Judy’s smile left as she looked down at her half-empty glass.
“Life is pretty great if everyone thinks you’re good looking, or, at least it used to be. Men bent over backwards to take me on dates and married men certainly had few qualms about it either. Women either hated me or wanted to be my friend so they could have the man I didn’t want. I didn’t want any of that, in fact, I used to be married. Everything changed when I was visiting my husband’s grave in Ohio, the Spring Grove Cemetery. It’s beautiful there, it’s actually an arboretum, filled with trees and gardens to contrast the feeling of melancholy. Nothing takes away the atmosphere of grief like being in a gardener’s paradise.”
I nodded along. “I’m so sorry,” I said, knowing the feeling of losing a loved one.
“Save it,” she snapped, her face showing that she instantly regretted her quick outburst. I didn’t move, just letting her work out the emotions as they flowed from telling her story. More than a few tears threatened to spill down her cheeks.
“Sorry, it’s just that it was a bad time and I don’t want your pity. I was there, taking some coke in the shade of one of the big trees so the groundskeeper wouldn’t see me, doing anything to help keep the pain away when the world shook.” Her face paled as her next words came out slowly. “The world shook and all I could hear was a loud ringing, and then screaming, and then moans and more screaming. They just started coming out of the ground, skeletons and dead people. Even some of the stone statues came to life, granite men with swords fighting with stone gargoyles with the undead in between them. I’m not sure how it happened, but one of the revenants actually obeyed my hysteric screaming and started ripping the heads off of the others.”
Shuddering at the thought of being in a fucking graveyard when the magic apocalypse kicked off, I didn’t even want to think about how close to death she was from the start. Keeping my poker face on, I kept my peace as she continued on, her eyes unfocused as if looking through her memories.
“You know, they don’t get tired, right? The undead? They just keep comin’, never stoppin’. Just my luck to be stuck in one of the biggest graveyards in the good ol’ US of A.” She let out a dry chuckle. “When my first zombie got torn apart by the others, I had to run for my life while trying to figure out how to get another to listen to me like the first one. It took me even longer to figure out how to make them stronger, more durable so they could stand up to the fighting statues. If not for the river there and magic making fruiting plants grow, I would have either died of dehydration or starvation. For three days, I stayed by the river as my revenants stood guard, and then for months I fought my way to Florida where my family’s home was but they were already gone by the time I got here.”
Her wine had been refilled and drained several times by the time her story ended. Looking at me, the tears in her eyes didn’t fall as she spoke, “That what you wanted to hear?”
By the end of her story, Judy’s face had gone through every emotion, and as she blinked away her tears, a stony coldness took their place. I know that expression. It’s the one where you realize that there’s nothing left to do but push on. Complaining about it won’t help, sympathy from others only makes it worse as you know that the pit of life will cave in around you if you do nothing. Only the agency of self backed by an iron will is sufficient to stand the thought of losing your family while fighting for your life and plaguing doubts. I at least had some closure in comparison to Judy. My brother was a room and a hallway away while the rest of my family’s well being was still technically up in the air.
She had nobody.
The human side of me was tugging on my heart strings, begging me to be a white knight to the gorgeous blonde and reassure her that everything would be ok. The other side of me, the post-apocalyptic sorcerer who’s finally learning some lessons, was carefully keeping a deathgrip on the reins though, reminding me of what I’ve already observed.
One, she’s a damn necromancer that’s survived as long as me, which means that she’s not weak and does not need anyone’s help. Two, she has five powerful undead revenants the size of Centauri warriors, each clad in suits of black Centauri armor with an inner layer of bone armor filled chock full of necromantic power underneath that. The scariest thing about her souped-up zombies is that each wielded a shield and a battleaxe, both of which were big enough that a normal man wouldn’t be able handle those due to the sheer weight. An axe like that would require me to use both hands and that shield was taller than I was.
And last but not certainly not least, my magic recoiled at the thought of doing battle with her. Something about the very nature of her power made my stomach turn and even my soul-tree on the inside quivered with fear. The more I felt the aura surrounding her and her revenants, the greasier I felt, like my grip over my own magic was slipping. Nothing about being in the same room as her, let alone her with minions, felt ok. The situation to me personally felt even more disgusting as she herself was beautiful but her magic was vile, like meeting a Victoria Secret module in person and she blinds you with her beauty and smile but then starts ranting about wanting to eat children and drown old people. The dichotomy of her existence repulsed me further.
