Ar'Kendrithyst

In the Courthouse, in one of the prep rooms for the Army, Jane, Kiri, Poi, Teressa, and Nirzir walked into a meeting that was almost ready to go. They had arrived last, but only by ten seconds. Several soldiers/delegates at the front of the room stood ready to receive their orders. Some of those delegates Jane recognized from Songli, but she didn’t get a chance to say anything more than a quick nod as she filed in with them, to stand at the front. Guildmaster Mog got a quick nod, too; Jane was surprised to see her here, but as soon as she realized she was surprised, she realized she shouldn’t be.

Killzone, Liquid, and Silverite were at the front, going over maps, along with Anhelia, and another black wrought in the shape of an incani man.

Poi, Teressa, Kiri, and Nirzir stood at the back along with ten other people who were on support.

Silverite pulled herself away from maps and stepped to the front of the room. She told everyone, “Prognostication has informed us that we have today to solve this problem before it becomes untenable. We don’t know the exact nature of this worst-case scenario, but we imagine such a scenario will involve the soul ooze breaking its bonds of captivity and escaping into the world. We still don’t know why it hasn’t dug down into the Underworld, for it surely can, but that is neither here nor there.

“This is how it’s going to go: Shade protocols are in effect. You all are meeting with Farix and his delegation in 20 minutes. Killzone, Guildmaster Mog, and Team Leader Flatt are at the front.”

Jane almost flinched. She did not expect that.

Silverite continued, “Anhelia will go with you and devise a Forward Base somewhere around Brightwater. From this location, you will assault the soul ooze until it dies. Failure is not an option. If we fail today, then bad things happen.” She said, “Killzone.”

Killzone stepped forward. “While I was not able to kill the thing when I attempted to solve this problem last night, I did discover a few things we did not know before today. First: The ooze is stronger the deeper you go into it, working to corrupt your Health even through reflections and Domain power. To counter this, a full-powered [Cleanse Aura] is needed at all times. But because the power of the soul ooze multiplies the closer you are, the range of all [Cleansing Aura]s collapses to skin-tight.

“The best way to actually find the heart of the ooze is to have a [Cleanse Aura] running at all times, for when your aura begins to crush inward, you will know you are close.

“Second: There are soul monsters that will begin to attack when you approach the center of the ooze. These monsters are not Domain empowered, but their spells will carve through all weak levels of reflection. This is why I, Mog, and Jane will be at the front; those with the strongest reflections in this city. Once we encounter those monsters, Jane will be providing the most body-blocking defense she can, while Mog and I are on offense. Those monsters look like bloated white bodies, with arms and other limbs here and there, poking out of them. Their main attack is an [Ethereal Dispelling Soul Corrupting Scry-Piercing Bolt], or something to that effect. We don’t know what it is called, only what it does, and what it does is [Dispel], corrupt Health away to try and attack the soul to force amalgamation, and travel right through unenchanted armor. It has to be blocked by some living body with a soul. And most importantly, the thing will go right through a [Scry], to the caster of the [Scry], hitting the caster and draining Health, attempting to turn them into an amalgam.

“This means that there will be no normal scouting.

“The good news about that, is that it is a very slow Bolt. Traveling at about the pace of a fast walk.

“The very moment the scout team sees one of these things, they are to cancel their spell. Those [Ethereal Soul Bolt]s, or whatever they are, will strike at you through your [Scry] orb if the spell manages to connect. I cannot overstate this danger.

“Third: good news. As you might have already guessed, the soul ooze is not actually an ooze. It might technically be a slime. It has a core. The thing is fifty meters wide and radiant like a grand rad; you can actually see it once you get within about a kilometer. The thing is so large it can’t actually move through most of the Dead City, which is why it is locked into the bottom of the Brightwater, where the sun can’t easily reach.” Killzone added, “Also, maybe good news: Kiri’s Rifts might be able to blast through to the edge of the monster’s Domain, but from there, we go in on our own.

“Fourth: We will encounter all of the normal greater amalgams that we fight every night. My pressure on the soul slime’s core last night caused it to recall many of its minions in order to fight me. This was ultimately why I had to retreat. That hands-caster, the spell cancelers, and then all the other oddities, and even more amalgams that we haven’t seen yet, are there. All of them began to show when I got too close to the core.” Killzone said, “I expect we’ll have to kill them all before we can actually take down the core, along with the soul bolters, and that means killing about 165 greater amalgams, and a comparable number of bolters.”

A small, collective gasp passed through the room. 165 greater amalgams was a lot, especially if they were odd variants. The odder they were, the harder it was to know how to kill them quickly. Having to fight a similar number of ‘soul bolters’ was an unknown threat, but considering those bolters were what had killed Killzone’s support team, they were just as serious as the amalgams themselves.

“And finally: we think the soul ooze came from the old Well of Souls, but as I checked that place myself and saw nothing, we don’t believe it is a location of interest.” Killzone. “When we get there, Anhelia will produce a temporary Forward Base where we will organize the attack. Sergeant Nanark and Liquid will be handling planning from Spur. Understood?”

Nods all around.

Silverite took center stage back, saying, “Shade Farix is a Shade, but he has been Blessed into growth by a joint effort of Erick Flatt and Koyabez. This, however, has merely mutated his base nature. No matter how easy he might look to kill, or how weak of a person he might seem, he can turn you into a writhing mass of pleasure if you piss him off, and he won’t feel bad about it. You do not antagonize the Archmage-level Blood Mage.” Silverite added, “No matter how much there seems to be a connection between Farix’s ability to mutate people into lumps of flesh and how lumpy all the amalgams look, and are, do not antagonize the Shade. Understand? I’m looking at every single person here in front, but mostly the people who aren’t part of Spur’s Army; those who have never dealt with a Shade before.”

Her gaze flicked over the people from Songli, and lingered on a noblewoman about Jane’s age. Jane hadn’t even noticed her. To be fair, that noble was further back than most people in front. Jane tried to think of her name but that knowledge evaded her. She was human and one of Jane’s neighbors, though.

