Chapter: 265 - Decay (Patreon)

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Tala fell into a pattern as she loped northward across the rolling, craggy plains.

She read books that Alat found pertinent.

They also discussed what information should be given to whom and when, after they had full access to the Archive once again. They didn’t want to try to think of what to do when the time came, so they made plans and preparations.

Terry hunted and ran beside her, resting in Kit less frequently than previously, likely due to her ‘encounter’ while the terror bird had been so indisposed.

No matter how many times Tala told Terry that she had chosen not to call him for help, he still seemed irritated with her.

She ran through the night, not even stopping to eat, instead pulling out easily consumed foods and a waterskin to keep herself in good shape.

Roughly one-hundred-fifty miles north of Howlton, she came to the edge of the forest.

She’d seen the dark line of the trees for hours before in the dim starlit night, but she wanted to be closer to the tree line before she turned east. That way, she should miss any of the other ‘villages,’ at least according to Paresh, and he’d seemed at least mostly genuine.

Before Tala turned east, Alat tried reaching out to the closest city, Makinaven, but from what she could tell, she estimated that they were still three-hundred-thirty miles or so from the massive tree city.

Too far for a proper connection, eh?

-We’re more powerful, Tala, but not enough to more than decuple our Archive connection range.-

Decuple? Oh, ten times. Yeah, that’s fair.

The run east and a little south, along the edge of the forest, was almost as monotonous as the trip across the plains. The forest barely seemed to vary to her left, the plain similarly uniform on her right.

Terry hunted anything dangerous from their path before she even saw it, and she stayed well back from the tree line, though she thought she saw eyes watching her on occasion.

Leshkin?

She didn’t know, and the zeme in the forest was somehow obscuring her magesight more thoroughly than it had when she’d been going to and from Makinaven.  A greater defense to the south? I thought the forest used to be the enemy of humanity, not the arcanes.

It was worth looking into, if she could.

I doubt there’s a Leshkin library, but who knows? The next Leshkin war could provide all sorts of opportunities.

Night had fallen after the short, winter day when she finally reached the southeast edge of the forest and could turn north, towards the narrowest portion of the great woods.

She loped on through the night and the next day, Alat finally stopping her well into the following night, next to a portion of the forest that was seemingly identical to all the others she’d passed.

-Here. This is where we turn west-northwest, and cut through.-

Tala staggered a bit. I think I need to sleep.

-That is probably incredibly wise, yeah. In all likelihood, we’ll have to fight something in there.-

Probably Leshkin. Yay…

Tala nodded, tossing Kit against one of the increasingly infrequent crags, stepping through and collapsing onto her bed.

Terry had asked to be let into Kit a few hours earlier, so he’d be fine.

Sleep claimed her before she truly settled atop her luxurious bed.

It felt like she blinked, and she was awake once more.

She took a bit less than half an hour to cook up a heartier breakfast, stretching and limbering up while the bacon and other ingredients cooked.

Terry flickered in for a brief appearance. She checked with him briefly, but he had no interest in traversing the forest with her. He’d stay within her sanctum. He tried to snatch some of her breakfast, but when she shooed him away from the meat that was magically matched to her, he got grumpy, squawked at her, and flickered away.

The cat didn’t make an appearance, sadly, but Tala left out another strip of nonmagical meat for it.

I was going to offer Terry some, but he left in a huff. She shook her head, smiling. He’s a funny bird sometimes.

Tala enjoyed her breakfast, looking out at the dark landscape of her sanctum. It was somewhere in the middle of the night, and dawn was still quite far off.

She wasn’t going to wait until morning, she didn’t need nearly that much sleep.

Her breakfast done, she exited Kit, and called to Terry, asking one last time if he wanted to come.

His disinterested squawk was her only reply.

Fair enough, I suppose.

She hung Kit from her belt and looked at the forest looming before her, barely three hundred yards distant.

The trees were tall.

I’d forgotten how tall they really are.

She’d considered reducing her own weight and vaulting through the upper branches, but Alat had convinced her that trying to learn such a skill in a decidedly hostile environment would be foolish.

So, she would run.

Assuming the forest doesn’t find a way of blocking me.

She recalled the frustration of the caravan’s path being blocked or redirected.

Only a few hours. I’ll be through the forest well before mid-morning. Rust, I might be through before sunup if I’m lucky.