[If you can’t handle this,] Kraken said, laughing at my discomfort. [Then the Hungry Ones are going to, how do you humans say, fuck you up real good?]
[Are they worse?] I asked mentally, keeping a straight face. [Her shit feels concentrated, like she managed to condense evil itself and stick it in a corpse AND make it obey her.]
[Not everyone’s path to power is littered with rose petals. Some climb over mountains of bodies and others swim through oceans of blood. You, my friend, are nowhere near the top of the totem pole. Did I say that right?]
Mentally rolling my eyes at Kraken as he could rustle through my memories himself, I conjured a cup made out of ice and filled it with conjured water, delicately taking a sip as I thought over the instinctive nature of my feelings. For a while, I would have thought that the element of fire was the opposite of my composite of magical abilities, but it seems that I was wrong. The very nature of my sorceries are the basic elements of life, earth and water. Those are the foundations for my other abilities which combined with nature and mind are the foundations for life itself, and enchantments with Mana Sorcery are simply the next steps that sentient life can take.
But death, necromancy, corpse manipulation, the thought of it sends shivers down my spine. Maybe unconsciously, my drive to wage a war against the eventual invasion of the Hungry Ones wasn’t just proactive self-preservation, but my own powers trying to influence me to get rid of my opposite, the one thing I don’t really stand a chance against.
“Cat got your tongue?” A wry smile graced her lips as she joked. “Or did you freeze it solid?”
Downing the water, I banished the ice cup and looked her dead in the eye. Get it, dead? “I’m sorry for your loss,” I said, making sure that my voice was sincere even as I ignored her verbal poke. “I do know what it’s like to unfairly lose someone to circumstances you can’t control.” Keeping my voice steady really wasn’t that hard. I was honestly sympathetic to her plight, and making sure that I didn’t piss her off or make her an enemy was high on my list of priorities for the moment, regardless of how my magics felt about her.
Reeanth tensed as she watched our conversation from where she leaned against the wall near the front entrance of the building. Johnny, oblivious to the rising of the oddly natured tension, crashed into a seat next to me, dropping armfuls of food on the table between everyone.
“I don’t know the crazy science behind it but they got MUTHA’FUCKIN’ HOHOS BABY! Check it!”
A particular whiff of something special tingled my nostrils. “Is that . . . Taco Bell?” My eyes zeroed in on a box that must have come straight from Heaven itself. Right in the middle of the assortment of all the worst foods that Ronald McDonalds and the Taco Bell Chihuahua could have dreamed up together on a mushroom trip sat a lovely, sloppily put together pyramid of Doritos Locos Tacos and Gordita Crunches.
“Those are mine! You just ate!” Johnny thought his posturing and flexing was enough to scare me off, but I’ve fought worse for worse at worse times. The tension of the moment was cut as Judy reached forward and snagged a Double Cheesy Beef Burrito from the side, toppling the pile of food.
[Kraken, now.]
[I don’t think this is a good-]
[NOW!]
Not a moment too soon, my spirit familiar snatched the Taco Bell from the table as I waved Gungnir over the food.
“Hey! I was gonna share anyways,” Johnny grumbled. Grabbing two Wendy’s Baconators, he leaned back as he pushed two Chick-Fil-A wraps over to Judy and then tossed an Arby’s Roast Beef to Reeanth. “Eat up, shit’s never calm with this asshole in town. Trust me,” he said, bits of food crumbling out from the corners of his mouth. “Some douche is about to either kick the door in or nuke us from orbit.”
My moaning was embarrassing even as Judy’s much dirtier version distracted Johnny. “What?” she said, glaring at the both of us. “It’s not my fault fast food is this addictive! Besides, the food recombinator is a work of magic in and of itself. Don’t ask me how it works either, I’m just glad it does. Besides, I can’t get fat thanks to magic.”
Lowering her face, she dove in her wraps like a rabid pitbull. [Is that something I can steal?] I asked Kraken while I prayed to anything that would listen. [What the hell is a food recombinator? Is it portable?]
