“There it is, up ahead,” Daros said, pointing up the stairs to where there was a small sliver of fading afternoon light.
“Are you sure that this is a good idea?” Tobias was right there behind him. None of them were back to their full statistics yet, but they’d at least had a few uninterrupted hours of rest plus what healing the refugees could offer.
“What choice do we have?” Finn replied, seeing the Verdainian’s eyes bright and wide in the dark behind him, with Rosa’s tense face behind that, and then Daros.
They only had a couple of days to save Malvas. To do that, they would need to convince the Defenders to leave the citadel and, if Finn could manage it, convince the guards to come with them too. That would be a fighting force capable of holding the walls of Malvas.
Tobias nodded, but he was clearly unhappy about it.
Ahead, Finn could see the familiar steps leading up to the Fire Lodge’s double-doors, with the wide square before it filled with cracked stone pillars.
“Why is everyone being so wary? We’ve got a right to be here. I’ve got a right to go in that building!” Finn said, feeling anger as he turned and strode forward.
It was still daylight, but only just. It was giving over to evening fast, and Finn wanted to get this done before the warring of a new day began. He stepped into the square and saw that it was empty.
“Hoi! Fire meets fire!” he yelled at the top of his lungs as he made his way to the doors.
There was a change in the air somehow, and there was the slightest movement in the high windows. Finn knew he was being watched.
“I am Knight-Defender Finn Callahan, graduate of the Fire Lodge, holder of the Pyrrhic Blade, Troll-slayer, and Realm Founder. I demand entry to this place!” he shouted as he walked toward the steps.
Suddenly, there was a flicker of red from one of the windows. There was a figure silhouetted up there, and Finn was sure that it was the young man with the topknot.
“I don’t care who you are, Finn Callahan. Why don’t you strut back off to the New Zone while the grownups deal with serious business!” Vheti shouted down. “If you have come here thinking you will be welcomed, then you are mistaken! The Fire Lodge is closed to applicants at this time. We have no need for strangers and busybodies!” He leaned forward a little, his sharp, aquiline features clear now in the fading light.
Finn stopped at the foot of the steps and looked up. “I take it you are the one called Vheti?”
The figure crossed his arms over his chest. “My fame, unlike yours, precedes me.”
“I demand entry to this lodge house, as I have a right to do as set down since this place was built and the Celestial Engines were started!” Finn cried out with surety, even though he’d made up that last bit since it made sense and sounded impressive.
Vheti was quiet for a moment, and then a slow, evil smile appeared on his lips. “Request denied, Finn Callahan. Times have changed around here since you graduated, and we do not suffer fools!” He flung his hand out. “Now!”
Suddenly, there were multiple crashes around the square. Wooden doors leading to servant halls and other parts of the Fire Quarter fell open, revealing what they had been hiding all along.
It was a horde of the undead, who had been at the walls of the lodge, searching for their next victims.
“Run away home, Finn Callahan, oh-so-great Realm Founder! We have enough problems of our own!” Vheti slammed the window shut as the undead closed in on the square from three sides.
“Defenders!” Rosa shouted as she jumped forward on a plume of Air magic. She hadn’t recovered fully yet either, but Finn saw that she was expending what she had as she twirled through the air, raising a storm.
Finn snarled in fury, and the Pyrrhic Blade appeared in his hand, flames lighting up its length.
I’ve got enough for a Fire-Bolt, but I want them closer, much closer…
“Bring them to me!” Finn yelled as Tobias joined the fray. He slammed his stone shield against the ground, sending a green blast that knocked one gang of undead toward Finn.
Finn cut through the first stumbling undead and hewed the next. He needed them close, all around him, but he had to have room to swing.
>
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> You have struck the Level 17 Undead for 151 points of damage.
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There had to be five on either side as Finn spun and slashed. Every time his flaming blade struck, an Undead fell, but there were more to take their place. They staggered to their feet and reached for him with outstretched, fetid claws…
“Hai!” Rosa hit the floor, a whirlpool of blue energy suddenly discharging as she spun her metal rod about her. The shockwave smacked into the crowd, sending a dozen reeling off their feet while forcing others into the center of the square.
