Moment of Clarity activated, the world freezing in place for a relative second before collapsing together again. Froze, unfroze. It kept happening. Daniel didn’t realize until the fifth time that he was burning mana trying to reverse time instead of pause it. He kept trying. Within him was so much mana he couldn’t sense a flow, just the outline of his body. This was far more than he’d ever had. At the same time there was denial, desperation, something Daniel could not begin to put into words.
His friend was dead.
Tak didn’t waste any time. Daniel watched as time juttered in his perspective, coming unmoored, broken between what he saw and what was in his head as something kept streaming images to it. The avianoid’s flesh rippled. The bestial transformation was not as clean and industrial as Rasalia’s combat morph but something inspired by a feral predator. Tak screamed in agony as he lashed out, but he ran into the same barrier Khiat’s arrow had found.
In his mind, he saw the future.
Casia impassively watched the Totem Warrior assault her for a few seconds before she spoke again. “It will be simpler to kill you all, then. You were given a chance.” She grabbed one of his arms, the barrier around her still protecting her immediate form and crushing Tak’s limb, though it rapidly healed. Casia brought the talons of her other hand together in a point that reached toward Tak’s-
No. The mana within Daniel was a raging storm. There was no gentle flow or pattern, simply chaos. A contained explosion his simple skin should have in no way held. Part of it listened to him.
Time broke and came together again. Daniel found himself on his knees, the strange half-visions in his head gone for a moment. Everyone else was as stunned as he was, Tak was the only one who had taken the initiative. He was nowhere to be found now.
Gadriel was next to move. He threw his sword, Casia not even responding but letting it bounce off of the shield around her. In his haze Daniel saw Hunter’s body on the ground, unmoving. The Artificer threw back his head and screamed wordlessly. The thoughts of his other friends were still in his head, but distant. He could barely hear them.
We have to keep fighting! Lograve, what happened to Tak?
I don’t know! That’s the Shroud around her. Casia has full control of the Spoke, even if she’s also destroying it.
Daniel, you must grieve later! To fell this monstrosity you must break her shield!
What’s happening? I’m still by the entrance. Is Hunter hurt?
Sunlight.
Daniel was shaking. He still felt the wellspring of mana within him, endless. Infinite. With all that power he could do nothing. His body was hard to move, his instincts and raw emotions could barely express themselves. Using powers of any kind was impossible, and there was an odd trembling in the magic items connected to him.
Daniel is down. There has to be another way. Khiat, Khare, give us what you can. He saw Evalyn step forward as Lograve and Gadriel split up. Casia was moving with incredible speed, but could still only be in one place at a time.
“You’re the one leading them,” Casia said as she appraised the Bard. There was a hint of surprise in her voice as she pieced it together. “I’d thought it was the Arcanist.”
“You’re dying right now,” Evalyn spoke with barely restrained fury, the mana in her body surging as Investiture of Song was activated.
Daniel’s head split open as time began breaking again. These internal visions were growing more unstable. With Hunter it had been one playback mirroring what was going on in real time. Now, it was like the vision was being split into pieces and played at random, endlessly cycling, while at the same time he experienced reality alongside everyone else.
“You will try.” Evalyn fired a Songbolt that Casia moved to dodge, covering the distance between them faster than a blink. The Bard instantly reactivated Investiture of Song to charge another bolt. She received a cut along the shoulder as she just moved out of the way of oncoming talons, Casia extending them out of her shield to go for another heart.
In his head, Daniel saw Evalyn trying to relay the weakness as she stumbled back, bleeding. Casia gave her a moment more to realize the futility before moving again. The avianoid switched tactics, going for the neck instead. The incredible power of the monster-Tyrant hit her, instantly breaking-
NO! Daniel screamed in his head again, the sound wildly warping in pitch as he became fully detached from the present moment. He felt something shatter on his arms but couldn’t be sure if it was real or not. The vision in his head disintegrated, time breaking into pieces smaller than anything he could perceive. He came to as the sound of thunder rang out. Charred stone revealed that a bolt of natural lightning had struck Casia, and the Bard in front of her was gone. The Tyrant had been hurt by this, part of her body turned to glass that became unable to shift or move like flesh. It fell off of Casia as she shed it, absorbing more sand from the surrounding floor to regenerate.
