Mistrunner 4 - Chapter 12 - A Warm Welcome (Patreon)

My world is civilized. Or so everyone claims. And yet, I’ve seen children starve. I’ve seen innocent people dying for no other crime than being too poor to evacuate before a natural disaster. Worse yet, I’ve seen my government turn a blind eye as other worlds are stripped of every natural resource then left to die a slow, ignoble death. In the core, that’s what civilization means, and I want no part of it.

Alistaris Kargat

It was nearly three days later when we finally killed the last dervish, and by that point, we had perfected the task. It had been a long, hard road, though, and I would have been more than content to never see another one again. At first, the process had been very similar to my first use of Mist Control; it was a little less taxing on my body and mind, but the building blocks of the method were unchanged. However, after the third dervish, I started to get a handle on the new ability, and by the eighth, I’d learned to wield it with alacrity and relative ease.

Using Mist Control was still fatiguing, but when I’d finished dismantling the dervishes, I wasn’t completely exhausted after that. So, I counted that as a win, and over the final four fights, I managed to improve even more until, at last, I was able to tear the cloud of Mist apart without issue.

“Still sucks,” I muttered, letting my shoulders sag as Patrick retrieved the large crystal that had formed after the latest dervish had died. “Maybe I can upgrade it again and make things even easier.”

I certainly hoped so.  Acclimating to using my other abilities hadn’t been nearly as difficult, but I suspected that that was because they had to function with the framework of the system. Mist Control seemed to exist outside of that – at least to some extent – and as such, it was propped up by artificial scaffolding.

In short, using my other abilities was like riding a bicycle with training wheels, while with Mist Control, those aids had been removed. Without them, I was forced to rely only on my own mind and willpower to see me through.

Patrick sent the crystal into his storage space, and said, “That’s the last one. Do you want to rest before we open the door?”

I nodded. The way forward was clear, but neither of us had any idea what awaited further into the Rift. For all we knew, we’d have to fight a bunch of those dervishes all at once. I hoped not, because if that was the case, there was every chance that we’d both die. I could dismantle them, but even with all the strides I’d made, it still took quite some time and an incredible degree of focus to accomplish that feat. As such, combating more than one at a time – especially without Patrick’s traps – would be far more than either of us could take.

But we didn’t have much choice in the matter. I’d explored the entire palace – or at least the area on our side of the door – and I’d found nothing but a bunch of dead ends. The moment we’d stepped inside, our options for getting back to the real world had narrowed down to one.

There was no way out but through.

After that, Patrick and I gathered his anchors, then headed through the palace. Walking those halls without the benefit of Stealth was strange, and it left me feeling completely exposed. However, there were no enemies left alive within the palace, so that was almost assuredly my imagination at work. Even so, it wasn’t pleasant, and I was relieved when we finally reached the door, where we both settled down to rest.

It was easy to forget that our strategy to defeat the dervishes was only possible because of Patrick’s contributions with the traps, and as such, he was at least as drained as I felt. Once we reached our destination, he sagged against the wall and slid down to the floor, where he sat with his shoulders slumped. For my part, I did much the same, though I endeavored to put on a slightly better front. That didn’t go unnoticed, and Patrick said, “I can’t believe you’re not passing out right now. After that first one, I thought we’d be here for a month.”

“It’s getting easier,” I admitted.

“What’s it like?” he asked.

“I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. I mean, we know that Mist is everywhere, right? Well, if I try hard enough, I can see it. And I can manipulate each individual nanite. It’s harder with stuff like your shield, but I think I could still tear it apart if you gave me enough time,” I explained. “I can even see the collection of nanites that make up your Nexus Implant.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s what they’re made of. Nexus Implants, I mean. They’re just Mist. I think skills are the same way. Everything is,” I said. “I mean, not outside. Mostly. The Mist is in everything. From rocks to you and me. It’s not all there is, but it’s everywhere.”

All it took was a little focus, and I could see – or maybe feel; things got a big blurry on that front – just how much the little nanites had suffused the entire world. Perhaps they would be less ubiquitous outside of a Rift, but I suspected that wouldn’t be the case. I think that was based on what I’d felt since my class had evolved. Before Misthack had become Mist Control, it had only presented in the form of my ability to see auras, but I think that, in the back of my mind, I’d felt the underlying layer of nanites even then.

Now, I had to consciously block that awareness.

Fortunately, with my Mind attribute being what it was, I had little trouble doing just that. Still, it was a little overwhelming, knowing what was hovering below the surface. If the Mist had been hostile, everyone Earth – and maybe the universe – would be dead.

“That sounds terrifying,” Patrick said, clearly coming to a similar conclusion.

