension of his will, a surprisingly difficult skill to develop—while continuing to fire down on the undead forming a turtle-like mass of shields around the two Morvain nobles, who were entirely hidden behind these guards.

But from where they lurked that powerful Soul Sense arose, swollen with the noble’s rage, and lunged at them.

The next few minutes were increasingly difficult as he and Serrin fought against leaping undead and the powerful Tier 2 Soul Sense. Now aware of their skill at parrying, the noble demonstrated he was far from a novice at Soul Sense combat. The pair were forced closer together in order to fight back as one, rapidly switching through the fundamentals of Soul Sense combat: Hard defence against slashing and piercing attacks, soft defence against crushing attacks, and extending their Soul Sense into tendrils here and there where they saw opportunities to behead, deflect, or parry the Tier 2’s own.

However, this Tier 2 was clearly specialised for this kind of combat, and as he grew wiser to their strategies and began to understand their limitations, he started to make use of some kind of ripple-based spiritual area attack, one that disrupted their Soul Senses more and more over time and which they had no counter for. Nicolai and Serrin, by this point silently communicating Soul-to-Soul, realised that soon there would be little choice but to flee out of their attacker’s Soul Sense range.

Fortunately, their intervention had bought the Thrynn the time they’d needed. New ripples were arriving, and Nicolai knew what they heralded. Through his dispersed drones he saw a small army of Thrynn reinforcements were on the way and would soon arrive. It seemed the Morvain had their own methods of sensing this, as without any noticeable order given the black-armoured undead shifted into a full retreat.

He lowered the M99, gazing thoughtfully down. The Soul Sense attacks had broken off, though just before doing so he and Serrin had received a very clear message, delivered through the tendrils: You will pay for this. The undead were clanking backwards, retreating smoothly having raised up more of those walls to cover themselves. Simulations was getting a lock on where the two Morvain were, but even him and Serrin shooting together was unlikely to do much. The pair were protected by a large number of the larger, more elite looking variants, who bore Imbued metal shields that were better able to weather the heavy rounds. They were also keeping those earth walls between them and him as much as possible. Beside him, Serrin stood with spear ready. The undead who’d leapt up here littered the roof around them.

For someone so fresh to shooting, Serrin’s aim with the anti-materiel rifle had been reasonably good. Aiming had already split its processing, now the fight was largely over, and a part of it was observing a recording of this engagement and drawing up constructive feedback for the Hornet. Whatever it had to say, he’d impart later.

For now… The mass of Morvain were pouring around the bend in the street, filtering out of view. Those who’d manned the barricades were disappearing into the buildings to find their own escape. Just in time, as further down the street a new group was arriving.

A small army of ghouls which washed around the corner then pressed in a mass of loping bodies down the street toward the beleaguered Thrynn. These ghouls came with an airborne escort—drifting, shadowy wraiths and bat-winged People—and walking in a cluster in the midst of them were a few People with similar robes as the Thrynn noble below. One of them had a Tier 3 Soul Sense, presumably the leader of House Thrynn.

Meanwhile, the red tinge in the air faded away and the bubble of energy that surrounded them dissipated. Nicolai’s Mark pinged, throwing up a brief notification informing him the Restriction was back in effect. That ended his brief thoughts of stealthily pursuing the two Morvain and looking to eliminate them.

The Thrynn noble below was waving up at them, calling out for them to come down. The  winged bodyguard stepped past and leapt into the air, floating toward the calling noble, and Nicolai and Serrin followed.

The four of them regarded one another, all stood on the undead cart. The large metal box framed the Thrynn. The bodyguard seemed content to fade into the background, while the noble looked them over with naked curiosity.

‘I would thank you, Players,’ he said, smiling. ‘I certainly didn’t expect your intervention. I am Edrin of House Thrynn, and this—‘ he nodded fondly towards his bodyguard ‘—is my favoured servant, Polemny. You saved him, and likely myself, too. Your actions were surprising. You are not members of my House and have no allegiance to us, is that right?’

‘That’s right,’ replied Nicolai.

