Chapter 9
A storm on the Horizon
~<(0)>~
It had been quite the night, Ophelia had quite lot to think about after the Innkeeper had talked with her. She had experienced more of the town until sunset, though she was mainly lost in her own thoughts. She had talked to Lyrei all night about what had happened that day. Even the actions of one single human had blown her away. Whereas she had been scared to deal with people before, this had at least put a crack in the shell. They might not know she was a slime on the inside, but they had accepted her, at least as a person. Thoughts about whether or not they would accept her as a slime filtered through her mind, but Lyrei put a stop to that quickly. “{It’s not good to think of that kind of thing right now. If you convince enough people of your worth as a person, the chance of them accepting you as a slime rise too.}” She was too much of an anomaly for the world to accept right now. The thought threatened to depress her, but she wouldn’t let it dampen her joy of the kindness of the Innkeeper.
Breakfast again, the Innkeeper kindly placing that morning’s breakfast in front of her before going to help the other patrons. She didn’t have much of a plan for the day other than talking with the townsfolk. Lyrei had suggested talking to some of the hunters for advice on travelling in the forest, so that was on the table. Beyond that though, she didn’t really know. She wasn’t ready to leave Fairpost yet, but she wasn’t entirely sure what all she actually wanted to do here either.
Out in the crispness of the morning, she watched as the sun filtered through the mist that climbed the walls of the valley. It was beautiful, something that made her appreciate having eyes. Though… “(Mother, are the clouds supposed to be moving like that?)”
Before her passenger consciousness could answer, the sounds of hunting horns swept over the Town. Everyone paused in what they were doing to look in the direction the sound had come from, and there was shouting from outside the walls and from the guards at the gates.
~<(0)>~
The alarms were sounding again from the equipment. The Damned things had gone off far too often during the first week or so, sounding at all hours, letting Cassa know about Every, Single, Thaumically active thing that existed nearby. It had FINALLY gotten itself accustomed to the various signatures of the area and dropped down to maybe one alert every day. This though, ugh… of course it happened while she wanted to sleep in. She couldn’t even get decent sleep this far from Academic life. She dragged herself out of bed and over to the equipment readout, ready to clear it and set a buffer so the same thing wouldn’t trigger again and go back to sleep. However, something seemed wrong with the readings. Cassa rubbed her eyes, looking at the readings again. That… couldn’t be correct, right? She ran a few tired calculations in her head and adjusted the graph to account for the readings she had been getting, and her eyes widened. Either her equipment was HORRIBLY inaccurate, or something BIG was moving through her range.
She scrambled for her writing supplies, pen scratching across the paper, dipping into her inkwell at a frantic pace as she wrote out her report and the details the detection equipment was putting out. When she was done, she tied up the fresh scroll with shaking fingers, and sent it via Messenger flame. She didn’t know if she’d get a response, but one quickly came upon the Messenger flame, reading one simple word. AFFIRMATIVE.
~<(0)>~
They could see it now, a massive form that caused the fogbank to roil as it moved. It didn’t so much walk as amble, rather clumsy in its execution. The hunters had returned with shouts of “Monster” and told of the behemoth they had seen on the horizon. It was difficult to see details at this distance, but it was obvious that, whatever it was, it seemed to be heading straight towards the town. The humans up on the walls were readying cannons and ballistae to work to fend off the threat. As Ophelia watched the monster approaching at a frightful pace, what she thought were wisps of fog burning off from the entity’s movement turned out to be smoke. It didn’t even seem to be actively starting fires, its very passage was setting the trees ablaze.
“{Oh, oh no.}” the voice startled Ophelia from her stupor of watching the monstrosity approach. “(What is it?)” she asked back.
“{I think I know what it is. A Chimeric Abomination, a sort of amalgamation of a thaumic intelligence and magically active material. These are incredibly rare. As in, over my life I’ve seen two, not including this if it is indeed a Chimeric Abomination. They take an incredibly specific set of requirements to form, the catalyst is generally thought to be a powerful elemental of some sort, though due to their rarity and extreme danger not much is known of them. Ophelia, we need to go and get our stuff NOW, and then I’ll start formulating teleport coordinates out of-}”
“(What about the townsfolk? We can’t just leave them behind if it’s as dangerous as you say.)”
