I hadn’t called for any, but the sudden storm had other ideas and speared the palace roof with a brilliant blue bolt.
The pale flash lit the gloom that shrouded the city for only a moment.
But in that moment, our eyes met.
Mine and the Marquis’
His pupils dilated, then he sneered.
He raised a fat ruby ring and barked. “Wall. Rampart. Armor.”
And three callus barriers shimmered into being. The first of which was right in front of me.
Aww man!
I swerved as best I could, but my speed was too great, so I shut my eyes and braced for impact, but it never came. Instead I felt like I’d just popped a bubble, so I slowed my descent and glanced back, but the barrier behind me had vanished entirely.
Oh! Now we’re talkin’! Don’t know why that broke so easily, and don’t really care! Here goes round two!
Palaeshek could somehow still see me in the dark, though he looked completely flummoxed at how easily I’d punctured his protection. I took a moment to regain a bit of altitude then dove again, this time intent on piercing the remaining two barriers around him and the manor’s walls.
Unfortunately, he had the good sense to use that time to turn and run, but it wasn’t more than a few scant seconds before I crashed through the second barrier and the window directly behind it.
The shriek of a frightened servant and the sound and spray of shattered glass heralded my arrival within the home of my obviously evil adversary. The tiny shards were set to shred the skin of the poor soul who was left behind, now slumped on the floor in fear, and since Uriel notified me that they were in fact a real person, I shielded them with a barrier and flew out the still open door.
Though Palaeshek proved uncannily quick.
For such a large and apparently old person, this evil Santa was light on his feet. He’d made good on his head start and escaped down the wide hall and around the corner, if not for my sensory array I’d have lost him, though I was shocked that he appeared to still be picking up speed.
I raced after him, quick beats of my wings closing the distance with ease. He noticed this, however, and literally threw a nearby guard at me.
He’s strong!?
The disgustingly graceful pirouette that he performed to maintain as much momentum as he could was frankly insulting, so I stopped the poor, and also apparently real, guard with magnetic hold, and swooped to keep on Palaeshek’s tail.
What? Is everyone in the manor real? Are they in on his plans? Oblivious to them? Or simply powerless to do anything? Oop!
I was so intent on catching him that I missed his unnaturally agile turn and crashed into an oncoming guard, toppling us both to the ground.
I flopped off him, only to be pounced upon by another guard, but I quickly escaped his grasp with shifted steps.
Or at least, I thought I would.
For some reason the magic activated, but didn’t work.
Uriel! What’s happening?
My ability faithfully buzzed.
Great…Now this is much more dangerous… But I’m not giving up on those poor people!
The gauntleted hands of more guards grasped and plucked clumps of my feathers as they struggled to contain me and I fought not to accidentally maim them. In the end, too much time was being wasted, so I gave up resisting, shrank into a tiny sparrow, and darted out of the befuddled pile before anyone noticed.
Man, why are there so many guards? There’s no alarm! And it looks like everyone in the manor is on the move too! Meanwhile, Palaeshek is running towards… the other end of the house? But none of those rooms appear to have weapons or tools to help him so what’s he planning?
Worry overtook my anger, especially with the unknown teleport blocker in play and the gradual growth of the strain of maintaining my domain, so I flitted after him with the help of
With a better idea of where he was headed, I took a different path to evade more interference and to hopefully cut him off. The increasing saturation of guards was becoming a problem too as they came at me with long weapons like spears and polearms. Individually they weren’t hard to dodge, but if they managed to take up positions and swing at me in unison in this limited space, as more and more were, I was going to get hit eventually.
But that’s what barrier is for!
If I’m being honest, a sparrow, no matter how powerful, would get absolutely obliterated by a strike from a weapon. So imagine their surprise when I, a tiny feathered bullet, shot straight through and destroyed the heads of their weapons.
The fact that the force of the hit was basically nullified so that I wasn’t slowed down meant that I no longer needed to dodge at all and could focus completely on catching up with the Marquis.
And he was making good progress too. Just two corridors away from me, in a parallel hall, he was less than a minute from reaching the other end of the manor. His speed was still increasing, and his strides were long, but his form was terrible. Between his flailing arms, frantic eyes, and red, sweat streaked face I was having a hard time picturing him as the evil mastermind who had trapped the residents of an entire city and plotted to assassinate a kid.
But I guess that proves the old adage about not judging books and such, though I have to wonder if he did all this on his own? Or is he just the pawn of someone else? The hidden teleport blocker alludes to the second, but maybe he’s just being used.
I did a fancy little roll as I turned the corner to the hallway at the mansion’s far end, when the man of the hour came thundering into my direct view. A gaggle of guards were at his heels, desperately searching for any sign of me as I silently stopped them with another round of magnetic hold.
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Alright, your move, where are you so determined to get to?
Their surprised shouts spurred my target to somehow run even faster, and to my utter shock he didn’t go for one of the many rooms along the hall, and instead lept and crashed straight through the nearest window–hurtling out away from the house quite a ways.
In order to save time, I followed suit, and dove to close in as he thudded to the ground superhero style some thirty feet from the manor. Protected from the glass and impact by his body conforming barrier, he fixed his bloodshot eyes on the gazebo in the middle of the garden. Dozens of guards were gathered around there, so he must have directed them out here while I was focused on him. They weren’t going to help him against me, but I noticed that the remainder inside were now on their way out, so this was set to get tedious.
And I hate tedious! Spark shower.
Sick of his running, he only took three, albeit large, steps from where he landed before a bright blue bolt split the darkness and struck him flat. Strangely, the barrier he had on didn’t protect him in the slightest so he ended up a charred and twitching mess.
I fluttered up to evade the reach of the incoming guards, but what was weirder still was that they made no move to help him or harass me. The ones positioned in the garden maintained position too, and the ones fresh from the manor prioritized fanning out to cover the rest of the space in loose formation.
