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217 Hearts of Upheaval
🕑 Added 2024-11-30 00:00:01 +0000 UTC– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 219, Season of the Setting Sun, Day 5 –
“Construction for our northern expansion is moving along smoothly,” declared a death knight with cyan flames burning in his eye sockets.
“Good to hear, Logan.” Ying looked pensively towards the edge of Syn City’s cloaking mechanism. “Just make sure we don’t push too far. It’s great that our community is growing, but we must remain wary of the Wastes.”
“No worries,” said Logan. “Yancey and Olivienne have linked up more defensive towers and according to Saul, our barrier extension should be ready soon as well.”
“No need to worry about the culling parties either,” said Ramona. “With Vell working extra shifts as per our agreement, we can cover the rest of the border easily.” She looked at her father. She still found it hard to get used to her father’s skeletal appearance. “I don’t think we need to worry on that front.”
Ying nodded with an uneasy expression. It was a great boon to their settlement that the vampire and famous death hunter had joined Syn City together with his daughter. However, the man was also the first adult citizen of the city that had refused to accept the Heart.
Ying looked towards the tower that held the Heart of Synergy, the magic light that allowed their people to return for a second life with their own minds and souls. He wouldn’t begrudge a death hunter some skepticism about such forms of necromancy, and he couldn’t complain about such a powerful person to join their community on his own terms.
They had all agreed on the conditions and the additional work to be done by Vell if he wanted to stay untouched by Syn’s Light.
Even so.
“Make sure we don’t rely too much on Vell,” warned Ying. “We must all grow stronger.”
After their discussion was done, Ying allowed himself to take a stroll through the prospering city. It was hard to believe they had built this place from nothing. They had carved out this home for themselves right in the hostile territory of the Wastes.
A part of him was still doubtful. It waited for everything to turn into a failure. Another haunting failure on his conscience.
Ying took a deep breath. He had failed when it mattered most, but this time, he wasn’t alone. He had the Progenitor on his side. His savior and the most capable mage he had ever interacted with.
Saul appeared next to him. “Ying, you have to come!”
***
“Daiyu…” The moment Ying saw her, he averted his eyes in shame. He had dreamed of this face so often, but how could he bear to look at her after his failure.
His moment of shame was forced away by a deeper worry. He looked up at her with terror. “What happened to Siling? Don’t tell me they came for her, too?!” Wild panic overtook him and he rushed forth to meet the elven woman. His hand stretched out, but he didn’t dare to touch her.
Daiyu still found it hard to find her tongue. Looking at her husband of a life long past. “You…” She took a deep breath. “Siling is fine. She has grown into a great young woman. She has found friends.”
“Then…” Ying stammered. All the peace this city usually held for him crumbled. It felt like his whole being was consumed by the sight of this woman, the love of his life.
“You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t see me. I failed her. I tried so hard. I begged. I searched. I thought I could save her, but…” Ying couldn’t hold back the tears. “It was all for nothing. I should have tried to make her last days more enjoyable, but instead I was too busy trying to— I failed. I ripped my soul apart, and I still failed. My little Siyu…” He grimaced painfully. “I let my little girl die in my arms. I—” He subconsciously recoiled and stepped back. “It’s good that you did better than me. At least Siling… At least Siling…”
Daiyu pulled the whimpering man into her embrace without realizing. She had never thought it possible that her love would knowingly abandon their girl in the Lich Kingdoms. He would never do such a thing.
“I know this is hard for everyone, but we are all under time pressure,” interjected Amelia from the side. “Dargones can keep me updated on the situation, but I’d rather be in range to step to him in case the Unholy Duchesses make a move.” She nodded towards Ying. “He needs to know.”
Only now did Ying realize that the famous Spellcrusher had accompanied his former wife in her visit. “Know what? The Unholy Duchesses?” Another flicker of panic. “Are the Lich Kingdoms after you again? Did they infect you? Is little Siling really alright?! They didn’t touch her, did they?”
“Ying…” whispered Daiyu softly. She placed a palm on the elven man’s face. “It’s…” She closed her eyes. “It’s Siyu.”
