Chapter: 252 - Down, Boy (Patreon)

<Contains content which may be considered grimdark>
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Tala’s mage-sight strained to pick out details as a dozen blazing lines of power lanced out in defense of the House of Blood’s hold.

Each was countered before it was halfway to the attackers.

Tala assessed the defensive reactions. Weaker members up front with some specialized in direct cancellation of different types of long-range attacks.

A wave of arrows were launched from several large apparatuses, specific defenses designed to threaten those with counters to magical attacks.

A kinetic disruption swept through the clouds of arrows, dropping them to the ground harmlessly.

Alright, I’m up. She grinned.

She wanted to blast straight into the oncoming tide, but she now knew that someone would have a counter of one kind or other. She and Thron had planned ahead for that eventuality.

Their defenses are responsive, so I simply need to misdirect.

She flipped the targets of three pairs of her siege orbs to large sacks, placed equidistantly in an arc before the oncoming foes.

With a concurrent crack that made her ears ring, the orbs tore across the battlefield

Time seemed to slow as Tala brought her enhanced mind and senses to bear.

Several very odd-looking barriers shot up surrounding her enemies, exactly as she knew they would.

Cold redirection? Kinetic absorption and redirection and…what’s that last one?

-Doesn’t matter. Focus. The misdirection worked as planned.-

Each of the siege orbs had struck true, obliterating the sacks laid out for her and beginning to scatter their contents, scrap metal from the hold’s smithy.

In the fraction of an instant after the six all-but-simultaneous impacts, she changed her labeling of the orbs, breaking the effects that kept them gravitationally compressed.

The orbs exploded in a deafening boom.

The basic effects were as she’d seen before, a pressure wave followed by an incredible cold that iced everything nearby.

That was countered rather effectively by the overlapping defenses, though some parts of the blast got through each portion. Leaving some reeling backwards and others coated in frost.

That wasn’t the only effect, however.

This time, fragments of enhanced metal were carried along with the blast wave.

The shards that encountered the kinetic redirection were shunted off to the sides, but the rest flew true, shredding through the enemy lines.

Even those that were redirected still crashed into the enemies.

Most who were struck staggered, a new hitch in their steps even though their armor took the brunt of the impacts, but a few fell and a few of those never rose.

A cheer went up from the defenders.

First blood had been spilt, and it was their attackers who bled.

Tala sent another set of siege orbs forward hoping to capitalize on the confusion her successful attack had wrought, aiming for one of the sides. Unfortunately, the enemy was not as distracted as she’d hoped.

Even as her attack tore across the intervening space, she saw dimensional distortions, and the orbs vanished.

What?

-Pocket dimensions. Opened specifically to swallow your orbs.-

What rusting cheaters!

-Says the girl with lethal air balls.-

…That’s fair. She broke the workings regardless of the lack of effect. No reason to give them more information.

Finally, the assault force utilized their own magics.

The House of Blood was not without competent defenders, however.

Just as the defensive magics had been negated, so were the assaults of the aggressors.

As expected, this would become a close-range battle soon enough.

Unfortunately, no singular arcane on either side could simply overwhelm all opposition, so it was not in the best interest of either side to highlight their powerhouses, especially not this early in the conflict when their enemies could more easily bring greater force to bear on anyone revealed.

Tala was somewhat unique in that her siege orbs simply moved too fast to easily track their origin. Unless I use too many.

-They were able to intercept them, however.-

I think that was more static defense in the way, than actively pinpointing the orbs’ exact location.

-That’s probably true.-

Even so, that will mean that they have a better idea of my location than ideal… She bit the side of her lip, then stopped, glaring internally.

Alat just laughed.

Okay. I’m shifting to my secondary position.

Magics were flying back and forth, now, along with flights of mundane arrows.

Others were trying subterfuge on both sides, but her attack had been a brutal reminder of that possibility.

As the attackers drew closer, the defensive magics on both sides had to react more quickly. They couldn’t be static because no defense was perfect, and it was easy for the right attack to be implemented to bypass any particular defense.

Tala dropped back and moved around the defensive ring to another location prepared for her. The soldiers hiding nearby nodded in her direction, but then time was up, and the enemy was upon them.

She lost focus on the bigger picture as lightning, fire, and something that seemed to be the concept of acid shot toward her position.

Hey, Thron has company in his power.

Even so, she heard members of the House of Blood scream out in pain, and her enhanced senses told her that at least one or two of the defenders near her died.

Rusting, seriously? Stay behind your defenses!

She had ducked behind her own barrier, using her aura control to break the direction on the incoming powers.