‘And yet, you helped me. Why?’ Edrin’s eyes were half gauging, half simply curious.

Nicolai felt Serrin’s eyes from the side. ‘It’s simple,’ he said, shifting into a slightly more heroic pose. He saw himself as though in a movie, the Good Guy. ‘I don’t like bullies.’

‘Eh?’ muttered Serrin, while the noble’s eyes widened.

He’d done as much research as he could on all these Houses, and the People themselves, in the time he’d had. It seemed that amongst the People there were various notions of honour they believed in to various degrees. He suspected that younger People would be more invested in such ideas, and Edrin struck him as fairly young.

‘Those three attacking you like that, with an unfair advantage,’ Nicolai continued. He shook his head angrily. ‘It’s not on. We saw what was going down, and thus had no choice but to step in and help out.’

‘I see,’ said Edrin, nodding and smiling, pleased. ‘Yes, there are too few in this city who recognise honour and chivalry. But you will not find me to be one of them!’ He straightened. ‘I will repay your favour here, Players. You have saved me, Edrin Thrynn. And from this day forth, I owe you a debt.’

For a moment, he hesitated. ‘It would be much easier for me to repay that if you were to join my House,’ he said, then shrugged. ‘But even if not, know that I will keep this debt in mind, even should we end up as enemies. If you need something of me, I will do my best to give it. How do you call yourselves?’

‘You are too gracious,’ murmured Nicolai, delighted. The kid sounded like he really meant it, too. That could come in very useful. ‘I am Nicolai.’

‘I am Serrin, and I would like to know more about this… honour and chivalry of which you speak,’ spoke up Serrin, much to the Mask’s excitement.

‘Oh?’ replied Edrin. ‘What would you—’

Fortunately (in Nicolai’s eyes, at least) the conversation was struck dead when a sharp voice boomed out.

‘Edrin! What are you doing? Who are these two?’

A moment later they were surrounded. Bat-winged Thrynn soldiers and shadowy wraiths above, while the ghouls swelled with fresh arrivals.

A figure flashed through the air then crashed down onto the undead cart. The impact actually sent the huge living-cart stumbling slightly, forcing everyone on it to fight for balance before it resettled itself. The new arrival rose, ripples pouring off of him like heat from a plane’s jets. A male Person, robes much like Edrin’s only more ornate and voluminous, Tier 3 Soul Sense rising around him. Here’s daddy, thought Nicolai. The Head of House Thrynn frowned around at them all.

Edrin quickly explained, mentioning the Morvain by name. There was some muttering and cursing from amongst the Thrynn as they learned what had happened. Nicolai learned the female Person was known as Ravena, daughter of the Morvain Head, and had a reputation as a ‘psychotic bitch,’ based on the muttered words of one Thrynn bodyguard. As to the one who’d flown and possessed a powerful Soul Sense, he was called Cyras and was her uncle, brother to the Morvain Head.

Events moved speedily on. The Head of House Thrynn wasn’t quite as enamoured with them as his son, and if anything seemed rather suspicious. He questioned why they’d even been in the area in the first place, and employed a strategy of long silences in hopes of spurring truthful answers from them.

Nicolai was a great fan of people who used such strategies, as there was a part of him that derived tremendous enjoyment from standing there and staring back at them, wrapped in a warm, woolly blanket of innocent silence which no amount of meaningful staring could penetrate, but alas Serrin wasn’t quite as immune to the strategy.

He was forced to let out some canned excuses when he sensed the Hornet was close to speaking up. Whether the Head believed them or not was hard to say, but the noble ultimately gave a gruff thanks, then politely but firmly told them to leave via the simple method of staring silently while his Soul Sense began to press ever more heavily down. Nicolai was happy enough with what had been gained, and, Serrin in tow, made his exit.

‘I’m looking forward to working with that Edrin,’ Serrin was saying approvingly as they wandered down an alleyway. ‘I like him. Do you like him? I like him! He’s a good person, I can tell. A good ally for us, perhaps?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Nicolai, half his attention above. Xyrrith and Drekhul were descending, Cloaked. Moments later, the pair landed before them.

