Day 3
47 Dead
Remaining Keepers: 732
Kade was growing used to fighting in a group, partly because the fighting never seemed to end. The latest encounter was with a living sea of monsters that looked like hairy scorpions on canine legs, and they were extremely irritating to fight. Their fur hid a dense carapace, and Kade was currently smashing through their ranks with an enormous energy hammer. He’d taken to putting a charge of Chaos into the front of every swing, causing small explosions each time he connected, and it was deeply satisfying to see a dozen or more of the annoying creatures thrown back with each swing.
Kade caught a stinger on a gauntlet as he reminded himself for the hundredth time to return to the line of the Keepers. Thinking of the gauntlets turned his mind to the mysterious Aspect. Drake still hadn’t reformed since the battle with the Elder, but Kade could feel his presence, and figured it was only a matter of time. During a break in the fighting, he looked down at his bracer and forced himself to ignore the assassination mission he was trying not to even think about, then selected his ability screen once more.
ABILITY
Aspect of Metallurgy: Rank (Maximum!)
Cost (First summon): Soul Fragment (Small)
Description: Creates a permanent Bond with a Fragment of Metallurgic power, allowing that Fragment to manifest in local reality. Abilities and attributes are determined by the power of the summoner. Can be infused with additional mana to temporarily increase attributes.
Drake was the first of his abilities to reach maximum rank, and he could only assume the odd behavior of the Aspect was tied to that. Asking around had confirmed that being near the enormous energy surges of dying Elders could sometimes transform abilities, but it was usually an immediate transformation, so Kade was struggling not to worry about his steely companion. He looked back up from his bracer to take in the state of the battle, and saw that it was going better than the last few: no new Elder sightings yet today.
Jothus was to his left, helping to hold the line, and the two had gotten used to protecting Sal and Gwen as the two unleashed an ‘appropriate’ barrage of attacks, according to their commanders. At first Kade had felt stifled by being forced into the traditional fighting style of the Keepers, but the frequent addition of Elder attacks often allowed for individuals to shine, even if only for a short time. Spotting Elders had become a mixed experience, as something inside Kade seemed to come to life when meeting the incredible challenge they presented, but he was also only too aware of the danger they posed.
This battle was slowly coming to an end, and Kade could see many of the anxious Keepers looking around suspiciously. They’d yet to encounter a horde that hadn’t been herded by at least a single Elder, and now there were a number of earth specialists always on guard for underground attacks, while others watched the sky in anticipation. As the final scorpion creatures fell, Bandal at last took the field, looking imperious, as always.
“The Elders fear us! See how they don’t even follow their beasts onto the field!” He turned and faced the army, and Kade could sense another speech coming. “The Keepers are the true power of this world! The time of the Elders is behind us! We must move ever onward, putting these old fools back into the ground!” Kade tuned out the rest, knowing the general thesis was always the same: keep advancing, nevermind the odds, nevermind the growing number of friends and comrades lost along the way.
Jothus always listened, or at least Kade thought he did, as the quiet man stared in the direction of the High Keeper, a blank expression on his face. Kade looked to Sal instead, “You’re sure this is normal? I still haven’t seen any other Keepers showing this kind of intense fanaticism,” he whispered.
“I never said it was normal for all of us, but Bandal’s reputation is…unique. He was only raised to his role recently, but he’s spent centuries in the frontier, hunting Elders and holding back the Chaos.” Gwen heard their whispers and chimed in.
“Sal’s right, for the most part at least. Some of my family have fought beside him before, and he was always big on the ‘mission is everything’ vibe. Since being raised though…” Kade looked at her with curiosity, he hadn’t heard her take on Bandal before. “He’s been going further and further. Even before the Elders started waking up he was trying to push for the Keepers to go out into the True Chaos.” She turned to watch the speech for a moment, as Bandal was ramping up in energy and passion.
“Gather yourselves! Gather your courage, your nerve, your power! Any Elder foolish enough to wake up in our world will be slaughtered!”
“Still, this feels extreme, even for him,” Gwen finished.
Kade could only agree as the High Keeper sent scouts out to search for the Elder, or Elders that had sent the horde. As part of the defensive line, Sal’s group–which Kade had been officially welcomed into–would be moved back into the slow march as they waited for the scouts to return. Kade fell into step beside Salarus, who was still recovering from the fight several days past, and tried to master himself. Anytime he wasn’t charging recklessly forward, he felt like he was frozen in time. But maybe he’d be lucky, maybe the scouts would return with a gaggle of Elders on their tails.
