Wakespire: Chapters 46-47 (Patreon)

Whew, lots of new patrons this week! Hope you all had fun with the book. ^-^

Aside from the new chapters, I have some images I'd like everyone to take a look at (there should be five in a slideshow strip). This is, I believe, my best effort at creating minimalistic soulhome diagrams that could be integrated into an ebook file. They need to accomplish two things:

1) Not bloat the file size.

2) Look professional.

These do tolerably with #1, though more experimentation is necessary, so the question is #2. I know this is a biased audience, but give me your best neutral opinion here. Do you think these diagrams would improve the book? Based on reader responses, some would definitely prefer to have diagrams to help them visualize and track the blueprints, but if they don't reach a certain level of quality they'll detract. I don't think I can produce anything better than this; honest opinions welcome here.

We have three options: no diagrams at all, diagrams only in the appendix, and diagrams integrated with the text (as in, when the Farmguard blueprint is introduced, it's seen in-text). The first is perfectly fine; it's the book as it stands. The second would be exactly the five diagrams you see, the way they were shown in the previous post about appendices. The third option is the most involved and I would probably need to request a superfan to go through the first book and note places where diagrams could be added.

To be clear, the high quality diagrams created by Lamsey will continue to be posted, I've just become aware that many readers have missed them. You can expect updated blueprints for the main cast after Wakespire ends. Speaking of...

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Chapter 46

Nauda wanted to trust in the strength of her friends, especially given how they'd ascended to Authority. Fiyu looked better than ever, comfortable in her darkness and brimming with new power. But they were facing an opponent who had been at the same tier for years longer than they had. Nifanos had cut no corners: she brought the full fury of a veteran Authority upon them.

Fiyu was remaining mobile, unleashing storms of light before slipping away ahead of the retaliation. The problem was that her bolts didn't seem to get through the emerald aura and Nifanos wasn't striking back with the full blast she'd used to annihilate them earlier. Now that her targets could dodge, she was conserving her strength and only using ordinary cantae bolts, at least insofar as any Authority's cantae could be "ordinary".

That was what kept Nauda running ahead of the others instead of trying to assist. Her defenses might survive one or two bolts, but if Nifanos actually got a grip on her or pinned her down, she'd instantly become a liability. She wouldn't let herself bring the group down when her allies were managing the fight so far.

They sprinted up another staircase, but they were rapidly running out of room. Theo and Nauda kept moving, but Fiyu dodged to the side and hid herself again. When Nifanos flew after them, Fiyu unleashed a light storm directly into her flank, far more intense than before.

Nifanos staggered in pain... and unleashed raw destruction in response. The emerald beam encompassed Fiyu completely and Nauda let out a cry, afraid that she had just seen Fiyu reduced to ash. But the other woman became visible as she struck the opposite wall, still intact: even if her opponent had an immensely powerful Ethereal Floor, Fiyu was an Authority now and wouldn't die so easily.

Before Fiyu could hit the ground, Theo had a gravitational grip on her and she fell toward their position. She was able to regain her feet shortly and thrust out a finger. Nauda could barely hear her "That way!" between gasps, but the instruction was clear enough.

Their group turned the corner around the edge of the spire and Theo touched the key to the stones where Fiyu had pointed. A wall of darkness emerged on the other side, none of the light from the corridor falling past the entrance. It was the old dark room... Nauda let her friends pull her in and trusted that they would keep her safe from all the obstacles rushing through the air around them.

"This won't hold her long," Theo said tersely. "Fiyu, hide us. I'm going to open the opposite side, then distract her so we can get clear."

"Is our goal to run?" Nauda asked. "Do we actually have backup?"

"My relative will help us," Fiyu said, but it sounded like she was trying to convince herself.

Before they could fully execute the plan, the sound of cracking stone interrupted their whispers. Nauda couldn't see anything, but she heard Fiyu gasp and could feel the room shaking around them.

"You think I'm going to come in there after you?" Nifanos called. "Don't insult me."