“I don’t understand,” muttered Ying with furrowed brows.
“You’ve heard about the Unholy Duchesses?” asked Amelia.
“Yes,” replied Ying and looked from one woman to the other. “I’ve been to the Lich Kingdoms to beg them to stop the curse. They spat in my face and told me they’re no charity. If I wanted to save her, I would have to save her myself. They didn’t allow me to leave anymore, so I stayed and tried to look for alternative ways to save her.” He returned his confused gaze to Amelia. “Everyone there knew about the Four Unholy Duchesses. Blood, flesh, mind, and bone. The Bloody Duchess, the Tainted Duchess—”
“It’s five now,” corrected Amelia. “Has been for a few years.”
Ying’s confusion only grew. Why did that matter? “After my failure, I wanted to—” He stopped himself. “The Progenitor appeared to save me from myself. He helped me escape. Ever since then, I wanted to stay as far away from the Lich Kingdoms as possible. I guess it’s possible a new duchess rose to prominence, but…?”
“Siyu,” said Daiyu with a trembling voice. “She’s alive.”
“The Spirited Duchess is the Duchess of Soul,” added Amelia.
“What are you saying?” Ying’s mind refused to process their words.
“Siyu is alive,” said Daiyu with a pitiful gaze at the trembling man.
“Siyu is— No, I saw her die,” muttered Ying. His eyes widened. “I SAW HER DIE! Who are you?!” He backed away. “Why have you come to torture me?!”
“What’s going on?!” Saul and others approached out of concern for Ying.
“Take them away!” shouted Ying crazedly. “I don’t know who they are, but…”
“That’s Amelia,” said Saul. The cyan fire in the lich’s eye sockets flickered. “Ying, I don’t know about the other one, but that is definitely the Spellcrusher. You know her. Don’t you recognize her spirit and mana?”
“It can’t be,” protested Ying while shaking his head. “Why would Amelia come to torment me? Why? Why?!”
“Ying…” Daiyu reached out her hand but did not dare to touch him.
“I’ve not come to torment you,” said Amelia firmly. “I’ve come because your daughter is alive and needs your help. We are already working on extracting her from the Lich Kingdoms’ grasp. Your second daughter is currently with Matteo and Terry. They’re all trying their best, but she needs your help, too.”
“This isn’t possible…”
Amelia stepped forth and raised her voice further. “Your daughter has become a Duchess in the Lich Kingdoms! She is helping lead an invasion on the territory of the Free Factions Union as we speak! Are you going to just leave her like that?!”
Ying felt his own rage rise at the accusation. “NEVER! I would never leave my little girl in that abominable place! I saw her die! I would never have left her!”
“Ying, I saw her,” stressed Daiyu. “She’s the spitting image of Siling, but she looks like a soul spirit.”
The last words struck Ying like lightning. He stared at Daiyu. “What did you say?”
“She looks like Siling,” said Daiyu. “As a soul spirit.”
The terrible realization that his greatest failure in life had actually been a success slapped Ying in the face. A success that had only yielded to a whole other level of failure. If he had succeeded in his soul extraction and transplant, then…
“I left her alone.” Ying stared at his hands with hollow eyes. “I left my little girl alone in that cursed place. I left her…” His hands clenched into fists and he raised his bloodshot gaze. “What can I do? Anything!” He growled with mad eyes.
His mind was haunted by the ghostly visions of what the cursed kingdoms might have done to his little girl. “I’ll do anything!” A cold enraged hatred he had long forgotten welled up from the depths of his soul.
His daughter would be free.
The Lich Kingdoms would burn.
***
“I could get used to having my own tower,” quipped Brynn with a grin. “Even at the Academy, I can’t offload this much work.” She turned to Terry and winked. “Your new equipment should be ready in no time.”
“You are one of the local sovereigns,” said Samuel. “Of course they wouldn’t refuse your requests.”
“Technically, I’m the superior of my department in Arcana, too, but they still refuse me plenty.” Brynn pointed out. “The people here even seem excited at the tasks I’m giving them.”