***
Day 7
78 Dead
Remaining Keepers: 701
Spite tore through the Elder’s thick hide like a razor, and Kade’s chains were just barely fast enough to yank him out of the way as the Core erupted in an explosion of energy. Jothus was there a moment later, a massive slab of dense rock between his enlarged hands, shielding the line of Keepers supporting their attack. It had taken a lot of unavoidable encounters, and a tragic number of deaths before Sal’s group was allowed to engage Elders directly, but every day the army of Keepers had fewer options.
As Kade and Ryndal retreated through the forest of spikes the porcupine-like Elder had fired at them, dozens of pinpoint strikes of fire and ice lanced into the Elder’s exposed core from the supporting Keepers. As the Elder roared in pain, Sal was suddenly there, his staff piercing deeply into the depleted Core, and safely draining the Chaotic energies. Kade realized he was panting from exertion–this had been a lengthy battle, though not the most dangerous they’d faced.
He looked across the battlefield, seeing that there were still several Elders engaged in fierce combat. Whatever else had happened, the army had at least gotten a lot better at preparing their forces to match power levels effectively. The Bringers stepping up as scouts had been the turning point, and battles had been much smoother since they had taken over the intelligence gathering.
It was easy to spot Bandal, as he was always engaging the most powerful enemies, and a colossal turtle-like Elder with six legs was presently being pounded on by the zealous warrior. By contrast, a second Elder that looked disturbingly like a person that had been stretched to horrible proportions was being brought down by First Bringer Heletta. She moved so quickly and efficiently that Kade couldn’t actually track her with his eyes, he could only follow the path of devastation as she ran up the towering Elder’s body, cleanly sliced chunks of Elder-flesh raining down behind her.
The two had developed something of an unspoken rivalry over the last few days, and many were just like Kade, finding themselves staring in fascination and awe at the two remarkably deadly warriors. A sudden surge of energy brought Kade’s attention back to the dying Elder that Sal’s staff was still draining, and it took a moment to realize he was actually feeling some kind of resonance in his arms–no–in his gauntlets.
Kade backed away behind the lines of defending Keepers, recognizing he wouldn’t be capable of fighting for the moment. The sensation was confusing, as he could feel his Soul Core connecting to the Drake-gauntlets, as well as the dying Elder behind him as his body absorbed the power it was releasing. It wasn’t precisely pain, but the sensation was overwhelming and thinking was becoming more difficult.
Kade’s arms vibrated more and more strongly, and the helmet he so rarely wore suddenly snapped into place over his head. He couldn’t say why, but he immediately knew he needed to take the helmet off, and his hands went up to grip the steel with desperation. The moment the gauntlets touched the helm, the metal began to meld together, and it was only the still-active Challenger’s Might that granted him the strength to tear the helmet off.
When he threw the helmet off, the gauntlets came with it, and the metal seemed to writhe and squirm on the ground for a moment. Nearby Keepers backed off in confusion, as no one in the army had seen Drake before, and it must have looked like Kade's armor had become possessed. Kade hastily told them not to worry, but his eyes never left the armor as metallic pops and screeches filled the air. All at once silver chains seemed to explode outward, and the assembled Keepers had to retreat even further as a wagon-sized mass of chains began to undulate and shift with unknown purpose.
Kade’s eyes were locked on the display, but he could also feel something else, and his mind was brought back to that moment months ago when he and Sal had just emerged from their Trial. He looked upward, someone knowing what he’d see as light caught on a number of metal objects hurtling toward the ground. They were too fast to see clearly, but one by one they crashed into the mass of chains, and were absorbed into the churning pile.
For a long moment the silver chains seemed content to keep doing whatever it was they were doing, but at last something changed. The mass began to take on a vaguely humanoid shape, and the chains grew smaller as they wove together endlessly. When the figure was roughly twice Kade’s height, the armor he recognized at last emerged once more, but it was changed. The helmet now had flared draconic wings reaching out from the sides and angling backward, and the angles of the mouth guard and eye slots had taken on a sharper, more aggressive appearance.
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It was also far larger than it had been, too big even for Jothus is his normal form. The gauntlets appeared next, which had previously only appeared when Kade absorbed the Aspect onto his person, and they flexed with dangerous purpose as the body continued to take shape. Matching greaves were next, and the enormous metal being took a slow, heavy step, the chains that made up its body still rapidly braiding together. Soon the armor was completed as a chest plate and smaller connective plates emerged as well.
By now the chains had shrunken down enough to almost look like exposed, silver muscle fibers, and Drake looked like nothing so much as an enormous steel knight. The final flare came as the pauldrons took shape, which were oversized and spiked, giving the Aspect a truly imposing appearance. The enormous helm slowly looked up to gaze at Kade, as the silver knight stood up straighter and seemed to explore its new body. Gauntlets flexed, and steel ‘muscles’ tensed as Drake inspected himself, the eyes of the helmet still eerily dark.