She’d even extended herself to break the authority of the attacking arcanes firing on the soldiers near her. It wouldn’t stop the attacks from landing, but it would spoil any attempt at accuracy.

Even so, lightning tore up stone and threw chips in every direction, fire greatly heated the space around her to an almost painful degree, and she could hear sizzling as her stone barricade was eaten away from the other side.

Well, rust you, too! She took in a deep breath, filling her lungs with power.

A now familiar twist and it was ready.

She waited a heartbeat until she heard the expected call, “Counter!”

No doublespeak this time. She wondered if the enemy had expected that. Does that mean they think we’re retreating?

She really didn’t have time to contemplate it, and her opponents probably didn’t either.

She jumped up and to the side.

Her eyes locked on six attackers closing on her position.

She contracted her entire torso, using her enhanced strength to add force to her exhale.

With an act of will, her aura control shaped, funneled, and accelerated the dissolution power forward, turning a strong breeze into a torrent.

Fire, lightning, and acid responded but were eaten away before they could come close.

Sadly, the magics had virtually perfectly equaled out.

She thought she saw some dissolution effect the fringes of their armor, and she felt static, heat, and some burning spice in the air around her.

Hey, I just countered six arcanes at once. They were even all near her in rank, being perfectly split with three orange and three yellow. Three Mature and three Elders.

-I agree. That was quite impressive.-

Cries of alarm went up from those before her even as she closed on them with great loping strides.

She hunched as close to the ground as she could get while maintaining a stable form. De-arg would knock me flat, but these don’t have a chance.

Flow flashed into her hand, taking on the void-glaive form as she struck out.

Five heads popped upward, freed from their bodies even as their defenses and bodies were drained of power in that single swing.

The sixth arcane had fallen backwards, out of the line of the incredibly powerful swing.

Lucky slag.

The lucky arcane took a deep breath, and Tala braced for a breath weapon or something of the like.

She should have struck him down instead.

“She’s here! That human girl is here!”

Rusting seriously? She growled. Unlucky me.

A flick of will put one of her scales into the frog-man’s head, crumpling his helmet like it wasn’t even there. Though, the squealing crunch likely highlighted her position as much as his shout had.

The screeching sound penetrated the din of battle and other screams even more clearly than the frog-man’s oddly powerful voice.

Tala’s enhanced hearing immediately began picking out shouts among the oncoming force, relaying her location to her enemies.

Great. I guess we’ll get to see what they brought for me, now.

-Better to know for sure than fear in uncertainty?-

Tala grimaced, using the moment’s respite to sweep Kit across the six bodies, taking them all from the ground before her, where they might have gotten beneath her feet in the fight to come.

Let’s do this.

*      *      *

Rust, rust. RUST!

Tala sprinted down a hallway, diving below a bolt of black lightning, even while she took two ice-spikes to her back.

You can combine void with lightning?!

-Apparently, you can do a lot of insane things…-

Thankfully, her armor protected her from the piercing, though she still felt the blunt force distort her insides.

Three Mature mercenaries were on her tail, and if their coordination was any indication, they’d worked as a team for a long time.

Thron had listed this group as highly favorable, despite being a half-rank below her, because of their particular combination of ability coupled with their excellent teamwork, filling in for each other’s weaknesses.

She shot scales from her back as she rolled back to her feet, using her mirrored-perspectives to pick targets.

She no longer tried to target them directly, as they could somehow sense that, or were at least very ready for it.

Now, she targeted the floor, walls, or ceiling, trusting in the incredibly acute angle to reflect the scales into her attackers.

She also made sure to break the targeting when the scales hit, so they wouldn’t lose momentum by having their gravitation pull them backwards.

As a result, she’d been able to make a few clean hits.

This time was no exception.

The hawk-man screeched and stumbled, clutching his arm, even as he shot another pair of black lightning bolts from his eyes.

Tala dove around a corner at the last instant. The corner of the wall behind her didn’t explode so much as simply ceasing to exist.

Thankfully, it wasn’t loadbearing so nothing came down on her, but it was still too close.

I need to keep distance and wear them down.

Of course, that’s when the second one caught her.

A massive bull-man shattered the wall beside her, hitting her and slamming her bodily into and through the wall opposite.

Tala yelled in surprise and rage, even as she plunged Flow at the man in the form of a knife, her motions so quick that it brought to mind a sewing machine.

Each stab came away bloody, and each wound closed immediately after she’d pulled the blade free.

After a dozen knife stabs, she pushed power and Flow flickered into a void-blade.

Her eyes must have given away that something had changed, because the bull caught her thrust, when he’d ignored the others.