Lyrei stuttered, dumbfounded. Then it dawned on her… Ophelia truly wanted to stay and help out the first sentient group of people that hadn’t tried to kill her outright. “{Of course… I don’t know how I thought you’d do anything different. Look, Ophelia, I know that you want to help out the townspeople but… even at my peak, right before I became a part of you, I couldn’t take one of these things on alone. They are a roiling mass of chaotic, wild thaumic flux, malformed spells shooting off of them constantly. That’s not mentioning that whatever the Abomination has managed to assimilate into its being may be used to attack. Finally, there is the nature of whatever is the catalyst for the Abomination. From the forest fires it is causing simply by existing, I’d say that there’s a powerful Deep Fire Elemental as the catalyst, which means no one will even be able to get close lest they immolate.}”
“(We can do it, Mother. You may not have all four of your minds, but you have yourself and me, and you’ve said I have a vast amount of thaumic power. We have to at least make an attempt. If things go horribly wrong, at least we tried, and we can teleport out then, right?)”
Lyrei didn’t have anything more she could say to attempt to convince Ophelia to change her mind, but more than that she didn’t really want to try. The Slime was right… she had an enormous amount of thaumic energy stored in her very being, so if there was even a chance anyone in this town could defeat the Chimeric Abomination, it was going to be the two of them. She packaged a spell, one very familiar, and sent it to Ophelia, “{Use this. It’s a thought Acceleration spell, it should work for the both of us. We’re going to need as much of an edge as we can get.}”
Ophelia activated the spell and time seemed to slow. “{I don’t think I can create more of my minds as we are right now, and I know that you don’t really know how to fight one of these things. The best option is going to be for you to keep moving, dodging anything that it may throw at you, and casting the spells I send to you at the Abomination. It likely won’t even notice us at first until we actually start hurting it, but once it does, it is likely to retaliate and retaliate HARD.}”
“(Mother, is it capable of reasoning? Could we convince it to stop moving towards the town? I don’t want to have to hurt it if there is an alternative.)”
Lyrei sighed softly, “{As far as we’ve ever been able to discern, the thaumic intelligence within the Abominations are only marginally more intelligent than the standard slimes of the world. Less intelligent than those cave scorpions or fish. Even if it is capable of feeling pain, if we don’t stop it, the Abomination is going to tear through the town, and I don’t think the town is going to be free of people by the time that thing arrives. Moreover, Chimeric abominations are entities of cataclysmic levels of power. One of the prior ones I helped to fight was an ice Abomination. It took me and dozens of the best mages we had at the time weeks of fighting it to destroy it, and even with its destruction it still pushed the world into an ice age that lasted decades. The most recent one I had helped to defeat was that of storm and wind, and the super-hurricane it created still rages in the center of the great ocean to the east. The longer these monstrosities exist in this world, the greater the threat they pose to it, simply by existing.}”
Ophelia steeled her resolve. Even though she didn’t want to hurt another sentient being, even on accident, this thing was going to wipe out an entire town and probably kill most, if not everyone in it. “(I’m ready, Mother. Let’s Do this.)”
~<(0)>~
The Fairpost guards were frantically working on the wall, readying all the defensive weaponry the town had to offer. While not the newest, the ballistae and cannons on the wall were well maintained and ready to fight at practically a moment’s notice. Half the guard was moving the weaponry from the side opposite to where the monster would be to as close as they could get before it came in range. The Captain of the guard was looking through a spyglass at the monster as it approached. Huge didn’t even begin to properly describe it. There seemed to be some sort of massive mining machine that formed part of its apparent torso and one arm. It looked like there was some sort of boiler or brewing equipment that made up the other half of its torso. A massive siege ballista was at the end of its other arm, and magical crystals and other arcane equipment he couldn’t even begin to identify at this range made up the rest. It looked vaguely humanoid, though it didn’t have the proper number of limbs, no matter how said limbs were used. The whole entity glowed with a brilliant blue flame which was most definitely not an illusion, if the trees catching fire dozens of meters away were any indication. He’d never seen anything like this monster before, and he hoped and prayed to whatever gods, even the Goddess if she happened to be listening, that they would be able to stop it.
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All too soon, the entity was in range of the ballistae, and he ordered them to fire. Massive bolts flew through the air, catching fire as they neared it, and… all but one bounced off. The one that had stuck in the monster seemed to have sunk into one of the unidentifiable pieces of magical equipment, but the entity didn’t even seem to notice, and before his eyes the shaft of the bolt was turned to charcoal, then ash that fell away, leaving only the iron bolthead which seemed surprisingly unaffected by what must be an incredible heat. By the time the Ballistae were ready to fire again, the cannons were also in range, and he ordered them all to fire at will. Echoing booms filled the air, ringing over the great rumbling crashes of the monster’s movement. The balls flew through the air, accompanied by the ballista bolts. However, the effect was hardly more satisfactory compared to the first volley. They seemed to be doing little if any damage, and they hadn’t even been noticed.
