“Does she have clothes on yet?” Rin squeaked, her back still turned toward us.
Karalti planted her fists on her hips. “You weren’t complaining when I was naked before. You know, for like the last hundred miles?”
Rin danced on the spot, gesturing wildly at Karalti, the sky, and herself. “You had a saddle on! And you were a dragon! Dragons can’t be naked! They’ve got, like, scales!”
“You know my cloaca doesn’t just go away when I’m not polymorphed, right?” Karalti let out a saurian huff of frustration. “And why do you even care?! Mercurions don’t even HAVE-”
“Okay, I am interrupting tonight’s genital debate for a special televised meeting, entitled ‘What On Earth Are We Going to Do About All This Jungle?’” I jerked my head toward the tree line.
Suri snickered. “All three of us girls are gonna go bushwhacking. Isn’t that right, Rin?”
“Oh my god.” Rin put her face back in her hands.
Cackling, Suri pulled one of her axes off her belt and started for the edge of the jungle. “C’mon, Karalti. It’s time to go and shave Mother Nature!”
“Yeah! Let’s go!” Karalti—not completely understanding the mammalian innuendo—trotted after her.
I looked back to Rin, who was finally daring to look up at me between her fingers. “Don’t suppose Hopper and Lovelace have machete attachments, do they?”
Rin sighed. “They have garden shears. Let me set them up.”
Chapter 40
A couple of months ago, I was pretty sure my least favorite biome in Archemi was the Endlar. I was mistaken. It was definitely, absolutely, one hundred percent the Slithering Jungle of Meewhome.
Suri, with her awesome Stamina, made it just under four miles in her heavy armor. Rin, Karalti and I didn’t even make it to two. It was about thirty degrees centigrade, or 86 F, with 100% humidity, and a walk that should have taken us a couple of hours instead took us almost the entire day. If the terrain had been as flat as the Endlar, we’d have been alright—but Meewhome wasn’t only oppressively tropical, it was mountainous. There was mud. There was fog. There were bugs of every conceivable shape, size and texture. There were small spiders. There were giant spiders. And as we got within a mile of the Dragon Gate, there was desolation. A very familiar gray, lifeless, frozen patch of desolation.
“No fucking way.” We stepped out of a patch of virgin forest into an unnatural frozen wasteland. The bracken and smaller trees had shriveled into upright twigs, while the larger trees were brown, the bark spongy and rotten to touch. The rich, earthy scent of the forest had faded, leaving a pungent odor hanging in the air, a smell that always made me think of a rundown gym or an old ice-skating rink. The most surreal thing was the clear delineation between the dying jungle and the living jungle: there was an actual line, a limit which bisected the dead from the living. Some plants that were on that invisible line were nothing but brown slime on one side, but fresh and green on the other.
“An Ix’tamo? Here?” Rin gripped my arm as she pushed ahead, looking around the clearing in despair. “No way. It can’t be Ashur, can it?”
“Never say never.” I stepped forward, cautious of falling branches or toppling trees. “I mean… dead things assaulting the walls. Ix’tamo sucking the life out of the land…”
“We don’t know for sure that’s what’s causing this.” Suri kept her hand on her sword hilt as she surveyed the damage. “Those Dragon Gates have all kinds of artificed machinery imbedded in the ground. For all we know, Devana’s Gate is malfunctioning somehow.”
“Yeah. Keep an eye out for patrols.” I flinched as something cracked overhead, jumping on reflex. A bough of rotting wood smashed into the ground where I’d been standing. “And try not to get brained.”
We picked our way to the center of the devastation, searching for evidence. After ten minutes of walking, we found it: A great big divot in the ground with piles of earth excavated to either side, and crumpled corpses strewn around it. They were all Meewfolk, and they looked like they’d been dead a long time. Their ears and fur had rotted away, leaving nothing but bare skulls. They were resting immobile near the excavation site, shovels still clutched in their fleshless hands.
“That looks Ix’tamo sized to me,” Rin said. “Guys. I hate to say it… but I really think Ashur is here.”
“Looks to me like they sunk it into the ground, sucked a bunch of mana out, then pulled it up to transport it somewhere.” Suri walked up to one of the dead Meewfolk and kicked the stiff corpse before taking a big step back.