I guess the through-spikes illusion doesn’t fully hide my void-eyes from those who know to look?

-Is that really important right now?-

Not really. She exhaled in the attacker’s face, causing his flesh and bone to melt backwards in a wave.

In a turn of events that again reminded herself of fighting…well…herself, the dissolution left behind an intricate set of purple inscriptions hanging in the air, highlighting where his flesh had been.

Those magics sparked and spat power as the dissolution tried to work on them as well.

The light began to dim just fractionally before the bull-man’s healing kicked into high gear, and the front of his head regrew, overpowering and overcoming the remains of dissolution magics.

Rusting, slag. That should have been enough power to powder his whole body.

-You survived the same power.-

Not this much!

-Hyperspecialization is no joke, Tala, and these were selected specifically to counter you, it seems. It’s no wonder the one who closed in is a self-regeneration specialist. No one else could really keep up with you. He doesn’t even have anything dedicated specifically to stopping damage, just healing it.-

But he’s harder to hurt than a mundane. His concept maybe?

-That could track.-

Tala fired off an insane barrage of scales into the front of the man, blasting straight through him, leaving only quickly healing punctures before coming back to hit him again, lacking the momentum to push through again.

Unfortunately, those that she’d aimed for his spine somehow didn’t cut off his control of his body.

Can’t use the ‘griffon method’ then.

Even so, the dozens of heavy impacts gave her the opportunity to plunge void-knife Flow into his chest.

He roared, his power dropping noticeably, though he remained well within the Mature rank, still.

His well of power is surprisingly deep. I wonder what’s keeping him from advancing?

He also lashed out, connecting a solid punch into her guts, which blasted her backwards through a half-dozen walls.

They were stone walls, and that had hurt.

She felt her bones reknitting, but she was momentarily unable to rise or even breathe.

Alat?

-Yeah?-

Remind me not to do this again…

-Noted.-

She frowned. Now, where did that stupid ice-badger get—gah!

A lance of ice grew from the wall she was leaning against, trying to thrust through her from behind.

Instead, it was spoiled by the defenses in her elk-leathers, both magical and metal.

She was thrown aside, and Tala saw the little pile of slag duck back out of sight.

The badger-man was the size of a normal badger, but with more human-like features and an upright posture.

Void-lightning hawk-man, regenerating bull-man, and stealth obsessed ice throwing badger-man. She growled through the pain, getting up enough to stumble into the next room before the previous one imploded with a forest of ice.

She didn’t really know how long she’d been engaged in a running battle with these three, but it felt like hours.

-Less than half an hour.-

Rust… She hated reacting. They’re tracking me, somehow.

With an effort of will, she suppressed her through-spike.

That will change my look to any sort of magically sensitive sight.

Mostly healed, she tossed a set of siege orbs into the ice-filled room and began circling around.

When she felt she was a safe distance, she altered her label for the orbs, breaking their compression.

A massive whoomp blew apart the whole section of the hold.

The bull bellowed another roar of pain from near the blast, and Tala grinned.

She knew that wouldn’t have killed that pursuer, but it would have hurt.

Alright if their pattern holds, the bull will be stomping around, trying to find me; the hawk will be closing in slowly, and the badger will be…

While carefully looking around a corner, towards the devastation she’d just wrought, her mage-sight picked up a distortion in the air. Unfortunately, it wasn’t detailed enough to determine which way the little badger was looking.

Found you.

Being as careful as she could be, she snuck forward, keeping at least one of her mirrored perspectives locked on the form she was all but certain was the badger.

The nearly invisible figure did seem to be looking towards where the blast had gone off.

Almost… there…

Flow was sheathed at her waist, and she carefully reached into Kit to get another set of siege spheres.

She still didn’t know how they were spoiling her targeting, but if she had to, she’d find a way to strap the orbs to the frustrating little badger.

-Tala, wait. Something wrong. That shape isn’t right for the badger.-

Almost as Alat spoke, the badger became visible, and it had a hostage.

A child was huddled on the ground, one of the badger’s feet was on his head, and an ice-spike spun lazily, hovering over his chest, point toward the boy’s heart.

“That’s far enough, Tali. You—”

Tala launched forward without hesitation.

The badger’s eyes widened, clearly taken aback by her complete lack of hesitation.

Her left hand caught the small menace by the throat and slammed him into the nearby wall. Her aura crashed into his and with her surprise on her side, she broke his hold over the ice spike before she kicked it from the air, shattering it into uselessness.

“GO!”

The boy rolled to his feet and took off at a dead run.

What was he doing here? Why wasn’t he evacuated? She didn’t have time to investigate that thought, however.

