Eric frowned. “Yeah. Mick’s girlfriend.”
Bill’s gaze spoke volumes. “Dude. We’re all dead, remember? Whatever shit we had going for us back home… that story’s over, now.” He frowned as his friends lowered their gazes. No one denied it, but the mood had definitely been killed.
He gave an angry shake of his head. “Alright, fuck that. Val, kingmaker, or whatever the hell you are. We’re here, right? You want to show us something epic? Go for it. Sure as anything, we could use the lift.”
Jiu’s eyes widened as Val hesitated before the futuristic-looking elevator door, hand hovering over the gently glowing panel. “Guys, he’s afraid. He’s actually afraid. You can feel it through the Spirit Link.”
Val flushed at that, heart racing, feeling as awkward and uncertain as he ever had, so much riding on desperate hope.
He could see in his mind’s eye the intent regard of dozens of wise elders so very much like his father-in-law, all of them kin to countless smiling beauties that would warm his heart with grateful gazes so like Ava’s own. And he could so clearly visualize countless children running about a city vibrant and full of life once more, animated little bundles of energy that could be playmates to his own little girl.
The thought that there was nothing there, that he was fooling himself with deluded dreams, and all that waited beyond were empty, dusty corridors in perfect condition, but otherwise empty…
He gazed at his trembling fist. Hating himself in that moment. Paralyzed by fear.
“Val?”
For all he knew, even now their existence was in quantum flux, and his very certainty or lack thereof would collapse wave function probabilities one way or another.
“Val!”
He felt the weight of his companions’ confused gazes. His heart pounded in his chest. He took a deep breath and forced himself to touch the panel that would open the door, revealing a cloud of chilly mist.
Hesitating no longer, he stepped through.
45
Val could feel the blood roaring in his skull. It was all he could do not to fall to his knees at the miracle he witnessed, tears running freely down his cheeks.
For through the midst he heard voices frantic, hoarse, and confused.
All of them speaking in Ava’s tongue.
Hidden Quest: Wildcards I complete! You didn’t just bring an ancient city back from the brink of oblivion, Val. You mastered causality’s wave so completely you brought back her people as well. Near 100,000 souls, filled with the memory of their own deaths, lulled to slumber by the soothing susurrations of a cryogenic chamber they never built.
Until they did.
To say nothing of arboriums a generation beyond the flawed versions you had repaired in Falinnborg.
Never mind that they had never been built before.
Experience earned!
All wonders have been fully restored! Your Territory has become a Bastion of hope and possibility, home to at least one legendary act responsible for altering the course of fate for one race or tribe, or otherwise pleasing to the gods. Your Provinces now have the potential to serve as the catalyst inspiring growth and wonder throughout the land! You may now claim any and all adjoining Neutral Territories between your provinces upon the Northern Continent.
There are no unbroken tracts of land between your territories that can be claimed at this time.
Val gasped, every nerve tingling, feeling a curious roar in the back of his mind.
“Val, what’s that sound?” asked a nervous Jiu. “I’m hearing voices… lots of voices.”
And Val was suddenly flooded with the endless potential of 100,000 rescued souls. Saved not only from grisly death, but souls that shouldn’t have existed for a thousand years.
He winced as he sensed the blue bar of his being flood over once more. A waterfall of power, crashing harder than it had in quite some time.
He winced. Somehow, he didn’t think this level-up would be easy.
Not that they ever were.
“Don’t attack! Whatever you do… remain calm,” Val hissed, desperate to avert possible disaster. “Just take a deep breath, and wait for the mist to clear.”
Heart racing as the gruff baritone voices increased in pitch, no doubt sensing something was amiss, Val spoke.
“Citizens of Stridborg, my name is Valor Hunter Skogurkin. Husband of Ava, father of Avelina, son-in-law of Arilius Battleborn.” He swallowed in the sudden deathly silence; only the hissing of additional cryogenic chambers releasing their precious contents could be heard. “You have been asleep for a very long time. And much has changed, even as the hour grows ever more perilous.”
