Jonas slowly made his way to the central area of the Queen’s Gardens. The whole thing was a wreckage of Professional corpses, around the body of the fallen Zulu God-King.
Despite the success of the plan, this didn’t look like a victory to him. The surviving Professionals moved around in a daze, not quite believing that the onslaught was over. From up close, Jonas and Ira could see the number of corpses. Most of the survivors were ranged, healers and casters, as most of the melee fighters had fallen, trying to corral the God-King away from those using elemental damage, adding what little they could, while grinding down the millions of health of their enemy.
Then a pair separated from the rear and rushed, and before he could react, Jonas found himself almost bowled over by Guss and Laura. Particularly Laura, whose massive Strength was probably enough to cause damage.
“Good Lord, Jonas, good to see you. After all those weeks with your health showing zero,” she said.
“Wasn’t much better, believe me.”
She looked over him, before snorting.
“You do look like a defender now. Is that threaded chainmail?”
“Alton and Jonathan cobbled some health buffer gear. Speaking of which…”
Another figure walked toward them, unstrapping the complex device on his arm.
“I’ll have everyone take note that I was against using you that way,” Jonathan said.
“It worked. I’m used to dying these days.”
“One death, ten deaths, it’s the same,” Alton said jokingly as he joined the team.
“I don’t remember you dying much during those last two years,” Jonas joked back.
“Told you, Jonathan. He’s capable of making jokes now.”
Jonas snorted, but that was true. This last day had been all kind of weird, first being “freed” by his own jailor, then being propped as a sacrificial goat, then watching a Professional destroy the fine flower of five countries.
“Lord, can you believe what it would have been if the plan hadn’t worked?” Jonas breathed finally.
“If he’d come at us piecemeal? Any would have lost,” Ira acknowledged.
Then Jonas spotted a familiar figure. Cowen had survived, apparently. She was there, checking corpses.
“You're good?” he asked as he reached the Imposing Knight.
She held a Puppet in hand, and the corpse she was checking blinked briefly, suddenly stripped to his underclothes. Laura’s gaze turned reflexively, but the man shuddered, turned and heaved to the side.
She held a Puppet in hand, and before answering, pulled out the corpse’s soft cap. The hat vanished, appearing on the Puppet and she systematically started to strip the person’s gear, each piece vanishing onto the Puppet, once she’d removed it. Laura’s gaze turned reflexively as she realized what was happening, but the man shuddered suddenly, turning and heaving to the side.
"Only Sacrifice," she said, shaking her head sadly.
She waited until the man stopped shivering before pressing the Puppet in his hand. The unknown Professional blinked, then realized his half nakedness and gear appeared again, covering him. He silently handed the metal figure back.
Cowen’s head shook.
“Can’t do more now. I might Sacrifice a second time if I find a spellcaster or a tier-five, and almost none of them died.”
Kwazele Gabadeli walked across the battlefield, robes billowing, before reaching the spot where the God-King had fallen and his brother knelt.
“So it is done,” he said.
“So it is. And it wasn’t like we thought, either.”
“Nothing ever is,” Kwazele said, surveying the wreckage left by the battle.
“I thought the spear was lesser,” his brother commented.
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Two-Handed
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“It wasn’t supposed to fell people that easily, yes.”
“He went easy on me, and I don’t know why,” Zenzele finally said, as he rose from his crouch.
“Easy?”
“He hit me, but almost always switched to killing someone in the range of his spear.”
Kwazele shrugged.
“He always said each Chosen was important. I’m not going to complain. You are one less we have to resurrect. Most of our wayward brothers…”
“That is what he said,” Zenzele realized.
“What he said?”
“To resurrect the loyalists. He left us enough alive to resurrect them, and focused on falling down the others.”
“The other nations have seen most of their high tier fall,” Kwazele began.
“… but not us. He said not to help them,” Zenzele completed.
The two brothers fell silent, contemplating the situation.
“We’d be the most advanced in Labyrinth matters,” Kwazele finally said.
“And still be following His will.”
Zenzele spotted the approaching British Professionals.
“You got your wish,” Jonas said, stopping in front of the corpse.
He knelt, checking the descriptor, and reflexively moved his hand away.
“Days?”
“It will take days, then he will decompose normally since this is Earth,” Zenzele explained.
“And you killed him.”
“We killed him. All of us. To be free of his hand.”
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“He must have been a terrible tyrant.”
Zenzele hesitated.
“Not for us. The Chosen were the elite. His elite. But the rest of the Zulu existed only to serve us. All, even our own brother.”
“Not that it was easy for us. We had our objectives to reach. The builds and selections. He only recognized we needed breaks in the later years,” Kwazele added.
