Mana Mutation Menace (Journey to Chaos Book 3)

by Brian Wilkerson

  Chimera counted to ten and then beat the monsters away to make room for Grendel and Heleti Unicorn. The former picked the vessel up and tossed it to the latter, who bucked it out of the village. As the body soared toward the enforcer blockade, Tasio appeared ahead of it.

  Now dressed as a cross between an engineer and foot soldier, “Tasio the Toppler of Cities” withdrew a great war hammer. Facing the cloud of silver-grey, his hair glowed like a star. The light channeled to his arms and then discharged through his hands as an almighty swing. Under its power, he demolished the enforcer wall just in time for Nulso’s body to fly through the hole he created.

  A lightning bolt followed it.

  Nulso’s body crashed outside the village’s boundaries, bounced, crashed a second time, and skidded to a stop. It was now mangled and grotesque. The void in its stomach encompassed its entire chest. Regardless, Order was about to power jump back to the village when his senses picked up a life form behind him.

  He fired an ethereal construct and grabbed it. A veil of darkness slipped away to reveal Annala being choked. She was still wearing the Subjugation Collar and still brainwashed.

  “Lord Order…what have I done wrong?”

  The only possibility for her appearance here was Eric Watley ordering her to be here, but the boy was so protective of her, it didn’t make sense for him to do so. This paradox stalled him long enough for a golden-brown scythe to cut his head off. Tasio stepped into full reality.

  Gone was his previous guise. He was garbed in a long and draping cloak, similar to that of a reaper. Unlike them, his scythe was a solid color in both blade and shaft; only its gradient of gold to brown changed. Now he was “Tasio, Reaper of Gods.”

  “Arrogant nephew.”

  The immediate area bleached as Order pulled its mana into his host to repair it and reattach its head.

  “Smelly uncle.”

  Nulso’s aura threw a spirit pulse and Tasio countered with a pulse of his own. The two negated. Nulso's aura threw ethereal constructs and Tasio countered with his own and pressed forward with his scythe. He cut through Order's Divine Presence and straight to the vessel. Order blocked it with his staff's shaft and smacked Tasio in the head with the end. As Tasio stumbled, another ethereal arm came around to punch him in the face and then kick him in the stomach. Tasio fell back and performed a Reaper Cleave. It was blocked once again, but this time, the blade reshaped into a net. For the third time today, Nulso's body was entangled on the ground.

  “How will you reap this vessel without your scythe?”

  From under his hood, Tasio smirked. “About that, I decided to stick with my original plan.”

  From Nulso’s right, Eric dropped his Shadow Cloak. Then he brought his staff point up and a dot of red appeared in the air.

  "Fire!"

  He swung it straight down and a dark blue dot appeared.

  "Water!"

  He swung diagonally left for a bright blue light.

  "Wind!"

  He drew his staff directly opposite for a brown light.

  "Earth!"

  From Nulso’s left, a flash of lightning revealed Kallen. She brought her staff to the upper left and a yellow dot appeared in the air.

  “Lightning!”

  She brought her staff to the lower right and a green dot appeared in the air.

  “Forest!”

  She brought her staff to the upper right and an orange dot appeared in the air.

  “Lava!”

  She brought her staff to the lower left and a purple dot appeared in the air.

  “Ice!”

  Nulso’s body tried to stop them, but Tasio’s net held it fast. As no mortal can escape death, neither can a god inhabiting a mortal body. Tasio sat on it and endured its attacks to buy time for his chosen.

  Their grids were almost complete; only one more remained. The most important one of all; the one that would unite the other four. The two mages took a deep breath, drew back their staves, and plunged their crystal through their elemental grid. A grey sphere appeared in the center and connected to the other spheres; connecting them to each other. The entire grid glowed with a harmonious light and fired a massive golden-brown beam.

  "CHAOTIC STARLIGHT!"

  Tasio held Nulso's body steady until the last possible instant. Then he vanished along with the net and Order’s vessel was caught in a pincher of pure chaotic energy.

  It washed over him, burned him, corrupted him, and finally drove him into a fetal tuck. The mages followed him with their beams and violently shaking staves. His screams became shock waves that tore the frozen ground in his agony.

