Escalation

by Matthew Peed

  “If it is half as nice-looking as this one, I totally accept!” Louella said excitedly. “My main worry is still the people’s reaction.”

  “That’s where Princess Izora comes in. We will have her endorse it, and the building will become the neutral ground that you always wanted. In the future, Thonaca, Lecazar, and Jade Wind will be able to interact there without fear or worry.”

  “I like this idea!” the princess said. “The necromancers are trying to drive everyone apart, but if we make a place that necromancers can’t even enter, then it will reduce their strength.”

  “Exactly. Take it from me, I hate to be betrayed. If the fear is always on everybody’s mind, then trust is worthless,” I said.

  “Um, Mr. Regan, sir, if you are against the necromancers, why do you have one nearby?” the girl asked as she pointed to Julie, who had moved back even farther from the edge.

  “Julie is special,” I said and raised my hand. “Julie, come here.”

  Julie’s eyes widened, and she started to struggle against the order as I moved to less than a few centimeters from the edge. Yellow sparks began to pop from her collar and cuff as she resisted as much as she could, but she started to move toward us. The girl’s eyes grew larger, but she nodded in understanding.

  “Never mind. You can stay over there,” I called, and Julie’s body went limp as she dropped to the ground. “By the way, what is your name?” I asked the wolf girl, having not gotten it this whole time.

  “Ren Wolendrin, sir,” Ren said politely with a bowed head.

  “Ren . . . I like it, a good, simple, yet strong name.”

  “Thank you. You are really powerful, sir. I’ve never seen a building this tall before. What kind of magic did you use?”

  “Not magic. Engineering, which is stronger than magic,” I said with a smile. “You must still be tired from your ordeal in the Deadlands, so how about I send you back to the smaller tower, and you get some food and rest. I will take you to see Echo, as you’ve named him, tomorrow.”

  Ren’s stomach growled loudly, which made me smile even wider. “That sounds wonderful!”

  Chapter 2

  Izora

  I sighed as I laid my head on the desk. The day of the assembly was supposed to be a good day but had turned into a nightmare. I just hoped that the alliance didn’t fall through. But considering how the fight had gone, we owed more than a fair share of our survival to Regan and his people. Not to mention the fact that half the town was torn apart by some berserk mana that had taken place after Regan was incapacitated, yet it had failed to kill anyone. That was a miracle in itself.

  I looked up when I heard a knock at the door to my office. I couldn’t help the sigh that came but recomposed myself. “Come in.”

  Tsuzuki entered, then moved to stand in front of my desk. “Your Highness, that is improper for a lady of your standing,” he said as he looked at my slouching form.

  “Shut up, I don’t care right now,” I replied, giving him an eye roll.

  “Haha. Well, in other news, a guard just came from town with a report about something that just happened.”

  “What now?” I asked.

  “It seems the host and Lady Louella have created a new device that allows for the detection of unholy mana. They have already captured two individuals that possessed the taint. I hear that the town will be covered in a few hours, if you want to . . . check any of our crew,” Tsuzuki said with a hard face.

  “I hate to do it, as I would like to trust each and every one of my crew, but it is probably for the best,” I said as I made a fist, my fingers turning white.

  “I understand, Your Highness,” Tsuzuki said and bowed as he backed out of the room.

  I stood up from the desk and walked over to the window to look toward the town. Even from here I could still see juts of rock that stuck out of a few buildings. I thought for a moment and used my Mystic Eye ability to look at the town. I hadn’t checked it in a few days.

  The impact of the aura hit my eyes for a moment. While they adjusted, I took a look around. The pillars for both the main dungeon and the town were higher than ever. I looked at the dome of energy that originated from the town and noticed that it almost covered the entire valley now. In fact, it was almost to my ship, I realized, once I looked closer.

  I wouldn’t mind if it covered the entire valley. The more this situation progressed, the more I felt we needed Regan to be as powerful as possible. I let my Mystic Eye fade and tapped my finger on the windowsill. I needed to report to Father the aggression of the necromancers. We had been keeping an eye on them, but it seemed they were growing bolder to ignore us entirely like this.

  I walked back over to my desk and channeled some mana into a rune engraved on the front of the drawer. A lock clicked, and the drawer slid out. Inside, a crystal ball sat on a velvet cushion. I gently lifted the crystal out and set it on the stand that rested on my desk.

  I focused, pouring a decent amount of mana into the crystal ball. The inside of the ball turned cloudy, then a face appeared in it.

  “Father,” I said respectfully.

  “Izora. How are you?” he asked warmly. I never had to worry about Father treating me like an object; he always treated me like his daughter first, then as the princess.

  “I am well,” I replied.

  “That’s good. Then what is the reason for this communion?” he asked, growing more serious. Magical communication wasn’t rare, but there were mages who had enough skill to tap into messages being sent. Thus, we tried to use ours only in emergencies.

  “As we discussed I have signed a treaty with Louella and the dungeon host Regan. However, after the session was complete, we were attacked by a force of necromancers.”

  “What?! Even knowing that Jade Wind was involved?!” Father demanded.

