Chapter 77—Like This |
Hiral gasped as air filled his lungs, though it didn’t really. Around him, everything was greyscale, like Yanily was mid-Dragon Breath, except the spearman was frozen beside him. Not frozen in crystal, but more like frozen in time. He wasn’t the only one, either, with the rest of the party lined up on either side of Hiral.
He was the only one still standing. Even Left and Right were on the ground, the solar energy bleeding out of them paused. Whatever was happening, it was like his time runes. Had he done something? Whatever! Who cared who did what? Hiral needed to get the others out of this dungeon. He needed Wule and Yully—Hells, they better not be in a dungeon—or even one of the Bonder healers. Maybe Osteo was around. His party needed help.
Gran didn’t even have any health in the Party Interface.
Except, no matter how much he wanted to move—wanted to help—he couldn’t do anything. His body was just as frozen as the others.
Wait, this is familiar. Tomorrow did the same thing to us after our battle with The Archwizard when she wanted to talk to us. I haven’t gotten the final notification, either. Is there still more to this dungeon?
Even as he wondered, movement at the corner of his vision caught his eye. Though he and the rest of the party were frozen, thin smoke had begun to twist around the crystals in front of Hiral. Crystals he recognized… since they were the ones he and his party had just been trapped in. And the one they’d sealed Laapdoug in as well.
The Fallen’s crystal towered above the rest, like a giant among men. Unlike how the battle had played out, he didn’t have other party members crawling over him to hold him back. Instead, what looked like crimson-and-black chains wrapped around his arms and upper body. From there, six lines of chain extended—also covered in crystal—to six more crystal blocks, within each stood somebody hauling on the chain to keep it tight around the Fallen.
Like Hiral’s party, the group whose footsteps they followed had also been forced to sacrifice themselves to seal the Fallen away. Laapdoug had just been that powerful, even when the group had the Heart of the City buff.
S-Rank…
No, not something, somebody.
Admiral Benza. Had she come to free them?
By the look that came over her face—guilt—rescuing them was not her intention.
“That’s the last Fallen?” Heyu said as she tore her eyes off the party.
“The eleventh, yes,” one of the soldiers said. “We found eight of them gathered in the ruins of a park not far from here, and two in a large command center near it. They must have been gathering together to launch a counterattack before the crystal trapped them all.”
“Must have been…” Admiral Benza mumbled, conviction lacking in her voice.
“It was a brilliant strategy, Ma’am,” another of the soldiers—an officer by the silver epaulet on one shoulder—said. “Your leadership and command have truly won us the day.”
“No battle that cost this many lives can ever be called a victory,” Admiral Benza said.
“But… we won,” the officer said.
“Did we?” Admiral Benza asked the officer quietly, turning to look at the man with tired eyes. “Tell that to the families who are sitting, waiting at home for loved ones who will never return. Tell that to the people of this city who just wanted to live a different way. Tell that to the whole world, now that we don’t even have any army left to defend it.
“We lost just as much as the Fallen did, and our only saving grace is my son’s plan. That it might be a light at the end of this very long tunnel. Then again, even if that light of hope comes, it will never burn off the darkness of sin from us.” Her gaze went again to the party frozen in crystal around the Fallen.
The officer didn’t have a retort to her words, and the other soldiers looked at one another until a young woman finally stepped forward.
“Admiral,” she said. “The Fallen? Should we do what we’re doing with the others?”
Admiral Benza’s head tilted back as she looked up at the sky, the line of light from the sunrise choosing that exact moment to pass across the seven ensconced in crystal, though it left Heyu standing in shadow. Her face hardened, accepting her place, and she looked at the soldier who had spoken.
“Yes,” Admiral Benza said. “The crystal on the chain should break, since there’s no solar energy feeding it. Once you’ve cleared that away, get a few skybikes in here and get that…” she pointed at the Fallen, “… up to the airship. The sooner we get it back to my son, the sooner his plan comes to fruition.
