“Could an sated, could an hungry, could an overflowing…” Momo scratched the back of her head, studying the photo pri-John had sent her via Harem Comms. “This is why pictographs suck. They’re super hard to interpret correctly and then they have double anings too…” She studied the image more closely. “I haven’t even seen that one before… it’s a combination of other glyphs…. Maybe it’s ‘the spring water monster has gorged itself on the disease’? Could also be ‘has devoured it all’?”
“In short, no good answer,” John said.
“Yeah…” Momo kept staring at the image for a little while, but pictographs would not have been pictographs if they were imdiately readable to anyone outside that culture. There was aning imbued in these lines that she simply did not have the context for.
How absolutely fascinating!
Momo tried to construct a tiline of events in her head. Remus had co, left them a pantheon, then the pantheon had died due to a calamity. That calamity was, at least in part, because of the Stinking Corpse disease, the Purple as they had dubbed it for now. Truthfully, in the Abyssal Aztec language ‘the Purple’ in these pictographs could have had a specific word that was long lost. Just another one of those blind spots.
After the old gods had died, new gods had taken their place, led by Huitzilopochtli. By mundane mythology, he was the god of sacrifice, which would fit with the creation of these god-warriors, one of which they had run into. That confird their existence as well; so much of her research was already confird.
The nebulous parts were after that. The Toltecs had been the initially dominant soarican force on the Abyssal side, judging by the legends of the Stinking Corpse. The Aztecs claid their historical inheritance. There was a ti of competition, no doubt, before the Aztecs erged victorious.
What had transpired in that ti? There were local tribes that governed their individual city states and villages, bound by a set of overarching customs. By all Momo could find out, that arrangent had been stable for sothing between 100 and 1000 years. An enormous spread, to be filled with history.
“STOP!” Lorelei suddenly shouted.
In the front of the car, Ehtra slamd the breaks. The five superhumans in the vehicle tilted forwards, then fell back into their seats when the montum seized. The seer imdiately undid her belt buckle.
“The Lady is granting a path. I request that you accompany closely,” she said and opened the door of the car. They left it parked by the roadside.
Momo fidgeted as she followed closely behind the seer. tra and Ehtra took the flanks, with the Creator Puppet in the rear. ‘He just wants to be there to look at our hips wiggle,’ the fairy maid thought and added just a little bit of extra swing to her hips. Thanks to the hot pants she was wearing in the mundane space, that was even more of a sight than usual. ‘That’s right, you’re totally under my influence, you gorgeous, sexy stud.’
“What are you thinking about?” John asked.
“T-the weather!” Momo stuttered. “It’s hot!”
“Astute observation,” he joked and got close enough to give her butt a squeeze.
“Perv!” she complained.
“I know when soone is inviting ,” he whispered back.
“Now is not the ti, we’re marching through a jungle into enemy-“
The familiar pull of a Trap Barrier yanked at them. It was too much for even them to resist, a clawing sensation that dragged them into a new space altogether.
The trees before them were replaced with a massive field of trampled and upturned dirt. Four minor temples surrounded a central one, taller even than the great pyramid of Tenochtitlan. Momo was marvelling at it all for a mont, taking in the sheer weight of the history.
A terrorized wail ca from her a mont later as a red and a black streak slamd into the roof of the historical seat at supersonic speed, all but obliterating the uppermost layer of the stacked pyramid. The destruction of records carved into that stone echoed in her bones. “Why?!” she shouted. “Why do you assholes have to fight around temples?!”
The fight was not limited to the two entities that had slamd into the roof. The entire barrier was busy with the activities of hundreds if not thousands of combatants engaging each other. It was the biggest battle Momo had seen since the clash in Warsaw during the Five Day War, enabled by the nature of the opposing side.
Focused around the left of the battlefield were the undead. Skeletons and zombies, from animated cannon fodder to death knights fully outfitted with magical gear. On the right side and around the temples skittered ants the size of horses. Beyond their size, these ants were odd for their scaly exterior and feathered wings. Behind their pincers, the insects possessed snake-like maws. With clawed feet and bites, they stemd the undead tide.
