Rin raised her hand, glancing timidly at Ebisa before speaking. “They could be using Ix’tamo. Stardrinkers… they’re Artifacts that can suck mana out of fertile land. Or…”
“Or?” Ignas regarded her with interest.
Rin glanced to Ebisa again. “Or… he’s somehow gotten his hands on sangheti’tak.”
Ebisa shuddered.
“What’s that?” Suri asked.
“The greatest shame of our people.” Rin was stimming with her hands, linking and unlinking her fingers. “War machines that consume living beings for their mana.”
“What do they look like?” I asked.
Rin wouldn’t meet my eyes as she fidgeted. Her gaze roamed aimlessly over the table as her voice became clipped and fussy. “There are roughly eight different classic forms of war magitech, but they can honestly be constructed to the specifications of the designer… some of them are like powered armor and are designed to be worn or ridden. Other forms are more like tanks, or drones, kind of. All sangheti’tak have a hybrid fuel system, using some elemental mana and drawing the rest from.. uhh… organic matter.”
“Just say it,” Ebisa said. “They eat people. Preferably alive.”
Rin nodded. “Yes… they eat people. Kanzo was exiled because he refused to build sangheti’tak.”
Ebisa folded her arms. “These machines are mostly used in the civil war on Zaunt, where mana is precious. The secrets of making them are very closely guarded by the great Houses. It is absolutely forbidden for them to be exported to sang’hi.”
Rin bobbed her head. “I know that. But the rulers of Napath are old enough that they might still have sangheti’tak blueprints from the Drachan War. They could even have information on the Warsingers, now that I think about it…”
“We’ll talk about that later,” I said. “Let’s stick to Old Fangface here.”
“Right.” Rin cleared her throat with a little ‘hem hem’. “Well, even if the Demon is leeching mana out of the ground, resource management is a core weakness of necromancy and undead forces. The undead must be constantly replenished with magic, and the effort to raise and control an army of that size would have to be... umm... well, astronomical. If we could cut off his supply somehow…”
“I don’t think leeching the magic out of farmland would cut it. The only way this vampire could be building an army that size is if there’s liquid mana in Southern Myszno,” Suri said sharply.
“Umm… okay. Sorry.” Rin shrunk back into her seat.
Ebisa lay a hand on the girl’s shoulder. Her masked face swiveled toward Suri. “Are you a mage?”
Suri scowled. “No, but-“
“Then Rin is the expert here.” Ebisa squeezed the girl’s arm. “Would you trust her opinion on combat? You are the expert on that matter. She is an expert on this subject.”
Rin pressed her lips together, blushing deeply.
Suri sighed. “Fine, okay. Sorry.”
I drew a deep, steadying breath. “How many men do we have stationed in the Prezyemi Line? How are they holding up?”
Ignas gave a short, bitter laugh. “Hah. There are about twenty thousand men who’ve stayed to fight, and probably the same number of deserters. But not only is the defense force outnumbered three to one, their own dead families are now shambling to the barricades and throwing themselves on their spear points. We can safely assume morale is low.”
“What a bloody shitshow.” Suri grimaced, scanning something in front of her as if she were reading. “’Extreme difficulty’. The quest description wasn’t pulling any punches, was it?”
I shook my head. “Noooope.”
“Okay, yes, it’s a little overwhelming, but there’s no reason to give up! Necromantic armies are really centralized.” Rin stood. She was the only one smiling. “All we really have to do is take out the vampire general, and his army will just kind of... well... fall over.”
“You say that,” I replied. “But what really happens when you take out a leader in a war scenario is that their army fractures and splits off into lots of little enemies, not just one. You end up with insurgencies.”
“Normally yes, but Rin’s assessment – while simplistic – in fundamentally accurate in this particular case.” Ebisa unfolded her arms to point at the castle marker in the center of the map. “All of the Demon’s soldiers rely on his magic, his command, and his mana. Cutting those things away makes the undead return to death. So that is our objective – we find this vampire. We discover his weaknesses. We kill him.”
“Again,” I added.
Ebisa snorted.