“He pushed you hard? Why? He was stronger than anything anyone could ever dream,” Jonas asked.
“He always said we had to grow stronger than anyone, for anyone he Choose had to be strong on his or her own. He gave us maps of the zones, lists of Professions in each, best ways to build toward specific goals. How to approach each fight properly, so we could fight much stronger creatures than otherwise. To squeeze every bit of experience from the Labyrinth,” Kwazele replied.
“And yet, you turned against him.”
“Because all of Zulu was turned around the Labyrinth. All of Zulu lived for the Labyrinth. That’s why we had to stop him as soon as possible, because the more he did, the more the Zulu became the Chosen Ones’ shadows. It will take time, but we can... re-educate our brothers and sisters. To remind them that being a Zulu isn’t just walking the Labyrinth and expecting Earth to serve you.”
“Well, I hope you will remember who helped you doing that,” Jonas said drily.
"My brother and I will. All of you. We owe you a debt,” Kwazele said solemnly.
“And will see that all that have fallen will get help if we can,” Zenzele added.
“Thanks.”
Charlotte, Queen of England, stepped out of the Great Gilded Gate and watched the battlefield. She’d never seen one such, and she definitively never wanted to see anything like that again. The Labyrinth was cleaner, even if you had to fight dozens of minions swarming to help a final guardian of a lair. In the Labyrinth, corpses decomposed in minutes, leaving nothing or nearly nothing.
The Encyclopædia Britannica for Pyrrhus should probably use this as its illustration, she thought.
“It’s done,” she said.
She turned her head, surveying the situation, then spotted a female robed figure that she’d been described, being helped on her feet by a plate-bearing defender.
She wasted no time heading that way.
“Princess Zhuangjing, I presume?”
The Chinese woman looked at her but did not answer, her countenance slowly firming as the hold of Lingering Death on her stabilized.
“I am Queen Charlotte.”
The woman stood silent for a few seconds before answering with a single “Ah.”
“Yea. For now, we’ve fought a greater menace, but we are still at war, or so it seems.”
“We have been at war for years now,” the Princess replied.
“Technically, not. The Crown of Britain has no possessions in Asia. I understand you entered… disciplinary actions against some of our merchantmen, their local allies, and troops delegated to protect trade. But until your invasion, the British Government did not wage war against the Qing.”
Charlotte could see the daughter of the Emperor of China processing her words. She’d phrased it very carefully, to offer her the pretence of not having started a war. The only question was, would she take it, or not.
“If a government does not speak when a merchant does, doesn’t it mean that the merchant speaks for the government?”
Is she going to be stubborn to that point?
“I suppose for you, it might not seem that way. But our merchantmen are independent and do as they want. As long as they respect the laws of the kingdom. And pay their taxes, of course.”
“Of course,” Zhuangjing smiled.
“Was Mhambi Meshindi so powerful that the Chinese bent to his whims?” Charlotte asked, changing angles.
The Princess turned toward the Great Gate, from which a handful of low-tier Professionals still trickled, cautious about this unprecedented situation where so many Professionals of opposing nations were gathered. Charlotte looked, before realizing.
“The Gate? That’s what you were after?”
“The ability to abstract oneself from the whim of chance is powerful. If you can pay the cost,” Zhuangjing replied.
“You wanted to use our Gate to make your own Adjustment-bearers.”
“We now know where your Professionals landed when they were remade. We’d send an escort there, to be ready to receive the Emperor. He is not half as wise as his father was, but my father is also only half the fool he was. He has steered the Empire well, in these days of the Labyrinth. China needs a strong emperor. And the Labyrinth would make him what China needs.”
“You are an immortal now. Why not you?”
Zhuangjing looked at her askance.
“We are not barbarians, who seize the throne from its legitimate heir on a whim.”
Charlotte pretty much doubted this assertion. But if that was her opponent’s position, so be it.
“Well, England will strenuously object to having its Gate closed.”
“You can re-open it.”
“So it seems you’d have us bear the cost of your benefits.”
The Princess was about to object when Presence flared. Everyone’s sights turned to the Great Gilded Gate from where the impulse had come. And the figures coming out were otherworldly, not just from the effects of the Potential.
At the forefront of the team coming out was an immense red-bearded figure, wearing armour black as the night itself, constellations and nebulae showing through as if the armour was a mere opening in the sky. A single eye shone with a pinprick of light, and the man started down the ramp of the Gilded Gate, as a second figure followed. A gigantic woman, her figure wrapped in what looked like sand swirling in wind, floated half a foot above the ground, feet motionless as she followed the first man. She was followed by another man, in robes threaded in gold that reflected the sun, despite the lack of it under the heavy March cloud cover. A man in grey, all colour and details leached from him, whose shadows seemed to trail him followed, sporting a pair of daggers that caught your sight and seemed to hold it captive.