‘Ants, ants, ants…’ Momo scanned through her ntal archive of ants ntioned in Aztec mythology. ‘Not a whole lot on them, I rember sothing about Quetzalcoatl tricking them once to get the grain to feed the humans? The feathered serpent is the lord of the east, but these things look like they have fused with feathered serpents.’ “Does Observe say anything about them?” Momo asked.
“They’re from a swarm called ‘The Storm’s Grain’,” he answered. “Apparently they got revenge on Quetzalcoatl and devoured his power?”
“Internal strife?” Momo theorized, then shook her head. Before any theories could be made, they had to stop this devastation. “John, we have to stop this!”
“Agreed,” the Gar said. “Although that might not be that easy.”
The two entities that had crashed into the head temple erged again. One was a heavily armoured rider on a red horse, swinging a giant sword, the other was a chiric ant creature, humanoid in its bipedal stature but as much ant, serpent, and bird as the rest of the insect swarm beyond that.
The ant monster grabbed the rider of War in midair. Like the previous two Horsen, it appeared that this one was not blessed with the ability to fly. The ant beat its vulture-like wings, twisting around and sending War flying to the ground below. ‘Oh thank God, they missed the temple,’ Momo thought when the Horseman slamd into the battle-tilled dirt.
“Momo, we’ll get involved in that.” John pointed at the clash between War and the ant which, courtesy of a quick ntal update, Momo knew was called the Gluttony Emissary.
“We?” the fairy asked. Then took stock of the situation and nodded. “Right, we would be the best for that.”
“tra, you protect Lorelei. Ehtra, I want you to stay in reserve. Get ready to respond to any sudden influx on either side.”
“And for the love of Master, please try to protect the temples!” Momo whined, before taking off.
The fairy maid burned mana to rise to the sky faster, stopping high up. Ehtra sailed right past her, her armoured form advancing to the central temple to do as requested. The mont of relief Momo felt at that was short-lived, her attention snapping to the Creator Puppet.
Having discarded the form of her pervy beloved, the golem stord through the clashing lines of ants and zombies like a plough through soft soil. She could feel his base enjoynt of physical violence radiating from his thoughts. It was controlled, yet present, and the interplay was deliberately wielded strength put on confident display. ‘God, he’s hot,’ she thought, following the effortless demonstration of power from his third body. ‘Ah! Concentrate! Scatter!’
The final thought was directed to the Fireflies hiding under her poncho. Now that they were in battle, the maid outfit had replaced the mundane clothes with the more comfortable servant’s garb. The Fae Maids the Fireflies turned into shared that clothing style, giving the outfit the benefit of minor camouflage. The uninitiated or hurried might get confused about which one was the real one.
Down below, the Creator Puppet conjured Inkaryl. The mace sung the song of war as it slamd into the sword of the rider of the sa aspect. Words were exchanged, a negotiation whose outco was imdiately obvious. The Gluttony Emissary descended on both of them.
While the sky was filled with blue- and green-eyed doubles of the fairy maid, the Red Fireflies circled around the Creator Puppet. At choice monts, Momo coordinated her buff-delivery drones to ld with the golem, boosting its already formidable Physical Stats further.
Momo’s job was one of distant observance. She focused, her mind becoming a calm sea. Intel flowed in through the eyes of her hivemind. Any thoughts about how well her Master was fending for himself, she pushed to the background. She could swoon, banter, and be bullied after she had saved the priceless artefacts.
The presence of the Creator Puppet grounded the fight in one general area. No longer were the two sturdy, powerful entities throwing each other around. When the Horseman of War hit the ant with a swing of his blade, catapulting the enemy away, the follower of the Grim Reaper had to turn to the Creator Puppet rather than give chase. That did not end the damage to the environnt, but at least it was minimized.
The Emissary charged at John right as the Creator Puppet locked weapons with War. Sharp claws swung at the back of the golem. Momo extended her will and a Directional Defence barrier appeared in the path of the rending digits. The silver obstacle shattered at the impact, but the attack was halted. At the sa mont, a Black Firefly, enveloped in a slicing black shell, slamd into the shaped visor of War’s plate armour.
