Devotion

The squad advanced, finding a horde of Seraphin thralls. They attacked with startling alacrity. Akamori and Sala in the front slowed the attack and created a line of battle for the rest of the squad to form on. Sirsir laid down fire with Yasiin taking out targets of opportunity. The challenge wasn’t in the skill but in the sheer volume of the thralls.

Akamori re-sheathed his sword after they dispatched yet another group and studied the squad. The mages who relied on ranged spell attacks were going through their pools at a faster clip. Even with the reduction bonuses of their trainings and Path’s, this was going to be an endurance race. Akamori feared they’d run out of their pool to cast spells with before they exhausted their supply of enemies.

He flicked some blood from his gi with an annoyed sigh. “The least they could do while dying is not bleed all over my clothes.”

“Sure is nice in this spell armor.” Amara teased.

“Oh, screw off.” Akamori replied dryly.

“With my potion loaders.” Sirsir piled in.

“And my aether shields.” Yasiin added.

“You guys rehearsed this, didn’t you?” Akamori asked.

“And my helmet.” Sala said in the same dreamy tone of voice the others used.

“Why do I put up with this?” Akamori grumbled.

A seraphin fell from the canopy above, screeching its devotion to Seraphina, when Akamori’s arm flicked out in a blur. Thanton unleashed a wind slash that rose to remove the Seraphin’s head from its neck. Its lifeless body tumbled in the air, out of control, until it burst into a cloud of aether motes that glittered for a moment. As the glow faded, everyone returned to teasing him.

Tuning them out, he turned to face the environment. Since he lacked the tactical interface of his armor, he could only rely on his senses. Reaching out, he let his aura expand and took in the environment passively. The Seraphin weren’t primitive. There was form and function in the design of their domain. Light magic permeated the area.

The branches all had pavement for walking that appeared to be stone shaping magic at play. Each branch was like its own road. At the sides were rails he assumed were to prevent falls over the side. The condition of the branch they occupied was in poor condition. Various items lay strewn about, like a large party was held and litter was carelessly dropped. Mana lamps were dim, meaning they hadn’t been charged recently. So upkeep wasn’t a big focus lately.

The squad had been so nose to the grindstone lately, dealing with Morwen’s prophecies that just getting out and doing missions had felt the exception, not the norm. Akamori frowned, remembering his promotion had come at the expense of another’s life. But Rayshe made his choice, as Akamori had. A choice he could live with if asked to make it again.

His senses picked up targets ahead, and he gave a quick hand signal to halt. In the distance, a group of targets caught wind of the squad and advanced. Six seraphins armed with various weapons.

“All must worship,” a seraphin chanted.

“All must pray.”

“For the light of the Lady to shine.”

At Akamori’s strength, hearing what they had to say at his distance was trivial. Worse, he could feel their mindless adoration for their false god. The corruptive aether imbalance on their souls reeked like exposed sewage. Akamori felt that calling them thralls was intuitively accurate based on behavior and actions. The thralls advanced slowly until drawing close enough to detect the squad. Like predators swarming prey, the thralls picked up the pace.

Sala was the first wall between the possessed zealots and victory, and he was by far the thickest wall. Massive arms and fists crashed into the Seraphin, who didn’t cry out in agony or pain when struck. They just eerily continued chanting. Amara and Akamori closed ranks and helped blunt the charged, striking foes when opportunities presented. The debuffs that Amara’s aetherpoint strikes gave out paired with the damage buff that Akamori gave out ensured the Seraphin’s were manageable, even in a larger group size. Sala did a superb job of maintaining control of the enemy’s attention.

Yasiin and Sirsir hung back and laid down damage thick with power shots and area of effect spreads. Morwen guided overall actions and ensured the Seraphin made no moves the squad couldn’t handle. The battle was quick, but controlled. Akamori dispatched the last foe, rounding out the final charge of his Aether Gauge. Now he could start building a charge for his soul gauge.

He stood for a moment as he mentally reviewed the information for the two new gauges in his mind’s HUD. Even without the armor, they always remained. Sirsir slid up next to him and asked if he was ok softly.

“Yeah, I’m good. Just checking those new gauges I unlocked.”

“You mean that evil void shit you whipped out to beat that sword bitch?”

Akamori looked at Sirsir flatly. “Yes. That evil void shit.”

“Look sir, I knew you were edgy before, but I think that void magic stuff is a bit much, even for you.”

“It saved your ass, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, well, don’t let it happen again, eh?” Sirsir retorted.

The squad advanced, this time ascending the trunk to a new level. The path took them down a branch on the opposite side of the tree from the one they started on. Akamori noted there were no houses or homes. Did the Seraphin not have those? Sociological questions he lacked neither the time nor the inclination to care about. That was more Amara’s thing.

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“Have you noticed there’s no housing? Where they sleep?”

Akamori let a small chuckle out as she pipped up on cue.

“Let’s try to stay focused. Has anyone given any thought to how we’ll tackle the false god?” Morwen said from the back.

“It corrupts aether with its mere presence, right? How do you fight that?”

Yasiin and Amara looked to the Captain for any hint of a plan. Morwen just shrugged casually, “Don’t look at me. I can read possible futures. Nothing more.”

