“I think they’re gone,” Nedira announced. “I don’t feel them anymore.”
Larek stretched his senses out to their utmost, the flaring panic that had flowed through him at the first hint of the Gergasi having faded to a mere ember. He wasn’t sure if it was the thought of facing two of them at the same time that had made him race toward The Hopper with the intent to flee, or if it was simply the memories of his near-death at Chinli’s hand that spurred him on, but there was no denying that he was scared of the potential confrontation.
He might have killed one of the Gergasi before, but he wasn’t anywhere near ready to take on another – and definitely not two of them at the same time.
Fortunately, he had been pretty sure that they could get back to the wooden vessel in plenty of time to run, especially as he’d felt the powerful figures at a distance heading toward the southeast. He was relieved to know that they weren’t on an interception course with him, because that would’ve been alarming; as it was, it seemed as though the Gergasi had somehow learned that Chinli had died and were searching for the one responsible. The Fusionist wasn’t aware of where they actually knew who he was or not, but at the moment, that didn’t matter; all that mattered was leaving as soon as possible.
They were approximately a half-mile from the edge of the Wilde Mushdoom Aperture’s territory when he suddenly sensed that the two powerful figures had stopped moving. Urging the others to hurry, they ran with everything they were worth before climbing aboard The Hopper. Larek jumped to the top, taking Nedira with him in his arms for speed purposes, and then assisted the others up as quickly as possible. In what felt like hours but was only seconds, the last of the Volunteers were on the ladder leading to the top deck when he took off, the others helping those still not up yet to the top. There was no time to waste, and he took off toward the west, wanting to get as far away from the Gergasi as possible.
Unfortunately, the sense he got from the two powerful figures as they were running was that they were heading back in his general direction, as if they had detected an interesting scent and were coming to investigate. The Gergasi were getting closer and closer by the time he lifted off, and Larek and his companions had only gotten a few miles away, still barely in visual distance, when he finally saw them. They were two dots at the very edge of what he could actually see, but looking back at them, he could practically feel their eyes on The Hopper.
It quickly became obvious that Larek and the escapees had been spotted when the figures started flying toward them, but Larek increased their speed to the maximum it could go, and soon enough, the Gergasi had all but disappeared from sight.
At that point, the Fusionist had started to calm down and think without the panic setting in on him, and he began to plan out how to escape the Gergasi. Based on the fading sense of them in the distance, he knew that he could outfly them with The Hopper, but he wasn’t sure if they would still be able to follow him. In order to test that possibility, he turned abruptly when he could barely feel them at the edge of his senses, heading south at full speed, before turning southeast and then east again. After about 20 minutes and hundreds of miles of travel, he couldn’t feel even a hint of the Gergasi anymore.
Larek sighed in relief as he agreed with his betrothed. “You’re right. I think we lost them.”
“Do they know about you? What about the Volunteers and Thanesh?” Nedira asked, worry evident in her voice.
The Fusionist had no idea, so he just shrugged in answer.
“We need to get back and check on the others. If the Gergasi show up there, they won’t stand a chance against them.”
“I agree,” he said, looking out the side of The Hopper toward the direction they came from. He couldn’t see anything, of course, as he hadn’t felt the Gergasi in a while, but he couldn’t help but check anyway. “We’ll stay here for just a few more minutes, however, as the last thing I want to do is lead them back to Thanesh – especially if they don’t know about it already.”
“But what if they—”
Larek held up a hand to stop her as he closed his eyes. He felt something right on the edge of his awareness, and he hoped he was wrong, that he was just being paranoid. Unfortunately, after a few more seconds of sensing the rising cascade of power emanating from a source to the west, almost perfectly in line with where they had just come from, he curled his hand into a fist and punched his thigh in frustration. “Damn. They’re still coming.”
“What? I can’t feel them.”
“They’re still a ways out, but they’re following us somehow. I don’t know if they are tracking me or if they have some other way to pinpoint our location, but they’ll be here before too long.”
Turning toward the Volunteers, who appeared slightly sick at the prospect of the Gergasi somehow following them, he quickly told them, “We have two options. One, we all stay together and lead them away from the other Volunteers and Thanesh, where we’ll likely have to fight them. I can tell you right now that I’m not strong enough to take on two of them. If there were one, I’d say it would be a toss-up whether or not I would survive,” he said, though he wasn’t even sure if that was true, “but there’s very little chance of survival against two of them. That would almost inevitably be the same fate for whoever was with me.