When all Silverite got back were nods, she relaxed a fraction. “Good. Now get out there and save the world. Dismissed.”

- - - -

On a perfectly flat stretch of desert to the west of Ar’Kendrithyst, where the sun beat down from directly above and the wind rushed from the north, Jane walked south, dressed in her overlapping dark blue armor. She felt a bit small in this form, compared to the giant of a man on her left.

Killzone stared straight ahead, his black body relaxed, but with a certain tension that showed he was ready for a fight. Killzone wore his adamantium flesh like casual clothes and a bit of armor, but nothing overmuch. On Killzone’s other side stood Guildmaster Mog.

Mog was dressed in bright white fullplate, either adamantium and enchanted to look white, or covered in a layer of holyite, Jane wasn’t sure. Whatever it was, it was layered over with red-tinted Force; her [Reflective Armor] spell, and done in the same style as Poi’s armor. Or, actually, Jane probably had that backwards. Poi got his armor ideas from Mog.

Or, more realistically, they both got their ideas from some common idea that ‘real armor is good’. Probably some plays or whatever; Jane didn’t know, and she put those thoughts away. It was time to work.

Their various other forces hung back, about 300 meters behind.

Because up ahead was the delegation from New Brightwater.

Jane recognized Shade Farix, with his blue skin, white horns, white hair, and bright white eyes that were uncommonly bright, which marked him as a Shade. The other two at Farix’s side were unknown to her, but while one was a shadeling, perhaps, with dim yet white eyes, the other was a normal blue dragonkin with normal blue eyes.

Jane’s own eyes were dark black, for she had incorporated her shadow spider’s Eyes of Magic into her form, along with a few other capabilities that she hoped not to need to use. Farix’s team was running magic, but only the normal kind. No traps lay in the sand ahead, or anything like that.

The two groups faced off, both stopping ten meters from each other. And then Killzone and Farix each took a single step closer. No one spoke. One moment of silence turned to three. Tension rose.

Ah. Jane did not miss this part of danger; the comparing of egos, to see who would break first and talk first, and thus prove they were beneath the other person in the meeting. But! Shade protocol had a solution for this, and so, since this was an emergency meeting—

Jane faked a sneeze.

Killzone spoke over his shoulder to Jane, “See that you get that [Cleanse]d before you get into the city.”

“Sir, yes sir,” Jane replied.

Farix said, “Your people are always sneezing around me. It’s quite unbecoming. One would think your vaunted [Cleanse] wasn’t actually capable of cleaning up anything at all!”

Killzone said, “[Cleanse] is not meant to solve every problem we encounter. It’s just an assistant, to help us help ourselves.”

“Feh! Whatever.” Farix said, “Here’s how this joint venture is going to go. My teams are coming in from the south. Yours come in from the north. My woman here—” He gestured to the blue dragonkin woman at his side. “Is a former Mind Mage, rescued from death by the Dark, and given a new life on this land. She stepped away from the Dark, though, in order to be allowed to rejoin her original people. She is coordinating for our side. Who is coordinating from your side?”

Killzone glared at Farix. “… It is unkind to do this, here, at this juncture.”

Jane had missed something. She did not like missing anything.

Farix said, “She’s a Mind Mage! They’re all scrupulous to a fault and she is no different.”

Jane controlled her breathing, but she wanted to gasp. She realized that the dragonkin woman looked familiar. She looked like Poi, but female. But… No? Couldn’t be.

‘Poi?’ Jane sent, ‘Are you seeing this? Is this really your sister?’

‘… Less chatter,’ Poi sent, reluctantly.

‘Ah! Ah. Shit— Shutting up, now.’

Jane mentally wiped her brow and then she filed this development into the category of ‘not my business’. She’d keep an eye on whatever this was, of course, if only because Farix was probably going to use her, too, in order to get closer to Spur and also her father. Jane wasn’t at the center of whatever fucking mess this Shade wanted to make, but she was adjacent, and that made her a target, just like how Poi was apparently a target, too.

Briefly, she wondered if they had targeted Kiri already? They probably had?

It was a Shade who had fucked with Kiri in the museum back in Treehome, wasn’t it! Which Shade, though?

… Could have been any of them, really.

… And also, had they targeted Jane, yet? They probably had, she considered. Either at the escort of Champion Yetta, or when Melemizargo stepped out at Oceanside and asked her if she wanted his ‘Blessing’ so that she could ‘clean house’ for him. It was probably more complicated than that, though, since their plans for her father were long term, so perhaps their desires for her were longer term, too; broader and deeper than a single instance of temptation.

Killzone and Farix had bandied veiled threats and smaller insults at each other for the last minute, but that was rather normal for this sort of situation. It was considered improper to involve oneself in the bickering of powerful Shades, for to listen too closely was to directly involve oneself in the banter, and if you failed, the outcome was usually death. Or, since Farix was Blessed into Empathy, and as Silverite had said, the ‘bad outcome’ here was to get Blood Magic’d into a body that sensed only pleasure.

Jane was glad that Silverite spoke of the connection between Farix’s ‘amalgamation’ of people into puddles of self-pleasuring flesh and of what they were seeing from the soul ooze every night. Jane hadn’t even considered that, but it made sense as soon as she heard about Farix’s predilections. Some other Blood Mage had even made some sort of [Grand Abomination] spell, or something, and scattered that magic into the darker parts of the Dead City long ago. So maybe Farix was planning something devious today, but...

How that didn’t tick off her father’s Blessing was beyond Jane, but it was probably some trick of Farix’s own mind that allowed him to operate under such a restriction. Whatever the case, Jane and no one on their side would be testing Farix; not yet.

He might have to die before the day was over, though.

Killzone pivoted his talk, turning back to the subject at hand, “Shade Farix! Enough of this nonsense. We need action. We need to end the soul ooze. Your prognosticators have seen the same thing we have seen. If the ooze gets another night, disaster will strike.”