“Probably because they are,” interjected Terry.
“Yeah, the last one seemed almost giddy when you demonstrated what to do,” added Jorg.
“I guess this isn’t just a job for them,” said Samuel with a nod. “Those that come here to ask for work are those following their passion, and you have something new to teach them.” He rubbed his chin. “Interesting environment. I wish I could have seen that kind of passion more often in the Arcana Academy.”
“I think it’s time,” announced Terry with an absentminded glance toward a wall. He could sense their other companions moving. “Matteo is about to reissue his challenge.”
“Then this Tower Master better make an appearance,” declared Brynn, and strutted towards the door. Before their group had made it through the first hallway, a large entourage of Crafting Tower members had lined up to follow their highest representative.
***
Matteo stood at one end of the arena, looking up to the lounges where the different tower representatives were sitting. Samuel, Jorg, and Siling were mixed into Brynn’s crafting tower faction. Terry, Emaldine, Tiana and some of the demon squad were standing with Matteo.
“I was one of the Tower Master’s three direct disciples,” shouted Matteo. “By the customs of the Lands of the Four Towers, I may challenge the tower for leadership according to the rules of the disciple's challenge. The current Tower Master is obligated to duel me for the title.”
“No one is disputing your background,” hissed a thin-lipped woman from the elemental tower. She was one of three people standing at the front of the elementalist faction. Besides her was another woman with strangely metallic hair and a man in sand-colored robes whom Terry recognized.
“Our tower will not tolerate a monster,” said the man in sand-colored robes firmly.
“And you’re the monster that attacked this city and caused the death of the Tower Master,” continued the thin-lipped woman.
“Does this somehow change the rules?” demanded Brynn from the side.
“This is a matter of the Elemental Tower,” barked the thin-lipped woman. “Don’t interfere!”
“Is this how you speak to the tower master of our Crafting Tower?!” demanded the previous tower master in his grey overall.
“You…” The thin-lipped woman’s expression darkened.
“Even if we ignored the crimes of the past,” interjected the woman with the metallic hair. “The Elemental Tower has had no Tower Master since that day. The demon calamity has destroyed the prepared line of succession and we never reached another agreement. There is no Tower Master for you to challenge.”
Matteo and Brynn were both frowning at this declaration. When the silence continued, an unexpected voice rang out.
“That’s your own fault, isn’t it?” spat Terry with more than a little irritation. These people insisted on insulting his cousin for a crime committed by Anand. A crime of which Matteo was as much a victim as the previous Tower Master.
They dared to call Matteo a monster.
Terry refused to let them weasel out of the challenge. “Matteo has used the phrase ‘customs of the Lands’, but from what I’ve read, this is more than a custom. Your own laws demand that each tower has a tower master. A single tower master. A single sovereign authority and one clear candidate to challenge. Are you telling us that your tower has broken the laws for nearly two decades and continues to do so even now?!”
Terry could feel the gazes turn to focus on him. Jorg and Siling were outright staring at him with mouths agape.
Yes, I’ve read up on the local laws.
Terry had started to feel wary of every unknown country he stepped into.
In Tiv, he had run afoul of imperial censors, Guardian mismanagement, and plotting ministers.
In Thanatos, he had been used as a political pawn and nearly died in the Proving Grounds because he had not understood the rules sufficiently.
In Thanatos and the folded space, he had suffered the unfathomable insanity of different martialist sects.
In the Freedom Cooperative, he had run into conflict with the city guards and then been suppressed by different economic cooperatives.
Just one time, Terry had wanted to know in advance what he was getting into, so he had chosen a different book for his evening study than usual. Instead of diving into the intricacies of quasi-periodic shielding patterns, he had read up on the local laws related to the tower challenges while practicing his plane drift and mana compression.
Now that the elemental faction was trying to weasel out of their own laws to dodge Matteo’s challenge, Terry couldn’t feel more vindicated.
Samuel and Brynn appeared amused and vaguely proud.
“We…” The thin-lipped woman frowned.
Terry noted that the man in sand-colored robes showed less of a reaction than the other two.
