The entrance to the Blood Guard’s central building, it turned out, was huge. Tiered walls covered sharp blades and topped with dozens of people in red and white swept down and around to collect around a series of huge gates, themselves studded with wicked looking spikes.
“... This seems like overkill.”
“With polite understatement, it is... fine.”
The two of them – Reff and Darina – had given me a hard time about not having found the door before jumping on the roof, but what they could say was limited, as neither of them had thought to check the sides first. Normally, we might have, but thinking was difficult sometimes in Ouhl. Not that my decisions to that point had all been great ones, even before coming into contact with the aura.
We approached the first gate, which was flanked at ground level by two-dozen heavily armoured individuals, their helmeted heads on a constant swivel. As we stepped close, those same heads spun to face us almost as one, a slightly creepy action, given that we could not make out the eyes within the dark of the helmets.
“Halt! What business d’you have with the Blood Guard!”
“We’re here to see Badan Tain – I just saw him, he should be expecting us.”
Tain had not bothered to wait for me to fetch my friends, choosing instead to simply go back inside, as we had ‘ruined his break’ as he put it.
“No brats on our list; you better leave, maybe go find your parents.”
There were metallic chuckles from the others gathered, and I felt Darina tense beside me. I felt myself tense; it was difficult to believe that the city was as peaceful as it was, given the level of belligerence we had encountered from many of its citizens. For maybe half a second, I considered just reaching out and blasting his shell open with an arc-blast from my lightning, but managed to reel myself in with nothing more than a twitch of my arm to show the impulse had ever existed.
Darina on the other had had slightly less restraint, and to my surprise was backed up by Reff – who it must be said, was probably older than any of the people facing us.
“How about I re-attach your head between your legs, to better reflect your personality, dickhead?”
The last was said with a glance in my direction; as far as I knew, the insult was not native to the world and I was sort of worried that Darina was picking up put-downs from me.
“Wha - I’ll tear your f-”
“With sure and certain knowledge, you will show respect, or you will be shown how to, little guard.”
It was not often that I heard my big friend make threats, or sound as menacing as he did as he spoke in a dangerously low voice, his garnet-on-black eyes opened wide and staring hard.
Tapping my Focus for a moment, I stepped between the two sides with my hands up, really hoping nobody tried to stab me from behind.
“Hey! Let's all calm down! Now, I know that doesn't really work, as a thing to say, but let’s not fight! We came here to try to help, and I literally spoke to Tain minutes ago. Maybe check with him, before insulting his guests?”
“Guests? If you’re my guests, you little shits, then I’m the High King of the Shattering Lands. Why are you causing fucking problems, is it not enough you ruin my Void shitting break, you damned territory invading asshole?”
I felt my eyelids and cheek twitching as I turned to see Tain stood in the now cracked gate, hands on his hips as he glared at me.
“I'm not causing trouble, your tin-pots here are. And you said to come find you. For the infor-fucking-mation...!”
“Bah, maybe I did at that. Doney, fuck off out of their way already.”
“What?! But they threatened me, Ba... uh, Blood Marshal.”
“And we’re all the sunniest people, aren’t we Doney? Now, I thought I told you to fuck off out of their way?”
Tain’s voice suddenly lost any vestige of familiarity or friendliness, sending a reflexive shiver down my spine; he sounded more dangerous than at any point before, even when he had been dispersing the sects, and ended up killing somebody, he had sounded more casual than that.
“Right, sorry, Blood Marshall.”
The armoured guard – Doney – backed out of our way and the others went back to their positions on either side of the huge gates. Even though I could not see Doney’s eyes beyond his visor, I could feel his hot glare and just resisted the urge to return it; I did not want to re-escalate the situation.
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“You lot, inside. Try not to start any more shit, the city is fucked enough as it is without a bunch of troublemakers making trouble in our fucking base.”
Without waiting to see if we complied, Tain turned around walked out of view, vanishing through cracked gates.
I looked at my friends, and at the guards – who had at least stopped staring at us – and shrugged. Darina, and even Reff both still looked to be in bad tempers, but I was starting to think that no matter how accustomed we became to our new environment, we were never going to be normal while we were there.
“I MEANT NOW!”
The roar came from behind the gates, and even though I could tell there was some distance, it was still unreasonably loud. It also really made me want to take my time in following.
Moving besides my companions, I casually strolled through the gate, only to find another, and another, and another.
“These guys take their security pretty seriously...”
I said it under my breath, but it apparently was not quite enough for Darina to miss it.
“Wouldn’t you, if you were that infuriating? Not that you’re not infuriating, but you lack his... dedication.”