  “Yes, Father. The targets were clearly the viscountess and I. They even had a means of disabling the avatar body of the dungeon. I can only draw an assumption, but it looked like a combination of holy and unholy mana caused some sort of disruption. I don’t understand how they could have advanced their methods so . . . quickly.”

  “Hmm, I will bring this up to the council . . . How do you feel about this dungeon?”

  “I feel that he is the answer to many of our problems, Father. Only there is a lot of resistance from multiple sources. I . . . worry for the future,” I confided in him.

  “I will send the Gwendolyn with a full detachment. See if you can establish an embassy on political ground within the valley.”

  “Yes, Father,” I replied and bowed. The Gwendolyn was one of the three ancient airships left. It could hold twice as many troops as the Raiu. It would be a comfort to have it here.

  Father returned to his warm voice. “Your mother misses you.”

  “Tell her I miss her as well,” I said with a sad smile.

  Mother was bedridden and unable to leave her room most days. We’d had hundreds of mages with experience of all kinds in to see her, but none had been able to help her. I wondered if Regan would. I shook my head. I couldn’t rely on him for everything. We needed to show that we were equals first, worthy of being allies.

  Father and I ended the conversation soon after. While it was convenient, the magic communication was mana intensive, and I felt completely drained after a conversation that only lasted a few minutes. I moved to set the orb back in the sealed drawer and reactivated the rune.

  I needed a breath of fresh air, so I made my way up to the deck. A few of the crew were moving around the ship, taking care of their tasks as I passed them. When I reached the deck, I saw Tsuzuki standing near the rail as he observed the town.

  “Teacher, mind if I intrude on your evening?” I asked as I approached.

  “Not at all,” he replied with a bow.

  I looked over the town and said, “It always amazes me how fast something can be changed when mana is involved.”

  “Indeed, that is one of the scarier parts of war . . .” Tsuzuki said with a
faraway look. “I once visited a set of ruins. There were only a few buildings remaining, but evidence suggested that there had been a city that matched the capitals. In one of the buildings was a record that stated that their city had been wiped out with one spell.”

  “Such power! Surely, that is no longer possible?!” I asked, shocked.

  “I wouldn’t know. Our world holds many secrets, and new ones are being created every day,” he said as he glanced to the main dungeon entrance.

  “That’s why we need to be involved! In case something goes wrong in the future, we might actually have a chance to fix it,” I said firmly.

