by Demi Harper
“At least we’ll still have Binky,” Ket offered weakly. “And Ris’kin, of course.”
True. I let a trickle of gratitude flow across our bond at her attempt to cheer me up.
“Is there anything else I should know?” I asked Bekkit.
“Well, Exodus is a costly ability. By necessity something so powerful must have risks, to prevent Cores from exploiting it too often. Imagine a mobile Core, decimating everything in its path! Naturally, the cost for activating it is the total progress toward your next god tier. But—”
“Wait, what?”
“You’re saying it costs Faith rather than mana?” Ket sounded as stunned as I was.
Well, if it only costs whatever Faith is going toward the next tier, that’s not so bad. I only just hit 9. It’s a waste, but it could be worse.
“If this is some kind of trick…”
“No trick.” He sounded grave. “But there is one more thing you should know. Exodus has a set duration—forty days and forty nights.”
“And?”
“And if you haven’t sanctified a new base before the allotted time runs out, you have to pay a penalty. In Faith.”
“How much Faith?”
He paused before answering, as though it pained him to say it aloud.
“All of it.”
Twenty-One
Burst Its Banks
Corey
All of it?!
“You’re saying that if I mess this up, I’ll go back to god tier one?”
“Indeed. A regretful but necessary penalty, in order to—”
“To deter Cores from exploiting Exodus and using it to wage war and stuff, yes, yes.”
Just because I understood the reasoning didn’t make it any fairer. Why couldn’t it account for those of us who used it only as a last resort?
Ridiculous penalties aside, the rules of the universe surrounding God Cores seemed stacked in favor of the strong and the ruthless. Past Corey well understood that survival of the fittest had been a cornerstone of every civilization’s success since the beginning of existence. But that left very little room for helping those who’d had the misfortune to fall on hard times, and even less room for societies that fostered peace and compassion rather than war and destruction.
Who have I become? Past Corey wouldn’t have been caught dead with such thoughts.
Before I could spiral into despair at the unfair and catastrophic prospect of Exodus’s failure, there was a deafening DING! and the entire Grotto seemed to vibrate.
“Earthquake!” I shrieked, instinctively ducking even though I was incorporeal.
But I sensed no panic from my sprites; just confusion from Ket, and amusement from Bekkit. Looking around, the gnomes were continuing like nothing had happened, and it became obvious that I was the only one who’d experienced the sudden shock.
“What did I tell you, eh?” chortled Bekkit. “Never miss another notification!”
I groaned. “You did this.”
I’d complained earlier about not always knowing when something important had happened. Bekkit had shown me how to tweak the Augmentary settings, promising that future alerts would be “more noticeable.”
He wasn’t kidding.
Now that I knew there was no immediate danger, I finally registered the glowing text overlaid upon my surroundings.
Ark complete!
New ability unlocked: Exodus
I thought again of the blueprint, of the gilded ark with its seamless joins and swirling decor, then looked at the gnomes’ wobbly casket.
Nailed it.
It looked like a toybox made by blind squirrels. The carpenters hadn’t even aligned the wooden panels properly; the grain of each panel ran in a different direction to that of the one beside it, and I could already tell the lid wasn’t going to fit.
The interior was lined with twigs and bits of wool and thatch, as if awaiting a nest of sparrows rather than a powerful crystal with god-like abilities, and the carvings on the outside were a bizarre mix of childish doodles and obscene graffiti.
I would have been more miffed by the results had my prior experiences with the altar and shrine not lowered my expectations to manageable levels. As it was, I just sighed at the wonky ark. It will do.
I took my first proper look at the new ability that would either save us all or doom us to extinction.
Exodus
Faith-based ability
Duration: 960 hours
When activated, prompts all Faithful denizens to leave their base and travel in a direction of your choosing.
Warning: Failure to establish a new base while the ability is still active will result in the loss of all accumulated Faith.
Prerequisite(s): Ark
“But where would we go?” I’d asked earlier.
There were several places we could go. My first instinct was to retreat further underground. This ‘Guildmaster’ was a surface-dweller; surely we could foil his ambitions simply by traveling to the darkest places beyond his reach.
However, Benin and Bekkit both voiced their suspicions that Varnell had somehow been in league with Grimrock. If that were true, then he could probably reach us no matter how far down we went, and we might even have been walking into a trap—not to mention that the coming floods would probably also find us there.
So, it had to be the surface. Coll floated the idea of throwing ourselves on the mercy of the wider Guild, but Benin shot him down straight away. Varnell would never permit us to get that close, and besides, all adventurers were taught about Cores’ supposed “innate malevolence.” They were much more likely to smash me with hammers than offer me succor, and the gnomes would likely end up in some zoo, or as specimens in a lab or museum.
In the end, only one option promised the remotest chance of us not being wiped out.
The hand-drawn circle on Tiri’s map stood out against the mountains, beckoning like a halo of promise. The others had estimated it would take us thirty days to reach its outer edges, but the area it covered was enormous. Would we really find the gnomes’ former civilization before the rest of our time was up?
