Chapter Eighty: Bad News
Tom stood on the eastern trade road, alone. He waited like that for some time, not frozen, or paralysed, but inert, numb. He stared at the blossoming lights, gritting his teeth against the pain inside him, until they wilted, and died, and the inky black calmness of the night reasserted its dominance.
He made a decision, and began to head back towards the village rings, towards the explosion. He had to know for certain that Scriber was dead. He had to. He would accept no uncertainty.
He sent Sere outwards, around him, in a cloud, spreading further, conscious of how they had been ambushed without her eyes surrounding him. He vowed he would not be taken unawares again. Sus and Sol he sent straight towards the middle village ring, where they had been cornered. They flew through the night like silent arrows.
It was less than an hour before the site came into view. Dust hung heavy in the air. Small fires burned everywhere. The stench of roasting fat and meat wafted in nauseating clouds of greasy smoke.
It was easy to see where Scriber had died. Despite the dust and smoke, Sus and Sol had no trouble picking out the spot. There was a crater in the eastern trade road, right at the edge of what had once been a middle ring village.
There was nothing left.
Not of the village. Not of the orcs. Not of Scriber.
They were gone, all of them. Wiped from existence as if by Goddess’ own hand.
The crater was massive, smoking quietly. Random, broken enchantments discharged the last of their energies into their surroundings in sporadic bursts.
The land around the crater was black and flat. It could have been cleared by a level. Every so often a hole punctuated the ground, where some villager’s cellar would have stood.
At the very perimeter of the blackness, hundreds of feet away from the epicentre of the blast, debris began to appear. Sus and Sol picked them out through the dust. Timbers, bricks, and other building materials lay jumbled up in piles with arms and legs and torsos. A little further on, live orcs stumbled about, clutching wounds, pawing at their ears, writhing on the ground.
Tom felt a vicious twist of satisfaction at the sight, but the overwhelming emotion was awe. Awe at the sheer destruction Scriber had caused. Tom couldn’t think of a single Idealist, Flawless or otherwise, or any Ideal he had ever heard of, that could cause such singular, widespread devastation.
Scriber was dead. That much was obvious. But he had taken thousands and thousands of orcs with him.
Tom knew it wasn’t a good trade, but he didn’t think Scriber would have been too unhappy with the amount.
Tom searched for a while longer, trying to see if he could find either of the two stealth Idealists that had been captured just before them, or the orc chieftain that had been at the scene. He found no trace of either. They would have been far too close to the blast to survive.
With a last glance, he left. Two massive dust clouds, from the mines, and from Scriber’s last stand, provided a solemn backdrop as Sus and Sol winged their way back to meet Tom. He turned, and slunk into the Deep.
The two and a bit day hike to Rea’s cave went by in a blink. Tom felt like he had teleported there, he had been that wrapped up in his thoughts. The entire journey, he had seen no orcs, not a single other predator of the Deep, nor any sign of either. The forest lay quiet, still, unnaturally so. It made sense. Two such large explosions would have sent most animals fleeing, and the orcs would have bigger problems to attend to than scouting.
Tom reached the rock wall, and paused for a moment to collect himself before entering. He caught two sentries sharing a significant look as they watched him. He knew he had bad news written all over his face. He pushed the clasp, swinging open the false wall, and entered the cave.
Rosa saw him immediately. She had been sending him messages through their wisps, ensuring he was alive. The Lord General had seen the explosions, and was requesting news. He had given her only a brief update. It didn’t feel right to share. He needed to tell Val and Cub first.
Rosa saw his face and knew something was wrong. She slammed into him, pulling him into a hug. She said things to him, but they didn’t register. Val and Cub waited anxiously behind her. All the other guerillas were present. All of them were watching him. He had returned alone. They could guess what that meant.
Tom let Rosa lead him to Val and Cub. He raised a stony expression to meet theirs.
“The siege orcs are dead. We did it,” he said, his voice flat. “Scriber, the others… they didn’t make it.”
Disbelieving whispers immediately began to circulate around him. Scriber was a larger than life figure, for most of them. Every single guerilla in the cave had had their life saved on at least a few occasions by his enchantments. Scriber being dead? It didn’t seem possible. Tom knew exactly how they felt.
Val and Cub quickly ushered Tom into the meeting room. The other team leads joined them. Rosa, and his mother, also filtered in. They watched him with tense, expectant expressions. Eventually, Val spoke.
“What happened, Tom? The Lord General said the mine was destroyed, but there was a second explosion too. We all saw it. Was it… was that… Scriber?”
Tom nodded. Over the last few days, he had come back to himself a little. He took a deep breath, and told them the story of Scriber’s sacrifice. He left out no detail.
The story was met with exclamations of shock and surprise. Everyone was stunned that the orcs had been canny enough to lay such a trap, but the reactions to Scriber having guessed at it prior to the mission were much more varied.
People were disbelieving. They lamented that they had ever agreed to send him out. A few even railed at Tom, saying he should have sacrificed instead. Val threw those few out until they cooled down.
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Tom didn’t blame them. They were emotional, upset. Scriber was the single biggest asset they had in terms of their war efforts. He had made the difference between life and death for all of them. And now he was gone.
But Tom didn’t blame himself either. Scriber was a friend. He had shown Tom kindness when he had been at his lowest point. Tom had thought him strange, at first, but he felt like he had come to some measure of understanding of him. The simple fact that Scriber was so unrelentingly kind to both his own familiars, and everyone else’s, put him above the grand majority of people in his eyes.