“And we will move to the clouds to get away!” Farix dropped a minor, but expected bombshell. The shape of the bombshell was unexpected, but everyone suspected the Shade had some way to get further away from the ooze, and to protect his people. “I already have several cloud giant castles under my power, for you didn’t think my people were only protecting our land from that ooze every night, did you? No! We know the truths of magic. We have proper learning. We don’t actually need to participate in this battle at all! We could escape, and let you fail. Which is why we demand compensation to assist in this battle.”

Killzone glared. “What sort of compensation?”

“We wish to purchase goods and services from Spur.” Farix said, “We’d link up with Candlepoint, but we’re staying away from Erick’s Worldly Path, and if we did that, he’d come running. So! We want to link up with Spur, instead.”

Killzone instantly said, “100 percent markup. You’re not allowed inside the city. We will set up soldiers by the east gate which will take your orders and purchase your desires inside the city.”

Jane blinked. That was fast. Silverite was probably listening and feeding Killzone information in real time, but to make such a decision that fast? A decision of this magnitude? This was promising to have further deals with the Dark, and that was strictly against the rules of engagement. Spur has done this many times before, but never so openly, because the problems actually came later when other people heard that Spur was trading with Darkness, and then those other people cut off their trade—

Wait a second.

Was all this for show?

Jane wasn’t sure, but the thought that this was an act struck her, and she couldn’t let it go. Whatever! She shouldn’t be surprised. Spur had been dealing with the Dark long before now. Not Jane’s problem. Jane’s problems were all monsters, and she liked it that way; those issues were much more fun to solve.

Killzone added, “You will have a single month of trade, and if nothing untoward happens in that time, and if Ar’Kendrithyst calms down, then we will talk about extensions.”

Farix stood tall, looking like he was mentally going over the offer, and then he said, “The bargain is struck. Our Mind Mages will coordinate the battle, and our forces will not mix.”

Killzone agreed, “Our forces will not mix.”

Farix stepped backward, rejoining his people.

Killzone stepped backward, to stand beside Jane and Mog.

Poi’s voice was a loudness in the air, as he spoke to everyone on their side, ‘Shade Farix has set up their fallback point to the south of the Brightwater. Anhelia has already set hers to the north. Grab your [Teleport] partners and meet on site. Further instructions to follow.’

Killzone privately sent to Jane, and also Mog, ‘Farix is going to sweep in and attempt to control the soul ooze at the last moment. Be ready to let him take it. A monster controlled is better than what we have now.’

Jane jolted, and then she made the mistake of glancing at Farix on the other side of the field. He lightly stared at her, as though glaring through her armor to see the person beneath, and then he smirked. And then Jane turned to stare at Killzone, her anger boiling inside her—

Killzone held out his hands to Jane and Mog, sending, ‘He has to take it first, proving he is untrustworthy, before we can kill him with impunity.’

Oh.

Well that was fine? Wasn’t it?

Jane took Killzone’s hand.

In groups of three, the two groups left the field, briefly flickering colors into the desert air with their passing.

- - - -

It had been a while since Jane had been inside the Dead City.

Being this close to the Brightwater was completely new, though. This land had always been wholly off limits to every single person who valued their life. But… Since the rise of the ooze and the destruction of the civilization of the Brightwater, this was a new time in the ‘life’ of the Dead City.

In her spider form, and well-rested enough to move out, Jane clung to the top of the second-tallest red-purple kendrithyst tower in the area. The whole of their temporary ‘Forward Base’ was located in the actual tallest crystal tower, just west of this one. That space was a fallback point, and covered in light from Anhelia’s [Light Domain]. Most of the soldiers were still over there, inside the revealed interior structure of the crystal, inside the rooms and on the balconies and in the watchtower on top, going over last-minute prep and viewing the target area through very carefully controlled [Viewing Screen]s that were themselves wrapped behind reflective magics.

Everyone else was getting ready.

Jane was already ready. She had been briefed on her mission statement and was prepared to accept the two people who they assigned her, but those two people were still up there in the main tower, getting briefed.

Jane wasn’t the head of the spear —that was Killzone, and to a lesser extent, Mog— but she was the backup, and she knew she would be needed. And so, Jane gazed out and tried to see what she could, to further prepare.

Ar’Kendrithyst was, and would likely always remain, a land of red and purple crystal towers that swirled with hidden shadows, each spire too tall to ever exist without the assistance of magic. Almost all of the ones around Jane were at least 30 kilometers long. All she could see were the tops, though. Though it was high noon, the depths of the city were deep enough that light failed to penetrate to the bottom. The shadows swirling inside the towers were to blame, dimming an otherwise gorgeous view with darkness.

At least all of the usual monsters were not present. Usually, there would be a horde of munchlings or a leviathan centipede or an actual leviathan to contend with, if one hung around this area long enough. But all the monsters were gone. They were likely under direct control of the soul ooze, though, but no one had actually seen the usual monsters.

Maybe the usual monsters had become food? Maybe they hadn’t been amalgamized into larger, and more dangerous horrors?

Yeah right, Jane thought.

Anyway. The Brightwater was completely different than how it usually was, and Jane wished she could have seen it a year ago. She likely would have been killed if she had tried, but to gaze upon a land of clear crystal towers above an ocean of light would have been a sight to behold.

Now, though, the walls that separated the red-purple kendrithyst from the clear kendrithyst were broken. The auto-magical summoned defenders and the shadeling personnel that usually manned those walls were gone. Shadows from the city had flowed into that once-bright land and turned clear crystal into smoky quartz. The Spire, once the brightest, tallest structure of Ar’Kendrithyst, was gone from the skyline. Apparently Shade Farix had already scouted the place and found nothing, corroborating Killzone’s scouting report.

Taking Farix at his word was foolish, though.

And besides that, every single prognosticator in the area had—

“Yo, Jane.” Mog stepped into the air next to Jane’s tower. “Scoot to the side. I want to talk to you before we go in, before your team shows up for you.”

Jane obliged, granting the comparatively small woman half of the kendrithyst tower’s ‘roof’. “What’s up, guildmaster?”

Mog’s armor didn’t make a sound as she moved to stand next to Jane, planting her feet atop the kendrithyst. “I like how you changed your voice. It makes you more approachable. Also makes you damned scarier in a completely different way.”

