205 Chapter Two Hundred and Five – Back to the Rose (1/2)
Errant fought twice more out there, earning himself some battlespoils, and facing off against one of their champions wielding a greataxe an ogre might enjoy, clad in that stupid spikey dire harness, waving that Axe about like a willow wand and crashing it into him with abandon, mad joy, and lust for combat.
He'd nearly split Errant open at one point, but then found out that Wrath pretty much went right through non-Energized armor, and his insides were reduced to ash. Errant than split the head of the big scaled dog with the anti-magic collar the bastard was riding on before it could rip Darkbolt apart, and the two of them sat there and healed together slowly as they watched the rest of the fight roll on around them.
”You need to take you some Racial or Melee Levels, Darkbolt.” He chucked the beaten and gnawed griffon's jaw, and the big fellow could only chirp in agreement. That had been one nasty Axe...
Sama was out exploring Yle Tyorm... although exploration probably wasn't the correct word for what they were doing there. A shattered temporal space a couple blocks wide was ending up a mile or more across, and just absolutely filled with dangerous stuff they didn't want streaming towards the berserkers and the North Wind... not that a whole lot of the stuff wasn't doing exactly that.
A hundred Ironblood and a few more Healers had been sent the first day. Then a company of elves and dwarves each arrived to reinforce them as nasty crap continued to flow out of the inner city.
In real distance, the trio were maybe a half mile in. The amount of slaughter they were going through was unreal.
He really wanted to be there, but he knew his place wasn't there.
Hazé blew in on a magic wind next to him, but did no spellcasting. Like the previous day, the dwarves were handling everything, and her sudden intervention would have been a fine excuse to suddenly inject some demonic fun into everything.
She had already popped a Greater Sluggor earlier that day, serving with the knightly Orders during her turn on overwatch. The Void Brothers responding to the presence of demonkind didn't have a chance before all those Shardrays reached out together and obliterated the crawling mass of pustulence from a thousand feet away.
Everybody kind of looked at her differently now, imagine that.
”Need help?” she asked, watching the dwarves pincer and rapidly hedgerow lines of armored Warped humans who were finding it hard to get to real fisticuffs, and not liking being groin-cut, hamstrung, and gut-ripped by the gnomish infighters, who were really getting a hardline reputation for their brutally efficient close-quarters work.
Feist, of course, was just death on bare feet, totally outclassing anyone but a Champion... and as that Champion found out, if the girls were helping him, outclassed him, too. Between the distraction of Veis hanging off his antlered helm, Amber's Rapier inserting itself into some sensitive areas, and Verd impaling his oversized fanged horse to force the initial dismount, Feist's clean-up work had been pretty simple.
This group had brought along a couple wyverns, which had kept him and Darkbolt occupied for a few minutes, but the advantage of ranged attacks was not so easily overcome, and Wrath-enhanced speed and maneuverability on Darkbolt's side meant absolute advantage in the air. That fight hadn't come to much, and then he'd swept down to hack into some horrifically mutated, soul-lashed abominations whose mass was almost enough to breach the dwarven lines.
Purity had popped them into great stinking masses of vivic fire, and then the Company Commander, his physics-ignoring Axe, and his improbable Armor had ridden over with the anticipation of a good fight.
”You need some healing?” she asked, holding up a hand as she hovered next to him. He sighed.
”Four forty-point hits,” he told her, shaking his head, and she whistled. ”Yeah, I'm out of Soak. But the fight's done, so no. Let's head for the wounded.” He tapped Darkbolt, whose limp was now gone, and the griffon paced quickly for the back of the dwarven lines, where figures in white were moving quickly from person to person, first saving lives, loading them on wagons or Disks, then healing them up further.
Hazé was, of course, the highest level of Healer on the field, with her Reserve capable of giving back ten Health per round, as only a healing spell in Valence V could achieve. It generally took her no more than two or three rounds per injured person to get them back to full Health and send them off to reclaim their Soak.
”You blew your Vigors that fast?” she asked, concerned.
”I could have sniped those abominations from a safe distance, I suppose, but they died much faster up close and personal, and I didn't want the dwarves sucking in the pestilence and corruption that long.”
”Generous.” But this was a battlefield, trading time for injuries. His Damage Reduction took care of a lot of minor injuries, to the extent that he could almost ignore most missile fire, but Darkbolt wasn't nearly at his level of innate defenses, as the griffon had quickly realized.