“Arilius lives?” asked one powerful voice, immediately silencing the resurgent murmur of confusion among the reviving citizens.
“Yes!” Val said. “He does. Falinnborg has been revived, and remains safely hidden from our enemies. For now.”
The voices picked up in urgency.
“Falinnborg held! A miracle! They lacked any dimension-folding technology. Our fears were that they would be easy prey for the Dominion as their sensory technology advanced. But on the off chance that something went wrong...”
“You diversified your risks,” Val said, smiling at the powerfully built dwarf that approached, wearing nothing more than a simple white shift, but Val didn’t need to see any visible raiment to understand who the man before him must be. He radiated a majestic aura that needed no pomp or glamour, his piercing blue eyes measuring Val’s own.
Val did not hesitate to lower himself to one knee, solemnly bowing his head.
The powerfully built dwarf gave the slightest of nods. “You are human. But you speak the true tongue. Neither deception nor malice mar your words. And for all that our races are at war…” His eyes flashed with sudden heat, before retaining the calm blue of a pristine sea. “I sense you are no enemy of ours.”
The noble dwarf raised an abrupt fist at the sudden angry surge in the whispers and mutters behind him. “I, King Alastman, do bid our guests warm welcome.” He turned his head as several anxious-looking elder dwarves rapidly approached him. “None of us are fools. All of us can taste the dire dreams of our own deaths.” He held back a shiver. “The folly that was almost ours. That shared doom that had compelled us to all work so diligently at preparing the suspension chamber powered by the same Valorium cores we use for our shipbuilding efforts. And even that preparation...”
He turned around as the mist cleared, intense gaze focused on hundreds upon hundreds of shaken dwarves gazing back at their king, all of them wearing nothing more than simple white shifts and wide blue eyes filled with both horror and wonder.
“… even that preparation feels no more real than a dream!”
Several dwarven girls were openly sobbing, quickly held by the powerfully built dwarven men beside them that could only be their husbands, wide-eyed children looking on in wonder, others with tears quickly picked up by parents who cooed and soothed them, just as a human mother would.
Val couldn’t stop the hot sting of tears running freely down his cheeks, unable to wipe away the joyous grin upon his features.
He felt a soft squeeze of his hand and turned, catching Jiu’s disbelieving gaze. Her complexion was pale. She was gazing at Val with unabashed wonder. “Oh my god. You… you brought them back, didn’t you? You brought them back from whatever… were they even real, before? Were they even alive? I thought they had all been…” She trembled. “Val, we’re all still linked. I feel what you’re feeling. We all do. You didn’t just wake them up...”
Bill just shook his head. “Fuck, man. According to that crazy voice in your head, you just brought an entire city back from the dead!”
Val was still stunned by all that had occurred, unable to believe that this once doomed city was fully back in the realm of the living once more. He halfway feared they would fade to ghosts and dream, but the sound of children singing in the arms of their smiling mothers as families continued to flood out of the v
ast circular suspension matrix before entering corridors leading to various portions of the now fully restored city served to bring home just how utterly real, and miraculous, all this was.
And how great their peril was as well.
“Walk with me, Valor Hunter. I believe we have much to discuss,” said the king, heading to the spacious elevator with what Val affirmed were his councilors in tow, Val and his friends just a step behind, with plenty of space for everyone.
The king turned to Val as the elevator ascended. He was struck anew by the hidden depths within the elder’s gaze. The sheer genius Val sensed just behind those ice-blue eyes, measuring Val in ways he could barely fathom, before offering the faintest smile.
“The nightmare that had so compelled us to act. The odd fits of genius our engineers were struck with as we blended so many systems so perfectly together…” The king paused, shaking his head. “Even now, recalling it all is like looking back at a dream. And still I am haunted by the echoes of a nightmare that seemed to consume us for an endless eternity.” Alastman visibly shuddered, an anxious advisor glancing his way. He raised his hand, the other dwarf retreating as far as the elevator would allow.