Her gaze turned to Lograve. “What was that spell, mage?” The agony of the last dual-reality quickly returned as another vision hit him. It was absolute chaos. In the real world, Daniel saw the Arcanist tense, and then chuckle.
“I guess we’ll both die never knowing. Murdon, you were right all along. I should have found better armor.” All of the ice around him melted, the Arcanist struggling to keep control as he formed it into a barrier of hardened water.
Casia sped forward, impacting the water first and choosing to scatter it rather than go for the kill immediately. Lograve tried to fight her with his power, but Casia was using the Shroud around her to part it. He might as well have tried to sweep up dust while a storm raged, and it looked like a new one was building above.
Lograve turned invisible once the majority of the water was absorbed by the sand on the ground, multiple circles of flame appearing around Casia. She just walked through them, unbothered. The arrows from afar weren’t worth considering.
Casia reached out with a hand, eyes closing in concentration. Another instance of the Shroud appeared in the air, noticeable as it blocked the first drops of falling rain. She moved her palm down, and there was a grunt of surprise as it caught the fleeing Arcanist. It was going to crush him against the Eye so fast, Lograve couldn’t get in one last joke.
Caught between two manifestations of divine power, the Arcanist’s body was quickly-
Daniel didn’t scream anything this time. His mind was struggling to stay together as it seemed time itself was breaking down. He just knew what he was seeing couldn’t happen. It wouldn’t happen.
...
Gadriel stood firm, the last person who could truly face Casia. Daniel lay unmoving in the sand. Khare and Khiat were both too injured to do more than they already were from range. Farthest Run had been on the way, but they hadn’t wanted to wait for them to catch up. It hadn’t been clear until the Eye itself that every living member of the Council was up there and time had not been their ally.
It was just him. He knew Hunter was dead. Of the others, their fate was unclear. The sword and shield Bennar had left him were in hands, the items bound to paired bracelets. Too high of a level for him to use. Once summoned, they would grow steadily heavier and more painful to hold. Blessed could occasionally use items one level higher than themselves for short periods of time, but there was always a cost. If he persisted for any amount of time with these it could lead to worse, potentially fatal consequences.
“You’re from Threst, aren’t you?” Casia asked as she watched Gadriel clip the spectral sword and shield to his wrists. “If you have any family there, you’d do better to go to them then remain here. Aughal may be doomed, but we do not intend to break every region. The change coming to this world only requires death because your gods use mortals as their shield. When they are gone, our suffering will finally be at an end.”
“Perhaps, but I would rather your vile schemes harm none other.”
“Bennar was wrong. You’ll never see the truth.” Casia shot forward, although her attack was deflected off of the spectral shield that suddenly appeared from his arm. Gadriel grunted under the recoil but kept it up. The high level sword cut out next, though this did not defeat the Shroud immediately. All it accomplished was allowing Gadriel to gain enough momentum to keep ahead of the growing weight in his arms. He still felt as if he was burning alive, but that was only pain.
It should have been impossible for him to hold these weapons for this long, but for the interaction of two powers. First, Momentous Strikes could give him enough speed to counteract the negative effects of the items trying to break free from his grip. Second? Gadriel was Never Disarmed.
The Hero wouldn’t stop. Even as his own life started burning away from the artifacts attacking him directly, he kept going in the hopes that he could strike a critical blow. The Shroud around Casia did appear to be weakening, the level 6 blade possessing enough power to challenge a creation of the gods in some small way.