More cracks erupted around them and the darkness flickered. Nauda caught fractured glimpses of the very walls and ceiling of the dark chamber breaking apart, then they all shattered at once. The explosion sent all three of them flying in different directions. Nauda skidded to the edge of a path, nearly falling into the abyss below. With the spire malfunctioning, she didn't want to know what would happen if she fell below.

Nifanos floated in the door, her eyes still burning green. "That's better."

Theo rose into the air and began casting his bolt technique. Midway to their target, the bolts suddenly entered a hovering portal and reappeared behind her. She retaliated, but Theo deflected her attacks with some new technique while he continued to strike her from all sides. Nauda could see her wince with each impact, even though they didn't penetrate her aura. Was he using small singularities instead of his usual technique? When she tried to charge at him, he would vanish and reappear across the room.

For a little while, Nauda thought that he could actually do it. She was fully prepared to leap to assist Theo when he faltered. Then he teleported himself away, as usual, but this time Nifanos pursued. She blurred across the room, leaving emerald afterimages, and blasted him into the wall.

Theo struck the stone and started to move, but Nifanos had no intention of making the same mistake a second time. She closed on him, grabbing his smoking coat and raising her other hand to deliver a blast directly to his face.

Before she knew it, Nauda was across the room. She swung her staff with as much power as she could and delivered a strike directly to one of Nifanos's wings.

Practically the next moment, emerald light encompassed her. The agony hurled Nauda back and she was shocked to discover that she was still intact. Her notemerald belt burned around her waist, barely able to contain the onslaught.

"A Ruler survived that?" Nifanos stared down at her like a bug, then released another blast.

The next moment Nauda was across the room gasping for breath. Before anything else, she was aware of Fiyu carrying her and surrounding them in a soothing sphere of stealth. Nauda looked across the room and saw that Theo had also escaped Nifanos and gotten to a position for ranged attacks.

It looked like he was beginning his strategy of tunneling blasts again, but more cautiously. They followed him while hidden as he retreated back to the outer corridors toward the next floor. Nifanos pursued inexorably, ready for an attack from all sides.

"We cannot win like this." Fiyu's arm felt strong around Nauda's waist, but her head was sagging. "Not unless we can uncover a weakness."

"Stay and keep hiding me," Nauda said. "Let's see what we can learn from her blueprint."

Nifanos had an ordinary enough soulhome with only one floor of shielding wall, so it wasn't difficult for Nauda's telescope to look inside. Even at a glance, her Ethereal Floor was obvious: all her walls were made of white marble, but only her fourth floor was covered in pulsing green lines.

Inspecting it just made things worse. Nifanos was clearly experienced with this form, because she was only spending a tiny current of cantae maintaining it. Her flight, her normal attacks, and her defenses were all generated by her main soulhome. That left her with plenty of enriched cantae to keep delivering those devastating attacks. Theo was staying away from her by retreating up the spire, but that wouldn't be enough to wear her down.

"What about a single lethal attack?" Fiyu asked. "Her aura is strong, but if I got close..."

"Don't try it." Nauda pointed toward one of the chambers on the corner of the top floor. "That room looks like an emergency defense to me. She knows opponents will try to kill her before she can use her offensive power, so she has that set to explode when she's at risk."

"But... how many defensive chambers does she have? If we could threaten her twice...?"

"Maybe she'd be vulnerable then, but can you afford the risk?"

"I do not know if we can afford to keep fighting like this." Fiyu stared at the cantae flow in dismay. "She is too efficient, and will be able to continue at this pace for quite some time."

At that moment, Theo entered another challenge room and began using his tunneling technique again. Nifanos drew back slightly and watched his portals, ready to deflect any bolts he sent at her. Instead, the burning sublime beast plunged through. It opened all four jaws and tried to fry Nifanos at close range.

Nauda had hoped that she would see Nifanos expend her cantae in desperation, but she only vented some to deflect the worst of the attack. A moment later she unleashed another one of her devastating swaths of cantae, annihilating the sublime beast in an instant.

