245: Ill Tidings (Patreon)

Fallen Anunnaki? Fallen angels?

The Biblical connotations were a little too close for Roland’s comfort. The System had said it didn’t concern itself with theology. But the Anunnaki – the Elohim – were from outside the System. Most of them, at least. Were they more powerful than the System? How about their counterparts? These Fallen were something beyond mere Fiends or Demons.

His Nephilim Bloodline felt nothing but loathing and revulsion for them. It viewed them as a disease. Something like the Wampyrhi that had plagued Hartford, but with more than an instinctive urge to grow and spread. The Fallen could think and reason. They just didn’t care.

It doesn’t matter, Roland concluded. They’re just someone else messing around with my world. That puts them on my kill list.

Meanwhile, he had a suppression formation to erase. One that he could see in its multidimensional totality. And one that he could suddenly understand.

Congratulations! You have learned a new Skill: Anunnaki Sigilry (CEL)!

Anunnaki Sigilry (Celestial, Beginner 1): You can now incorporate Anunnaki sigils and glyphs into your ritual formations. This ancient writing predates the System but has been incorporated into it. It allegedly holds the keys to rewriting the laws of reality itself. Inscribing these sigils and glyphs requires the ability to see into the fifth dimension. Rituals relying on it gain a 100% bonus to all their effects and operate as being one Grade or Rank higher than their inscriber.

Now Dahlia’s really going to kill me.

He would have to figure out a way to teach that Skill to her without her having a Svarga Affinity, or maybe figure out a way to get her the Affinity or then the Skill. Not that he was afraid of his girlfriend. He just had a healthy respect for her abilities. Imagining the look on her face when he told her about his new Skill brought a smile to his face.

Adding that to his interminable to-do list, he refocused on the formation. He understood it now. At Beginner 1, he couldn’t replicate it or come close to it. There was a level of artistry and complexity to the delicately designed pattern that indicated the designer had to be at high Apprentice or Adept level.

On the other hand, taking something apart was a lot easier than building it. Not easy, just doable. But he had to be careful, because there were traps hidden inside the formation.

Whoever had designed the formation was a nasty sumbitch. The triggers to the trap were hidden in fifth-dimensional space. If activated, it would explosively release all the energy contained in the pattern. About 5,000 Mana and 800 Essence. The Mana would be more than enough to obliterate an F-Grade Ascendant. Essence normally didn’t explode – it was an intrinsically creative force – but when it did, the results were devastating. Roland might have survived it, but he might have had to burn one of his daily rez abilities.

Disarming the trap took some doing, but his ability to inscribe Patterns gave him the tools and his new Skill gave him the knowledge.

Congratulations! Ascendance Architect has improved to Apprentice 4! Anunnaki Sigilry has improved to Beginner 5! New Feat acquired! Feat: Sigils on the Fly (Can create temporary sigils in the air, producing an effect once before vanishing).

It was hard work but also satisfying and rewarding. As he erased the last traces of the suppression formation, Roland felt a surge of relief coming from Mayor Bri. Besides keeping her from using her Skills, the formation added a layer of spiritual oppression, instilling growing despondency and despair in the victim. It was just a bit of casual sadism, tossed in simply because the designer could do it.

“Thank you,” Brianna Delmonico said with the most sincerity that she had displayed so far.

“You’re welcome,” Roland said, repressing an urge to add ‘madam mayor’ to the sentence.

Given his position as Lord of a Territory, even a somewhat sarcastic statement might give her a valid claim to New York City. And he had seen enough of her to decide she wasn’t fit to be on the board of an HOA, let alone running a city.

Next, he turned to Sondra Delgado, the self-proclaimed former best friend of the ruler of New York. He expected the Sinner would have done something special for Sondra’s formation, and he wasn’t disappointed.

The first thing he noticed was her Class Core. The normally mirrorlike surface of the purple sphere was marred by more Fallen engravings, in addition to the suppression formation he’d removed from Mayor Bri. It reminded him of the formations the Wampyrhi had placed on the Cores of their Dhampyr creations, but these were far more complex and used Anunnaki sigilry.

Roland gritted his teeth and used Class Core Delving, an Ascendance Architect Feat he hadn’t done much with. Playing around those Cores was risky as hell, but it appeared that somebody already had.

A few minutes later, he had it mostly figured out. It was hard to believe, but the formation had changed Sondra’s Class from something relatively ordinary – Combat Healer (R) – to her current Legendary Class.

More importantly, it had also imprinted an Affinity to Humility in her Core.

Affinities could be located in any of the Dantians, although among Classers they ended up gravitating to their Cores. That was the case with Sondra’s natural Affinities – Peace and Serenity. Humility was contained in an artificial node attached to the Core.