That was motivating to say the least. On the other side of these trees were the plains containing her human cities. Home.

She ensured that her bloodstars were in their combat configuration.

Then, remembering how she’d been ambushed, she moved those for her mirrored perspective outward.

One went above her head as far as her aura reached, looking down and around.

Another went forward to that extreme and another back.

There. I should be less prone to ambush like this.

-I don’t like it as much, but I can see the utility.- The forward and trailing perspectives were those granted to Alat.

Hey, thank you for watching out for me.

-Flattery does nothing when I can see you’re only saying it to manipulate me.-

Eh, doesn’t make it any less true.

Alat huffed, but there was some mirth in the mental noise.

Now, come on. We need to get going.

Tala almost coated herself in white metal but realized how much she’d stand out in the gloom of the forest in all white. Why doesn’t the through-spike hide that?

Now that she thought about it, the through-spike really didn’t ever hide her clothing at all.

She’d noticed before, obviously, but never really thought deeply about it.

And now’s not the time to do so. Let’s go, Tala.

So in she went.

Terry wouldn’t be clearing the forest for her passage. He really didn’t like the Leshkin, and while Tala could provide him with weapons to throw, he’d barely practiced and doing that would slow them down, incredibly.

That was probably why he’d declined to run beside her through the forest.

Yeah, Terry’s very good at picking his fights.

Thus, Tala was going to be alone as she traversed this shadow-shrouded place.

Her magesight opened before her as she crossed the treeline.

It was as if the forest didn’t want anything outside seeing in but didn’t have any issue with those inside seeing around themselves, magically speaking.

Physically speaking? It was dark.

Pitch was a shade lighter than under this forest’s canopy, forcing Tala to rely almost entirely on her magesight.

Her physical vision was good, but it was still human sight and required at least low levels of illumination. For now.

There were spots of white where some bit of snow lined up well enough with star light peeking through the clouds above, and even where the snow wasn’t in near-direct light, it almost seemed to glow, solidifying the wisdom of her choice not to clad herself in white.

Without the snow, her mirrored perspectives would have been fairly useless, as she could only mirror a fraction of her magesight, just that portion that was fully ingrained and truly a part of who she was, truly an aspect that could be mirrored.

In any case, she was far more blind than she liked.

So, of course, Tala took off running as quickly as she was able.

Let’s get this place behind us as soon as possible.

Alat didn’t distract her with books, nor ideas or conversations.

Instead, both Tala and her alternate interface were focused intently on the all too quiet, winter forest around them.

Alat was getting better at navigating so even while they had to circumnavigate the massive trunks of this ancient forest, they always stayed on course.

To be fair, Alat was also putting the finishing touches on the information sets that they wished to grant various people access to as soon as they could.

Thus, Tala was left to contemplate the dull scenery as she passed on mostly silent feet. Huh. The size of these trees can’t be because of age alone. Paresh said that the forest was expanding southward. I wonder how old these trees actually are.

-Based on human research the forest is interconnected somehow, and a new tree, either at the forest’s edge or growing to fill a gap in the interior, can reach full height in less than a decade. They then seem to grow from within, hardening over time.-

So, they grow like softwood, then slowly become hardwood if given enough time?

-That’s what the book we have on it says, yes.-

She did recall that, now that Alat directed her attention to the information. It was odd to think that, externally, it was nearly impossible to tell old trees from new, especially because they could move around.

Speaking of which, she was finding herself having to weave around more and more trunks, and she was coming across far fewer gaps that aligned with her desired direction of travel.

Great, the forest knows I’m here, and it isn’t happy about it.

She saw the first Leshkin less than a minute later.

Blessedly, it wasn’t oriented toward her.

Instead, it stood utterly still, seemingly staring off into the distance, looking north as Tala approached, moving almost east to west.

Tala felt an internal shudder, remembering how those things had plagued her when she’d last been in the forest.

She was stronger now, though.

I wonder…

-It might work? But it also might just tick them off. We’re not even a dozen miles into the forest yet, Tala.-

If it works, it will be worth it. Flow ate a vestige, Alat.

-Alright. I agree it would be good to know and useful if it works.-

Tala changed her trajectory just enough to pass behind the lesser Leshkin. With a flick of power, Tala cleaved it in half with Flow in void-sword form.

In the same motion, she whipped Flow around and thrust the void-blade into the greatest concentration of power she could detect.

