The Council of Fate had served Oglivarch for the last 4000 years. Gently guiding it ever onward, avoiding dangerous paths, their course set by the Matrix of Fate itself. Sacrifices were avoided whenever possible, but sometimes the optimal path required them to watch the kingdom they served suffer an unavoidable tragedy. Cities were saved and lost, but always with a greater purpose in mind. The council saved who they could, and remembered those they couldn’t.
Director Charles Weatherby, known to the council as The High Prophet, took his place at the head of the table. The council of fate was meeting in their hall, as recent events demanded their attention. None of them had ever seen such a divergence from an expected path. Everything was changing, and together, they needed to make some hard decisions.
In the dark room, lit only by an essence globe suspended above their table, the council waited in silence for their High Prophet to call the meeting to order.
Sitting in his ornate stone chair with a frown on his face, Weatherby asked the room, “So, what do we know?”
One of the prophets said, “As we suspected, everything stems from the anomaly in Dorchester. It’s already spreading across all of Oglivarch. We have the entire order working day and night updating our predictive models. Unfortunately, we’ve had a divergence of over 60%. The projected path doesn’t exist anymore. We do not yet know how serious this is, or what the future holds. We are essentially blind.”
Another prophet nearly shouted, “We can’t keep stalling. There are powerful people who rely on our prophecies, and we cannot afford to fail in our promises. Our foreknowledge has helped shaped economic policies, political decisions, and even private concerns. We have already had to send out updates for prophecies that have been altered by the matrix. I have been fielding pings from furious adherents all day. This can not continue! We need to do something. If this gets out, we’ll have a considerable loss of support from the public sector as well.”
Nods and shouts of agreement circled the table. Weatherby held up his hand and all the sound in the room vanished with a ‘clap’. Everyone calmed down and turned their attention to the High Prophet.
Sighing, Weatherby lowered his hand, and said, “We have asked the matrix for a recommendation. It refused to offer a path forward. The words of the matrix were, ‘A pebble has been cast into the lake, and the ripples change the picture. A time of change is upon you. Be sure to change with it, or be left behind.’ That was all it said, and it hasn’t responded to our pleas. But fear not, it has still been offering prophecies to guide us. We shall use those prophecies to chart a new path.”
An angry voice spoke up, “Are we just going to allow the anomaly to live? He caused all of this. He must be cut from the tree so that it may grow without his interference.”
Shaking his head, Weatherby said, “I asked the matrix what should be done with Nero Walker. It said he wasn’t a concern. The words of the matrix were, ‘The child of the heavens has made his choice. Change is upon him, as it is upon you. He will face those who wish him harm, and his smile shall end them. Stand aside, and let him pass, for his path does not need to trample yours. Let others fear his coming.’ The matrix refused to elaborate, or offer any specific prophecies directly relating to Nero Walker.”
The room was silent after the High Prophet’s declaration. The words of the matrix were not to be ignored.
Another prophet broke the tension by saying, “The matrix is wise. As far as we can tell, Dorchester now has a chance to survive a level shift. The anomaly may be causing issues, but not all of them are negative.”
Hesitant agreements were voiced, but there was little enthusiasm. Some of the prophets still looked like they wanted blood.
Weatherby spoke loudly in order to be heard. “What we need to do is figure out how to tell people that the prophecies we have been proclaiming at every Hall of Fate are now invalid. There has to be a way to phrase the issue in a way that doesn’t shake the confidence of the adherents. Does anyone have any ideas?”
The only answer Weatherby received was a silence so profound that he was surprised he didn’t hear crickets.
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Nero bobbed and weaved, dodging foot-long spikes and finger-length needles. His psychic field was humming as he tried to maintain his control on the ambient essence, while managing his floating spell-form. He could almost sense the constructs hurtling across the arena. It felt like the entire world was just a little out of focus, but it was clearing up as the fight went on.
“Focus Nero! Remember to cycle through the elemental wheel. Don’t just hold a spell-form, recapture your center and cast a new spell-form after every five casts. Concentrate!” Nick shouted from the edge of the arena.
Even though Nero was covered in sweat, panting with effort, Nick seemed happy to sit on the sidelines and sip from his flask. Nero didn’t know if Nick was doing it on purpose, but his resulting anger definitely helped him concentrate.
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Specialist Howard stood in stark contrast to his pupil. He wasn’t sweating, or doing anything other than standing still and smiling. The essence-shield surrounding the specialist was more than enough to deal with whatever Nero managed to throw at him. As if to spite Nero, he wasn’t even using his hands to cast anymore. Like a turret, he just stood there and launched pain and death at his pupil while seemingly having the time of his life.
Nero couldn’t help but notice his teacher’s non-nonchalance, and it served to stoke the young man’s fury. As he dodged the incoming projectiles, Nero swore to himself that he would repay this humiliation. Unfortunately, his determination wasn’t enough to overcome the difference in skill, and once again he was a step too late in dodging a spike.
The spike slammed into Nero’s chest below his left clavicle and spun him around like a top. Hitting the ground, Nero groaned in pain while doing his best to recapture the center he had used for his current spell-form. He didn’t manage to save it all, but he did avoid suffering a mis-cast.
As he lay on the ground, staring at the ceiling, he felt Specialist Howard pause his bombardment. Nero recognized the courtesy the specialist offered by not shooting him while he was on the ground. Yet, that only seemed to make Nero angrier. He felt like the man wasn’t even taking him seriously.
