Trouble With Horns

87: Breaking the Cycle

I was still mourning my gauntlet when we burst through a set of heavy wooden doors at the end of the passage. They'd been left unguarded and adjar. Beyond them were the sources of all the sounds of explosives, workmen shouting, and urgent orders being called.

My breath caught in my lungs when I saw what we’d just stumbled into. At first, I thought it was a cavern of some kind, because holy fuck was it massive. When I realised it wasn’t… well.

Vaguely rectangular, the enormous room also dove deep down into the ground. The architecture was unmistakably ancient aurelling, with its too-thin pillars and delicate scrollwork everywhere. We’d entered near the ‘ceiling’ of the room, where a huge ledge ran around three sides. Except, it wasn’t a ledge. It was a quay.

In the void beyond the crumbling stone railings, were six huge airships. They resembled the zeppelins of two hundred years ago, or the pleasure space-yachts of the ultra rich nowadays. Well, except for the huge Pagutum flags that hung from the bottoms, plus the massive armoured plates that had been bolted to the sides and bottom.

Something was off about them, though, and I squinted. They appeared to be almost… cobbled together. A lot of metal and shit was new, but there was a lot of old, tarnished metal underneath. Wait, were they—

“Those are aurelling airships!” Dawn gasped, coming to the same realisation that I had. “They… they retrofitted ancient airships!”

Suddenly, the rest of the room came into stark focus. Like I was really grasping what was happening. History was layered on top of history on top of the present. At the base, aurelling stonework, old and proud, was pitted and worn. Then, sturdy, but much more utilitarian Imperial Parcosian stonework had replaced that which had degraded by the time they got here. Finally, over it all, the Pags had constructed wooden prefabs and scaffolding to continue where the old humans had left off.

Oh, and the explosions? They were trying desperately to clear the huge rockfall at the place that had once been the entrance. I could see evidence of careful and methodical excavation closer to us, but further down the exit causeway, smoke and char dirtied the walls.

People scurried around everywhere, all of them with some sort of Pagutum livery. Workers hurried to load up the airships with everything they could, officers shouted orders, scholars carried wobbling stacks of parchment, and soldiers stood with wary eyes scanning the whole thing.

Soldiers whose attention very quickly turned to the three Blessed adventurers who had just barged through the door.

I didn’t wait for them to react. My remaining gauntleted fist surged forward, smashing into the nearest soldier. The rocket engines were silent, though. I wasn’t stupid enough to start them up and break that one too.

The man screamed almost comically as he was thrown over the edge of the railing and down onto the rough stone far below.

With my free hand, I sucked all the energy from the opposite part of the equal and opposite equation and pushed it into my pool of weird lightning energy. The next guy, I grabbed his face in my fist and yanked it down, smashing his skull on my knee. A spear tip barely missed my helmeted head, reflecting light from the many mage lights that hung in the cavernous space.

Ducking under the attack, I lunged forward and tackled the guy, then spread my wings and launched into the air. I spun there, rolling the Pag soldier down my arm like a ballet dancer until I could get some leverage on him. With a final surge of effort, I threw him down towards a squad of enemies that were beginning to organise.

Like a stone slung from a trebuchet, he crashed down against the floor. Unlike a stone, he detonated in a violent thunderclap. Dark blue and violet energy tore his comrades apart.

“Dawn, what do we do?!” I called, turning in midair to see her facing the other way, flameblade carving an enemy mage officer merson in two.

“They’re trying to get the airships out!” she yelled, dropping low and spinning to cut the legs out from some elite looking dude with faintly glowing gear. He blocked her strike with a hasty swing of his sword, then threw a hand out and splashed nasty red magic in her face.

She growled loud enough for me to hear and kicked him in the shin, then slammed her forehead into his nose. Staggering, he wasn’t able to block the thrust that drove her burning blade through his throat. Ouch. Maybe she was picking up a few things from me.

“Try to stop them from opening the collapsed tunnel!” she continued, pointing out towards the distant end to the docks.