“Yeah. Like a big battery.” Rin held her hand out and murmured a soft magical incantation. Her spellglove flared, and then the depression began to glow a soft blue-violet color—as did several dozen footprints, crushed into the mud. “There… I think we’re onto something.”
Suri made a sound of disgust. “The Demon, in fuckin’ Meewhome. Just what we need.”
“If he’s here, all that means is we get to finish what we started in Myszno.” I concentrated for a moment, seeing if I was able to sense the vampire in the same way I could sense the Bond between me and Karalti. No luck. “We don’t know for sure, yet. Let’s keep moving, before something lurches out to try and kill us.”
The trail to the Dragon Gate became more defined as we cut through the Ix’tamo’s starburst of destruction. The first hint we were on the right track were the statues. Ancient, worn smooth by time, they were still recognizable as Meewfolk by their tall, lean, feline shapes. Some were so overgrown with vines that they looked like they were wearing ghillie suits. Others were bare, missing arms or heads. We bushwhacked our way up the crumbling remains of stone steps embedded into the hill and came to what might have been the foundations of a gatehouse. About fifty feet away, the trail opened up—kind of, because there were guards posted to either side of it. A pair of moldering [Napathian Footsoldiers], their tarnished bronze armor and dull mottled skin blending in with the jungle foliage. Only years of experience spotting in these exact kinds of environments let me notice them without needing to make some kind of special check.
“Oh jeez.” Suri crouched down beside me, her eyes straight ahead. “If we take those fuckers out, won’t Ashur know?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t know when my shadows are kaput unless I check in on them.” I lowered my voice to a whisper, then switched to PM. “Rin? Karalti?”
“I’m still back here.” Rin was crouched in the foliage with Lovelace and Hopper. Karalti knelt beside her, vibrating with excitement. “What do I do?”
“Hold position for now. We need to figure out a way up.” Suri motioned to them to wait while we considered the terrain. A river ran beside the trail, splashing down in a series of tinkling waterfalls. They masked a lot of sound, but didn’t offer much in the way of swimmable water. To the right of the trail was a hill covered in nothing but massive trees and dense, waist-high slash. The hill was steeper than the cut trail.
“I think we’re gonna have to go through ‘em,” Suri messaged, her brow creasing. “This spot is pretty damn strategic.”
“Right. But I can get above them and take them both out,” I whispered back. “Be ready in case there’s monsters and shit we can’t see.”
“Roger that.” Suri reached out and squeezed my arm. “Go get ‘em. I’ll tell the others.”
I broke away and started a slow, stealthy circuit around the pair of guards. When I was sure I was out of visual range, I Jumped most of the way up one of the towering mahogany trees and moved to the end of a sturdy-looking bough. The sentries were at their posts below, unmoving and oblivious.
I calculated the trajectory, made sure the Spear was in the correct grip, and leaped out into the open air. Neither zombie had enough brains to look up as my shadow descended over them—and by then, it was too late. I landed on one with the full force of Jump and crushed him, and fired Night Falls for the first time. A shockwave of raw blue-black energy blew out from me in a silent sphere, engulfing the second zombie. The en
ergy didn’t kill it so much as ash it. I glimpsed the corpse’s mouth twist in a silent scream before it turned to dust and blew away, leaving a small loot bag behind.
[You have killed Napathian Footsoldiers! You gain 60 EXP.]
“Overwhelming force, baby.” I looted the [Ancient Bronze Token] from the bag, then took cover behind one of the statues in case of more sentries. When I didn’t see any, I waved the others forward.
“Let’s take it slow. Two to either side of the path,” Suri remarked in the group PM as we rejoined. “Keep Hopper and Lovelace in the bushes. Get ready to fight. Karalti, are you able to change back yet?”
“We’ve been walking for six hours, so yeah,” Karalti said. “But I’ll stay like this until we have some room to move.”
“Great.” Suri looked to me. “Got any more stamina potions?”
In reply, I pulled a [Roseroot Potion] from my Inventory and tossed it to her. She chugged it, pocketed the bottle, and drew her axes in place of her sword.
“I’ll buff you with magic armor as soon as we make contact,” Rin said to Suri. “Just like our fights at the wall, right?”
“One hundred percent. Let’s do it.” Suri nodded to me. I made the ‘move forward’ signal, and we began the climb.