  Tsuzuki nodded with a smile and then excused himself. I continued standing there for a while as I thought of the many possible outcomes of the future. I shook my head. The fates will bring what the fates will. I could only affect that which was around me. I made my way back into my quarters to get some sleep.

  ~~~

  I awoke early in the morning to the sound of crashing. Jerking out of the futon, I rushed to the window to see what the hell was happening. I didn’t see anything until I looked toward town. Large juts of stone had ripped buildings apart and were receding back into the ground, which was causing the buildings they had torn through to finish falling to pieces.

  I watched as one building stopped collapsing in midair and then righted itself, the materials knitting themselves back together like a patch on a linen shirt. I left the window and got dressed, keeping it simple and using some of the clothes Louella had gifted me. I looked at myself in the mirror and decided I would blend in nicely.

  When I got to the command deck, I saw my royal guard already waiting for me so we could depart quickly. I laughed at having been seen through. They knew I would want to investigate personally. We left the ship in a good mood.

  When we reached the edge of town, I saw a group of automata march by, which gave me a shock at first. When I saw that no one else was really reacting to the strange men, I decided it must be something that Louella and Regan had agreed on. It was rare for the gnomes to be left out of decisions, and it was sort of fascinating to be a bystander for once.

  I tapped a passerby to get their attention. “Hey, what’s going on?” I asked, trying to go for the innocent girl act by upturning my eyes to him.

  He stopped and looked at me with a semidumbfounded expression. “It’s crazy! I know of dungeons that have sort of taken to inhabiting the city near them, but this is on another level.”

  “Oh, and what exactly is going on?” I asked again.

  He pointed over to a blue and golden rune obelisk in the center of the plaza that we were in. “That thing is out of this world. It can detect what kind of mana you use. Heck, it can tell if you break the law near the damn thing.”

  “That sounds like a good thing,” I said honestly.

  “Yeah, yeah for the good of mortals and whatnot, but even the street rats have a place in this world. At least they’ve caught nearly a dozen necromancers, or at least people who had an unholy taint on them,” the man said as he rubbed his head.

  “That many?!” I asked, shocked.

  “I know, right,” he said with a breath, then made a pardoning gesture. “Sorry, I have to go.”

  I nodded and thanked him for his help. We made our way toward the center of town. I wasn’t sure where I would find Louella, but I wasn’t too worried. I wanted to see the damage for myself. It seemed that most of the significant damage had already been repaired that morning, and now it was just people who were reporting something that was damaged during the event to a passing automaton. The automaton would then judge the report, and if the report appeared valid, the damage would be repaired.

  I noticed a stockade in one plaza. A few people who had various levels of marks on their foreheads were locked inside. Wondering what this was about, I approached another nearby person. I could wait until I saw Louella to find out the situation, but I’d rather just ask now. The man seemed to be a merchant based on the stall around him. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to grab the business of the people who were checking out the stockades or just happened to be there when they filled up.

  The man saw us approach. “Welcome! I have skewers of deer and rabbit meat freshly caught just this morning!”

  I pointed at a rabbit skewer. “That one please,” I requested, then handed over the two coppers. “What’s that about?” I asked as I pointed to the stockade.

  He looked, then frowned a bit. “Well, you know the dungeon and Lady Louella put up the obelisks, correct?” I nodded. “Well, justice was being dealt indiscriminately at first, but when half a dozen children who didn’t know better were knocked unconscious, the obelisks turned gray for an hour. When they turned vibrant again, they no longer struck children unconscious. Instead, they get a light shock to the hand, much like a firm slap. People falling unconscious in the middle of the street for reasons unknown to most was also becoming a problem, but those stockades emerged, and people were then teleported into them. Finally, it ignores fighting unless a person cries ‘help.’”

  “Seems like the dungeon isn’t afraid to fix something if it doesn’t work the first time,” I commented.

  “Aye. As a street vendor, theft is one of my biggest problems, but even I don’t want a hungry child to get knocked unconscious. A little zap to the hand isn’t too big a deal. Plus, it lets me be more aware of their situation if I can actually catch them and get them to talk to me.”

  “Thank you for filling us in.” I handed over a few silver coins and grabbed a deer skewer. “Keep the change,” I said, and the man bowed his head slightly.

  Moving on from the plaza, we went deeper into the town, eventually coming to the town hall. It was still a wreck from the other day, and people were moving about the ruins, pulling out paperwork and other things. We went over to Louella’s manor and finally found out that she was at Regan’s tower. We made our way back through town, taking another route. The lack of damage was becoming more apparent as we got closer to the tower. When we finally reached it, I spotted Wrakras standing outside next to the two golems.

  One was still the same golem from when I’d first visited the tower, but the second one had emerald-like crystal in some parts and was more defined. I didn’t notice at first, but an elf was leaning against the second one. She noticed me as I looked at her, and I had a sense of someone looking into my soul. I jerked back reflexively but quickly calmed down. I knew that sensation very clearly.

  “Wrakras, I heard Louella is here?” I asked once we were closer.

  “It is so. Please, by all means, show yourself in,” Wrakras said with a bored voice.

  “Very well,” I said, then started to walk toward the entrance.

  “It’s never good to be able to see too much,” the elf said as I started to pass her.

  My eyes jerked over to her, and I noticed she was blind. “Some of us must bear the burden,” I replied.

  “Then you are stronger than I was,” she said with a sad smile.

  The golem she leaned against grabbed her chin gently and lifted her face toward his. “You have no need to bear a burden. I will bear it for you,” he said with, I felt, a lot of passion.

  “Thank you, Gray. You always know how to make me feel better,” the elf said as she reached up and stroked his face.

  We left the lovebirds alone and made our way into the tower. Everyone but Tsuzuki decided to wait on the bottom floor. I was safe enough inside the tower; there wasn’t a need for a full guard. We made our way up to the only floor I’d ever really been on and walked in to see Regan. He stood on a balcony that seemed to have appeared at the cost of the wall.

  I looked around to try to get a grasp of what the hell had happened and only managed to see Louella with her head in her hands and Julie buried in the debris from the wall. I wasn’t too worried, though, as Julie had a delighted look on her face. There was something terribly wrong with that woman.

  “For the last time! Stop clinging to me!” Regan said as h
e pressed his foot into Julie’s stomach. Julie’s smile only grew more twisted. Regan seemed to notice us and stopped. “Sorry you had to see that. She was getting too . . . liberal with her touchiness,” he said as he looked at Julie.

  “I . . . see . . .” I said, not sure what else to say.

  Chapter 3

  Lost Wolf

  So hungry . . . So cold . . . The sound of the ghouls that I continuously failed to lose still coming from behind me. I heard a branch break in front of me and swung my sword without hesitance. The blade sank into the flesh of something humanoid but got caught on the bone. I quickly lifted my leg and kicked in the general area of the chest. The body of the thing went flying. I may have been hungry, I may have been cold, but I was still a werewolf and had my heritage’s strength no matter how weak I got.

  I looked at what I had just cut, and sure enough, it was a ghoul. I was pretty sure the ghouls outnumbered the living by then in the northern lands. That was why I was trying to find a way over the damn mountains, but the closer I got to the pass, the more undead there were. I flicked my claymore, and the rotting blood and flesh flung from it before I continued.

  ~~~

  A week passed, and I’d turned away from the pass I was heading for. The undead had grown to a number I couldn’t sneak by. Thousands, hundreds of thousands swarmed the entrance to the pass, each trying to get to the aura of life on the other side. So I turned back and was now trying to find an animal trail or something that would allow me to get to the other side.

  ~~~

  It was a good morning. I had managed to find a berry bush that wasn’t completely tainted from the unholy mana. I was sure my stomach might hate me later, but I was too desperate to care right then. My ear twitched; I heard a sound of feet rustling in the distance. I didn’t wait to find out what it was and took off before it reached me.