Adamant Blood 419

The afterparty for Gate Day was supposed to be big. Aside from all of the individual parties that were scheduled to happen all across the settlent, there was a planned event for the big wigs happening at Castle South. There was a giant cake of multicolor frosting and with a big black square at the top representing the Gate itself. The grills were set up, and steaks were prepped and ready for cooking, and 300 people at that main party would be drinking wine and toasting the new year. One whole year survived as a settlent! It was a big deal. All of that stuff was still there, but only about 20 people showed up.

The grills were dark. The steaks were in cold storage. The wine was open and people were drinking liberally, or not at all.

The cake was good, though.

Mark nibbled on his slice as he stood there with Isoko, Sally, and Eliot.

On the other side of the gathering room Aurora was talking in hushed, worried tones to Ambassador Iliandra Snowstepper and so guy from Crytalis who was here in observation of the montous day. That guy seed to be way out of his depth, because he glanced everywhere and his vector was worried. He was a 20-sothing dude and he seed more like an office worker than a soldier or a politician. Mark guessed he was so sort of sacrificial pawn who was left in the city to take the place of whoever had abandoned the occasion.

A lot of people who were here for the party had left as soon as they could.

Lee and Sam and Derek were by a window, looking out to the north, where one of the molten titans still stood far beyond the city. It was the sa temperature as the surrounding sky, now, with one hand raised to the sky. Eliot was probably going to take them down soon enough. Lee, Sam, and Derek were talking about how they could have possibly fought them, if they had had any warning at all.

Eliot had told Mark earlier that there was no real fighting them, but he had been kinda quiet about that afterward.

Quentin and Deedee and a bunch of techies were talking with so Castellan paladins and priests about the heat that had swept out across the land, and how to deal with that in the future. The techies looked to the paladins for answers, and the paladins were looking toward the techies for solutions, and that was bad news. Both sides thought the other one might have a solution, if only they worked their Powers better, or sothing.

Mark wasn’t following that conversation too well.

Lola was supposed to be here, but she had bowed out of the party tonight. She was dealing with the Collective and their discussion of Nobody Important’s ultimatum about the Reset Quest. She had asked Mark not to show up for that discussion yet. Everyone was still yelling at everyone else.

Elaria Valen, Aurora’s mom, handed Sally another big piece of cake. It was her third slice, and Sally made it even bigger as she thanked the older woman for the cake.

“No sense in letting it all go to waste!” Elaria said, smiling brightly. “Be sure to take so steaks ho, too. We got a whole case of them for you kids. Maybe two cases!”

Elaria was one of the very few people Mark had seen who was happy about the day’s events.

Mark couldn’t help himself but ask, “Why are you so… good, right now?”

Elaria bead, like she had been waiting for Mark to ask that very question, because she easily said, “Because you killed 9 kaiju today, Mark! NineCat 5 to Cat 6 kaiju, all by yourself! If that’s not the asure of a future emperor, then I don’t know what is.”

Ambassador Iliandra stepped toward the small gathering just then, saying, “Aluatha is not approving that story.”

Elaria cheerfully prodded, “I’m so glad you could make it, Ambassador Iliandra. What with that terrible injury from that assassination attempt from what had to be Godking Dominant. What were you in traction for? 2 months? Barely a functioning brainstem to your body, too! So glad you’re still with the living.”

Iliandra kept her face stoic, but her emotions were suddenly in such a turmoil that she couldn’t keep them from leaking out into her vector—

“Mother,” Aurora said, only barely coming to Iliandra’s rescue.

Elaria shrugged. “It’s the story that would make us all feel safer!” And then she announced, like she was on a stage, “Here’s Mark Careed! Savior of the day! Killer of kaiju and calr of senile deities from beyond the stars! So yes, the Reset Quest is good! And feasible! All we have to do is change the world, kill a few more gods than we expected, and probably clear a few dryad-infested forests, too.” She added that last part with a bit more fire in her voice than before.

Iliandra found her footing, saying, “All talk of the Reset Quest is to be diminished—”

Elaria almost interrupted, but Iliandra raised her voice.

