Chapter 19: To Be Named (Patreon)

“Explain it like I’m a simple grunt,” Jeb said, steepling his fingers. “Like I didn’t go to college. Because I didn’t go to college.”

Jeb’s twenties had been wasted on the army.

Eddie glanced at the dense math on the whiteboard and rubbed his temples, eyes squeezed shut. “It might be faster if we just taught you calc and trig first,” he muttered.

“I’m sure we could, but we don’t have that much time left.” They were already only a week away from the sindio’s deadline, and Jeb was absolutely sure the enforcers wouldn’t wait until the last minute. “I will take it under advisement,” Jeb said, opening his notepad and jotting down ‘advanced math’, then underlining it.

“Let me take a shot at it,” Ron chimed in.

“Knock yourself out,” Eddie said, stepping away from the math.

“Okay, forget the math. Imagine every power that could possibly exist is on an infinite spectrum.” Ron flipped the whiteboard over and drew a line.

“Okay.” Jeb nodded.

“For the sake of the example, let’s divide these into arbitrary categories based on how similar they are. Transmutation—turning one thing into another—goes over here, summoning things goes here, right next to teleporting things and making something from nothing.

“Right here,” Ron said, looking back at Jeb as he made another wedge. “Right here, is energy-based Myst. Any Myst that creates heat, light, chemical or kinetic energy goes in this little wedge.”

“Okay.”

“Your telekinesis goes right here, in the kinetic energy wedge, right beside heat, light, and spatial energy.” Ron made a little pointer showing where Jeb was on the spectrum.

“Except the spectrum isn’t a one-dimensional line; it’s a three-dimensional spectrum,” Eddie said, arms crossed.

“We’re simplifying,” Ron shot back.

“I think I get it,” Jeb said, imagining him and his Myst in the center of a gradient that moved away in every direction, representing the infinite possibilities of magic.

“So you start in the kinetic energy section, you can jump over to heat with just a tiny amount of destructive interference, because the wavelengths are close. That’s what you’re doing when you create that plasma. The light is just a byproduct of the air being hot enough to glow.”

“Neat.”

“Since heat is close to kinetic energy, it’s easy to jump to,” Ron said. “But let’s say you wanted to summon Cthulhu.”

“That seems like a bad idea,” Jeb said. Eddie chortled.

“Doi. So summoning Cthulhu would be somewhere around here,”  Ron said, putting an octopus mark on the far side of the summoning wedge. “For you to summon Cthulhu, you would have to jump all the wedges in between.” Ron tapped the teleportation, creation and transmutation wedges.

“And the further away you go, the harder it’s gonna be to change the wavelength,” Ron said. “At a quadratic rate.”

“So Casey could summon Cthulhu pretty easy?”

Ron glanced at the board, brows rising. “Yeah. Or at least make a facsimile of Cthulhu easily. The angel’s not real.”

Neither is Cthulhu, so it kinda works out.

“So Myst exists on a three-dimensional spectrum with a three-dimensional wavelength?” Jeb asked, brain starting to warm up to an uncomfortable degree. He wasn’t ready to throw in the towel, though. Vex had it. It could be done.

Eddie grinned. “They’re gonna name a whole new branch of science after me,” he said, preening.

“I think someone else got there first,” Jeb said, glancing at the board as he thought about Vex.

“On that subject, back to the math,” Eddie said, shoving Ron out of the way and flipping the board over.

“This formula, here, can serve a couple different functions,” Eddie said. “I can enter in your wavelength of Myst, and the wavelength of a different kind of Myst—say, one we reverse engineer from a lens. Then I can calculate exactly how much wavelength shift it’s going to take to get you there. That will come in handy when you start pushing outside the energy wedge. Certain wavelengths, you absolutely don’t want to miss your mark.”

“Like accidentally summoning grey goo,” Jeb said, nodding.

“Exactly.” Eddie pointed the marker at him. “Don’t do that.”

“Now the other thing this formula can do, besides reverse engineering Myst wavelength, is give you a rough idea of how many different kinds of magic someone has at their disposal.

“You said you saw Vex heal someone, put someone to sleep, create a portal, and bend space?”

Jeb nodded.

“Okay…” Eddie worked some math, then flipped the whiteboard over again.

“You see this spectrum here?” he said, pointing at Ron’s hastily drawn Myst spectrum.

“You can be reasonably expected to be able to do this much,” he said, circling heat, light, and kinetic energy.

