CoESC Book 18-9.3: Discoveries and Return (Patreon)

There were two thousand nine hundred eighty-seven major nodes of the Collective throughout the entirety of Irisvaile, and another fifty-nine thousand three hundred forty-seven minor nodes. 

Fifty thousand three hundred forty-six. One had been found and destroyed in the region called Nurevia, where the Collective had assumed superiority. Agents activated and allowed to swarm, with the goal of invasion rather than infection. 

Over the millennia of their existence, the Collective had learned many things in their quest to include everything, and the foremost being subtlety was better than overt action, unless the overt action was used to ensure subtlety won. 

Minor node destroyed in Nurevia region, but in exchange, the seeds have been sown for another twenty. Perhaps one would develop into a major node in time. 

The Collective wasn’t one consciousness, but they might as well be. Thousands of strands came from each major node, unlimited in number but practically leashed to the number of available bodies. Minor nodes could only hold ten strands each, but since drones were mindless, it only took a single strand to keep them active. Actual bodies were more complicated, and the Collective didn’t really want to deploy them unless it was an emergency. True bodies required one or more strands to activate and control, and those strands would have their connection to the rest of them weakened as a result. 

Most of the major nodes were situated around Nurev, but they had at least one in every country, save for the islands of the inland sea. They were too vigilant, and it was there that the minor node had been destroyed. But no matter, the Collective was patient, and eventually, everything, living or dead, would belong. 

In the Fiore Republic, a major node had finally formed near an outlying city. Infection. Estimated duration before saturation was five thousand twenty-one days. 

In the Rosen Empire, a minor node had been discovered. A purge would soon follow. 

In Westenland, a major node was updated with interesting data. A new source of power, and also a source of danger. Spores proved incapable of infection, and direct assault proved insufficient. 

Tracking…

Tracking…

Located in the vicinity of minor nodes. Activate node. Acquisition priority. 

________

In the sewers…

Inside an isolated laboratory…

Inside a neglected warehouse next to the docks…

Silent spores spread from hidden spaces. They alighted on the unwary, the innocent, and the uncaring, who felt a bit of pain, a twinge that could easily be mistaken for a bug’s bite…then nothing. 

That wasn’t enough to take over, but infection occurred. The spores multiplied as much as they could before a person’s immune system wiped them out. Coughs, sneezes, sweat, and bowel movements carried minuscule spores that spread even further. 

Until the spores touched dead tissue. 

A hospital morgue, soon-to-be corpses giving cement boots and tossed into the river, and the newly buried in cemetery lots. 

There, the spores spread quickly. There, they spread roots that entwined around bones, muscles, and substituted for nerves. 

There, the freshly invaded began to move. There, they pushed against freshly turned earth. 

Some spread more spores while remaining immobile. Some staggered out into empty alleys searching for victims. 

Victims were found, infected, then killed, only to rise again. A new vector for the spores. 

Less than a day after it began, the Collective’s actions were detected. An alarm was raised, and the populace fought back, but their supernatural overlords watched…and waited. 

________

The notifications only stopped because the pager ran out of room for more messages, Yuriko determined, though it was painfully obvious because that last message was cut off, followed by an error sign. 

The last messages were only updates, so she didn’t know what to do or where to meet with the magi. It was the 1st of Augustus, and the third month of the Season of Fire. The weather remained hot and dry, despite the ocean being only a few dozen longstrides away. But then again, the city was a huge heatsink with way too much cement and asphalt. 

Her tummy gurgled with hunger, and she sighed. While she didn’t pick up any Weyrmarks during her trip, and she didn’t spend any either, she had depleted her supply of emergency food. She picked up a few trinkets here and there, jewellery mostly, bits of silver and gold. She could probably pawn them for a thousand or so Weyrmarks, so her trip wasn’t a waste with regard to resources. 

She‘d successfully determined that walking around the hexagon-shaped landmass would actually take longer than getting on a ship, mainly because she wasn’t sure what dangers she’d encounter during her trip, as well as the legal repercussions of crossing national borders. If anything, her encounters with border patrol were decidedly mild. She’d expected to get shot immediately. 

A pity that synchronisation had been yesterday, otherwise she would have been able to use the dreamscape to track down Amalia’s brother. That would have been easier. As it were, she debated returning to District 4, but she was likely to be identified there as opposed to staying here. 

The motel wasn’t the safest place to hunker down, but she didn’t intend to stay the night despite how much she paid for the room. No, she intended to bike her way to the docks, either on 2 or 3. District 3 might be the better pick, considering its more industrial nature; she was more likely to find an empty warehouse to take shelter in. Of course, she could just go for empty apartments instead, but either way would be fine. 

With her bath done, Yuriko quickly got dressed, then…sat on the bed for a few minutes. Her exhaustion was actually quite surprising, but she hadn’t really slept properly in over thirty days, hadn’t she? 