The river ravine to our left deepened and split around a large island, which served as the midpoint for a large, crumbling stone bridge. Two waterfalls thundered to either side, throwing up clouds of mist. The bridge—long and wide enough to be a road—passed through a broken gateway into a ruined city. Trees had grown over the shattered green stone buildings, their roots flowing around and into the empty windows and doorways. Towering above the ruins was a massive overgrown ziggurat flanked by a pair of enormous obelisks. They stretched up from the mists of the ravine to halfway up the trees. Coils of brilliant emerald green light arced up along their lengths, inverting at the tips and vanishing as the next wave of mana rose up along their length. They looked just like the Thunderstones, which fed mana in—or out—of Matir’s Dragon Gate. Instead of obsidian, these were made of pure white-green jade.
We picked our way through the rubble, climbed a massive ruined wall, and used the ledge as a vantage point to scout the ziggurat. I waved the others to a stop once the temple was in view, then weaved my head and zoomed in on the terrace that spread in front of the temple’s entrance.
A pair of Ix’tamo had been mounted to either side of a free-standing stone ring. They were big devices, floating diamonds about seven feet tall made of metal and glass, pulsing with vibrant blue-green energy. Between them, busily inscribing a complex magical circle on the ground, was a small, shrunken old lich of unknowable gender. I recognized them immediately: it was Uttapsu, Ashur’s advisor. I’d met them only once, when the vampire was holding court in what was now my very own great hall. Surrounding him were a motley of different bodyguards: a platoon of [Napathian Footsoldiers], ten jackal-headed [Napathian Heavy Elite], and a couple of [Vampire Knights] in red, brown and bronze Sumerian-style armor.
“Phew, okay.” I knelt back, exhaling heavily. “We’re dealing with a lich, two vampires, and about thirty soldiers.”
“Thirty soldiers!?” Rin gasped. “How are the four of us going to take on thirty soldiers!?”
“Don’t worry, Rin. We got this.” Karalti sidled over to me in a crouch, perching like a gargoyle beside my elbow. “I have all my breath weapon charges, and Hector’s Path is really good for fighting undead. I can also buff us with my Queensong.”
Suri gave a small nod. “Right. Hector and I both have some good crowd-control moves. I’m more worried about those vampires.”
“Leave them to me. If they bite me, they’ll take damage. My blood is toxic to them.” I narrowed my eyes, then opened them wide again to regain visibility as the light shifted. “There’s a portal there that looks a lot like the one we used to enter Withering Rose’s Chorus Vault. I think they’re trying to use the mana from the Ix’tamo to bruteforce it. That, or he’s draining mana out of it. But they charged those mana-suckers before bringing them here, so I’m guessing it’s the former. They could be using them like batteries, as Rin said.”
“Jeez. How the hell did they even get here?” Suri said. “It’s too big a coincidence to be a coincidence.”
“Violetta was operating out of Dakhdir,” Rin said. “Is there some way they could have followed us to the Temple of the Maker? If they did, they might have found a way to use that map we did… Violetta is probably an Archmage by now. She might have figured out a hack for it.”
“That… would be very bad.” I pressed my lips into a thin line. “Why would Ashur want to get into a Chorus Vault, though? He was angling for Matir’s Dragon Gate last time. If he’s planning to invade Meewhome the way he did Myszno...”
Rin made a ‘bleh’ face. “He might be trying to get to Perilous Symphony, like we are.”
Even as she spoke, a dozen black-clad humans exited the temple proper, jogging down the stairs in loose formation. I pressed my lips together in a thin line. I recognized those uniforms—and the masks they wore. “But wait, there’s more! At least twelve Mata Argis thugs just balled out of the temple. Violetta definitely put him up to this.”
“Shit.” Suri spat to the side.
“The footsoldiers’ll be about Level 10, the Elites Level 15,” I continued. “The vampires, who knows? The Mata Argis Agents we saw tended to be in the 20s. No idea what Uttapsu is.”
Suri grimaced and shook her head. “Our odds just got a whole of a lot worse.”
“We’ve got this,” Karalti said firmly. “I’ll take on the Mata Argis myself. I’ve been looking forward to deep-frying some of their agents for a really long time. They chased me and Hector across Ilia when I was little... I’ll never forget what they tried to do to us.”