  The beams pushed him deeper and deeper into the earth. They created a pit between the mages and a hill underneath their feet; creation and destruction mixed in one. Layer by layer, they erased Nulso’s being and annihilated Order’s connection to this world.

  Eric's head throbbed and his arms burned. The recoil was making his whole body ache. His very soul was on the line. All that power, the one thing that could destroy the invincible vessel, was right next to it. Even now, he could feel it eating away at him.

  “TASIO! Don’t think you’ve won! As we speak, I am preparing a superior vessel! When I come with my full power, I will crush you and your chosen! Until then, enjoy your victory.”

  The twin beams crossed where he lay and burrowed into the earth. The ground quaked and threw up irregular rock formations. Lava sprouted like geysers and crystal towers of infinite colors grew like trees with lightning sparking from their peaks. The land seamlessly shifted between fire and water and ice and dirt. Species of life never before seen sprang up in the valley and a tornado whirled horizontal to the ground. The worst was still to come.

  At the point the two beams met was a gaping hole in reality. The veins of Noitearc were clearly visible. Pure and unfiltered kon gushed into the world. Enough paku for a million spirits wailed as they flew into the night sky. Already mutated by the beam’s radiation, the area entered a continuous cycle of change as mana rushed forth. Finally, shapeless and formless things appeared on the other side, and their presence agitated local reality further. Drawn by the Chaotic Starlight, they sought to cross over.

  Madness, fear, despair, hunger, sickness, disappearance of reality; their proximity filled the young mages with all of these and more. Only one coherent thought remained in both their minds. Is this what happened to Dengel in Ceiha?

  Tasio appeared between them and shouted, “Focus on the plan!”

  “Right!” they chorused.

  Both of his chosen pulled their crystal blades out of the Chaotic Starlight grid, and with it, the spirit light holding it together. The connection between the elemental lights vanished and the beam shut off. The rest flew deep into the veins of Noitearc and the Creatures paused.

  Acting quickly, the demon mages channeled the power of the avatars separately. Lava to fill the hole and water to harden it into rock. Forest to create new life and fire to reduce it to ashes. Lightning to energize it and air to compress it. More rock to reinforce it and then ice to cover it in snow. Finally, harmonization with their own spirits to fully mend and fortify it. Kallen provided the River of Chaos Enlightenment to restore the balance, and Eric provided the Universal Mana Enlightenment to restore the previous form. Residual chaos strengthened it further by creating many and diverse layers of life and death.

  The area now looked as it did before the battle plus a brand new chaotic zone. The hole in reality was gone. Tasio gave them each a thumb-up and disappeared.

  Now that calamities had ceased, there was deathly silence. Heavy Fog settled in. It filled the valley to the brim, just beneath the feet of the mages. Eric gazed into the chaotic zone he created with his partner, then across it to that partner. She did the same. As one, they fell backwards and sighed in relief.

  "I...did it...I really did it...The third level of chaotic enlightenment...Dengel’s failure...I REALLY DID IT! I SURPASSED DENGEL!"

  "What...what are you talki
ng about? I figured it out...I taught you... you just piggy-backed... on my accomplishment."

  "Our...accomplishment...You couldn't have...done it without me...”

  "Yeah...ours..." Kallen struggled to get up. "Now...let's...let's get..." She fell back down. "Some rest. Let's get some rest."

  The hills rumbled and two creatures sprang from the Fog. They were long stalks leading up to a bulky head with rows of serrated teeth below a trio of triangle eyes with strands wrapped between them like the mast of a ship. Their saliva dripped on them; it smelled of brine.

  Kallen groaned and dug into her pocket for her scry. "Emily...bring Albatross IX around...Targets are the carnivorous vegetables."

  The monsters lunged and burned to ash in a cloud of flames. From the haze of their death, a griffin-shaped airship flew towards the exhausted mages and landed next to them. Emily ran out and immediately slung Kallen’s arm over her shoulder. On their way back to the ship, she asked, “Are you all right?” in a hundred different ways.