[Sorry boss. The size of the storage space is based on energy put into making it as well as the amount of energy stored. Angel relics plus your batteries PLUS the two generators I basically refurbished, dude, you’re outta room. Besides, it’s that entire left counter in the kitchen that does the work.]
Cursing a very quiet but very vehement blue streak, I slowly ate as I hunched over my food like a starving caveman, protecting my meal. When I finished my quick roundabout trip to Heaven and back, I wiped my mouth and looked back at Judy. Clearing my throat, I repeated what I said before Johnny interrupted us. “Judy, I truly am sorry for your loss.”
Her downcast expression didn’t change as she ate but I did manage to get a nod out of her. Finishing off her meal, she licked her fingers like a cat and looked at me and Johnny, her intense gaze going back and forth. “I assume you both have lost people as well?”
“Yeah,” Johnny answered, his tone oddly a little snide. “But my family sucked. Be a doctor, Johnny! Be a lawyer, Johnny! We found a nice Korean girl for you to marry, Johnny!” His face screwed up as he rolled his eyes. “All I wanted to do was skate, smoke, maybe have a bit of a good time before growing up in the business world. Then this shit hit and most of my town was gone.”
Taking a deep breath for part two of his rant, a loud boom and even louder cacophony of roars shook the city. It was an earthquake of sound that rocked every person in it to full attention, completely activating the lizard hindbrain of every human. Even with my Flesh Sorcery granting me complete control of my body, I couldn’t help the instinctive surge of adrenaline in my body or the mad grab for power that my mind pulled out of my mana batteries.
The only person not appearing to be affected was Johnny. Quickly downing the last of his burger, he threw his head back and groaned. “Every time! They never attack before I eat, only after!”
Answering the question that had yet to spill from my lips, Reeanth looked at me as she placed her meal back down on the table. “Aqualans, my lord. Oceanic masters of genetic manipulation, renown for creating monster armies that they sell to the highest bidder. They hate technology in all of its forms and lay claim to planets so they can terraform them into breeding zoos. They’ve attacked at least once every ten days for the past two months.”
“Maybe I can add to my posse . . .” Judy mused, rolling her shoulders to relieve the tension. Snapping her fingers, her revenants filed out of the Centauri house with her taking up the rear position. “See ya later boys,” she said, winking at Johnny who, completely oblivious to her flirting, stuffed another burger down his gullet and grabbed his staff.
“Fuck that!” He yelled. “I’m comin’ too!”
“My lord I-”
“Go Reeanth,” I said, making a shooing motion. “I can’t leave my brother here alone. Do what you need to do, and come get me if things get outta hand.”
As soon as I was alone in the room, I had Kraken cast his senses outward, using Gungnir as a focus for my power. My own magical senses were pretty detailed but my range really wasn’t that great. My spirit familiar on the other hand, due to his ethereal makeup, could scry or look around unseen up to two or three miles away. With a flicker of will, he telepathically projected into my mind what he was seeing.
What I saw made my heart sink.
Colossally enhanced megalodons, prehistoric sharks that ate whales, were slowly swimming right off the coast with hordes of twisted deepwater freaks of nature clinging to their backs, as if the sharks were troop transports. The massive shark monsters even had extra limbs growing from odd angles. In front of them, black armored crocodiles with gnarly serrated scales half the size of the megalodons crashed onto the beach and halted, roaring over and over in a show of intimidation. Other things crawled out as well, octopus people wielding twisting snakes that fired acid, mutant crabs bigger than tanks with claws that shone a hideous green inner light, and even what looked to be a spiny lionfish big enough to swallow an elephant climbed on shore. It wasn’t just a small group, a veritable army had shown up on the beach and was getting bigger every minute. The rest of the beach began filling up with scaled, slimy, and very hungry invaders.
[Uh, fuck that.] Returning to myself, I ordered Kraken to keep a lookout as I hauled ass back to my brother.
[What’s the plan then? I don’t imagine you’re gonna leave the others to die.]
[They’ll be fine for a few minutes. I should be back in plenty of time] I said, reinforcing my body with magic as I hauled my oversized younger brother off his bed and onto my back. [He’s the only one I’m worried about right now.]