The bull and hawk stepped around nearby partially broken walls.

Blessedly, they ignored the boy.

A trap then? It made some sense. She’d not seen any sort of distortion before.

The badger-man snapped his jaws at her, and she slammed him casually against the wall again, cracking something in his shoulder. “Down, boy.”

The badger whimpered.

The hawk-folk man lifted his uninjured arm and pointed it at her, void-lightning dancing along the limb. “Let him go, Tali. You are outmatched here.”

She laughed, her eyes flicking back and forth between the two free opponents facing her. The whole while she was watching all three of them with her mirrored perspective.

A bluff of lack of perception was a slim advantage, but it was something, and she was in a pretty bad place, tactically.

The badger’s will was scrambling against her own, and he was slowly winning, his experience and desperation slowly winning out in the space just around his own body..

If they notice his efforts and help, they’ll break my sovereignty in an instant.

The bull’s voice was surprisingly deep. “We have nothing against you, but we will bring you in. We’re paid better if you’re alive.”

“So your employers can ransom me back to my own house?”

The hawk shrugged. “Everyone lives; we get paid; seems like a good plan.”

“Yeah.” The badger’s voice was as slimy and annoying as she’d expected it to be. “Let me go, you human bi—”

Tala didn’t think, she just struck out, ramming her right hand, siege orbs and all, through the badger’s open mouth and down his throat.

She knew the little creature was convulsing around the intrusion, but his teeth couldn’t even penetrate her armor.

The bull and hawk exclaimed in disgust, surprise, and anger.

Tala didn’t really care. “I said shut up.”

She ripped her empty hand from the smaller being’s mouth ignoring the ick on her armored arm, and threw him towards his friends.

She mentally changed the labels on her siege orbs. You are orbs death and decay. The working broke and the room was painted with blood, guts, and viscera.

Worse, it was flash frozen, after coating everything.

Tala heard both of her remaining attackers begin gagging, and sent a couple of scales their way as she took the momentary distraction to duck away.

The scales were foiled, as they had been for the entire time these three—now two—had been pursuing her.

Okay. That was really gross. I’m not doing that again.

-I second that… But, hey! One down.-

An instant later, the bull roared and she heard the concussive sound of breaking walls.

Rust…

She turned to face the oncoming bull, only to be struck by void-lightning from the side.

Her entire body locked up even as she felt her power be bled away.

She grit her teeth. How did the hawk get around the side so fast?

Her body wasn’t responding as her muscles spasmed and the magic that could normally overcome such things was bled away.

Her aura couldn’t break the directing power of the attack, the attacker was simply too focused and too strong.

Oddly, she no longer heard the bull breaking through walls.

Where is he?

She writhed on the ground uncontrollably, utterly helpless as the hawk came forward. “You will pay for that. He was a useful asset, and now he’s gone.”

Around the electrical shocks, she managed to get out. “You didn’t like…. him either, eh?”

He grimaced, and the lightning increased, evidently no response coming.

She managed enough mental cohesion to send a couple of scales at the hawk, but the nearly continuous lightning branched and struck them from the air before they could hit.

Tala screamed internally. What can I do? What am I not seeing?

An obsidian finger reached out, seeming from nowhere and tapped the side of the hawk’s temple.

The avian-like head distorted then popped in a puff of blood, bone, brains, and feathers.

It took another few seconds for the lightning to stop, and when it did, Tala was suddenly able to perceive someone looming over her.

“Eskau Tali. We need to find your Pillar. He was singled out, as you were, and I fear he is fighting alone somewhere.”

“Pallaun?” Tala gasped, accepting his hand up. “You killed them?”

The Eskau frowned. “I killed this one but no others near here. Pillar Be-thric is missing, and the battle is far from over. Seek him out in that direction.” He pointed. “I will go the other way. Are you well?”

She nodded, her body healing quickly, though her muscles still spasmed.

“My gate feels…raw.”

Pallaun nodded. “That can happen when assaulted by the void, though normally it is stress upon one’s founts.”

Tala gave a mirthless smile. “The perks of being my own powersource.”

He shook his head with a snort. “Go. We are pushing them back, and they’ve lost far more than we have, but there is still potential for disaster.”

She nodded. “Thank you. He had me dead to rights.”

“For the glory of the House of Blood…”

“...their blood will flow.” She finished ritualistically.

Without another word, they moved off in opposite directions.

I’ll still need to watch for that stupid bull.

Even so, one thought was pushing to crowd out all else.

Be-thric is in danger, and I have been sent to tip the scales.

A determined smile pulled at her lips.

This. This might be the perfect opportunity.

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