“You could have at least tried to understand how it worked,” Scarlett’s voice rung out of the communication crystal. “A device that plucks Abyssals out of the real world and teleports them to a barrier a state away? The military and economic applications are endless.”
That was not quite the reaction John had hoped for when he reported that they had ended the reach of the Death Zone. It was, however, expected from the pragmatic technomancer. “Even if I managed to understand it, I doubt we’d have the materials to keep it running.” The Gar kicked one of the many pieces of rubbles lying around. tra had taken out as much of her rage on the inanimate object as she could, reducing it to little more than fist-sized stones and tal scrap. The mountain left behind wasn’t as inanimate as the original object. Lorylim matter kept pouring down the tubes. “Needing four tracanas as operators aside, we don’t have access to this kind of fuel.”
“Every technology, sufficiently understood, can be adapted to my needs.”
“You’ll have to do your own research on the matter,” John just told her off. Now that the Starkiln was destroyed, the ti pressure was removed. Despite that, the Gar didn’t feel like he was justified in engaging in idle banter at this ti. There was too much still to be done. “Relay the update to the generals.”
“I already have,” Scarlett answered. “Can you retreat? Might be smarter to pull out before you fight the literal god.”
“The barrier is still under his, or presumably his, control,” answered the Gar. He had steadily been pressing against it, to no avail. “I have no choice.”
Silence followed. John didn’t take it as a sign of her uncertainty. They both knew more than they should say about this situation. “Lee says good luck.”
“Tell her I love her.”
“And what do I get?” Scarlett asked.
“You’ll see when I co back,” John promised and ended the communication there. Minorly worried, he looked up to the pipes. Their end point, the massive glass bubble, was removed so the Lorylim matter just kept falling as a steady stream of sludge. “We should get moving before this place fills up.”
“We should find my idiot siblings so I can cave their fucking heads in,” tra growled.
“I thought you pride yourself in not breaking contracts?” Salamander asked, while they moved back to the gate they had co from. They moved at a moderate speed, always keeping their senses sharp. From the tactile feedback of her attacks, Siena was quite certain that she had landed several hits on Thresta, but there was no telling if the damage she had taken had been too much to hinder the tracana. There was also no telling whether she teleported out with Seminaris and the others.
“None of my contracts were about aiding a threat to existence and enabling the murder of other tracanas,” the First of Wrath returned.
“Dunno about that first part, Mat,” Rave said, her words underlined by Thana’s growling. “Rember when ya worked for the Nazis as an emotional limiter?”
“Not my proudest decade, but I do my work,” tra stated decisively.
“So do they,” John retorted. “You’ll either have to admit that your current principle of serving whoever contracts you is immoral or that they aren’t doing anything wrong. You can’t have both.”
tra went quiet, pressing her lips together. “I’m too pissed to have that conversation,” she ultimately growled. Everyone respected that. Certainly, it hadn’t been an easy day for any of them, but for the ancient weapon all of this had a personal note in addition to the life-threatening one.
“Once we’re out of here, we’ll look into whether or not the materials of Tiamat within you can be replaced,” John shifted the topic drastically. “If Jeremiah and Ehtra are anything to go by, she still has so connection to them. Evidence suggests she can’t take advantage of it while it’s still inside you, but that’s another risk factor I want to see eliminated.”
“I don’t know if its possible to separate from Mother Chaos… but better try than beco a twisted fucking hull,” the tracana agreed.
They continued to make their way back up. Even with Undine fused to Purgatory, using all of his elentals and his own supernatural senses, he couldn’t sense anyone or anything hidden around them. Either he was trying to find soone who wasn’t there or Thresta had learned from their last encounter and was keeping her distance.