‘Well done,’ said Xyrrith. ‘That went very well indeed.’ He shook his head, eyeing Nicolai. ‘I am amazed, just as I was before, by the power of that weapon you bear. What is it called, may I ask?’

‘An anti-materi-el rif-el,’ answered Serrin, pronouncing the words with excessive care. ‘Semi-auto, chambered in point fifty bee-em-gee, with a ten-round magah-zine. It weighs eleven-point-three kil-oh-gramm-es.’ Drekhul and Xyrrith stared at the young Hornet in bafflement. He was radiating smugness. ‘It is indeed a powerful weapon,’ he continued. ‘Nicolai says I am already quite skille—’

‘Yes, yes, Serrin,’ broke in Nicolai, putting a firm hand on his shoulder. ‘Thank you.’ He looked back to the pair. ‘So. We have accomplished a good amount for today, and it would be best not to draw any more attention. I have pressing business, as, I am sure, do you.’

This pressing business was the Tournament, which was starting very, very soon. He’d been uncertain as to whether he’d have time. The realisation that he did, that he would have another chance to fight and seize something valuable, had birthed in him an eagerness and impatience that was difficult to restrain. It showed itself in the faint shifting of the walls and the shadows, which began to resemble a familiar, menacing form. The Dark Spirit, in the form of a twisted Zero-Twelve. In his mind, he was already fighting.

Thus he couldn’t help but frown when Xyrrith spoke. ‘Wait up a moment, human,’ said the Hornet. ‘There is something I would talk to you about. In private.’

Doing his best not to show his impatience, he gestured Xyrrith to lead the way, and the Hornet moved toward a quiet alley. Serrin and Drekhul remained behind, glaring at one another in stony silence when they weren’t casting suspicious gazes after him and Xyrrith. Nicolai knew that Serrin held a strong dislike for just about all of his kind, but he’d noted that dislike was especially strong for Drekhul.

In the alleyway, Xyrrith waited until he was close then reached out with Soul Sense. Nicolai immediately formed up his own in defence, but the Hornet merely brushed him.

‘A message from the Ripper,’ Xyrrith whispered through that contact, transmitting a wrapped up piece of spirit. Or at least, attempting to. Nicolai’s Soul refused to accept it, and so it stayed there, on the end of Xyrrith’s outhrust tendril.

Nicolai eyed it, wondering if this was indeed just an unusual method of conveying a message, or some kind of trick. However, regardless of the answer, Cyberwarfare saw this as a challenge and a chance to work on its skills. It rapidly formed a containment for the foreign piece of Soul, then, choosing to trust in the Module, he accepted the thing.

While Cyberwarfare was working on that, Nicolai remained focused on Xyrrith.

‘I have something of my own to discuss,’ the Hornet continued, still speaking purely through the contact of their Soul Sense, ‘but now is neither the time nor the place, and it would be best if you have a look at the Ripper’s message first.’

Xyrrith then pressed for them to meet later. Nicolai’s curiosity was roused by the Hornet’s suspicious, even nervous manner, and he opted to do a little probing. He named a time then changed his mind, did the same again. But Xyrrith remained patient and seemed willing to meet absolutely whenever it was convenient for him, which told him that whatever the Hornet wanted, he really wanted it. After coming to that conclusion he agreed on a time and a place, then they parted ways.

Nicolai linked up with Serrin and headed toward the arena, turning his attention to the Ripper’s message.

Author note (you don't need to read this, I'm just giving an update on where I'm at for those curious):

Welcome back ^^ 

I've managed to do quite a bit this past week already, getting into worldbuilding and plotting that I've been putting off for a while, overall feeling really good about things, and my tendonitis has improved a little! Have also come to a few important realisations regarding the direction of the story and how much is revealed/when stuff is revealed. Basically, I realised that I've been holding back too much important Plot Stuff for big reveals that were planned way later, but in fact some of this stuff needs to start coming out... well, as soon as possible, and I'm now working on the scenes for that. If you've ever felt a sense that these big things like the Unwinder, how to escape Nightmare, what humanity even did to be on Nightmare, what's up with the heroes of humanity, when do we find the goddamn Lizard, has all been kind of buried beneath other things, well these changes should start to fix all that. 