“Me either.” I rolled my shoulders to loosen them. “Buff up and get ready, guys. It’s four against fifty.”
Suri grinned. “Bet you I can take out thirty of these cunts before they know what hit ‘em.”
I waggled my eyebrows back at her. “Bet you I can get there first.”
“Nuh uh,” Karalti said. “I can fly. I’ll win that bet before either of you.”
“Wait. Before we engage: Karalti, you can scan their levels, can’t you?” Rin piped up. “The vampires and the lich?”
“Oh! Yeah!” Karalti leaned forward, magic briefly rippling over her shoulders and face like clear heat haze. “Let’s see… the vampires are only Level 25. But the lich guy is 42.”
“Forty-two?” Suri audibly winced. “That’s a lot. Especially if it’s a mage. Got any tactical observations, Hector?”
I had a look over the Bioscan results myself, plotting the best place to hit first. My initial hunch had been to have me dive into the weaker enemies and take them out, but now that I thought about it... “Suri, I need you to tunnel right into that big pack of enemies. Rin, back her up. Karalti, I want you to cast Circle of Protection on Suri once she’s waded into the mob. That way, the vampires can’t get near her. You can take the Mata Argis agents. I need to solo Uttapsu.”
“Why?” Rin asked.
“Because my Darkness elemental moves will fucking shred him, is why. If we hit him hard and fast, there’s a good chance all those undead are going to fall over,” I said. “And the Spear has a Light elemental mode. Light attacks can sunder mana shields, right?”
“Right. All mana constructs have a 50% type weakness to Light elemental effects, and Light-element weapons inflict Sunder.” Rin nodded.
“He might get a couple of good shots in on me, but I think I can handle him.” I adjusted my grip on my weapon, thinking. “Do Archemi liches have phylacteries?”
“Yeah, they do.” Rin grimaced and picked at her lip. “His is probably back in Napath.”
“That’s fine. We just need him to be Not Here.” I turned to the three of them. “Karalti, you and I need to get into of those super-tall trees. We’ll jump out and scare the mummy dust out of them.”
“We’ll be down here.” Suri held up a fist. I bumped my knuckles against hers, did the same with Rin, then vaulted off the wall with Karalti and crept off low across the ground.
We cut all the way around the arena and climbed a tree overlooking the terrace. The Mata Argis were gathering around the outside of Uttapsu’s circle, watching on as he deftly laid down sigils and encoded words of power. They closed ranks as Karalti and I reached our launch point, but no one paid any attention to us.
“Let’s go in, fast and quiet,” I said. “No roaring, no nothing. Just you and me, death from the fucking skies.”
“Yeah! You ready?” Karalti tensed, bracing herself against the branch.
“I was born for this shit.” I thumped the top of my helmet for luck.
Karalti tensed up, like a frog about to leap. “Okay, then. One, two, three aaaand.... GO!”
She flung herself out, already transforming. I waited breathlessly until I saw her wings stretch out, and only then jumped out after her. As I fell, her back lengthened and widened, and my breath caught... but then I landed on her, rolled, and found myself right at the base of her neck as the spell completed.
Down below, I heard Suri roar a battlecry. She charged across the bridge, axes in her hands, as Hopper and Lovelace bounded alongside. The pikemen at the front leveled their spears. The soldiers behind them raised bows, aiming past them, and fired. Meanwhile, Karalti and I streaked toward the terrace at high speed, our shadow cast away from the commotion. All eyes were on Suri and Rin as the footsoldiers flowed around Uttapsu like water, surrounding the magic circle, then leaving him, the junior vampires, and the dirty dozen Mata Argis. I bunched up, then sprung out, aiming for the bullseye: Uttapsu’s stupid wrinkly little head.
The vampires spotted me first, heads turning skyward as the Spear flared with brilliant white and black light. The lich continued scribbling. He didn’t even react as I hit his mana shield like a thunderbolt. The thin field of energy absorbed the kinetic impact, turning from clear, to blue, to white as the Light damage overcharged it. The lich’s form vanished as his shield spat sparks of hot plasma, then shattered with enough force to send me flying. The vampire bodyguards were thrown back from the blast, swords in their hands.
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