“BECAUSE we’re dealing with a senile deity-class kaiju who has obviously allied with Okuana,” Iliandra said, all nervousness gone.

Everyone was looking their way, now.

Elaria instantly, joyfully, countered, “Nobody Important is not an ally of Okuana! You don’t know any of that, and neither does Aluatha. Maybe if you were better at Aethercalling you could have picked that up.” She pinned Mark with her eyes, asking, “Tell us, Mark, who do you think Nobody Important is allied with, if anyone?”

Iliandra hesitated, because she needed to know what Mark thought, too. Everyone seed to want to know what Mark was thinking, Elaria especially, but Iliandra was already trying to figure out how to silence him, or to sow doubt.

Mark didn’t know for sure what had happened between the ambassador and her handlers on high, but he was pretty sure that the tenuous push and pull between those who desired the Reset, and those who were firmly against it, had stopped. There was no more push and pull. There was only capitulation to Okuana, against the Reset Quest.

Mark’s heart fell a little.

But then Elaria added, “And do you think you could talk to him, to get him on our side?”

Mark said, “Nobody Important is a solitary being who doesn’t want to do any of this. He’s an ‘old god’, by his own admission. Him being older than the System and having co here to the Two Worlds possibly withthe elves —or at least nearby, chronologically— ans that he’s seen it all, and so, if we have a way forward that secures the realm even in the interim, he might be willing to do that plan. He has already offered to support a magical society if we should found one, sowhere, so perhaps such an interim-System plan has him with a power base for such a plan. I have no idea what such an arrangent would look like, but perhaps Nobody Important would have a better idea, if we knew where he was and if we knew how to interact with him.

“The very fact that he did not kill us all ans he is not allied with Okuana. Not really.

“But I do think that he spoke to Dominant, at least. I think Nobody Important is at least an ally-of-convenience, because Okuana has a deep track record of preventing people from deviating from the status quo, and that’s what Nobody Important desires. It is highly possible that Okuana knows how to contact him, too, so we’re probably facing an uphill battle when it cos to convincing Nobody Important to join us instead of remaining with them. It’s hard to get soone on your side when the only ones capable of talking to them are the enemy.”

Elaria smiled gently, beatifically, as she nodded a little and then said to Iliandra, “And there’s the real issue. Is First Prince Doomo in talks with Nobody Important? Or is this whole thing you’re spouting right now just a reaction, and not the real words of the Emperor?” Elaria twisted the knife, “Or am I truly to believe that the Emperor is scared of so Cat 5 summons from a forgotten deity?” Her voice held no detectable sarcasm at all as he announced to everyone, “I doubt Emperor Salvation would ever capitulate to any threats at all!”

Aurora softly said, “Tone it down, Mother. Please.”

“Fine fine fine,” Elaria said, happily turning back to the table with the cake, saying, “I need to go bring your brother so cake, anyway. Where is he? Ah! Don’t worry about it. I’ll find him.”

And then she was off, carrying a big slice of prismatic white cake on a paper plate.

Iliandra told Mark, “You’re officially banned from speaking positively about the Reset Quest until further notice.”

Iliandra was shaking, though, as she said what she had to say, for those words were absolutely not her own. If she had control over her own destiny, Mark imagined she would be crawling into a hole sowhere right now, far, far away from the front lines.

Mark decided to say, “Sure, Ambassador.”

It was a lie.

Aurora frowned a little, saying nothing.

Iliandra paused, for she saw the lie for the lie, too. She responded, “Thank you, Mister Careed.” And then she told Aurora, “I believe that’s enough for for tonight…”

The ‘party’ kinda wound down from there.

- - - -

Mark crashed on the couch in the house, letting out a big, “Uuugghh! What the fuck was Nobody Important doing today!”

Isoko grabbed so ice cream from the fridge, saying, “Better start calling him ‘Sobody Important’ if he keeps doing shit like that.”

“Whythe fuck is he coming out against a System Reset,” Sally said, crashing on her big seat to the side of the couch. “That’s what I want to know. Like… It’s that Others shit, right? The System can’t be down for a single minute, or whatever? Eliot?”