This is also giving me time to think more and experiment more on a different style of writing. I tend to describe... everything... in great detail. Which has some benefits, certainly. But it does also mean that unless something changes this story is literally never going to end. So one of my ongoing goals is to become more comfortable with time skips and with going into 'narrative summary mode' (as I like to think of it). Basically, instead of describing in great detail a not-particularly-interesting-conversation I want to become comfortable with just saying it happened and this was the result, and a similiar things with action scenes - does every single fight need a chapter or two of blow by blow, or could fights against uninteresting enemies who we know Nicolai is gonna beat without much trouble simply be mostly skipped over with a brief summary, perhaps intersped with one or two descriptions of pivotal/cool moments (if there are any)?

Ultimately, I have the goal of working out which scenes are actually interesting/important enough to be worthy of being described in detail, which I feel is pretty important for going forward. I believe my struggles in this area has already caught me out a few times. E.g. toward the end of book 1, there was that fight with a few Chosen who'd managed to become Cultivators but ultimately were unnamed randoms - Nicolai/Jo/Beth beat them, he got some Symbiotes, happy days. I think I spent like 2-3 chapters on that fight though and put a lot of detail into it. Whereas the very last big fight of the book where he tricked Paxolnaz... I was quite pressed for time. A number of readers have mentioned that, though the trickery was good and fun, the actual fight was a bit lacklustre and over surprisingly quickly. So my thinking is, I should've prioritised that fight against the 3 unnamed cultivating chosen way less and put way less time into it, and instead used that time to further refine and flesh out the final big fight of the book. In hindsight this seems pretty obvious but it's the kind of mistake I make surprisingly often >_<

That said I'm not very used to this style of writing so there may be times where I am a bit clumsy with it as I try and experiment, so, I hope you can forgive me for that. This fight right here and in last chapter, is one example. I very much felt that, since the purpose of showing as much as I have shown is mostly about fleshing out what the People in battle looks like and building in some of their characters, that I wanted to get it over quite quickly and without the normal, more detailed style of action. But already I've ran into issues lol. It was meant to be over in a single chapter but it stretched over two, and, maybe I focused too much on the narrative summary style which was very prevalent in the last chapter, before I transitioned into kind of half descriptive/half narrative summary in this chapter - did I do it well, or have I now made a fight that not only lasted too long, but was also less interesting to read than my normal fights? Hmm. Should I condense it even more, or flesh it out? I feel the key is to try and describe large chunks of the fight in brief narrative summaries, but then pick out the occasional moment of exciting action and detail it, and intersperse those through the fight... Well, as you see, it's a new area for me. Similarly with the conversations in this chapter I've been trying out this new style, though I feel I was more successful with that - the conversation with Edrin was actually interesting to me so I fleshed it out, but the following stuff when the Thrynn Head arrived wasn't so I got it over quickly. I definitely find this sort of thing easier to do with dialogue than with action, when it comes to action I feel this urge to go into great detail. Ultimately though, I'm in this weird place where I feel like I'm both compressing/summarising too much, but also not nearly enough (there's a part of me which is convinced that I should have set the scene, started the fight... then skipped right to the end with a summary of what had happened). Anyway, I'm rambling. Maybe I should start a blog where I can make huge sprawling posts on this sort of thing, though considering my tendonitis... probably not the best idea >_<

Also, though being on 2 a week already feels much better, I do think it's quite likely I'll go down to 1 a week in time. I really want to be able to rebuild my backlog and have proper space and time to let scenes be written, then sit on them for a while so I have a chance to experience those moments of "wouldn't it be better if..." that were pretty key for me during book 1. I'm gonna wait a couple of months and see before I decide on that, though, since maybe I'll be able to manage that on 2 a week. 

Oh, also: new schedule, as you might've guessed, is Wednesday and Friday!