Casia tried summoning other barriers, or using her extreme speed, but neither tactic worked. The shield Gadriel possessed and his experience was proof against them, and the Shroud refused to appear directly within a living creature. No one could deny the utility of masterwork artifacts in the hands of someone competent. Or their cost. The weight of the weapons was beginning to outpace Momentous Strikes. At no time had Gadriel’s movements become faster than normal, the power had just let him keep up.
Thirty seconds in, he knew it was time. Gadriel used Gravitational Shift to temporarily adjust which way the ground was for him. His sword and shield were currently very heavy because of his insistence on using them, and not just for himself. With the cry of an incantation, the Hero sped towards Casia with his fastest Falling Star yet. At the same time, a ring on his finger flashed.
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The Shroud around Casia was impaled, cracking to allow Gadriel's attack to enter. The stolen ring of lancing fired, scorching both of them and the stone itself more than the prior lightning strike. When it was done, the Hero collapsed, arms bending with the weight of the weapons.
“Almost.” Casia, body half-destroyed, stood before him. Gadriel watched with anguished resignation as the burned parts of her form fell off, gaps replenishing. It took up a good portion of the ambient sand, and those areas where the water had seeped in did not respond to her call. There was still enough for her to fully reform. “It’s a shame. You could have been something special.”
Just before she could strike at him, Gadriel felt a hand with greater force than the items breaking his arms grab a hold of him and yank. Then, he was gone.
…
Down below in the crumbling Sun Spire, the Fate woke up. Farthest Run was further delayed by a collapsing staircase. Lastly, one man reached the top.
…
Casia opened and closed her hand over the space Gadriel had just been. She had won, but she couldn’t explain what had just happened. The ringcat she had definitely killed. Everyone else? Gone a second before she could finish them. The archers in the distance had given up at least. Casia was of half a mind on whether she would pursue them. If the dusker was smart she’d run. The gestalt? Crippled at best, and she'd be inclined to spare a member of that race over any other. Still, both might not make it out of the Spire before it came down on them, and that was only if they could bypass the siege ward she was keeping in place.
No, all that was important was to remain here and see the Spoke’s collapse through. Casia did spare a moment to recover Bennar’s heart to preserve his soul for later revival, but she left Claret’s alone. She had a feeling that wasn’t the kind of person she’d want to bring back. All that was left was the Artificer, who had completely broken when she’d killed his pet.
She decided he needed to die, at least. Somehow he’d broken through the Shroud with mere touch, something that should have taken an immense amount of power like the repeated attacks from that Hero’s sword. Also, how had lightning struck her through the Shroud earlier? There was a storm building above the Eye following the dispersal of the one summoned by Mark earlier, though one of a different nature. Bringing a thunderstorm here in the same way was certainly possible, but only with the same tier of power.
“Proxy,” Casia determined eventually. She only knew about the class because the Illustrious had warned her about them. That the personal attention of a god had been brought here wasn’t surprising. She would have been warned about the direct presence of one, and there was at least one heading towards this part of the world. But they wouldn’t get here in time.
The Artificer stirred as she made up her mind. When he stood, something had changed.
…
The remnants of the headache from time going abstract were fading. However, the mana within him continued to surge. His entire body felt like it could fly off in every direction at once, and it was painful on some level that it insisted on keeping its form. None of that mattered, not even the questions it would have naturally provoked. Daniel Brant only knew two things.
Hunter was dead.
Casia Seliri had killed him.
The murderess flew towards him with ridiculous speed. Reflexively, he tried to activate Moment of Clarity and found he couldn’t. In his current state of mind Daniel was beyond panic, but the will to defend himself still brought forth something entirely unexpected.
A bolt from the storm above crashed down on him. It didn’t hurt. It didn’t even hit him. Instead, the lightning became trapped in a bubble around his body. His improved senses could barely make out the bolt flashing through the sphere around him, still moving with the speed and energy it had in its early flight.