Eliot groaned as he sat down on the seat on the other side of the couch from Sally, saying, “It’s the sa shit that they’re all complaining about. Just look at this.” He gestured at the television and a new program flickered onto the screen. It was a protest in mphi, according to the scrolling words on the bottom of the screen, and it was right outside of the Hero’s Association. Mark easily recognized that series of round buildings and the round fountain out front. He also recognized the various signs everyone was waving around, but there was one big difference between the normal affairs of the anti-Reset protest and the protest Mark was seeing right now. The size. Eliot said, “There’s 4,500 people out there waving new signs against the Reset!”

“Gods,” Mark muttered… and then the recording of the protest moved over the crowd, and Mark saw sothing that made his guts churn with a visceral sort of hate, or maybe disgust, or maybe sothing else. He couldn’t tell. “Holy fuck. Is that… it’s a fucking Blackvein body pillow with a fucking noose around the head and… that’s exactly what it is.”

The signs were so much worse than they usually were.

There was the body pillow hanging with a rope around the neck, on a pole, but there was also a sign of the Earth burning under fires that read ‘RESET’ and another sign that had Blackvein with strings leading up to a dragon’s hand. Addavein’s hand, probably, based on the silver coloring— Oh. No. That wasn’t Addavein.

That was Thrashtalon’s hand. There was even a big ‘TT’ on that hand that was puppeting Mark.

“Oh gods,” Mark muttered, as he reached for the controller. He tapped the ‘off’ button saying, “That’s enough of that shit. What are we on the couch for anyway? Not for small-minded protests, were we?”

“It’s Saturday Sortie,” Isoko said, though her heart wasn’t in it anymore. She set the ice cream down, saying, “Let’s talk about what happened out there.”

“Drakarok save from more debriefings,” Sally muttered, leaning back in her chair and shrinking a bit. She pulled the covers over her smaller body, saying, “It was a fucking… molten glass elental. The bastard just summoned 8 of them! All around the settlent! I’m pissed at… at all of that, sure, but I’m also pissed at how easy it was him to do that.” She softly added, “I still feel cold from the burning.”

Mark Unioned with Good and Bad, black veins pumping under his skin and into the air. Sally, Eliot, and Isoko relaxed a little, as Mark said, “I’m pissed at how Nobody Important chose to do this shit. All that power, so long lost history of helping a society, and now he cos in and throws around molten titans as a deterrent against progress? Like he could handle the defense of a small city all on his own! Or maybe a major city!”

“Any one of the Central Cities, for sure!” Sally said, growing back to normal-person size as she threw off her blanket. “Anything under tier 8, even!”

“And he chose to be an asshole instead,” Mark said.

Eliot added, “He could probably handle the defense of the entiretyof New Tokyo’s tier 10 sprawl. He could solve gate day, all on his own.”

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Eliot’s voice was a little cracked.

Everyone looked at him.

Isoko softly asked, “How bad would it have been?”

It was a big question.

Eliot had avoided the question before but now…

Eliot stared at the ground.

Then he looked up at the wall, and a bit higher. His vector was fully inside of him right now, so it wasn’t like he was looking outward for answers. He was trying to co to terms with the answer he already knew was true, the one he had skirted around in the official after-action debriefing in the command center.

They had all given official reports in their own ti, and rather quickly. The analysts at command did most of the reporting, as per usual, but the Kaiju Squad and anyone Aurora tagged for the action was required to give their own full reports, as much as was needed. Mark had a habit of just talking for 5 minutes to Quark then sending in that report. Everyone else had to sit by a cara. No one actually wrote anything down using a keyboard, or whatever. It was rather informal.

It was still done.

Eliot and the other people who guarded the walls directly had to give actual, nurical and logistical reports when attacks looked to strike the city, and especially if any kaiju attacks actually hit. Risk assessnt, damage assessnt, and repair assessnt. Actual numbers, both in damages in goldleaf and estimated repair tis and whatever. Mark didn’t really get into that side of this job.