But Scriber had gone into the mission to destroy the siege orcs with his eyes open. He had known the risks, better than anyone, in hindsight. He had suspected a trap, and had still gone, because he knew if he did not, then Wayrest was as good as destroyed already. They could not hope to survive an assault by so many siege orcs.
Tom was past beating himself up for things out of his control. Scriber had made his choice. He had said he could see promise in Tom, and Tom was determined to prove him right.
He would allow himself to remember, but he would not second guess himself. He would allow himself to grieve, but he would not wallow in misery. He would definitely not torture himself with blame.
That would be counterproductive, and there was work to do. Scriber may have killed thousands of orcs in one fell swoop, but there were still tens of thousands to go.
And Tom vowed he would hunt every single last one of them down for what they had done.
Above his head, in the shadowy recesses of the cave, his wisp pulsed pink. He pulled it to him with grim satisfaction. He knew exactly which skill he had just uplifted.
Uplift threshold reached.
Skill Two (Consummate): Wings of Grief (Ritual (Familiar)).
Complete:
Mana cost: Extreme.
Cooldown: Extreme.
Requirements: Thirty life essence, thirty wind essence, five pain essence, one song and one swarm essence.
When summoned: Familiar can make trivial damage physical attacks or trivial damage short ranged magic attacks. Familiar can sacrifice themselves for a low physical damage attack.
When subsumed: Caster has increased speed, agility, and reflexes. Caster gains slow fall.
Uplift Option One:
Mana cost: Extreme.
Cooldown: Extreme.
Requirements: Sixty life essence, thirty wind essence, five pain essence, one song and one swarm essence.
When summoned: Familiar can make trivial damage physical attacks or trivial damage short ranged magic attacks. Familiar can sacrifice themselves for a low physical damage attack.
When subsumed: Caster has increased speed, agility, and reflexes. Caster gains slow fall.
Uplift Option Two:
Mana cost: Extreme.
Cooldown: Extreme.
Requirements: Thirty life essence, thirty wind essence, five pain essence, one song and one swarm essence.
When summoned: Familiar can make trivial damage physical attacks or trivial damage short ranged magic attacks. Familiar can sacrifice themselves for a low physical damage attack. Caster can sacrifice familiar bodies to regain a low amount of health.
When subsumed: Caster has increased speed, agility, and reflexes. Caster gains slow fall.
Uplift Option Three:
Mana cost: Extreme.
Cooldown: Extreme.
Requirements: Thirty life essence, thirty wind essence, five pain essence, one song and one swarm essence.
When summoned: Familiar can make low damage physical attacks or low damage short ranged magic attacks. Familiar can sacrifice themselves for a moderate physical damage attack.
When subsumed: Caster has increased speed, agility, and reflexes. Caster gains slow fall.
Tom looked over his uplift while the team leaders debated the implications of his news. He was not surprised that Wings of Grief had uplifted. He had used Sere near constantly since he had first managed to summon her, and had just suffered the loss of a friend and ally. It seemed …poetic, that it was Serenade, his collective familiar. He fancied he could feel Scriber’s approval.
All three options were incredibly good. Just like his uplift for Sweet Suffering, they followed the usual pattern for uplifts: two direct upgrades, and one extra effect option.
The change to the first was only slight. It increased the amount of life essence needed to fuel his ritual. That might seem detrimental, at a glance, but it would in turn increase the amount of bodies Sere could use, and that he could produce for her. Given that the previous amount of thirty life essence translated to twenty bodies, he would be able to double the amount of sparrows in the flock.
The third option was simple. It gave a direct increase in damage to all of Sere’s attacks. Each individual sparrow in the flock would be stronger.
The second option was the most interesting, adding a new effect. It would allow him to sacrifice Sere’s bodies to heal himself.
Tom didn’t hesitate. He picked option number two, giving it his mental assent. He felt the skill settle, and then Sere began bombarding him with thoughts.
Wee! Good! Stronger. Yay! Further, now. Safer. Good! Great!
He smiled at her jubilation. All familiars, when uplifting, would gain a stronger connection to their Idealist as a matter of course. The practical effect of it was that the bond became clearer, and able to function over longer distances.
Scriber’s mischief, at Flawless tier, had been able to function at a vastly larger range than Sere. This first uplift was his first step in changing that. Given how often he had been limited by her range lately, it was a welcome extra bonus.
The choice of uplift had been a no brainer for Tom. He currently had no way of healing himself besides the passive trickle his aura gave him, and though he didn’t like sacrificing Sere’s bodies, as long as he had one subbed, which he always did, he could replace them with time and mana. This gave him a way of healing himself in a pinch now. Currently, his mana pool far exceeded what he could reasonably use, given his skillset’s skew towards passive skills.
All in all, he was very happy with his choice. He would definitely be offered the same strength upgrade and flock size upgrades again, and he was certain he would pick them up later. At the moment, he was happy with the coverage Sere provided, and now, purely by dint of the skill tiering up, he could send her further afield, increasing his coverage more. Sus and Sol would be able to help plug any gaps until he could increase the amount of bodies he could summon for Sere.
Tom was debating whether to tell Rosa about the uplift, and weather her tirade, when the merchant with the communication skill burst into the room.
“The Lord General has sent word! Wayrest is under attack! The siege has started!”