Technomagica 44. The Tower's Song (Patreon)

Kliss emerged out of the hole in the ground, lugging an enormous, hexagon-shaped, black rock in her hands. She wasn’t wearing her armor as I made her take it off and deactivate the power source, allowing my Infoscopes to carefully examine its internal structure.

Wearing a black tank top and a skirt, without her armor and red cape, the Overseer of Skyisle no longer looked threatening or imposing.

She carefully deposited the rock on a mossy floor with a huff and wiped sweat from her mud-covered face.

“If you’re a villainous aberration and you’re planning to exhaust me to the point where I can’t use my arms and legs at all, it's working,” she groaned and panted, pulling herself out of the muddy hole. “Equality, that was bloody heavy!”

She sat on a root, grabbed a large, metal flask from the pile of her things and started to gulp the water down greedily. Then she poured some of the water on her head and let out a big sigh.

“You still think I’m an aberration?” I emerged from the hole after her, carrying two shovels.

“If you are an aberration, you’re a very high-level one,” Kliss said. “One that can trick a LV 88 [Truth] spell rune and therefore far beyond my ability to subdue. I should report you to the Imperial authorities and run away, very, very fast, while not looking back.”

“Why aren’t you running then?” I smiled.

“I’ve made a Vow to protect your family. Reporting you would go against that. Plus… as much as I'd like to run, I’m way too tired. I’m just going to lie down here for a bit and try not to pass out,” Kliss muttered, sliding off the root and stretching out on the mossy ground.

“Well, have a break, we’re done for today,” I commented, examining the exhumed battery. I took out a cloth and some water and cleaned up the area where it was cracked. Its silver-blue crystalline interior became exposed. I felt it leaking mana like waves of light electrical current dancing across my hands, providing them with unexpected warmth.

Legonnie and the other 12 Lymphagons were spinning around me. They were hungry too. They had survived my escape from the Astral ocean, just barely. I sent them towards the crack in the battery and they began sucking power from it, comically bumping into each other like little kittens who were trying to get to a jar of milk first.

I smiled.

“Did you… just send something at that rock?” Kliss asked. “I’m sensing… something there… moving.”

“Yes,” I nodded. “Just… stretching out some of my magic.”

“You know, when you said you need my aid, I didn’t think it would be lugging giant rocks out of the ground sweating my ass off,” Kliss said as she rubbed her sore arms.

“It’s a very important giant rock,” I noted.

“Important how?” Kliss curiously looked at the mud-covered rock.

“It’s sort of similar to the battery rocks people of Skyisle use for house Wards,” I said.

“So, you don’t know? You made me dig a very large hole in this old, decrepit tower for a rock that might be an old battery?” She groaned.

“Correct,” I commented.

“I feel like this is a very poor use of my time as the Overseer of Skyisle,” she sighed.

“You’re welcome to go back to your musty, old office in the Church of Equality and do whatever it is Overseers do. Sort paperwork? Berate Instructor Wiklogg? Make plans to crush potential Skyisle insurrections? Contemplate where Giovashi is now hiding and what her evil plots are?” I joked as I grabbed the steel flask from her and gulped water down. Spring was slowly turning into Summer and the days were becoming sunnier and hotter.

“Did you just drink from my flask?” She blinked.

“I did, what are you going to do about it?” I challenged, looking at Kliss from above.

“You’re lucky I’m so damn exhausted,” She yawned. “You know, I did most of the work. For a supposed level fourteen mage, your digging Skills are non-existent."

“Am I level fourteen though?” I asked. “Giovashi cut off my magic, don’t you remember?”

“As someone who saw you shrug a level 88 [Truth] spell off,” Kliss pointed out. “I do not believe that you’re level fourteen for a second. Plus you’re doing some kind of… Astral Phantom bullshit to that cracked rock… I can absolutely sense multiple somethings moving there.”

“What level do you think I am then?” I arched an eyebrow.

“Hell if I know,” Kliss said. “You’re a sneaky, incredibly high-level abomination. Only a level 90 creature could simply ignore a LV 88 spell.”

