What Drives Men
Idris startled awake to discover a hand clamped over his mouth and his eyes blindfolded. No, he could still see, it was just that the light filtering through the thick overhanging branches was so dim it was nearly pitch black. Where on Order’s path was he?
He peeled the hand away from his mouth easily enough and was about to curse out whoever it was. Then his eyes, beginning to adjust to the gloom, made out Conrad’s face with his other hand holding up a finger in the shh gesture.
What had happened? The last thing he remembered was fighting, Kaladrian had been running away, and Conrad… Conrad had punched him in the face.
He wanted to get right into why in the hell he had done that when he really looked at his mentor. The man was deathly pale. His breathing was ragged and he sat with his back against the tree not in his usual state of casual, indifferent repose, but more like he had been deposited there and lacked the strength to adjust. Idris remembered how easy it had been to get his hand off his mouth.
Then he remembered the Eater that had taken off Conrad’s leg. He looked him over, saw the hasty tourniquet just past the knee with the blood soaked rags over the top, pathetic in their attempts to stop the bleeding. It was Toughness keeping Conrad alive, and he must have a ludicrously high level.
“Your leg…” Idris said.
Conrad swallowed, and said, words slow, “I’m done.”
Idris heard the chittering then. Realized they weren’t completely free of the hive creatures yet, that Conrad had managed to hide them somewhere off the bridge but with his leg they hadn’t gone far. But this tree, with its heavy hanging branches forming a sort of screen against prying eyes, had been hiding place enough.
“No,” Idris said, determination and knowledge of what to do settling in, “You’re going to be OK.”
Smiling weakly, Conrad said, “It’s okay. Got you out. Lost the rest but I got you out. Did something good.”
“Stay alive. I’ll be back,” Idris said. He freed himself from the man, who just watched him go, unable to do much else.
Peering out through the low overhang of branches Idris could see the drones, milling around and picking up the dead. The bodies of men and women had been mostly cleared away, but the dead hive monsters themselves could also be reabsorbed by the dungeon and the drones were hard at work picking up everything.
The sheer carnage of the scene was stunning. Piles upon piles of the drones littered the bridge to the point that Idris wasn’t sure how they hadn’t simply been stopped by walls of corpses as they tried to cross.
No Soldiers or Eaters in sight. They must have returned to the Hive, to be repurposed or reabsorbed. It was just Drones.
With as much haste and stealth as he could manage, Idris moved out from the cover of the tree and approached a Drone from behind as it picked up another, dead Drone.
He reached out, grabbed its shoulders with one hand and its mandibles with the other and smashed them in his overpowered grip.
Unable to make noise, the thing struggled in his arms. Idris quickly broke both its arms and legs, like snapping twigs, and rushed the struggling torso back to the tree where Conrad lay dying.
He dug a hasty pit and put the drone over the top while Conrad watched, dying indifference on his face, but eyes still showing a vague curiosity.
In the pit, light hidden from the rest of the creatures by the soon to be corpse of the Drone, Idris cast Radiance and imbued it with Life Light. The brilliant white light of the first spell changed to a soft gold before attaching to the drone.
With a swift twisting motion Idris snapped the thing’s neck. The golden light deepened in color and Idris sent it into Conrad. The man sighed, some shade of color returning to his cheeks. But before he could say anything Idris was off.
He repeated the grizzly maneuver several times before Conrad reported his Health was nearly topped up and they could rest.
“Nifty trick,” Conrad said, personality reemerging from the fog of expected doom.
“Saved me on the bridge, too,” Idris said.
“Not sure how I missed that happening, then again after your sister tried to heal you everything went insane,” Conrad said, “Seeing you back on your feet after that Soldier skewered you… there wasn’t time to ask.”
Conrad added after a moment, “Got him, by the way. The one that got you.”
“Thanks,” Idris said, “For the vengeance, I mean.”
“Least I could do,” Conrad said.
They both sat awkwardly, unsure if they were joking or really talking or just making noises as their minds took in the insanity of everything that had happened over the last few hours. The pile of dead, broken Drones around them wasn’t making it any easier.