Climbing the half-kilotre of stairs was among the most monotonous things John had ever done. It was like climbing the entirety of the Empire State building on foot – without the thrill that climbing the façade would have brought. The structure likely predated the discovery of stable teleportation pads and definitely predated modern elevators. John had a hard ti imagining hordes of people moving up and down these steps, but he could also believe that, in the ti of criers being the primary news source, people were willing to go through more to achieve so entertainnt. Certainly, seeing a star being forged would have animated many to bother.
“What exactly are these stars anyway?” Sylph asked out loud, inspecting one of the many ‘torches’ around. They endlessly illuminated their surroundings with soft, silver light. “They shine like John’s spells, they do. I like the colour. I an, it’s no green, because green is objectively the best colour, but silver is a close second. Silvery blue, yes, that’s the second-best colour.”
“The colour is similar because, as you might guess, it is also silver arcane magic,” John inford her. Whenever he had learned these things from tra, Sylph had not listened. “Obviously these stars aren’t actual celestial plasma balls, otherwise even Salamander would be evaporating in their presence. Rather, they are densely packed arcane power, sealed into a permanent physical shape. You may think of them as mana batteries that don’t need a material to save their power in.”
“Enki’s ability to consolidate magic in this fashion was one of the pillars of the Akkadian empire and its successors,” tra picked up. “It allowed the magical scholars to conduct magical experints on a much larger scale. Massive tools of war and monunts of splendour were erected using the spheres. Incredible feats of destructive magic allowed by the focus he could grant. Much as I loathe the pompous cunt, his stars also fuelled my creation.”
“Oooohhhh… that sounds useful. Very useful, could Chompy- N-nevermind!” Sylph’s babbling ca to an abrupt end when every last mind in the ntal connection simultaneously implored her to shut up.
‘We’re already relying on the Lorylim’s inability to take more than limited, guided asures. No information leaks!’ John berated her.
‘Sorry, big sorry!’ the arcvolt elental apologized profusely. Airheaded as she was, she still understood that their lives were at stake here.
They arrived at the uppermost level after what felt like an hour of walking. Accelerating had been discussed several tis, but John was infinitely more comfortable with a slow and thodical approach.
Once more, there were a multitude of corridors to follow. These ones were straight, making it unlikely that the layout followed the golden ratio again. Before John could start mapping out their surroundings, he noticed three figures approaching them from a distance. Two of them walked at a leisurely place, the third accelerated into a sprint.
John Observed all three of them. The two at the back were n in Astrotium armour. In its segnted structure, it reminded John a lot of tra’s, but the two only had enough of the teorite tal to cover their torso and head. Their limbs were bare, their skin a charcoal black and their legs covered to the kneecaps by baggy cloth pants. Both were ard with Elentium tipped spears. One was Kerelex, Second of Hatred, the other Xerxes, Third of Hatred. The latter was a bit taller than the forr, but otherwise they appeared very similar.
The one pulling ahead was a blonde with long hair, whose strands were separated into several straight, flat stripes. She wore an Astrotium armour as well, albeit hers more similar to the fantasy interpretation of dieval European plate – practically skin-tight and covering her breasts individually. It may have been impractical on a regular person, but on her it was literally a second layer of skin. Strapped to her back was a round shield of a dark bronze material and at her side was an unsheathed, silver-white sword. She was Leryala, Second of Light.
“tra!” the blonde shouted, jumping at the First of Wrath with open arms. She was greeted by tra’s gauntleted right to her face, smashing her into the floor. The Second and Third of Hatred didn’t even accelerate their approach. Neither did John or any of the other girls get ready for combat. They had been sent out to greet the Gar and his party. With levels around the other tracanas, the group of three was not a threat.
“Don’t even start with this happy family reunion crap,” tra hissed. “You think I want to hug you after seeing all of the shit you do here?!”
Leryala couldn’t answer imdiately, as the punch had caved her jaw in. When she was back on her feet, it had regenerated enough to allow her to continue the conversation. “Uhm… I ask this with the utmost respect, First of Wrath, but what are you talking about?”
