Chapter 42

“At the very edge of reason where all others see only madness is where true genius lies. To look upon the world as it is and accept it is the most abominable kind of weakness. The universe is what we make of it. To accept limitations is to shackle ourselves. To break the bonds of law and reality is our birthright.”

—The Necessity, Valtoris Blackstar

Kaya was kind enough to remove the metal blade from her hand before slapping Sylvas across the face. He jerked up to sitting in an instant, gasping for air. His insides felt as though they’d been set alight, every beat of his heart felt like it was going to be his last. The hurt went down deeper than his bones. “How long was I out?”

“About a minute.” Kaya took hold of his chin, turning his face side to side. “Eyes are bloody.”

He reached up to touch them, but she slapped his hand away. Her bedside manner was even worse than the medic on Strife. “The blood vessels are burst, you fhet.”

“Fhet?” He asked, still more than a little bewildered.

She grabbed at her chest and shook what she found there at his face by way of explanation, and Sylvas blushed despite himself.

She pulled him in closer and growled in his ear. “You pull anything like that again and I’ll kick your kulgh out into space myself, you hear me?”

“Message received.” He replied as she dropped him back onto the metal grated floor. The next chamber was entirely empty now. Not even a hint of the arcane monstrosity that had been there before remained except for the scars, but Sylvas could still feel it in the back of his mind, like a weight. It wasn’t gone. Not really. It had just been moved out of their way for now.

With Ironeyes on one side, and Gharia on the other, he pulled himself back to his feet. Neither one of his feet seemed to be listening to him, and it was only then that he realized he still hadn’t reintegrated the two halves of his brain. Pressing his eyes shut for a moment as the dizziness passed, he made himself whole again and got to experience all of the suffering that he’d been through in stereo as the two memories he’d made intermingled to form a new whole. Needless to say, he didn’t plan on doing that again any time soon.

People had been speaking to him while he pulled himself back together, but he’d missed it. “What?”

Gharia frowned. “I said, we need to get moving. Whoever cast that spell will have felt when it died.”

“Agreed.” Sylvas body was still weak from his exertions, but now he was back in control, he drew all his orbitals back to him and set off through the wide-open doorway.

The layout of the next pylon chamber was no different from the last, but with the improved mapping that they’d done, they now at least knew that they were heading down the stairs rather than up. Usually at the head of the formation, Sylvas fell back to walk alongside Bael as he cycled mana back into his system. It was returning at a slow trickle for now, but hopefully enough would have refilled his core that he wouldn’t be entirely useless for the remainder of the exercise. They trudged on in silence for a while before Bael couldn’t help himself. “That was very good you know, lateral thinking.”

“Thanks,” Sylvas managed a smile. “I nearly died.”

The elf gave him a half-hearted pat on the shoulder. “Well we shall hardly call it a failure just because you nearly died, the vast majority of your plans end in you actually dying, so I’d venture to say that this particular solution was one of your better ones.”

“One of these days, I’m going to work out how much of what you’re saying is an insult and how much is a compliment.”

“Oh I very much doubt that.” Bael quipped back with a little smile.

The inner decks of the Mournhold definitely looked better off than the outer rings. The wear and tear of combat through dozens of these exercises had left the most immediately contested territory a little bruised and battered, while there was only the occasion hole burned through a wall inside. There were even hints of décor among the exposed metalwork of the walls in this place. Tattered remains of banners hung from bent flagpoles, all too clotted with filth to be even slightly readable, but present all the same, ruffling as the life support systems strained to circulate breathable air around.

Sylvas had fully expected to encounter swarms of skeletons the moment that they stepped inside, and when he reached out with his gravity sense, he was detecting hints of bone all around them, both above and below, but the level that they were actually exploring seemed to be curiously devoid of anyone or anything.

“I don’t trust it.” Ironeyes and the others were moving in a closer formation than before, none of them willing to admit that the ambushes were getting to them.