  Eric, she ignored entirely. He tried to get up, failed, and fell backwards. Tasio appeared next to him but didn’t help just yet. First he shape-shifted into someone shorter, younger, and white-haired. His feet touched the ground and Eric couldn’t help but smile. This was Tasio’s weakest persona and represented Eric’s fondest memories: “Tasio, Friend to Mortals.”

  “Ah, my bestest friend. Do you mind giving me a hand?”

  “Not at all, Roomie.”

  The Trickster in human form knelt and slung Eric’s arm over his shoulder. Then he walked with him to Albatross IX.

  Chapter 18 Epilogue

  By the time Albatross IX returned to the village square, stability had been restored.

  Throughout the battle, the Supreme Council struggled to activate Dnnac’s offensive capabilities. They had prepared for the fact that Order himself might invade and for that reason they crafted the Sage Tree’s branches into turrets for holy light. However, these and other features did not active until after Order was kicked out of the village. At that point, Dnnac bombarded the enforcers. Neither those within the village nor those attempting to spirit away elves escaped its divinely power wrath. It was unanimous that an investigation into the failure would commence at once and that their first resource would be Nunnal Enaz.

  Without Order to direct them, the enforcers fell into disarray and their power faltered. With the morale generated by both of these events, Meza and Alexis successfully rallied corps and civilians alike and put them to rout.

  Nolien had successfully kept the HPLC confined with his Heleti Unicorn form and spells. His family and not-girlfriend assisted with their own spells and specialized nets. After the battle concluded, the Alphabet Guys herded the remainder back into their pens at Hariana Inquires.

  When Albatross IX landed, there was nothing for the new chaos mages to do but fall into beds at the Universal Embassy.

  When Lord and Lady Heleti came to congratulate them on their victory, they instead exclaimed on how dreadful the pair of them appeared. Their bodies had become a random mix of their true and human forms and glistened with light that was both ghostly and more concrete than anything nearby. Neither of them had the energy to do more than grin. Most alarmingly, a part of them occasionally mutated into something else, only to instantly change back.

  The nobles immediately set about examining them and called Nunnal for assistance. Emily and Annala answered their questions as their boss/master was unable to do so, but only Emily could provide answers concerning chaos. Annala's were strangely biased against it.

  Then Ponix and Nunnal burst into the room. Having resolved matters on their own ends of the battle, they rushed over as quickly as they could. They hugged Annala, assured her of their love for her, and checked her over for injuries that would no longer heal on their own.

  “I’m sorry, sweetie,” Nunnal said brokenly. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Excuse me, Mother, but I fear I do not understand the cause of your concern. My life and future belong to a kind young man who cares greatly for my well being and happiness. What need is there for condolences?”

  Nunnal simply hugged her, stroked her milk-white hair, and cried all the harder.

  At the elven mother's insistence, the Heleti examined her as well. There was nothing wrong with her physically, other than a terminal case of mortality. Neither was there anything wrong with her mentally or even spiritually. There was no strain or damage as would normally be the case with supernatural brainwashing. As a result, they called in a third expert.

  “Thus says The Trickster, ‘Beware the thrall of Order,’” Sister Sagart recited, “‘for it is a siren song leading to enslavement without a collar and a prison without walls.’ Following this advice, Jason and his followers plugged their ears with swamp gunk and their minds with praise to Lady Chaos, their grandmother in the Primordial Sea at the Root of Creation.”

  “What does that mean in English?” Emily asked.

  Kallen stared at her. In obedience to her boss, Emily smacked herself on the head.

  “Order is exploiting a desire,” Sister Sagart explained. “That’s what he does to control; exploit, redirect, and manipulate. In this case, he has expanded Annala’s desire to make Eric happy until it took over her entire consciousness. Instead of ‘small gestures of affection for my boyfriend,’ it is ‘lifelong service for my beloved master.’ It’s like making a mountain out of a molehill. That’s why there’s so little strain on her mind from the brainwashing. It’s not causing any because it is in line with one of her natural desires, only inflated to serve Order’s purpose.”

  “Will our plan to remove the collar undo the brainwashing?” Nunnal asked.

