Mistrunner 4 - Chapter 37 - In the Aftermath of Disaster and Success (Patreon)

Lots of people love the idea of being a warrior, but the reality of it is one of horrifying loss and crippling sadness. I’ve lost so much. So many people I’ll never see again. I know we were justified. I know we didn’t have any choice. But I still struggle with the cost of resistance.

Patrick Ward

I sat on top of the Leviathan, staring out at the unsettled sea as slate gray clouds rolled in from the south. It was fitting weather for my mood, which was just as dark as the coming storm. As I sat there, I held a small Rift shard in one hand while one thread of my [Multi-Mind] dragged Mist away from the thumb-sized crystal. It took quite a lot of effort, but over the past two weeks, I’d managed to develop that facet of Mist Authority well enough to manage a small trickle of absorption.

It wasn’t enough to do anything worthwhile. As it turned out, Rift shards were incredibly stable – more so the larger they were – and taking anything from them without running them through some sort of conversion apparatus was almost impossible. Yet, I had persisted, largely out of stubbornness, and managed some small success.

Taking Mist from living things was far easier, as I’d established back in that crater, though without the deprivation spurring me on, my progress with the unstructured technique was decidedly slow. I had chosen to look at it as a challenge.

However, that particular facet of progress was not the point. Instead, I’d discovered that constantly flexing Mist Authority resulted in significant movement regarding my [Shielding] skill. It wasn’t perfect for progressing that particular skill, but it was something I could do constantly and without any outside input. As a result, I found myself quickly pushing toward the higher tiers.

I wasn’t there yet, but by my calculations, it wouldn’t take more than a month of solid training to complete the skill and merge it with Mist Authority. After that, I could absorb the skill crystal for [Recovery] and start working on that as well. Within a year, I hoped to reach the end of that line as well, which would result in an evolution of that line of abilities.

I just wasn’t sure if I had that much time.

Over the past two weeks, Patrick and I had been in touch with the various teams tasked with destroying the dig sites, and to my surprise, every single one had been successful. However, that hadn’t come without significant cost. Some teams had been obliterated down to a single a member, and a few had even sacrificed themselves to accomplish their missions. On top of that, the entire command structure had been destroyed in the attack on the temporary headquarters. And finally, Alistaris, who was the lynchpin of the entire operation, was missing and presumed dead.

Without him, we had very limited knowledge gathering capabilities, and because of that lack, combined with a severely diminished number of capable warriors, our chances of overcoming the blockade had become extremely slim.

So, we had been in limbo ever since, directionless and a little hopeless.

I glanced to my left, where a series of abandoned ships rested. The last time I had seen them, they’d been quite magnificent, but Biloxi had clearly fallen on hard times after Nova City’s destruction. I wasn’t certain why the city had been abandoned rather than making a deal with some other city, but I knew it was probably my fault. Behind me, the city was a ghost town of crumbling buildings without a resident in sight.

I could see the flicker of a Mist aura offshore, which told me that the kelp was still thriving on the seafloor. Yet, there was no one there to harvest it.

“We need to figure out our next move,” came Patrick’s voice from behind me. I didn’t need to glance back to know that he’d just climbed up from the hatch. “We’re only a week away from the end of the quarantine.”

“I know,” I said softly, continuing to drain what I could from the shard.

Patrick settled in beside me. With our shoulders touching, we both just watched the oncoming storm. When the first raindrops started to fall, Patrick broke the silence by saying, “He might still be alive. The Dingyts think so.”

“It doesn’t matter, Pick. Alive or dead, we have no idea where to even look. And besides, what are we going to do even if he’s alive? Rescue him? Wherever they would keep him is bound to have top-notch security. We can’t just walk in and pick him up. It’ll be another battle, and one where we’ll have to face the best they have to offer,” I reasoned. Then, I let out a sigh. “Besides, we have no idea where to even look. For all we know, they’re holding him at the bottom of the ocean.”

“That doesn’t sound like you.”

“Yeah, well, I’m tired, Pick. Why does it always have to be us? Where’s everyone else? There are powerful people across the planet. We know some of them. But the fate of the world rests on my shoulders? How is that fair?” I asked.

Indeed, that had been on my mind ever since the crater. At every turn, I’d made so many mistakes, most of which ended with unintended consequences. And with the power I had at my disposal, that usually meant death on a scale most people couldn’t imagine. Yet, I knew it wasn’t all my fault. Sure, I’d made plenty of mistakes, but what person my age could say any different? When I’d destroyed Nova City, I wasn’t even twenty. And I wasn’t that much more mature when I took down the Pacificians.

People my age weren’t supposed to decide the fate of a world.

“It’s not fair,” he said.

“But?”

