Dave cracked the can in his hands and poured it into a glass. The beer was so dark that it almost looked black. He took a deep drink from it and let out a sigh. “At first, I was doing this all to prolong my life. Then with the people I came to know, it was about getting us all out of this. Then Koi came along.” Dave took a sip of his beer, a smile on his face.
“I’ll never forget the look in Deia’s eyes as we looked on Koi—kicking, screaming and alive. I didn’t realize how much of an impact that had on me until later. Well, until now, really. All of those people lived on Earth, taking shit or being treated a certain way to make them play video games, they grew up, came to Emerilia and were watched by the Jukal as if they were some kind of interesting toy. Their lives didn’t matter and for the people of Emerilia it was even worse. Deia can come back but there was no guarantee that Koi would’ve, there still isn’t now. I felt so protective over her, as I feel with the rest of my party who aren’t players and even with Deia when she was pregnant with Koi. Those smug fucking Jukal— they sit in their ships, they watch everything that’s happening and they don’t give a flying fuck. We’re nothing to them. Creatures that can be ignored, the laughingstock of the universe. Do you know that they watch our camera feeds at times when we’re with our loved ones? They pollute every moment that we’re not in a Mirror of Communication or within a stealth rune-covered zone.
“I want my daughter to be free to make her decisions. That was when the true weight of all that the Jukal have done hit me. How many sons and daughters have the Jukal killed? How how many brothers and sisters like mine have died? And what? All of this just so that they could stay on top of the economic pile. Fuck them and fuck their empire. I might die— I might never see the end of this—but I sure as hell am going to let the Jukal know that those people mattered, that the people of Emerilia matter, that my daughter matters and that no matter what, even if they look down on us, they should never treat us any differently. My daughter deserves freedom—the sons and daughters of Emerilia deserve freedom to not live in fear of some random event, to know that they’re going to be safe at night. So why am I doing this? It’s not for some noble reason. It’s because I care for my daughter and the people around me. For them, I am willing to do horrible things so that they might live a good life,” Dave said with fire in his eyes as he drank from his beer.
He would take on all comers and not bat an eye. The Jukal had killed off trillions of humans. Dave might not know them and he might not have a connection to them, but any one of those people could have been someone in his family; any of them could have been his daughter.
Ela-Dorn drank from her glass as she looked away from his eyes and looked over the different slips where various machines were being built, with repair bots creating superstructures while soul gem constructs grew over top.
Ela-Dorn didn’t think of the people of Emerilia; she thought of her mother and father who were hunted down for the simple fact that they loved each other and had had a child together. She remembered how her father had fought them off for as long as possible before her mother was set upon by them. She killed herself to create a protection spell around Ela-Dorn that sped her away from the violence.
She shouldn’t have lived but through their love and sacrifice she had.
It didn’t make logic or sense why it had to happen that way. She had devoted her life to science and the Aleph College, looking into mysteries, making what seemed to be miraculous make sense, pulling it apart and coming to understand the world.
This cause was right. She knew that there might be times that she would look upon this moment with regret, but she also knew that if she didn’t do it, then someone else would have to take up that weight.
Ela-Dorn finished off her drink and let out a sigh. “Dave, what can I help you with?”
The area around them shifted as she found herself still on the chair but now at a different slip, where what looked to be a portal was growing.
“Did you just use teleportation?” Ela-Dorn asked.
“Yep. I’m getting better at it. I think that I’ll get to a stage where I’m not using so much Mana pretty soon.” Dave smiled, drinking his beer as he stood.
“Is that a portal?”
“Yes, yes it is—well, if it works, that is. I’m not really sure how good it’s going to be. I made it so that it should be able to work with the Jukal portals but it has the ability to connect to different ones, faster and with not using as much power as the original portals. And it also has a shield function so that we can stop people from just walking through,” Dave said.
Ela-Dorn walked around the portal with a shocked look on her face. “Our best minds are still attempting to unravel how these even work and are having partial successes in Portal theory and here you are Building improved Portals on your own!” Ela-Dorn could only shake her head in shock.
“Well, I did break a teleport pad and then a portal to try to understand them while I was under the effect of a ton of increased stat points.” Dave shrugged.
“Though this is way more advanced—you’ve you've got magical coding down to runic lines and you’ve got multiple plates set up so that you don’t need to have the rotating Magical Circuits so that they all line up. Changing from one portal to another will be a lot faster.” Ela-Dorn examined the portal. “To get to this level of understanding…” She shot a look at Dave.
“I didn’t tell everyone how much I knew about it. I wanted people to figure it out for themselves and it wouldn’t point to me. I might have sent you on a longer route to find the solution simply because I didn’t want the Jukal to see that you’re messing around with portals,” Dave said.
“The more I see, the more I understand why you did it.” Ela-Dorn sighed.
“Well, now I need your help with something else.” Dave shared a project with her.
She opened up the file and looked at it, frowning at first before her eyebrows rose. “This...” Ela-Dorn didn’t know what to say as she read on. “This is…how? It’s? It's massive.”