I gave her a salute and turned towards the exit to the airship dock. At some point long ago, the ground above had collapsed down to cover it, but slowly, the Pags had reduced the pile. I could see the watermark on the side of the walls where the debris had once reached.

Work crews floated around on these strange hovering contraptions. They looked like chunky flying baking trays, if I was honest. On top of them, mages cast explosive spells using magic amplifying cannons like the one on the Artifisuki War Village. The one I’d launched myself out of, except this one was suitably arcane and imperial looking.

This time, I did engage my remaining rocket engine, but only to use it to build up the momentum I needed to really kick one of those platforms in the teeth. Lightning flickered around me, snapping out to touch the stone of the walkway below me, or the thick ropes tying the nearest airship to the dock.

The amount of momentum I stored in that tiny second made my stomach go ice cold. I could see the number in my HUD, ascending so fast I couldn’t catch any single digit in the blur of movement. Oh dear.

Making absolutely sure that both my kinetic absorption shield and my impact energy converting abilities were active, I turned my attention towards one of the platforms and—

Carnage. Carnage everywhere. My vision swam with pinpricks that danced and cavorted across a sea of kaleidoscopic colour.

Shaking my head to clear my thoughts and vision, I tried to get my bearings. I was on… ah, the rubble that blocked the big exit. Pieces of magic floating platforms littered the slope around me. They burned with an acrid, arcane flame that would have probably given me cancer if it'd existed in the game.

Groaning, I pushed my way to my feet. I'd landed on a huge slab of stone that might have once been a support pillar, and it served as a good vantage point to see what was happening.

Dawn's sword was visible back at the docks, swinging and twirling as she fought a growing swarm of pag soldiers. Healing light occasionally washed over her, indicating that Kimmy was still alive, although I couldn't see her. Since they were okay for the immediate future, I turned my attention inwards.

My health was not looking great. A bunch of my feathers had been ripped out, and I was bleeding from a dozen different small wounds. Several ribs were cracked, and one of the bones in my forearm had a slight greenstick fracture. Thankfully it was the one inside the gauntlet, so it was already splinted. Sorta.

What had even happened, though? A quick check of my combat log was extremely insightful. I'd instantly crossed the g-force threshold that my lightning elemental body could handle. Instant blackout.

Amazingly, my various protection abilities had kept me alive on impact. Sure, the shield had instantly shattered, and my energy absorbing passive had capped out and failed, but they'd done pretty good overall. Plus, my storm energy bar was completely full. In fact, it was overflowing, the excess of which was shorting out into the ground.

Using my good hand, I reached into my inventory and pulled out a health potion. Bracing myself for the awful burn of the alcohol, I tipped it back and winced at the taste. Give me a fruity, girly drink any day.

While my wounds closed, my bones knit back together, and my feathers regrew, I glanced around at the rest of the docks. The ships were still being loaded, and it was clear they weren't taking anything as mundane as steel or food. I mean, shit, half the crates they were rushing to secure were glowing.

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Well, if I wanted to know what was going on with the lights, I'd better get back to my team. With a burst of renewed energy, I leapt up into the air and flapped wings.

Dusty cavern air carried me back across the vast gap to the docks, where I came in to land on top of a pag mage. The man squeaked in terror and surprise, but the noise was quickly snuffed out when I reached down and punched my hand into his throat with a dirty, vicious jab.

Dawn threw me a grin when I looked up, and Kimmy behind her looked happy to see me too.

So when it felt like my lungs turned to icy muck and sluiced down into my gut, I was more than a little confused. The air began to feel thick with energy, and the smell of ozone became overpowering.

Both Dawn and Kimmy were looking past me at something. The former with resolve and a guarded confidence, while the latter… she looked terrified. Her eyes were rounded with fear and surprise, and her normally pasty complexion had turned to bleached wax.

Slowly, I turned to look back at the enemy.

In front of their lines, the air was shuddering and twisting into a red-tinted circular mass of arcane energy about seven feet tall. Within that energy, a woman was stepping forward.

