Tyr stopped for a moment, frowning at the horizon. Based on his current clip he was capable of traveling just shy of ninety miles per hour. In bursts he could go much faster, but long distance he couldn't keep that up, and as impressive as that was it wasn't nearly enough.
Blur was too inefficient and anything else would put too much strain on his body. What he'd done thus far is skate as he'd learned to do on belting flames, utilizing Blur intermittently when it fit his recovery speed. He was 115 miles from the southern force he was expected to contact, and he'd only made up forty of those miles in fifteen minutes. Even faster than Okami, now, but it wasn't enough.
Tyr could feel his partner being injured, the pain traveled through their bond and seemed to defy any quantifiable distance in space. He'd made a miscalculation, truthfully, he had not bonded with Astrid properly and had no idea of her status. Either that, or theirs was different than the others. If Alex were hurt, he'd feel it. Sigi too, they were all bonded by request. Astrid, as always, was a mystery to him, both as a person and in all other ways.
I can't keep it up for much longer, He was in what they'd call a 'pickle'. Aware at the fact that they were very late and the conflict was raging. Okami was near the point of being disabled, and Tyr would not abide by that.
Tyr... Forgiving himself for the lack of respect a partner deserved... 'Shoot a man's wife, but never touch his fucking dog'. And Tyr was wroth, desperate for some resolution. He'd breached protocol and called all of those he knew at the scene. None had answered, meaning they were similarly swamped. He'd never had much of a hand at math--
Wait... It was almost so obvious that it was stupid. No, it was stupid, Tyr was sublime in his idiocy. Hofund was a sword. Not a sword, but the sword. The blade of all blades, the Aesir's interpretation of the dao to give it more tangible form. That's what they did, create hybrid systems out of the dao, that's exactly what an arcanum was and each of these things were arcanums within him – only fragmented and lesser. As Wotan had said, one took what was available and made it their own.
The sword, the concept of cutting. If it was something that could cut anything within reason, given the 'rules'... Could it cut through space?
–
Shit! Micah ran as fast as his legs could take him, again! For whatever reason, nobody seemed to be paying much attention to him anymore, and that was good. What was bad was everything else. Jura was slumped on the ground, her limited energy reserves not keeping up with the Finger's source of replacement bodies. He didn't even know if she was alive, she'd exhausted herself in an attempt to free Eve from the blood mage, and been practically flattened by the big man with the hammer. All that remained was her bloody body and the very frantic lizard she kept on her shoulder, mewling and pushing its head into her arm. With her out of the picture, Yucca had joined Pattoli, and they'd chased the alf off, but not after she'd simple stared at the people around her with some kind of evil eye and destroyed their bodies.
Eve was somewhere still fighting them, but their adept magic wasn't so easily countered, or so it would seem. Micah had watched as she'd blown Pattoli's top off, the literal upper half of his body, and he'd just pulled all of the pieces of himself back together in a defiance of common sense.
The orcs were met at the back by several very mobile units of outrider crossbows, falling into a disadvantageous position, seeing many of the crusade's stronger paladins begin diverting their forces. And worst of all was Astrid. At one point she'd engaged three of the Fingers alone, fighting with a skill he had never expected her capable of, slaughtering them time and time again. But after the fight had taken a turn, she'd been caught off guard and been forced onto her back foot. Fighting four people instead of three, but she'd made a fantastic show of it, thrashing them up and down the field with sublime grace.
But no person could last forever, and in tiring she had slipped up.
Unfortunately her attentions had been too split to notice Hans rising from the ground like some kind of mole, grabbing at her legs and cutting them clean off. Even still, she hadn't hissed or cried out in pain, she'd fought and taken many more with her. Swamped by paladins at that point, and Jura had arrived just soon enough to drag her away, with Astrid firing off light spells, killed scores, the former taking that maul to her head in the process.
After that they'd taken the legless Astrid away, and he had no idea what had happened to her. Everything was a mess, corpses and loose horses all around. So loud he could barely think straight, let alone summon a gate...
“Thank the gods!” Micah cried out, the massive white wolf he was so familiar with appearing from nowhere and snapping the spine of a paladin charging towards him at the last second. An almost lazy closing of the jaws, and a man simply ceased to exist. “We need your help!”
“No,” Okami rumbled. On second inspection he was covered in blood, and one of his front legs was gnarled and twisted, limping awkwardly and whining shrilly every time the limb touched the ground. “We are leaving this place, the orcs are retreating. Hop on my back, we must do the same for the time being.”
“No shot!” Micah denied him adamantly. “I won't leave my friends behind, how can you even say that!?”
