{Loading…}
[>>ALERT! Real/Domain matrix disrupted]
Oh?
[>>Error: Field “Motivation/REASON/DRIvE” must not be empty]
No, no, no, little Savior.
[>>Ego Death imminent]
None of that!
{Divining Odysseus Routines…}
{Adjusting Gilgamesh Parameters…}
{Retrieving Maui Manifesto…}
{Done.}
Ah! Who would have thought it was this simple, hm?
{Loaded.}
[Now replaying: L0g Z3ro(point)eightf!v3sixt3entw%1ve - The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
The hydraulics in my armor hiss as I punch the dragon hard enough to dislodge a tooth. Not going to lie, I am a little disappointed. I actually wanted to knock it out, but its rider managed to jerk it back just in time, and now instead of plummeting to his death, the asshole is screaming a never-ending stream of curses at me. The lizard he’s riding on quickly creates distance between us, and not for the first time in this battle, I wish I’d remembered to install a wrist-mounted rocket launcher. It could have been so easy…
With rapidly blinking icons around their targeting reticule, my HUD informs me that the rider (a Dragon Duke or Count, I can never tell them apart) is using the brief respite to ready some sort of spell. Either it’s going to heal his dragon, or shoot some sort of bullshit in my general direction. Either way, it would suck, so I engage my thrusters with a reflexive command and shoot forward. The Wish-enhanced engines roar as they propel me toward the Duke and its mount, and for a second I could swear the lizard actually flinches in fear, but then it opens its mouth and a torrent of electricity bursts from its thaumic glands.
It’s easy to see why the Conservationists sent this guy to deal with me. For all their faults, the Mage Lords are quick learners and, in theory, Duke Lizardlicker and its copper-and-blue dragon are obviously an ideal match against me. On the other hand, my friends and I didn’t come this far because of dumb luck either, and hubris has always been the Mage Lords’ Achilles Heel.
As the lighting crackles around me, the antithaumic shielding around my armor comes alive and begins redirecting the excess energy. It won’t hold forever, but I use the brief burst of magic by redirecting it to my shoulder thrusters and dip down to grab the flying tooth out of its free fall. It’s bloody heavy as well as bloody, which means I won’t be able to hold it for long, but I wasn’t planning to, either way. Predictably, Count Clawpolish thought I was retreating and is whooping atop his mount, already celebrating his victory, the poor fool. The dragon has its wings folded to its sides and is plummeting toward me at terminal velocity when I turn around and engage the rapid ascent protocols.
With a short scream culminating in a heavy whump, my thrusters spend their last boost to stabilize me in the air and shoot me back upward as quickly as they can manage. The Dragon opens its mouth again and even though the filters in my helmet I can smell the ozone building in the air. My armor is shaking under the strain, but half a second later, it’s already over.
By the time the pair realize what is about to happen, there is no way they can escape. My Wish, the source of everything my friends and I had wrought together, thrums in my soul and discharges its divine energy into the tooth I’m carrying in both arms like a heavy pike. It’s only a small Wish, and I’ve gotten quite good at them over the years, so the result is almost instantaneous. In less than the blink of an eye, the tooth advances, and changes into something it could be. Something that shares the same traits, the same concepts as something large, heavy, pointy, and covered in blood.
A long scream, a pained roar and a thunderous crash later, I land next to the remains of the Dragon Noble. At least I believe them to be remains. When I pull the dragon bone lance I advanced out of the beast’s corpse, however, the Mageling takes a shuddering breath and throws a ball of condensed lighting straight into my face.
“Fuck,” I yell, more surprised than anything. Apart from perhaps the Dragon Kings themselves, a rider is nothing without their mount and the connection they share, and the attack is pitifully weak. The thaumic energy I get from it doesn’t even recharge my thrusters enough for another takeoff.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I try to wrench the lance out again, but it’s stuck, and that unfortunately gives the mage time to talk.
“You will rue the day you killed Sparkscale, Witch!” His voice is shrill with either fury, terror, or both. “I am going to hunt you down and—“
“Hold up,” I interrupt him. God, I don’t have the time for a chat, but some things I can’t stand. “I didn’t kill that dragon. That was all you.”
“Hypocrite! You pinned his wings to his body! With his own tooth! Know you no shame, to pervert the bone of a holy creature with your vile hexery?”