Plodding heavily, I made it outside to where the threshold of the pyramid shaped metal building ended and Mother Earth began. Closing my eyes, I and my human backpack sank into the earth and so very carefully traveled to the underground root base of the Centauri portal. Weaving another mind working on my brother so that nothing short of a nuke would wake him, I touched Yggdrasil’s root and cast my mind into it, establishing a connection to what I mentally call Home Base, traveling home.
Arriving at my clearing in Fredericksburg, I lay my brother on his back and propped him up against one of the trees. Conjuring two stone boxes, each with a lid, I put several Centauri meal cubes and two Taco Bell burritos inside one and inscribed ‘food’ on the lid, and then conjured water in the other and inscribed ‘water’ on that one. Placing the boxes at his feet, I then conjured a stone pillar and etched a quick message on it so that it would be the first thing Andy saw when he woke up.
You’re alive, you’re cured, and yes, that’s Taco Bell in the damn box.
Feel better and don’t be afraid, this is my home and these are my people.
The tree lady is either Meliad or Lyra and the big rock dude is Everest.
I’ll be back hopefully in a day or two.
Sincerely,
Your much better looking brother
P.S. Yes you can have any fruit in the smoothie forest to the east
With my mind put at ease, I traveled via World Tree to Sunstone Castle and took quick stock of the area. Unfortunately, Spot was nowhere in sight. Remembering that Spot the last time I saw him was in the act of making little Spots, I groaned as I realized that I wasn’t going to have my big gun for this fight.
“Test-run time it is then.”
Linking my mind to Kraken, I had him send out the activation code I had keyed in to my four elementals that were the captains for my sunstone golem army. It was a beautiful and glorious sight as I stood at the top of my castle, looking down at the two hundred strong army of fully charged golems wielding maces and bladed arms. In unison, my earthen and crystalline soldiers started marching towards my baobab Yggdrasil tree in the middle of my fortress. The massive doors swung open as they approached.
I looked on proudly, happy in being able to field an army of my own. This is what the great generals of the past must have felt like, watching powerful soldiers march in unison with one purpose. As they arrived at the Tree, they put their hands on it one by one and walked into the tree, traveling down the connection I established to the one in Miami. Kraken made sure that my orders were clear. Once they arrived in the cavern fifty feet underground in Miami, which wasn’t a problem due to being earth-based golems, they were to travel to the beach outside of the city and kill anything that wasn’t vaguely human.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
Eight minutes of single minded channeling was so boring that I assigned a mental background process to it. Thirty seconds to establish the connection between the tree and stabilize it, each of the two hundred golems then took about two seconds each to touch and step into the tree, and then finally, I went through myself after the last one portaled out and closed the connection.
Arriving at the beach was an awe-inspiring sight of absolute bedlam. I almost wiped a tear from my eye as one sunstone golem smashed a crabman from hell while bisecting another with a laser from its other arm. Fighting side by side under the command of their Elemental captains, the unorganized chaos of the deepsea army came under fire from the march of organized death that was my beautifully crafted elemental squadrons. The divisions of my army acted in perfect tandem, splitting into squads of ten to form a frontline dedicated to holding the press of twisted flesh while the backline functioned as laser artillery. And as the inner reserves of power ran dry, the squads switched roles as the other divisions filled in the gaps.
[Do you even need my help?] I asked Kraken, as I climbed up a tall dune for a better look. My familiar gave me a grunt that I took as a no. Using my magic as a scaffold, Kraken connected with one of the Elemental captains, giving orders for him to connect his division of golems to the power supply current located within the city wall of New Miami. Within two minutes, the rearmost group of golems had connected themselves to the wall and begun broadcasting power to the other hundred and fifty golems, using their sunstone bodies as antennas.
[Watch this!] Kraken said proudly, sending off a quick list of orders to the captains. As one, the forefront line of golems lashed out, creating space for themselves as they beat a quick retreat, running behind the middle of my army. The hundred in the middle were all lined up, and as soon as the front fifty were clear, the air blazed with crackling heat from the laser barrage. Absolute carnage exploded the length of the beach as concentrated magic lasers moved from target to target, making sure that nothing aquatic escaped alive. Watching the connection, I could barely make out the string of commands that Kraken was giving out at the speed of thought, conducting this battle like a symphony, each order leading to absolute decimation of the enemy.