“But nothing. It’s not fair. You shouldn’t be in this position. None of us should. Doesn’t change the fact that you’re different, Mira. You know that. You’re special. And you’re probably the only person on the planet right now who can stop what’s coming,” he said. “I know you like to make light of your abilities, but the things you can do…you’re just different. Alistaris knew it, and that’s why he got you onboard.”

“And now he’s probably dead. Or imprisoned somewhere we can’t get to him.”

“Yep. But the fight doesn’t end until it’s over.”

I let out a long, deep breath. Then, I gave him a half smile. “That sounded terrible.”

“Something Remy used to tell me,” he said by way of an excuse. “Still, it’s appropriate. This is just a pause. Not an end. It’s a setback, nothing more.”

“The blockade’s coming up in a week.”

“Then we’ll figure out a way to get through it, Mira. I mean, you just drained a Rift shard without any machinery. I think you’ll figure the rest out.”

I glanced at the shard. It had gone dark and grey, just like when we used the shards as fuel for the Leviathan. “I didn’t even notice,” I said.

Then, I heard something that cut through the smattering of rain. Something I’d heard a few other times since the crater. At times, it was easy to mistake it for the wind, but it was too clear for that. And I felt like I could almost hear a voice riding alongside the sound. In the beginning, I’d asked if Patrick could hear it, too, but he couldn’t. It was just me.

“You heard it again, didn’t you?”

“It’s nothing,” I lied. I knew there was something to it, though I really had no idea what it meant. However, my mind kept drifting back to the whispers the mystic who’d briefly survived my norcite bomb had mentioned. “So, what do you think we should do?”

“I don’t know.”

I sighed. “Good pep talk,” I said, pushing myself to my feet. “Really helpful.”

“It’s not my fault, Mira, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t take your frustration out on me.”

“Yeah. I’m bad about that. Look, Pick – I don’t know what –”

Just then, I heard something that definitely was not a disembodied whisper on the wind. A sonic boom erupted overhead. I whipped my gaze upward to see a ball of fire ripping through the clouds. A few seconds later, it crashed down into the sea about a quarter of a mile from shore. The impact sent a ten-foot wave of water ashore, but it dissipated only a few feet from the Leviathan before retreating back into the ocean.

“What the hell was that?” demanded Patrick.

“I don’t know,” I admitted, already grabbing my Stinger from my arsenal implant. I slammed my respirator over my mouth and said, “Stay here. I’m going to go check it out. I’ll keep an open line with Secure Connection, and if I call for help, I expect you to come running. Got it?”

“Wait for me. I can…”

But by that point, I’d already leaped from the Leviathan’s roof and was sprinting into the surf. I heard Patrick finish, “And she’s gone.”

I dove into the crashing waves, then kicked forward with an efficient swimming stroke that took propelled me into deeper water. As I did, I cast my {Mist Warden} senses out, keeping an eye on any predators in the area. There were a couple of small sharks and a handful of other dangerous fish, but none of them were interested in me. So, I kept going, swimming toward the glowing beacon of Mist in the distance.

I had no idea what it was, but the Mist aura it gave off was powerful, which suggested that it was an attack of some kind. I was ready for it, though. The Stinger was more than capable of firing underwater, and though it would lose a bit of its kick, my modifiers were sufficient to mitigate that detriment and then some.

I swam forward, covering the distance in only a minute or so, and by the time I reached the crash site, the disturbed cloud of silt from the seabed still hadn’t dissipated. So, visibility was very limited. Fortunately, I still had Observation to pick up the slack, and my {Mist Warden} senses helped as well.

I waited, treading water as the waters cleared to reveal something large and egg-shaped. Using Observation, I could tell that it was metallic, and I could see that there were some glyphs on the side. However, even with Universal Language, I couldn’t decipher them. When nothing changed about the egg for another few minutes, I swam forward to inspect.

As I drew closer, I saw that there were some glass ports on one side. So, I approached and peered inside.

“Get medical supplies ready!” I shouted to Patrick through Secure Connection.

“What happened? Are you hurt?”

“Not me! It’s Gala!”

Indeed, the minotaur was inside the egg, which I belatedly realized was some sort of spacecraft. It only took one look to tell that she was injured, though. Her fur was matted with bright-red blood, and one of her horns had been broken off at the tip. More importantly, she was entirely unconscious. Even when I banged on the window, she didn’t flinch, and I feared the worst.

I inspected the egg-shaped craft, swimming around it in a frantic search for a way to open it, and I found a hatch a few seconds later. It was locked, though, so I had to reach out with Mist Authority and hack into the system. It was equipped with a stout Mistwall, but by that point, I could rip through all but the most powerful defenses in seconds. So, in only a moment, the Mistwall fell, and the system was laid out before me.

It was incredibly simple – much simpler than something like the Leviathan – which lent credence to the budding notion that it was only meant for short trips. That led to the idea that it was an escape pod not dissimilar from the ones we had on our ship. And given Gala’s condition, that seemed very likely to be true.

