Boris

Due to Vorthe’s interference, they were blind in the control room. Millions of charged gold coins and endless preparations were invested into this war only for Vorthe to render their sensors and projectors useless. The things cost too damn much to be useless at a time like this. How Vorthe blocked their transmissions was beyond him. He couldn’t even begin to understand how such primitive low-lives got hold of technology powerful enough to blind the Holy Church.

He tsked in irritation. “Have they made contact?” His voice boomed inside the control room. Everyone stood at attention.

“Teams one, one, seven, three through one, one, eight, three are standing by for more instructions, Commander,” the lead analyst responded.

Boris nodded. “Tell them to engage with force and brutality. The heathens have no place in Svol’s Light.”

A runner had to scribble down his words on transference paper which irritated him even more. Was this what Vorthe had reduced their forces to? They couldn’t even send instant vocal instructions through their normal transmission channels.

“Damned be the lot of you, Vortheans!” he hissed in annoyance as he watched the runner flap the paper rapidly in his hand so the ink could transfer to an entangled paper miles away in the jungle. The very place where Messengers were waiting for his order to attack.

Transference papers were slow and unreliable. Inkblots were something they had to be wary of. They could mar or obscure messages being conferred. Intent could also easily be misinterpreted through written means. Their only saving grace was the fact that they were untraceable.

It took a very small fraction of a breath for messages to pass through their transmission channels to the bracelets on each soldier’s arm. Transference papers on the other hand could take anywhere between five to fifty breaths — more time than it would take to wipe out a company of a hundred Messengers.

No matter. They still had more Messengers than Vorthe had grains — an inexhaustible legion of them! The more they killed, the more they would have to contend with. And no man, not even a sacred artist, could fight forever without rest.

“Message delivered, Commander!” the runner replied.

