Chapter 347 - Far Future, Ch 57 – Dark Night and Guards (1/2)

Yeah, he was still alive, but his Soak and whatever unholy blessings he had were gone, and vivic fire was burning on him. He kind of looked at me in a crazed daze as I came in, buried Chalice right between his eyes, and as he stared at me, I Flared her.

His psychic scream was pretty loud, and his head went off like a grenade in my face, sending me back the way I'd come grumbling about force waves and Thunder and whatnot. The screaming continued as his spirit tried to get away, and vivic fire wasn't having none of that. True Death came up and bit him as he pscreamed, and he was reduced to food for the Land and the strengthening of the local Veil, thank you, kiss-kiss, pat-pat from the Land.

The movement upstairs where his soul-shackled minion neighbors were clambering down to try to get to me stopped abruptly, and there were multiple thumps as bodies hit the floor, puppets whose puppetmaster had abruptly passed on.

Hmm, lot of weapons here. I was going to have to ask the Juris if I could confiscate them for the Habberblok armory. They'd gotten the qualifications to upgrade with the establish of the G&G safety zone raising the public safety level to an acceptable level, and the constant violence at the fringes of the territory...

Although that was falling as the girls established their own territories, took over bloks, and began to gridwork all around. Less fringe conflicts, and more conflicts inside those territories, being carried out with great enthusiasm. It could be said that as a whole, Janus Prime was a more violent place right now than it had ever been... and then those violent places were better than they had ever been.

Strange how that worked...

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Transit cop Juris One and Two were actually the first Juris to get here, as they were the closest and raced right over. They scowled outside the gate entrance that was not allowing them in as I walked up.

”What did you do?” Mouthy Juris immediately yelled out, seeing dead Citizens lying around, craters, and burning homes; one completely trashed, and burning with unnatural fires.

”Killed a Warp Sorcerer named Kyler Merschoen, the subject of the Class 4 Warrant, Juris,” I replied in a neutral tone. ”And be happy you can't get the doors open, because the deterrence guns are active and would've turned you into blood spray.” He had the presence of mind to glance at the flower beds and step back from the gates. ”Let me see if I can unlock them. Do me a favor and tell any wagons that come in that the defenses are active, but the living threat is not.”

I wandered towards the stairway the cyborgs had come out of, left conveniently open and doubtlessly having the controls to local security that had been suborned. And guess who was a Hacker and had ten Ranks in Computer Programming? Yes, what a good Sama she was!

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”True Sight attuned to the thaumaspectrum. I could see the brain-spikes,” I told Philius as he and his team poked through what was left of the main mansion. The Juris were investigating the other homes, and also finding some deeply disturbing stuff.

He, Sir Dorval, and I were looking at a Summoning Circle wrought in human blood, probably virgin girls', and thrumming with power, ready to go off. There were miscellaneous human and inhuman body parts scattered around, a lot of blood staining everything, and the rotting perfume and tang of Warp energies held in check.

”That is ready to erupt at the slightest contact,” Sir Dorval judged warily, looking at the shimmering circle.

”On the contrary, it would have erupted already if I hadn't Interdicted the area.” Chalice hummed out golden, limned in vivic fire. ”Right now the Veil is too hard, and it can't be forced. We'll just make that a permanent thing, howabouts.” I touched the golden force blade and its unwhite hungry flame to the floor, and the corrupted blood wooshed up into activity like tinder.

We all watched the vivus run across the floor towards the circle, spreading out in a fan in every direction. It hit the multi-hued lights writhing in the symbols and lines of the summoning circle, and poof! Vivic fires leapt up around them busily, devouring the energy hungrily as a new, clean scent seemed to waft through the air.

”I've seen that energy at work among your other Null Psions,” Philius noted carefully. ”Is this something that can be replicated? What is it?”

”First question: Yes, but you don't want to do so yet. Vivic fire is only allowed on weapons belonging to Nulls. If the Warp Powers become aware it exists here, they'll wipe the planet to get rid of the threat. So, it can't be issued to the Coronals or Umbrans, despite how fantastically useful it is. Unless you can spread it across the galaxy in no time, and inform psion artificers en masse at the same time, you can't let it out.

”Second Question: It's the unnatural energy of reality. It reverts hostile or unnatural energies that do not belong to reality back to baseline. This tends to include negative energy in all forms, especially those associated with death. Materials so purified generally revert to dust charged with positive energy, really good for growing things, so it gets rid of dead bodies. It won't affect magically or psionically bound items, such as Warp artefacts or necropsionic items, but Wards, sorcery, psi-shields, extant effects... it will slowly eat them away and reduce them to background energy.

”Oh, and they strengthen the Veil in the area they burn for a considerable amount of time. Can't Summon or dimension-bend in that area for some time.”

Comprehension flashed in Sir Dorval's eyes. ”That is similar to what happened at Wendlerton Academy.”

I nodded slightly. ”From the description, it would have taken a massive amount of vivus to make an effect so strong that it actually affected normal psionic usage. Something like that would have reduced the entire Academy grounds to powder. There was probably another effect that first sealed the Veil, and what vivus there was just piggy-backed on it and extended it out.”

”It hasn't faded by a centimeter since then. I understand the Mechanists want to turn it into a research location free of psionic interference. For now, we've been using it as holding facility for psionic talents,” Philius informed me.