For his part, Idris settled on silence and Conrad seemed to do the same. Outside their hiding place the drones continued to work steadily.
“Why did you hit me?” Idris asked, suddenly.
Conrad grunted and replied, “Wondered when you would ask. What do you think happened back there?”
“I don’t even know,” Idris said seriously, “I missed half of everything while I was trying to heal myself. Kaladrian did some woowoo nothing with his magic, then we were all killing…everything. He got Eana out though. Took her right through the gap we cut through those things. And then you punched me.”
“Wasn’t woowoo,” Conrad said abruptly.
“Well obviously,” Idris said, “It had to be something but I don’t know-”
“It was Kaladrian,” Conrad said abruptly.
“What?” Idris asked.
“Everything. The plan, the slaughter, the kidnapping. All of it,” Conrad said.
“Kidnapping? What are you talking about?”
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Conrad moved to sit with his arms crossed over his knees, realized he couldn’t while missing half his leg, sighed and began, “It was an insane plan but we all agreed to it. Pull the monsters across the bridge? Bring down the node? Surround ourselves with overwhelming numbers? Sitting here now, if I told you that was the plan and it would work, would you agree with me?”
“But that wasn’t the point,” Idris said, “We needed to give the adventurers space to fight. They’re not used to fighting as a unit.”
“And you think that the best way to achieve that was to get ourselves surrounded?” Conrad asked, warming up to his point.
“There wasn’t time…” Idris said, feeling less conviction than he had only a moment before, “We had to do something.”
“I’ll tell you why it seemed like a good idea,” Conrad said, “Kaladrian. His class, or one of them - Mage? Ha! - is entirely focused on manipulating our feelings and actions. At every inflection point, Kaladrian was there - a hand on the shoulder, a kind word, and a convenient excuse to help point you where he wanted you to go.”
“But why? How?” Idris asked. It made a crazy sort of sense but didn’t seem possible.
“Your sister,” Conrad said simply.
Idris scrunched up his face in incredulity, “The entire town is dead, Conrad. He got her out. If we head on to Confluence we might even be able to catch up to them and he can explain.”
“Catch up?” Conrad said, gesturing at his leg, “No. And if we did, it isn’t just emotions that man can manipulate. He’s got power. Real magical power, not just a spell here and there like most adventurers. It takes incredible wealth to get the gemstones needed to supply mana for that kind of power. No, Idris. If we did manage to catch up he would kill us.”
“Why?” Idris asked, still confused.
“Kaladrian only showed interest in Irondale because of your sister. Chaos take me, he played me like an instrument,” Conrad’s voice got faster as the pieces to whatever puzzle he had been working out began falling into place, “Got me to spill everything I knew about her. Wanted to meet you and I sent you off with him. Wanted to meet your sister and he gets you on his team to bring her along… How did he get the rest of Irondale out of the Inn to come and fight at the bridge?”
Idris leaned back a moment, stunned, “He just…went into the Inn and they all came out following him… he had that glow on his armor that happens when he uses magic.”
“Uh huh,” Conrad said, “He probably told you some story about what he said to persuade them - but have you ever seen men move and change their minds in ways like they do around Kaladrian?”
More and more Idris was finding himself conceding that, maybe, Conrad had a point. Kaladrian seemed to collect fans wherever he went. The Seekers at their headquarters, Conrad, townsfolk at the Inn, even his own father had made bizarre acquiescence to Kaladrian despite barely knowing the man.
At Conrad’s words Idris remembered something from the night before, “He told me that men aren’t driven by reason, they’re driven by emotions. And they find reasons afterward to make it make sense.”
“Sounds like he’s a man who practices what he preaches,” Conrad said, “But all of it, every bit of it was to get to that last moment where he took your sister. And nobody was left to object.”
“He said he had been looking for her his whole life,” Idris said, “I thought he was just exaggerating, trying to make her feel important.”
“Might have been doing exactly that,” Conrad said, “But the purpose of a man’s actions is what they do, not his statement of what he intends. And the final result of all of this was Kaladrian walking away with Eana and the rest of us dead - save you and me, of course.”