She was on the older side, at least in appearance, but still in good shape. Her silver hair still bore a few strands of blonde, and her brow bore severe lines gained from a lifetime of scowling. Her clothes were weird, like a mix between a suit, an old ballroom dress, and armour. The fabric of the outfit was all black, except for the stitching, which glowed a dark, angry red.

All the pags dropped to their knees like someone had taken an axe to their knees, and as one, they chanted, "Glory to the Empire. Glory to the Mage Precentor."

My HUD blinked with an unobtrusive tooltip when they finished, and I glanced at it.

Mage Domicentor ???
Player: Lvl 92
Faction: Pagutum Empire
Guild: Sacred Fire

Oh shit. This wasn't an NPC. Moreover, she was level ninety freaking two. I'd heard of that guild somewhere too… where on earth had I—

"K— Civette?" the woman asked, her tone one of confusion and… care? "What are you doing here?"

Wait… why did I recognize her voice? Where had I heard it?

Kimmy was almost choking on her fear, but the words she spoke in reply were filled with strength and resolve. "The right thing. For me, and my friends."

On the Pag player's face, a series of emotions slowly cascaded. Bemusement turned to realisation. Realisation turned to betrayal. Betrayal became sadness. Sadness, then ignited into rage, and she seemed to finally focus on Dawn and me.

"I see," she said, her tone deceptively calm. "I'd wondered… but it makes sense now. These filthy sodomites have tainted you. I should have known you'd fail your father and I again. It was inevitable. We should have raised you back in the republic. Then your morality would have been ironclad."

Oh. Oh fuck. That's where I'd heard that voice before. In the call I'd overheard between Kimmy and her mother, all those weeks ago behind the inn. This was her mum. What the fuck?

"Mom…" Kimberly cried softly. "Mom, please. Why—"

"Quiet!" the evil hag snapped, dispelling the portal with a wave of her hand. "You've already wasted my time by forcing me to intervene to protect my plans. Now I find out that my daughter has betrayed her own flesh and blood in favor of these… these… queers."

"Wow, you're awful," I commented, surreptitiously gathering my storm energy in case I needed it in a hurry.

Beside me, Dawn snorted, "Understatement of the century. Kimmy, don't listen to a word she says. You don't owe shit to the people that dragged you into life, least of all the bonds of family."

Kimmy's delicate hands came down to rest on our shoulders, and to my surprise, I saw she was smiling a little through her tears. "I know, girls. She's probably going to kill us now, though."

"We'll respawn," I shrugged.

Dawn snickered, and her eyes glazed over like she was looking at her HUD. A group message popped up in my notifications shortly after.

Dawn: Tami, me and Kimmy will distract her. You use your powers of destruction to take out as many of those ships as possible before we all go down.

Tami: Understood.

I needed to be fast with my abilities, so I began to build up power without moving. Keeping the little sparks of lightning inside my body was much harder, though. Especially since my storm energy gauge was already full.

The Mage Domicentor had listened to our little exchange and with a sneer, she said, “Your generation is so weak. We’ll make sure to correct that when we regain our power. It will be—”

“God, you sound like such a prick,” Dawn asked, laughing despite the serious moment. “Like, come on. You sound ridiculous. Why does everyone evil we run into say shit like that? It’s just weird. Is there a club?”

I didn’t hear the woman’s reply to my girlfriend’s insult, because I threw myself sideways at the nearest airship. My shoulder crashed into an armoured plate at terrifying speeds, while I fed all the power I’d accumulated into creating a titanic lightning bolt.

Steel, canvas, wood, and more were all disintegrated. Every now and then, too much energy would accumulate in a single object and it would detonate, flinging high speed material in all directions. Something began to scream, but it wasn’t the sound of a living being. It was like… the sound of a windmill ripping itself apart in a hurricane had a child with the noise a screaming toddler makes when their ears won’t pop on a flight.

Whatever the infernal screaming was, it exploded with such violence that I was ejected back the way I’d come at dizzying speed. My back turned the wooden railing on the quay into kindling, and then the world was a blur before I finally came to rest against a pillar.