It was too true. Pets and mounts, even at the level of a griffon, simply weren't as tough as a Senior rider, especially a Deep Ten. His lack of armor meant his ability to avoid damage wasn't quite up to where he would want it yet, given that a Warped Champion could beat him down that much in personal combat, but that Champion would have dispatched Darkbolt in seconds if the griffon had been his target.
She eyed the Collar floating on his Disk, and the Champion's Axe and helm. ”Scalehound beats griffon?” she asked in interest. Darkbolt's feathers drooped slightly. ”Don't worry. Invest the Karma, get bigger and tougher, and beat it down the next time.”
Darkbolt's black crest rose in golden-eyed determination. That had truly been uncomfortable, being overpowered by the demonic scaled brute and its huge jaws. He chirped at Errant, who glanced his way.
”Melee Level. Primary Weapon, IUS/Natural Weapons. First Technique, Profound Natural Weapons. First Training Technique, Toughness. For a Melee, those are based off Melee Attack Bonus, and yours is already high as a Magical Beast. You will notice a very significant increase in the damage you deal out.
”Then take the second Melee Level, Weapon Spec in natural weapons, and Toughness Mastery/2. You'll be on your way to badassness quickly. After that, take the Advanced Template. Your crown's leader has that. It's why he's bigger and stronger than the rest of you. He's just a superior griffon.”
Darkbolt called out excitedly. He could get that powerful? This was definitely the way he wanted to go!
”Aye, kill powerful enemies, get powerful. It's the way of the world.” The griffon softly chirped agreement.
”You will be leaving for the capital today?” Hazé asked calmly.
”Aye,” he said, patting Darkbolt. ”Estemar has said he'd ride Darkbolt into battle, and help him advance. I'd like to take him into Zynozure, but I'm sure some mages would chop him up for his pinfeathers and blood, so there's no way.” Darkbolt made an irritated screech, and both of the young humans nodded back at him. ”Yeah, the Empire is not a nice place, especially the city. Even having me around probably wouldn't save you, too much greed in that place...”
”Do you know why you're being pulled back there? I don't mind 'porting there to pull people out, but staying there until the Day...”
”Heaven knows. But I'll have faith and trust that I should be there.”
She was an Archtheurge of Sylune. She could only agree.
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Teleporting back to Zynozure after finishing up helping with the healing was much easier, as he came right into the Temple of Sylune's Star Chamber, where a bevy of attractive women in white and black soon clustered around the barely-teenaged Archtheurge who'd brought him in and kindly shooed him out of the way as they got to talking about important business.
Smiling to himself, he quickly exited the lovely white building, built high enough to allow an excellent view of the Throned below, the ships traversing it, and the expanse of the waters around it; the truest heart of the Empire, the source of its lifesblood.
There was probably something really bad going to come out of that lake, whose legendary depths were said to hold the tombs of ancient kings, and the burial ships of emperors consigned to its depths. Errant sighed at the view, and headed for the Temple of Aru.
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The Order of the Ruby Heart was nominally a Templar Order attached to the Church of Aru and enjoyed its unstinting support. Finding out that the Grand Maester had been killed and suborned by a doppelganger had sparked a dangerous fire in the hearts of the priests of the God of the Sun and Light, igniting a wave of martial fire that was filtering into the clergy all over the Empire.
And then the Visions, Dreams, Messages, and Prophecies had started to quietly come in, with the kind of no-nonsense weight behind them that prodded them to start taking action. Word of the great fight up north, and of a new kingdom being founded there, a fight under the very walls of Yle Tyorm, made for a fantastic excuse to start taking action.
He wasn't involved in those movements, but he knew a great many of the acolytes and younger priests had quickly been dispatched to the north to get themselves blooded, guided by senior Priests who were quietly taking with them Relics and wealth of the faith, to preserve and to build anew.
As such, there were far fewer young men and women around, and they were quietly thinning out by the day. What were left were men and women in their later years, who'd grown into their power and their faith, and who had made the choice not to run.
The Sun was setting on the Rose of the Empire. More than once, he caught the elders of the Temple looking up and around, at this grand and brightly-lit edifice of light and hope, built by the faithful in adoration of their god and the bright future He held for them. The light from it could be seen clear to the horizon, a beacon to all coming to the Rose, even if that light faded away into the darkness eating at the roots of the city.
They would be the last witnesses to the fall of the Rose, and the Temple of the Sun's Promise, the heart of Aru in all the lands of the Empire, would fall with it.