“Be careful with it all. The crystal should be impossible to break, but I don’t want to find out somebody forgot to move a decimal place, and then we have an angry Fallen on our hands.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” the woman and every other soldier said at the same time, snapping into a tight salute. “And… the other ones? What should we do with them?”
“They stay here, with the rest of the city,” Admiral Benza said, and suddenly everything began moving at an accelerated rate. Dozens more soldiers came in and began the process of breaking the chains—easier said than done—and excavating the crystal housing the Fallen. Even as the chain broke away, new crystal grew over Lappdoug’s coffin, keeping the dangerous man sealed in. Shortly after that, six skybikes latched chains and safety harnesses to the crystal and took it away.
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With the Fallen gone, most of the soldiers marched off, leaving only Admiral Benza and three others as time slowed back down to normal speed.
“Give me a moment before we leave,” Admiral Benza said, and the three soldiers—one of them the officer who’d brought the group to Benza’s office—nodded, then stepped away.
Though the troops hadn’t gone more than a dozen steps, Admiral Benza stepped within the circle of crystallized party members.
“I don’t know if you can see or hear me from in there,” Admiral Benza said. “I hope you can’t, for your sake. For my own selfish benefit, I wish you could hear my words.
“I’m sorry.”
Admiral Benza’s head lowered while her fists clenched at her sides.
“You did so much for me,” she said quietly. “Saved my life. Saved my husband, and even saved my son. My whole damn family, and how did I thank you? Like this.” She turned slowly in place, looking at each of the crystals. “I tried to fight for your freedom. I tried so hard. You don’t have to believe, but I did. The other Admirals, though, and the council, they were all afraid of you.
“Afraid that after the Fallen were taken care of, you’d try to take their places. We knew what this battle would cost us to… win. And we knew that after that, we wouldn’t be able to stand up to you if you decided you wanted to rule.
“So, we didn’t tell you about the real plan. We never expected those seals I gave you to work. Getting one of those monsters to stand in place long enough for the whole process to take place? Crazy. Blanketing the entire city with the same crystal and a catalyst, though?
“Also crazy. More likely to work, too. Which it did. Unfortunately, for you.”
Admiral Benza let out a tired sigh.
“The scientists tell me this crystal will never break down. Will never degrade. And that you, trapped inside, should be dead. Except, we know that’s not the case with the Fallen. The whole point was to keep them alive so we could use them as eternal batteries. I can’t imagine it will be much different for you.
“What will be different, however, is that you won’t be used like they will be. I was at least able to argue for that. You’ll have… peace. Here, in a city that will never know inhabitants again. The Enemy draws near; their storm will be here within weeks, now that the Fallen aren’t here to protect it. This…” she held up her hand to the line of sunlight peaking between a hole in one of the tall buildings. “This is probably the final sunrise Visionary will ever see. A fitting tribute to you and everything you’ve done for us.”
Admiral Benza walked out of the circle of crystallized party members, stopping in the shadows to look back at them.
“Thank you and farewell, my friends. If you ever should escape these bonds, I pray you don’t seek out my kin for vengeance, as much as you’d deserve it. Instead, come find me within one of the nine hells and the place I’ve earned this day.”
Admiral Benza gave her own sharp salute to the six crystals, then turned and marched off, vanishing within the shadows outside the line of the sunrise.
As soon as she was gone, color returned to the world, and Hiral felt his body come alive again. Mostly with pain, and he stumbled forward, while groans came from all around him. There were notification windows in front of his eyes, but he dismissed them without even reading them. Where the six crystals had stood, six chests now replaced them, while a dungeon interface sat in the middle.