Jane smiled. “I’ll have to switch this speech center away once the battle starts to seal up all my vulnerabilities, so the horrible voice will come back. But it’s been nice, yeah.”

Mog nodded, and then she sent, ‘…’

Mog flinched. She stared at Jane, and then tried to connect with a tendril of thought again, but the magic bounced off of Jane’s carapace.

Jane made the connection herself, sending, ‘I can’t turn off the reflection. What’s up?’

Mog frowned, but Jane got the impression that it was more at her own situation, than at Jane. And then she sent, ‘Look. This mission needs to go right. We’re keeping it quiet, but we all knew this could become a crystal mimic scenario if we let it, so we’ve been covertly trying to kill it ourselves for the last twenty days. This thing has rebuffed all our attempts to kill it.’

Jane’s leg hairs stood on end as she involuntarily flexed her abdomen upward. This was news to Jane, and it did not make her feel confident about their chances today.

Mog continued, ‘All of Killzone’s and Silverite’s actions? Acting like this was a new threat? Lies. Obfuscation for the masses. Playing it off like we could handle it at any point in time was necessary because you gotta project confidence as a leader, you know? But know this: Today is our final chance to solve this threat on our own, and we are pulling out all the stops. With these combined forces we should be able to kill the thing, but… This is a breaking point for Spur. If we fail tonight, then we fail more than you know.’

Jane breathed out. ‘So the backup plan is that bad, eh?’

‘Yes.’ Mog gazed across the crystal landscape ahead. ‘If we’re not out ten minutes before sunset the Headmaster is going to bomb this place himself, along with a hundred of his Elites. He’ll make a crater a hundred kilometers across, wiping Ar’Kendrithyst from the map and likely causing untold destruction to Spur and the water table and probably opening up multiple entrances to the Underworld. No one wants that except for the Headmaster; he wants to blast this place to dust, and is quite mad we haven’t let him come in to do just that. Such an action would be the ruination of Spur and the destruction of a great city, full of possibility.’ She added, ‘Maybe we should just let him do that, but…

‘We can do this, Jane.

‘Spur. The people here can solve our own problems.’ Mog sent, ‘That’s what I really came over here to say. Spur has a long history, but we look to have a much longer one than we already have, and Ar’Kendrithyst is still full of treasures to be found. We want you to take a larger share of the responsibility, and the prestige, and the power that this place has to offer. If you want to stay past this calamity. Either way, we’re raising your clearance to a 9-star adventurer. The only thing left to get you 10 star is a Domain. That would mean the whole world is open to you, through the Adventurer’s Guild, with challenges everywhere to be found, but there’s still a lot left to be found here, in Spur.

‘If we can kill this thing and prevent the Headmaster from needing to turn our goldmine into a crater.’

Hitting a high clearance in the Adventurer’s guild would open up the world to her. Dangerous quests. Problems that needed ending. Ohhh. Oh. This was good.

Jane instantly said, ‘I’m on board with this plan.’

With a greatly relieved tone, Mog said, ‘Good. Glad to hear it.’ She added, ‘This might not be a ‘save the world’ mission like Silverite said, but this isn’t a suicide mission, either. We’re doing this safely and with all our people alive at the end of it, no matter the final outcome. If the Headmaster needs to do what he needs to do, then so be it, but this is our home.’

Jane just smiled a little. She liked Mog; the Guildmaster was a good woman. Jane wasn’t happy with how Mog was sweet on Erick, but her father didn’t reciprocate, so that was fine.

Mog glanced up at Jane’s adamantium sword, floating next to Jane’s left pedipalp. ‘Adamantium might be the only thing able to break the core.’ She held up her spiked gloves. ‘I got my own set. Use your sword against the [Ethereal Soul Bolt]s, too; don’t risk your reflection working like it should, especially once we get closer to the core.’

‘Heard loud and clear.’ Jane detached her sword from its position near her pedipalps, and swished it through the air ahead, controlling the near-artifact with the [Flying Striker] spell she had imbued earlier. ‘I really do like this thing, you know? Adamantium is great, but the runework is really amazing.’

‘I had a runic armor set, once.’ Mog sent, ‘It got stripped from me by a Shade that imbued it with [Control Armor] and [Clothe]; pulled it right off of me in the middle of a battle. I prefer plain armor these days.’

‘… Yeah. But…’ Jane sent, ‘They could have taken it from you either way, right?’

‘Aye. Took me a long time to understand that.’

And since Mog had shared something, Jane decided to share something, too, ‘I really do like ending threats, you know? It just feels good to make the world safer by erasing the bad parts.’

Mog smiled wide, her glinting lower fangs barely showing through the slits in her helmet. ‘Soon as you get a Domain you should try the Walk to the Core; see what true monsters look like. I bet this soul ooze would fit right in down below amongst all those greater monsters. Gotta get a writ from a Geode before you do, but that shouldn’t be hard. From what I heard your father is doing great down there.’

‘I wanted to make that journey as soon as he told me about the Variant monsters.’ Jane sent, ‘But they’re no good for Polymage?’

‘Ah. Yeah. Don’t eat any of the monsters down there. They all have Domains and that means that they can try to control you even after they slot into your Familiar Form list. Safer to just fight them instead. See how far you can get.’ Mog stepped back into the air, then made her way back to the main tower, sending, ‘Shouldn’t be long now. Kiri and the archmages will open the way, but we’re going to have to finish it.’

Jane nodded, then went back to watching the shadows swirl inside the crystals of Ar’Kendrithyst.

- - - -

The Brightwater was no longer anything like its name would suggest.

Ringed with crystal towers, the thirty-kilometer deep, 25-kilometers wide at its widest oval-shaped dimensions, Brightwater used to be filled with misty light that obscured everything inside. The mist was still there, but it was a gloom of shadows these days; a byproduct of the constant solar-induced destruction of the ooze down below. That mist protected the ooze from further degradation during the day. The core itself was located somewhere deep below the mists, and below the sea of black ooze hidden by the mist. It was under at least 15 kilometers of ooze. Maybe as much as 20.