The Leshkin didn’t make a sound as it was obviously dead at the first strike.

Void-Flow pulled, devouring the concentrated bundle of power, even as that power tried to pull away from the vegetative corpse to move off through the forest.

With an odd flex, which registered to Tala’s voidsight like the fragment of reality they occupied pushing the magic into the void, the bundle of power vanished.

A strange ripple radiated out from Tala, seeming to sing through existence.

-Oh… That’s Interesting.-

Tala got the distinct feeling that the bit of power, whatever it actually was, had been subsumed into Flow but wasn’t powerful enough to even attempt to truly influence the weapon, let alone her directly.

It was a drop of ink on a glass surface. Noticeable, but not able to cause a lasting change.

Tala sucked in an extra breath as power sizzled through Flow from an outside source, the source that had been consumed.

It did seem to touch her, the reinforcement and enhancement scripts in her right hand seemingly growing infinitesimally more powerful for a second or two.

All around her, from as close as a mile to seemingly hundreds of miles distant, Leshkin screamed.

-And that’s not good.-

It was a primal, unholy, unified screech that literally seemed to fracture reality, the edges of the protuberances which made up Zeme became clear though they stayed pressed together, and Tala felt like she could almost see into the Doman-Imithe.

You know, if void is effective against the Leshkin, there has to be a good reason why humanity doesn’t use it against them more often.

-Yes. That would have been good to consider before you rusting ticked off the entire forest… again!-

Flow was done with its meal, and Tala was already running once again.

She sheathed Flow in its dormant form and did her best to increase her pace.

The zeme below the canopy was just as thin as she remembered, much of it seemingly absorbed and repurposed by the trees and the Leshkin connected to them.

As she focused on that, she could actually see Leshkin moving even though they were beyond trunks, the flows of power highlighting them in ways that it hadn’t before.

Or my magesight is more effective.

That is also how Tala noticed that the zeme leveled out to the north.

A territorial border? The Leshkin have a border in here?

She could have gone a few miles north and avoided them entirely.

Someone had to know about this… She was not happy. She considered turning that direction, but realized that the Leshkin wouldn’t stop without a good reason, and so their border had to be with something, and the last thing she wanted was to run headlong into something that was holding the Leshkin back.

Better the enemy you know than the fatal unknown.

A dozen lesser Leshkin descended on her in the next minutes, and she blew through them without slowing down, their acid blood doing absolutely nothing against the magical defenses of her elk-leathers.

Of course they weren’t affected, they were literally enhanced with Leshkin Juggernaut armor.

She grinned. This might be more fun than she’d feared.

And I can get some more loot. Loot was always useful.

She’d used void in both her weapon and on her elk-leathers as she specifically struck at the bundles of power that seemed to be the manifestations of the Leskin souls, or at least the core of their being that was used to animate the vegetative manner.

Each one sent out a ripple through reality and caused renewed shrieks from the Leshkin in the region.

Thankfully, reality didn’t seem to degrade any more than it had with the first shriek. If that’s even degradation? It might just be a clarifying of reality, a revealing of what is always there?

She didn’t have the time to truly theorize.

As to the bundles of power, each one seemingly bolstered Flow in its void-form, or the void-aspects of her elk-leathers, building the strength of those magics, even as the power also seemed to leak into her.

After a few swarms of lessers failed to slow her in the slightest, she encountered the first warrior.

It stepped out from behind a tree in one of their favorite ambush tactics, swinging a massive war-pick at her chest.

The blow connected, the tip even piercing just enough into her magical defenses to gain purchase.

Tala didn’t slow, and the Leshkin had a firm grip.

That combination ripped the thing’s arms off, even as Tala cut it in half with a back-swing of void-glaive-Flow, making sure to pass the blade through the bundles of power from the two lessers that made up the warrior.

They stuck to Flow and came with Tala as she continued on, the void-weapon quickly devouring those bundles.

With a quick motion, Tala pulled the war-pick free and dropped it into Kit.

Alright, then. Let’s do this.

There were far more Leshkin in the area than she’d expected, but now that she knew that this was their border with something it made quite a bit of sense.

Did Paresh know?

-Probably not. He tried to send us through a thin part of the forest and gave several options. He also said that his people try to stay away from the forest.-

That’s fair. But if we meet him again, I’m going to have questions.

-That’s fair.-

She cut through a squad of warrior Leshkin next, only missing three of the bundles of power.