“Call my brother an abomination one more time and I will eat your Soul,” Delta threatened.

Kliss flinched.

“Delta, do you mind not terrorizing Kliss?” I asked.

“I’ll terrorize her as much as I want, you’re not the boss of me!” Delta shot back.

“Don’t you listen to your brother?” Kliss muttered. “Isn’t he a higher level Phantom than you? Wait… Delta?”

“She’s Delta and I’m Slava,” I said. “Those are our secret sibling names.”

“Right…” Kliss said.

“I do what I want.” Delta growled. “Unlike some Overseers bound by far too many vows.”

The Overseer’s look darkened, her slightly cheerful mood extinguished. “Can I go? …I dug out your giant rock.”

“You ain't’ going nowhere!” Delta snapped. “You know way too much. You’re staying here, under my constant observation. Consider yourself my prisoner. Step out of line and I will eat your soul.”

Kliss squinted at us. She didn’t look happy about this development.

“She’s kidding,” I said.

“I’m not kidding,” Delta said. “Dante, she’s our enemy. All she has to do is call her superiors and we’ll be dead in a day.”

“You’re not our prisoner, Kliss.” I said.

“Okay, MY prisoner.” Delta declared derisively.

“Delta, what is your problem?” I asked her in Russian.

“She’s my problem,” my sister switched to our secret language, “I don’t like her getting involved in our work. She knows about our secret base and can lead all of our potential enemies to it!”

“What exactly do you want me to do about her?” I asked. “Without my Infoscopes constantly harassing the Overseer’s Vow she gets completely mental.”

“I… I don’t know,” Delta huffed.

“Then what do you want me to do exactly?” I asked, feeling exasperated. “Why are you angry exactly?”

“I see how you’re looking at her,” Delta commented. “Don’t think I didn't notice!”

“How? What are you even talking about?” I asked.

“Like a cat looks at a tasty mouse!” She declared.

“What?” I asked. “How is she a mouse?! She’s bigger and taller than me!”

“Admit it!” Delta huffed.

“Admit what?”

“Fine, don't admit it. Consider me disappointed in your choices.”

“Dante? W-what are you two saying?” Kliss looked at me.

I blinked, and noticed that I was staring at her legs. She managed to move closer to me while I was preoccupied with arguing with my sister. I looked down at her face.

“We’re deciding whether to kill you now or later!” Delta announced.

“Again, she’s kidding.” I said.

Kliss sighed as she sat down next to me. I wasn’t sure if the Friendship Vow was guiding her to get closer to me.

“Delta, can we please not fight? I don’t like whatever this is.” I said.

Delta shook her head and tapped her foot. “You’re sitting too close.”

“I’m sitting… too close?” I blinked.

“To her,” her hand came up, pointing at Kliss.

“And this is a problem, how?” I inquired.

Kliss closed her eyes and started to whisper something softly to herself. Probably a prayer. Or perhaps she was arguing with her Vows. She was terrified of Delta. Terrified of being attacked by an Astral Phantom. I slid closer to her and defensively put my hand over her shoulder.

Delta gasped. Kliss stopped trembling.

“P-please don’t eat my soul,” Kliss opened an eye and glanced at Delta. “I’ll be good, I p-promise. The Vow of Friendship keeps me from attacking you!”

“Stop trying to play damsel in distress!” Delta tapped her foot. “He’s not going to fall for it!”

“I’d like to point out that I’m in extreme distress right now, because I was just told that I’m being kept prisoner under threat of my soul being eaten.” Kliss pointed out. “Also I also suspect that I’ll be executed soon, regardless of what I do.”

“Damnation,” Delta exhaled. “You win this round, temptress! Aight, scooch over.”

She stepped forward and sat on my left side. Kliss flinched visibly on my right.

“Delta, why must you torment her?” I asked in Russian. “Also, temptress? Are you… jealous of her or something?”

“Oh?” Delta huffed. “Why would I be jealous of an Equality worshiper who keeps our parents prisoner in their own house?”

Kliss gulped. “I can free them… end their House arrest. I’m your… friend.”

The last word seemed forced by her Vow.