Most of the ti the Castellans and logistical people didn’t get too deep into that side of the job, either. At last month’s afterparty, Mark recalled them talking about how that floppy fish could have flopped all over the walls and the walls would have held just fine for about 24 hours, and then Eliot and them would have needed to start shunting power from the city in order to keep the walls strong. 2 weeks was the final, agreed-upon ti fra of how long the city could last with a floppy fish kaiju striking its Castellan shield, repeatedly, without it suffering a single crack.

Mark, and everyone, knew that the scenario with today’s 8 molten glass titans was a lot… worse.

Eliot said, “99% dead if Nobody Important didn’t pull that punch. Based on the level of heat that poured out across the land, the spillover of a direct strike on the gate would have incinerated a good 30-kiloter-radius around mphi’s gate, too.”

Mark let out a small breath.

Isoko shuddered, and Sally shivered.

Mark asked Isoko, “You weren’t able to shunt the heat around at all, were you?”

“Barely at all,” Isoko said.

Mark asked Eliot, “Heat deflectors wouldn’t work?”

Eliot said, “Those kept the city from burning. I had to replace 70% of them anyway. Didn’t take long because I can just do that now with True Castellan, but it’s still… it was still a thing that I had to do. That was divine fire, Mark. It was… a lot.”

Sally pulled the covers around herself, shivering again. Mark Unioned with Good and Bad with her, and she relaxed a little, saying, “I hate burns.”

Mark nodded… And then Mark asked, “What could we do to make the city stronger?”

“Not much, Mark,” Eliot said.

“Could the Dreadnought have survived one of those strikes?” Mark asked.

Eliot scoffed… and then he paused, and said, “We just wouldn’t have gotten hit in the Dreadnought. I would have hit the Brightspeed and moved the entire target, so yeah. We could have ‘survived’ that sort of attack in the Dreadnought, but that sort of solution is useless for our current needs.”

Mark asked, “But is it really useless for our current needs? Really?”

Isoko chuckled just a little, a bit of relief cracking her worries as she sarcastically said, “Just move the entire city, Eliot~”

Sally chuckled. “I could shrink it!”

Eliot sarcastically said, “I’ll make up a battleplan and we’ll call it Plan S.”

Mark scoffed.

All of them were joking, and they laughed at Mark’s scoff.

“I’m serious, though,” Mark said.

Eliot smiled as he said, “We can’t make the city mobile—”

“I’m sure you could, actually!”

“… Okay, well…” Eliot took the question seriously, and said, “We can’t, because it’s Gate Day and if the city moved then the link would break and it would tear the Veil. So no. We can’tmove; I said what I said.”

But Mark grinned, and everyone noticed that.

Eliot eyed him. “… What?”

“Could you turn the shield into a gateway into the dreamlands —even just briefly!— and then shunt any possible beam attacks away, like that?”

“Oh my gods, Mark, no,” Eliot said, “And for about a hundred different reasons! One! Bad idea, because we’re already opening the gate and making a hole in the Veil, so I’m sure it would just tear wide open and send the settlent tumbling into Endless Daihoon, or so shit. And two! BAD IDEA, and I have no idea how either, so that’s that.”

Mark was fully prepared for that sort of ‘no’, though, and so he countered, “There are lots of Powers that can be stretched into Castellan, right? Like Sally’s Size Manipulation with the Dreadnought. So how about others? How about— Like there’s a few Powers out there that could do a lot. There’s a guy with Dodge as his Power working at the coliseum. Could you put a ‘Dodge’ into your Castellan?”

Isoko scoffed a little. “No offense to Judo Kid, which is who I think you’re talking about, but Dodge is a terrible Brawny Power and you know it.”

“It has applications!” Mark said, “You can overpower pretty much every trick out there with enough power, but if you have enough power then all of the small tricks still work well at higher levels.”

“They don’t, though,” Isoko said, though she was less sure than before.

Sally humd, “It was a joke to shrink the city. I can’t do that.”

Eliot said, “Sally was only able to do that with the Dreadnought because she was literally bigger than the Dreadnought, I guided her Power and she linked and it worked.”