Instead of waiting for a medic, Nero forced himself to his feet and glared across the arena at Specialist Howard. Reaching up, he ripped the spike out of his chest with a bloody cough. As he had managed to keep his hold on the ambient essence, he cast the ‘medical analysis’ spell and took stock of his injuries. Part of his mind dove into his body and he saw that ribs were shattered, and there was a hole in his chest. As the blood started pouring out, he carved a quick ‘healing’ spell to close the wound. Once he stopped the bleeding, he changed the spell to a ‘bone mending’ spell to fix his body’s structural issues. Finally, he finished closing his wounds with another general ‘healing’ spell. Nero may have channeled it a little longer than necessary in order to remove some of his fatigue.
The entire time he was healing himself, he had kept up his glare. Although he was rather far away from the specialist, Nero did his best to hide any signs of his discomfort. Once he was healed, he bent over and coughed up the remaining blood, clearing his lungs.
He heard Nick shout, “Nero, stop being an idiot. Don’t waste your center on healing, that’s what the medics are for. You should be focusing on combat.”
Chuckling, Nero shouted back, “Knowing how to heal while in combat is something that I need to learn. Sometimes I keep the spell up, weakly channeling it, while I fight with Cathleen. I’m pretty sure she hasn’t noticed. One of these days, I’m going to surprise her by surviving something she thinks should have killed me. She’ll never see it coming.” Nero gave Nick a glower and warned, “You better not say anything. If you ruin my plan, you’re going to regret it.”
Specialist Howard interrupted their exchange by harshly yanking on the ambient essence. Nero had grown used to the man’s games, and kept his grip tight. It had taken him a while to find the perfect balance of ‘loose’, but ‘firm’, in order to be unshakable. It had been a while since the specialist was able to take control of the arena’s essence.
Smirking at the specialist, Nero said, “You need to start varying your technique. You’re too predictable.” Nero’s heart soared, as he saw the specialist’s smile fade from across the arena.
Specialist Howard shouted, “Enough talking, you should be training.” As he finished, he launched another foot-long spike, followed by a series of needles. Nero didn’t know if the man was holding multiple spell-forms, or if he was just exceptionally fast at stamping, but it didn’t really matter either way.
Realizing that he had no chance to dodge the wide spread, Nero decided to try something new. His psychic field was already spread out, so he used it to focus on the constructs the specialist had fired. While keeping his grip on the arena’s essence, he reached out to implant his center into the projectiles. Since the specialist was being lazy, he hadn’t imbued them with much of his center. Nero had no trouble taking them over. Instead of dismissing them, he let them continue on their path. When they got close enough, he had them swing around like a tether-ball on a string, and they headed right back toward the specialist. Nero added a stamped spell-form ‘iron spike’ of his own, hiding it among the projectiles he had borrowed from the specialist. A veritable ‘wall’ of spikes and needles headed back toward Specialist Howard, and Nero grinned like a maniac at the successful maneuver.
The specialist’s eyes widened, and he used his psychic field to take over and dismiss the projectiles. Unfortunately for him, he underestimated how much Nero wanted to cause him pain. The ‘iron spike’ Nero had created was packed to the gills with his center. Nero had put more than double the amount of what he normally used, doing his best to make it as solid as possible. He could only hope that it was enough to ensure it would go through the specialist’s essence-shield. By the time Specialist Howard realized that he would need to use more of his center than usual to counter Nero’s control, it was too late. Like a railroad spike being hammered into the ground, Nero’s ‘iron spike’ blasted into the specialist’s gut, causing him to bend over in pain.
Laughing in delight, Nero shouted, “Medic! The big bad war mage has a boo-boo. Somebody get him a band-aid!”
Fists in the air, Nero jumped around in victory. Even though he was covered in blood from the many injuries he had taken, Nero had never felt better. Regardless of what happened in the future, Specialist Howard would never forget that Nero had gotten through his shield.
Nero wasn’t surprised when he felt another wall of spikes and needles heading toward him without a warning. He rightly assumed that the specialist was a sore loser. Instead of trying the same trick, as he assumed the specialist had taken precautions, Nero pulled another dirty trick. Instead of doing anything fancy, he dropped flat on the ground and performed his first dual-cast. It wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t as hard as he had feared. It felt like tapping his head while rubbing his belly, but only using his mind.
Nero fired an ‘iron spike’, but this time with a ‘water ball’ surrounding it. He didn’t have much center left, and he felt like his joints were screaming at him. All he could do was lay there and hope that his plan would work.
Through his psychic field, Nero watched his ‘trojan spike’ fly toward the specialist. As expected, the man had no trouble overcoming Nero’s control and dismissing the water ball. But Nero was happy to see that the man hadn’t noticed the spike until it was too late to do anything about it. With bleary eyes, Nero watched as his trainer was spiked in the gut… again.
His head was pounding, and he felt terrible, but it was worth it. Nero heard Specialist Howard grunt in pain and yell, “Gods Dammit!”
Nero was still laying on his stomach, propped up on one elbow. He may look like he had one foot in the grave, but his goal had been achieved. As he laughed his ass-off, he started to feel light-headed. The effort he spent projecting his laughter, so that the specialist could hear it, turned out to be too much. Nero’s eyes rolled back into his head, and he passed out.
If Nero got to do it all over again, he wouldn’t have wasted his time laughing. He would have taken the opportunity to verbally mock his teacher instead. Years of online gaming had taught him that an insult is remembered far longer than a mocking laugh.