“What am I…? Lery, do you want to tear you a new hole where your spine currently is?”
The other two tracanas had co close enough now to partake. “tra, calm down.”
“If you learned how to do that over the last thousand years,” the second one added. Despite their soldier-esque appearance, or perhaps in keeping with it, their tone was carefree and even joking.
tra, however, was not in the mood to take jokes, especially not from them. Raising Rex Magnar, she hurled the spiked side of the halberd at Xerxes. Both tried to react, neither was fast enough to do so. “Stop!” John’s voice echoed through the large corridor and tra’s weapon seized in front of the shoulder of her target.
Taking a slow breath, the First of Wrath pulled back and let out a long sigh. “Yes, my king,” she obeyed and stepped back.
““King?”” the tracanas asked in unison. The single word caught their attention more than the altercation and they all inspected John with a critical eye.
Leryala was the next to speak up. “He is Sargon’s heir?”
“He is my candidate,” tra made sure she was understood.
“Yet you call him by the title already?” Xerxes added another question.
John wasn’t going to regurgitate the entire debate he had with tra over his refusal to declare himself a monarch. “Keep your questions for another ti,” he told them off. “You’re here to bring us to Enki, right?”
Kerelex nodded. “Our master has demanded your presence. As you are surely aware, he isn’t psyched about you destroying the Starkiln or threatening our siblings.”
Rage surged from tra’s mind again, so intense that it almost managed to rouse John’s own temper by proxy. Suppressing her influence, he kept a calm mind and said, “Lead the way.” There was a lot to clarify about this situation and he would rather do it with the master of the Sanctum in the room.
The three tracana turned away and gestured for John and his group to follow them. Even now, they didn’t let their guard down. Leryala tried to strike up a conversation with tra on several occasions, her tone indicating a considerable level of veneration for the first of her predecessors. Under normal circumstances, tra would have likely reciprocated with a casual conversation. Currently, with violence being unwanted by the Gar, the First of Wrath opted to stonewall.
John kept mapping out the upper floor in his mind and ca to the quick and easy conclusion that its layout was dominated by several layers of rings. Approaching the innermost one, they passed through several open stone gates. The last one only swung open when they were in front of it. The process was crawling and covered by silver light, as if to tease the reveal of what was behind.
“Pompous prick.” tra’s growl confird that suspicion.
The core of the Sanctum was a massive hall, about 250 tres across. It was a hoard of ancient treasures and artwork, piling high along the stone walls, which themselves bore colourized depictions of history. The ceiling was a large do, a large star set in the middle of it and basking the room in pleasant, silver light.
Most impressive of all treasures was a giant chalice of sandstone and tal, dominating the centre of the room. It was the second Starkiln and, despite being smaller than the original, emanated more power. Part of that was doubtlessly thanks to its more finely attuned runes. However, the entity that lay on top of it, where the glass bubble had been on the other Starkiln, was the true source of its might.
He was a dragon. In terms of what John had seen, a rather small one, about the size of a truck. One half, the left, was breathtakingly beautiful. A silver-scaled, sleek body, claws and wings were midnight blue and beset with silver and golden dots that sparkled even while the god laid still. Three white horns extended, smooth and only mildly curved, backwards from where the serpentine neck shifted to the lizard-esque head. His left eye glowed with celestial might.
The right was a black pit surrounded by lead. Attached to a blackened body, Astrotium plates attempted to nail together flesh that was half rotten and half burned. As much as the maker had tried to symtrically copy the features of the beautiful, intact half of the god, the lead grey appeared soulless. The bones of his legs visible between plates, the skeleton of his right wing rebuilt from scratch with a mbrane ford from silver magic, the segntation of his tail, none of these artificial repairs harmonized properly with the radiant being that he had once been. Worse yet was that this new skin wasn’t complete. Amassing this much Astrotium must have taken thousands of years and it still wasn’t enough to fully cover half of the dragon.
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