But that strike, despite its immense power, gave Nauda a flicker of hope. When it occurred, a significant quantity of cantae was expelled through one of the emerald windows. Nifanos couldn't afford to keep spending cantae on attacks like that, which explained all her other efficiencies.

"We need to bait her into using those more," Nauda said. Fiyu had observed the same thing and nodded her agreement.

While still hidden, Nauda began forming a thick swath of defensive wards across the floor. With her new armament around her neck, she thought they could survive one of those blasts, so the only issue was how to get Nifanos to target her. Nauda gestured for Fiyu to move away, then thrust her staff forward.

Her binding technique caught Nifanos in the back but couldn't really hold her in place. It did get her attention: she blurred away from Theo, dodging more of his bolts, and turned on Nauda. She noticed the wards immediately and raised a hand... and then narrowed her eyes.

Instead of using another blast, Nifanos moved directly into the wards. They crackled and tried to force her back, but her Authority-tier cantae melted them in front of her. Without wasting her precious Ethereal cantae, Nifanos was still destroying the barrier. As she pushed through, her hand getting closer and closer to Nauda, she began to grin. It was all Nauda could to do to keep her bound in place, even though it was useless.

Just as the hand broke through her wards and cantae formed to kill Nauda, the floor disappeared under her feet. She suddenly fell upwards, landing just beside Theo on the opposite side of the chamber. He grimaced and shook his head.

"I take it baiting attacks is the only way to drain her cantae? It was a good effort, but she's not dumb enough to waste her strength."

"What do we do now?" Nauda asked. Fiyu was firing from cover, trying to keep Nifanos distracted, but the retaliatory strikes came alarmingly quickly. At any moment, her injured body might appear and collapse to the ground.

"Either we get high enough to reach other fighters or we stall her long enough for Guchiro to arrive. If we can't, we're dead."

-

Chapter 47

Just when Theo thought he couldn't take any more, he felt Fiyu's stealth technique slip over him. Nifanos was still staring in his direction, so he used another portal to tunnel them across the room. Their opponent sensed their movement and looked around for only a moment before she flew up to block their path onward. She wasn't just using blasts, she was adapting to Fiyu's stealth by scattering sparks of her cantae around the room to track them.

Both of the others were in the technique with him. They'd all taken some injuries and they were definitely lower on cantae than at the start, but they still had resources. The question was whether they had enough to survive more engagements.

"Take this." Nauda pulled one of her manna and honey discs from her soulhome.

Theo took it without question and bit down. Immediately he felt foreign cantae flow through his body... and the pain of his wounds eased. The honey was rich in energy that his enhancement chambers immediately fed on, restoring him more rapidly than before. He saw that Nauda and Fiyu were each eating one themselves, significantly healing them.

"Well done, Nauda." He started to touch her arm, but she shook her head.

"That's all I have. Not for now, I mean for days and days. If we can't survive with this, we can't survive at all."

"That's enough that our injuries won't be slowing us down. We can try more ambitious strategies again."

Fiyu frowned as she stared at their opponent. "She cannot see me, but her tracking is getting better. I fear, with her speed..."

"Our best shot is to keep using the spire against her." Theo turned toward Fiyu. "I'm bad at differentiating these chambers, but is there anything useful nearby? Anything that's still working?"

"Oh!" Fiyu's face broke out into a smile. "The slope is nearby... but can we get her there?"

"You move around to the other side. I know she'll notice, but I'll distract her."

Neither of them liked that plan, but they didn't exactly have any safe options. Theo started to generate a singularity, then nodded for them to go. As soon as they ran around the opposite side of the spire, he closed his hands and tunneled the singularity directly into Nifanos.

She moved aside before it could manifest. It opened beside her, briefly sucking up some of her cantae before she snuffed it out. Theo immediately generated another partial singularity and this time sent it sailing toward her. Nifanos barely even tilted her body to dodge it and stared at him contemptuously.