“The second option is for me to go off by myself and hopefully draw them away—”
“NO! You’re not leaving me again!” Nedira shouted, smacking him on the arm with her staff. It didn’t hurt, but she definitely got her point across.
“I don’t want to, either, but I think it’s our only chance. Besides, Thanesh and the other Volunteers need to know about the Gergasi and the threat they pose, especially if more come looking for me.”
“Then send the others and bring me with you. I already told you, you’re not going anywhere without me.”
Larek wanted to protest, as he didn’t want to put her into more danger than she was already in, but he held his tongue. He knew that he wouldn’t be getting out of taking her with him, or else he wouldn’t hear the end of it – if he survived, of course. Besides, he felt a little better having her with him, as he would know if she was alright or not, and sending her away would only make him worry.
“Then it looks like you’re coming with me.” Larek quickly moved to the Fusions that controlled The Hopper, altering the formations with his Pattern Cohesion so that they would listen to Frynth, a familiar face who he saw was with his Volunteer bodyguard.
“We should really come with you, too. It’s our job,” Frynth stated, as Larek turned over control to the Volunteer.
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“If I could bring you, I would, but we’re going to have to move fast. Besides, I need to know this thing is going to be in good hands while you head back to Thanesh.”
“But—”
“We don’t have time to argue,” he interrupted the man, who looked semi-relieved at not having to stay and face the Gergasi. Any other scary monster, even a Calamity-sized one, would be fine; a Gergasi, not so much. “Take a roundabout route back to the city just in case there are more of them, but my hope is that it is just these two. We’ll try and draw them away while you flee for your lives.”
Frynth just nodded, and the Fusionist waved toward the stairs leading up to the top deck. She quickly followed him up, and he stood on the decking with her near the railing, looking off to the west. It only took a few seconds before she said, “I sense them now. How are they tracking us?”
“I don’t know, but I suspect that they can sense me just as I sense them, though it’s obviously not as strong.” That was the only explanation he could come up with after giving it some thought. It would explain how they knew to stop and come back to investigate where they were by the Aperture, and he could only assume that he gave off some sort of magical residue that they could follow. Even as he thought that, he peered around him, looking for any evidence of that, when he suddenly saw it.
Very faint bundles of Pure Aetheric Force were being expelled away from him, barely visible, but when he concentrated on one of them, there was a sort of resonance to them that was familiar. That familiarity was explained when he realized it was his own magical signature, and he knew he was correct regarding how he was leaving a trail for them to follow. Even as he watched, he saw that his magical signature didn’t stick around long, as it was already fading within seconds, but it would be more than enough for any Gergasi with heightened senses to follow him no matter where he went.
I have to figure out how to stop it from coming out of me.
He wasn’t going to do that right now, however, as he could finally see two dots in the distance in the air.
“Are we going?”
Larek shook his head. “No, not yet. I want to make sure that both of them follow us, leaving Frynth and the other Volunteers in The Hopper alone.”
It was going to take another 30 seconds or so before they arrived at a close-enough proximity that they could lead them away, so he took the time to look at the notifications that had been trying to get his attention.
Magical Detection has reached Level 91!
…..
Magical Detection has reached Level 98!
Spellcasting Focus has reached Level 80!
Pattern Recognition has reached Level 71!
…..
Pattern Recognition has reached Level 90!
You have reached Level 58 and have 36 available AP to distribute!
It seemed as though he had Leveled-up faster than he expected, thanks mostly to Pattern Recognition shooting up from Level 70 to Level 90. He hadn’t thought that the structure he had been studying inside the Aperture was considered a “pattern”, but apparently whatever governed the Skill thought otherwise. Then again, when he really considered it, the structure was a mix between a pattern construct and a Fusion formation, with elements of both, as well as a bit more thrown in there.
Regardless, he wasn’t going to complain, as he now had another 36 AP to distribute to his stats. Unfortunately, he didn’t get a chance to do that quite yet, as the Gergasi were arriving faster than he expected, and it was time to go.
