by Jez Cajiao
It was found balanced atop a skull on a spike after a few minutes and brought to me. Once I pressed it to the side of the Vault, I felt a crunch, then a click, and the faint glimmer of the building shuddered, growing duller as it magically reattached the manawell.
Congratulations! You have found a wisp manawell. Mana required to reawaken the wisp: 10/1000.
“God dammit!” I growled, then grabbed the edges of the manawell and started pouring my mana into it. “We don’t have time for this shit.” I fought to keep my irritation down, focusing on the sensation of my mana being ripped from me.
“Can we help?” Yen asked, and I paused, eyeing her as I felt the tugging of my mana, before grinning.
“Yes, you damn well can!” I said, relief washing through me. “In fact, anyone who has spare mana, get your ass over here and put your hand on the bowl, please.”
I monitored the details, watching it ticking up as more people came and went. It was particularly amusing to see Grizz staggering as he experienced what looked to be his first ever mana migraine, as the bastard had started to show me up just a little too often.
It ticked ever upwards, while others searched the room, eventually finding a collection of crappy armor, some robes, and a handful of trinkets, including a dog-eared old book, clearly well-thumbed and looking like it was from back home.
“’Condition…” I wonderingly read aloud, the damaged cover making it impossible to read the rest of the title. “Who the hell was Kevin Sinclair?” I muttered when someone handed it to me, and I flicked through the first few pages, frowning. I paused when I realized he’d written about the north of England and grinned to myself. No matter where I was and what happened over the next few days, I was making time to read this.
Clearly, the Lich had an extensive library at one time, as a chest was found buried under a mountain of bones. It was filled, to my relief, not with gold or jewels, not even potions, although I’d have loved to find those.
No, it was full of books. Dozens of them. I turned to Grizz, who’d followed me and looked him dead in the eye.
“Grizz, these are from my realm. This might seem stupid to you, but I damn well NEED these. I trust you to make sure they come with us, okay?”
He nodded and started sorting the books out, putting them into different bags on his belt and coordinating some with the others.
I noticed him pause on one, a cover that showed a scantily clad woman with pointy elven or feline ears and boobs bursting out of her bikini, by a guy called Atlas Kane, slipping that one into his pouch with an unashamed grin and a wink to me.
“There’s probably not any pictures in that, you know?” I said, and he shrugged.
“If not, maybe Yen will read it with me,” He waggled his eyebrows, then checked to make sure she hadn’t heard him. I snorted and walked back to the Vault as Yen moved everyone back from it, standing to attention as I stepped up close.
“It’s at nine hundred and ninety,” she said simply, and I smiled gratefully; forty minutes, it’d taken.
“How long do we have left before the ships arrive?” I asked her, and she swallowed hard.
“Ten minutes…” She grimaced, and I nodded. I’d known it was getting close, but I had lost track of time.
“Well, hopefully we can loot this and get the hell…” I started to say, before she interrupted me.
“They should have reached the Sunken City ten minutes… ago.” Yen clarified, and I froze before letting out a long breath.
“Well, it is what it is…” I said philosophically, trying to hide the fear I felt, and the anger when it came to the fact that some crazy motherfucker was actually breeding the goddamn things.
I reached out, gripping the edges of the manawell, and poured the last ten points into it.
The well flared brightly, the silvery, mercury-like liquified mana within shining brighter and brighter…. until the mana well drained and fell off the side of the structure.
We all froze. Everyone looked from me to the well and back to me again, and my mind went over what had just happened in a panic.
It didn’t make sense!
Then something changed with the Vault; the gently glowing walls began to grow brighter. At first, it was almost imperceptible, but as the seconds passed, it blazed, and lines of solid silver began to spread from the space where the well had sat. They poured out in all directions, flowing across the surface of the construction, until they had entirely ringed it, with many dozens of tiny runes flaring to life as they went.
Soon, though, they died away and the structure became quiescent again.
I waited politely; then after a minute, I stepped forward, noticing a feeling that I’d missed in all the confusion before.
I could feel a wisp.
I’d never really noticed it until recently, and that was with Oracle, so I’d assumed that it was down to the fact that it was Oracle, and we were so close.
I’d believed I could feel her presence because we were bonded, and she was my companion and my lover as well.
Now I was questioning whether there was also more to it, as I felt something moving inside the Vault.
It felt similar to the way a magnet is drawn by iron, or vice versa. Not strong enough to really notice, unless you were close to it, or experienced with the feeling. I only recognized it because I’d been trying to ignore the sensation of loss that not having Oracle nearby had been building in me.
I watched the structure, frowning at seeing the silvery lines start up again, traveling back and forth, but now, I felt the difference, and I watched one in particular.
After a handful of seconds, it vanished, after pausing momentarily, clearly realizing I was watching it.
“Yes,” I said slowly and clearly. “I can see you, and I know what you are.”
Nothing happened, except for my people staring at each other, and then back at me, involuntarily projecting a slowly growing concern that I was losing my mind.
A concern that was elegantly summed up by a gnome further back.