Kiri had her crown on today, though, so she was good to go for a lot of mist and ooze destruction…

At least she thought she was, according to the math she had done. [Summon Sunny] cost her 1622 base mana, which was 811 mana after Clarity. At her own modified Focus of 200, thanks to the [Luminous Trap] and All-Stats permanent lightmask crown upon her head, she regenerated 48,000 mana per hour, thanks to Scion of Focus, or 13-14 mana per second. This meant it would take a little over 1 minute to recast Sunny. With her modified Willpower of 200, this meant that every Sunny would come into being with 12,000 mana. 2000 mana would then be instantly spent on a [Reflective Personal Ward]; Kiri was decently happy with that spell, but she could probably do better once she got some more pointers from Erick.

With such a defense, and then running [Greater Lightwalk] the whole time out there for 10 mana per second, Sunny would have been losing mana without access to a Restful space. But Kiri had already solved this problem with a [Restful Ward] that she made a month ago, which cost 250 mana. She could attach these Restful spaces to rocks, which Sunny would then carry with her.

Kiri would eventually be able to make a [Restful Reflection Personal Ward], she was sure, but it hadn’t happened yet, and it likely wouldn’t happen for a while longer. She needed time to work out the math, and she didn’t have a lot of that these days.

Anyway.

With a bit of planning and careful casting, Kiri could pump out a Sunny every minute, and maintain a concentrated burn for a very long time. She couldn’t go full power all the time, but she could contribute a lot, for a long while.

It might be enough.

‘Might’ be enough, because, of course, Silverite and Killzone and the other archmages (who didn’t do much on the battlefield these days) have been trying to kill this thing for the last week. Now how Kiri had missed that, she had no idea.

Poi poked his head into the room. “Your show, Kiri. Light the way.”

Kiri froze, and then she relaxed. She leaned back in her chair, feeling the weight of the crown on her head, and the weight of the world on her shoulders…

Well.

This wasn’t really ‘save the world’ time, but more like ‘prove she was capable of playing in the big leagues’ time.

Kiri focused on the battlefield ahead…

- - - -

Jane had been joined by two people meant to assist her when necessary. A Font from Songli who had been near Jane last night, who hadn’t gotten a chance to assist with the battle because there had been none, and the noble girl who was Jane’s neighbor.

Jane greeted the man first, the Font, saying, “Greetings, Olirio Wild Song. Thank you for joining me again for the day’s events.”

Olirio Wild Song was a demi man with white skin that was the barest violet. All of him was like that, except for his armor, which was fully violet and covered him almost completely. He held his helmet in his hand to bow and greet Jane, as he said, “Greetings again, Jane Flatt. I look forward to actually seeing some action this time.”

It was a polite joke, so Jane gave a polite, small chuckle. Olirio nodded and Jane nodded back, but since she was ten meters wide and three meters tall at the moment, and also a massive blue tarantula, it probably came off more scary than she meant. The noblewoman, who Jane knew, but did not know, controlled her fear response very well, but as Jane moved, the woman started to sweat.

Her fearful sweat made the air taste good, and that made Jane uncomfortable. Jane did not like this good flavor, and she was 100% sure that this fear sense was coming from her leaky lesser rivergrieve Familiar Form. That form was more trouble than it was worth, but it would likely prove itself if she had to swim sometime. Hopefully not today, though, even if the black ooze was technically liquid.

Poi had tested her, though. Jane was still herself, according to the experts!

Jane said to the woman, “I apologize, Lady…” Jane was sure the woman was a Lady, as in a Lady-of-the-Court, but beyond that, she was drawing a blank. “I know we are neighbors, but we have not been introduced yet. I do not actually know your name.”

The girl was caramel of skin, with black hair and bright blue eyes. Her leathers were enchanted, and she wore a clear suit of [Conjure Armor] over those leathers; completely clear magic, too. Either she was skilled in some ways, or she had lucked out with that color.

At Jane’s direct addressing of her, she seemed to relax a little, and said, “Lady Alandria Clayfield of the Greensoil Republic. I am pleased to make your acquaintance. When this is all over, I would like to invite you over for tea, perhaps at a nicer time in the middle of the day than the odd schedule that we’ve been keeping for the last month.” She turned to Olirio, saying, “I would also invite Singer Void Song and her entourage to participate.”

Olirio politely said, “I will pass along the invitation at our earliest convenience.”

“Thank you,” Alandria said, and then she turned to face south, to face the Brightwater. Her fear spiked a bit, according to Jane’s senses, as she said, “I am a Replicant Warrior who will follow in your lead, Miss Jane Flatt. It is my understanding that I and my replications will be acting as decoys to assist you as you kill the big ones; taking the heat off of you as needed.”

Jane smirked a little, though the movement of her large fangs probably came off as something different. Another spike of fear rolled off of Alandria. “I have those replication spells, too. Every elemental version that I could make.”

Alandria nodded. “I understand that my mana is to be used to make replications, and you’re to do what you need to do to take down the targets. And Olirio will keep us both topped off. It will be a slow, methodical kill, with no room for mistakes.”

“Yes.” Jane said, “Slow and steady. We’re mainly keeping the monsters away from Kiri.”

“Ah! Where are my manners.” Alandria said, “I would invite Miss Flamecrash to tea, as well. But anyway: With any luck today, our integration as a unit will go smoothly, for Silverite has called in some Mind Mages from Oceanside. We expect to need to kill 250 greater amalgams, and anywhere from 20 to 40 soul casters.”

Jane said, “The number keeps growing. I’m sure Poi and them can keep it together, though.”

Olirio said, “The Mind Mages are rather good at creating unit cohesion, so— Ah. It’s starting.”

Jane, and everyone else, was already focused south.

Nine Sunnys, looking like pinpricks of green light, entered the sky fifteen kilometers ahead.

Jane could barely see them, and only because of the primal frost owl eyes she had added to the sides of her large frontal eyes, which remained her Eyes of Magic from the shadow spider. She certainly saw the effects, though.