"Those might be able to get through my aura eventually, but do you think I'll stand still and wait for that to happen?" She began floating toward him, her aura burning brighter. "You're a child, impressed with petty little ranks. I've been an Authority for over a decade, boy."

"If we're talking," Theo said, "can we discuss your accusations?"

"You think you can wait out my Ethereal Floor with babbling?" Nifanos sneered again. "Naive. I'm not interested in what minions of evil have to say."

"Wait, please consider my rebuttal..." Theo had been forming another singularity while they spoke and now teleported it into her face. Again, it only lasted a moment before she snuffed it out, but she snarled and swept after him.

Theo laughed, just to antagonize her, and began sprinting around the outer ring of the spire. He could vaguely feel that Nauda and Fiyu were in position, but he was still a little too far from them. It was all he could do to stay ahead of Nifanos.

No, more than he could do. He failed to dodge fast enough and one of her emerald blasts clipped his shoulder. Theo tumbled over the stone and scraped his way across the floor. His coat had broken apart, revealing burned skin all across his shoulder, which meant that its protective capacity was wearing thin. He'd gotten her to expend more of her Ethereal cantae, but she had more than enough to kill them all if her blasts connected.

Before she could finish him off, Theo reversed his gravity and soared away. After running along the ceiling for a time, he returned to normal gravity, letting rocks fall along with him... and then used his cantae to fly in the other direction. Nifanos shot a blast where she had anticipated gravity would take him, not at his real location, and he slipped away from her.

That brought him to the chamber with a steep slope. He could see Nauda and Fiyu on the opposite side and did his best to tunnel to join them. The chamber tried to resist the effort to cheat, but the spire was so damaged, he was able to force his way through. Not a moment too soon, because Nifanos had just burst into the lower side.

As soon as she did, Theo cast the most forceful gravitational field he could, as if trying to pin her at the bottom. Fiyu and Nauda both unleashed their own attacks, filling the slope with cantae. Nifanos easily resisted the efforts and flew forward.

Just as he'd hoped, the draining influence of the slope hit harder than it ever had before. Too late, Nifanos realized her mistake. The bright lines in her wings expanded, stabbing in all directions and tearing into the stone walls. She spun in the air and the lines tore through the chamber, breaking apart the mechanisms that maintained the draining.

"Up!" Theo hissed. They retreated up the next stairs, expecting to hear Nifanos behind them at any moment... but there was silence.

They kept running until they reached one of the larger chambers, one designed for the officials to use. It could only be two or three more floors until they reached the top and hopefully backup. Theo almost felt hope before he saw the staircase ahead of them explode into rubble and realized his mistake.

Instead of attacking them again, Nifanos slid around the room and destroyed the staircase leading down as well. There were no more exits to the room... Theo tapped the key against one of the walls, but it groaned in response and failed to open. Most likely she'd melted the walls or otherwise disabled all possible exits.

Would weirkeys be able to penetrate the spire's defenses? Theo didn't think it was likely, but they were now trapped in a room with Nifanos and he thought their chances of survival were slim indeed. Judging from her grin, she agreed.

At that moment, one of the portals along the wall opened. Not the wall, swirling light like he hadn't seen since the normal competition. They all stared briefly as the Gatrium Authority stepped through and stared at them all.

"What's going on here?" he demanded. "Is this some new challenge?"

Could he really have been blindly traveling up the tower even while everything fell apart around him? The stupidity made Theo gape for a moment, and a moment was all it took: Nifanos had flashed past them and obliterated the portal. She melted every other portal outline in the wall in rapid succession, just to make sure they had no way out.

"I say, answer me!" The Gatrium man turned on Theo. "Are you one of those cheaters they were talking about?"

"They're trying to undermine the Wakespire," Nifanos said. She seemed more annoyed by the new arrival than anything, but she spoke to him instead of wasting more of her remaining cantae. "Help me eliminate them and your lineage will be rewarded."