From what little he knew – which was more than most other E-Grades did – that sort of thing shouldn’t be possible. Once chosen, Affinities became intrinsic elements of someone’s identity, possibly part of their soul, and messing with one’s soul was beyond what the System could do, or allowed others to do, which amounted to the same thing.

Her other Affinities are close enough in kind; I bet she had a Humility Affinity at above 50%, but for some reason picked those two instead. The formation just nudged it into place. As she uses it, it will increase naturally.

He still wasn’t sure how the procedure worked. But if he could figure it out – the possibilities were endless.

Maybe I can get Dahlia a Svarga Affinity after all. Something to think about when I’m not doing psychic surgery.

He left the core engravings alone and removed the suppression effect. It had a few extra bells and whistles, like allowing some Skills to work while the rest remained neutralized, but they didn’t present much more difficulty. Soon, she was free and almost giddy as the emotional weight was lifted off her soul.

Even better, Roland had learned enough about the formation to be reasonably confident in replicating it. It might be a cheaper way to restrain powerful Ascendants without buying suppression collars or shackles, which went for 1,000+ Essence at F-Grade and scaled up from there.

The other two procedures went even faster, now that he had the hang of it.

Congratulations! Ascendant Architect has improved to Apprentice 5! New Feat acquired: Mana Network Inscribing: allows you to inscribe or remove formations on or around an Ascendant’s energy channels, Dantians, and Meridians. Warning: working on these System structures is fraught with risk.

“You don’t know how much this means to me. To us,” Sondra said after her brother had his psychic restraints removed. “She kept us prisoner for weeks. First inside Dungeons, then in her palace in the Empire State Building.”

“That’s over. We won’t hand you back to them,” Roland told her.

He wanted to ask her, ask all of them a bunch of questions, but they were exhausted. The long chase followed by the draining psychic surgery had wrung them dry, despite their Endurance being at full. A night’s sleep should get them back to their feet, although Sondra’s brother Raymond still had a thousand-yard stare. Whatever was wrong with him would take more than rest to fix.

“Let’s get you settled down for tonight. We have a hotel set up for travelers. It’s got lights, running water, everything but cable service. Oh, and phones or the Internet; those seem to be down for the duration.”

“Sounds like heaven,” Mayor Bri said. “We can’t thank you enough for offering us hospitality.”

“When you’ve had some rest, we can talk to you about offering you citizenship. Or visitor status if you’d rather try your luck elsewhere.”

  Once the newcomers were resting at the hotel, Roland flew back to Salisbury. He needed to discuss what he’d learned so far and get people ready.

He had a feeling things weren’t going to stay peaceful for long.

New York City, New York Territory, Tuesday (Day 19 since Integration):

“Please! I was only following orders!”

“I know,” Bethany Gray told the shredded half corpse by her feet. “But I can’t do that to your boss. Not yet, at least.”

A group of attendants was busily mopping up the blood before it could reach the carpeted floor a short distance away. Bethany had discovered that indulging herself was hell on carpets, so she had a tiled section of her executive meeting room cleared of everything but tile, and with three large drains to keep the fluids from spoiling the decor.

“Please,” Desiderio Furioso gasped. “Just kill me.”

Bethany looked surprised at his words. “Kill you? Why would I kill you? This is just a small lesson to ensure you won’t let me down next time. You are useless to me as a corpse. I just want you to turn all this pain and suffering into anger. Let it feed you, give you strength. Then you will do exactly as I ask.”

What a fucking debacle, she thought. First, I trusted that moron Wrath with guarding the special prisoners. Mainly because I knew he wouldn’t kill them, unlike Gluttony or Sloth, or drive them insane just for kicks, like the others.

It had seemed like a good idea at the time. She still needed Sondra, although that would change as soon as she advanced to D-Grade. When she abandoned Bethany’s persona altogether and only the Sinner remained. Until then, Sondra should have been safe enough in Riker’s Island.

But that damn Kensai – a freaking movie character – had managed to stage a breakout. Even worse, Ira – Wrath – had tried to keep his incompetence secret and sent a small group led by Desiderio to recapture the prisoners. The team had killed most of the fugitives but been forced to turn back in Connecticut.

I was going to deal with that suburb with delusions of grandeur sooner or later, she thought as her attendants dragged Desiderio’s mutilated body away. The henchman would recover, but Wrath would get the message. Or maybe not. Replacing a Sin would be difficult and expensive, but it could be done. Maybe the Bronx needed new management.

“Bring them all here,” she told her chief lieutenant, a grim-looking vampire who called himself Count Orlok. Probably because Dracula had been done to death.

Movie fans and cosplayers everywhere, she thought with a mixture of amusement and bitterness.

The tall pale man bowed and all but ran out to the balcony, where he would turn into a giant bat and fly to collect the other six Sins. A general meeting was in order.

They were going to war.