“Yet our systems are in perfect working order. Everything seems locked in the pristine perfection it was in, since the moment we first went into stasis. As if the dimension-folding apparatus worked perfectly, for all that I now shudder with horror at the thought of activating those systems again. And I don’t know why. What can you tell me, Valor Hunter Skogurkin?”
Val took a deep breath, a careful glance making it clear via his friends’ awed expressions that his Cypher ability was working perfectly to translate his understanding through his Spirit Link, his friends able to listen in, if not communicate themselves.
“Your worst fears were realized. The Dominion broke treaty and rained death upon all the cities of the dwarves, just as you had feared they would,” Val said as the elevator finally opened, all of them moving as one towards the magnificent ship in the heart of that vast domed chamber.
The powerful dwarf clenched his fists. “The dimensional folders?”
“Were flawed. Instead of transforming the dwarven holdings into inviolate sanctuaries, the cities replicated themselves endlessly, across infinite dimensions, stacked paper-thin atop our own.” Val frowned, rubbing his forehead as the king gazed intently at Val. “Forgive me. I’m no theoretical physicist. But that’s my gut feel about what must have happened.”
The councilors gasped in horror. The king’s weighty gaze bore down upon Val. “And what happened to our people?”
Val lowered his head. “They were no longer in the ruins. They were gone. Or so the Dominion thought. For a thousand years, they were gone.”
“Ruins?”
“Yes, King Alastman. Every city that employed the technology was suddenly barren of citizens, yet filled with dwarven treasures and relics. Adventurers from Jordia and other worlds would explore these ruins, and if they were lucky? Come out with dwarven artifacts that collectors would pay a pretty penny for. If they were unlucky, they would die to your automatons or when the cities would reset, after invaders damaged too many sentinels or claimed too many artifacts. It was as if a more pristine version would settle in the place of any that had been pillaged.”
The king blinked. “Remarkable. But not the people within, I take it.”
Val sadly shook his head. “Not its people, no. Only inanimate objects within the dwarven city replicated to infinity. I fear that the citizens within were hopelessly spread out over a thousand dimensions, each dwarf trapped in their own lonely hell.”
The king paled. “This… this echoes the dream that haunted me for the entirety of my cryo-sleep.” He gazed at his similarly stricken advisers. “The dream that haunted all of us, I fear.”
“Damn, that’s a beautiful ship,” Bill said softly as they stood before her in all her majesty once more, tiny silhouettes before a titan. Already scores of dwarven engineers could be seen working feverishly on the ship before them. And how tiny the engineers looked, like ants scurrying atop it, only emphasized how massive it truly was.
No one else in their party said anything, captivated by the sight of Val conversing with a supposed lost race as if he were on familiar terms with them all, which he seemed to be, all of them gazing upon a ship that by rights shouldn’t even exist, looking both strange and utterly familiar all at once.
Reed alone continued to sit in a catatonic stupor, and perhaps the dwarves sensed his despair, or simply took pity on the human dressed so like his compatriots, leaving him be as they worked around him.
“What is the state of the Dominion? Do enemies come for us even now?” asked the king.
Val grimaced, meeting the dwarf’s gaze. “The Dominion is very much alive and well, and more powerful than ever. Even now, the crown of Jordia is in play, numerous contenders all vying for the throne.” He flashed a bitter smile. “And what was supposed to be a fair contest of cleverness and might is no more than a facade, our twin planet’s Overlord having already chosen Jordia’s successor, and determined to do everything he can with the aid of a corrupt Jordian High Council to assure his man takes the crown.
“Very few realize that the dwarves live once more. And those few that did...” Val glared, clenching his jaw. “Most of those monsters have been dealt with. The few members of the corrupt Jordian High Council that know are trapped by their own conniving to reveal not a word. But once discovery is made public… I have no doubt that the entire Dominion will do all it can to enslave or destroy you.”