Blood pooled around me, and I coughed, trying to take stock of my situation. “F-fuck.”

“Tami!”

Kimmy’s voice helped me lift my head to look up at her, where she still stood behind Dawn as they faced her mother. Fire from the burning, falling airship had whipped the air into a frenzy, throwing her blonde hair around. Soot and mist from my storm swirled, adding drama to her movements. Lifting her staff like a pretty, pious version of Gandalf himself, she chanted a spell that would probably be a pretty big heal. She never finished, though.

Arcane energy lashed out from the Pag woman. It threw her daughter onto her back, then up into the air, then down again. Another spell came in from above before she even came to a rest, and I quickly closed my eyes. The splat of my friend being turned to mush would probably haunt my dreams until I had a good sit down with my little sister. Something about the brutality of the attack and the fact that it was the bitch’s daughter that she’d just casually killed… it made my whole brain squirm with discomfort.

Dawn’s cry of pain had my eyelids snap open again. Vines of energy wrapped around her, their thorns tearing into her flesh. I tried to move, to do something, but even if the pain was dampened, most of my useful bones were still broken.

With a roar, my girlfriend ignited her sunblade again where the hilt was trapped against her stomach. It burned up and into her other bicep, but she ignored the wound and whipped the blade around, severing the vines that grasped her.

Panting, she grinned at the older woman, “Oh, I can’t wait until I catch up to your level. You might have raw power, but you’re fucking trash in the skill department.”

“Shut up,” the evil woman screeched, throwing a volatile spear of signature Pagutum red energy at Dawn.

Reacting so fast it could only be training and a brain conditioned for gaming, Dawn flicked her blade up and deflected the spell with her sword. If I could have captured her wild, feral laugh of triumph in a bottle for later, I would have. She was beautiful, resilient, and defiant in the face of an abusive, nasty woman with way too much power.

Sadly, the power disparity was way too much, and with a curling of an unnaturally white hand, the mage picked Dawn up with telekinesis and threw her sideways into the wall. At least she came to a stop next to me. That was nice.

Giving us a final glare, the Mage Domicentor remarked, “By the time you catch up to me, I’ll be done with this awful game. One ship is wrecked, but we still have what we need to finish our work here. You haven’t changed anything with your ridiculous heroics.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at the silly twirl she did to very purposefully turn her back on us. It only came out as a gurgling cough, though. A popup filled my screen, and I focused on it.

You are mortally wounded. Would you like to respawn?

No.

As much as I wanted me and my armour to get put back together by the game, I needed to stay and see what was going on. Hopefully May was giving Kimmy her full attention, because… well, there would be a lot of work to do there.

“When I… when I told you to break that ship,” Dawn wheezed from beside me. “I didn’t expect it to go up like that.”

Pain lashed up my spine when I laughed. “Oh god, that hurts. But yeah, that was pretty spectacular. You— Ouch— you can save all the footage from this fight if you want. I’m sure our agent will love it.”

“Good idea,” she smiled, blood dripping from her nose. “Oh, look. You damaged the airship next to the one you hit too.”

Oh, huh. She was right. Most of the armour, weapon’s emplacements, and canvas covering had been ripped off, exposing the innards of the huge vehicle. Inside, I could see these crazy arcane constructs, with crystals and big bags of gas, plus some sort of organic plant growth caging the whole thing. I guess I damaged the ones inside the ship I hit, and they were explosive? That was good to know.

One of the undamaged airships began to move while we watched, slipping out from the pack to gracefully take position before the rubble that blocked its path. One of the big magic amplifying guns on the bottom of the ship traversed slowly up to point at the stone pile, and then, in a blinding flash of crimson, the pile exploded. The way was clear for the pags to take their ships and run away.

“Time to respawn, I guess?” I sighed, bringing the option back up.

Dawn nodded as best she could. “See you soon.”