Akamori stayed silent about his gold seal. He knew instinctively it would allow him to face the Icon unphased. But he’d be doing it alone. That prospect unsettled him.

“Let’s just push ahead, we can figure out how to deal with the Icon when we get there.” Akamori suggested.

The squad formed back up after taking a quick break to recover some pool and pushed off. At the end of the branch, they found an ornate spiral staircase that climbed up to the branch above them. It rose right out of the wood, suggesting either fine craftsmanship or intricately cast nature magic. It was impressive, coming from a wild tribe.

At the top of the stairway, the path down the branch to the trunk showed something of a market area with emptied stalls and goods littered about the ground. It was quieter than what Akamori guessed its natural ambient volume would be.

“It’s like something came through and just scooped everyone out mid day.” Yasiin said.

“You’re probably not too far off the mark.” Akamori said. Above them, he could sense a heavy, oppressive aura. It was domineering, but unnaturally so. Warped. It’s very being was a corruptive presence. It left a tangy taste in his mouth, like he’d just bitten a coin.

As they passed through the empty market, Akamori took some time to study a stall. Something disheveled it like the rest, with the remains of some magical goods left on the ground. Sporting mostly natural colors with some white and gold accents here and there. The Seraphin etched lots of curvy design work into the border of the stall’s signage posted in writing he didn’t know. The craftsmanship and style reminded him a lot of the Seraphin’s cousins down below on the floor of the forest. Morwen stood next to him, looking at the same thing.

“Odd. It’s rather similar to our own style at home. Perhaps there’s a connective tissue between us and the Seraphin after all?”

Akamori shrugged, unsure. The evidence was certainly there if one wanted to make the case for it. He sure wasn’t. Not right now, at least. Not with bigger problems to deal with.

The Path around the base of the tree led them on a gradual ascent that spilled out into another thick mob of Seraphina’s thralls. They all turned in unison. Subdued wild eyes fell on the squad and everyone readied weapons. Situations like this tested a group’s cohesion and rapport. Everyone fell into battle rhythms as the mob fell upon them.

Akamori let go of his concerns for the others, trusting them to take care of what they needed to do as he drew his spell rifle from his void pouch, his spell blade Thanaton in the other. His blade cut into a singing arc as it hummed through the air and sliced through Seraphin bodies like a hot knife through butter. His air magic coating the blade and, causing it to vibrate, turned a solid blade into a laser sword effectively.

To the outside viewer with fine enough developed magical perception, they’d see the white and blue aether coating the blade and making it larger, affecting its area it could cut with while keeping mass reduced. Amara could probably see with her maetrayopts spell. Thanton sang like a tuning fork as it whirled through the air and cleaved enemies with ease. He fed targets out of reach void spell bolts from his spell rifle held in his off-hand. Normally, he’d use both arms to aim, but after his most recent infusion of magic, he’d noticed he had much finer control over his body than before. He suspected that directly resulted from his will.

A seraphin slipped by him and Amara plugged the gap, striking it in the torso with quick, rapid jabs. He couldn’t sense the damage she was doing as clearly as she could see, but he felt enough to know that she was wreaking havoc on their aetheric imbalance. He staggered as a seraphin dove into him, trying to tackle him. Both his weapons favored distance, leaving him at a disadvantage.

Akamori let both weapons fall free of his hands, landing on his back. He summoned his void familiar to help. The avatar of darkness appeared in a cloud of black smoke, lashing out with a hand that ended in claws that were cartoonishly long. The seraphin hissed in pain and continued chanting as he tried to rain down blows on Akamori. That persisted until the familiar stabbed its hand through the seraphin’s chest. The corpse toppled over off of him as the others dispatched their own targets.

Akamori created air tendrils that reached out and grabbed his weapons, drawing them to his hands. Sheathing Thanaton, and putting the spell rifle over his shoulder in a sling, Akamori turned back to scan the squad. Everyone gave him a thumbs up. He waved his hand in a tight circle and they all formed back up in their wedge and proceeded on.

“Sir, tell me you’ve got a plan to deal with this Seraphina chick.” Sirsir asked softly.

“I’ve got some ideas. But it’s a work in progress.” He replied.

The big burly chocolate skinned nco nodded at him, falling back into the formation. When he said ideas, he wasn’t lying. It basically amounted to throwing himself at the problem until he found something that worked. The others would have to wait back. He couldn’t guarantee their safety, and he wasn’t willing to risk it.

“You’re just gonna run in there and start attacking it, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. Basically.”

“How is it you plan to resist that thing’s corruption or whatever?”

“Infusion ability I think. Should keep me safe.”

“I don’t like it. You going after that thing alone. It ain’t like you to run off half cocked.”

“It’s not like that. Someone has to stop this thing, and I’m immune to its ability. Who else but me could stop it? Like I said, I’ll figure something out.”

Sirsir eyed him sideways. Akamori gave him a wounded look.

“Come on. How can you doubt me?”

“It ain’t that I doubt ya. It’s that I know how ya find your way into trouble more.”

“That’s because it’s fun!” Akamori said to Sirsir grinning impishly.

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