Seeing this from the outside was humbling. Kraken’s perfect orchestration of the sunstone golem army was so precise that even the Centauri warriors that were further out on the beach emerged unscathed from the barrage of lasers as the Aqualan fodder fell into lumps of seared meat around them. As the main body of their army was cut down in the sand turning it blue with their blood, the larger monstrosities started returning to the depths as the diamonds atop the Centauri pyramid formations began to emit a hazy light.
There was no sound, only a series of bright flashes. Beams of light thick enough to swallow a truck lanced out, each either detonating when touching a monster on the surface of the water or creating an explosion of steam when they missed. The salvo lasted for thirty seconds before the last of the invaders vanished under the Atlantic. Just before the last megalodon vanished, a large cannon of pitch black black mucus launched out of the ocean struck the city gates, melting straight through them as if they were made of styrofoam.
“They’ll be back.” Reeanth said, coming up behind me. “I assume your army-” I nodded and she continued. “Your army surprised them. The city’s defense forces have been systematically shaven down. This is the first time they’ve had to use the cannons.”
“Well, that army right there is for the undead, but this was a pretty damn good test run.”
“THAT, WAS, AWESOME!” Johnny’s tackle came out of nowhere, plowing me and Reeanth into the sand. “Did you fuckin’ see?! Aw I wanna fight one! Can I?”
Shoving him off and banishing the sand that had gotten into the cracks of my armor, I used Earth Sorcery to blast a barrel full of sand at Johnny knocking him into the dune next to us. I knew that was a love tap to him. Turning around, I watched my currently busy golem army which split in two, one half of it cleaning the beach while the other half was recharging at the city wall. As I watched, I could see visible cracks in their armor seal up and the inner light in their chests started to grow brighter.
“Go fight with Judy, I bet her soldiers would give you a good run for your money,” I said, mesmerized by the amazing sight of my creations. Speaking to Reeanth without turning, I informed her about Andy’s whereabouts and my next plan. Mentally taking a note or two, I put in a reminder to have my Sunstone Castle upgraded with an auto-generate feature for the golem army, so whenever I go off to war, I can have the castle get busy on making and charging new golems if I need it to.
As my sworn follower broke into a light jog back towards the city while Johnny rough-housed with Judy’s revenants, I closed my eyes and pushed the base of Gungnir into the sand, feeling about for ley lines. The wall of the city shone like a gigantic bonfire behind me to my senses, its presence palpable in size and intensity even from where I stood. The portal at the center of the city did sit on a ley line, but from what I could tell, it was the genesis point for that river of power, probably from the root of Yggdrasil. That channel of mana spread in a westward direction, as the energy here near the ocean was at the same time more diffuse and yet quantitatively more than what was available up here on shore.
[Ocean ley lines function differently,] Kraken clarified for me. [Yes, thinking of them as similar to rivers is accurate for up on land, but under the ocean it’s more like pools of power instead of rivers. The Mariana Trench would be one, certain ritualistically important spots such as underwater mountain ranges or buried cities would also probably qualify. Mana is more abundant in the ocean but it’s more spread out. It’s why creatures can be so much bigger there as well, it’s a function of gravity seeming to have less of an effect underwater due to surface tension but also there’s simply more mana.]
“So what now?” I grumbled, extending my senses out as far as I could. Carefully holding back a snicker, I watched as the broken gates to the city flapped open in the wind.
[Opportunity!] Kraken wailed happily, connecting some dots in my head. [I can smell it! You can taste it! Seize it!]
Stifling a laugh, I read his mind for a change and gave the orders.
Turns out, my golem army was good for a number of things, one of which was using them to brazenly march through the melted gates and seize the main command building. It was easy to find as I’d listened in on it before but also it radiated with the highest density of mana I could sense other than the city walls themselves.
Kraken hummed victoriously within Gungnir. [With overwhelming force comes overwhelming authority.]
I corrected him just a bit. [With great power comes great responsibility, but you weren’t far off. I like this one better: with overwhelming force comes overwhelming choice.]
I strutted arrogantly in the middle of my towering elementals as they seamlessly filed in around me. My golem army had broken itself down into various squads and secured chokepoints inside of the building that was disguised to look exactly like all the other buildings. Kraken had ordered that no blood be shed and those orders were taken literally, my brother’s political visitors were all being held in a less than dignified position.