‘Man, I am good,’ the fairy maid thought. Between the barrier and the Firefly, John had managed to disentangle himself from the flanked position. Rather than set after him or get back on each other, rider and ant stared up at Momo. ‘Yeah… yeah…’ she resigned herself to what ca next. ‘Supports always draw aggro in PvP…’
“SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” The Emissary’s screech caused a whole host of new ants to pour out of the temples. Smaller than the soldier ants on the ground and of more serpentine build, they took to the skies.
“SHOOT DOWN THE ANNOYANCE!” War bellowed. At his behest, dozens of skeleton archers took aim at the fairy and her many bodies.
Momo swapped places with one of her doubles close to the ground, she did not want to be up there anymore.
Orders given, the three titans of the battlefield clashed once again. War leapt from the back of his horse, catching the Creator Puppet off-guard. The White Barrier that Momo put around the golem was shattered, sothing the Emissary wanted to take advantage of, but was stopped short of by the Horseman’s follow-up swing.
And just when Momo thought this couldn’t get any more convoluted, a standard slamd down in the middle of the battlefield. “NO GLORY WITHOUT GLORY!” shouted the radiant Horseman, descending on his golden steed into the fray.
The storm of motion that followed, Momo paid secondary attention to. Her eyes were instead drawn to where they had been initially pulled into this Trap Barrier. A third, lethargic rider had appeared there, holding a coughing conversation with tra. The wolf woman stood between the seer and the Horseman.
‘Three of the four Riders of the Apocalypse, oh goodie,’ Momo thought. ‘That’s probably the engagent I have to worry least about.’ She returned the majority of her attention to the Creator Puppet’s struggle.
War and Glory fought as one. The two riders were a storm of attacks, a constant swirl of the swings of the general’s cleaver and the radiant undead’s lance. Their steeds were never motionless either. Whether they rode them, jumped from their backs, or grabbed the reins to be pulled out of a risky situation, the two riders made use of their, presumably soulbound, companions.
The Gluttony Emissary fared poorly in this new situation. Repeated clicks of its mandibles summoned reinforcents of ants that served as little more than flies to be swatted aside by the duo and the Creator Puppet.
In this confusion, her Master thrived. Constantly, she fed him visual data. It was muddled, the extensions of her Hivemind above in constant motion to keep the flying ants and hails of arrows from taking them off the map. Muddled data they both were used to, many Raids having taught them how to filter and overlap intel to get a clear picture even under rapidly shifting circumstances.
White Barrier, Directional Defence, Red Firefly, White Barrier, Darc Lance – Momo was in a trance of weaving supportive spells. The impact of the lance of black mana into Zelos’ chest made the rider of Glory slow, the Tarred Passive diminishing his Agility enough that Inkaryl connected before the steed’s hooves did.
“There you are!” the Horseman humd and launched his lance into the sky.
It vanished, but Momo had an inkling of how this worked. She imdiately took off, burning mana to increase her speed. A prudent decision, as a new standard slamd into the ground where she had been positioned. Glory appeared right beside it, fading into this place of the barrier, saddled on his hurt but still fast speed.
‘6 more seconds,’ Momo thought, counting down the ti until the next Fae Swap was activated. ‘5… 4… 3… 2…’ Glory launched another lance, aid directly at her abdon. The supersonic projectile began to drill into her stomach, just as the Skill activated.
tal and fabric flowed back together, but the damage marked her. In a new position, Momo tried to lay low, but was imdiately spotted by War. The red rider ravaged across the ruins, trampling ants in his path towards her. The bulky steed leapt.
A Directional Defence, then the White Barrier, the sword of the Horseman slamd through both. Momo grit her teeth, as the sharp, heavy blade carved across her chest. The storm of Black Firefles that pelted the rider in return barely left a chink on his blood red plate.
Momo was sent flying to the ground, War swiftly above her, ready to deliver a coup de grace. “HANDS OFF, CREATURE!”