None of those things mattered to him, though, as the broken and maimed party members lay around him. Romin crawled in Wallop’s direction, tears running down the Bonder’s face. Gran didn’t move, blood pouring out of the hood of her cloak, the shape of it… not something that held a head within. Seeyela weakly reached toward the stump of her severed leg with one hand, while she reached toward Seena with the other. The hole in the party leader’s chest hadn’t healed, and even now, that orange energy burned within the gaping wound drenching the ground beneath her in crimson. Yanily was spread out not far from the sisters, his limbs pointing in all the wrong directions, while the lightning holding his stomach together snapped like bloated stiches, spilling his guts out.
“I’ll get you all out,” Hiral said, head snapping to the dungeon interface, and he tried to ignite his pseudo-aspect.
Nothing happened.
Looking down at his hands, mind racing, the reason why was obvious. His body was covered with Meridian Lines and tattoos, and he immediately activated Foundational Split. As the two doubles formed from the clouds of solar energy around him, a croaking voice spoke.
“Loot,” Yanily said. “We… earned… it.”
“Don’t…” Hiral started.
“I’ll get it,” Left said, already summoning The Pack to help him.
“I’ve got achievements,” Right said. “You get them.”
Hiral almost argued. What did loot or achievements matter if they weren’t alive to use them? Arguing would take time, though, and Hiral ignited his pseudo-aspect instead. This time, it worked as it should, scarves of energy reaching out to gently envelop each of his friends.
As soon as he had them, he wrapped them in the power of his Edicts. Sealing, Restoration, and Time Dilation forged cocoons of stasis to prevent things from getting any worse. He couldn’t heal them. Not even a bit, but he would be damned if he let them get worse.
One more check to make sure he had them all, and he was beside the dungeon interface. More notification windows had popped up—those had to be the achievements—and Hiral vaguely felt them becoming permanent within his PIM universe as he dismissed them with a thought. His focus was entirely on the dungeon interface, and he swiped his hand across above it.
“Exit dungeon!” he yelled at it, the portal spiraling slowly open in front of him.
Seconds seemed to stretch as Hiral waited for the portal to open all the way. Behind him, Left and his hounds had gathered the loot from the chests, while Right stood nearby, worry cracking through his façade. The doubles were trying to remain stoic for Hiral’s sake, but they were just as worried as he was.
Finally, after what felt like hours—though it was barely more than two seconds—the portal stabilized, and Hiral snagged his doubles and The Pack with his scarves. Then he was through the portal, not even given the broken city of Visionary a look back.
Blue light faded from his eyes as Ascender’s Tower materialized around him. Ahead of him, in his sensory domain, a large crowd lounged, the smell of familiar cooking spreading through the space. With Hiral and others materializing, the assembled people began to move, and a voice spoke up.
“About time you…” Wule started, the words cutting off as he saw the absolutely wretched state of the party.
“Help them,” Hiral pleaded, dashing in front of Wule and putting the party down softly with his scarves.
“Hells, what happened to them?” Wule started, but energy poured off him as he used one of his group heals, then got to work.
“Igwanda,” Nivian said, clearly speaking into his party chat. “You’re with Drahn? We need Yully up here now. NOW!” The Death Knight stood, stew pot forgotten for the first time ever, and he stepped in the direction of his twin. At getting his first good look at just how bad things were, he nearly stumbled, barely catching himself on shaking legs.
His friends—people he loved almost as much as his brother—bled out on the cold stone of the Ascender’s Tower. And… he couldn’t do anything to protect them.
More solar energy ballooned off Wule as the Grower transformed into his Aspect, the lantern of Death glowing brighter than the other two. Behind him, after Hiral’s shocking exit from the dungeon, healers from the Bonder parties rushed to help.
In his sensory domain, he could feel Yully rushing up the steps as fast as she could, Drahn, Igwanda, and the rest of Ilroik’s party close behind.
“Wallop…” Romin said, voice cracking. “Wallop isn’t breathing.”
“I’m working on it,” Wule said, heals stretching to each of the party members, trying to stabilize them.
As for Hiral, even with all the power he had, all he could do was stand there and wonder which of his friends Wule would be able to save.
And which ones he’d have to watch die.