The witch Sybella was being held down by one golem and the other had its bladed arms on either side of her neck with a laser fully powered up and ready to go. The laser hummed as it hummed two inches from her nose. Rolf and his crew were being sat on as five golems were aiming lasers at their faces. I strode in like I owned the place, which for the moment, I did.
“Thank you all for attending my brief showing for the day,” I said as I bowed, smirking at each of my temporary prisoners. “If all goes well, I shall leave your lovely city safer than I found it, and hopefully with no one foolishly losing their lives.” Planting Gungnir into the floor, I willed the crystal top to turn into a wicked three-bladed spiral spear. Keeping it pointed up, I communed with Kraken.
[We’re looking for info here, anything we can find. I don’t know what a futuristic Centauri database or server would look like, shit, I don’t even know what their computers look like. Do you?]
Lightly scoffing at my lack of forethought, Kraken pointed out, [We may not but I’m sure they do.]
Walking over to Rolf, I squatted down and asked, “My apologies sir, I do believe I am mistakenly wanted for murder so I’ll make this quick.” His eyes squinted. “No, I’m not going to kill you. I just want to know where the information of this city is held, and I’d rather someone just tell me.”
Sybella opened her mouth and spat, “Release me at once swi-”. The rest of her tirade was cut off by me conjuring dirt and shoving it in her mouth.
“Ah, sweet blessed silence.”
[Coming off a bit too strong here man, maybe tone down the megalomania?]
Chuckling internally, I turned back to Rolf. “Seriously,” I said, letting my genuine sincerity bleed through. “I’m a native that doesn’t know shit about shit but definitely has way too much goddamn power, not that I’m complaining. I need knowledge and I know there’s a bunch of it in this city. I want that and only that, I swear it.” Making sure that his eyes didn’t waver from mine, I spoke softly. “Andy is my brother, and I’ve got a hunch y’all are friends.”
Appearing to think it over for a minute, Rolf grunted, “In the room behind us, big piece of Aetherium shaped like an obelisk, can’t miss it.”
Dumbass me didn’t even think to ask what ‘Aetherium’ was, just kind of assumed I’d know it when I or Kraken would tell me like usual. Just for shits and giggles, I did a very surface level mindscan of both Rolf and Sybella to help myself out and what I found was interesting.
Metaphorically, beneath her surface thoughts, Sybella’s mind was protected behind a teeming wall composed of a thousand screaming faces, each horribly spewing different concepts and lifetimes in a mind-bending wail without end. A gloomy steel tower sat behind the wall, wicked spikes coming out of the sides at random. The spikes that twisted to point up had platforms on top of it, each with their own differently colored orb of light floating.
Rolf’s mind was much simpler but all the more intimidating because of it. It was a giant half dome of blue ice with an uncountable number of thin blades coming out of it. That was it, no details, no scary voices, just deadly ice cold strength. His surface thoughts though had a clear picture of what we were talking about, the Aetherium obelisk. I was looking for a smaller version of the Washington Monument with stripes of different colors going up and down its length.
“Thank you,” I said, turning and following the directions I’d been given. The door to the room opened as I approached and a quick wisp of fog escaped. The room was cold and mostly dark, the only light available was a soft red light that came from where the floor met the wall. It lit up the room enough for me to see not one, but five different obelisks in front of me set up in a pentagram with one at each of the formation’s points.
[A Communion Communicator!] Kraken gasped. [Don’t touch it! You don’t know who or what is on the other side!]
[English dude! Please!]
[It’s a telephone of death! What the hell are you jonesin’ after anyway?] Kraken asked, pushing us both away slowly from the inside of Gungnir, my weapon pulling me as if it didn’t want to be anywhere near here.
[Andy is a wizard, not a sorcerer. I need information on them and how they learn, what they need to do to go from wimpy Harry Potter to badass Dumbledore. If I could find a book or document or set of memories conveniently titled, ‘How to Train Your Wizard’, that would be freaking great.]
Taking a deep breath, I steadied myself, gripping Gungnir harder and pointing it at the formation as I took a slow step closer. [I was thinking about taking or copying the witch’s memories since they supposedly have generations worth of them stored away, but that mind fortress of hers looked like an insane asylum on crack.]