“It’s more complicated than that,” sighed the woman with metallic hair.
“Laws usually are, but was anything I summarized incorrect?” demanded Terry.
Brynn glanced at her predecessor and the man in grey overalls happily affirmed. “You have summarized it correctly.”
“Then it’s simple,” shouted Terry. “Just tell us who of you will face Matteo or yield if none of you is willing to step up.”
“We don’t have a tower master for you to challenge,” groaned the thin-lipped woman. “Get that through your head already!”
“If you failed to find anyone worthy in two decades, then I guess none of you are,” spat Terry. “Since you have accepted this already, then I guess it’s a good thing someone worthy has finally shown up for the role.” He gestured at his dumbstruck cousin and then focused back on the podium. “I know my cousin and you could find no one even half as worthy.”
Terry ignored the incredulous and offended stares and focused on the more quiet member of the three spokespeople. Unless Terry was mistaken, the man in sand-colored robes had shown an unexpected reaction to his taunt. He had felt the brief rising of his eyebrow. A slight tilt of the head to look between Matteo and Terry. An inhalation of breath. The slightest curl of the lips.
“Who is that one?” asked a person from the Martial Tower.
“Yeah, that’s the only one who speaks normally.”
“All the others sound like wimps.”
“That law stuff sounded pretty wimpy though…”
“True.”
The thin-lipped woman flushed from anger. “You have no right to come here and—”
“I think he has a point,” interrupted the man with sand-colored robes. He glanced at the metal-haired woman. “We have put the matter off for far too long, because we didn’t have a representative to unite the three schools. We still don’t, but the tower can’t stay masterless forever.”
“But our problem remains unchanged,” sighed the metallic-haired woman, and she moved her gaze to focus on Terry and Matteo. “Usually, it is our tower master who decides the exact terms of the duel in advance, but the last one died before he could do so. We have three different schools with three different specialties. The terms of the duel would basically determine the winner. Round-robin, each of us only wins the match we determine and loses the other two. That is why we have dropped the matter of picking a new tower master from the schoolmasters. It’s always a tie.”
Matteo nodded with a realization. “Summoning. Spellwork and ranged rituals. Empowerment and close combat.”
Terry could see each of the elementalist representatives raise their head slightly when their school was mentioned. The thin-lipped woman. The metallic-haired woman. The man in sand-colored robes.
“We have already determined the terms for each of our schools,” said the representative for ranged elementalism. She moved a strain of metallic hair behind her ear. “And we have already faced each other.”
“There is no tower master for you to face,” said the close combat elementalism representative. “So you’ll have to defeat at least two of us on our own terms.” He looked at the thin-lipped woman, whose expression had become extremely sour. “Although from what we’ve heard, the summoning challenge would be a waste of time.”
The leader of the Summoning School glared at the other two school representatives and spat. “I still want to see it for myself.”
Without hesitation, Matteo drew Soul Fury and human-shaped elementals appeared around him to follow his command.
The thin-lipped woman scowled and shook her head, and spat: “Congratulations. I admit defeat. I can’t compete with the elemental control of a demon.” She sneered. “And all you had to do was sell your soul to attain that power.”
Matteo placed a hand on his heartseeker dagger and returned Soul Fury to its sheet. He didn’t react to the newest insult.
Emaldine stepped forth and was about to shout in protest, but someone else was quicker.
“All he had to do was save his mind and soul!” snapped Terry. “From the monsters that were unleashed on him by his mentor in this very Elemental Tower. It was your tower that put Anand into a position of power over Matteo. Each and every one of you failed to protect the children under your care.
“You dare accuse him after all you’ve done?! After all you’ve failed to do?! You’re lucky that Matteo is a better person than any of you!” Terry flared his mana and glared resentfully. “Every one of you deserves to be fired and banished to the Wastes for negligence, but even when Matteo has kicked your egos into shape, I’m sure he’ll be too kind for that.”
Terry continued glaring at the summoner, almost hoping that she would dare and talk back. He had a lot more to say to these people. From the corner of his eye, he could see that the close combat elementalist’s gaze still lingered on Matteo’s equipment.
