Chapter: 261 - I Need Some Answers (Patreon)

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Tala stood in the cool light of an incredibly early winter morning and looked back toward the southwest.

She could easily see the mountains beyond Platoiri, but the city itself was hidden by some slightly higher hills between them.

What do you think? We’ve come a bit more than a hundred miles?

-I’d say so. I think I’ve figured out a way to determine where we are, by the way.-

Oh?

-I can tell the exact direction toward a city, by its Archive link, and we are in range of all of them, at least for our access to our personal Archival records.-

Tala frowned, even as she turned and began to move toward the northeast, using the sun to help her find her way. That seems… far? Has our range increased?

-I believe it has. Especially after gate-breaking, our magical density has vastly improved. From the records we saw back in Bandfast, I believe that our density and capacity are at least equivalent to weaker Paragons, if those even actually exist. They’d still have superior quality to their magics, of course.-

That’s going to complicate things when we Refine, isn’t it?

-It might actually help, from what little we know. You’d think so too, if you devoted the thought to it, not that you should.- Alat conveyed a smile. -I believe that you’ll have to wield your magical weight against your own body’s impurities, augmented by specialized scripts and procedures. I’d even considered Refining as a way to deal with our little dasgannach, but without knowing more, it would be a coin toss on if it would actually work.-

Tala grunted as she took a running leap to clear the shorter distance across a deep, long valley. Not quite a crevice, the sides aren’t nearly steep enough.

-Agreed. Now, navigation.-

Right!

-Based on our perfect memory, I can compare the angles between the various cities, and even without knowing the distance to them, that should give me an incredibly exact location.-

Tala closed her eyes, relying on her bloodstars for their mirrored perspective for a moment. Oh, I’m an idiot. That is a really obvious solution.

-We were a bit silly for not thinking of this before, yes.-

So? Where are we?

-Trying to give exact locational details in what is effectively a verbal exchange would be meaningless, even if I have them. I can show you a map, though.- A map of the region overlaid her vision, while remaining mostly transparent, a small blinking dot indicated where she was.

So, like…six-hundred miles south of Makinaven?

-Give or take, yes.-

Tala had a thought, then. Hey, Alat?

-Oh, that’s an interesting idea. Yes, let me check…-

She ran in silence for a moment before Alat huffed a laugh.

-Yes, I do believe that the arcane city that you and Rane saw from Makinaven was Platoiri. What are the chances?-

Tala grunted, taking another running leap. Well, Platoiri has fairly easy access to the human lands, so it makes sense that arcanes coming from there would be more likely to be found in our area?

-I suppose so. Those further away would be more inclined to find gated humans elsewhere. We never really discovered if all the major Houses send prospective Pillars up north, or if that was just the House of Blood. But speaking of probabilities, it was a blessing that we found the voidsword and melded it with Flow. Without voidsight, and the void magics in the elk-leathers, we’d never have gotten out of the Doman-Imithe.-

That one was tilted in our favor from the start, though. Thron said that the majority of ether holds have some sort of void item, even if they aren’t all as useful as a sword.

-Well, it’s still a fortuitous thing that lined up to give us the tools we needed.-

Tala shivered. I’m not going to lie, it was a bit terrifying to be without my inscriptions. The voidsight and magics were absolutely a boon and a half.

After that, they fell into a companionable silence, Tala loping across the rolling hills of the plains.

Terry came out of Kit around mid-morning; she’d been checking in on him every hour or so.

He hunted and ran with her until just after noon, when he squawked at her until she let him back into the sanctum.

Well, I suppose there’s no real need for both of us to run.

Aside from the bit of company, nothing truly of note happened until mid-late afternoon.

The zeme had been slowly weakening as she traveled, but it finally dropped below the threshold for an arcane Child’s power density.

It was official.

She was out of arcane lands.

Tala let out a whoop! Jumping and throwing her arms into the air in a moment of celebration, but that’s all she gave herself.

How far are we from Platori?