“It’s entirely possible that just as we were not made aware of the objectives of the other teams, so too might our adversaries be unaware of our secondary target. This area may be considered irrelevant.” Bael was trying to convince himself as much as the rest of them.

“Or there’s some murder magic hidden around the corner they didn’t want to get too close to.” Kaya added with a grim grin.

They made their way along with even more painstaking care than before. While in the outer rings they had to contend with alcoves, here there were endless chambers arrayed just off the corridor they were traversing. They all had scrying spells working overtime, and Sylvas was straining his senses for any hint of trouble ahead, to no avail. Some of the doors lay open, rusted in place, or the mechanisms that had once made them slip aside so easily jammed up by the passage of time, but for the most part they were closed and each room could have contained any number of terrible things that they were now leaving at their backs to come springing out and ambush them later. There was no reason that they couldn’t have slowed to even more of a crawl, trying every single door and exploring, but thus far there didn’t seem to be any indication that their presence in this section had been detected, and wrestling every door open along the way would not only greatly increase their chances of being caught, it would also slow them to the degree that they were unlikely to arrive at the World Soul Core at a similar time to the others tasked with assaulting it.

Even as distant as they were from the other teams in this section, there were still signs of them. Vibrations rocked through the Citadel as one spell or another was cast. The whole construction was one great big sealed system, and sounds echoed through it despite the distances involved. Whispers of aion words echoing out to their ears, hints of odd scented smoke drifting through the life support systems and the tremors of the immense powers of magic being held carefully in abeyance so that they didn’t all die at their own hands.

The curvature of the station, and the curvature of the passage ahead, meant that they never had a clear view of what was to come, but as they approached the Soulstone nexus, the magic thrumming through it became visible long before the chamber that housed it. They picked up their pace in spite of themselves. Finally there was something tangible that they could face.

Yet as they came up to the door, they slowed. There were signs of habitation here. Some shattered remains of skeletal constructs blasted to pieces in the corridor. Spell-scarring on and around the door itself. Someone had already fought here. One of the other teams must have punched through somewhere.

With a finger pressed to his lips to silence the inevitable chatter amongst his team, Sylvas crept closer, letting his orbitals drift out to surround him again and readying his staff for combat. Liquid metal flowed over Kaya, readying her for the fight, and sparks were already crackling between Ironeyes fingers. Only Gharia and Bael looked unprepared. 

With one of his orbitals, Sylvas hit the switch to open the door.

Inside there was light and color, so much that for a moment it dazzled them. An array of screens and slates all tied together into the magical systems of the citadel, showing the varied floes of mana being called to the worldsoul fragment and where they were being diverted, showing interior and exterior views of the citadel from emplaced scrying apparatus all over the place.

Bael’s eyes lit up at the sight of it, and he started to step forward before another of Sylvas orbitals swept into his chest and held him back from advancing. It was still too quiet. There had been some fierce fighting for this point, and Sylvas doubted it would have been abandoned without some defenders.

“Run.” Came a dry whisper from inside the chamber. “It isn’t worth it, just run.”

A pair of the vicious mantis blades swung down from above the doorway, sweeping through where Bael would have been standing, making no contact and continuing their arc around to slam into the ceiling above, before the skeletal ambusher hauled itself through, crawling along the roof.

Ironeyes blasted it before it got a chance to swing at them again, but by then the rest of the ambush was already in motion. 

More skeletons came tumbling out of the rooms to either side of the nexus chamber, similar to the simple constructs they’d fought back at the shuttle bay, but different, more defined somehow, as though the soft edges of them had been carved off, leaving only lethal jagged edges of bone. They had no more tactical brilliance than their predecessors, charging straight at Sylvas and the others, but what they lacked in thought, they made up for in speed.

Kaya cut the first down, but the next was already almost upon her, leaping with its arms outstretched, not towards her, but to the sides. Its rib cage rippled open into something like a bear trap.