  “Unfortunately, no. Order is very good at this because he has had plenty of practice. The changes he made were fundamental. Reversing them will likely do more harm than good. Even if the collar is removed, she will not return to normal. She will have to do that herself.”

  “I do not wish to, for I am perfectly happy serving Master Eric for as long as I am able.”

  Nunnal turned her right hand into a scorpion’s tail and stung herself. Venom that would kill a human ran through her body. It was quickly neutralized by her Seed of Chaos, but it was painful nonetheless, so she did it again and with both hands this time. Ponix stopped her.

  “Darling, stop! This wasn’t your fault.”

  “Yes, it was!”

  “No, it wasn’t. Your technology is amazing, but not even you can be expected to stop Order himself.”

  Little did he know that she was expected to stop Order himself. Nunnal set the power rating for the Chaotic Curtain far above ordercrafters, even if they were high on kon and paku, and placed Sagart’s chapel at the nexus of the Sage Tree’s branches specifically to maintain this power. She even requested the aid of Parsec, the trickster god of Stability, to prove it for her.

  “Ponix, you’re a wonderful husband, but this is something you can’t comfort me on.” She returned her hands to normal. “I suppose the situation could be worse. The boy she’s enslaved to once killed an orc to protect her. I’m sure he’ll take good care of her.”

  She turned her attention to Eric and the boy felt the full force of her Evil Eye. Fear of capture and spiritual corruption, screaming in unholy pain from inhuman experiments, a hopelessness of escape; all these feelings assaulted his psyche.

  “Won’t you?”

  He remembered all the scary things in her lap and that she was best friends with Hasina. She was fully capable of making everything he just felt reality. Snapping to attention, he shouted, “Yes, ma’am!”

  “Good.”

  Without another word, she fled the room. Silence entered in her place.

  “Well, doc, what’s the damage?" As one of the two people left that knew what was going on, Eric felt it was his task to break the tension. Kallen would have, but she wasn’t healing as fast due to lacking a Seed of Chaos for herself.

  “Ah yes, Eric Watley and Kallen Selios
, we believe you are simply exhausted from channeling and exposure to raw chaotic energy,” Mebalos said. “You’ll be fine with bed rest.”

  He brought out a device resembling a standard clipboard and generated a magical holographic display from it. It listed the traits and aspects of the chaos mages.

  “You two have the most eclectic biological make-up we have ever seen. A combination of human, grendel/chimera, and elf along with some kind of spiritual bracing that we don’t understand. We’re secular healers, not priests.”

  Kurami said, “If we were, then we would suggest that Tasio is molding the pair of you into chaotic super soldiers.”

  Eric groaned. “Abyss no. There isn’t enough gold in the world.”

  The two mages were bedridden for days. The strain caused by the Chaotic Starlight made them unable to feed themselves. Eric considered this a blessing in disguise, since it was Annala who fed him. She was prompt, attentive, and polite. If he brought up of her favorite subjects, she would go into long and complicated discussions like always. It was a distance that bothered him; she didn’t act like his girlfriend anymore but his servant. It made him feel like Tahart.

  The rest of Dnnac Ledo spent those days rebuilding.

  Many elves lost their homes and businesses to the fighting and they were determined to spend the near future starting anew. In fact, many were seeing it as a chance to do better than they did last time. What could not be reclaimed was their sense of security.

  Looking around the wreckage of their homes convinced them that they couldn't make a perfect cocoon. While they could keep out one hundred percent of ordercrafters, if any of them were possessed by Order himself, their defenses meant nothing. As a result, many decided that if they were no safer here than anywhere else, then they were going to travel.

  Within Hariana Inquires and safe inside the director’s private office, Tasio patted the director and himself on the back.

  “We got everything we wanted. The humans call this ‘hitting pay dirt.’”

  The elf matriarch was less cheery. Her head lay on her desk and hidden by her arms. She had just finished explaining to the Supreme Council why all of Dnnac’s defenses from the Chaotic Curtain to the Holy Light Cannons “malfunctioned.” It was a mix of exact words, technobabble, circular logic, and outright deception. In other words, she had lied through her teeth to the people in charge of running her society and, by extension, to the society itself.