-About two-hundred and seventy miles.-

That was an impressive distance to cover in what amounted to a bit more than twenty-two hours of running.

Alat had done the estimations, and in total Tala had in the neighborhood of a thousand two-hundred miles to run from Platoiri to Alefast, Waning. That was the closest human city she could reach without passing through the Leshkin forest, and she really, really didn’t want to do that.

Alright, just four or five more days of running.

That was less than ideal. Sure, it was well under the deadline, but she knew that something would happen before then. It always did.

There is a high probability that some low probability event will happen.

-Ahh, statistics. How deceptive you can be.-

And like clockwork, less than half an hour later, she started to hear rumblings in the ground around her in a regular, but infrequent, cadence.

Like the movement of a giant who took a single step every couple of minutes.

It was hard to get a direction on the sound, but it was definitely becoming louder as she ran onward, though she couldn’t tell if it was more north or east.

Anything truly massive that would block her way should have been visible. Aside from something striding across the plains, the only other thing that came to mind was something underground.

That… that wasn’t a pleasant thought.

Both humans and arcanes had a habit of burying difficult-to-deal-with threats under the ground.

Now that I think about it, if Zeme isn’t a complete world, there might be underpinnings that make it a much better prison than I ever really considered.

-There’s a lot of guesswork in that statement.-

Sure. It was a guess after all.

Another hour passed before Tala spotted a group of people up ahead.

She was still outside of the range of an unenhanced eye to see, but she ducked low, nonetheless.

She almost turned away, assuming it was some arcane squad, but to her utter bafflement, her momentary focus allowed her enhanced eyesight to clearly see that it was a group of five humans.

What in zeme?

Her magesight conveyed something even more strange. Only two had gates.

A mix of gated and non-gated humans, and the gated are in the minority… Any ideas, Alat?

-I have no record, from either the human cities or arcane, on humans in this part of the continent.-

Yeah, I didn’t remember anything either.

Odder still, the three humans without gates clearly had vestiges in some of their gear. The two that she thought had gates could have perfectly positioned vestiges in their back armor, but they didn’t give that feel to her.

Tala grimaced, shifting from foot to foot for a moment as she crouched low.

I’m going to go around. I’m really curious, but investigating seems like a good way to get delayed.

-That sounds wise. I recommend going around to the north.-

The ground shook again, and Tala took off.

She decided to stick more to the valleys than she had been. If that group wasn’t alone, which it would be odd if it was, then she would be making herself too visible up on the ridges.

It made her progress a little slower, but she chose her valleys well, so it wasn’t too much of a delay.

Unfortunately, by limiting her visible profile, she also cut down on her own sight lines.

In that way, she came to the end of a valley and passed through a group of crags into the next, only to find her path blocked by over a dozen heavily armed humans.

Now, Tala would almost never call anyone ‘heavily armed’ in a serious manner.

There had been some new Guards back in Bandfast who she’d seen who strapped on as many weapons as they could, and it just limited their actual combat abilities.

Eskau and other arcanes often used weapons that were heavy, but that was just ‘armed’ for them.

In this case, these humans being heavily armed meant that they carried more magic in the form of weaponry than Tala had ever seen.

Each one carried at least two items that together shone brighter than protian weapons to her magesight, and collectively, they outshone even a Pillar’s full regalia.

What the eternal rust? The were obviously not a set, and so wouldn’t actually have their powers combined, but it was still a lot of magic to be able to bring to bear.

“Surrender any weaponry and come with us.” One of the men in the middle of the group spoke clearly, and concisely, his voice carrying the tone of authority. “If you do not resist, and you mean us no harm, no harm will be done to you.”

Tala looked more closely at the group as she slowed to a stop some dozen yards from them.

They were well muscled in the manner of the Guards back in Bandfast, or the Eskau she’d fought with. These were professional soldiers, though she couldn’t tell whose they were. They held their weapons with the ease of familiarity, and their gear was clean and in good repair. Beyond that, there was something viscerally relieving to be near other humans again.