This Vheti hasn’t seen anything yet. Finn snarled as he jumped into the available space that Rosa and Tobias had created, whirling his magical blade about him. It left a trail of flames in a glowing arc.
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> Fire-Bolt. Convert Mana to Damage.
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Finn threw almost all of his regained Mana—about 400—into the strike, swinging the blade as Rosa and Tobias continued to push the undead back with their magic. He felt the fiery rage, the need for violence, welling up through his body from the ground itself, and he roared as he forced almost all of it into the blade.
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> You have struck the Undead Pack for 460 points of damage.
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The blast sent the pack of Undead flying as Rosa and Tobias dropped to the ground. Bodies nearest to him were simply obliterated in the explosion, and the ones at the back were flung backward. Everything went white and red for a moment, and then Finn was blinking and coughing as smoke and flames covered the square.
Despite how they were all nearing exhaustion, again, the three of them fought hard and fought as a team—fire, air, and earth blended with blades, staves, and shields—until every undead was now truly-dead. They had too much counting on them.
We need to save Malvas, was Finn’s thought, and I need to save Esther…from herself.
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> You have defeated the Undead Pack. Experience awarded to all parties.
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Beside Finn, the purple lightning of celestial energy was erupting around Tobias as he fell to his knees, gasping for air.
Good, Finn thought, although he wished that had been enough experience for him to go up a level too. Still, he was glad that those watching would be able to see what he and his friends could do together.
He gasped for air as he turned back to the doors. There were other faces in the windows now—the remains of the Fire Lodge—looking down in horrified awe.
“That is what just us three can do. Imagine what we can achieve together,” he shouted. “I do not deny that times are harsh, and that there is much danger about us. I do not deny the law of ascension—that we must struggle to survive, to become stronger—but look at what we have achieved! We could rid this place of the undead if we all came together, and there would be more experience for all of us!”
There was a peal of thunder from somewhere out over the citadel, but Finn ignored it, glaring at the windows of the Fire Lodge.
“Vheti, come to your senses! This is what Defenders are meant to do—to fight monsters! To defend each other! Now is the time for us to show the Asai just how strong we are!” Finn wanted his words to be inspiring, but they didn’t seem to be working. “Damn, I really should have upped my Charisma after all,” Finn muttered as he looked at the nervous, distrustful faces above.
There was another clap of thunder behind him, sharp as a snapping sail.
“Come on! Open the doors! You can’t leave him out there,” one of the watchers shouted at someone behind them.
Finn guessed they were talking to Vheti, but he didn’t quite understand the sudden panic.
BOOM!
Another slap of thunder. Suddenly, Daros jumped out of his tunnel and was running across the square, grabbing for the three of them.
“We have to run. Now!”
“What?” Finn shook his head in confusion. “I know I’m low on Mana, but I still don’t think there’s any in that lodge that can beat me…”
Those inside weren’t even looking at him, however. They were pointing at the shadow racing along the skyline toward them.
“Open the doors, Vheti! We’re not murderers!” another voice shouted from within.
It wasn’t thunder at all coming for them, was it? It wasn’t thunder that had been attracted by the sudden outpouring of magic. It was a vast shape that soon became visible, paler than the shadow with skin an ugly, ill-looking hue between orange and yellow.
It had no front arms. Instead, two long, tattered wings extended from its scaled shoulders. Finn watched as two powerful legs curled underneath it, ending in talons that had to be the size of Finn’s torso as they clamped down on one of the taller citadel towers.
BOOM!
What Finn had mistaken for thunder was actually the beating of this creature’s wings.
“It’s a wyvern. It’s a fracking wyvern!” Finn hissed in horror.
The creature’s neck was long, ending in a crocodilian head. Finn saw a flash of yellow, and a tail that had to be several meters long smashed through the roof.
“It’s the monster! Death on dry wings!” someone inside the building shouted as they began to flee from the windows.
“The lodge will hold! It is protected, remember?! The lodge will hold!” Vheti had appeared at the windows, grabbing shutters and slamming them shut.