“That seems the best plan of action. Fortify the defense, then find and kill the source.” Ignas heaved a deep sigh. “But there is a problem. Our Ilian friends.”
Rin, Suri and I all winced at the same time.
“Before their visit, I’d planned to send the entire 4th Fleet to Myszno. Six battlecruisers, ten corvettes, seven legions of troops.” Ignas rubbed his eyes and the bridge of his nose. “But now, we can’t spare them. Despite my cavalier words, the fact that Ilia has come under the rule of a Starborn who is already styling himself an Emperor is a threat we cannot underestimate. The Knights of St. Grigori alone are a severe challenge for even the most well-equipped army. I’m going to have to go back through our records to see how prior kings handled armies capable of fielding dragons, but I can already tell you that depleting a quarter of our Navy would be a terrible mistake. I will discuss the matter with my advisors and see how many men we can spare.”
“Right. Well, nothing we can do about it.” I remembered the 17 EXP I needed to level up just then, and the corner of my eye jumped.
Ignas returned to his seat, his long face drawn with worry and fatigue. “Suri, Hector, I will receive you in the Writing Room after the Dark Moon festival tonight. But please, brace yourselves for bad news. I don’t know how much support I can offer you now, and whatever we have, I fear it will not be nearly enough.”
Chapter 5
Suri, Rin and I all breathed a sigh of relief once we were out of the War Room and back out under a blissfully dragon-free sky. When I touched Karalti’s mind, I got a flash of what she was up to. She was hunting.
“Myszno’s shaping up to be a hell of a party,” I remarked. “We better bring a case of beer. Maybe some snacks.”
“There isn’t enough beer in the world for this.” Suri ran her fingers through her hair, chest lifting in a way that caught my eye. “But speaking of getting shit-faced, what’s the plan for tonight? Rin?”
“Oh! I was going to go to the University and do some research for the quest and for my crafting, you know.” The little Mercurion was suddenly much more chipper. “Ebisa and I are finishing up some tinkering, too. And tonight’s the Dark Moon Festival, so I guess we’ll be going shopping. The Church has mana auctions where Mage-classes can stock up for cheap...”
“What is the Dark Moon Festival, anyway?” I reached out to Suri as if I would put my arm around her waist. She stepped into the offered embrace with a sultry quirk of the lips and a sidelong glance that made my heart skip.
Oblivious, Rin clasped her hands and bounced up and down with excitement. “Twice a year on the equinoxes, Erruku and Archemi line up in front of the sun and the moon goes dark. Well, I guess it’s not really the moon, because we’re actually the moon, but you get what I mean, right?”
“I’d wondered.” I scratched my jaw. “Erruku kind of weirds me out, to tell you the truth. I don’t think the physics of this planet are totally realistic.”
Rin twittered an anxious little laugh. “Probably. We took artistic license with some things. The eclipse thing looks really cool and I-I think Erruku even has some of its own lore, but we were scheduled to get some astrophysicists to play-test and advise us on refining the skybox-”
“The what?” Suri squinted at her.
“The, uhh… the… planetary mechanics?” Rin flashed her a fleeting, nervous smile. “We, I mean, the Devs… we…uhh… don’t worry abo
ut it, okay?”
Suri cocked her head, a red curl tumbling over one of her eyes. “You guys are serious, aren’t you? About the whole ‘the world is a game thing’? You aren’t having me on?”
Rin bit her lip. “I’m sorry, Suri. It’s true.”
“Well if that’s true and you’re really an Architect, can’t you just get up into your God Box or whatever it is and go and crush this cunt in Ilia like a cockroach?” Suri asked her. “Because that’d make our lives a whole lot easier.”
Rin was looking more stressed by the second. “The… uhh… short answer is that I never had that kind of admin access, and that Ororgael isn’t supposed to be able to do what he’s doing, either. It’s complicated. I-I don’t have any more power than a normal player. Person. Starborn player-person.”
The larger woman shrugged. “One day, I’m gonna pin you down and ask you some hard questions. But not now, because this bitch is going shopping.”
