Path of Dragons 16 - Chapter 11 - Salvation (Patreon)

Nasiah stared into the pool of water, watching as the events outside the stronghold unfolded.  Tens of thousands of those terrible ships, each one bearing countless orcs, had descended upon their island only a few months before.  So far, the Dravith Clan’s representatives had managed to hold out, but Nasiah knew that they couldn’t keep the orcs at bay for much longer.

Already, more than a hundred combatants had died.  Not the best among them, but competent demigods who knew how to handle themselves in battle.  Their experience had not prepared them for the onslaught, especially when they had been taken by surprise.

Nasiah shook her head.

Everything had been going so well, too.  Setting up the outpost – called The Waterway – had been so easy that it had lulled them all into a false sense of confidence.  The gate had set them down on a perfect sky island blanketed by rivers and lakes.  The Dravith representatives had quickly set to work, establishing a fortress that even the dragons back home would’ve been proud to have constructed.

It was nestled at the bottom of the largest lake, which was the only reason the orcs hadn’t already taken it.  The foul creatures were too heavy to be great swimmers, which gave the water-attuned dragons a distinct advantage.

Still, the orcs had come like a rogue wave, surprising everyone.  The fury of that first assault had claimed a devastating price, and the Dravith dragons still hadn’t recovered.  They never would.

Nasiah never would.

She pushed her grief aside.  It wouldn’t do to dwell on such loss.  She wasn’t the only one to lose a partner, and she couldn’t afford to let it dominate her mind. 

As much as she would’ve preferred to wallow in it.

Unbidden, memories of Ixek flitted through her mind.  She tried to corral them, but to no avail.  A few tears gathered at the corners of her eyes.

They had had so many plans.  After the trial, they were meant to be married.  Then, they would attack the deity ranks together, going from one adventure to another, gaining power and, perhaps, one day reaching a level that mattered.  High deity, maybe.  It had been a century since anyone in either of their families had managed as much. 

And if they were lucky?

Transcendence was still a far-off goal, but if they did everything right, Nasiah believed they had a chance.  After all, she wouldn’t have been put in charge if she lacked potential.  She was one of the most talented members of the Dravith clan to rise in centuries. 

An Administrator by archetype and a hybrid by training and Legacy, she’d long worked toward a deity class that would make her a powerful combat administrator with abilities from both the Tactician and Administrator archetypes. 

That made putting her in charge of the expedition an easy choice.  Especially when she and Ixek came as a package deal.  He was almost as talented as she was, and one of the more powerful up-and-coming combatants in the clan.

Now, he was gone, having sacrificed himself to give the others a chance to retreat into the stronghold.  He’d taken hundreds of orcs with him – even a couple of deity-level threats – but in the end, they’d overwhelmed him with sheer numbers.

And Nasiah had been forced to watch it all.

Tears flowing down her cheeks.  She’d witnessed her beloved’s downfall, and all the while, there was nothing she could do to save him.  Oh, how she’d tried.  She’d ordered the rest of the expedition’s combatants to save him, but for once, her orders had been refused. 

For a while, she had raged against their disobedience.  She’d sworn vengeance.  She had promised to see them all punished.  But in the end, she knew that they had made the right choice.  The orcish force was too powerful.  If they’d gone outside the outpost’s defenses, they would have all died.

It was a cold comfort, knowing Ixek’s sacrifice had been necessary.

Nasiah waved her hand, sending a ripple across the pool.  The image disappeared, leaving only clear water behind. 

“How long?” she asked, still staring at the pool.  She already knew the answer.  Everyone in the room was well aware of the dire situation.

“A day.  Perhaps two,” answered Mikos, her second-in-command.  He was pacing, as was his nervous habit.  “Unless something changes, our defenses will be overwhelmed.  Even now, each shift is weaker than the last.”

That was the issue.

In the Empire of Scale, they could power defenses almost indefinitely.  Using crystals built by high-deity Tradesmen – or even transcendents, as was the case with their embassy in She’evoth – there were no practical limits to what they could do.  However, in an ancestral world where such things were restricted, they were down to what they could build themselves. 

Certainly, they’d brought supplies along.  Raw materials and efficient plans.  However, the work still had to be done by the participants, which limited the power output.  And not by an inconsiderable degree.  For better or worse, they weren’t the Vyrins, who could simply throw money at promising Crystalliers and Ethereal Engineers.  They were forced to raise them within the family, which limited their potential pool.

The end result were strong defenses – for a demigod.  But against a force like the orcs?  And one with deities among them?  The crystals were no longer enough, and the members of the Dravith expedition had been compelled to lend their personal power to the defenses. 

Even that was only because the Tradesmen made significant adjustments and added ethereal convertors to the original plans.  That, in turn, weakened the output, but it allowed them to maintain the shields and other defenses through means other than simple crystals.

But even that wasn’t enough.

Nasiah knew what was coming.  Originally, she’d hoped that they could wear the orcs down, but it wasn’t long before she’d shifted her focus to merely surviving until the end of the trial.

Now, she recognized the impossibility of that expectation.

It would’ve been easy to say that she had made peace with dying.  That was what everyone expected, and that was the face she presented to those looking to her for guidance.  But inside, the existential horror ate away at her.

It wasn’t death that she feared.  Nor did she dread the afterlife.  Some in the Empire of Scale believed in such things, but she didn’t.  Instead, she couldn’t stop thinking about a sudden end of consciousness.  Nothingness.  Simple nonexistence. 

To go from a thinking, reasoning person with hopes and dreams to…nothing.  That was just too terrifying for her to ignore.

More than once, she’d wished that she had grown up believing that there was something else on the other side of death.  Even if her rational mind rejected the idea, the comfort it would have provided was more than attractive.