In any case, it only took me a moment to direct the hatch to open, which it did with a hiss and an expulsion of Mist. Water flooded in, and yet, Gala still didn’t awaken. So, I wasted no more time before grabbing one of her massive wrists and dragging her free. She was huge, and even though I had plenty of strength at my disposal, the giant minotaur made for an awkward burden. Fortunately, I had some experience with water rescue – the training my uncle had subjected me to had been incredibly thorough, after all – so I managed to bring her to the surface with only minor difficulty. After that, it was a simple task to drag her to shore.

There, Patrick met us with one of the Dingyts.

“He’s got a medical skill,” Patrick said by way of explanation as I pulled her fully onto the sand. The Dingyt immediately went to work, jabbing a syringe into Gala’s chest. I saw Mist swirl, and she took a shuddering breath, but she remained unconscious. With Observation flared, I could tell that her heartbeat was weak, and that her lungs were full of liquid. I was about to say as much when the Dingyt continued his task, addressing those concerns via various life-saving methods.

I recognized some, but without my old medical skills that I’d lost upon gaining the {Mist Warden} class, I could only observe.

Which admittedly was not my strongsuit.

So, I practically held my breath as the Dingyt saved Gala’s life, and after a few more minutes that felt like hours, the minotaur’s huge, bovine eyes fluttered open. The moment she focused, she sprang to her feet with far more agility than I would have expected. In the blink of an eye, she had Ferdinand I out and pointed at the gnome.

A second later, her mind caught up to her reactions and she focused on me. Then, she saw Patrick, and her shoulders slumped.

“Good,” she breathed, her voice sounding a little stranger than normal. It was deeper, though still feminine. “You’re here. We don’t have any time to waste.”

“What’s going on?” I asked. “Why are you here? What happened to you?”

“I made the stupidest decision of my life,” she said. “Your little friend is up there in the Bazaar, and he’s about to be executed. I tried to spring him, but they were a little more than I could handle. Would’ve been a different story if I had all my equipment, but…I left that behind. The point is that we need to go up there, rescue your friend, then get back here before the quarantine drops.”

“Alistaris is up there?” I asked.

“Yep. Pumped full of chemicals and interrogated for the past two weeks. They got everything they could out of him,” she said. “He’s stronger than I expected. Barely gave them anything. But now that they’ve pumped him for all the information they can get, it’s time to remove him from the equation. I figured you might want to stop the execution.”

“Please don’t blow up the Bazaar,” Patrick said suddenly.

“What?” I asked.

“The Bazaar. Don’t blow it up.”

“I wasn’t planning on it!” I insisted.

“But things don’t always work out like you plan, right?”

“Anyway,” I said, turning away from him and focusing on Gala. “How do we get up there?”

She nodded toward Patrick, saying, “He’s a smuggler, right? And that ship of yours is built for this kind of thing. I’m sure you can figure out how to break quarantine. I’ll show you how to get onto the space station without raising the alarm.”

“Why?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m asking why you’re willing to do this. I mean, selling me a few weapons is one thing. Being friends, sure. I can buy that. But if I understand what’s going on properly, what you’ve just done is going to have wide-reaching ramifications on the rest of your life,” I guessed. Indeed, I didn’t know much about the rules of the Bazaar, but from what I knew, she’d just made a huge mistake.

“First of all, a little fight up there isn’t enough to get any real attention. There have been whole wars fought in the past hundred years,” she stated. “None of you knew a thing about it. And second, I’m helping because Jeremiah was my friend.”

“Is that it?” I asked. “Nothing to do with the implant?”

“I wouldn’t say nothing.”

“Is that it?”

“For now,” Gala stated.

I only had hints of how powerful she really was, but from what I had seen, there was no way I was ever going to bully her. She would tell me what was going on when she got good and ready, and not a second sooner. Still, I said, “I expect an explanation about all of that when we get back. Or on the way, if you’re willing.”

She shook her head. “Not much to it. You’re an experiment. People have a vested interest in keeping you breathing. That’s it.”

I sighed. It wasn’t much more than I already knew about the Tier-7 Nexus Implant, but it felt like there should be more to it. Or maybe that was driven by my desire to be truly special. Whatever the case, Gala was right. We didn’t have time to get into it at the moment – not if we were going to rescue Alistaris.

“Alright. Then let’s get going,” I said.

After that, the four of us headed into the ship. Rex and his team, as well as the remaining Dingyts, had all taken shelter in one of the nearby buildings, but I let them know what was going via Secure Connection. They offered to come along, but I refused. I knew it was going to get dangerous up there, and I didn’t think bringing everyone along for the ride was the best course of action. For what it was worth, Gala agreed, cementing my supposition that it was the right path.

Soon enough, we were all inside the ship, and Patrick was lifting off. Hopefully, we wouldn’t be too late to save the Dingyt commander.