“By Garran’s hairy nutsack, we’ve got another crazy one! I thought we were leaving all of them behind?” an elderly gnome whispered to his friend. Unfortunately, the gnome was easily over two hundred, wizened, and clearly drugged up to the eyeballs, so his version of a whisper was little different to someone shouting and pointing at me.
“I know! Fucker cut his own arm off, I hear. I say we make nice, grab the good gear, and run for it!” his friend ‘whispered’ back, then noticed the way that everyone was looking at them and forced a smile, waving nervously around. “Smile and wave, Jimkin, smile and wave!”
I shook my head, looking away and ignoring the loud discussion they started up about wondering how I knew they were talking about me.
Sighing, I focused once again on the structure, reaching down deep and listening(?) to the feeling of magic.
I drew in a long, slow breath, followed by another, mentally centering myself before stepping forward and reaching out my hand to press it gently to the side of the Vault.
“I am Jax, Lord of Dravith, Scion of the Empire, and by the right of my blood, I claim this structure,” I stated formally.
I heard people go silent, watching and waiting.
After a minute, I cracked an eye open and glanced around, feeling incredibly stupid. Voices started to mutter quietly, while bugger-all happened. I was about to give up when I felt a resonance begin in my palm.
It was minor; hell, it was practically infinitesimal, but it was there, and I knew it had begun. The metal under my palm grew warmer, slowly building until it reached the temperature of a comfortable summer’s day, and the glow of the Vault grew with it.
At first, it had been a gentle, dim, even shimmer, but now it was shining. The room we were in began to glow in response as tiny pathways of silver metal spread out, racing for the far walls.
The liquified mana seemed to bring life to the stone and metal as it went. Color and vibrancy began flooding the room, pushin
g back the darkness.
I stepped back, somehow knowing that what I’d started couldn’t be stopped now, and my moving would have no effect on it.
The floor shuddered slightly, then again, more forcefully, as something awoke under our feet, and the Vault began to glow brighter. The small building itself was an octagon, eight slightly sloped sides leading up from the ground to meet a sharply slanted triangular roof with a peak in the middle. The design made me think of a mix of a Chinese pagoda and a Bedouin tent, for some reason, and the panels that made up the sides began to glow in an alternating pattern.
As the glow grew, the room filled with light as dozens of previously defunct magelights bloomed to life, scattered across the room. They ringed the outer edge and were positioned strategically on the dome, as it climbed high overhead, but the vast majority were long dead.
The measly thousand mana that the Vault had needed to reawaken clearly was supposed to be an emergency seed of power, and as I watched, the lights bathed the room in a dim, late afternoon light, instead of what I guessed was intended to be a brilliantly sunny day.
The building shuddered again, and a loud crash somewhere in the distance, followed by rushing water, made me swallow hard, as I hoped I’d not just doomed us all.
“Yen…” I said, turning to look at her. “Get everyone ready to go, just in case…”
“Will do.” She saluted, turning and heading off to gather up the gnomes, occasionally kicking one who gave her abuse.
I shook my head at the problems the little bastards were going to cause in the Tower… but I couldn’t wait to see what gnomes could do with the Airships, as well.
I dismissed them from my thoughts, though, as I felt the resonance building to new heights, and then, finally, the Vault glowed with a solid golden light, as the silvery liquid metal-looking mana that flowed back and forth around the structure returned to a single point.
It formed a pool, flat and still, but laid on the side of the structure at a ninety-degree angle, like a mirror. While it reflected the room behind me perfectly, my face frowned out at me sternly.
I blinked and tilted my head, considering the reflection and realizing just how rough I looked these days. My beard was scruffy, and my hair appeared to be matted with dried blood and dirt. I reached up to scratch my chin self-consciously, and did it with my missing hand, making me look all the more monstrous and scruffier.
“What do you seek here, Scion?”
I heard the voice differently to the way that I heard Oracle and the other wisps of the Great Tower; they were bonded to me and spoke into my mind, while this voice… this was a faint whisper on the edge of hearing, a voice that echoed strangely, filled with a mixture of fatigue, sadness, and indefatigable yearning.
“I seek lost knowledge to enable me to defend the Empire…” I answered, forcing my words at the seemingly distant contact.
“And you think I possess this? I have little here compared to the great Repositories of the Empire. Why do you wish my death?”
“Death? I don’t want your death?” I responded, confused.
“A wisp is tied to its function. I must protect this knowledge. Without it, I have no reason for existence. When my mana is gone, I will cease to be. I thank you for the donation of mana, but alas, I cannot help you. Please… do not kill me.”
“I don’t want to kill you.” I said impatiently, hearing the crash of something collapsing in the distance and the surging sound of more water pouring in. “There must be another way; there is no need for you to die…”
“I agree, there is no need. Leave this place. I sense rising water, and the structure has taken damage. Allow me to sink into my dreamless sleep again, Scion; let me sleep away the years until my Prax and I are recovered.”
“Who do you think will recover you?” I asked the wisp, and I felt the bone deep weariness in it, as it responded with a sigh.
“There have been attempts to destroy the Prax before. This facility is designed to protect against that. The shame I feel that we are the first to fail and fall, is enough. Please, let me rest. Soon enough, the others will recover us, and we will be returned to our rightful place in the heavens, patrolling and protecting the Empire.”