“Based on the points of data, your boy can use Zesh’nei’s Translation to shift his wavelength, oh, about…” Eddie considered the graph for a moment before circling the whole thing. “This much.” He tapped the graph. “Any magical ability in here, he can possibly do.”

That’s comforting, Jeb thought sourly. Now I have to watch out for Cthulhu.

“Any good news?”

“Vex probably has a toolkit of only a couple dozen spells,” Eddie said. “Doing it off the cuff is hard and imprecise. It makes way more sense to hone a handful of spells until they are second nature and use lenses for the rest.”

“What if he can use anything he wants, at any time?” Jeb asked.

“Well then, you’re fucked and it’s not worth your time thinking about it, is it?” Eddie said with a shrug.

“Fair enough,” Jeb admitted.

The door to the cellar rattled open, and Eddie hastily waved a hand, erasing the whiteboard with his Myst before standing in front of it and looking guilty as hell.

A moment later, Vresh entered the basement, scanning the scene. If this were a human basement, she might have had to stoop to keep her horns clear of the ceiling, but it had been built by keegan.

She glanced at the empty whiteboard and the marker in Eddie’s hand, and raised a brow before her gaze locked onto Jeb.

“Jebediah Trapper. I want you to meet the troops,” she said, crooking a finger.

Jeb was tempted to refuse to be summoned by a crooked finger on principle, but…he had more important things to worry about than principles, and she was very pretty.

“Coming,” Jeb said with a nod, closing his notebook and heading out after her.

Ron caught his arm, stopping him in his tracks.

“Try not to…die, okay?” Ron said.

“No promises.” He turned to Eddie and waved. “Thanks for the help.”

Ron shrugged and let him go. Eddie nodded back.

Jeb hustled out after Vresh, the sunlight glowing off of her ivory clothes reflecting on either side of the staircase above him.

They came out of the basement of the orphanage and walked the rest of the way to Vresh’s favorite restaurant, Vresh resting her palm naturally on the saber at her waist, while Jeb used Buck’s staff as a walking stick.

Jeb wanted access to some Death Deer reinforcements should any of the other enforcers turn out to be…less than friendly. He was also wearing Gresh’s tooth and R-R-RubU’s bubble-pipe that he’d pulled out of the fifth dimension, because why not? He would much rather have more options than not enough.

“That staff…”

“Looks silly?” Jeb asked, glancing up at the satellite dish above his head. It looked silly to Jeb.

She shook her head. “Looks like something I’ve seen in the imperial treasury once. A national treasure.”

“Good to know we’re on the right track,” Jeb said, nodding.

They arrived a few minutes of chit-chat later, and Jeb could feel the ominous tension oozing out of the fancy restaurant.

It was completely empty, for one. There was a complete absence of alien diners save at a single oval table in the center of the building.

Jeb did a quick scan of the table. Three melas, two keegan, one species he’d never encountered—some kinda…buffalo-dude. And of course, Casey.

“There you are,” said one of the older-looking enforcers. It was interesting to know that Melas hair went gray too. “I was wondering if you might have had some trouble.”

Chuckles rippled through the table.

The Melas had some kind of lacquer armor on that looked balanced precariously between formal eveningwear and a jester’s outfit.

“Apologies, father. I had to pick up a local ally.”

“Father? I didn’t think I’d be meeting the parents yet,” Jeb said. They ignored him.

“This is the human that you sacrificed your title for?” the older melas said, glancing Jeb up and down with calculating interest.

“I sacrificed my title to keep my word. The human is irrelevant. I would’ve sacrificed my title for a rock if I’d given it my word,” Vresh said.

Ouch.

The older melas nodded, a hint of a smile on his lips. “Come, take a seat.” He motioned for his daughter to sit, and the two of them pulled out chairs.

“Not you,” a keegan spat when Jeb tried to sit down. The bone-thin—woman?—was seated next to a narrow blade as long as Jeb was tall, and she was giving him the stink eye. She wore light armor decorated with small trophies. “This table is for enforcers. You’re not worthy of sitting with us.”

She glanced at Casey, as if to suggest the young woman didn’t belong there either.

Hmm… Jeb glanced around the table and saw that the attitude ranged from neutral to unfriendly. He made a quick political calculation: Take her shit, don’t take her shit, or compromise?

Taking her shit would devalue Vresh’s contribution in front of her peers and her dad, not taking her shit would possibly start something Jeb couldn’t handle.