“Right. You do that. Also, no more firing spells at us and no more calling us monsters,” Delta huffed. “Make one wrong move, just TRY to attack us and I will devour your soul while you sleep, don’t think that I won't!”

Kliss gulped.

“Delta,” I stood up.

“No, Dante. She needs to know this,” Delta shook her head.

“We don’t need to antagonize her. Terrorizing her is counter-productive to our goals.” I sighed in Russian.

“She IS our enemy and to think otherwise is a mistake. I thought that I lost you, forever. Without you, I am nothing. Without you, I have nobody. I’m an Astral Phantom, apparently doomed to destroy Skyisle. If Giovashi tells everyone in town about my Stats, the locals will always see me as an aberration, just a ghost waiting to steal their flesh!” She snapped in Russian.

“I’m going to snip Friendship off for a bit,” I said. “Let Kliss talk as.. herself.”

I sent my Infoscopes to attack the Friendship Vow and it let go of Kliss, sinking into the Astral. The Overseer’s false smile vanished.

“I-if you’re going to execute me… just do it now, instead of delaying the inevitable…” She whispered. “Almost every moment of existence is painful for me. The competing Vows are tearing my body and soul apart. I have to constantly beg the Vow of Friendship for help, so that the Overseer’s Vow is weakened, contained, pacified. He wants me to notify the Empire. He wants me to do my job. He won’t kill me, but… he’s been with me since I was a child and he knows how to hurt me.”

Her eyes filled with tears.

“He is looking over me, judging my every waking moment,” she cried. “He is torturing me when I close my eyes or when I fall asleep, showing me images of my parents and long-gone friends as bloodless, broken corpses. He shows me… the fallen hex-beacon towers, Cessna in ruins, the white spires of the Equality cathedral burned and broken, streets filled with the dead. Grand avenues covered in rubble and dust, empty of humanity. Only silver Phantoms roam the silent streets, long, ghostly tentacles trailing behind them.”

I blinked as Kliss wrapped her hands around herself, looking at the ground.

“He shows me all of this in my dreams… and he tells me that it’s all my fault. That this future will come if I don’t stop the two of you now… if I don’t confess my sins to Inquisitor Jubz! …So, just kill me now and end my suffering, I beg of you!” She wept as she sat on the rock, her fingers digging into the moss.

The true monstrousness of the Vows became even more apparent to me at that moment.

I stepped to Kliss and hugged her. She wept into my embrace, a girl tormented by her first Vow, chained by Goddess Equality and her congregation into eternal servitude.

Delta growled.

“You were like this, twelve years ago.” I looked at my silver-haired twin, speaking Russian. “You were broken, didn’t trust anyone, not even me.”

“Huh?” Delta tilted her head.

“Don’t you remember?” I asked. “You were terrified of revealing yourself. You didn’t talk to anyone. I helped you not to be afraid and I intend to do the same for Kliss!”

“But… I…” Delta blinked. “You… Argh!”

“I’m sorry Dante…” She whispered. “I just want to protect you.”

“I know,” I said. “Can you just… trust me?”

She crouched down to our level. “I don’t want to fight…”

“Me neither,” I replied.

Delta cuddled up to my side as I held Kliss, the broken, crying Overseer of Skyisle in my embrace.

Our trio sat beneath the thousand-year-old ruins of the Hex-beacon tower. Wind tagged at the orange leaves of the Mystic tree above us, rays of brilliant sunlight cutting through the air.

I started to sing the Song of the Alanian Sentinel and Delta joined in. The song of the Alanians resonated, magnified within the tower and I heard something odd… an echo that didn’t quite match our voices.

The tower itself was responding to our song, adding to the melody with the whisper of the wind, with every blade of flowing grass in the ground, with every stone around us with the sway of branches of the enormous tree above us.

It was weak, incredibly so, but the cumulative effect made a difference, providing a strong, calming effect that I could actually feel take hold of my mind. It wasn’t our magic, wasn’t our mana being spent. It was the ancient Alanian tower, every stone within it including the Hex-Beacon now sitting on the ground beside us... responding to the song and singing it back to us… as if it was actually… alive.