It was the first thing the apprentice had said to me since our arrival that did not seem to be explicitly aggressive, and I was hesitant to risk tipping her in another direction, and so just nodded.
Behind all the many gates, was a series of double doors with a truly giant slab of metal held above it, presumably so that in an emergency, they could drop it down to cover the doors. I could see no method of actually suspending it however, which made me more than a little nervous.
As we cleared the last wall, I heard the distinctive thud of the way behind us closing tight, and then the thunks of securing mechanisms shifting into place. Above us, I saw more of the white and red plate clad men staring down at us, some carrying weapons, others not, but unlike the outer walls, this inner set had a pair of colossal ballistae, or at least what looked like ballistae. Rather than giant bolts, the mechanisms had some kind of barrel and multiple sets of arms which swept forward rather than back, giving me the impression of some kind of cannon, but I knew there were crossbows back on Earth with reversed arms, so I could not actually tell what the intent was with the things, though I did know with some certainty that I did not want to be on the receiving end while finding out.
In an open door, beneath that massive metallic weight, Tain stood glaring at us impatiently, a clear edge of violence around his wide, staring eyes. Choosing to pick up the pace – for absolutely no reason – my friends and I hurried inside the stone building.
*
***
*
Within the squat cube was a maze, though a strangely comfortable one carpeted in a rich red and the walls almost mirror bright. Of course, above us were the seemingly ever-present murder-holes; looking up, I saw only darkness through them, but could only imagine members of the blood guard looking down at us, ready to rain death if we should step out of line.
I had yet to see an actual conflict between two organized groups, with the closest being on my first day when Walker had confronted the... Throwing Fireballs and Getting Murdered sect. I did not recall their names; when it had been said I had been mostly preoccupied with not pissing myself due to Walker’s aura. I wondered how often these sorts of defences were actually needed; to an extent, I understood the preparations, it was better to have them and not need them, than need them and not have them. But it seemed like a lot to go through for a possibility; it was not like the Blood Guard headquarters was located outside of the city, or even at its edge, but was rather placed at Ouhl’s centre, far from the threat of any sudden attack by beasts. I contemplated the likelihood of human – or humanoid, at least - attacks as we followed the grumbling Marshall through a hundred turns, passing branching hallways and staircases. I could see people attacking, in a place like that, and even if the defences might not be able to stop a determined, or specialized Foundation or Pinnacle stage cultivator, it would at least serve to slow down or stop lesser threats, allowing the Guard to concentrate on the greater ones.
After several minutes of dizzying turns, and after I was lost beyond any hope of finding my own way out with any alacrity, Tain finally came to a stop, his broad back a sudden wall in front of us. I looked around, confusedly at the long, twisting hall, as at least to my eyes, it was as blank and empty as any other stretch I had seen.
I was about to ask why we had stopped when the Marshall turned, and looking quickly in both directions, pressed his hand against the stone surface and tapped, resulting in the sound of locks unlatching and a section of the wall folding in and away.
“In.”
The instruction was curt, and while he did not look at us as he said it, choosing instead to keep his head swivelling back and forth to look along the hall. Still remembering the killing intent, I had sensed from him the man – even if it was substantially less than Walker – I stepped through the room, followed by Reff and Darina. There was a click followed by the sound of locking mechanisms and then Tain walked around us to sit roughly in a huge chair behind a desk covered in enough paper that not a single inch of the surface was visible.
The room was spartan, lacking even the plush carpet of the outer hall, the stone walls bare apart from a rack of weapons and what looked like a file cabinet. The only hint of comfort that I could see was the chair itself, which looked like deeply stuffed leather, and was clearly designed to recline.
“Alright, let’s hear it; and I warn you fucks, if you’re wasting my time – after ruining my break – I'm going to tear off your arms and use them to beat each other to death.”
There was no humour in his voice, just cold certainty, and I felt another shiver shake its way down my spine, remembering that as strong as I might me – we might be – we were not Pinnacles.
My friends and I shared a glance, and it suddenly occurred to me that I was not actually sure we were supposed to be spreading word about the Multiplicious Self or not. Making a decision quickly, I decided to leave that part out of what I was about to say, instead choosing to simply refer to an ancient weapon... should it come up.
That decided, and before either of my friends could speak – not knowing whether they had come to the same conclusion – I began to tell the Blood Marshall about the Risen Throne, and what we suspected their involvement was in the troubles the city was undergoing.
As I spoke, I came to the conclusion that we should really be thinking further ahead than we had been doing, if we were going to be dealing with world-level threats.