“The Standard Issue Empyrean Slate is, in spite of everything about it, an extremely advanced and complex piece of enchantment. Soulstone technology, bound to an individual and to a local network. The amount that it can do in the hands of a master is unbelievable, and even in the hands of a child it can prove to be the most potent tool of learning available to us.”

— A Visitor’s Guide to the Empyrean

They ran back to the docking bay, Sylvas heading straight for the now gaping doors, Havran for the walls that provided him with no more impediment than the open air.

After the explosions, decompression, and Sylvas own work flipping gravity around, the organized horde of the undead was now anything but. They were scattered about the room, easy pickings for any individual mage of the Ardent, but the rest of them weren’t fighting. Kaya was flailing with her blades at anything that drew too close, but for the most part everyone was just cowering back. Even Ironeyes, who until now Sylvas had suspected was incapable of actually feeling fear was on the back foot, shuffling away. Bael, never the most courageous of them, looked physically sick with terror, and it was at that moment that Sylvas realized something more was going on. These were trained soldiers, they didn’t scream and shy away from some bones that happened to be moving around. A quick blink into his Second Sight revealed a spell had been worked on them. Something almost invisible, and transparent, something that he didn’t think he would have recognized at all if he hadn’t been carefully picking apart the way that mind-effecting magic worked for his own projects.

He had to yell to be heard over the screaming. “Everyone group up.”

Havran looked at him in confusion about what was happening in the room, but Sylvas didn’t have time to explain every step of this. He called his orbitals to him, setting them in a buzzing spin around himself and charged towards his friends. Some of the skeletons could be knocked aside by a few regular blows from the orbitals, others needed a little assistance from his staff and the shifting of his weight and strength. They were oddly sluggish compared to arcane constructs, and Sylvas was starting to see why creating them wasn’t taught widely like facets of other affinities. For a necromancer they were always going to be an easy option, but for everyone else, he wasn’t sure they were worth the investment of mana required to make them move. He knocked his way through the dry bones, doing what damage he could, until he reached his squad.

There was no point in reasoning with them, no point in trying to get them to focus, he expanded out the circle of his orbitals until they were all surrounded, corralled in by the zipping spheres. Some of them even sounded startled by those buzzing by, so it was no small surprise that the lurching remains of the dead were unsettling them. Lowering his hand, Sylvas brought the spheres down onto the surface of the deck. Sparks flew as they spun along their course, a blackened line smeared out behind each orbital. Touching a fingertip to the big clear crystal on his gauntlet, he drew out some neutral mana, and with a flick of his wrist infused it into the spheres. They trailed it behind them, each set of sparks now infused with Sylvas magic. All of them made into a single continuous circle of magic by the constant motion.

The moment the magic circle snapped shut, the fear spell died. Sylvas hauled up his now somewhat scuffed looking orbitals and launched them outwards, smashing into the few lurching skeletons still around. Kaya seemed to shake off the spell first, leaping out to lay waste to a pair of remaining undead while the rest of the squad got their heads back together.

“What was that?” Gharia’s tail snapped with irritation.

Bael answered before Sylvas even had a chance. “I believe we have been affected by a spell triggering our fear response.”

“Why would the Ardent want a mind-mage?” Luna spat. “Eidolons don’t have brains.”

“But we do,” Sylvas answered her, “and Eidolons have an aura of fear not dissimilar to what was just cast on you.”

There was some annoyance and grumbling amongst the gathered troops, but they didn’t have time for it. “Luna and Orson, scry this place. Bael, get a blocker up so we can’t be scried on in return. Everyone else, secure the room, make sure everything is staying dead. If in doubt, space it.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“What about the white-coat in the hall?” Havran asked, half-joking.

Sylvas managed to smile. “Probably better not to space him unless he gets up again.”