“You can’t defeat it. That’s a Chimeric Abomination. I don’t even know if I can stop it, but I will try to slow it, you should all help the citizens to evacuate.” The shout came from an elf that had appeared on the walls. It was that elf woman that had come into the town a couple of days ago. What hope did she have? But… as another volley flew off towards this… Abomination having little effect, what hope did they have? The town was a lost cause, but the townspeople he and his fellow guardsmen had sworn to protect might be saved.
“Guards! Fall back and assist with evacuation! Remember priority is our citizens, goods and houses can be replaced later. Get as many out of the way of this Abomination as you can!” he turned to the mysterious elf “Can I ask your name, if you don’t make it out of this?”
“I am Lyrei Araphine, and I will do my best to make it out of this whether I am able to stop it or not.” She gave a grim smile.
“You will be remembered as the elf who put herself in the way of danger for our entire town. Fairpost will remember you, Miss…. No, Lady Araphine. May you Fight Valiantly.” With that, he made his way off the wall to assist with the evacuation.
~<(0)>~
“(Do you think we can delay it enough that they can escape?)” Ophelia asked her passenger.
“{I have no idea, but we’ll do our best to try.}” Lyrei was trying to formulate a plan. She had been since the decision had been made to fight the monster. “{The best plans we have had in the past have involved disrupting the power sources and catalysts inside the Abomination. Without this thaumic power, the central thaumic intelligence will dissipate and the construct will become more or less inert. Using opposing elements will likely have the best chance of doing damage. Simple ice spells aren’t likely to work, however, nor are water-based spells. Spatial disruption spells also may work, anything that can bypass the various layers of fields this thing is going to have. And finally, anything with enough kinetic energy will likely cause it to take notice, and possibly do real damage to it.}”
“(Do you think that will work?)” asked the slime girl, hopefully.
Her passenger sighed mentally, “{No, not on its own. As soon as we start doing real damage, the Abomination will start to retaliate. Retaliation will likely include massive collateral damage towards the town. Under these circumstances, this is unacceptable. If we were fighting it in a metaphorical vacuum, we could likely manage to take it down fully this way, but as I said earlier, the longer this entity is in the world, the more damage it will do. That means we need a part two to this plan: large scale area of effect neutralization spells. There are several downsides to these types of spells. First, they are generally ritual spells, which will require multiple people of a certain skill level working in tandem to be able to cast. Second, they generally take time, with amount of time directly proportional to the complexity and scale of the spell. Third, immobility. The further you get away from a ritual you are feeding, the less effective your participation in the spell becomes. I have an idea that may help will the first and last issues, the second we will simply have to deal with.}”
“(I think I understand. How are we going to start?)” queried the slime.
“{First, with the part of the plan that will take the longest time to prepare…}”
~<(0)>~
A shield shattered as a burst of flames from the Abomination hit it, throwing the apparent elf backwards off the town wall, the stone exploding above as a section of the wall simply disintegrated. She grunted as she impacted, gathering together both her wits and energy, and leapt back onto the wall. “{Defence seems untenable. Acknowledged and updated. Best defence seems to be avoidance. You are going to need to dodge whatever is coming at you. I can tell you that your elven form isn’t going to be able to handle spells of those levels, but wild magic like that is disruptive to thaumic constructs on every level. They might actually be able to seriously hurt you.}”
Ophelia dodged another wild spell that came close to hitting her, throwing herself to the side with little grace. The wall where she had just been rained down on her forms no larger than her hand. She aimed and let loose a dry ice spell her mother had readied for her, a lance that trailed fog as it sailed through the air until it impacted the Abomination. To the credit of the spell, a portion of the monster’s shifting body seemed to solidify for a few moments, though it quickly returned to normal.
Most things they had been throwing at it seemed to be having some sort of effect, at least for a period of time. They had managed to hit one of the catalysts in the massive boiler system that made up a part of its torso, damaging it, and that had definitely caused the Abomination to take notice of them. Whereas before its attacks had been wild and random, it seemed to know where they were and was performing targeted attacks now, which were having devastating results on the town itself, and would have been outright fatal to any normal person who got hit by them. Lyrei had said it was likely tracking their thaumic signature, as it didn’t seem to have any proper eyes or anything to track them. Ophelia wondered if that was why it had come to this town in the first place… she was undoubtedly the most magic dense ‘thing’ in the town, even with most of her power hidden away, and if it could track via that energy… she left the thought there. Whether it was her fault or not, she had a duty to protect the people of Fairpost. They had been so kind to her, even if they didn’t actually know what she was.