“Ah ha!” Mark said, “Now we’re getting sowhere. You just need soone with an astral body as large as the entire settlent, then, like… like yourself.” Mark wasn’t aware he was going in that direction until he got there, but it all sort of made sense. With a gasp, he said, “You don’t have a third Power, and we’re trying to get you a house of your own, so maybe you, with your Power as large as the city, could get so Powers switched out on the fly, whenever you need them, and you can Dodge the entire city whenever you need to Dodge.” Mark paused, “… Or maybe Parry would be a better Power?” Mark excitedly added, “Who knows! But it’s the bones of a good idea, right? And Parry is an easy enough spell to do… theoretically. Couldyou attach a spellform to the entire city?”

Isoko scrunched her face, adding, “I’m sure there are good reasons we don’t…” She looked to Eliot. “You can’t do that, right?”

Eliot had a weird mont where he wanted to say that Mark’s theory was malford, but Eliot humd, and then… He began, “There are ways to attach spellforms to city walls, but…” And now he hesitated. “We already do that, sowhat. I don’t know if Ican do that any more than I already am. There are known ways that involve… well. In the Old World of pre-Reveal, they’d hook up a person with Parry to the city wall grid and then sacrifice them to deflect an attack from a kaiju. That was before the Reveal and way before Castellan, and all of that fell out of favor when Castellan ca along and we could just farm enough mana to provide a shield strong enough to directly counter a massive attack.

“That was the problem with today’s attack; the glass titans were made of mana, from a source that has too much, and they would have easily struck down the walls and then burned us all to death through pure power. Rember in Endless Daihoon when we tried to follow the path the elves laid down, to that tower that should have led to Earth’s portal but we ended up going to Dominant’s Daihoon portal land instead? When that path opened and all that manapoured out… The problem with today’s attack is a similar sort of issue with that outpouring of prismatic mana from that blocked path. When that portal opened, the mana poured out and I tried to absorb most of it, but the systems on the Dreadnought failed due to overloading.

“Everything about city defense these days is managing mana stores and then either throwing those stores into a direct defense or absorbing as much from those attacks as possible and mitigating them that way.

“Once you get into stuff like Parry and Dodge —which are actual Powers recognized by the System— then you have enemies that use stuff like Absolute Strike, which completely negate Parry and Dodge, and so your defense turns out to be paper-thin. That’sthe real reason why we don’t do stuff like that anymore. Aside from the literal human cost of using those sorts of Powers before the Reveal, before the Pantheon ca around, those sorts of defenses are justnot as goodas pure power.” Eliot finished with, “I was simplifying my answer earlier, about how 99% of us would have died from that attack if Nobody Important hadn't pulled his punch. The real, in-depth answer about howand whywe would have died is… it’s a big topic. There is so use in ablative defense, but true defense is still the best defense. Basically, it’s a problem we’re all still trying to solve, and apparently divine fire from a Cat 7 or 8 Old God overcos everything we can do, which… is to be expected, I suppose.”

Mark leaned back on the couch, thinking.

Isoko asked, “Are there no… whatever-you’d-call-it… fake-souls? Fake souls that can empower a Parry into the city walls? Instead of using people?”

Mark was still thinking, but he still asked, “It’s still the Parry versus Strike argunt… And probably Power Level matchings, too, right?”

Eliot nodded. “We can match PL versus PL pretty well on city walls. It’s part of the adaptive defense branch of Castellan thodology. Wardstones, like what we produce at Cybersong Industries, do much of that deflection. But then you have stuff like Absolute Strike, and… Well. You know.”

Sally said, “If anyone could crush through a Parry, Nobody Important has to be at the top of the list.”

Eliot said. “The only reason we lived today was because you said sothing that needed to be said at the right mont, and Nobody Important listened.”

The team fell into silence.

“City defense is a big topic!” Eliot blurted, into the silence, and then he got softer, adding, “It’s still an evolving science.”

Mark openly wondered, “So what you’re saying… is that I need to figure out how to mold superpowers to city defense better, and I need to figure out how it all works outside of a System if we want the Reset Quest to actually continue.” He asked, “Should I ask Andria to spend more money in that direction?”

Eliot, Sally, and Isoko all got quiet.

Isoko picked up the controller, saying, “Let’s watch Saturday Sortie.”

As the screen flickered on and Isoko navigated to the show, Mark watched but his mind was elsewhere. Thinking.