They’d made it on board without taking any casualties, and without expending much in the way of resources. What they had spent was their element of surprise. Sylvas had no doubt that Malachai was the one that the Ardent had playing necromancer, and he had absolutely no doubt that man would have been watching their every move. Every spell that they had cast, every piece of equipment that they had used, Malachai would now be developing counter-tactics to deal with. He’d made far too much of a deal about Sylvas importance to him as an opponent to think he'd miss this opportunity. But that was fine, Sylvas could use that. Between the Cull and now, he and the rest of his squad had changed up their abilities and tactics drastically, and what they’d shown off in this one fight didn’t account for a fraction of what they were all capable of. Still, it irked him a little that he wouldn’t get to see the look on Malachai’s face the first time he brought the orbitals into play. It would have been nice to see that unshakeable self-confidence shaken.

“Clear.” Orson called.

Kaya nodded from the doorway. “Clear.”

“Clear.” Ironeyes grunted, as he tossed one last struggling skeletal form out into space.

The room was secured and they were invisible to any unwanted scrying, now it was time to start laying out their plans. “Havran, can you keep watch while we work out our next move?”

“On it boss.” The mage chuckled, then he faded out of sight. Sylvas blinked a couple of times before switching to his second sight, where Havran was still quite visible, heading out the door. It hadn’t even occurred to Sylvas what direction the other human was going to take his development, but he supposed becoming invisible as well as intangible made a degree of sense.

Shaking the thought from his head, Sylvas pulled an illusion up from his slate. The general shape of the station. The locations that they’d been directed to. Bael peered at it with a sigh. “A little more detail might be useful.”

Biting back his initial sarcastic reply, Sylvas closed his eyes and reached out with his gravity sense. The same problem as he’d been suffering on Onslaught still persisted, and everything was both dim and fuzzy, but what he could retain, he transplanted over onto the illusion.

It wasn’t perfect, but it gave them some vague idea of the station’s general layout, even if it was as simple as what was solid and what wasn’t. Debris or barricades were a fuzzy grey mess, along with any other mass that Sylvas couldn’t get a good grasp on with his senses. Some of those were liable to be enemies, but without getting closer or spiking gravity in a way that would be somewhat akin to tramping down the hallways blowing a trombone, there was no way to be certain. Bael traced his finger around the outer curvature of the level that they were on what had been called the lower ring, but actually appeared to have a pair more beneath it. “I suspect that our best course of action may be to avoid the center of the station for now.”

Sylvas felt obliged to point out that it was exactly where they needed to be going. “The power source that we’ve been sent to destroy…”

Bael was quick to agree. “Is almost certainly there, which means it will be the most heavily defended segment of the entire Citadel. If the briefing was correct and there are multiple factions in play here, I’d suggest that the longer we wait to come into direct contact with any one of them, the more likely it is that they’ll have depleted themselves to a reasonable enough degree that we might have some form of advantage over them.”

“Let them fight amongst themselves?” Ironeyes looked like he might argue. Then he crossed his arms. “I like it.”

Bael looked insufferably smug, as always. “With all the grace of a bird in flight, we can sweep around the outside of the Citadel with minimal contact with the entrenched enemy forces, retrieve the intelligence that is our secondary objective, and then begin working our way in towards the core, hopefully after the necromancer’s forces have been weakened by conflict with the other teams.”

“It’s hardly revolutionary.” Kaya grumbled. “Same thing we did at the Cull.”

“Ah yes, the Cull, where we were notoriously defeated due to a lack of tactical foresight.” Bael snipped back.

“It gives us more time to get the lay of the land and an idea of our opponents, so I’m in favor for now.” Sylvas interrupted before they could really get going.

Malachai would be down one man now, one of his naval track mages, judging by the uniform. That meant that in terms of numbers of available mages, they were on an even footing. At an advantage even, since Sylvas team was only down its weakest member. Still, as the defenders, there was no question that the necromancer’s side would have all the advantages. “Onslaught had scrying built in, systems to keep track of everything going on onboard.”

“The Soulstone network.” Bael provided the technical details, as always.

Sylvas pressed on. “Right, how do we take that away?”

There were a few uncomfortable looks exchanged between the other members of the team. Luna piped up, “We aren’t meant to damage the station.”

“Damage it?” Sylvas grinned. “I want to use it.”