“You really believe that? He did all this to kidnap Eana? We would have left with him if he asked us to.”
“Maybe you would have, and maybe he could have manipulated you into wanting it,” Conrad said, “But the Hive and Eana’s, well, your sister being whatever she is put that possibility to bed. Once things got going, nobody was walking out of there alone whether they wanted to or not”
“But the plan.. He didn’t need everybody to die to get Eana to leave with him,” Idris argued.
Conrad held out an open hand and replied, “Ask it a different way, Idris. Did everybody need to live for him to get what he wanted?”
“But what about the fight? He couldn’t have made it turn out how it did, we all lost it and just… kept…” Idris’s stomach sank.
“We all lost our minds,” Conrad said, “All at once. Everybody. Even you saw it happening but didn’t know it. Thought Kaladrian was doing some magical nothing that didn’t help anybody but it did help somebody. He cast some sort of spell that put all of us into a state of bloodlust so intense we couldn’t help but get him across that bridge. No fear left, no hesitation, no regard for our own lives.”
Conrad broke off for a second as the emotion of the previous night rose in his voice. His best friends, the Seekers, men he had trained and fought with for years, all of them died in what Idris could now see was a senseless slaughter, an emotional need to kill. It had been so overwhelming that even when the chance to run was presented to them they kept fighting instead.
Idris remembered Conrad’s face as he fought. Anguish. Some part of him had wanted to help his men, to protect them, but he couldn’t stop. Just like Idris, Conrad needed to keep killing.
But watching his men die at the same time? It had been breaking him.
“And what did he say when it took us all?” Conrad said, voice deadly, “Push forward. One little nudge of reason to give a target for all that rage and killing. The utter disregard for human life it takes to do what he did with his magic… That’s the man who took your sister. That’s the man who killed us all.”
The revelation of it all was hard to take in. But they had escaped because…
“Why did you hit me?” Idris asked again.
“Can’t you guess it?” Conrad asked, “When that thing took my leg it broke the spell. I came back. And do you think I could have persuaded you to stop fighting? Stop killing?”
Idris looked off toward the bridge, voice emotionless, “Nothing could have stopped me.”
“Nothing but a punch in the jaw, apparently,” Conrad said.
“Apparently,” Idris said, “But why? What was the point of it all?”
“That,” Conrad replied, “Is something I intend to ask the man as I put my sword through him. And if he doesn’t tell me, I’ll make something up to justify it anyway. He would appreciate that, I think.”
“But he saved Eana,” Idris said, still holding onto the one piece of silver lining he could find.
“Did that punch cause brain damage? Open your eyes, Idris!” Conrad snapped, “He kidnapped Eana, and killed the rest of us. Karno, Jibs, Troy, and your own father. He killed all of them to take her. The entire town. Everyone. I don’t care if he gives her silks and jewels and treats her like a princess. When all is said and done, he turned us all into killing machines so that he could escape with her!”
Conrad’s voice, held all the rage and malice of a promised revenge as he punctuated every word, “He. Killed. Everyone! Whatever he plans to do with her there isn’t anyone left who gets to have a say otherwise.”
It made a perverse sense. There could still be a reason for all of it. A mistake, desperation, something to justify what had happened.
But as Idris searched his memory, watched his father disappear in a mass of murderous insect men, watched men and women he had grown up with torn apart and throwing themselves in a suicidal need to kill more against an unstoppable enemy while the only person left unaffected simply…walked away.
There was nothing at all that Idris could imagine that would ever justify that.
He eyed the XP Crystal in his inventory. Conrad had said Kaladrian had real power. With this though, maybe Idris could give him a run for his money.
“We have to find him,” Idris said, “We have to get my sister back.”
Conrad nodded, “I want you there with me when we get our answers. And when we make him pay.”
Idris could still see the light of the burning town. He could still hear the screams of the dying, thought he might never stop hearing them. He remembered his own terror as he watched the last of his HP dwindle down toward zero.
He thought of his father’s last moment as he replied, “When do we leave?”
THE END OF BOOK ONE