Nine [Luminous Beam]s, like tracers of white laser fire, danced down from the sky above to carve through the gloom below. Jane could not see the target from here, atop this kendrithyst crystal well away from the edge of the Brightwater. It wasn’t time to move up yet—

Killzone’s voice rang out, “Into positions! Forward into the Dark!”

‘That’s the cue,’ Poi’s voice came to her, and also to everyone else in her small, three person group. ‘Handing off your specific delegation to Mind Mage Olirio. Good luck.’

Well wasn’t that a fun little revelation.

Jane felt herself connect to Alandria and Olirio, and then—

Alandria whipped her head toward Olirio. ‘OH.’

Olirio sighed, sending, ‘I am not actually a Classed Mind Mage.’

‘On task, people!’ Jane sent.

With a show of [Greater Lightwalk], Jane and everyone else in her small party moved a kilometer south, and then Alandria cast a [Force Platform] underneath the three of them. It was a perfect, synchronous movement, with Alandria to Jane’s left and Olirio to the right, and the platform perfectly clear and wide enough for Jane not to feel cramped.

And now, she saw the Brightwater as it was, full of gloom from horizon to horizon, like a black ocean of mist, swirling past shorelines made of crystal towers, flowing toward the brilliant center, where light carved a hole into the mist. The mist was a kilometer deep, and Kiri’s [Luminous Beam] had an effective range of several kilometers, but the beam didn’t actually end until its power was absorbed into the surrounding matter. For all Jane knew, Kiri’s [Luminous Beam]s reached ten kilometers deep, burning away the ocean where they touched.

All across the northern edge of the Brightwater, people watched the light show from their own platforms. A few people flew on their own. And the tenth Sunny flickered across the gloom, depositing [True Sunlight Rift]s as she went. Brilliant white light burned away gloom like nothing else. That Sunny spent herself casting orbs everywhere, all along predetermined ‘best positioning’, whatever that meant. Kinda looked like a messed up grid pattern.

Didn’t take long for Sunny to fully expend herself, either; ten orbs, and she was done.

All the while, the Sunnys in the sky continued to drop carving [Luminous Beam]s into the gloom, evaporating the environmental effect. But it was like boiling away the center of an ocean; there was always more water to fill the hole.

It didn’t take long for a shift to occur in that ocean.

For all across the entire Brightwater, and indeed across all of Ar’Kendrithyst, the gloom flowed to where Kiri boiled it away, rushing in to replace that which was lost. More little green couatls came in to replace those who expended themselves, in a slow, methodical pattern, with a few of them continuously keeping up the [Luminous Beam] burn in the center, which arguably erased the most ‘water’ of the ocean, while even more dropped Sunlight all across the darkness, keeping the burn sustained. It was the same scene that played out all across Spur’s outermost wall, every night, except this time they were here, in the heart of this dark land.

And the [Luminous Beam]s were a new tactic. Jane had only guessed that they burned away a lot more black ocean than the Sunlight orbs, but truthfully, she didn’t know. Perhaps they did. More importantly, though, they gave the monsters under the ocean a direct target to focus on, wherever those monsters might be down there in that ooze.

Maybe Jane finally would finally get to kill the thing today. Or maybe Kiri could do it on her own. Maybe, all that was needed was Kiri, doing this for a few hours, to solve this entire problem. Maybe, once she uncovered the ooze’s core, she could kill the thing all on her own with all of those Beams she was laying down. The Army was actually hoping for this outcome, and a small part of Jane was, too, but they expected Kiri’s spellwork to fail as amalgams started to appear and fight back.

This was why all the rest of them were here, after all.

Jane’s dozen spider hearts beat hard inside her abdomen and chest, as Kiri’s magic finally burned through the gloom, exposing the black ocean below it all. With the ocean exposed, the noon sun above helped to break apart the ocean, rapidly breaking up the surface, dropping that surface down a meter each second. Kiri followed the descending ocean with more layers of orbs. There were three layers now, each 100 meters lower than the layer before, each of those layers locking down the flowing gloom pouring in from all the rest of Ar’Kendrithyst, to ensure the black ocean remained uncovered.

That black ocean roared in from the rest of Ar’Kendrithyst, flowing toward the Brightwater. An ocean of dead souls poured through gaps in the wall, rushing forward, forming black waterfalls and filling the air with even more mist that failed to protect the dark waters. But there was something else inside. As Jane looked with her Eyes of Magic, she saw a force inside that black ocean, drawing it into the Brightwater. Some of those waterfalls weren’t just falling. They were being pulled into the Brightwater like intestines from a stomach; dead souls knotted together into something more than simple liquid.

And yet, no amalgams appeared. No defenders. No bloated soul casters.

Jane calmed down a bit, as nothing continued to happen. The black ocean boiled under the combined might of Kiri’s ever-deepening layers of Sunlight Orbs. Four or five Sunnys continued to blast away at the center with [Luminous Beam]s. And Jane waited—

At once, every single Sunny doubled up on their [Luminous Beam]s and traced their attack to the left, carving a dancing swirl of light into a newly apparent target. Something died far below. The layers of orbs were now ten deep, and getting deeper.

‘Position holding,’ came Poi’s voice, to what Jane assumed was everyone. ‘Assume amalgams soon.’

Olirio answered Jane’s unasked question, ‘Kiri tracked and killed an amalgam; that’s what that was. Not a soul caster, though. A normal one. The soul ooze is starting to fight back.’

One of the lights at the lowest level blinked out. And then another vanished. Down below, under the ocean, looking like a skull of a giant just under the waters, that skull spit [Dispelling Bolt]s upward. It was a dispelling amalgam. They all looked like that. They waited in the ooze and you didn’t see them until they [Dispel]ed you.

Jane watched as a black bolt stepped off of a platform to the far left and descended to the ocean below like a javelin thrown by a god, aiming directly at the dispeller. Killzone was taking the first amalgam.

‘All platforms descend one kilometer,’ Poi sent. ‘Slow and steady.’