Weapon screaming like a buzzsaw, Ehtra slamd into the side of the Horseman. “Thanks!” Momo shouted.
“I let you wait. Do not thank ,” the First of Hatred barked back. The armoured woman was covered in purple ant blood. The viscous fluid stuck to the black plates covering her form but failed to cling onto the blades that made up her wings. The Halo of Blood above her was a liquid ring of doom. “Let guide you to the afterlife, warlord!”
War had caught himself, standing across from Ehtra. “Akkadians,” the Horseman growled. “Your insolence knows no bounds. We are exempt from death, so the Wanderer has declared.”
‘Wait… wait, what?’ Momo shoved the questions that ca with that title aside and took to the air. She did not want to get caught up in the clash that followed.
The shockwave that rippled out when Ehtra’s blade t that of War turned nearby ants and skeletons into shredded pieces of chitin, flesh, and bone. Elsewhere, the Creator Puppet was engaged with Glory.
That ant…
“SKREEEEEEEEEEEE!” The screech of the Emissary was too short a warning. The claws of the humanoid ant-chira grabbed her by the leg, pulling her along with the monster’s flight. Together, they slamd into the side of one of the lesser temples. They broke through several walls and into an inner chamber. Above Momo was an elaborate painting of four gods surrounding an empty throne.
Then there was the head of the Emissary. Up this close, she realized just how huge the monster was. Mandibles pulled back to reveal a jaw opening to the point of being unhinged. Momo launched two Darc Lances at the monster, followed by a storm of Black Dart infused Fireflies. There was damage, but that wasn’t the point.
“I wouldn’t taste good,” Momo negotiated.
The Emissary stopped in its motion. The large monstrosity’s maw was above her, ready to swallow her hole. Purple spit drooled from the fleshy insides, falling on top of the support. The support maid just kept smiling.
“I really wouldn’t,” she said.
Confusion was evident even in the shiny, hard eyes of the scaled insectoid. It did not want to eat her but knew it should want to. The Mind Damage was not deep enough to dissuade it fully, but it was deep enough to give Momo the ti she needed to swap places with another one of Fae Maids.
‘I’m running low on escape routes over here!’ Momo inford her Master. ‘Halfway out of mana as well!’
Combat was too involved for any of the three people in the local ntal network to answer. tra was fighting with Lorelei behind her, Ehtra was driving War back, but only slowly, and the Creator Puppet was struggling with Glory. Amidst all of this, the Gluttony Emissary erged again from the temple. It found Momo instantly.
‘Pheromones?’ the fairy maid considered, then dashed off.
She could at least try to pass off this issue.
The ant-creature followed her on vulture wings across the battlefield. Despite the constant trenches in the war created by the clashing titans, there was no end in sight to the numbers of either faction. Ants kept erging from below, while the undead reassembled themselves in the presence of the riders.
‘I am ready!’ John told her.
Momo took a sharp dive down, the Emissary followed, and then stopped short when a bolt of freezing energy slamd into its wing. The frozen limb was enough to cause it to fall straight into a swing of Inkaryl.
The mace cracked the carapace under the scales. Blood gushed from the forehead of the monster. Enraged, it gripped the Creator Puppet’s arm with its mandibles. “Can we at least agree on getting that thing out of the way first?!” Momo pleaded with Glory, who was watching the ensuing physical struggle. “It’s way too ugly for your presence!”
“…I know you’re playing … but you’re right,” Zelos declared, then trampled away from Momo.
The Horseman thrust his lance at the ant, who caught it between both of its hands. Impressively, the creature kept up against the combined push of Glory and the Creator Puppet. It strained and quivered, the muscle fibres under the chitin bulging. Portals opened around it, feeding it crimson essence that seeped into it, causing it to swell.
Momo felt dread in the depths of her stomach. A dread that felt like inevitable futility. All grew quiet in witness of the struggle of life and death. The sounds of battle moved into a far distance. Not because of the ant’s effort to stay alive, but because of the scythe that calmly moved in front of its throat.
And reaped the head with one swift pull.
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