The king paled, eyes flashing with wrath. “Not if we can finish the Victrix first.”
Val grinned. “I was hoping you would say that.”
The king chuckled bitterly. “That the ship is intact, that our engineers report its systems up and running, is beyond incredible. But we are still missing key pieces needed to get her fully operational. And without a fully armored exterior...”
“You’re dead meat before a dreadnought’s blaster cannons.”
The dwarf furrowed his brows before slowly nodding. “Correct. It will take time for us to gather the resources. Months, perhaps years to track down and safely transport what we need from the ruins of those cities that had supported us so well, even to the very end.” The dwarf sighed. “But even with their inferior sensor arrays, there was only one city built deep enough, secure enough, to avoid all detection. I fear that it is only a matter of time before even the most thick-headed fool in charge of Dominion sensor arrays will sense the electromana anomalies we will be forced to give off and investigate.”
Val’s smile grew. “What if I were to tell you that I could supply you with the Valorium armor plating you seek, and in far less time than a handful of months?”
The ancient leader’s eyes widened. “Are you telling me that Arilius Battleborn’s city is intact? I had feared, with you alone having arrived, that only the tiniest fragment of his people had survived, perhaps living in ruins.” Then he gave a rueful shake of his head. “But I need only look at the hale and hearty dwarves around me, as if they had slept for just a single night, not a thousand years, to see the folly of that assumption.”
Val nodded. “Not only is Falinnborg fully restored, her people have been working tirelessly on armaments for the Victrix.”
Alastman blinked. “How? How is that even possible?”
Val grinned. “Would you like to see them?”
Wordlessly, the king nodded.
“Excellent. Where would you like me to set up the gate?”
The king paled. “But how, how could you even...” His eyes widened. “You. Your spirit is infused with the city entire! All of this resonates with your power.”
“Inconceivable!” hissed the nearest advisor, gazing at Val with horror, even as others gazed at Val with new eyes, solemnly bowing before him.
Alastman pinned Val with a hard stare. “I sense you’re holding back from me, Valor Hunter. And I would have the truth of
it.”
Val slowly nodded. “So be it. Your city too was in what I will call, for lack of a better word, a state of macro quantum flux. Her people lost. Utterly. But not impossibly.”
The dwarf blinked. Eric glared at Val. “That makes no sense, bro.”
Val shrugged. “I walk the Path of Kings. And sometimes I can shape the destiny of provinces under my control. Not only their future, but their past as well. Somehow. Sometimes. And it isn’t cheap.”
The king was gazing at Val with strange wonder.
Val nodded. “I collapsed the probability wave into the one where you had all been clever enough to build a massive cryogenic facility along with your suicidal dimension-folding apparatus. That version of reality was the one that came into being when the wave function that was your infinitely resonating city finally collapsed back fully into existence.”
The king was looking at Val with breathless wonder. Dumbstruck, as were his entire staff.
“Dude!”
“Yeah, Eric?”
“You freakin’ brought the dwarves back from nothing! Are you sure you’re not like tech support in that Cruise movie? How much did that maneuver cost?”
Val smiled. “Fifty territory points. It would have cost me just five to bring back the entire city without them.” He gazed in the distance, seeing a young dwarven woman wearing what Val inferred was a technician’s outfit. She was currently holding up a little girl, squealing with glee as she beheld the magnificent ship glowing a soft bronze-gold. “But I wouldn’t take back my choice for all the coin in the world.”
Eric blinked. “How many territory points do you have left?”
Val winced. “Eight.”
Bill whistled. “I get the feeling that’s a fuckton of power. You are one noble motherfucker, Valor Hunter.”
Val smirked. “Thanks. I think.”
Bill smirked. “Kinda stupid, since you’re in the middle of a war and all, but noble. That’s for damn sure.”
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