“Then we have an agreement,” interjected Brynn loudly. “Matteo has joined the competition for the position of Tower Master for the Elemental Tower that had been postponed previously.”
“Still bullshit.” Terry cursed in a mumble while they were leaving the arena. “Should have been done with a single duel, but now there will be more, even though it was them that flaunted the laws of the Lands.”
“Relax, Terry,” said Matteo in a calming tone. He slapped his cousin on the shoulder. “Technically, I still only have to win a single duel. Today can hardly be called a proper duel, so all that’s left is a single win. I only have to win once more in the two duels to come.”
“Hmph…” Terry still looked unsatisfied. Whenever his mind went over the exchange again, he stumbled over the fact that each school had determined their own terms for their duel. From his own experience, there was no way that they didn’t take advantage of that to tilt the scale in their favor.
***
“What the…” Edmund stared at his fellow guards, that were suddenly breaking formation and started running outside the city. He could feel his stomach turn and realized something was off. He cycled his mana and cursed.
“Eat this, quick.” Bjorln stepped out of the shadow and handed Edmund a pill. “I don’t have many at the moment, so you’ll have to prioritize whom to help. I can make more, but until then we can only rely on the Magebane’s nullification mana to clear their minds.”
“What’s going on?” asked Edmund. The Arcanians were an incredible help, but he often felt at a loss at what was going on, because he couldn’t keep track of everything they put into motion or were dealing with.
“It seems that the Spirited Duchess has chosen this time to make a move,” said Bjorln. “My daughter can bring you up to speed. I have to prepare more soul protection pills.” He stepped back into the shadows where his aspected discharge acceleration wouldn’t damage the buildings.
“Wait, they’re possessed?” Edmund was about to panic when a dwarven woman dove out of the floor.
“Yes,” said Lori. “At an unbelievably large scale.”
“Shit,” cursed Edmund. “We have to get everyone restrained before they all kill each other.”
“Restraints would be nice, but they’re not exactly killing each other.” Lori sighed. “Most of the possessed are moving to attack the constructs outside.” She looked into the distance. “They are joined by a large horde of weird soul spirits that are approaching from all sides. Or not exactly soul spirits, but something similar. Chadwick called them husks. All of this makes the battle a colossal pain.”
Edmund rubbed his eyes and cursed again. The constructs were their best defense, but if the citizens started throwing themselves at them, then what were they supposed to do? He couldn’t very well allow the constructs to just slaughter the citizens. He also noted that the dwarven woman had said ‘most’, which meant that there might be possessed citizens running beyond their defensive perimeter to volunteer as hostages.
Patricia stepped out of the shadows. “There is another army of husks coming from the South. A large one. The Magebane signed he’ll move to intercept.”
“But we need the nullification mana here to clear the possessed,” protested Edmund.
Patricia rolled her eyes. “Even if I had known that, I don’t know how to sign finger runes to communicate with the Magebane. I hope the Spellcrusher returns soon.”
“I think he probably made the right call,” said Lori with a frown. “These soul-empowered bodies…” She glanced at Patricia. “Husks, I mean. They hit a lot harder than most of the possessed. If a large army is arriving.”
Lori involuntarily shivered. These creatures all looked as if they were burning through their very life. Regular soul spirits had never given her the creeps like the husks. They still had physical bodies, but something had been done to their souls to control them and let them become more powerful for a time before perishing.
“Here you are!” Intira landed and looked at Patricia. “We’re going to do a large scale shadow bind.” She moved her gaze to Lori. “And Isille said you’re needed for a terrain change.” She shrugged. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve been nominated as the dedicated air-transporter for the Magebane while the Boss is already preparing the undead to take over husk interception from now on.”
***
Comments
Sesharan
Somehow, I must have either missed or forgotten that Amelia and Dargones had arrived to help out. That’s a huge asset. Also, how fantastic to finally see Terry start to become someone who can control local laws and traditions rather than getting beaten down by them! He’s grown in so many ways.