“Well, we’re going to need this soon enough to move around,” Dave said. “Whether it works or not, that remains to be seen. This portal here is a prototype, to see if it will work. If it does, then that later version might be possible.” Dave said with a tired grin.
Dave saw the image that Ela-Dorn was looking at. It was a portal just like the one that was growing a few meters away from them. Only, this one was big enough to fit ships through, not just people and their carts.
“This is meant to move ships, but where to?” Ela-Dorn asked.
“Well, we’re going to need more than just missile boats at Emerilia. I don’t think that we will need to use the arks to move people now that the ono network is up and running. We can use the arks to move resources in massive quantities between different bases.”
“Wait, the onos—what do they have to do with anything?” Ela-Dorn asked.
“Well, when you were done with them, we put Mana wells on them, as well as soul gem constructs. This was so that we could store up their power and then make them usable anywhere without having to supply them with soul gems constantly. This was part of the reason; the second is they’re a defensive net. We’re using them as focal points so that they can project Mana barriers outward to cover all of Emerilia,” Dave said.
“What better to cover Emerilia with than a teleportation network that covers all of Emerilia? That’s cunning and smart.”
“Well, I didn’t get here on my good looks alone.” Dave laughed.
“Though the network’s not complete yet,” Ela-Dorn said.
“I know, but it will be soon. And when it is, then we will have complete coverage. With the Mana wells storing up all of that energy within the soul gem constructs and then making an interlinking Mana barrier that works off one another. Jeeves will handle all of the power output and make sure that we’re presenting the strongest barriers. Even if the Jukal fleet that is hiding out at the military base in the second moon starts to t
ry to bomb Emerilia, it will take a lot of work for them to do that and deal with our own fleet,” Dave said.
“Okay, but the people needed to man these ships is quite high.”
“Well, hopefully some of the people who wake up want to do it. Otherwise, our second plan is to jack into the Earth simulation and then allow them to play a space game, which would actually be them fighting the Jukal,” Dave said.
“Would we be any better than the Jukal if we did that?” Ela-Dorn said.
“We would be doing it for survival while they were doing it for entertainment. But, when you get down to it, I don’t think so but needs must at that point.” Dave shrugged. “I just hope that the players we start to wake up will want to work with us.”
“That’s a lot of ifs and maybes,” Ela-Dorn said.
“It is, but it’s all we’ve got at the moment,” Dave replied.
Chapter 13: Build Up
Deia held little Koi as she looked out over the practicing DCA aerial forces, all of them huddled around Mirrors of Communication within the main tower of the citadel.
She looked to her Mirror of Communication that looked in at what they were seeing.
All of them were launching from the citadel’s tower. Shooting outward in aerial formations, they dropped down below the citadel that was unleashing hell upon the target below. Dwarven cannons as well as Mana attacks from the citadel itself slammed against the walls of the castle below.
The DCA came over top of the castle and unleashed their bombs. As they had the castle fully suppressed, Dwarven Legions started to leap from the citadel. All of them had their shields in hand and their hands on their swords as they dropped. On their backs there was a teardrop-looking backpack covered in runes.
Steve had made them, melding a flight drive, a stabilizing mechanism, and a sensor together with programming that would stop the wearer’s descent before they smashed into the ground.
The dwarves let out their war cries but it was more to deal with the fact that they were dropping through the air when the rune-covered teardrops fired up and their fall slowed just a few meters from the ground.
This was so that the people within the castle wouldn’t get the time to kill them on the way down. It put the dwarves under more stress but they still all got to the ground.
The teardrops were also programmed in groups so War Clans all landed together or at least near one another.
The War Clan leaders yelled out their orders as the dwarven war drums were beat. The Dwarves that had now made it back to the ground moved into their formations and started to advance as soon as they were all situated.
“We need to increase that speed,” Lox said, looking at the different screens.
“It is their first drop—they’ll get better,” Deia said.
“Yeah but they don’t rely on them yet. We have to get them to a stage where they are willing to trust their drop packs with their lives, literally,” Gurren added.
Deia smiled and looked at the two dwarves who were both staring at the screens, muttering to each other as they looked over mistakes that the dwarves had made as well as things that they had done well.
The walls of the flying citadel were covered in mages and ranged attackers unleashing their attacks upon the castle. With all of the attacks, it was hard to think that anyone would be able to weather all of the fury that was coming down on them.
After the dwarves came the quick-reaction groups. The beast riders tried to get their beasts to leap off, using the teardrops to reach the ground. But the creatures, even though they were highly trained, stopped as soon as they saw the edge of the citadel disappearing. Some fell off the castle simply because of those behind them.
Deia frowned. “Okay, so don’t like jumping out in wide open spaces. Maybe we can rig up some kind of platform for them to go down on?” Deia muttered to herself. Her eyes moved from screen to screen as she looked at the different people, from the rangers and casters to the dwarves on the ground who were constantly communicating with the citadel in order to not get hit by their own fire.