“Now we wait. Protocol demands we wait fifty breaths before sending another encrypted message.” He trundled out of the tiny room with heavy steps. “Inform me when you do. I want to hear the report myself. If you get nothing in the next fifty breaths, send in another company.”

~~~

Jerome appeared over their campsite. He hovered almost a hundred feet in the air and scanned the area using the pod of Hezvar. Multiple enemies stood in a circle around their camp. There were a hundred of them in total. And many of them were enormous tamed predators.

He noticed Sheela still wasn’t back so he reached out to her through his ring.

“Hey, Sheela. Where are you?”

“Watching the Messengers surround our camp. You were thinking I had been captured, weren’t you?”

“No, no, no. I trust you can take good care of yourself.”

“Yeah, right.” She didn’t sound convinced. “They’re ready to make their move.”

Jerome aimed his rifle at one of the monsters the Messengers had with them — a massive wolf the size of the big bear from before. The foliage hid its bulk and helped it slink stealthily towards their camp as the Messengers began to move in. They had more monsters in their company than he’d ever seen in one place in this world.

He deactivated the silencer on his rifle and cocked back the charging handle. A loud boom shattered the silence in the air and the massive wolf’s head exploded in a fountain of blood and gore. The sound was like the crack of thunder and it scared away myriads of birds in the distance. The Messengers stopped, unsure of what just happened. Those around the dead wolf looked between each other.

Jerome cocked and loaded his rifle for a second shot before taking aim at another beast — a massive bear.

“Attack!” A giant of a man rumbled in a deep voice. They had decided to forgo sneaking forward, evident in the fact that they had lost the element of stealth. The messengers shot forward.

Jerome pulled back the trigger and another boom resounded, killing the bear instantly. “Okay, shooting this way is not my thing. I prefer to fight up close.”

“Then, release a fraction of your mythril x living steel, Xerae. Let me take over sniping.”

You sound overly excited to shoot, Achilleia, Jerome teased just as the Messengers broke out of the trees and into the clearing.

A huge chunk of his evolved living steel bled out of his back and he instinctively Shaped it into human form. Achilleia cast an ajanai, a network of runes and scripts on it in an instant and Jerome held out the rifle to the metal golem being controlled by his AI partner.

The metal warrior took the gun and pulled the charging handle. It held the gun with a stiffness that reminded him of the British Royal Guard. Jerome shook his head. Before joining the battle, he communicated his intent through the common telepathic path he shared with Achilleia, Nyx, and the mind-calming stone.

“Brace yourselves,” Achilleia announced through the shared connection of their rings.

Jerome shot toward the earth like a missile. He hit the ground with an earth-shattering boom and the mind-calming stone stirred. He felt her intent pass through him into the earth and the soil shifted and rolled like the waves of the ocean away from him in all directions, throwing everything and everyone not bracing themselves of balance.

Csala shot forward like lightning. Her twin blades were in her hands the next moment, slicing through foes that were still flailing midair from their sudden lurch. He caught a shadow in the periphery of his vision, moving between Messengers like a blur. She cut them down like a farmer would harvest wheat, with sharp one-inch claws at the ends of her fingers that could probably rip a tree to shreds with the amount of Sword Force pouring off them. Sheela.

“Huh? Wait what…?” Ms. Tara spluttered in confusion.

“Protect yourself, Ms. Tara,” Jerome transmitted to her with a psychic whisper. She regained her wit and entered the fray too.

The first person to reach him took a spear to the neck. The booming sound of his rifle resounded like thunder in the air and he was sure another Messenger somewhere around had popped like a watermelon.

The Messengers regained themselves and rushed them in a stampede. Arrows came at them from everywhere but did little more than become an annoyance. Csala cursed in frustration from somewhere. In the heat of battle, he shouldn’t have heard her but her words came through the rings.

“These Messengers can absorb essence even from a distance,” she said as she cut down Messengers with practiced swings. Jerome could sense the essence she had gathered bleed away into the world, or into a Messenger to be precise.

“At what distance?” Nyx asked. Her words were accompanied by grunts of pain — not hers — and whooshing winds.

Jerome sliced through the handle of an axe coming at his head and tripped the wielder with his psychic energy. Sheela took the Messenger’s head instantly.

“Three feet,” he said, preparing a fire bead… No way he was going to call it that. “Don’t let them get into your personal space, else they suck up the core of the essence you gather.”

“Got it,” Nyx said.

The moment the compressed bead of fire in his hand sparkled white like a shining star, heat poured off it in waves. Energy crackled around his palm like tiny lightning, barely controlled. The technique worked like a charm, drawing the attention of the Messengers.

“Take cover,” Jerome whispered. The ladies dashed away from him as the Messengers converged on him and he let loose the essence inside the tiny bead of flame. White flame bathed the world and colored his vision. The area of effect was about twenty feet from end to end all around him.

When the world cleared, there were no corpses around him. Only ash, molten metal, and slags remained. The remaining Messengers stopped, stood around to stare in unbelief. There were still a lot of them, all bloodied and breathing hard from exertion. The same could be said for him and the ladies too, except for the breathing hard from exertion. They had barely just begun.

“Jerome, that was… incredible!” Ms. Tara said excitedly. She was covered in someone’s guts but didn’t even know it. “That thing should not be called a fire bead. Hmm-hmm,” — she shook her head for effect — “not after what I just witnessed.”

“Give up!” A giant armored warrior boomed as he walked out of the crowd of warriors. He was heads and shoulders above everyone. “You are completely surrounded and you can’t take us all. You will run out of charge before the last of us drops dead. And when you do run out, there’ll be a thousand more of us to defeat.”