I chuckled. “What’s on the menu today? Shoes? Bags?”
“Armor, you dick.” She bumped me with her hip, grinning broadly. “And maybe something nice. I dunno if I want to buy any fancy clothes when we’re going off to a war zone, though.”
“Do it. It’s good for morale.” I gave her waist a one-armed squeeze. “When I went to war, I always made sure I had something at home I wanted to come back to. For me, that was my games, my motorcycle, and this photo album I got from my grandparents. And every now and then, when I had the chance, I’d order a package for myself online, you know? Like a new shirt or something. And I’d send that package to my best friend’s house, so that when I came back alive, I’d have like a year’s worth of presents waiting for me. It’s a good mind trick.”
Rin put her hands to her cheeks. “That’s so sad but… also cute.”
I shrugged, suddenly self-conscious. “Conscripts are like prisoners: you either find a reason to keep living or you die.”
“It’s good advice.” Suri smiled mysteriously and turned in against my body. “On that note. Rin, do you mind just leaving me and Hector while you go do your thing?”
“Sure.” Rin’s eyes were shining. “You guys… um… have… fun?”
“Hell yeah,” I said. “We’re gonna get our faces painted, and get our nails done together-”
Suri kneed me in the thigh. I snortled at my own bullshit.
When the Mercurion was back inside the Keep and we were alone, I spun Suri around and dipped her in my arms. She laughed, and when she came up, she looped strong arms around my neck and looked up at me. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Her eyes were a brilliant golden yellow, veins of color slowly folding in toward her pupils like slow-moving magma. “Have I... ever told you how gorgeous you are?”
Her smile turned a little shy. “Yeah, now and then. Still like to hear it, though.”
My mouth was dry, pulse hammering under my tongue. Sometimes, I felt confident with her, leading the way in our conversations, our lovemaking. Other times, I could hardly believe this glorious Amazon of a woman actually wanted me near her, let alone have me hold her like this. But here she was. “Well, that’s good. I can dish out as much as you can take.”
“We’ll see about that.” Suri sucked her bottom lip under her teeth. “Guess tonight’s our last night off, huh?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Might be the last chance we have to sleep in a proper bed, too.” She pulled herself in close, and rubbed her cheek along mine until she could speak against my ear. “I hear the Dark Moon Festival has an awesome Night Market. Wanna go with me?”
Stupid as it sounds, my first thought was my character sheet – and Karalti’s. If we worked hard tonight, we could probably hit Level 18 and 10, respectively. Still not enough… but better than where we were now. I winced.
“I really want to go,” I said haltingly. “But after that meeting… I can’t. I’m sorry. You’re Level 20 already, but we’ve still got to catch up before Myszno.”
Suri didn’t pull away, but I could sense her disappointment. She planted a lingering kiss on my cheek. “I get it. No worries: we’ll have another chance some time. So… what’s on the agenda for tonight, then?”
I sighed, guilt tightening my chest. “Well, honestly, I was going to go to the hospital and ask Masha about Myszno, then see about learning Vlachian and Churvi. I want to level up my healing skills until Karalti gets done stuffing her face. That, and I need to see how Rutha’s doing.”
Suri cocked her head curiously. “The Lys woman. Yeah… I was wondering how she was, actually. How do you know her?”
“She’s...” I trailed off, not sure how to respond. With most women, I’d have been on thin ice, especially after saying no to a date. But Suri didn’t seem like that kind of person. There was no hostility in the inquiry. No edge to it.
“Rutha was the woman who helped me escape that slave ship I told you about,” I admitted. “You know, the one I landed on when I first incarnated into Archemi? We helped each other out, and she gave me the Spear. We… ahh… had a two-night stand while we were in Liren. Nothing serious, but it was my first time and… I mean, we’re just friends now, but uhh-”
Suri rested her finger against my lips, cutting off the babbling. “That’s all I need to know. When you go and see her, say hi from me. Tell her I look forward to meeting her when she wakes up. Tell her she’s got people on her side.”
“Really?” I blinked a couple of times. “You aren’t... like... mad?”