Casia rapidly changed course and Daniel noticed the edges of her body deforming as if she was a water balloon pressed against glass. Were it not for her body’s composition the avianoid would have compressed herself into paste against the barrier around her. Daniel’s mind was far from ok, but the part with killing intent still had his analytical side. She’s moving herself with the Shroud. That’s an active effect. She can’t concentrate on anything else when she moves.
The lightning shield around him? He gave little to no attention to it. Daniel knew it was his, a large chunk of mana had been burned summoning the bolt and there was a steady drain now that went towards trapping it. The rate of loss was insane compared to his resource pool before, but now it was just subtracting a million from infinity. He was wading on top of an ocean with no bottom. He had another thought now, directing his intent towards Casia. Kill.
Nothing happened. Daniel felt the storm want to strike, but it couldn’t so soon after the last bolt. At the same time, the Spoke she possessed began fighting back hard against Daniel, and he got the same feeling he did every time he tried to move someone else through the Shroud. Its ability to resist him appeared in proportion to what he was trying to do. Before, he was only trying to steal a small scrap of an extension of its power. Now he was trying to destroy the one whose will it obeyed.
He checked his arms next when he didn’t feel the trigger of his gauntlet bows, and found that there were fragments left of what he’d once enchanted. It seemed as if every magical item on him had self-destructed from the magical overload going on inside, save for his bag of holding which had been able to detach itself from his waist. Even his necklace and phone had been affected. He would have mourned the loss of his father’s gift if a greater loss was not still tearing his heart apart.
While he was preoccupied, the Spoke of Aughal made its next move. Without Casia needing to consciously direct it, the top of the Moon Spire shifted as the fountain had to reveal a pale blue gem dozens of meters across. It fired a ray larger than the one produced by the ring of lancing and the ground around Daniel froze. When the light cleared he remained standing, though the lightning around him had faded significantly.
Daniel dismissed the shield with an effort of will and raised a hand to the sky. It was instinctual, something he felt he should have always been able to do, like he’d just awakened a new power the normal way. Yet there was no name in his head, and he had the feeling if he checked his Encyclopedia he wouldn’t find an entry either. Considering none of his other Artificer powers worked, he might not have the Encyclopedia right now.
Another bolt struck the space around Daniel, forming a shield. Ok. Ok. Lightning shield and lightning strike, both actively channeled abilities. Slight cooldown between bolts means I can’t spam this.The Spires hit me whenever I try to hit Casia. Apparently, it was only acting on the murder in his heart that provoked a response, as the sheer hatred his soul harbored for her didn’t make another shot come from the Moon Spire.
For Casia’s part, she stared at the gem that had revealed itself and looked thoughtfully at the other Spires. A red, white, and pink gem appeared respectively when she investigated further. “I didn’t know they could do this,” Daniel heard her say distantly. The appearance of the Spire’s active defenses had not slowed their destruction. Paradoxically, the one the Spoke would expend itself defending was also by presence alone assuring its destruction.
As if testing Daniel, Casia sent a ray of fire from the Sun Spire to where Khare was sprawled, caught while trying to crawl back towards that very tower for cover. Daniel had no clear knowledge of what he was capable of and was barely hanging together. All he could do was project his will on the world and pray that he wouldn’t lose anyone else.
No thunder came for Khare. Instead, the winds of the storm tossed the gestalt half of the remaining distance, well clear of the attack that scorched several decimeters off the floor of the Eye. As Daniel was distracted, however, the gem atop the Rose Spire fired toward him. This was less a destructive beam and more a spotlight. The lightning shield didn’t react at all, as this wasn’t a direct attack. It also turned out to be the least effective of Casia’s tricks.
Emotions tried to pry into his mind, flickering between them as the ray attempted to find a way in. Lust, greed, apathy, they all found no way in. It wasn’t that Daniel was immune to them, despair certainly would have amplified his own and immobilized him. No, it was the sheer amount of mana coursing through him. The effect seemed to need to influence his mana flow to work. It might as well have tried to change the color of an ocean with a few drops of paint.