“You think that the other Prax will come for you?”
“Of course; they must be nearly here by now. I sense we have slumbered long years, and more since I was last reawakened…”
“The Empire collapsed. There is no one coming, wisp…” I started to say and I felt fury rise in the mind I dimly sensed in the distance.
“Speak not such lies! The Empire stands, and will stand forever! The Eternal Emperor protects the realms of light, and the Gods would never permit otherwise!”
“Fuck.” I said, then closed my eyes, realizing I’d sent that to the wisp as well. “Okay, I am the Scion of the Empire; do you dispute this?”
“I cannot verify your claim, not without blood and access to your mind,” the wisp said cautiously, clearly both unsure if I would allow this, and unwilling to accept my words as true.
“Then I grant you access to my mind,” I said, looking around. “And the gods know there’s enough of my goddamn blood spilled in here today already…”
“I must draw the blood…”
“Ha! Nothing’s ever easy, is it? Fine, draw the blood yourself and touch my mind; see what you find there.”
I stepped forward, getting close enough to the pool of liquid silver that my face was all that I could see, and I tried to stay still as a thin tendril lifted out and moved toward me slowly.
I tried not to imagine the liquid silver killing machines from the movies, but damn, it was hard, especially when the tendril paused in front of my eye.
I had a horrified second, thinking it was going to spear me through, when a minuscule section flashed out and rested against my temple, and I got a prompt pop up.
Do you wish to allow this Vault-locked Wisp to access your mind?
Yes/No
I selected Yes, and for a second, I felt a confused welter of images stream past my mind’s eye, many of them focusing on Oracle for some reason, and then with a tiny flare of pain, the liquid silver tendril detached from my skull and flowed back to the rest of the puddle.
I straightened and backed away slightly, noting the single ruby red drop of blood the tendril had retreated with.
I waited for long seconds, then finally spoke up when I saw Yen making a gesture to get my attention, then a frantic one upwards, that I guessed meant something along the lines of: ‘They’re coming, we have to go, my lord’.
Or it could have been ‘You’re an asshole, and you stink’, considering the way the day had gone. I waved to her and turned back to the puddle, jerking back in shock.
A mirror image of Oracle was seated on the side of the Vault in defiance of gravity, watching me.
She was also noticeably naked.
I flinched at the thought of going through all of this again and shook my head firmly.
“No,” I said. “Not that form. Pick another.”
“But…” the little wisp started to say, consternation on her tiny, beautifully familiar face.
“No!” I said firmly. “You do not mimic her, not ever. She is my partner, my love, and you might look like her, but you’re not her, okay? Please, pick another form… and include clothes!” I added hurriedly, even as a little voice in the back of my head piped up with some remarkably interesting and filthy suggestions. I drowned it out, concentrating on the fact that the world had just gone to shit, culminating with me chopping my own damn arm off. There was no need to be getting frisky thoughts, especially not right now.
The wisp paused for a long series of heartbeats, before finally changing to an entirely new form, as a six-inch tall woman with foxes’ ears and a bushy tail that flitted from side to side. She wore a perfectly fitted suit that reminded me of a combination of an old English sea captain and a librarian, the fabric a deep, rich blue, with a white shirt and sparkling silver butto
ns that gleamed as she stood up straight and buffed her nails on her jacket.
“Very well, Master. Is this form more to your liking?” the wisp asked, then glanced down at herself, expanding the chest noticeably. “Or I could…”
“Nope!” I cut her off hurriedly. “The original version is fine!”
“Very well,” she repeated, nonchalantly shifting back. “I have accessed your mind, Master, and I find much to be concerned about, not least the fact that my Prax has likely been boarded by now, by creatures that are inimical to sentient life. I recommend we eliminate them immediately, then begin recovery of the Prax.”
“Can we do that?” I asked her, and she nodded.
“It is possible, though it may take many years,” she said, as though that was a minor detail. “First, we must activate the mana collectors. There are two levels of collection: the standard, as a Prax under no threat rests, and the advanced, or War footing. I recommend…” she said, her voice droning on.
“And that’s enough,” I said firmly. “We don’t have the time to fuck about right now. Tell me straight: can we kill the SporeMothers and hold the Prax with the force you see here, and can the Prax be brought back to flight-capable status in any realistically short timeframe? You’ve searched my mind; you know what I’m up against.”
“Yes… it is possible to secure my Prax, and the repairs could be managed by the onboard compliment of Golems, once they were charged up. It would take several months to stabilize, followed by a few years of repairs … but…”
“Months isn’t an option. We can leave them working, but I can’t stay that long, and the Prax would have to be secure. I’m not powering you up and leaving you to be claimed by someone else and used against me. You say we can win against the SporeMothers; do you have any information on them or their number? What are you basing that off?”
“You defeated a fully grown, if weak and virtually senile one before…” she said, clasping her hands behind her back. “Therefore, immature offspring would logically be easier to defeat. There is a high likelihood of success, provided your retainers accept the risks and fight to the death.”