The butt of Sylvas staff caught it in the pelvis, launching it back along its course, but by then the next was coming, and the next. Gharia had fallen into place on the other flank, unleashing a torrent of explosive orbs that seemed to be holding back the tide, but as Sylvas spared her a glance, the veritable wall that she’d created was being rounded. The skeletons leapt to scamper on all fours along the walls, the ceiling, anywhere that the destructive bubbles weren’t.

Bael fired off shot after shot of his own magic, direct damage like he never seemed to cast. Thin razors of compressed energy that struck with precision, shattering spell and bone alike. Picking off the forerunners or dropping those above into the bombardment.

From within the chamber came a cry of pain, the whisperer, a familiar voice. “No. I won’t. You can’t make me.”

Sylvas knew that voice, he’d heard it before, it was Abbas, the water affinity fiend in the naval track. One of the other teams from the Blackhall. All that was left of one of the other teams from the Blackhall. A sickening crunch followed, then another sob. “I won’t.”

Trusting to his team to hold the line, Sylvas charged in. There was a plethora of gore spread across the chamber. The colored lights of the nexus shining like candy through the layer of blood spread across it. Abbas was there beside the seat, but he wasn’t alone. One of the odd angular skeletons had him. He was trapped inside of its ribcage, his arms and legs outstretched and shackled by bands of bone that it had formed from its own wrists and ankles. The sounds had been the contractions of the rib cage, cracking his bones, puncturing him. Abbas’ words came out pleading, even as his eyes glowed blue and liquid mana gathered in his palms. “It’s making me.”

Clever and cruel in equal measure, capturing enemy mages and using them instead of killing them. It could expand Malachai’s repertoire immensely.

The mana gathered around Abbas was already twisting into spell-forms as the bone-shackles guided his hands. A tidal wave about to be unleashed on them, knocking the whole team to the floor, making them all easy pickings for the rest of the puppeteer skeletons. Sylvas couldn’t let it happen.

So close to the fragile machinery, there was too much danger in his spells. He shifted the weight inside him, stepped closer and delivered a lethal blow to the fiend’s head, collapsing its skull with the butt of his staff and having to snatch it back as the crest enveloped the dead fiend. The skeleton that had ensnared him was trapped now, its ribs hooked inside of the fiend’s body, its own limbs still locked to the dead man’s. Sylvas delivered another crushing blow to its skull, then called out. “Everyone in!”

They came staggering back through the doorway in exactly the order they shouldn’t have. First Kaya, then Gharia, Ironeyes and Bael last. Kaya should have been the last one in, holding them off at close range, Gharia should have been the second, laying down covering fire and Bael the first, as the least directly dangerous. Instead he leapt through the doorway, tumbling to a heap by Kaya’s feet, tangling her up and leaving Gharia to try and hold back the whole corridor’s worth of undead alone.

Sylvas flung his staff at the door, seizing hold of the gravity hooks on either end to pin it in place across the opening at waist height. It wasn’t much, but it slowed the relentless charge of the undead, made them crawl or climb to make their way in, and that was enough to buy him time to cast.

Inversion ripped them from the ground and sent them all tumbling up into the corridor’s ceiling. Releasing it just a moment later sent them crashing down again. Once more, he was buying them time. No spell in the repertoire of gravity affinity was enough to do direct damage to all of them, but he didn’t need to be the one dealing the most damage. He just had to keep holding them back. Kaya had found her feet again, and she was hacking away at the skeletons that made it in. Bael had scrambled back to his feet and headed straight for the Nexus. There was no telling if this tide could even be turned, so it made sense for him to get what they came for.

“The system is locked up tighter than young Sigil’s virtue.” He called back over his shoulder.

Kaya let out a barking laugh in between swings of her bladed arms.

Whether he heard her or not, Bael gave no sign, focusing instead on the slates before him. “It shall take me a few moments to break through the counterspells and protections, both native and introduced by our dear friends from the Whitehall.”