“Communication is all messed up, but that’s something that will get better with time,” Deia said.
After another hour and a half, the training exercise stopped.
“Okay, well, it looks like we’ve got a good base to work from. I think we’re going to need to change a few things,” Deia said to Lox and Gurren. They had been testing the forces of just one of the Citadel's they now had sixteen full citadels of people to work with.
Nearly all of the training was carried out in Mirrors of Communication.
The current simulation disappeared and the battlefield was removed. Everyone reappeared within the flying citadel. In the training area, there was all sixteen citadels were manned, with their people floating about in one large circle.
Sometimes they would be brought together to train them on items such as the teardrop backpack. At other times they would be left on their own or work as a long citadel. Just like with this training exercise.
This sped up their training quite a bit. They didn’t need to burn through resources and the citadels were now in fierce competition with one another to get themselves better.
Anna and Deia had been a big force in making them start to compete with one another. Gurren and Lox had done it almost unconsciously. Pitting them against one another and making them prove themselves to one another, this made it so that they were constantly improving.
“Got a lot of kinks to work out,” Lox said.
“Well, it has only a week and a half,” Deia said.
“Yes, but they’re dwarves, dammit. I don’t expect anything but the best from them,” Lox said. Gurren, beside him, nodded as well, both of them with fierce expressions on their faces.
“Well, I'll let you get at it.” Deia smiled.
“See you later, Koi.” Gurren’s," Gurren said his fierce look fell away as he touched Koi’s back gently. Even Lox’s face seemed to soften for maybe a moment as he looked upon Koi.
In a very real way, the members of Party Zero had become Koi’s aunts and uncles.
The two of them touched their hands to the Mirrors of Communication, closing their eyes as they disappeared into the training grounds to unleash their training pointers upon the dwarves and the others under their command.
Deia sighed and moved Koi around.
She didn’t seem to like this and started to cry.
“Someone’s a bit moody today.” Deia tried to calm her daughter down. She felt guilty. She wanted to spend as much time as possible with Koi but it seemed that as soon as she saw her, something came up and blocked her from being with her daughter.
She felt as if she were a bad mother.
It was something that weighed heavily on her mind. At this point, she believed that her mother and father had seen Koi more than she had.
She wanted nothing more than to go to Cliff-Hill with Dave to just look over Koi and watch her grow up. Instead, they were in the middle of this stupid war and there was nothing that they could do. If they were to bow out now, then neither of them would be able to live with it.
I just wish the sacrifice wasn’t the time I spent with my daughter.
Deia smiled sadly at Koi, feeling her heart being pulled by the crying girl in her arms.
“It’s going to be okay, baby girl,” Deia said sweetly, emotions filling her.
She had been a strong and defiant woman her entire life. A Fire mage, an elven ranger, and attached to the Dwarven War Clans, she had joined the Stone Raiders and been part of some of the biggest battles that Emerilia had seen. She had helped three different races come back from the brink and to reclaim their home. She’d seen her friends die and be heavily wounded. She lived her life on the edge of her swords and arrows.
Now, inside she felt that hardness crumbling.
She had a family. She had not only her father but her mother, countless nephews and nieces within the Dracul clan. She had Party Zero, Dave and Koi. All of those things to
gether—she now had so much that she could lose.
It pulled at her heart and it made it difficult, but she knew that they were all doing their part so that they might live in a place that they were free to do as they wished, to be free from this fighting.
Deia saw that Anna was talking with the DCA leader over the training exercise.
She sat down in the citadel, looking out at Goblin Mountain. She saw the battle that had happened there as if it were yesterday. But as her eyes moved to Koi, who was finally calming down, she thought of Koi growing up, of seeing her walk, talking, going on her own adventures.
A smile covered her face as she thought of that future, excited for it, but tinged with the doubt of what was to come. That they would get to that future.
Deia took a deep breath and wiped Koi’s tears away.
“No matter what happens, we’re on this path now. We’ve got on this tiger—we’ve got to ride it until the end.” Deia played with Koi’s lips. Today she would let herself be a mother and let the world deal with itself, for just a few hours. That’s all she wanted. Then she would go back to figuring out how to defeat the enemies that beset them on all sides.
***
Anna cleared her throat as she tried to calm herself.
She looked at her hands accusingly, as if willing them to unclench and stop laying around as she rested them behind her back.
She let out a frustrated noise as she moved them to her pockets, unsure of what to do with them.
She opened up her interface, looking for something to distract her but finding nothing that needed her attention.
She played around with it a bit more before the door in front of her started to open. The the sounds of a meeting just ending came from the other side of the door.
She was almost startled by it, causing her to close her interface; a number of people that she knew came out from the meeting, there were mostly military commanders.
They gave her a cordial smile and went on their way. With everything happening, every military across Emerilia had been called upon to defend the land that they held. The areas outside of the cities and defensible walled areas had turned into a battlefield.
Of Myths and Legends (Emerilia Book 9) Page 22