At last the titanic being made a final gesture, as if shrugging its shoulders, and a long cape made entirely of chains fell backward from the pauldrons. At the same time, the familiar silver spear appeared in one of its enormous hands, its size matching its wielder, and Drake smashed the butt end into the ground like some kind of salute. Finally the Knight clapped its other gauntlet into its chest a single time, the metal clang echoing outward, and Kade realized he was grinning widely at his companion.
“I missed you, my friend. Lookin’ good.”
***
Day 23
167 Dead
Remaining Keepers: 612
Gwendara Valoro pushed herself as she never had before. Today will be the day, she thought, as she impaled a group of massive Tigralas with spikes of ice. The yellow and red, six-legged creatures were extremely agile, and fought with teeth and claws with alarming ability. They were the worst possible opponent for her, and they were perfect.
Each day Gwen tried to force herself into worse and worse situations, though not impossible ones–she knew there were more important things going on than her desperate mission to overcome the Flaw. But she was getting close, and pushing herself was the only way. She’d listened to everything Salarus had told her, and even begrudgingly watched Kade as he careened through battlefields like Chaos personified, and she was sure she was near to Breaking.
As more Keepers fell every day, and the battles only intensified, the opportunities to put herself in ever more dangerous and challenging situations were many, and Gwen knew she would only survive if she fought differently. Better. She had volunteered to be tip of the spear for the wedge formation that was holding the small canyon where a river disappeared underground, and if her group fell there would be an open path to the army’s unprotected flank. She had to do this. She had to win here, and to do that she had to be more.
Gwen fought in a frenzy. Claws raked at her frozen armor, but she reveled in it. The need to continually restore the armor while also contending with dozens of attackers pushed her mind and spirit to their limits–to the nearly physical wall she could feel in Soul. The Tigralas kept coming, pushing the group of weary Keepers backward up the slope, the river doing nothing to impede the agile beasts. Gwen fought harder.
With a roar of fury she sent her ice into the rushing water, and it erupted as if alive, jagged waves of spikes impaling her foes from every angle. Gwen wouldn’t let herself enjoy the victory though, as she knew she needed to keep pushing. Never stop pushing. She gripped fanged maws with her bare hands, she forced her armor into blades and severed clawed limbs. She was winning. Until she wasn’t.
Despite the volume of the terrible roar, she almost didn’t hear it through the endless death wails of the beasts that were falling continually around her. When the ground shook beneath her feet, though, she took a moment to look up. The Elder was small, compared to most, and looked very much like the Tigralas she was facing, though it had the purple, veiny appearance that so many Elders seemed to possess, and its skin was otherwise black.
Gwen felt despair hit her harder than any attack the monsters had managed. She had been so close. But there wasn’t supposed to be an Elder here, the scouts had missed it. She simply didn’t have the forces. This position really should have been held by a Secundus, but she’d used her family’s name and reputation to take the job for herself, and now it would mean the lives of so many Keepers.
As much as that thought pained her, that her last act would cost so much to so many, she also knew deep down that failing to break through the Flaw somehow felt worse. She’d been right at the cusp! She’d pushed herself harder than she had for anything in her life, and now it would all be rendered meaningless.
The waves of lesser beasts never slowed as the Elder stalked forward. It was smaller than a house, and the energy she felt coming off of it in waves was barely first tier, no doubt how it managed to evade the scouts. Still, it was more than enough to tip the balance, and Gwen’s attacks grew slower and less focused as hopelessness overtook her. Then another sound cut through the roars and screeches of the beasts, and when Gwen realized what it was, her mood didn’t improve, even if hope had returned.
As usual, the lunatic arrived as if from nowhere, hurtling through the air with impossible speed, cackling all the while. Kade crashed into the side of the surprised Elder, that enormous energy sword of his, biting deeply into the glowing purple and black flesh. The maniac never stopped laughing as he dragged the sword downward, running from massive claws that desperately scratched at him before he finally leaped to safety.
Gwen barely had time to wonder at his sudden retreat, before the man’s silver shadow repeated its master’s maneuver by slamming into the Elder from above, a wicked spear impaling the thrashing creature. The silver blade emerged from the Elder’s chest and kept going, burying itself into the ground, and at the same time the titanic Knight exploded into chains, wrapping around and digging into the Elder from every conceivable angle. Before the impaled creature could even react to the binding chains, Kade was back at it, his sword flashing across the beast’s face with rapid, brutal strikes.
Gwen turned her attention back to the lesser monsters, furious at herself for needing help from the unusual warrior. On some level she recognized he was simply doing his duty, as he’d recently been moved into a floating role, meant to reinforce any endangered front at a power level he could handle. His ability to traverse the battlefield in such a quick and deadly manner made him perfect for the role, and Gwend begrudgingly admitted that the infuriating man was good at what he did.