“Yeah. But there’s nothing either of us can do about it,” I responded, massaging my forehead. Ever since we’d begun our fight against that first dervish, I’d been dealing with a persistent headache. Not surprising, given the sheer volume of sensory input I’d had to deal with. If my use of Observation hadn’t already prepared me for dealing with that kind of thing, I might’ve collapsed into seizures. As it happened, I just felt like my brain was overheating. Not pleasant, but not fatal, either. “Freddy told me before that they manipulate the Mist directly. I think this is similar to that.”

“So, you’re a Templar now?” he asked. I’d already told him all about my various interactions with Earth’s resident mystics, and he’d been right there with me when Zachariah and Isla had saved me from a horde of irradiated wildlings.

I shrugged. “Not really. Last time I saw him, he intimated that as we progress, the gap between mystics and people with Nexus Implants closes,” I stated. “And with my Tier-7 implant, it was always going to be sooner rather than later. I think I might’ve just crossed a threshold or something.”

“Think about when you get your new skills and start training again,” he said. “Your attributes are going to shoot up.”

I nodded in agreement. It was a well-known fact that a person’s progress was more than just a limit to their potential. It was that, but I’d learned first-hand that, with higher potential, it was easier to raise attributes. The bigger the gap between a person’s actual attributes and their potential, the more easily they could increase their attributes.

In my case, once I filled all of my skill slots, my potential was going to shoot through the roof. And as such, my attributes – all of which were in the mid-two-hundred range – would respond better to training, increasing at a prodigious rate so long as I put in the work. That would slow down as I drew closer to my potential, but not before I grew a lot more powerful. It was one of the reasons I was so eager to fill my skill slots, because at present, I was all but maxed out. And I missed seeing the results of my training reflected on my status.

In fact, I hadn’t bothered looking at my status in almost a month, and that wasn’t going to change until I went up to the Bazaar and bought some new skills. That thought brought me back to our current predicament, and once again, I found myself hoping that we would make enough credits in our current Rift that we could afford whatever we needed.

For the next few hours, Patrick and I rested while I daydreamed about all the things I was going to buy. The skills, I was unsure of – that was up to what Ana had available – but I knew I needed a couple of weapons, too. First on my list was a replacement for the Dragon, but I wanted to upgrade everything else, as well. The only weapon I felt confident wasn’t going anywhere was my nano-bladed sword, which was just as useful as it had always been.

For Patrick, I hoped we could obtain some high-quality parts so he could continue to upgrade his cybernetics. If I’d had my way, we would have replaced them altogether, but he insisted that he would get more out of slowly tinkering with the ones he already had. And considering that he was the expert, I had no basis on which to disagree.

In any case, I knew he needed parts to implement all his plans, so I figured that would be the best use of whatever credits we spent on him. Plus, he needed some new weapons to integrate into his armor, and the Dragon’s rebuild was still ongoing. At present, it could only function at a fraction of the power it had once displayed, and I knew that, if we were going to meet the challenges ahead of us, we’d need to do a lot better than that.

And if we had anything left over, I intended to look into upgrading the Leviathan’s weapons systems. Right now, they were adequate for Earth-bound threats, but once the Integration began and the aliens were freed to descend upon the planet, the threshold for adequacy would shift out of reach.

I sighed.

“What?” asked Patrick, who’d begun to perk up a little. He was still low on Mist, but he was well on his way to recovery the full extent of his power.

I shook my head, saying, “I don’t know. There’s just a lot to do. It feels a little overwhelming. Like, we’re just two people. How the hell are we supposed to fight a whole army of aliens?”

“It’s probably multiple armies.”

“That doesn’t make it any better, Pick. It feels hopeless.”

“Tell that to the Pacificians.”

I tilted my head back and closed my eyes. “That wasn’t on purpose,” I breathed. And it hadn’t been. I’d killed millions, and I hadn’t even meant to.

“That’s my point, though. If you can do that by accident – and I’m not even going to mention the moon thing – think about what you can do if you really set your mind to it,” he said. “I mean, do you know how insane it is that you’ve been picking these whirly crystal things apart with your mind? Extrapolate that for, like, two seconds. Think about where that’s going. One day, you might be able to tear those aliens to pieces without lifting a gun.”

I knew I was a long way off from that – if something like what he described was even possible – but still, I appreciated that he’d say it. I didn’t often need him to cheer me up, but he was always there to say the perfect thing, anyway.

For the next couple of hours, neither of us really spoke. Instead, we both focused the whole of our attention on our individual recovery. For my part, that meant that I just sat there, eyes closed, while I tried to ignore my pounding headache. And as the hours passed, the pain eased until, at last, it dissipated altogether. Even so, it took another hour or two before Patrick had entirely recovered.