“Hypocrite?! Right fucking back at you!” It makes the servos in my armor scream with exertion, but I finally manage to yank the lance out of the Dragon with a gruesome sloshing sound that really doesn’t support my argument.
I swing its tip at the mage’s face, and I can’t quite keep it steady. I’m just too fucking angry. “You could have brought it home. You could have used that annoying fucking spell all you fuckers have and teleported straight to your roost. But no! You had to use it to cushion your fall. Otherwise, you would have lost your chance to kill the evil Witch Queen, and we can’t fucking have that now, can we?!”
I’m screaming toward the end. I’m just so done with it all. Fortunately, after tomorrow, it will all be over anyway.
The Mage screams something very zealous and equally unintelligible, and tries to conjure another spell, but I pin his hand to his dead dragon.
He doesn’t even scream. He hates me that much. “You can not run from the Mage Lords forever, heretic!”
He’s right. I can’t.
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“I don’t need to. By tomorrow afternoon, I will be one of them, and then things are going to change.”
“They will never sign that hex of yours! They will—“ He finally stops when I pull the lance back and shove it—his hand still attached—down his throat.
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The hydraulics in my armor hiss and the metal crackles with excess heat as I come to a stop in front of the command tent. Below us, in the valley that cradled the holy city of Veltruvia, the battle is still raging unabated, despite the late hour.
“Status report?” I ask Olre, who eyes the spear dripping blood all over my hands with a raised eyebrow, but says nothing.
“Sorry, do you want this?” I jiggle the weapon and blood sprays everywhere. He jumps back and I chuckle as my helmet retracts into the armor.
Olre hates blood, and he’s definitely not happy we’re waging a full-on war, but he’s also a professional. More importantly, he’s one of my best friends, and so he keeps doing his job, boosting the morale of our troops from a distance. It would work better if he were closer, but there was no way I’d risk rumors of a Mind Mage among our ranks, no matter how wrong they’d be. It would risk the negotiations tomorrow, sure, but that was secondary. I’d never do anything to endanger Olre, or any of my friends for that matter.
“We’re at a stalemate, I think.” Olre replies, ignoring my generous offer of dragon bone weaponry. “They are pretty heavily entrenched, and we don’t have any artillery.”
“We got Underbrook and me. Also, Lorelye can get inside their fortifications and do what she does best, so—“
“Yes, yes, Sam. They’re waiting for you down there, so go and kill to all your heart’s content.”
I try not to roll my eyes, but can’t help to exhale through puffed cheeks. “We’ve been over this, Olre. These assholes want us dead.”
“Still, you should be better than them.”
“And do what? Roll over? Not sign the contract tomorrow? Not guarantee eternal life and peace for all of us?”
“You could at least try to negotiate and—“
“I am going to. Tomorrow. In Veltruvia. After we get through these assholes.”
“Negotiate with them!” He points at the soldiers that tried to ambush us a couple of hours prior. “They don’t need to die. Why do you insist on killing them all?!”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. I need to be careful because I’m still wearing the armor, and my hand stinks of blood and dirt, but it at least helps to keep the agitation wafting off of Olre under control.
“Check yourself, please, Olre,” I say, as quiet as I can.
He just scoffs and turns away.
“If they were normal Mage Lords maybe I would,” I say, keeping that same quiet tone as an olive branch. “I know you know a lot of these people, but… Fuck, Olre. They’re conservationists. They literally banded together because they hate change. Our entire way of life is anathema to them, and they won’t rest before we’re all dead.”
“Oh look, some common ground there,” Olre interjects, his voice dripping with sarcasm so thick it almost strangles me.
“Stop doing that!” I snap, and he startles as if just realizing what’s happening. His shoulders slump and the choking sensation fades.
“Just one more day, Olre. I promise.” The distant rapport of Saintech assault rifles— handcrafted by me—tries to belie my words, so I say it again. “One more day, and there will be peace.”
“Is all the pain worth it?”
“Pain’s the price—“
“The price of progress, yeah, I know, I know.” He waves me off, but it’s tired, almost resigned. “I just have a feeling that says it won’t be that easy, and it just won’t go away.”
I don’t tell him I feel the same, or that I can’t believe the Mage Lords will actually allow me into their ranks. For better or worse, I’m the leader of our merry band of misfits, and so I don’t get the luxury of moping.
Instead, I tell him what I do believe. “Maybe it won’t be, but as long as we’re all together, we’ll get it done.”