"How do I know you're telling the truth?"

"Hey." Theo interrupted their conversation to look the man directly in the eyes and tried to muster every iota of sincerity he possessed. "I'm Theo. What's your name?"

"I... I'm Bonovan." He was still glancing toward Nifanos, but the answer seemed to center him. "Bonovan Gatrium, Authority, 10th class."

"Bonovan, listen to me." Theo managed to capture his gaze again. "She entered the spire illegally to eliminate the competition. You've witnessed her destroying the spire. Regardless of whether you trust me, we're on the same side here."

"These are absurd lies!"

Bonovan Gatrium stared at him for a long moment, then nodded. He turned toward Nifanos and raised his sword. "How dare you mar the sanctity of the Wakespire? Have at you!"

He charged while swinging his sword, sending forth arcs of cantae. It was an impressive display, for a very brief moment. Nifanos slid out of the way of the arcs and closed the distance in an instant. Her fist collided with his stomach, doubled him over, then she struck him in the face with an emerald blast. The Noveni man fell unconscious only seconds after he'd charged, his sword clattering to the stone beside him.

Fiyu flickered into sight with her blade thrusting for Nifanos.

The cantae edge sliced through one of those golden wings and pierced Nifanos's back. For an instant, Theo hoped that it might be enough. But then a terrible green light exploded from the injury and enveloped Fiyu. She was blown backwards, her blade snuffing out, and she crashed into one of the walls.

When she collapsed, she didn't rise. Theo suppressed all emotions and focused on tunneling another singularity toward Nifanos. She was tired and holding her injured wing, but not slow enough. She dodged aside in the same motion she turned on him.

Nauda attacked with a loud cry, her raw emotion pushing her to burn more cantae than before. Though her blow deflected off the emerald cantae, Nifanos staggered. Nauda struck her a second time, and it almost seemed like she had the upper hand, then it was already over.

Nifanos grabbed Nauda's staff in one hand before it could connect, then struck Nauda across the face with her other hand. As well as Nauda had been fighting, she couldn't stand up to an Authority. The blow sent her flying across the room without her staff.

All Theo could do was strike with another miniature singularity. Nifanos ignored it and turned back to him with a grim smirk.

"You really thought you could outlast me?" She raised her hand for another blast. "I have more than enough to kill you."

Theo waited until he thought she was going to release the attack, then tunneled across the room. But she didn't strike. Nifanos simply turned toward his new location and continued approaching. When he hurled torsion bolts, she dodged them. Singularities were snuffed out in her aura. His gravitational fields barely affected her normal cantae.

All she did was wait for her moment, smile growing all the while. Theo was beginning to exhaust himself, his mind worn down by all of the portals. When he next made an attempt to tunnel across the room, his control faltered and one of her cantae bolts struck him in the face. 

He fell back, too stunned to do anything but watch as she closed the distance. Her fingers flexed just slightly, the light in her palm grew... and spluttered out.

"What? No..." Nifanos stared in horror as the emerald lines in her wings faded.

She had been rationing her Ethereal Floor carefully, but she'd failed to consider that he'd been stealing bits and pieces with each singularity. Even if he couldn't make them intense enough to threaten her life, they were draining from her Ethereal aura, not her normal cantae. All her careful training, knowing the exact limits of her special state, worked against her. He hadn't been sure that it would be enough, but she'd come up empty in her moment of triumph.

"No matter." Nifanos drew herself up and glared at him. "I can still-"

A staff struck her in the side of the head. Screaming in raw rage, Nauda laid into her, striking over and over again. Nifanos did her best to defend herself, but her Ethereal Floor was empty and all the attrition she'd incurred during the battle returned with a vengeance. Soon she had collapsed on the floor, barely able to shield her face from the blows.

"Wait." Theo raised a hand to stop Nauda before she could beat the Authority to death. "I don't think we've killed anyone yet and we shouldn't start now."