“Charge?” Jerome asked.

“That’s the known vocabulary for the term ‘essence’ in the Holy Principality of Light,” Achilleia explained. “They craft and ‘charge’ every contraption with essence that it just seems correct to say that sacred artists ‘charge’ themselves. Or that the essence in your cores and channels are charges.”

Jerome opened his palm and kindled another ball of flame. “Question,” he said out loud and looked the Messenger dead in the eye. The giant’s helmet was missing, and the mystery he cloaked himself in with it. “How much of my ‘charge’ can you absorb before I turn you into…” he gestured with his second hand to his immediate surroundings. “This…?”

For the first time, Jerome saw fear in his eyes. Real fear. He had felt like a veteran who had been blooded through numerous wars, but now…?

The tiny bead of flame in his hand suddenly sparkled like a white star. The Messengers knew what was coming next and dashed for the trees. Jerome aimed it at the giant, but Sheela beat him to killing the bastard. She blurred past him like a shadow and his head rolled off his shoulder, spouting blood like a fountain. He felt a concentration of essence spike in the air and looked to Ms. Tara who was holding a ball of orange flame in complete concentration. She was covered from head to boots in blood and her hair was matted to her skull. Even at that, she still looked adorable in her concentration.

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The ball of flame in her hand was larger, yet not as deadly as his, but deadly still.

“Squeeze it even more,” Nyx said from behind her. She towered over Ms. Tara with her six feet plus frame. Jerome nodded at her before rushing after the fleeing Messengers.

Csala shot after him. Sheela as well but she was a shadow he didn’t bother trying to find. He didn’t want to raze the forest to the ground and told the ladies as much. They picked off the Messengers one at a time and even Ms. Tara joined them. She shot her compressed ball of flame at at least six Messengers, overloading their runes with essence each time, and causing them to burn from the inside out.

Csala and Sheela were like angels of death on the battlefield. They carved a path of blood and death through the Messenger’s ranks. Nyx didn’t bother fighting anymore after the initial showdown, something about scared prey ruining the fun of the battle. Jerome, having the bird’s eye view, took the lay of the land and chose not to engage directly anymore. He walled in the Messengers, cutting off every escape route, and became a one-man Testudo: the tortoise formation. A circle of death.

The killing zone tightened slowly but gradually and soon they slayed the last of the Messengers.

“Hmm.” Ms. Tara tapped her lower lip in thought.

“What is it?” Sheela asked as she cleaned up the blood and gore from her skin and clothes. “Jerome, help us build a bath!”

“You know you can just summon water with the sapphires in your ring, right?”

She pouted. Jerome sighed and made her a large floating bubble of water anyway. Sheela shrieked in excitement and jumped into the floating bubble as he cast a levitation ward beneath it. His ring was a bit different from theirs as he had designed it to cast wards and barriers instantly, something he couldn’t do himself until he was a Spirit Realm artist and could use spell frames on his own.

“I don’t feel a drain on my core,” Ms. Tara said.

“Oh!” Sheela realized too, still splashing around in the bubble of water. “That’s true. I’ve been drawing from the ring and it just… well, it’s like it’s a never-ending fountain of essence.”

“Jerome?” Ms. Tara looked at him for an explanation. She quickly summoned some water herself and washed away the gore coating her from head to boots.

He sighed, taking off his coat, which was heavy from being blood-soaked. He cleaned himself up as he answered, “The rings are connected to a source of power that is… well, vast.”

Too vast for them to put a dent into. For now. They were connected to the keys — or seeds — the mind-calming stone ate, but who was he going to complain about that to?

The Messenger’s words from before came back to him again and he worried about resources. He needed to get back to Terra Praeta or find a way to get the resources he needed to make more weapons from here. And they’d be in limited supply here.

Jerome realized he’d always worked from the standpoint of abundance. He’d been living in a metaphorical bubble ever since Achilleia — then, Achilles — declared him the Chosen of Ilyrrah. Now he had to work with scarcity in mind. No pressure.

With a few muttered syllables, he cast a spell to retrieve the Messengers gear and armor scattered everywhere on the battlefield. Nothing happened.

“Hmm?”

“What is it?” Csala asked, noticing his confusion.

Jerome blinked. “Err… nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

Achilleia!? He screamed in his mind. What the fuck is happening!?

He heard her sigh in frustration. “Why do you think you can cast spells in Terra Praeta, Xerae?”

Jerome thought about her words. The only reasons he could come up with were because he was first chosen by Ilyrrah and secondly, he was taught those spells through various memory stones.

“And also because the world, Terra Praeta, recognizes you as a mage. Here on the other hand, you don’t have such liberties. You can’t affect the world the way you desire. Care to share why you think that is?”

Jerome started peeling armor and storage bags off the dead. This was going to take a lot more time than he liked. But he also thought of Achilleia’s words as he worked. He could use his ring to create the same effect as his earlier spell but that would be a huge waste of essence. Their battle had covered a lot of ground. The others joined him but they could sense he wasn’t in a good mood so they left him to his thoughts.

If Terra Praeta recognizes me as a mage, then it should be factual to say that this world hasn’t recognized me as one. I can’t cast spells here because my ability to do so is tied to the world’s recognition of me as a mage?

“Yes, that’s the bare bones of it. But there is a way around it…”

I’m listening.

Achilleia went ahead to share with him mysteries, some of which the Sovereign of Vorthe had explained before, such as how both worlds compared in terms of sentience, awareness, natural laws, evolution and much more. Terra Praeta was more ‘alive’ so to speak and actively involved in the preservation of her species. She had to, when there was a mad woman on her western continent wanting to wipe out all living things and turn them into her puppet children.