[Ok, ok, I get it. Just wait for a second, you do not know what you’re doing. The crystals do have that information, probably, because there are a bunch of Centauri here and they do need their spell structure downloads, but that’s one TINY piece of info that could be here. In order to do this safely, you need to separate the obelisks from their formation without actually touching them.]
“That’s it?” Reaching down with my senses, I could feel that the dirt below us was only about five feet away. Flipping Gungnir point down, I willed the three-bladed spear into a classic speartip design but a much thinner version of it. Drawing on my power, I stabbed the floor five inches away from the obelisk and Gungnir effortlessly cut through the floor. Working my way around the first obelisk, I copied my efforts and soon had all five separated from the formation. Conjuring some dirt while also pulling it up from the sandy Miami earth just beneath the floor, I easily moved the Aetherium obelisks away from each other until they were leaning up against the walls.
[Sometimes it takes a monkey,] Kraken muttered as he extended a tendril of mana to the first one. Working together, our goal didn’t take long to reach as a bit of luck came into play. The first obelisk we worked on actually had all of the information we needed to get my brother spun up on being a proper Wizard, not just a half-assed combat one. [Hold up, don’t disconnect yet, you’re gonna want this!]
Borrowing my brain power, Kraken crafted a couple mental processes dedicated to searching and parsing different data streams. Five minutes of me sweating from the strain later, we had two of them searched for any kind of useful information. [Centauri SITREP, updated global map, vulnerability classification of the sector, classified spelltech-]
[THAT ONE!] I yelled, mentally homing in several keywords. [Spelltech! Grab the SITREP and map too!]
The information slammed into my brain in a three-way punch, two light ones and one heavy Mike Tyson shot. Kraken quickly numbed the pain and wrapped up the information packets, storing it in my brain where it would unravel or distract me for the time being. “We’ll parse through it later,” I said aloud, shaking my head and walking back to the main room.
I ended up being impressed and yet scared as hell when I arrived back in the main room. My butthole puckered something fierce at the sight of big man Rolf in his armor casually sitting on my shattered golems like a chair. Lucky for me, he hadn’t touched the ones keeping Sybella down but he had taken the time to not only wreck my golems but set up the chunks into an amorphized chair complete with armrests and a cup holder.
“Guess this means you could’ve gotten out at any time and you were just gathering intel huh?”
“Got it in one boyo!” Laughing at my quickly fading shock, Rolf pulled a wide flask from his pocket on his thigh and downed a swig. “Mighty fine work you done with these here rock fellows but their shatterpoints are too large to miss.” Nodding in Sybella’s direction, he continued. “I’d also make nice with her if ya can, she an’ her clan treat humiliation worse than murder.”
Weighing the pros and cons in my mind, I pulled a brick shaped crystal mana battery out of Gungnir and held it out as I squatted in front of her. Her eyes went from laser focused hatred to wonder. Rolf’s eye bugged out of his head.
“I take it you know what this is?” Sybella barely nodded as my golems’ blades were still kissing her throat. “Good, you take this and it’s all forgiven? I’ll even make it any shape you want.” Another series of very tiny nods.
Kraken ordered the golems off of her as I conjured a cup made out of ice and filled it with conjured water. Handing it to her as she stood up, she swigged the water and spat, cleaning her mouth out from the dirt I stuck in there. Her hand shot out and I placed the battery on her palm, not letting go. As she gripped it and pulled, I pulled her in close until our noses were touching.
“Tell no one,” I growled ominously. “Show no one, keep it to yourself. I don’t want to make my to-do list any longer than it already is. Got it?” A quick, scared nod was all I got, but it was all I needed. I’m glad that her sense of self-preservation and innate greed overrode the current of humiliation long enough for her to think rationally about this. Letting go of the mana battery, I took a step back and then looked over the mess of shattered golems. Only two of them were still intact from the squad of ten that I led into the building, which means Rolf had taken out the other eight. One fuckin’ scary dude. Making sure that I stayed on his good side, I pulled out another battery and tossed it to him.
“Same conditions, but I mean it in a nicer way,” I said. “My brother might be a bit of a jackass but he tends to make good friends, so I’ll trust him.”