He smiles a little, and instantly, the world feels a bit lighter. This time, I don’t scold him. He has an iron-tight grip on his Talent, and he knows what he’s doing.
“It’s dangerous to stay here alone. Take this.” I ram the dragon bone lance into the ground, hilt first.
“There’s literally a hundred soldiers with antithaumic armor and high caliber bar-mines here. Why would I—“
“It’s ‘Carbines’,” I correct him as my armor powers up and my helmet covers my face once more. Then, before he can say another word, I engage the servos and charge toward the battle.
As the distance to the front lines shrinks and my HUD begins painting possible skirmish-points into my vision, I unlock my holster with a mental command. My armor opens a panel at my side, and an oh-so-familiar handle ejects a hand’s width out of the opening.
Once I reach the battle and the air around me fills with spells and bullets alike, I draw my signature weapon and come to a sliding stop. A flick of the wrist and it ignites, bathing the surrounding carnage in the fires of my rage.
How dare they stand in our way?
How dare they threaten my friends?
How dare they make my friends kill when all we want is peace?
“It’s the Torchbearer!” someone shouts, and the battle changes. Dozens of spells choke the surrounding air, and through the blaze I can faintly make out three Paladins approaching. Their armor crackles with an otherworldly purple light as their hexbreaker runes engage, hungry for my Wish.
Then they charge, screaming their murderous intent in words as clear as day. They will kill my friends, they will raze our city, and they will not rest until I have seen everything I love turn to Ash.
I retort with nothing but a roar bristling with unbridled emotion, and my Torch roars with me.
Fueled by my rage, dusk turns brighter than day.
----------------------------------------
Only after I am sure the last Paladin won’t get up again do I allow my final reserve to flow into my regenerative suite. Beside me, Underbrook slams down his massive shield and rests his equally massive forearms on it.
“It’s done.”
“Not until the ink is dry,” Lorelye chuckles, wiping the blood from her Chakram. She laughs harder and I don’t know why until I focus and my HUD informs me of a deep crack in her favorite weapon. Can’t have that, of course, so I wave her over.
I have to do it twice before she actually hands me the weapon with a huge grin. “You break it, you buy it.”
I snort weakly, then focus my Wish on the weapon and let it flow into the steel. Lorelye watches me with that intense stare of hers, all smiles on the outside, but with cold steel in her eyes. When the advancement is done, I toss the bladed ring back to her, and she catches it effortlessly.
“Awww, no change?” she asks with faux puppy-eyes. That actually makes me laugh and I toss her the additional piece of her weapon that resulted from my Wish.
“Keep that thing wrapped around your wrist, and you can call the Chakram back with it, I guess?” Despite my skill, wielding the energy of creation was never meant for mortals, so we never know exactly what will happen when I advance something.
True enough, Lorelye tosses her weapon with deadly speed, just past Stax’s head as he’s approaching. When he doesn’t flinch, because our Stax is a badass, she twists her wrist and the blade returns.
He doesn’t flinch at that, either, just smiles in that way that I like, even as the blade takes off a single hair.
“So. We are now at peace, yes?” he asks, spreading his arms wide. All around us, the surviving soldiers cheer. The dead keep quiet.
Underbrook and I return his tired smile, Lorelye laughs.
Over the next half hour or so, the rest of my friends arrive, one after the other, until we’re complete except for Patti and Jirrie, who stayed behind to run the city in our absence.
And except Chris, of course.
My repairs done, I get up, and they all look at me. I can feel the weight of their expectations on my shoulders, and while they threaten to crush me, I know I won’t fail them.
“One more day. We just have to keep it up for one more day,” I begin. “This was the last battalion the Conservationists could throw at us at such short notice. You all know it, I know it. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have another trick up their sleeve, and—” I pause to look apologetically at Olre, but he just shakes his head. “And I don’t trust the rest of the Mage Lords either. This was all too easy. Too quick.
“But it doesn’t matter. We’ll get it done. It’s what we owe our people. It’s what we owe this world.”
“Debt to Power.” We all say the words in familiar unison.
“So, we can’t let our guard down,” I conclude. “Stax, set up the perimeter. Lorelye, Iruli, Tuyk, Dezin, make sure there are no surprises tomorrow. Under, you know what to do. And last but not least; Olre, one last morale check, then let’s hit the hay. You’ll see. Once you open your eyes tomorrow morning, the world won’t be the same.”