Once he did, we took a while to ensure that we were as prepared as possible for what we both hoped was the final phase of the Rift. For me, that meant reloading my weapons and readying my various grenades. For Patrick, preparation took the form of doing various checks on his armor as well as making certain that its built in weapons were functioning properly. Apparently, he’d tied the Dragon’s magazine to his own storage space, so he had tens of thousands of rounds at his disposal. He wouldn’t be able to fire them all in one burst – the barrel would overheat if he tried – but he could definitely bury something under a hail of gunfire.

Finally, we were both ready, and after a couple of last checks, I started sliding the crystals into the slots surrounding the door. They all fit perfectly, telling me that they’d always been meant as keys, and when I slid the twelfth into place, the powerful Mist shield guarding it flickered, then faded. A moment later, the crystalline door dematerialized, exposing the chamber behind.

I tried to get a good look at what was inside, but it was entirely dark. I used Observation, but it did no good. I could see nothing.

“Night vision isn’t working,” Patrick said from within his armor.

“You have night vision? Seriously?”

“We don’t all have fancy abilities,” he replied.

“Fair enough.”

“So? You want to go first? Or should I?” he asked.

“You’re the one with the big, fancy shield and armor,” I pointed out.

“Counterpoint,” he said. “You’re basically indestructible. And way faster. And you’re practically invisible when you want to be.”

“I don’t think that’ll work,” I argued. “But whatever, you big baby. I’ll go first.”

“I’m not saying I won’t go first. I’m just saying –”

I didn’t wait for him to finish the thought. Instead, I embraced Stealth, then stepped through the door. The moment I did, I felt my ability stripped away, completely exposing me. The next thing I saw was that the darkness had faded, showing me a giant, circular room full of crystal statues.

And in the center of the room, a giant creature stood. On the surface, it took the shape of some sort of avian, with definite bird-like wings. However, it differed from a bird in a few key ways. First was the long, serpentine neck and reptilian head that resembled that of a snake. Second, it was equipped with sturdy, muscular legs tipped with huge talons. And finally, it was made almost entirely of white crystal.

In the center of its chest pulsed a purple light, but it had yet to move an inch.

“Is it clear? I lost sight of you when you stepped through the door?” asked Patrick.

“It’s fine,” I said, inspecting the closest crystal sculpture. It looked like a miniature version of the golems we’d defeated in the forest. “Just a bunch of statues.”

I looked back to see nothing but a wall, but soon enough, Patrick simply appeared beside me. Clearly, it was a similar situation to what had happened when we had entered the palace. Which left me more than a little nervous, considering the difficulty we’d had with the dervishes.

I turned back to study the statues, and I saw the same Mist I always did.

“Odds these things are going to come alive after we trip some alarm or whatever?” I asked.

“Uh…pretty good? I don’t know.”

I continued to study the chamber, but the only additional feature that jumped out at me was another wide hall on the other side of the room. Beyond that, my first impressions seemed fairly accurate.

“So, what are we going to do?” he asked.

“Stealth won’t work,” I said. Indeed, I’d tried to reapply the ability the moment I’d entered the room, but it hadn’t worked. Unsurprising, considering how easily it had been stripped away, but it was still more than a little disappointing. “So, I don’t think we can use the same strategy we’ve used so far.”

“Fair enough.”

Then, in his armor, he stepped forward.

I don’t know if it was the sudden movement, or if he’d passed some ephemeral threshold. But I do know that it was a big mistake, because the weird, crystalline bird dragon at the center of the room suddenly moved. The motion was confined to its serpentine head, but when it locked its eyes on Patrick’s huge, white-and-gold form, the message was clear.

It had seen us.

The purple light in its chest flickered. Then, without preamble, the thing arched its neck, opened its mouth, and spat a column of purple fire that would have engulfed us if I hadn’t been warned by that tiny intensification of purple light in its chest.

Instead, that small warning was all I’d needed to erupt into motion, tackling Patrick and his suit of armor to the ground. We skidded across the floor, crashing through a pair of statues before coming to rest almost twenty feet away.

I glanced back to see a hellscape of melted crystal and dancing Mist.

“Do not move,” I muttered through Secure Connection as I glanced back at the creature in the center of the room. It had settled back down, as if it though that a single burst would be enough to kill us.

“What the hell just happened?” asked Patrick.

“This is really going to suck is what happened,” I said. “Now, when I get off you, you’re going to have to push that armor to its limit and get out of the way. Got it?”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to kill a crystal dragon-bird thing.”