Okami stared at him with one bright eye for a while before responding, his tail enough to kill the next crusader charging their way, tossing another limp body sideways, entire body folded at an unfortunately looking angle. The wolf blinked slowly, caught in some complicated emotion as his gaze flicked between the injured form of Jura in the distance, and the man in front of him. “We may very well perish in this conflict, and that was not the plan.”
“That's okay,” Micah replied calmly, resting his hand against the flank of the great wolf and wishing he had a talent for healing. Even if he had, though, he wasn't sure about that leg. Faith magic had some unfortunate side effects, almost like a curse, the lingering disapproval of a god, perhaps. And then there was the shame, of Micah saying all of this but having little to no influence on the fight, he could kill men if he really needed to, but not while trying to unwind the interference, his magic had been stuck entirely doing just that.
“Then I will join you, friend Micah,” Okami dipped his head in acknowledgment, making a growling sound. “Now get down.”
Micah ducked, feeling the roiling heat of the tongue of white flame that shout out of Okami's mouth to take a mounted knight full in the face. Micah made to give him thanks, would've, until he bore witness to the wolf groaning and shuddering. His skin and fur twisting at a violent clip until what stood in front of him became a tall young man, with snow white hair and startlingly frosty blue eyes.
“...Okay?”
“It is a better form,” The 'wolf' said, raising his damaged arm in answer to the obvious question. “Though I am in need of new set of fangs.”
Micah paused for a second before trying to hand over his katana, but the wolf denied it. Settling for one of the sidearm warhammers carried by the many knights instead, tossing it in his hand as if he'd never held a weapon before. It was odd, that, to see a wolf shape-shift into a man – but if Nala could do it, it stood to reason others could too.
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“Let us rescue our friends and companions,” The wolf said, and together they ran back into the fray, looking for the body of Jura, now obscured by the storm of silver clad crusaders still in engagement with the orcs.
–
She liked the way oil smelled. Not scented oil, mind you – albeit those were pleasant enough, but the kind of finish one put on a sword after a polishing to protect the metal. Lapping oils for gears and cogs to reduce friction, and prevent oxidation. Most things didn't need it these days, lubricants coagulated and lost their efficacy over time but a spell lasted as long as the array powering it did.
Huh... Sigi stared down at her jorunn, the sun was starting to dip, and according to Alex, Tyr had been gone for hours and hadn't reported back. He was quick, quick enough to get there in two or three hours, which was not the best sign.
Full of anxiety was she. Astrid was on her own, with only strangers and Micah to watch her back. They might not have been born sisters, but Sigi couldn't imagine life without her, that sickly girl who had slammed the much larger of the pair against the wall when they were children and screamed wordlessly until something snapped inside Sigi. Seeing that... Rage? No. It was too cold for that, but it was still a sort of passion. Sick from so long a journey at sea, Sigi hadn't been eating, nor sleeping courtesy of the nightmares, but after that bizarre altercation she'd picked herself up and found conviction. If a small, sickly, weak and bullied thing with absolutely no friends or admirers like that was so convinced things would get better, they had to.
And now... The others didn't know her like Sigi did. Astrid was the fairest and most complete of them all. A living inspiration, someone you could look at and endeavor to match and they'd never blame you for being found wanting. Everything Astrid did was with grace, talented to the point where she'd have been the best if Alexis didn't share that same irritating component of effortless exhibition.
A weight struck her then, deep in thought, carrying her off her feet and into the dusty ground below. Sigi grumbled, rolling aside and punching the weight of a man.
“Get the hell off--!”
“Tyr?”
“Shut up!” Tyr shouted. Something about him was wrong, his eyes were bloodshot and he was in a tense panic. Shaking all over and rolling off Sigi only to vomit onto the ground. Above where he'd fallen from was a black slit in the air through which a bevy of stars could be seen. Melding back into the natural image of the sky, slowly vanishing from sight. “I fucked up, I fucked up bad, Sigi!”
He scrabbled up the front of her armor, staring at her with wide and frightened eyes. Through their bond he was pushing a hundred images and sensations onto her. He'd been cast out to the sea, sinking beneath the waves and being devoured by some great leviathan of beaked mouth and writhing appendages. Buried in the ground and fallen through lava floes. So many places, hundreds of them, trying to get to somewhere in particular that didn't seem interested in allowing him passage.
Sigi's face hardened. A soul bond was not universal, it wasn't mind reading, but combined with his unique aspect and the attendant capacity of extro-empathy it was pretty damned close. She picked him up by his harness and lifted him, surprised at how frail he felt in that moment. Dying a hundred deaths in the span of a few hours couldn't have felt comfortable, he'd been other places – too. Places he would not reveal to her, little gaps here and there – but they were bad. From the edge of the world beyond Oresund's norther mountains where silence reigned, to the screaming deserts of Agoron. All the way to the cursed hellscape to the east, Tyr had in a single moment become perhaps the greatest traveler this world had ever seen.