Compromise, it is.

Jeb reached behind himself with his telekinesis and snagged one of the smallest tables the restaurant had, along with a chair. He lined it up against the enforcer table and sat behind it. The surrounding enforcers nodded silently at Jeb’s modest demonstration of power.

“Feel better?” Jeb asked the slender fighter. He couldn’t keep a little bit of the saltiness out of his voice. The keegan’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t say anything.

“We’re here to plan the assault on the Sindio’s dungeon. Any discussion not to that effect will be silenced,” Vresh’s dad said, his gaze lingering on the keegan for a moment. Vresh’s dad is awfully straight-laced. I think I see where she gets it. I think I’ll call him Mr. Tekalis.

“My spies have located two more city entrances, and six more air vents in the mountains,” Casey said, placing a folded piece of vellum on the table. The sheepskin unfolded itself into an incredibly detailed map of the city. If Jeb hadn’t seen it unroll itself from sheepskin, he’d be half-convinced it was a satellite image.

“The dungeon itself seems to have been deliberately grown to sprawl out underneath Solmnath, allowing him to enter the city for supplies and test subjects whenever he wants.”

Jeb noticed Casey’s goosebumps as she spoke.

“Entrances thus far have been in areas of Solmnath that predate the Stitching, leading me to believe the sindio’s presence is not a recent event.”

“Thank you, Casey. Jebediah Trapper, would you care to share your experience with the sindio’s base?” Mr. Tekalis asked.

“Sure,” Jeb said, grabbing the map and detailing his route through the mountain.

They debriefed him for a good half hour, then he sat back and watched as they hashed out their plan.

Rather than go through any of the entrances, they decided to crash the party by using Clee the buffalo man’s stone-shaping ability to blast straight into Vex’s showroom from the outside.

The idea was to skip possible traps and take control of a central position from square one, giving them access to the entire dungeon from the very first second.

After that, the plan was to send teams of three to locate:

A: The dungeon core.

B: The nukes.

C: The sindio himself.

Once A and B were handled, they’d all gang up on the immortal until he stopped twitching. Anything and anyone not on their side was to be considered an enemy and swiftly murdered.

For the sake of group cohesion, Jeb was paired with Vresh, Casey and Clee, the hulking Stone-shaper, and tasked with finding and containing the source of Vex’s power.

The other two groups were split evenly, with Mr. Tekalis taking the role of first responder for when they came across Vex, while the bitchy keegan woman took the task of finding the weapons and rendering them inert.

“Let’s get this done quick,” the keegan woman, Feej, said. “If the reprobates of my sector learn of my absence, they’ll start growing out of control…like a disease.”

A melas with a savage-looking axe crafted from what looked like a megalodon tooth grunted in agreement.

“So, when are we doing this?” Jeb asked.

“Day after tomorrow, after we’ve all had time to get some sleep, maybe take a shower, drink some tea,” Feej said.

“Seriously?” Jeb asked. Feej rolled her eyes.

“No. We’re doing this tonight. Right now, in fact,” Mr. Tekalis said, rising from his chair. “We have to assume that Vex has a network that exceeds your own,” he said, nodding to Casey. “Either he already knows our plan, or will before the night is over. The only way to catch him off guard is to move fast, before he has an opportunity to prepare.”

A distant explosion punctuated Mr. Tekalis’s sentence, followed by the faintest sound of screams from the night outside the windows.

Jeb shot to his foot, clomping over to the window. The fancier streets of Solmnath had magical lamps casting a cool white light on the cobbled streets, but Jeb couldn’t see further into the asphalt-covered street beyond.

The city hadn’t paid its electricity bill in over half a year.

Jeb couldn’t see anything, but he could hear faint screaming. Every once in a while, his ears picked out the faint ring of steel.

The fuck is going on? Jeb thought, cocking his ear to the window, hoping to make out more.

“A distraction. Everyone, we are leaving,” Mr Tekalis said, standing and barreling out the door.

Every enforcer in the room burst to their feet and followed Mr. Tekalis to the door. Jeb cocked a brow as he watched them follow after the melas.

Was Mr. Tekalis feared or respected by other enforcers? Both?

Jeb picked himself up and fell into the back of the line, alongside Vresh.

“How did your dad come to be here?” Jeb whispered up at her as they sped down the dark streets, heading toward the mountain. The faint sound of screams grew quieter.