Which they maintained.
With no sign of moving.
Okay. Queue the bad feelings. What’s going on? Uriel? Talk to me cause I’ve got– Oh. That’s…!
With my attention on the Marquis and the strange behavior of the guards I completely missed the plants in the garden, or should I say plant. Because there was only one, and it was massive enough to have spread itself out and covered the whole space. Granted it was pruned and covered with illusions to appear as many, many different shrubs, trees, and flowers, but there was only one and Uriel soon buzzed.
Holy… crap. So that’s how he did it. My fury reignited hotter than ever. He fed the whole city to that thing!
Without me even needing to wish it the supportive sky dropped another bolt onto Palaeshek’s pathetic head, but that apparently spurred the plant to move.
All at once it sprang to life, reaching for its master, the entranced guards, and even me, as it apparently could sense my mana.
Immolation! Incinerate!
Completely done with this whole situation I burned away the branches extended toward me with my wrath made manifest. A single tiny breath of my bird body blazed across the garden scorching all save the guards. I didn’t know or care if they were complicit, but I didn’t need that plant eating them and growing stronger.
I noted that Palaeshek’s barrier shielded him for once, so my fire did nothing, but it did slow the plant’s attempt to grab him–though it was resilient enough to endure complete combustion.
My concern, however, was on the guards.
There were so many of them now, over a hundred with a quick count, and they did nothing to defend themselves. They had to be under the plant’s thrall, and the godforsaken growth was becoming more determined to reach us by the second.
Maybe it needed a bit to wake up, but the the resilience of the branches was quickly outclassing my fire, I had to start dodging the thing’s attacks soon enough, so without another moment to spare I used tase and magnetic hold to incapacitate and toss the gawking guards into the manor and away from the flailing foliage.
After all, if they really are being controlled then I don’t need the Nightmare’s Dream walking them right back after I rescue them.
Unfortunately, no good deed goes unpunished, and the plant not only got to Palaeshek, but dragged him over to the gazebo, which it lifted, and then pulled him down a considerably sized pit into the catacombs below.
My extended awareness told me that there were people down there tangled amidst the roots, so there was still hope, but getting rid of the plant wasn’t going to be easy as it was also much bigger than it appeared.
In fact, the majority of the sucker was underground.
If you wanna dwell in the dirt that’s fine, I can play that game too, but the surface? Get your grubby graspers off it! Incinerate! Withering!
I mixed my fire with a bit of time magic that sounded useful and Uriel buzzed as I produced an ominous black blaze that swept over the sentient shrubs like, well, wildfire.
Not only did it burn, but it sapped the very life from whatever it touched, aging it rapidly into dust.
The plant eventually cut its losses, letting its ignited extremities burn away while no longer sending new branches to the surface, as excessive dirt and lack of oxygen still proved suitable to snuff the time infused fire.
It retreated deeper underground, pulling most of its mass to shield its core and the Marquis so I let the fire die out, and resumed my original form. Fighting this thing is going to be a headache. I had it easy since the better part of it is down there, but now the new trick I came up with is basically useless. I’m sure genesis flare is hot enough to cut through to its core, and given that my mysterious teleport blocker hasn’t interfered yet I can assume it’s safe to confront them, so… What am I going to do with Palaeshek once I get to him? Capital punishment sounds nice, but knowing his plans might help determine my mysterious meddler’s identity… Although, handing him over to his freed victims is pretty appealing too.
#
Some time later.
Two figures veiled wholly in white sat high above Marquis Palaeshek’s mansion on either side of a cozy table covered in nearly depleted dishes so lavish that even kings would hesitate to bring them out for anything other than the most joyous occasions. A considerable number of spells and abilities concealed them from detection, blocked the wind and sound, adjusted the temperature to be comfortable, and supported their floating fraternizing.
Gregorious carelessly used a knife to pick his ghastly teeth, while gesturing below. “You see Josephene? That creature went straight down to deal with the Marquis without so much as a second thought. So if you would be so kind as to bring the tiger here, we will have an excellent after dinner show!”
Josephine frowned, doing her best to suppress the mix of anxiety, frustration, and elation that Anon’s presence here sparked within her. “And how, pray tell, did you know this would all work out? How did you even find this… Anon?”
“Ha! I first heard of them from the goodly owner of this territory, the worm you just watched flee back underground. His repeated cries for aid in dealing with an unknown variable in his plans were getting annoying so I dispatched my sectors to deal with it. More to see if they could than anything else. I kept tabs on the whole process, and was shocked that this creature managed to not only briefly escape my awareness, but also investigate, purify, and pardon the very soul of my subordinate.”
“What?”
Josephine snapped her eyes onto Anon’s form reflected in her teacup, careful, in spite of the concealment and scrying, not to stare so hard that she would attract attention. This is… far more than I anticipated. Freedom to move through the earth and command the skies and dark fire, the ability to call on the stubborn old root, the power to judge souls, and… She extended a hand to the edge of the barrier, but stopped herself as she observed the energy invisible to most. Divinity too. And of a frequency that we cannot usurp. I know you’re an apostle, but none before have ever been like you.
Gregorious threw back his head and laughed. “Ha! It’s been too long since I’ve last seen a reaction like that from you! I knew bringing you here would be worth it, so, if you’d do the honors?”
She rolled her eyes, and snapped her fingers. “Fine. Happy?”
A large portal opened down below in the silent garden, and out stalked a massive tiger with a woman’s upper body emerging from where the head should be.
Because if you’re not then I’m really going to consume you once this is over, Gregorious. I might be slightly weaker now, but once Anon is mine, once all that wonderful power is mine, there may just be another transcendent in this world–even if it comes at the cost of a few other Ascendants!