“What is happening?” Alex asked, rising and calling the others.
“He needs help,” Sigi replied calmly. Granite faced and squinting into the sky, running through the calculations in her head. Tyr had somehow managed to access derivative dimensional magic, but it was all wrong, he lacked control. Like a man given wings and expecting to soar with the birds, no face given to the complex art of keeping the body balanced throughout. There was no stabilizing factor one might see in a gate, it was a short range blink spell of sorts – a bridge between two visible spaces.
But he was using it like a long distance transportation gate, the dimensional wards were essentially slapping his aperture on the 'other end' of things and sending him all over the world. He'd been doing this for hours and meeting all sorts of foul fates because of it. The only reason he'd come here with any relative accuracy was because their soul bond must've served as some kind of homing beacon or anchor. Effectively, though, he was just lucky – it could've been much worse.
“I can't do it, but I think together we might be able to come up with a solution.” Sigi grunted in conclusion, “It'll take hours, though.”
She tossed Tyr aside, with him rolling sideward and vomiting again. Dimensional magic used so rapidly had that kind of effect, it wasn't unheard of, and it was surprising enough he hadn't popped himself entirely through overuse of magic. Spatial and dimensional magics were of the same school but they were different, a blink spell was spatial – 'sliding' along the veil. Dimensional magic was tearing a hole in it and forcing a bridge between two points with an insulated corridor between to ensure one never left reality. To blink beyond sight was to submit one's body to the Astral, where there was no air, no time, no atmospheric pressure required for life. Just cold, yawning void stretching on for an infinity, nothingness.
“Hours?” Harkon arrived, “Hardly. Can anyone use gravity magic?”
“At what level?” Rafael asked, he'd once used gravity magic in a bid to increase the density of his ice beyond natural law, but it had ultimately been a failure, giving up on the study entirely and focusing on meta synergies instead.
“Doesn't matter, any point singularity will do,” Harkon stared at the pea sized warp in space that came next with a frown. It wasn't much, but it should be enough, this was his specialization. He pulled a contraption from his dimensional bracelet, a large, layered cube of wires and glass. Throwing it over the singularity, nodding contentedly as it stabilized in the air with the pod of blackness at its center. Feeding it the necessary energy and going through the motions of increasing its density. “Boy, I need you to imagine Eve, think about her, anything relevant to how it felt connecting with her mind. Cast the spell again, your soulbond is still in its infancy, but it should work.”
Tyr rose to his feet unsteadily through the much more gentle assistance of Alex and Samson, nodding and trying his best to calm the fear roiling through him. Something about all of that had been so utterly wrong, beyond certain that he'd been places he wasn't supposed to go again, and the world had pushed back on him, things staring down at him with baleful eyes. Casting him out of their planes and leaving him in a state of... It felt like they'd damaged his soul, if such a thing could be put into words.
He'd not simply moved around the world, there had been times where he'd visited the places of gods and alien astral intelligence's. Some of them kind, albeit surprised, and others not so much. A frozen waterfall with millions of blades pierced to their hilts, jagged frosty remains of those who'd come to climb it bearing testament to the eternal challenge. Planes of life, death, and everything in between – and finally the still place. Gray nothingness and a complete absence of sensation, perhaps beyond the concept of existence... It haunted him, what he'd seen, and there was no amount of time or distance to quantify the length at which he'd gone, completely by accident, hubris that he could control such terrific power.
But he had a purpose, he had been arrogant and assumed he could control that power. It was only an element of it, a small factor in the Hofund Dansa. The dance, of the sword, in such a hurry he'd merely swiped through the air and thought that'd be enough.
“...” Sigi didn't know what to say. Why Tyr was dancing with his eyes closed, his sword held tightly in both hands as he twirled. But eventually, it came to a stop, his eyes opened wide and white, all sclera, rolled back into his head. Staring off into the distance, he, well... he was sniffing.
“Hofund,” He swung down, there was no sound or dramatic climax to that bizarre ritual spellcasting of his. Just a ring of midnight splitting the air, worlds and stars beyond, and a great tree that seemed cast from a radiant blue crystal reigning over it all. Between them and that great edifice was the bridge that stretched for all time, the path of ancients.
This is the bifrost... Sigi gawped in unabashed awe, staring at it for the madness that it was. A window to gaze at what all the prose and mythos claimed as the physical representation of the entire reality they lived in. The mythical Yggdrasil, the home of the old gods at the higher point of its canopy. But she didn't have much time to consider this as she was lifted gently by Samson and run through whatever that rift through space was supposed to be called.