It was interesting how they seemed to stick to the void magic as they were slowly consumed, and Tala definitely noticed that Flow or her elk-leathers seemed to gain some temporary strength from the consumption.

Also… Am I moving faster?

She hadn’t slowed her loping run, though she was having to go around more and more trees that ‘just happened’ to be in the way. Rusting moving forest.

-You are actually progressing at the same pace, but with the detours, I would estimate that you are, in fact, speeding up, yes.-

Do you think the power is bleeding into me? I mean more than just fractionally?

-Odd way to ask, but maybe? I can analyze the power flowing through your scripts.-

Please do so.

Flow licked out a dozen times even as she rammed her fist through the breastplate of a Leshkin knight, lifting it bodily and carrying it along with her.

Flow transformed into a void-knife so Tala could stab it into the four bundles of power within the thing before she dropped the remains of its body, still bearing armor and weapons, into Kit.

She was starting to definitively feel something, and whatever it was, it felt good.

-The power is definitely flowing through your inscriptions, but it’s not displacing your own power, it’s somehow flowing in parallel?-

Tala shivered, her every sense slowly growing sharper.

More.

She wanted more, and the Leshkin kept coming.

A few minutes later, Tala noticed that a cluster of Leshkin were coming up from the south, but she would pass them by before they got in her way.

She diverted to intercept them.

-Oh… This is—-

Tala slammed into the group of knights, whipping Flow in tight patterns the made the air crack and scream at the weapon’s passing.

Stolen power washed through Tala, suffusing her scripts, including those that made up her alternate interface.

-This is amazing. Yes. Let’s keep going.-

Tala grinned.

She still needed to get out of the forest, though she was less sure of why, but that was alright. The Leshkin were coming to her after all, so she needn’t divert her journey too much.

The world almost seemed to fade, just slightly, but she came back to herself.

A single juggernaut was toppling, Tala riding it to the ground as she drove Flow in pinpoint strikes at the power that animated the creature.

That power washed through her, helping level out the balance of powers in her scripts.

Many of those scripts were meant specifically to help her keep her rationality in tense situations, and those finally got sufficient power to match the overwhelming feedback coming from everything else.

Oh… Rust.

-Tala? Why… Oh.-

How long?

-Only an hour or so, and we’ve been keeping on a relatively steady course, despite our… state.-

Tala shook her head, trying to fully clear it. It feels like I’m recovering from being drunk.

Absently, she picked up the massive mace that the juggernaut hadn’t been able to bring to bear against her, dropping it into Kit as the opening to the pouch distorted to accept the weapon.

She took a moment to look at her left hand. I’m glad I had enough presence of mind to at least be extra careful with my left hand. If this is cut off, I don’t get home.

She expanded her focus and really saw the forest around her.

Dozens of juggernauts were closing in on her, and those were just the ones she could easily see in her moment of renewed clarity.

How far to the edge of the forest?

-We’re more than half-way, but barely. I think we’ll need another three hours unless we can improve on our pace.-

Alright. Help me direct the power to keep our focus and direction through this.

-Good call. I’m with you.-

Alright; progress, not slaughter. Let’s do this.

That became her mantra as she continued to fight the juggernauts.

Progress, not slaughter.

Towards that end, she purposely took quite a few hits, always biasing them towards her right side.

They were nothing she couldn’t heal, but they still hurt.

She allowed them because those she let hit always threw her in the direction she wanted to go.

As it was, around three hours later, she rounded a trunk and found open plains beyond.

She almost collapsed in relief, but even as she thought she left the forest and the Leshkin behind, two massive forms fell from the sky, landing nearly directly in her way in the pre-dawn light.

The two forms might have been mistaken as boiling, their shapes not distinct and almost seeming like they were coming together as she watched.

By this time, Tala was incredibly proficient in picking out the nodules of power within Leshkin.

One for lessers, two for warriors, four for knights, and eight for juggernauts.

The two Leshkin before her each held thirty-two bundles of power, tightly encircling a singular, vastly more powerful source of power.

As she watched, they shrunk, compacting until they matched her in size, their flesh so compressed that it resembled stone or metal more than the vegetation it had previously seemed to be.

A voice like a spring breeze across a field of corpses issued from the air around the two beings.

“Running away, hungry little void? But you’ve only just arrived.”