“Do it.” Sylvas called, casting Inversion once more, his wrist crackling with the strain as he turned his hand and flipped gravity once more. This time he held it long enough for the skeletons now standing on the ceiling to get their footing before dropping them back down onto their heads. It didn’t kill them, but once more, it bought them time.

Ironeyes cast relentlessly throughout, each spell shaking the room like thunder, each peal of thunder the death knell for another attacker.

Sylvas’ mana reserves hadn’t fully recovered yet, not even partially recovered really, considering the density of mana that he usually had at his disposal, so he was trying to be as sparing as he could with his magic. The process of division that had allowed him to draw mana and cast at the same time had been entirely too dangerous as it was, the whole thing would need refinement.

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t capable of making all the difference.

Again and again, he turned the gravity of the hallway upside down, smashing skeletons up and down, over and over. Their numbers thinned. It seemed that the endless tide of them was less endless than expected. He was able to call back his staff, use his orbitals to bombard the enemy with a fractured facet of his mind piloting each. Gathering what was left of his power, he cast a focused Gravity Spike.

Three things happened at once. Least importantly in that moment, the massive spike of gravity dragged on every part of the station, giving Sylvas a full and clear view of their surroundings for what felt like the first time. The next was that every single skeletal construct that had been pouring out to ambush them was hauled in together to a single central point just outside the door. Skeletons were not solid, with these ones in particular being oddly fluid and flexible, they were all too easy to entangle, but that hadn’t been the point of the exercise. The point was to get them all in range of the third thing that happened in that moment. Ironeyes unleashing his lightning bolt.

It struck into the mass of bones and magic with a blinding flash and a thunderous roar that sent Sylvas and the others staggering back. Then at last in the wake of that awful cacophony, there was silence once more.

At least until Kaya grunted. “Is that it?”

The others deflated a bit at that. Ironeyes scoffed, “Yeah, that’s it.”

“I was just getting going.” She grumbled.

Sylvas chose to simply ignore her and turn his attention to Bael. “How is it looking?”

“Both promising and… not.” He sighed.

“Give us the bad news first.” Sylvas didn’t even pretend to be surprised.

“I cannot seize control of the station, nor the majority of the network, as it has been altered to operate solely on death mana, with which I cannot interact for any length of time without harming myself.” Bael’s fingertips already looked a little wrinkled just from touching the controls. “However, I believe that I can blind all of the scrying apparatus tied to this particular nexus, which should carry us as far as our next objective without the risk of encountering resistance or reinforcements.”

“Do it.” Sylvas didn’t even have to think about it.

The man turned back to the console, muttering under his breath. “Oh mighty Baeldrothan, wisest of all elves, won’t you master this entirely alien system, toy with the forces of death and destruction and grant us invisibility from the prying eyes of our enemies.”

“Please.” Sylvas added with a smirk.

He turned back to the dwarves and najash. “We should have a clear run at the secondary objective if Bael manages to…”

“There is no question that I will manage it, thank you very much.” The elf called back over his shoulder.

Sylvas corrected himself. “We will have a clear run at the intelligence retrieval when Bael breaks into the system here.”

“Then what?” Ironeyes scratched at his beard, static discharging between the braids.

“Then we will have to work out our next move.” Sylvas smiled.

“Aye, you’ve got no ideas at all, right?” He chuckled.

Kaya always had a plan to suggest. “Then we go kick the necro in the teeth and go home in time for dinner.”

“Something along those lines, yes.” Sylvas chuckled.

Bael stepped back from the nexus console with a hiss of pain. “Alright my stalwart companions, I believe that I have bought us a solid fifteen minutes of looped reporting from the scrying apparatus, we should move with all haste.”

“And the way is clear?” Kaya eyed him suspiciously.

Sylvas had fully expected there to be some sort of sarcasm, but Bael restrained himself. “So far as those selfsame devices indicate… it would appear so.”

Gharia clapped him on the back. “Let’s go then.”