Pulling a block of metal from somewhere, I watch Rolf stand up and magically mold it into a chain link necklace. “Can ya make it smaller, about yea’ big, and round?”
Obliging the much larger, much scarier man, I took the battery back and compressed it slowly, taking great care to remove and re-add the proper runes as I molded it to fit his needs. Handing the crystal disk to Rolf, it practically vanished in his much bear sized hand. Fumbling with his necklace, he attached the disk to the ringlet at the bottom and molded the metal to wrap around, covering up every bit of the battery.
“Perfect!” His smile was so wide he could have fit a damn pizza in there. “How does it work?”
Chuckling at his sudden shift in demeanor, I pointed at his necklace. “Two ways, that right there will gather ambient mana and some from you when you’re not using it as well as what you make but don’t use. The other way is you could directly put mana in there through meditation or any kind of mana extraction device. When it's full, should be enough power in there to split a mountain, be careful.”
“Wait!” Turning towards Sybella, she held the mana battery out towards me. Straightening her back, she put her other hand on her chest. “I accept this token as a cessation of any and all hostilities between us, both real and imagined. I agree to the given terms and request per the strictures of said covenant to have this molded in accordance with my desires.” A ball of light appeared between us as she closed her eyes and concentrated. A moment later, the light morphed into a pristine 3D model of a large medallion that slowly spun to show both sides. A ritualistic pentagram within a circle adorned with elemental symbols covered one side and the other was an artistic take on Duality. The Yin and Yang Duality carving was edged with a blending of nature giving life and passing into death.
Taking the battery, I molded it to be just like what Sybella desired, taking care to get the exact details right. Turning it over in my hands to examine my work, I instinctively recognized the worth of this amulet as my own magic seemed to echo with it, a harmony that I didn’t know existed. Looking it over again, I burned the memory of this amulet in my mind before handing it back to her. Seeing the expression of sheer anticipation on her face, I reexamined the circumstances for a second, holding back the battery just before her hand actually touched it.
“I dunno,” I mused aloud. Anticipation, wonder, anger, and confusion warred for dominance in her eyes as I held back. “Seems like this little doohickey outweighs the little incident we had earlier. I mean, you didn’t get hurt and nobody saw you in your particular state, and this is a gamechanger for you if I’m reading the room correctly.”
“What do you want?” She snapped as her hands opened and closed, as if she were imagining wringing my neck.
‘Well, for one. I still require that we leave on good terms, but I want some insurance too.” Sending her a mental packet of information, I watched on the magical side of things as her mental fortress forced the packet to stop outside its walls as her thought-constructs carefully unwrapped it. Scanning it over and over, the message was taken inside as she fully processed not just the words of the message, but also the feelings and sensations mixed within.
“This is acceptable and the terms are very generous, for the both of us. A month will be required to prepare.”
“Not a problem,” I replied, giving over her amulet. She clutched it to her chest as if it were her own newborn, absently tracing the grooves with her finger. “I’ll be back here in thirty days.”
Taking a few minutes to banish the remains of my broken golems, I turned on a heel and walked out with the two earthen survivors and joined the rest of the army, silence greeting me even as I saw the crowd of hundreds of people staring at me and my posse. My golems were armed to the teeth, facing outward and forming a wall of crystal bodies around the building. As far as I could tell there hadn’t been any bloodshed but that could change at any moment.
Heeding good sense, I sank into the earth and beat feet to the Yggdrasil root while Kraken made sure that the golems followed. Establishing a connection to Sunstone Castle, I maintained the Way so my army could go back to the desert. Once they were all gone, I headed home.
My next week didn’t go the way I planned it. Andy didn’t wake up for a couple days, so there was the whole process of making him his own room in the Hole and then I also had to go back and retrieve Reeanth, Johnny, and Fuzzy from Miami, and then take them to Sunstone Castle and give them the tour, and then after that, return with all of them AND Spot in tow. Andy finally woke up from his sorcery induced slumber in the middle of the night five freaking days later! I had gotten so bored that I had actually started making headway on all of the information I snagged from New Miami; I figured that I might as well get something out of it too instead of just Andy. The traveling, while quick, was oddly more taxing on my mind than actually taking the time to fly around to where I needed to.