As one, that was exactly what Jane and her companions did, dropping out of the sky and flickering down into the Brightwater. Alandria cast another clear platform and they resumed their positioning about 150 meters above the black ocean, Just outside of [Dispel] range. Smoky crystal towers rose behind them while Kiri’s rifts hung in the air before them. The black ocean boiled, and in the daytime, and this close, Jane could see that calling it a ‘black ocean’ wasn’t exactly true.

Alandria gasped a little as she looked down. Olirio frowned. Jane watched as a sea of people-shaped black souls, all jammed together into a writhing mass, burned away under Kiri’s light, their faces appearing and then vanishing as they silently screamed their torment into an uncaring world.

‘That’s normal’. Jane sent them, ‘I guess you can finally see them, though. Now that it's daytime. The shadows inside the kendrithyst are like this, too, but only if you really look. This liquid state makes them a lot more visible.’

‘Oh, by all the bright gods.’ Alandria sent, ‘It’s true, then. Are they really Melemizargo’s followers from the Old Cosmology?’

‘That’s what I hear.’ Olirio sent, ‘I did not put stock in those rumors until now.’

‘We’re not actually sure what they are, but that’s the most accepted interpretation of what is inside the crystals.’ Jane sent, ‘And I guess that’s what these things are from. I have to wonder, though, if the soul ooze has a core, and any oozy thing with a core is a slime then this thing is actually a slime, and it’s doing what slimes do; it cleans up dead things.’

‘Slimes are cute little things. Cleaners.’ Alandria sent, ‘Not this abomination.’

‘If it’s actually cleaning up these old souls, then maybe that’s exactly what is happening,’ Jane repeated, for she didn’t think Alandria heard her.

‘… Maybe.’ Olirio sent, ‘Maybe that’s exactly— Jane.’ He pointed to the right. ‘That’s yours.’

A certain kind of calm came over Jane at that moment and she relished the feeling. As she lit her sword with prismatic light and turned herself into the same, sweeping out with a [Cleansing Aura] the very next Script Second, she was ready. Down below was her target; the only one in sight, though that was certainly going to change soon enough.

All across the dark ocean of the Brightwater, amalgams were beginning to surface from the blackened souls of the long dead, like horrific visions of life that should not be alive. Arms attached to heads. Legs attached to arms. Eyes were on chests as intestines spilled out all across the surface of the ooze. The basic building blocks of the amalgams rose from the depths, and then, they shifted.

Arms went to the sides of bodies where they would provide the most leverage to cast spells or wield giant [Conjured Weapon]s, like swords ten meters long, or clubs of the same. Eyes went all around heads. Torsos gained legs, and then those legs morphed together, twisting into fish tails, or water strider legs so they could stand atop the ooze and move freely.

Jane’s target was a water strider twenty meters wide and ten tall, with ten legs and ten sets of arms, half of those arms wielding swords and the other half holding onto balls of shadowy magic, just waiting for something to target. It had a massive giant head for a head, proving itself as a dispelling amalgam with tricks.

Jane leapt off her perch and dove straight at it.

Her sword flickered fast to deflect three separate, instant attempts to strike her with dispelling bolts. Ten other attempts simply missed. With a strike made of light and everything else, Jane carved the creature through from top to bottom, carving the skull-head in half as she landed below the amalgam. Her legs stopped a bare fraction before she would have plunged into the boiling black ocean, while her [Cleansing Aura] burned away the slight goop still left on the creature, and then got to work on the soul ooze below. The amalgam flopped a little, arms on one side trying to hold onto the arms of another side, trying to hold its head together, but it could not. It was not dead, yet. So to get the message fully across, Jane took her sword, empowered it even further, and spun it like a blender blade above her body.

She cut through the legs of the creature, causing it to fall into her spinning prismatic light, and Jane ascended, turning the greater amalgam into a whole lot of dead pieces that were both on fire, and already getting [Cleanse]d away.

Jane left the dead, half-[Cleanse]d thing behind, ascending back up top to rejoin her small group, but on a separate platform. Alandria had conjured the second one for her, specifically, so they wouldn’t be exposed to any potential ooze drippings.

Olirio asked, ‘Health? Mana? Soul ooze status?’

‘I’m good.’ Jane glanced at her Status. ‘Still immune to the soul ooze soul attack and I was running [Cleansing Aura] the whole time. Only took 500 Health and Mana to kill that thing and I already got a [Rejuvenation] going to replenish most of that Health. My Mana Exhaustion limit is 180,000, while Health Fatigue is at 110,000. I can kill 300 more like that one, no problem.’

Alandria sagged a little with relief. ‘You are very good at this, Miss Flatt.’

Olirio sent, ‘With any luck you will not reach that limit.’

Jane lifted a leg and pointed across the land, southward, sending, ‘New Brightwater is taking care of amalgams on their side, too, so I don’t think I’ll be anywhere close to that limit— Ah! That one looks different. Oh! Is that one of them? The soul bolters?’

‘… Yes,’ Olirio sent, looking pensive.

A large, bloated white thing, like the corpse of a whale that forgot it should sink, had bobbed up to the surface where Kiri’s beams burrowed into the soul ooze. Kiri broke off her attacks instantly, each Sunny vanishing from the sky as though dismissed.

Olirio sent, ‘That’s a soul amalgam. They’re… Oh. Uh.’

A second soul amalgam bobbed to the surface near the first one. It was half again larger than the first one, looking like a true balloon, but with eyes and arms scattered across its whole surface. Those eyes tracked the Sun Orbs Kiri had cast into the air and the hands spit out blobs of shadow that slowly, methodically tracked up to the rifts.

The first shadow bolt struck the first rift and corrupted that rift into something darker. Shadow poured out of the rift, breaking every single sun rift in the area before popping and filling that part of the sky with gloom. That airy shadow then spread like a cooling blanket across a kilometer-sized section of the ocean, preventing the surviving rifts in that area from further boiling away the soul ooze.

The actual sun and all the other rifts were still burning it all away, but Jane doubted that there were only two soul casters down there in the black muck.

Ah. Hmm.

Kiri would not be able to do this on her own, it seemed.