In the meantime, Daniel saw Khiat running out to help Khare get back into cover. She’d recognized whatever was happening was beyond them both. It should have been beyond Daniel too, but he was acclimating like he’d been thrust into a fighter jet on autopilot. There was no way he could fly this himself, but he could find out what all the buttons did.
Casia was in the same position. She’d figured out how to manipulate the Shroud easily enough, but these gems were a new factor. Capitalizing on this, Daniel summoned more lightning down on her after temporarily dismissing his shield. He’d tried for as many as he could get, though only one appeared and at far greater mana cost than last time. A billion out of infinity instead of a million, but still. Does the charge in the clouds have to build back up?
The Sun Spire reacted again without apparent input from Casia. The Spires couldn’t sustain infinite use of their attacks either, and the beam didn’t last as long as it had initially. Whether that was from repeated use or the damage the tower had sustained, it was clear neither side could just spam their best attacks. Daniel was able to save himself at the speed of lightning, calling down a shield on himself just before the fire ray hit him.
It still resulted in Daniel’s shield being severely depleted, and the cost of each lightning bolt, offensive or defensive, was growing painful. The first few moments of this fight had been him throwing out metaphorical punches with all the anger roiling inside. Hunter was still dead. He’s still-
But Daniel’s head was cooling down. Unbridled fury wasn’t winning out. With a steadier attempt he tried to push for Moment of Clarity. Nothing. If he hadn’t practiced his mana senses he might have never realized why it wasn’t working, although the completely atrophied sense would have at least registered the new mana. There was a haze around him as the mana building up began to seep out as a pure substance better than any potion.
So much mana and I can’t do anything with it without exposing myself. He spent another surge, perhaps more mana than he would have channeled in his life otherwise, to bring down another bolt on himself to refresh his shield. Once he knew what he could do, it was easy. Just like after using Claw Strike the first time. Anything I do against Casia gets me smacked. It might not count against the power she actively channels.
The one positive was that the rain was washing away the rest of the sand. She couldn’t use more of it to heal and seemed to be stuck here while the Spires fell. If she leaves, does she forfeit control? That didn’t change the fact that Daniel couldn’t kill her easily, not with the lightning from the sky growing exponentially more expensive. Any strike against Casia prompted a response from the Spires while leaving him open, and if Casia could use a Spire herself in addition to this reactionary attack it may be more than his shield could handle.
Instead of immediately engaging Casia, Daniel walked the short distance to Hunter’s body. He needed to move from his position. Getting near one of the bridges leading to the Spire may let him go outside of its firing angle, but at the same time he couldn’t ignore the ringcat. Casia for the most part let him. Time was on her side. Every moment Daniel spent on sentimentality led to the Spires’ collapse.
The shield parted around his hand as he brushed the fur of the ringcat’s neck. Still as soft as in life. This is a fantasy world, Daniel thought, clinging to any hope he could find. Gods exist. There has to be a way to bring people back. I’ll find it.
What he did next was hard, but it had to be done. Daniel grabbed his bag of holding with both hands. It began to break down initially, but now that he was aware of the danger he could will the mana inside of him to avoid overloading the item. The opening enlarged to fit what he wanted. Despite Hunter’s size, it didn’t take long to store. Items one wanted to place in this kind of storage had a soft, almost magnetic pull based on the will of the owner. The only rules were that no one else could possess the item, and it couldn’t be alive.
Hunter’s body safe from Casia using it as a distraction, Daniel clenched both hands and spoke. “I’m going to kill you.”
“Doubtful. Regardless of your hidden strength, you will fail. I-”
“Casia!” Someone charged past the dusker carrying Khare, almost knocking her over. Daniel saw an avianoid holding a greatsword pointed at Casia. “You took everything from me!”
She turned, confusion plain on the face that had remained revealed after Aucrest’s death. “Who are you?”