Responsibility weighed upon me like a lead cloak. If I made the wrong decision, everything we’d worked for would be for naught. I gazed down at my faithful flock, paralyzed by uncertainty.
The clothiers had set up shop on the higher ground of the village and were using lanolin to waterproof boots and rain capes. Perhaps they were motivated by the heavy clouds that darkened the sun more and more as the day went on, or maybe they’d somehow gleaned that travel was on the horizon.
The builders’ other projects might have clued them in. Bekkit had also shared the blueprint for crafting basic wagons—which would be much more efficient than the makeshift travois my workers currently used for transporting heavy loads—as well as a chariot to hold the ark and its contingent of acolytes.
As always, the shroomwood farm filled our construction needs; the caps of smaller trees even served as ready-made wheels. I made a joke about portable mushrooms. No one laughed, not even when I patiently explained that it was a pun on the word “portabello.”
Clearly sensing the way things were going, a few of my more perceptive denizens were also making preparations for their own mobility. Longshank had pilfered a tent peg from the humans and lashed it to the scarred stump of his thigh; the peg leg made him look even more like a pirate captain than usual, but he was limping now rather than hobble-hopping, which seemed to make him happier.
Meanwhile, Swift and Cheer were adorning themselves with what looked like every single item they owned. Each was sweating under the weight of the (useless) possessions now hanging from them, yet they persisted in adding more until they looked like a pair of wandering garbage vendors.
Nice to see them taking their scavenger role seriously.
Over in the barracks, Hammer and Graywall had abandoned the flood defenses and were instead drilling their warriors yet again in the new signaling system.
I’d m
ade the suggestion to use signals after the battle; if we were ever to find ourselves in a similar situation again (which I fervently hoped we would not), I needed a more efficient way to communicate battle commands to my fighting forces. Possession was a costly ability, and the less time I had to spend using it, the better. Moreover, the signals had also been taught to Gneil and my acolytes, meaning I could use Divine Inspiration to convey orders if I really needed to.
“They’re ready.” Ket was a warm presence at my side as we surveyed the diligent gnomes and their loaded wagons. Three of the Grotto’s badgers were already yoked, and the fourth—Flea, naturally—was finally allowing himself to be coaxed into his harness. “They’ve come a long way, and they’re prepared to take the next step. To do what they must to survive.”
I knew she was right. And yet…
“How can I do this? Uproot them from their home? And based on what? A bit of water? A hunch from a human who isn’t even here?”
All my fears were suddenly bubbling to the surface and spilling out of me.
“What if Tiri’s wrong? What if there’s nothing in the mountains for us? What if we fail, Ket?”
“This is a big decision. I’m as scared as you are.” That was no lie; her fear crept through our bond and mingled with my own. “We might fail. We might all die. But if we stay here, we’ll definitely fall. Be strong, Corey. Only you can lead them.”
No pressure, eh?
The murmuring voices of the two humans filtered down through the skylight. I glanced up, trying to imagine what it would be like on the surface. Still I couldn’t bring myself to venture up there, even in god’s-eye form, though I’d be forced up there in my entirety soon enough.
Perhaps sooner than I thought.
The afternoon was only just beginning to wane, but it was dark as evening. The thunderclouds that had been gathering throughout the day now covered the sky, their hulking forms a threatening presence hanging over us.
The plan was to wait as long as we could in order to give Tiri time to join us. She had all the information we’d need, and her instincts and intelligence would guide us even if her knowledge failed.
But nature waited for no man or woman. Even as I frowned at the clouds and their implications, Bekkit came zooming down from where he’d been monitoring the water levels upstream.
“We cannot delay any further. The stream has burst its banks. We must leave. Now.”
This was it. The moment we’d all dreaded was finally here.
Even as I agonized over activating the ability that would upend everything we knew, the first heavy raindrops started to fall.
Twenty-Two
Aloof
Varnell
Thunder crashed outside. The rattling of the windowpanes was followed by a hail of pattering raindrops as the rising wind swept them from the sky and dashed them against the leaded glass.
Varnell barely noticed. There was another storm to the north that interested him far more than the one currently battering at his tower. He leaned back in his armchair and closed his eyes.
Now, instead of his own office, he looked down across a gently sloping meadow. The grass was a swath of blue-gray beneath a canopy of storm clouds, which grew darker and heavier further north toward the mountains. The mountains themselves were just smudges of dark gray amid a blur of distant rain.
It wasn’t raining here, but it would be soon. Beneath the ground, he knew, the Core would shortly be forced into his trap. However, Limpit—through whose eyes Varnell was looking—had not approached the cave’s entrance, preventing him from seeing inside. He felt a jolt of surprise followed by anger when he saw the reason why. Or rather, two reasons.
The warrior—the one who still owed outstanding fines in the region of several thousand gold, the clumsy oaf—was practicing his forms. The mopey-looking pyromancer was sitting nearby, talking, though Varnell couldn’t hear what he was saying from this distance.