A second voice sounded as well, somehow evoking ancient roots slowly pulling down the long-abandoned defenses of an ancient civilization. “Marked of human and arcane, unquenchable traitor, we have not given you leave to depart.”

Well, this is new.

-Master Jevin spoke of more powerful variations that came out during the Leshkin wars. If not, it would fairly trivial for a few higher level Archons to hold back the tide.- Alat almost seemed to scoff within Tala’s head. -We’ve slain hundreds with our running tactics. We’d have done worse if we were defending a position, or facing an army directly, but it definitely shows their weakness to more powerful humans.-

And to the void.

-That too.-

Decay spoke again, “Return your stolen power and depart.”

Inevitable Erosion added their piece, “We are meant to have nearly two more centuries of sleep. Don’t disturb us further or force the waking of the Royals.”

So, these aren’t Royals, whatever those are.

-These are what? Generals, then?-

That makes sense. Four juggernauts around a more powerful, more intelligent core.

Tala had slid to a stop well outside the tree line, but still at least a hundred feet from the two theoretical generals.

She decided to play along for the moment. Return the power? “I do not know how. I am new to the magics of the void and sought only to defend myself during my passage through the forest.”

“Truth?” Inevitability seemed surprised. “Of both humanity and the arcane, you travel these lands with those powers, and no one told you of the dangers?”

Decay laughed mirthlessly. “Someone hates you, human child.”

Tala grimaced. “That is not in dispute.”

Something deep within Tala felt like she couldn’t beat these two, an instinct born of long training with those more powerful than herself. She even doubted that she could escape if she chose to run.

Another part, the part suffused with stolen power, wanted her to try to kill them anyways. After all, she might get lucky and then all their power would be hers.

She forcibly suppressed that urge.

“What must I do to be free of the two of you? To allow you to rest once more?”

The two shared a look before they spoke as one. “Your death would not go unanswered. One of your rank is too valuable to go missing unnoticed.” They nodded and locked hauntingly empty eyes on her. The four eyes seemed both very similar to her own eyes when she used voidsight, while also giving her an entirely different impression. “Seize the stolen power that remains within you and eject it. We will remember you and hunt you in the coming war, but we will not pursue you, now.”

-That seems… too reasonable. If you do that, you will be even weaker and have even less of a chance of escape.-

I already have no chance. She didn’t like it, but she really didn’t seem to have much of an option.

Tala nodded, though it pained a deep part of her. “Agreed.”

The two Leshkin were suddenly standing beside her, and she felt their weaponry at the ready, though they seemed unarmed.

Tala swallowed, barely keeping from flinching away.

She focused inward, grabbed onto the flowing, looping power that had been claimed by her void magics, and rejected it.

The power seemed to scream out of her, coming from her mouth and eyes in a dense, roiling cloud before vanishing back into the forest.

Tala slumped, feeling lesser without the stolen power.

The two Leshkin spoke as one once again. “Bargain struck, bargain fulfilled.”

Then, they were gone, Tala not even able to sense their departure.

Well, that was awful.

-We’re having quite a few of those experiences lately, aren’t we?-

Tala groaned. I just want to get home.

She staggered forward, getting back up to speed with effort.

She felt so slow without the amplification of the stolen Leshkin power, but Alat assured her that she was fractionally more powerful and coordinated than before she’d entered the forest, leaving her with an easier time pressing up against the reasonable upper limit of her speed, while avoiding magical resonance.

So, some permanent benefit?

-It seems so.-

Worth studying… but later.

She felt ragged, but she pressed on as the sun rose and climbed up the sky over her right shoulder.

It traversed the entire cool blue expanse above her and was nearly to the horizon before something broke the monotony.

-We’re passing near the Arconaven Ruins. It might be interesting to investigate.-

Not now. We can come back later.

-That’s probably wise.-

Still, Tala looked off to her right, focusing on her magesight and seeing the remnants of increased power that accompanied the fully waned city.

She was genuinely curious what she could find in a ruin.

Later.

She refocused forward and ran on as the sun set.

Night passed in a haze and as the first light of dawn began to lighten the sky once again, Alat laughed within Tala’s head.

-I have full Archive access! Expanding permissions on the prepared packets of information.-

*     *     *

All across the southern human cities, select Archons gained access to new sections of the Archive.

Most didn’t notice right away, but a few did.

Seemingly of one mind, the most common response was simply, “What the rust?”

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