“I’m mad this Baldr cunt beat the shit out of a woman and used her as a hostage to make a point, sure.”
“Yeah.” The rage I’d felt on the parade ground was still trembling in my stomach and in the muscles of my jaws. “Me too. I was just worried you’d be…”
A small smile quirked the corner of her mouth. “Jealous?”
“Yeah.” I rubbed the back of my neck.
Her smile spread, but this time, it was strangely bittersweet. “I had a lot of time to think in Al-Asad. You know what I realized one day? ‘Evil’ is ‘Live’ backwards. Whoever hurt that woman is evil. You and me, we both know what evil looks like. Real evil.”
I nodded, taking her hands in mine. “Yeah. We do.”
She squeezed back. “Whatever you had or have with Rutha, that’s a living thing. It’s the opposite of evil. How can anyone be jealous of that? So you tell her that we’ve got her back, and one day, we’ll kill the mongrel who hurt her.”
***
Suri and I parted with a long, lingering kiss that left the taste of honey on my lips. I walked to the hospital with a little skip in my step, humming as I let myself inside. The Master Healer was at the triage counter, tending to a giant ox of a man with a grossly swollen hand. The air was thick with the scent of bitter herbs, old leather, and rubbing alcohol.
Masterhealer Masha was three days older than dirt and tougher than boiled leather, with the kind of jaded wisdom gained through living through the rule of three kings and not only surviving, but keeping her tenure. She had an underbite, hard steely eyes, and wisps of gray hair pulled back in a brightly colored scarf. The tiny old woman had to stand on a stepstool to mix potions, pounding a pestle into a bowl of herbs like it owed her money.
“Ah, well, look who it is. His new lordship, Count Tuun.” She spoke in a heavy accent and didn’t glance up from her work as I padded over. “I heard you helped His Majesty fend off those dragons before, eh? Good work. Now, go over there and tell me what you think of this hooyeh’s injury before he dies.”
“No, Master Healer, I beg you. Don’t let me die.” The man panted. He was bright red and soaked in sweat, squirming in his armchair with discomfort. "I-I have a family!"
The old woman turned on him. "I know you have a family, you dolt! I delivered your son. I've had my hands further up your wife's piztar than you have."
I couldn’t help but smile. In a world full of characters, Masha was a standout.
“You’re supposed to go to the doctor before you’re on death’
s door, man. What did you do to yourself?” I asked him.
“It was just a scratch on a nail in the stables,” he moaned. “I didn’t think anything of it until now. Please, give me water.”
“No, no, no, don’t give him any water yet. He’ll bloat up like a dead fish and his blood will boil with fever.” Masha shook her head irritably. "Medicines first, then water."
I went to examine the stablehand’s infection. He looked like he was wearing a big red baseball mitt. “Staph infection, right? That's a... sanguine disease?”
“Correct. A sanguine disease from the feces of the hookwings in the stables. Do you remember the difference between sanguine and choleric diseases?”
“Sanguine is hot and… moist? Sanguine diseases are things like blood poisoning or liver failure. Choleric diseases are hot and dry, and attack the skin and muscles, right?”
Ting. My HUD chimed as I gained a small amount of Skill EXP toward Field Medicine. Masha nodded. “Correct. You’re smarter than you look. Now, take his temperature.”
I unequipped my right gauntlet and put a hand to his forehead. Assessing temperature through touch was a Level 1 Field Medicine ability. I was at Level 3 now, so I got an auto-success. “He’s burning up. That’s got to be at least a hundred and five degrees. He’s at risk of organ failure.”
He whimpered. “Khors have mercy.”
“If the gods had mercy, there’d be no need for doctors.” Masha stirred in clear alcohol, the smell stinging my nose from across the room. “This fever is not so good. Give me a moment.”
I knelt next to the man’s chair, and soon enough the healer came bustling over with a poultice and three bottles of potion: one yellow, one green, and one blue. The blue potion emitted a faint glow. She set the alchemical brew aside, and uncorked the herbal medicines. “Now, what do we do first?”
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