“When I lost the title of Enforcer, it reverted back to my father,” she whispered back. “Stripping my rank was a political maneuver by the emperor to regain a decade or two of service from him, among other things.”

Jeb scowled. Typical politics. Forcing someone out of retirement wasn’t exactly evil, but it was definitely in a grey area.

They cruised through the dark streets faster than a motorcycle would have been able to. Jeb had to shield his eyes from the wind as they exited one of the side streets and began climbing the mountain.

All the while, the sounds of distant combat and screaming got further and further away.

Jeb couldn’t help but feel a knot of worry for his people at The Admiral Orphanage, but he understood the need for speed.

The golden rule of any kind of conflict is to force the other party on the defensive, make them react to you, not the other way around. If they are too busy trying to stop you, then they are too busy to do something you won’t like.

In this case, killing an orphanage full of kids.

Jeb looked over his shoulder, and he wished he hadn’t.

The mountain had given him a view of the city from above, and he could make out a pattern of chaos close to engulfing his home.

It was a circle of darkness and fire—a subtle shift in the way the city presented itself. Streets that should’ve been lit by magical lamps had been turned black, and buildings that should have been not on fire were blazing, casting a fiery glow on the surroundings.

The change represented a perfect circle cut out of the lights of the city.

Jeb focused on one of the burning buildings in particular, trying to make out what was happening around it.

He could see…a faint shimmer of firelight against something shiny—like steel armor, perhaps?

Vresh put a hand on his shoulder. “Vex is launching an attack on the city, Jeb. It’s an effort to delay us long enough to prepare a defense. In a way, this is a good sign. It means he needs time to prepare.”

“I know,” Jeb muttered, his gaze trying to pick out exactly where his people were, his brain idly calculating the orphanage’s total defensive potential, and coming up short.

Let’s see... Zlesk is a decent close combat fighter. Colt is alright; the kid will be good at putting out fires and controlling large groups of enemies with his goop. Nancy and the Immortals make good shock troops…but the rest of the kids…not so much. Mr. and Mrs. Everett, the Langs…Pedro: They’re not combatants, and I’m not sure Zlesk is gonna be able to keep them alive by himself.

If Ron was still at the orphanage when shit went down, that would be a huge weight off Jeb’s mind, but the kid tended to go home when the sun went down.

Ron didn’t like to fight, but he was cursed with usefulness. He was both a survivor of the Impossible Tutorial, and excellent defensive support. He could turn dead attackers into cheap, disposable blockers, compensating for slim manpower.

I friggin’ hope he’s still there.

“I know all that,” Jeb said, shrugging Vresh’s hand off his shoulder as he turned. “But it’s a lot harder to abandon people for their own good in practice.”

“I know,” Vresh said. Something in her gaze led Jeb to believe that she really did know.

Jeb heaved a breath and rolled his shoulders, putting the kids out of his mind.

He could worry about them after he saved the world.

Jeb glanced around at the half-dozen individuals radiating power.

Or maybe after I watch these fellas save the world. I could probably go help the orphanage, and it wouldn’t change anything… Gah!

Jeb shook the do-gooder impulses out of his head. That’s what these tactics preyed on. Empathy made you predictable, and stupid. The empathetic thing to do was to win.

Jeb put his blinders on, squared his shoulders, and faced away from the faint screams.

***Kol, level 60 Courier***

“This modulator here will throttle the frequency of the gate,” Vex said, looking up into the silvery box the size of a tarruk, wrenching a bolt into place.

“Can you hand me that scanner?” Vex said, pointing at the modified human barcode scanner, just out of the sindio’s reach.

Kol bent down and handed it over.

“Thanks,” Vex said, using the device to measure the lens placement before making a few minor adjustments.

“What this does is: If we have a power interruption, instead of the gate blinking off completely, it will simply slow the gate down—making whatever is inside Fate enter or leave at a drastically reduced rate.

“And why would we want to do that?” Vex rolled out from under the gigantic metal box.

“You like teaching, don’t you?” Kol asked, rather than answer the leading question.

“Because the test-nuke filled with straw got cut in half from a tiny Myst fluctuation originating from Fate! So instead of trying to ensure perfect supply, by adding this modulator, we’re shifting the focus to making the Myst draw variable. That way we can avoid stuttering in the gate; instead, slowing down as necessary. The stuttering never happened with smaller gates, so I didn’t know it was a problem.”