This world on the other hand wasn’t on the verge of collapse. It probably had gone into stasis. And it might take some extreme measures by Jerome to ‘wake’ it up. As such its natural laws were lacking in quality, muted. However, the world was still dying. Slowly but surely. It could take a million years but its resources will dry up and it will one day fall to ruin if it is not named.

So how does this help me cast spells here? Don’t get me wrong, I’m okay with using only essence to do the needful but you said there’s a way around it, Jerome said as they wandered back to their camp. They found that Nyx had rid the place of corpses and all the gore. She had gathered the salvageable resources from the dead and put them in a pile.

He was sure she had done it with magic. Of course, dragons would have no problem using magic in a world alien to them.

“Don’t be jealous, Xerae. And you sound desperate for a quick fix.”

Does that mean this would take longer to solve than I think?

“...possibly…”

Jerome sighed. I’m sorry I’m being such a jerk, Achilleia. I guess I’m so used to the convenience of spells even though I haven’t been using them for long. It feels like I’ve had them my whole life.

“I won’t pretend to know what it’s like, Xerae, but I can empathize. I don’t think I would be this calm if I found out I didn’t have access to my nexus anymore. But back to the matter at hand. You’d have to commune with the world. Just like you’ve been doing. Then we will see where we go from there.”

That’s all?

“Yes, Xerae.”

Well, that’s easy. I’ve been doing it forever.

Achilleia chuckled darkly. “We’ll see.”

That didn’t bode well.

Jerome sucked the pile into his void space but held onto some storage bags. One bag in particular gave him a strange feeling when he touched it. It was like fingers caressed the back of his hand when he touched the pouch. Jerome touched it again and the same sensation washed over him.

“Interesting,” he said as he opened it up.

“What is?” Csala said, drawing everyone else’s attention, even Nyx who was looking bored.

“This bag gives me a strange sensation when I touch it. There must be something inside that separates it from the others.” He found the same effects all the other pouches usually carried but this time, there was a stack of hand-sized, rectangular pieces of yellow paper and other writing materials in the folded space of the storage bag.

“Transference paper,” Sheela said, smiling sheepishly to herself. “Vorthe uses it to send encrypted messages.”

Ms. Tara eyed her suspiciously. “That smile of yours, and that look in your eyes. It reminds me of Jerome when he was little and up to no good.”

Jerome reared back in surprise at that. How come the discussion turned to him all of a sudden?

“Spit it out, Sheela,” Ms. Tara said.

Sheela’s smile turned into a grin. “We used to steal it from papa’s chambers to play spy when I was little. The paper was actually a large piece of vellum — we called it paper because we didn’t know better at the time. It has an entanglement enchantment, and warded against wear and tear. And then it’s cut into rectangular pieces.” She took one from Jerome. “But it seems this one is just paper.”

“How does it work?” Jerome asked.

“You write in one piece and flap it in the wind until the ink recedes into the paper. That means your message has been sent. Those were good times.” She smiled at the memory. “At least one of them should still have traces of an encrypted message. You transmit essence to your eyes to see the message on it — doesn’t mean we’ll understand it though.”

“Like this?” He held up a paper with invisible ink. The encryption on it was a bunch of dots, a variety of short and long dashes, and crosses.

Sheela took a moment to transmit essence to her eyes. “Yes, like that. Now we have to decrypt it.” She rubbed her hands together in anticipation.

Jerome gave her a knowing smile and she blushed. It was cute seeing the child in her. He turned back to the paper with red eyes, scanning it. His nanites activated and deciphered it in five seconds. “Attack. Send confirmation when done.”

“Huh?” Sheela said.

“That was quick,” Nyx said, snatching the transference paper from his grip.

She scanned it for a few seconds before handing it back with a pout but her emotions bled through their connection and he poked her mentally. She glared at him and massaged her temple. When did you learn to do that?

“Now’s not the time to be offended,” he said, ignoring her mental question. “We need to use this to our advantage. Achilleia?”

“I’ve analyzed the system of coding used,” Achilleia began. “It’s crude. With a little bit of ink we can enter a conversation with their superiors.”

“And wreak havoc among their ranks,” Sheela said with a bright grin.

“Have you always loved being a spy this much?” Jerome asked her.

She raised an eyebrow, giving him a pointed look. “The Midnight Panther is proof enough, isn’t it?”

“Very well.” He couldn’t argue with that. Jerome produced a quill and an inkwell from the same pouch. Achilleia took control of the writing materials and on a new piece of transference paper, wrote down her own message.

“What does it read?” Ms. Tara asked.

“Mission complete. Awaiting further instructions,” Jerome read aloud. “I hope that doesn’t give us away, Achilleia.”

“It won’t.”

Sheela clung to him, vibrating with excitement. “Flap it! Quick!” she said. Jerome held it out to her and she snatched the paper from him. She began flapping it back and forth with rapid movement of her wrist until the ink vanished into the piece of paper.

After gathering all they needed from the pile of junk Nyx had gathered, they set out toward the mountain in the distance once again. They could have flown there, but they were wary of being attacked from below. It was still morning and the sun was out. Anything bigger than a bird that was caught flying would most likely be shot down. Who knew if the Messengers had siege engines that could help them bring down a flying sacred artist.

Nyx stopped all of a sudden and looked around.

Csala sighed. “At least I get to practice shooting fire beads at them a second time,” she said.

He didn’t need to check with his perception to know they were being surrounded again. “Let’s not call it ‘fire bead’.”

“Ooh, do you have a better name then?” Sheela asked.

Jerome nodded. “Sun’s Kiss.”