“You can’t leave them out there!”
Finn stared at the creature in both awe and horror. It was massive. Every flap of its wings was a sonorous smack of thunder. It raised its head and released a guttural, crackling shriek, spewing toxic, yellow-green mist over the tops of buildings, along the stone slates, and against all remaining window panes.
“Finn! You have awoken it! We have to get under ground now!” Daros said urgently, his voice loud in Finn’s mind, but Finn couldn’t look away from the wyvern. It was too big to kill, wasn’t it?
The creature leaped into the air again and circled high overhead, then it turned toward the square.
Abruptly, one of the lodge doors banged open and a team of pale Defenders appeared within, looking up at the monster in terror.
“Come quickly!” one of them called, and Finn blinked. Maybe Vheti wasn’t a murderer after all, or maybe others in the lodge had reminded him of what the entire point of the Order of Celestial Grace was in the first place.
“Rosa, Tobias, go!” Finn shouted, pushing them forward as the wyvern surged toward them, inhaling deeply for what Finn was sure would be another burst of toxic mist…
“Daros!” Finn called, but his friend was shaking his head and stumbling back to the hole in the ground. He didn’t have the chance to say ‘my people,’ but Finn knew that was exactly what he meant. Daros was a true Defender, and a true Realm Founder at heart. Finn turned and dashed toward the open doors, scrambling inside for the doors to slam shut behind him.
Finn was suddenly surrounded by wary, wide-eyed faces. There were more initiates here than Daros had, and they all had that resilient, unkempt look of people who had been living through a siege for a lot longer than Malvas had.
“The lodge will protect us! It always has. The Beast cannot penetrate any of the lodges!” Vheti was shouting, his lanky form stalking through the crowd as he slammed the last iron bar across the door and yelled at them all to get back.
Finn’s head rang with exhaustion. He more fell than sat by the old stairs that wound up to the rooms, Rosa and Tobias beside him. There were Defenders lining the inner balcony and filling the feasting hall. Finn barely had time to think about how strange this was, compared to when he was last here.
Vheti was in his element, demanding that pathways be cleared and for people to get out of the way. Finn could see how he had taken power so quickly. He was charismatic, magnetic, and a bully. People jumped to his command as he slapped them out of the way.
“Are you sure that little old door will hold, Finn?” Tobias whispered, and Finn had to admit that he wasn’t convinced at all. He had seen the size of the wyvern, and by his reckoning, it could tear through that door with one swipe of its tail.
BOOM!
There was a mighty crash from outside that shook the building. Finn saw Vheti standing in the middle of the hall, hands curled into fists as he glared at the door, treating it and the monster behind it with the same disdain he had shown Finn.
A red glow flickered along the base of the outer wall, and there was another crash as well as a shriek of contempt and rage that split the air.
“You see? I told you the lodge will hold. The lodges always hold. We just have to remember to not be so stupid as to wander outside—unlike some!” Vheti snapped, his eyes finding the three newcomers.
All eyes were on Finn.
Do we have to do this right now? Can’t it wait until the morning? Finn groaned, but he was a Defender. He was a Realm Founder, Troll-slayer, holder of the Pyrrhic Blade.
He struggled to his feet, wavering where he stood. “You threw those undead against my people,” Finn said as sternly as he could muster.
Vheti looked at him for a moment, then barked a single, horrid laugh.
“As you keep saying, we are Defenders. This place is built on challenge. If it wasn’t for the weaker livers in this room with me, I would have left you out there with the Beast, too!” Vheti promised.
Fine, have it your way. Finn sighed. Rosa looked up at him with concern as Finn raised his weary head to focus on Vheti. It was a glare that had seen the depths of the Qlippothic Realm. It was a glare that had stared into the face of more than one Asai and lived to tell the tale.
“Then I challenge you, Vheti of the Fire Lodge, to premiership of this place. As is our custom, and the way of celestial ascension itself, I find you unfit to lead, and I will beat you in any fair challenge you care to name,” Finn said, before adding, “but I think I am going to need some rest and breakfast first.”