Even so, Tala was in a hurry. “I’m going to decline. I’m sort of on a tight timeline here, and I’m just passing through. I don’t know, nor do I want to know, why you all are out here.”

The one who had spoken shook his head. “I apologize, but that isn’t good enough.”

-They’re looking really squishy, right about now.-

Indeed, of the dozen men, only four of which had gates, none were anything but mundane. Not even inscribed.

“Look. You all are bringing on a real feeling of nostalgia, and I genuinely don’t want to hurt you, but I am going to continue on my way, and there really isn’t anything you can do to stop me.”

The statement was probably not a bluff. Either way, she was about to find out.

She crouched and leapt upward, right as the two men who’d been trying to sneak up on her from either side activated their weaponry.

A net of lighting sprang between the two devices, raking the ground where she had just been.

She was among the larger group before the first one of them called out in alarm.

One siege orb, wipe the group out, and be on my way.

Her hand was halfway to Kit when she paused. What am I doing?

Tala hadn’t had many interactions with humans in the arcane lands, so this was the most human interaction she’d had in months.

And what? I’m just going to kill them all?

It’s what she’d have done as an Eskau. They crossed her, they are inconveniencing her.

-Tala?-

Tala mentally shuddered, even as she landed, darting forward.

I am not Tali. There was absolutely no way that she was going to turn this into a bloodbath.

Morality is worth a few extra seconds. She forced that belief into her own mind. She wanted to believe it was true, so she would act like it.

Rust take any who said otherwise.

So, Flow stayed in its sheath at her hip, and she broke ankles.

Because she was feeling a bit irritated, she only broke the left ankle of each opponent she came across.

Even so, she did grow a glove of white metal over her fists and feet so that the dasgannach couldn’t even have the option of harming them.

It would be rather embarrassing to aim to incapacitate and simply suck the iron from them instead.

Clubs with crystalline magic flowing through them, swords with fire or ice, knives coated in poison power, and many others struck out, all wielded by skillful hands.

Magical traps activated, cages formed of various elements, or alterations to the terrain to impede or harm her, shields of power, and myriad other tools were used to a degree of effectiveness that told Tala one thing: These men practiced with their gear, and they knew the strengths and weaknesses intimately.

Unfortunately for them, it didn’t matter.

Tala hesitated half-a-heart-beat longer than they expected, shifted a quarter inch more to one side than they were used to, or dropped lower than they’d seen a human attempt in combat before.

Her footing was too sure for the ground on which she tread.

She deflected attacks that should have thrown her aside.

Her blows were both faster and heavier than they had any right to be.

She barely turned her head, but she reacted to anything that she needed to, regardless of its source.

In a storm of deadly warriors, all striving to kill her, Tala moved untouched.

A smile pulled at her lips as she profited from the Way of Flowing Blood, altering it to be nonlethal.

It is mine now. I will do with it as I please.

The screams of broken warriors followed after her, but she barely had to breathe.

From the first instant, it had been obvious to them that she was enhanced and using magic to overcome them, and so she ignored shouts to that effect.

The leader, the one who had challenged her, took her only an extra two seconds to deal with.

He swung twin blades, which seemed wrought of magma, with a skill that would have impressed Adam, the Guard who had taught her so much back in Bandfast.

Indeed, if Tala were to draw Flow and cross swords with the man, he would have outclassed her in raw skill.

This wasn’t a contest of skill with a blade.

He cut for her head with his right sword, and she ducked in and to his right with inhuman speed and flexibility.

He thrust with the left hand even as the other blade swept in a tight arc to continue to threaten her.

A half twist got her directly beside him.

He headbutted her, a surprising move to be sure, and one that succeeded.

Unfortunately for him, her head was both harder and quicker to recover than his own.

He staggered slightly from the rebound of his own blow, and Tala broke his left ankle.

I wonder if they’ll even notice that I gave them all identical injuries?

-Does it matter?-

It would be nice if they acknowledged how much better I am than them, yes.