****

Kimmy, Dawn, and I all stood in the tranquil gardens of the Duke’s castle, staring out into the darkening sea. The pag airships were long gone, headed for their empire, probably so that they could take all their half finished research and reverse engineer the behemoths for use in their many wars.

Just twenty minutes earlier, we’d finished explaining what we’d found out to the duchess and her husband. When they were satisfied, they had retired to a private discussion room with the Joret spy dude to talk shop. Wait, no. There’d been the small part in between when the Duke had practically forced us to take as much gold as we could carry, because the man was obsessed with rewarding adventurers. Maybe I could use the money to replace my lost love…

No, Dawn was still here. But when I’d respawned, I found something missing. My other, still intact punchy had been left behind at my body. It was heartbreaking, and honestly, I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to properly move on.

Ah, and speaking of heartbreaking…

“You okay, Kimmy?” I asked her, looking down at where she stood between Dawn and me. By unspoken agreement, we were making sure the girl knew she had people who were there for her.

She let out a little shuddering sigh, and nodded. “Yeah. May pulled me out just after the first spell hit me. I didn’t feel much. As for… you know, my mother… I guess I already knew she was like that. It’s not really a surprise.”

Nodding in sympathy and understanding, Dawn reached out and placed an arm over Kimmy’s shoulders. “Mood. We’ll get her though. I’ll let you get the killing blow.”

Kimberly laughed. “Thanks, Dawn.”

Chatting in the garden for an hour or two turned out to be the perfect calming remedy for the violence of the day. It was also just… really nice to have Kimmy there with Dawn and me. It reminded me of how things used to be, back when we were kids. Except I was a girl, Dawn and I were dating, and we’d replaced Kristina with Kimmy.

Just as the sun was dipping behind the mountains behind us, the Duke, Duchess, and Diavo, the Joret guy all came out to speak to us.

“Blessed Adventurers!” the Duke called, his big smile matching his outstretched arms. “We cannot thank you enough for what you’ve done!”

“Not for a lack of trying, on your part,” the Duchess said, rolling her eyes affectionately. “As much as he’d like to, though, we can’t go throwing much more of a reward at you without upsetting the other nobles.”

Stopping a few metres away, the Duke chuckled and threw a wink at us while he replied to his wife, “Ah, but you’re wrong, my dearest love. To brave adventurers like these, the next quest is just as much of a reward as the gold!”

“Uh, next quest?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. More work? Oh joy.

Diavo stepped forward and cleared his throat, “Yes. Well, given that you were just able to destroy one of those flying ships, the… ah, the airships, my superiors and the Duke here were all wondering…”

“I’m sending you to the front!” the Duke interrupted gleefully. “Joret has promised to help us secure our western flank if we send you and your friends to help them with their war! I must admit to some envy. Can you imagine? The glory to be had! The raging battles, the giant walking war-cities of the Artifisuki, the clash of steel! Ah, it takes me back to a the good ol’times before I inherited my father’s Duchy, just fighting, drinking and carousing across the westlands.”

“Please, calm down, my love,” the Duchess groaned with a tone that spoke of years of loving patience.

I almost laughed at the idea that the Duke could hack it in the types of battles we found ourselves in, but then, because it had been actually useful the last time, I ran an inspect on him.

The Glorious Duke of Jingan, Seddon Bliathera VIII.
NPC: Lvl 100
Faction: Jingan

My eyebrows flew up into the sky. Oh dayum, this dude was a beast. Okay. Nevermind then. No wonder he hadn’t been taken out by some murder hobo player, I guess. They probably couldn’t just throw the Duke out into battle though. That would make things weird. Ah, and there were probably Pag NPCs as overpowered as him too.

“What do you say, girls?” he asked, smiling at the three of us expectantly.

Glancing at the other two, I saw Kimmy nod up at me, while Dawn just shrugged. “Could be fun.”

“Alright,” I said, turning my gaze back to Diavo. “I guess we’re going to take some time off from this whole nobility thing to kick some Pagutum ass in the snow!”

End of Book 2

More to come in !