Forming a Pattern construct box underneath the two of them, as well as a shield in front of them to block the air that was just about to slam into them once they started moving, he glanced at the two Gergasi, who were close enough for him to see a few minor details. The first thing he noticed was that there was a male and a female Gergasi, both of them incredibly tall, and the male was dressed in bulky armor and was holding what looked like some sort of black-colored warhammer that had a head the size of his torso. The other was wearing dark green robes that matched the hair he saw on the top of her head, and while he didn’t see a weapon visible, he could only assume that she had one somewhere.
“We’re leaving! Get ready to run!” Larek shouted down the stairs, before lifting off the top deck. The Fusionist directed his Pattern construct away to the south while The Hopper went north, the two of them splitting up so quickly that they were practically a blur. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a bundle of crackling energy form in front of the Gergasi woman even as she continued to fly toward him, and he shot his Pattern box up even as he formed a third construct to block the enormous bolt of lightning that passed through where he had just been a split-second ago. His construct was shattered immediately, as if it wasn’t even there, and he knew that if it had hit the box, they would’ve been electrocuted to the point where Nedira might’ve died.
That… was incredibly powerful.
Thankfully, the speed at which he could move his Pattern box was even faster than The Hopper could move, so while the two of them huddled toward the back of the box as he pushed their speed to incredible heights in an effort to flee, they left the two Gergasi behind before they could attack the two of them some more. He monitored them as they paused for a moment, which he interpreted as them deciding which group to follow, and he breathed a short breath of relief as the pair of Gergasi took off after Larek and Nedira. He had been worried that they might split up and follow both groups, but that fortunately didn’t seem to be the case.
His relief was short-lived as he remembered that they were still following him, and he now knew that just the woman alone was a much more powerful Mage than Chinli ever was. The lightning bolt spell she’d cast had been a few magnitudes of strength higher than anything he’d ever seen from the Gergasi he’d killed, though it was entirely possible that he never got to see what the despicable woman could actually accomplish if she was taking the fight with him seriously. Either way, if the warhammer-wielding Gergasi was just as strong, then he didn’t stand much of a chance in a one-on-one fight, let alone a two-on-one as it was.
If there was anything good to be said about seeing the Gergasi, it was that Larek was 100% positive that neither of them were his father. It was another worry that he’d had the moment he’d felt the Gergasi in the distance back at the Aperture, and while it wouldn’t make much difference if they ended up catching him, he still had no desire to face the one that had contributed to his existence.
As the sense of the two Gergasi began to fade behind them, giving them some distance, he finally slowed down, Nedira grunting in pain from the way she had been practically flattened against the back wall of the box construct.
“Sorry about that,” he apologized, making sure she was fine. He saw her heal her aches even as she caught her breath, before waving it off.
“I’d rather undergo a bit of discomfort than be caught by them,” she told him. “Speaking of that, what are we going to do to ensure that doesn’t happen?”
That… was a good question. Unless he could find some way to prevent the trace amounts of magical residue coming off of him from leaving his body, it was likely that the two Gergasi would eventually catch up to him. He wasn’t sure how long they could fly while tracking him, but he could only assume that it was longer than he could keep his Pattern box construct going, at least as far as maintaining his focus went.
Larek didn’t answer right away, as he continued fleeing south, though at a pace that he thought he’d be able to maintain for a long time, which was perhaps slightly faster than he’d seen the two Gergasi fly. The two of them watched the landscape pass by, moving over one Aperture and then another, as they tried to think of a solution.
After about ten minutes and multiple plans dismissed from his thoughts, he slowly turned to the west.
“Where are we going?”
While Larek wasn’t entirely sure where the thought came from, something popped up in his mind, born from his recent experiences in looking at the Aperture not so long ago.
“Tell me this. Why, if the Gergasi are so powerful, don’t they close the Calamities by themselves? Why let them get as bad as they were, and as they are, right now?”
Nedira was silent for a few seconds. “I don’t know. But I’m assuming that you think you do?”
He shrugged. “Perhaps. Shall we go find out if I’m correct?”
“I guess we’ve got nothing better to do, so why not?” she chuckled, wrapping her arms around his waist as she leaned into him, even as they turned a little north from their westward direction.