-That way lies madness, Tala. You shouldn’t be taking the extra time for a showy victory.-

Yeah… you’re probably right.

Even so, she broke the left ankle of the last guy in her way, and crouched to take off, continuing on the way home.

“No.” The pain-laced word from the leader came along with the crack of something breaking, and a pulse of power.

Her mirrored perspective showed that the man had broken a heavily inscribed clay disk, and now the thing was blazing with power and magical weight that was as horrifying as it was impressive.

Half of the spell-lines were floating in mid air as power pulsed out from the thing.

-Tala!-

I know, I see it! It was an anti-magical pulse.

She had never seen its like before, but something in her knew and could identify it on sight.

She sprang away, but it wouldn’t be far or fast enough.

Rust these people. I should have just killed them all from a distance.

Tala only had an instant to shore up her defenses, harden her aura, and brace.

They must have assumed that she was a temporary enhancer. They thought that all they had to do was knock her magics free for a bare moment, and she would be reduced to mundane humanity.

They were wrong, but the effect would do something worse, something that they couldn’t have expected.

It’s going to force the Archon star to finish forming.

She had a brief thought that maybe it would kill the dasgannach or rip it free, but the creature’s magic wasn’t like human magics. It would be too much to hope that it would be affected at all.

The anti-magic pulse slammed into her, finding cracks in her iron covering and blasting through the rest, barely impeded.

More than anything, all that it was doing was grabbing all magical power and throwing it outward.

This would be devastating to an arcane. It would likely empty them entirely in an instant, if it overcame their will.

She joined with Alat, fighting to keep the trickle of power flowing to the Archon star, but that wouldn’t be enough. The connection was too tenuous.

They threw more power into the working, knowing that they were burning their time, but that was better than having no time at all.

Hold on!

-One… moment… more!-

But it wasn’t enough.

The anti-magic was meant to level the playing field between mundane humans and high-level arcanes.

Tala just didn’t have the strength to resist it.

The wave passed, and their power was temporarily dispelled, her power density dropping to nothing.

Even the free-floating power in the air was driven away.

The Archon star snapped into form, fully complete if not as fully powered as it could be, and her body rejected it.

Her finger felt like it was going to explode, even as her gate continued to gush power, allowing her inscriptions to flare back to life.

She usually cut Archon stars free the moment they were ready, so it had never been an issue, but now? Now, it was.

As she grit her teeth against the pain that was to come, and prepared to say goodbye to Alat all over again, something unexpected happened.

She felt the dasgannach stir within her as it oriented more fully on the Archon star or, more accurately, the iron inside its structure.

As the spellform moved to leave her finger, the full conceptual might of the dasgannach fell upon it, and Tala’s conscious mind interpreted the instincts and actions of the mindless creature once again.

NO. MINE.

And the Archon star stopped, unable to leave her finger because the dasgannach wouldn’t let the bit of iron get away.

The creature still did not eat it as it still would not bond her, but it would not let it escape either.

The stalemate had ended, and a new, stranger impasse had been formed.

Well… I was not expecting that.

The power in the air came crashing back down upon them all, and Tala staggered.

Without thought, she immediately slapped a hand down on Kit and dumped power into the storage device. Blessedly, while it was on empty, it hadn’t been drained dry. That makes sense, they wouldn’t want to destroy their loot, just drain it momentarily.

The men on the ground around her were pulling back in horror, and Tala quickly realized why.

Her through-spike had been temporarily disabled, and she would look rather arcane to them without it.

While she was relieved to be alive, she was rusting livid.

This is what mercy gets you, Tala. She grit her teeth as she mostly mastered her emotions and forced herself to think as she wanted to think, not as an Eskau would. No. This can be dealt with.

She spun on the leader who had barely seemed to keep his feet.

Flow flicked into her left hand as she transformed it into a void-sword, just before her through-spike returned her semblance of humanity. “It seems like I have more time than I’d thought, and now? Now, I need some answers.”

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