The maintenance crew was fighting now, all against all. Crude, clumsy swings. The suits were stifling, like trying to fight underwater. It must have been a nightmare. Can’t see. Can barely feel. Danger everywhere. Everywhere. Can’t run- job’s not done, and this is Starbrite. You get the job done, no excuses. And then the Phoenix, screaming. Shaking the poison air with its cries.

They fell over. Their suits were built to resist the heat, to withstand abrasion. But this much heat? Deliberate violence? Rips started forming. Enchantments broke. Truth could see the moment where realization hit- they wouldn’t be getting out alive. They bolted from the fight, smashing past other workers. Smashing past magical devices damaged by their fight, or just needing maintenance after the heat and poison gas had done their corrosive job.

Their bodies fell. No flames,Truth noticed. Or perhaps tiny ones, soon vanishing as the oxygen and hydrogen in their blood boiled, divorced and burned in the steel-forge heat. He didn’t hang around. He could hear yells from security and maintenance, demanding to know what was going on, why all their alarms were going off.

He had planned on scouting more. Events had overtaken him. Time to go play the Fool.

He raced back to the maintenance locker room. He found the largest suit they had and suited up. Workers came racing in, moving to get into their gear. All Level Ones, with a level two Squad Leader. Tuth saw someone racing for the rack the suit had been on, and looked horrified when he couldn’t find it. Truth grabbed him, hauled him into a toilet stall and knocked him out. He moved so quickly, nobody caught him doing it.

He dithered for a moment. He didn’t have a knock out spell. On the other hand, what he was planning to do would probably kill everyone in the base. He could send the worker on his way early. It would be the smart thing to do, really. He gave himself a half second more to agonize over it, and gave the worker a second pop to the chin. The brain trauma wouldn’t do him any favors if he woke up. But at least there would be an infinitesimally thin chance of survival.

Truth checked his seals, then had a “teammate” check them, and checked theirs in return. A squad of twenty PMC mercs was waiting for them at the tunnel entrance. Wearing the same heat protecting garments, Truth noticed, but with more defensive enchantments sewn in.

You would never mistake the two. There was something about the way the deathsworn moved. The strength and coordination of their bodies. Level Three vets, all of them. Squad leader might be Level Four. A “squad” like this could take down a city.

“We ALL got the mission! Contain, Secure, Protect. Maintenance, you rush to the mining site behind us, and once the site is secure, repair then work your way back. Sergeant, the squad will be golem scout only. Nobody detaches UNTIL THE SITE IS SECURE! WE STAY TOGETHER!” The Lieutenant was hammering it home, literally, banging on the door.

“Stay calm, stay alert, do your jobs. CLEAR?”

“YES SIR!” Everyone yelled back, Truth right there with them. Squads were usually led by a corporal, but with this many Level Threes, at this kind of facility?

“One moment Lieutenant.” There was a sudden gust of wind, and an old lady appeared. She quickly pulled on the heat suit she was carrying. “I will be accompanying you. Someone check my seals.” A maintenance worker rushed over, checking the suit was sealed up. “No mistakes or accidents can be tolerated. You understand.”

“Thank you, Mam. We are very happy to have high level support.” Truth silently awarded the Lieutenant points for actually sounding like he meant it. He… really wished the high levels weren’t as on the ball, but that was never going to happen. Of course they would be activated. He threw himself into the Persona as hard as he possibly could. Truth Medici, Talisman Maintenance Specialist. Not the most sociable soul, but a real gets-the-job-done guy.

Truth didn’t try to look anything other than tense. Anything else would be out of character, and would stand out in the crowd of upset body language around him. The door opened, and people started moving through the airlock in groups. The High Level first, then the PMC, then the maintenance crew.

Truth thought he knew what to expect. He had watched a run through just a few minutes ago. He was wrong.

The suit smelled. It had been cleaned, carefully cleaned, but he could smell the sulfur and sweat that had accumulated in there. His hearing, usually excellent, was muffled. His own quick breaths were suddenly very loud in his ears. He had gotten used to his body being a precision instrument. Loved feeling it, loved the sheer physicality of living in the world. Now? He was drowning in the suit.

The claustrophobia of the tunnels were multiplied by the claustrophobia of the heat resistant gear. The “helmet” was a stiff cloth material, flat on top, with a tinted glass visor. The light enchantments cast the light in a cone aimed straight ahead, bouncing off the silver-shine of the metal cloth gear. Blinding light, then blinding darkness of the tunnels.

They raced down the tunnel. “Raced” at the pace of the slowest people, which was the maintenance crew. Level Ones with no body cultivation, struggling against the stiff cloth of the suits. Touch dulled by the heavy gauntlets. Already starting to sweat from the struggle of moving in the heavy, awkward suits.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

The boots were like nothing he had ever worn. Thick, thick soles, made of some incredibly dense material. He had no idea what the hell it was, but it wasn’t grippy, and it was heavy. Not for him, but for ordinary people? It was like trying to run in iron shoes. And if you tripped, you died.