She took the next spell Lyrei had prepared, and took a solid stance, as she let loose what seemed to be a sort of particle accelerator spell, firing the debris from the wall at absurd velocities, a noticeable percentage of the speed of light, her knowledge from Lyrei told her. It was still weird having all this learned knowledge that wasn’t hers, but also was now. The beam ripped through part of what could be considered its right arm, a magical explosion from the ballista signalling the destruction of one of its catalysts. Before she could even mentally celebrate, however, the monster let loose this devastating sound. It seemed like fire raging and consuming everything, or the deep magmatic currents coursing through the planet, or the cataclysmic eruption of a volcano shattering everything for miles, but really it sounded like all of those together. It could only be what passed for a roar. Ophelia’s constructed eardrums shattered as the wave of sound passed over her, and she hoped that the mortal humans below the level of the wall had fared better than her. She reformed her ears with little more than a thought, dodging another, larger spell, and taking aim with another dry ice lance.
“(How much longer does that ritual have?)” It was clear that this method of fighting wasn’t useful in the long run, thus they would need part two of the plan. Lyrei’s prediction had been right, though this wasn’t surprising in the slightest to Ophelia.
“{I’m maintaining the link to the constructs. I wish we could maintain more than these though, as it would be considerably faster with more parts to the spell. We can feed them all the energy we want, but that won’t do if we overload the constructs and blow the spell circle.}” What was left unsaid was that it was too long. The town wasn’t going to be able to survive at this rate. The people however… she hoped that she was buying them enough time to evacuate. The town could be destroyed, but the people… they could rebuild it once the danger had passed. That’s all that mattered now. They, she and Lyrei, could kill this Abomination. She believed it because she had to believe it, because there was no other option.
The air cracked around her as she held the spell in her hands, letting the energy fill all parts of the system. The spell itself was unreality, contained in a field that basically just prevented it from collapsing in on itself. The upside to the spell was that Lyrei promised it would pack a massive punch, possibly able to knock another entire section of the Abomination out of commission if it hit right. The downside was that it rent at space itself, fighting her actions to even move it. This meant both immobility and a considerable amount of time spent charging up a specialized accelerator spell to be able to launch it. Thus, she was below the lip of the wall, standing on the roof of a nearby structure, while the wall weathered blow after blow, entire sections of the wall falling down around her. Despite not having line of sight, it seemed to know where she was, which made sense if it really was tracking her via her thaumic signature.
The wall she was hiding behind cracked, a deep feeling she felt in her very core, and simply broke away, leaving the Abomination a direct view to her. It also meant she had a direct line of sight to it. She grinned, levelling her spell at the monstrosity, before firing the accelerator. The sphere of unreality tore space as it went, warping at the edges of its effect, but flew true to her aim. She watched as it moved comparatively slowly to her accelerated mind, impacting the Abomination on what passed for its shoulder. The results were devastating, more than on par with the destruction that it had been wreaking on the town walls. Reality seemed to fragment, and the arm was blown off, shattering into massive pieces before it even landed. Deep cracks radiated out from the impact site on the main entity, and they didn’t seem to heal. Another roar radiated from the Abomination, ripping loose stones from the shattered wall.
“Yes!” the shout slipped from her lips, and she blushed, not having meant to vocalize her celebration. “(Maybe one or two of those and we should be able to defeat it even without the ritual spell.)”
“{Don’t celebrate too soon, Ophelia, I don’t think we can pull off another one of those spells without risking a hit. The wall is falling apart now, and we need it to be able to protect the townspeople where we cannot. If we let it get destroyed now…}” Lyrei let the sentence hang unfinished.
“(I know. Give me another spell, it seems dazed for the moment, but I doubt that will last long.)” her ask was quickly answered with another particle accelerator spell. It took a bit to charge up, but she could move while doing so, and so she did. If the wall couldn’t adequately protect the townspeople, she would take the fight away from them. Leaping through the shattered remains of the wall, she ran at an absurd speed towards the Abomination, until she could feel her skin starting to blister from the heat. Then she unleashed her spell, a thin beam of plasma that tore through the Abomination’s main body structure, shattering dozens of thaumic crystals and causing damaged minor catalysts to explode.
It was then that Ophelia realized her mistake, as she watched in slow motion as the Abomination, which had seemed so ponderously slow at a distance, moved even faster than she could have thought in her thought accelerated speed, leaping forward and swinging the mining machine that passed for its remaining arm at her. She tried to move, tried to do anything really. Nothing seemed to respond, definitely nothing fast enough to be of any use. Lyrei didn’t have any spells to fix this, or at least she wasn’t providing any. She didn’t even feel the impact, nor the searing flame as it hit her.