“No more getting cut in half for old Testy,” Vex said, patting the metal case as he slid out from under it.

The oversized metal box was attached to a silver circle four times thicker than Kol’s arm and large enough for a grown man to walk through, provided he stooped a little.

Thick gold-plated tubes ran to it from the Myst engine that dominated the center of Vex’s dungeon. A dungeon core as big around as a man’s torso sat in midair, suspended on a spinning swirl of Myst, surrounded by a hollowed-out Prism crystal. Myst rays were separated, condensated, then pumped out through an Udium and gold machine that dominated a huge section of the room’s floorspace.

Kol was sure it would be more impressive if he could see Myst. As it was, the Dungeon core simply floated in the middle of the crystal…not doing much.

“And you’re sure that’ll kill us all?” Kol asked, glancing at the massive steel tube. The human weapon sat there with malevolent intent.

“Oh yes. Compared to the test bombs, this one should be significantly more energetic. Not only that, but if the Mythos of a bullet was that strong, I can’t wait to see what the Mythos of one of these bad boys will do. Should be fantastic.”

“And why am I okay with this?” Kol asked. As far as Kol could reason, he probably shouldn’t be okay with it, but for some reason, he didn’t really care.

“I tinkered with your sense of self-preservation and your ability to care about it. They were distracting you,” Vex said.

“Oh, okay.” Kol nodded. That explained it.

A distant rumble caused the floating dungeon core to wobble inside its container, and Vex pointed a skeletal finger at it.

“You see? That’s why we need a modulator. That power fluctuation would have cut the nuke in half.”

Vex rubbed his chin. “Also, what was that rumble from? Are we doing anything outside today?”

“Not that I can think of, no.”

“Huh.” Vex spread his arms wide, and an aerial view of the city sprang into being in front of him.

“Wow, that’s…umm… We’re under attack. Huh.” The keegan bit his tongue in thought.

***Jeb***

“Go, go go!” Mr. Tekalis shouted, motioning for the enforcers to jump in the funnel-shaped hole the bison-man had punched into the mountain. The lights of Vex’s showroom glowed up at them from underneath.

Jeb hovered a hundred feet or so above them, watching for signs of counterattack, but so far, there had been no move by the sindio to stop them from punching a hole into his treasure room.

That feels off, Jeb thought, eyes narrowed. If he attacked the city to distract us, he should have at least had enough time to set up small countermeasures. A trap or some defenders. Something.

Jeb glanced over at the city.

The ring of destruction had expanded, coming closer to where The Admiral Orphanage lay. Barely a street away.

If we kill this bastard, it’ll stop all of… Why is that fire so low?

Jeb’s eyes picked out a piece of fire that seemed lower in the ground than it was just a couple minutes ago. It was hard to tell against the black background of night, but Jeb was sharper than he’d ever been in his life, and he was sure that that bit of flaming building had sunk into the ground.

Ice settled in Jeb’s veins as he scanned the rest of the city, his mind filling in a funnel shape from the flickering points of light he could see. Then a gigantic insect shape moved in front of a burning building, perfectly silhouetted. It must have been two stories tall for Jeb to be able to make it out from this distance.

Solmnath wasn’t under attack—it was being consumed by a dungeon! Jeb’s gaze flickered to where his orphanage sat, right on the edge of the sinkhole forming in the center of Solmnath. In a matter of minutes, the building would start sinking.

Why did the sindio drop another dungeon? It’s practically right on top of him. He’d have to clean it up afterward, and if its tunnel connected to his lair, it’d be a pain in the ass. It doesn’t make… Meyers! Jeb thought, eyes widening. The self-styled general had wanted to wipe the city off the map, one way or another.

She’d re-gifted the sindio’s weaponized dungeon.

That’s what she was doing hunting pirates! She was getting strong enough to pick off anyone who tries to stop the dungeon from swallowing the city! It’s not going to stop with Vex!

Jeb saw a Myst-powered street lamp flicker out, the darkness of the dungeon’s influence encroaching a little closer to his people.

Jeb could easily imagine Ron pushing into the dungeon with his zombies, trying to shut it down, only to get splatted by Meyers descending from above. Ron was weak against sucker-punches. Zlesk, too… Shit!

“Jeb!” Vresh called up at him. “Are you coming?”

Jeb looked down at the two melas nobles standing above the hole, watching him expectantly.

Aw, fuck, they’re not gonna forgive me for this.

Jeb turned and flew back to Solmnath.