Jane tried not to be too happy about that as she sent, ‘Shame, I guess. So which one am I killing?’

And at that, something in Alandria seemed to snap, ‘One misstep and these things will kill everyone! How can you be so flippant!’

Jane had to smile at that. ‘See. There’s this thing about magic under the Script: Every magic has a built-in weakness, and the weakness of Soul Magic is the Health of the thing it’s targeting. I have over 5,000 Health and a very strong reflection. That Soul Magic isn’t going to affect me.’

Alandria blinked as though she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

Olirio, however, was right there with Jane, sending her, ‘They have no Domains. General Killzone is on the large one. You are on the small one. Attack in three. Two…’

Jane shot through the sky on 'one'.

The approach was not instantaneous. The soul amalgam had hundreds of eyes everywhere around its body. It saw Jane just long enough to get off a few slow-moving Bolts. One bit of dark soul magic bounced off of her bright blue hairs, while the other got split in half with the radiance of her sword. And then she entered the creature, cutting a slit in the side of it and ripping her way inside as even more [Dispel]s clashed with her body like ripples of shadow, but she kept her [Cleansing Aura] running on her insides, along with her [Prismatic Body]. Her reflective carapace and hairs were innate biology; this magic couldn’t do shit against her.

With a ripping, spinning, continuous slash of power, Jane ripped through the soul caster amalgam. She exited the other side and half of the creature’s mass exploded out with her, sprinkling the surface of the ocean like so much chum. Some of it evaporated away under her [Cleansing Aura], but some sank out of sight.

To her side, Killzone exited from the larger amalgam, bursting the thing like armor-piercing ammo exiting a skull, shattering the thing wide open.

Sunnys descended and erased the half-dead amalgams from existence with a coordinated attack of ten [Luminous Beam]s at once.

Jane retreated back to her waiting position, atop her platform.

Kiri reset her rifts across the battlefield and resumed drilling with [Luminous Beam]s.

Alandria whispered, “That was… Dangerous, Miss Flatt.”

Jane smiled wide, sending, ‘It might not be as impressive as a sky full of burning light, but monster forms can be a lot better in certain—’

‘Apologies for interrupting.’ Olirio sent, ‘Amalgams are surfacing everywhere. We will begin methodical eradication procedures.’

The entire Brightwater burbled with power as bodies surfaced and stitched together into macabre amalgams. Seven greater amalgams appeared right underneath Jane and her team. At a glance, Jane counted a thousand, or maybe three thousand; she had no idea how to estimate what she was seeing. That was probably her own fear response talking, for she spotted at least a hundred soul amalgams bobbing up among the rest, like bloated corpses.

But what was worse were all the monster amalgams.

Spur hadn’t seen many actual monster amalgams in the nightly sieges. But now, here they were.

Centipedes that had hunted inside Ar’Kendrithyst like freight trains slipping around crystal towers, now wormed out from the black ocean, rushing up the crystal towers exactly how they used to move in life. But now they had about a thousand extra heads, all along their bodies, all screaming at once. Dispeller amalgams, version two.

Kendrithyst mimics, the granddaddy version of crystal mimics and each thirty meters tall, at least, pulled themselves out of the muck. They had eyes now, all along the lengths of each red-purple-shadow crystal spike, and a mouth at their base that screamed, warbling the black ocean as they flowed across the surface like the water strider amalgam.

Giants, twisted to foul purpose and fouler bodies, pulled themselves out of the black ocean, dripping soul ooze the whole way, as they then climbed into the air like they were slowly stepping up invisible stairs—

HOLY SHIT. THEY COULD FLY NOW.

An ethereal blast of black light pulsed up from below, instantly spreading through the sky before fading away. Jane didn’t even have time to step into the air under Alandria and Olirio, to body block for them. She guessed it was an aura attack from the soul ooze itself, but the light passed, and Jane’s Status held steady, and neither Alandria or Olirio looked affected…

Ah.

Ah.

This was going very badly, wasn’t it. As she looked to her temporary companions, Jane giggled a bit with nervousness. They were looking around and acting like they were still alive. So maybe that wasn’t an amalgamation aura? It could have just been—

And then she froze.

She hadn’t taken her sights off the monsters crawling up from below, and now, she saw one that she did not want to see. Long skinny arms. Long skinny legs. Small hands and feet that could not truly support the body of the creature, which was a great big mouth attached to a fluffy body. A person could easily mistake the main monster for the top of a palm tree at night, if you didn’t know any better. The creatures were blacker than the ooze they had crawled from, and each had a dozen beady little black eyes to go with their amalgamated bodies.

‘Retreat has been called.’ Olirio sent, ‘Now.’

And they did. Up, up, up. All the way to the top, back to where they started this battle.

The twisted monsters followed.

Jane sent to everyone near her, and also Poi back in Spur, ‘You saw the black moon reachers! Right! They’re here! We’ve been looking for them since they first appeared and here they are!’

Alandria stared down at the encroaching horde, asking, ‘… Did we leave all the monsters behind?’

… What?

No. They were still right down there. They were still a kilometer away but—

Ah.

Jane felt a horror creep up her abdomen as she glanced down and really saw the horde. They were mostly stuck to the crystal towers, climbing manually, but a few floated or flew through the air, like they had cast [Fly]. But one in particular, barreling right at Jane, flying through the sky, right at her, was a black moon reacher with five arms and three legs.

And one of her temporary companions was acting like the monsters were gone.

Alandria stared down through her Platform at the encroaching horde with a puzzled look upon her face.

Olirio sent, ‘Holy shit. Uh. Alandria. Listen to me. Evacuate—’

At that moment, Alandria finally looked to Jane. Her eyes went wide as moons.

And then she screamed and blipped away.

Jane ignored that and sent to Olirio, ‘You should evacuate too. I can’t protect you from them.’

‘I’ll be at Forward Base, clearing minds. Kill the reachers first and don’t get touched; they can reach through magic. Find me when you need mana.’

And then Olirio blipped away, too.

Jane turned back toward the ascending horde and psyched herself up.

This was going to be dangerous fun; the absolute best kind.