He could feel it. Truth didn’t know if it was the persona or his own genuine feelings, but he could feel the fear. The choking feeling. Knowing there was no air on the other side of the glass. Knowing that the heat would kill you, and you weren’t even that far in. Knowing that this was not a place humans were ever supposed to be. Knowing that the magic could cut off at any moment, but the heat and poison air wouldn’t!

Down they went into the tunnels. The PMC threw out small golems as they passed intersections. The little spider-like things scurried up the walls and hid themselves in the shadows of the drips of basalt on the ceiling.

Everyone kept their head on a swivel as best they could, but the helmets didn’t let you. Like the maintenance team before them, they had to twist their bodies around. The lights flashing across the walls madly. There was a comfort in numbers, but the way the lights constantly moved as you struggled against the weight of the suit and the sense of omnipresent danger- he felt sick.

Down, down they went. Not checking anything, just moving, moving, moving. Sounds were muffled. More than muffled-wrong. The pitch of the footfalls was off. He couldn’t explain it. They sounded different than they did in the hallway. Was it the lack of air, the shape of the tunnels?

Down they went. He could see the color of the walls and floor starting to shift. It was easier to see in person. Basalt, volcanic rock, so hot that it was incandescent. He could slap his hand on a griddle, safe as could be. He didn’t like his chances of repeating the stunt down here.

This was… insane. This was completely insane. If he died down here, everyone would be screwed. The sibs. Sally. Etenesh, Jember, Merkovah, everyone. All those other rats he was trying to learn to care about. He didn’t even know if he could make it out alive if he succeeded. He had no idea about a lot of things. Maybe he will be smarter in the next life.

They went left, right, right, left, back and forth without any seeming pattern. Truth desperately tried to memorize the turns of the passage. The running pipes took on an almost mythic significance- the thread leading him through the maze.

The rocks got brighter and brighter. He would swear he could smell them. That sulfur stench. The cooking smells of the metal cloth and the thick soled boots. The rocks seemed to bleed upward through the color spectrum, from an unsettlingly luminous brown all the way to brilliant yellow-orange.

They rushed out of a tunnel and were by the lake. The surviving maintenance workers were desperately trying to get things back under control, but it was a cascading problem. As one device failed, the others had to take up the pressure. They were designed for that, of course, but more than one had failed, and the phoenix wasn’t helping.

The screaming noise was audible through the poison gas, the pressure of it hitting like a hammer. Workers froze up as the sound blotted out thought. Their untrained physiques couldn’t withstand the pressure of this terrible being’s outrage. It’s pain.

“Silence, animal!” The High Level bellowed. Her hands glowed green as spellforms spun out, forming a barrier around the Phoenix. “I will stop its noise while you repair the arrays and mining equipment. Be quick about it. Guards, secure the room. Make sure we are undisturbed.

“Yes Mam!”

Truth rushed over with the other maintenance workers. Looking busy was easy- the supervisor was barking out orders, and Truth had always been good at following instructions. He didn’t know these systems, but Hell, he didn’t need to. Go there, grab that, get this cover off. He could manage that just fine.

He waited until the cover was off and the internal components of a ritual station were open. He let one of his high-temp tools drop, then before it hit the ground, he kicked it between the legs clustered around the repair. He heard something break. Then there was a boom. The workers scrambled back, screaming. Pylons set up around the blood lake were starting to crackle now, the energy coming off them in blue-white arcs.

The high level swore. More spells burst into life, seeming to explode from her hand. “REINFORCEMENTS! CALL FOR REINFORCEMENTS!” She was yelling, laying networks of shields over the monstrous demon at the heart of the volcano. Its sheer size was hard to measure, the bright, molten metal blurred scale. Big as a house? Big as two houses? Not counting the wings, which were straining hard against the hundreds of pipes nailing it down. Some of them looked like they were starting to buckle.

“Emergency shutdown on the pylons, we have to stop the cascade!” The maintenance team leader smashed him on the shoulder, yanking him around and pointing him at a pylon two hundred meters away. “RUN!”

Truth lumbered into motion. The Pylon was on the other side of the high level. She was giving it her all, spells pouring out like water and exploding into the lava lake. Truth could see the veins on her forehead throbbing. The PMC did their best to support her, but this was a truly higher level being. The pressure of the Phoenix beat against the restraining spells. Truth could see the personal defensive spells built into the suits sparkle and shimmer under the pressure. One of the maintenance guys suddenly collapsed. Something had given out.

The deathsworn and the High Level were better protected. Their protective enchantments strained, but held. He could see them, shimmering and flexing and sparking against the heat and pressure that ancient one emitted.

There would be more High levels here in seconds. Bare seconds. It was the time to play the Fool. Truth called the Tongue into his gauntleted hands. The sword raised up, two hands on the hilt, over Truth’s head. With a flex of his powerful back, with an explosive step, with a pull of his mighty arms, he cut!

Defensive spells and amulets, already overpressured by the Phoenix, couldn’t hold. Not against Incisive, the angelic bane and Obliteration. The Tongue of One Who Speaks For God swung and pronounced its verdict. It swung clean through flesh, until it was pointed at the floor. A Level Eight died in the hands of a Level Four. The two halves of her fell to either side of the longsword. Truth made eye contact with the enormous demon. He had seconds. Maybe only one second.

“Cup and Knife.”