Her eyelids started to close, and she almost nodded off before she jerked her head up. Grumbling to herself, she decided that sleep deprivation wasn’t a good thing at all, so she pushed the desk against the door, made sure the window was locked and covered, then wrapped herself in her blanket and bedroll, and scooted under the bed. She cast a Helpful Hand to flick off the lights, then nodded off to sleep. 

When she woke up, Yuriko wondered why she hadn’t been attacked or why some kind of catastrophe hadn’t landed in her vicinity. No, the only thing she noticed was the false sunlight deflected into her room, as well as the increasingly loud complaints of her tummy. 

She rolled out from under the bed, cast Cleanse on her bedroll and herself after she shimmied out of it, then folded everything neatly using several Helpful Hand spells. The clock read six in the morning, which meant she’d slept through the afternoon and all the way through the night. 

She ambled into the bathroom and did her morning ablutions. Cleanse really wasn’t a substitute for a bath, and she once again enjoyed an hour soaking, along with some stress relief to ease the itch. 

It was eight by the time she was finished and all packed. The room didn’t come with food, and she wasn’t in the mood for whatever breakfast the motel offered. She left the keycard at the front desk, and since she’d already paid full price yesterday, she had no qualms just walking out. 

She turned on the Bellemer pager and cleared the messages, only to receive more as the machine emptied. She scanned them, then cleared them when they offered nothing more than empty updates. All each message said was that everything was on schedule and to stand by for details. The message was the same every day. 

She found a nearby diner and sauntered inside. The place smelled of fried bacon and coffee, which only stimulated her hunger. She ordered several platefuls, paid thirty Weyrmarks, then left. 

She weighed her options going forward. One, she could trace her original path to get around the city, mainly by heading towards Central, then going around the circumferential road to reach District 3. Or she could just go around the outskirts. The latter would take longer, but was probably safer in a sense. Fewer cops and bloodsuckers, probably. 

Well, it wasn’t as if she needed to follow a boundary road—which didn’t actually exist—so she could only make her way east. She opted to walk for now and enjoyed the warmth of the sun. There was no Radiant energy to absorb from the false sun, but she produced enough that she was constantly converting part of it to Animus, and from there, she absently forged the sixth-layer Seal. That was still days away from completion, and her initial estimate, doubling the duration for every layer, was mistaken. She actually didn’t know the formula, just that it took longer with every layer above. Right now, she estimated another week for completion, and hopefully, six layers would support a fourth Satellite Sword. Likely not, she assumed, considering the stress three Satellites already put her Sword Seal core. She’d probably need another two layers, maybe three. Then, she’d have to adjust the Satellite Swords so that they were equidistant from each other in orbit. 

Taking them out of her core to use didn’t strain her core immediately, but they would begin to destabilise after five minutes. Well, it only happened if she didn’t balance the remaining swords, so if she pulled out everything, then there’s no problem. Thankfully, it was easy enough to balance them back once she was done. Even so, if she took out more than two, meaning she had to leave others floating, Irisvaile’s ravenous atmosphere began to destabilise them quickly. 

Well, each Satellite Sword was strong enough to end a fight or protect her from something ruinous. Adamant Guardian Seal could be activated from each Satellite Sword, and they could run for a minute before the Seal drained completely, which meant it would destroy the sword too. Half a minute of Adamant Guardian Seal was enough for defences, she hoped. 

She detoured to a pawn shop to sell the trinkets she picked up, and got about twelve hundred Weyrmarks for her trouble. Afterwards, she took her bike from her bag and started pedalling. It was evening by the time she arrived in District 3. As she expected, it was a light industrial zone, which meant hundreds of warehouses, storage units, and almost slums. However, finding an empty or abandoned warehouse was a tall order. 

Commerce was alive and well, and the streets, the docks, and the warehouses were quite busy. When she searched for empty apartments, it was with much surprise that she didn’t find any. Not within four longstrides of the ocean anyway. 

Well, there were always tenements along the riverside. She found a building about four hundred paces from the banks with an empty apartment near the top. From the looks of it, water damage from roof leaks kept it, and most of the top floor was empty. It was good enough to hunker down for the next couple of weeks, she supposed. 

The next two days were more of the same. She got up, dealt with food and other necessities, turned on the pager for a couple of minutes once she was some distance from her hideout, received the same message, turned it off, meditated to boost her Seal forging, then slept at night. 

She wandered around for a bit, avoided attention as best as she could by keeping her head covered by a hoodie, and generally kept herself aloof. The heat from the murder charge and the wanted status had seemingly dissipated once she killed the bear-guy, which didn’t really make sense. They should be gunning for her for that, but yet…nothing. 

So…she was bored, and she wasn’t sure how she’d replenish her resources without people trying to kill or capture her. She wasn’t about to steal, not after the first time she had to do so…ah!

She had enough resources now to pay back the shop she stole clothes from! So, on the fifth of Augustus, she made her way back to District 4, tracked down the shop, and left three hundred Weyrmarks in the till. Probably more than what the clothes would have sold for, but oh well. 

On her way back, she cut across a park, which turned out to be a cemetery. And…of course it was when the corpses burst out of their graves.