Jonas recognized immediately what the figures meant. High-Adjustment Professionals. Again.
Queen Charlotte was the first to shake out her surprise.
“Am I right into assuming you are High Lords of the Labyrinth?”
The man in front of the team didn’t immediately answer, taking stock of the scene. He finally replied, “You are correct.”
A man joined her, wiping his mouth from where some vomit still adhered, which was looking strange, as half of his skull was missing.
“Are you the friends of the Gides?” he said, in French which Charlotte readily understood even if she hadn't practised it much.
The floating sorceress at the godlike warrior’s side answered instead, “We are. We came out of the Gate in Argenmart and were told you all had rushed for England. Thankfully, we had a Fast Travel to backtrack to, even if the closed Gate has... delayed us a bit. Where are they?”
The Frenchman’s face blinked, revealing a youthful, yet thin figure, crowned with short-cropped hair. His grey-blue eyes twinkled as he gestured toward the chaos of the Queen’s Gardens.
“Fallen. I might probably bring back Anne - or rather, I could, if my still standing defenders had prioritized them before starting to perform Sacrifices.”
Both the woman and the grey-clad man looked at each other, nodded, and immediately moved toward the battlefield, while the other two Professionals watched.
Charlotte looked at them, before asking.
“Could you... help? We expected losses, but those have been grievous, and each Sacrifice saps the ability to bring the next back.”
The imposing figure looked down to her, before answering, “There is time. Do you have authority here?"
She hesitated.
“I suppose I do, now. I am... Queen Charlotte of England.”
The robed man frowned, “Charlotte? George the Fourth's daughter?”
“The Fourth?” she frowned.
“I think I remember the list. 18 Presence, am I right? Should have expected you.”
“How do you know?”
“I'm Piérrin de Bellièvre, former Knight of his Majesty Henry I, and I hail from Warwickshire. I've always taken an interest in the future happenings of my country across True History. And Divergences. After all, there are only three members of the British Royal Family to ever achieve Professional status, although you're not that likely to be around.”
“Likely?” she asked, confused.
“You only live to 1818 in True History, and there are not many Divergences open in this century. That's probably the only one I can visit.”
“Can we exchange histories later, Piérrin?” the leader said, before turning back his head toward the Queen.
“So, what exactly happened? I've seen aftermaths of a botched Legend raid and this looks almost worse.”
“Well, it was a form of raid. We had a massive threat to our... Divergence, that needed to be dealt with, as he was somehow plotting to take over. A Steadfast Astute Vanquisher, which I'm told sounds like a tier-fourteen.”
“That sounds correct for that tier. Where is he?” he asked.
Charlotte pointed toward the fairly recognizable corpse of Mhambi Meshindi. No one would mistake him for anything else, as nine-foot-tall people were not something you'd see every day.
Well, except today, since I have four more giants walking around, she thought.
The tall Viking god walked toward the fallen Zulu and knelt. For a second, she thought he would resurrect him, making all their work for naught. But the man rose.
“Mhambi Meshindi... the name rings a bell...”
“I think he was in Gengxin’s team. All four vanished, well, twenty years ago,” Piérrin noted.
“I think you’re right. Looks like we got our culprit,” Hrosskell said.
“He found his Atlantis.”
“Made it, more likely,” the Norse said.
“What are you saying,” Charlotte asked. She hadn't recognized the language, who felt alien in its tones, Meshindi’s name being the only part she’d understood.
“That the name isn’t unknown. He was indeed a Lord. Did anyone spot other Lords? He was in a team of four that never showed up in the high tiers ever again twenty years ago.”
“You’ll have to ask the Zulus,” she replied pointing to where the Africans were slowly gathering corpses, resurrecting them one by one.
“I think I will...” Hrosskell stopped, his gaze finally turning toward the team that was standing there.
“You are low-level Lords. That’s... strange to find someone with so little Adjustment here.”
“We were caught in the London Gate being closed,” Jonas explained.
Hrosskell sighed, an expression of displeasure amplified by a massive spike of Presence effect. Close to what Mhambi Meshindi had felt, but not as pronounced. Jonas realized the Professional was probably not much more advanced than the one they'd just faced.
"I think I am going to need many, many more details," he said, before turning toward the approaching people.
His two teammates were escorting a couple of Professionals, who had the slightly queasy look of the freshly resurrected. The Viking spat a handful of questions in a language that felt almost like Chinese to Jonas, without sounding fully Chinese. The plate-clad defender answered in the same tones, and they both exchanged quick-fire short sentences.
"Okay. First, strip and sort. The highest ungeared health first," Guthrumsson finally said.