"Really?" Nauda glared at him, still holding her staff like a bat. "She was trying to kill us! Who knows how much she hurt Fiyu?"

"I will live..." Fiyu sat up from her position. She looked much worse for the wear, but she managed a smile.

The sight of her broke Nauda's fury and she rushed over to attend to the other woman. Theo cast a gravitational field to pin Nifanos on her knees, just in case, but it looked like the fight had gone out of her. He walked over slowly, less for the effect and more because he hurt all over.

"We never wanted this." Theo leaned down next to her so he could stare into her eyes. "Nothing you've done has made any sense. Just what were you after?"

"All we wanted was to win the Wakespire." She glared back at him, not giving an inch. "But then one of our own was murdered. When I investigated, I discovered his body discarded like a used rag. The more I searched, the more I realized that there was someone deep within Ugustial, working against us."

"And you think it was Ractifus? Why would he cause all this chaos when he just wants the lineagegem?"

"And why do you believe that? Because he told you?" Nifanos shook her head slowly. "I thought you were monsters, but it turns out you were just unwitting dupes. All of this over nothing. And now we're all going to die in the blast."

"The blast?"

"Oh yes. You didn't know about the artifact? I'm surprised the spire hasn't already been destroyed. I can't escape any longer, so I hope you have a solution, but I'm not holding my breath. Your pettiness will leave us all to die here."

He could have said something about her pettiness, but Theo realized there was no time for that. The damaged chamber was still completely sealed as far as he could tell. When he grasped one of his weirkeys, the defenses of the spire still blocked him. If anything, they felt even more powerful than before, as if the cantae meant to run all of the challenges was instead being redirected.

"Is she telling the truth?" Nauda asked. Fiyu concentrated for a time, then sighed.

"There is interference, but I do sense what may be dangerous sublime materials above us. If they were designed to harm, that would be very bad, and I do not... oh!"

At that moment, one of the walls exploded. Guchiro stood on the other side, but what surprised Theo more was that there were Noveni officials rushing behind him.

"You have to stop it!" one cried. 

"We need more time!"

"Come back, we can still-"

"Enough." Guchiro cut them all off with a glance and then turned toward the group. "We need to leave, immediately."

Theo grabbed Nifanos by her wings and dragged her along with them, since he wasn't about to let her get away with her attack. Had they all made it through? Bonovan Gatrium was in terrible shape, but Theo levitated him assuming that he could survive with medical attention.

Outside the central column, Theo saw that a hole had already been blown in the wall. Their sleigh hovered on the other side, waiting for them. There were only a few Noveni officials nearby, some pleading with Guchiro and others fleeing, arms overflowing with papers. Just when it seemed like they would all make it out, someone ran from below.

"The lineagegem!" Ractifus Terefilia staggered into the group, his eyes wide. "You're abandoning it? No, no... it wasn't supposed to go like this..."

He started to grasp at Guchiro's clothes, but a wave of darkness swept him away. Sobbing, Ractifus ran past the others and sprinted up the stairs. One of the officials half-heartedly started after him, then abandoned the effort in order to flee.

Once Theo dropped into the sleigh, he let his body go slack. Yes, there was some sort of bomb in the spire and they might all still die. But he'd done everything he could, so the rest was up to fate. In his current state, he couldn't fly any faster than the sleigh, so he had only one chance of escape.

From his position in the back seat, he stared at the receding tower. Just as he was beginning to feel a bit of nostalgia for the spire, the top erupted in white hot flame. The destruction utterly consumed the upper portion of the tower, then the damaged stones began raining down. After enduring so much fighting and damage to the walls, the spire could hold no longer.

It seemed to break apart slowly, from a distance. Golden plates tumbled, glittering in the light of nine suns. Great blocks of white stone struck one another, shattering into shards that cascaded down in waves of destruction. Soon nothing remained of the tower that had contained the Wakespire.

-

This is the penultimate update this book. Next week will be one more chapter and the epilogue.