Not for the first time, Varnell silently cursed the circumstances that necessitated his own inaction. His regular meetings with the Arch-Academic—not to mention the less predictable visits from Varnell’s patron—left him essentially trapped at the Guild, forced to rely on his familiar and increasingly unreliable agents to be his eyes and hands.
He tried to think of himself as a spider, waiting patiently at the center of his web. Yet so often he felt like the fly, struggling vainly in denial at being stuck.
Limpit was a great deal further away than he would have liked—from both Varnell and the targets of his attention—but at least it gave him an idea of what was going on. The humans’ status as voluntary exiles meant he could no longer scry on them using the Guild’s seeking bowl, but Double Sight meant that his familiar could still be his eyes, if not his ears, even this far from the Guild.
Interesting that Double Sight was an ability shared by mages and Cores alike, though he didn’t like to think too much about their similarities. It made destroying them that much harder.
A flare of orange drew his eye to the emberfox. It was sitting a few feet away from the mage, sniffing the air. Varnell urged Limpit to move further away, ensuring his own familiar remained upwind and hidden in the long grass, even as he raged at the sight of the stolen property.
It looked as though the mage hadn’t even bonded with it; the creature was clearly keeping its distance from its kidnapper, and though it remained aloof, it kept shooting suspicious glances at the two humans whenever it thought they weren’t looking.
Why are they here? What sort of deal have they struck with the Core?
Of course Varnell knew plenty about striking deals with Cores, but there was no way these two inept traitors had anything to offer in return for an alliance.
Still… they might be inept, but they were here, and they could potentially disrupt his carefully laid plans.
A thorn in my side. Again.
If only I had someone to take care of them.
Varnell cursed himself for removing his final agent prematurely. The young man had planted the first seed—Heh—of danger several weeks earlier, but the Core’s dirty little minions had dealt with the new threat far too efficiently.
The agent had offered to go back and sow more chaos on Varnell’s behalf. However, the man had already known too much, and once he’d dealt with one final ‘heated’ matter within the Guild, Varnell had been forced to terminate him.
The unexpected return of Varnell’s right hand had been surprisingly convenient. This particular agent had unmatched skills and Varnell had immediately put them to use once more in furthering his own ends.
Lightning flashed in the sky above the meadow. The conjured storms up in the mountains had been raising water levels for days, and the Core’s minions were on the very brink of being driven from the safety of their lair—straight into the waiting arms of Varnell’s dark ally.
Assuming he doesn’t try to flee, like my master believes he already has.
There, the Core would fall.
As will those who follow it.
Twenty-Three
Hammer Smash
Benin
“Have I ever told you how stupid you look when you do that?”
“Yes.” Coll breathed in deeply through his nose as he raised his hammer slowly above his head with both hands. He expelled the breath out through his mouth as though he were blowing out candles on a birthday cake. “You should try it.”
Benin eyed the hammer, still poised above the warrior’s head. He wasn’t even sure he’d be able to lift it, let alone hold it in this series of crazy poses for minutes on end. “No thanks.”
They’d managed to catch a few hours’ rest after their sleepless night, despite Benin’s aversion to yet another day sleeping beneath the open sky. But there wasn’t much choice. They’d clearly been getting in the way down in the cave—or the Grotto, as the female sprite had informed him it was called—plus he’d been constantly worrying that Coll would accidentally stamp on a gnome or three.
N
ot to mention Benin’s own strange and somewhat irrational terror: that he’d wake to find himself tied up and staked to the ground with hundreds of the little people climbing over his body and jabbing him with their tiny spears in a sort of death-by-a-thousand-pricks situation. But he hadn’t mentioned that.
The emberfox flared slightly. Benin leaned back on his hands, the better to see the creature. Ears twitching, she lifted her face to the breeze, as though catching a scent, before her fur subsided to its usual smoldering dark orange.
From the Core’s own version of Arcane Sight, Benin had learned that the emberfox was female. After an unhelpful conversation with Coll in which the big man suggested about a hundred names, each more stupid than the last, Benin had decided to name her Pyra. Not the most imaginative of names, perhaps, but it suited her.
If he’d hoped assigning her a name might bring them closer to regaining the bond he’d briefly experienced in the Menagerie, though, he was wrong. Aside from a slight sniff, which he’d chosen to interpret as approval, she’d reacted to his pronouncement of her new name with as much indifference as she did everything else. Her attitude was more reminiscent of a housecat than a fox.
Did I do the right thing in taking her from the Guild?
Though Pyra hardly seemed grateful, she didn’t appear to be especially unhappy. Surely anything was better than the caged existence from which he’d rescued her. And besides, if she didn’t want to be there, she’d leave. Wouldn’t she?
Still, anxiety was a constant companion, a worm gnawing at his guts. His actions had surely put him in even worse standing with the Guild than he already was. What had he been thinking? Even if Tiri had it right and Varnell truly did have it in for the three of them, Benin would have a much harder time talking his way out if they were caught now that he’d committed an actual common-law crime.