Ixek had believed.

He claimed that some of his ancestors had dabbled in necromancy, and they had confirmed the existence of an afterlife.  He didn’t know any details, but that was enough to firm his belief.  Nasiah envied him, even if she considered the notion of an afterlife to be the height of naivete. 

But more than anything, she hoped he was right, because it meant that she would soon be reunited with her beloved. 

Pessimism told her that only nothing awaited on the other side of her death.

The world shook as the orcs fell upon the outpost’s outer shields, and with such fury that the unthinkable happened.  It collapsed.  Somewhere down below, non-combatants and fighters alike finally gave their last bits of energy to the collective defenses. 

Nasiah had seen them working in shifts, and she knew that no one ever had a chance to fully recover from their exertions.  The collective weight of exhaustion meant that no one would exert their full power.

She could sense the next wave taking up their positions and powering the next line of defenses.  But they would fall as well, and soon.

“We need to call for retreat,” said Mikos. 

“They will be slaughtered.”

“I know.”

The simple implication was that if even one dragon escaped, it would be better than sitting in the outpost and waiting for death.  Because that was what would happen if they stayed.

“Give the signal.  Explorers will escort non-combatants.  If they are detected, scatter.  Seek out one of the other outposts,” she ordered.  “With any luck, they might have survived where we could not.”

Mikos nodded his consent to follow the order, then rushed off to see that it would be done.  In the meantime, Nasiah embraced Will of Water, her most powerful and most debilitating ability. 

Perhaps it would be enough to give them a chance of escape. 

Even as the ability took effect, she only wished that she could have done more.  That she could have saved the others.  For her own life, she only regretted that she would never again see Ixek.  That she would never again feel his arms around her.  That they would never again swim the seas together.  That they would never climb to the peak and see the world as transcendents looking down upon everyone else.

She fell to her knees as ethera rushed out of her.

Tiny rivers erupted from her body, spreading throughout the outpost.  They enveloped the other Dravkin representatives, wrapping around them and enhancing their power.  With Will of Water active, each fighter under her command would enjoy vastly enhanced attributes, with an emphasis on regeneration.

It wasn’t as good as some of the buffs provided by a pure Tactician.  Her hybrid class meant that she sacrificed pure potency for versatility.  Her non-combat abilities were unimportant at the moment, but they were at least partially responsible for the outpost’s survival.

With any luck, she would pass out from the ability’s cost.  Then, she wouldn’t have to watch them all fall. 

As it turned out, luck was not with her.

An alarm echoed through the facility as the orcs breached the final level of defenses.  Nasiah felt the walls crumble as the weight of the assault combined with the pressure, and water poured in.  Orcs rode the wave, hitting the responding dragons, drakes, and serpentors. 

A battle erupted, and for a few minutes – maybe even an hour – the Dravkin forces held their own.  Nasiah watched it all, knowing that none of it would matter. 

Because every fallen orc was replaced by two more, and they were all just as deadly as the last.  On and on it went until the first dragon fell.  Molir.  A Warrior by archetype who’d taken on a more offensive class.

He was ripped apart.

Then came Asha, a Ranger who got too close to the horde.

Jian.  Orin.  Sahal. 

On and on until dozens were dying or already dead.  Nasiah pushed Will of Water to its peak, loading it with more and more ethera until there was nothing left within her.  She collapsed onto her face, every swirl in her core sending the last dregs of her energy to aid her people.

She knew their fates were sealed, but the longer they held out, the better chance the others would have of escape.

Not that she believed any of them would survive.  The lake was surrounded, and the air around the sky island was teeming with too many ships to count.  The orcs were innumerable, and the dragons were entirely outnumbered.

If only the deities had done their part.  Or failing that, warned the demigods what they were stepping into.

It wasn’t surprising that they’d kept it hidden.  So many others would have done the same thing, gaining the acclaim from a successful trial while hoping their failure would be buried under the bodies of a bunch of demigods who didn’t ultimately matter. 

That was the way of things in the Empire of Scale, where lies, corruption, and cheating were an accepted part of the culture.  So long as it wasn’t out in the open, no one would hold them accountable.

Meanwhile, people like Nasiah would pay the price for their dishonesty and failure.

Was it fair?

Not at all.

And it made Nasiah hope against hope that someone would escape to tell the tale of the deity trial’s failure.  That would be fitting, if more than a little unrealistic.

Just as she was imagining such a fate, something changed.

An explosion erupted somewhere at the edge of the sky island, sweeping across the fleet with more destructive power than Nasiah thought possible.  She was barely conscious, but that surge of energy jerked her back to awareness.  And what she sensed was apocalyptic.

Orcs burned, even underwater. 

Then, she felt something huge descend into the soupy bowl of ash the lake had become.  At first, she had no idea what it was, but then she sensed it more clearly.

A drakelon.

Anyone from her planet would have recognized such a majestic creature.  It as the undisputed ruler of any sea, and even a juvenile – like the one she sensed – would give most other beasts pause. 

And then came other dragons right behind it.  They ripped through the orcs with such ferocity that Nasiah lost track of everything that was happening.  Even with her well-attuned senses encompassing the entire domain of the outpost, she couldn’t discern any real details.

She saw all the blood, though.

And the orcish body parts.

Tens of thousands died in minutes, but that was as long as she could last.  Instead, she finally succumbed to the cost of Will of Water, with a little hope clinging to the dread that had enveloped her for so long.

Some sadness, too.

For now, she would have no chance at reuniting with Ixek.  Or if there wasn’t an afterlife, the sweet release of nothingness that nonexistence would provide.