But it was so easy for him! Everything was. Gaining power, being taken under the wing of a famous Keeper. Sal said the man had never even had the Flaw, and couldn’t understand the private struggle that she and many Keepers went through. Gwen began to take her rage out on the Tigralas that ceaselessly charged her position, and didn’t notice she was slowly forcing them back as her ice seemed to move and shape of its own accord.
She was so lost in her fury that she didn’t even stop to question why she had left the other Keepers behind, she just advanced. She danced among the beasts, and their swift strikes suddenly seemed slow and sloppy. She no longer bothered with large swaths of ice, instead sending small, scalpel-like projectiles in exactly the right places. Eyes, mouths, joints, her ice found every weakness as she moved, leaving countless dead and dying monsters behind her.
Her mind was blessedly blank as she continued forward. She ignored the madman that fought nearby, didn’t consider her own forces, or the pain in her chest, she simply glided from one attack to another. She couldn’t remember covering the ground in ice, but she moved over it perfectly now, as it took her exactly where she needed to be for each strike. Razor-thin blades of ice flew from her with every motion, carving through the ranks of beasts that were powerless against her.
Gwen had no sense of how much time had passed when she finally found no more targets for her wrath. She came to a stop in the middle of a pile of dead that nearly filled the small canyon she’d been protecting, and looked around in confusion. The large Elder appeared to have been dead for some time, though the steel Aspect still had it wrapped in chains, likely containing the explosive energy within. She felt unspeakable relief at seeing her own forces largely intact, all staring at her with confused expressions.
She didn’t entirely register the extraordinary destruction she’d caused until she made herself look around. Hundreds. She’d killed hundreds, on her own. She was smiling like a child when the silence was broken by a single, “Wow,” and she turned back to the Elder, to see Kade looking at her with a stunned expression. The man didn’t say anything further, but after a moment he did give a slow clap.
***
“You actually witnessed Gwen Break?” Sal asked from his place next to the campfire. He’d put his book down as Kade described the scene.
“If that’s not what it was, she’s been holding back for a long time. She was untouchable out there, Sal; it was awesome. I don’t think I really understood what a difference it could make.” Salarus stared into the flames for a moment, considering.
“Like you, I don’t have any significant experience with the Flaw myself, as I was Broken very early. It’s hard to understand exactly how it holds individuals back. But I am glad to hear that Gwen has found her own way to the other side of it. I’m sure she’ll tell me about it after she’s come to terms with it herself.”
Kade was staring away from the campfire and Sal as his friend spoke. Now that the madness of the battle had finally calmed, he had the feeling again, as if he’d been here before. “Sal, I know we’ve shifted from North to West over the last week or so. Is there any chance we could be close to Altera? To the Elder that Edwin was sent to Calm?”
Sal didn’t even pause, “No, we’re far to the North. That area isn’t even accessible from this direction. There are cliffs and rivers that make it essentially impassable.”
“The Sorcerer is right, I’m afraid,” said a distantly familiar voice from the shadows. A cloaked man came into the light from the campfire and sat down between the two men without asking permission. “If you’re looking to visit your old friend, I’m afraid you’ll have a bit of a wait ahead of you.”
Kade recognized the man the moment he saw the red hair, “Cerano. It’s been a long time, I didn’t even know you were with the army.”
Cerano, the mysterious Bringer that had first told Kade of the Flaw leaned forward to warm his hands near the fire as he spoke. “You wouldn’t have much chance to see me, I’ve been with the scouts since we first took over the duty. Sorry about the Elder we missed, by the way. Not sure how that one slipped through.”
Sal looked between the two men for a moment, then went back to his book. Kade smiled at his friend’s disinterest. “Not a problem, it was the weakest one I’ve encountered, and it was good practice. So what brings you to our side of camp? I assume the Bringers have better tents than us lowly Initiates.”
“We have better everything than you, but duty calls. There were reports of some incredible displays of prowess by a young Keeper here today, and I’ve been sent to investigate.” Kade nodded, but didn’t provide any names. He didn’t think there was any chance this man didn’t know exactly who he was looking for, but Kade didn’t think it was his place to give away any information that Gwen might not wish to spread around. He went back to his first question instead.
“So where are we heading then, do the higher ups have any idea? Or are we just chasing Elders until there’s none left to chase?” Cerano didn’t seem bothered by the rapid shift in topic.
“There’s only one real destination this way, before we hit the ocean that is. So yes, we believe we know where we’re going. It’s deep in the True Chaos, so few have ever been this far from Karthas, but it does have a name,” he leaned back, and looked directly into Kade’s eyes for the first time.
“We’re going to the plains of Karavash.”