The failure to take down the hexa-hydra was unfortunate but it wasn't the end of the world.
If anything it gave me reason to experiment with spells and enchantments. It also made me consider how useful a lot of the common elements would be the higher I climbed in tiers. Or, more accurately, how much less useful.
Defensive spells against the common elements were, well, common. Not just beasts like the hexa-hydra either. Mages, machines, kinya users and golems had developed resistances to many of the common. Versatility did have its uses though.
What was that saying? A jack of all trades is a master of none but often better than a master of one?
I think that's how it went. Could check Memory Palace to be sure, but I shook the thought off. Wasn’t worth the time.
I'd moved to the command module of the Iron Curtain. Inertia was hiding out, trying to isolate an issue we’d been having with one of the pressure valves. As I got closer I realized it was an enchantment issue so I wasn't even sure why Inertia was involved. Had tracked her down to talk about the last battle, but she held her hand up and waved me forward when she saw me, ordering me to fix it.
By the time I had, she’d gone.
Sneaky Forgeborn.
The next few days were a mix of returning to Aeternia, working on my spells, and hunting down less dangerous targets off the list. I also took the time to prepare my many gifts. I’d finished those I was making for Ari, Alistar and Vendel, had an idea for Bevel and Tanis, but was a bit stumped for Nexxa.
She’d always been tough to get gifts for. I was thinking a jacket, biker style. Hadn’t seen anything like that on Ro’an, and she could rock it.
There was a part of me that wanted to have Calbern deliver the pendant I’d crafted for Vednil. I had a feeling my assistant would appreciate it more coming from my long-time friend.
It was as I was preparing to return for the evening that it happened.
The days had been so peaceful and calm since we’d arrived in Terra Vista, even with our little forays into the Howling wastes, I might’ve been under the impression things were safer there. Should’ve known better. Even as we mere mortals were squabbling, our enemies above were adapting.
The sky had felt as if it had broken when the monsters bombarded Cape Aeternia. I thought the apocalypse had come, when the hexa-hydra unleashed its bevy of spells.
Turned out those’d been nothing.
Monsters rained down, accompanied by destructive magic meant to strip protections away.
I would later discover the long-standing bombardment of the Front and the Everstorm had stopped as suddenly as the new onslaught had begun. The enemy had discovered most of Ro'an was no longer protected.
The monsters came down everywhere.
Not that I had time to think about any of that when it started. I teleported outside the Iron Curtain, fighting to thin the horde.
I’d thought myself strong ever since ascending to Hydra-souled, yet for the first time since I became a mage, I felt entirely too small. Nexxa had spoken of her battle on the front, mowing down uncountable monsters continually. For the first time I started to understand what it was like.
I Dimension Danced around the airship, unleashing Lightning ,Bolt after Bolt, scouring the sky around us. And still, more screamed, more descended.
I could barely discern what they were, they were so thick. Here a leg, there an arm. Most of it scaled or covered in thick fur.
Eventually I recognized one. It was one of the wolf-like things I’d seen during Bahama’s test. Using my interface I scanned it to confirm.
Colloquial name: Corragaunt.
Type: Disposable shock troop of the biosculpting ravenous horde.
Disposable was right. Most died faster than they could hurt us. Even so, the damage was done.
Calbern went sliding across the top of the zeppelin, standing with an injury that had him limping. I hadn't even seen what hit him.
I Dimension Danced over, casting Bestow Health while grabbing his hand to steady his balance. Without missing a beat, Calbern caught an incoming monster on his blade. Another I hadn’t seen slipped past. It and every other within a hundred feet were fried by a Lightning Bolt. While doing so, something else struck my chest, sending me stumbling.
Normally I would’ve simply pushed through such a light impact, but I noted something at the edge of my vision. I couldn't help but look down at the spike that was protruding from my chest. Might’ve vaporized dozens of them, but a spike thicker than my leg had made it through.
The spike was just one of dozens shot out from a creature that looked like a Triceratops with too many horns. At least thirteen, though it was firing them rapidly enough it was hard to get a count.
They were growing back as fast as my flesh. I coughed blood as I pulled out the spike and took a fraction of a second to appreciate that was all it cost me. Then I spat to clear my mouth before proceeding to do my duty, cutting through as many as I could, Calbern at my back, keeping that much safe. Inertia was nearby though I couldn't say where. I could hear the hiss and clank of her body as she tore through the hordes. Mostly I could hear her cursing her own weakness.
We were lucky in a way that we weren't fighting threats on the level of the hexa-hydra.
Anything that strong and we would’ve been knocked out in the first minute.
As we got a short reprieve, less than a second, I stared at the hundreds of bodies. The points I'd been collecting to buy off Halina suddenly felt so very, very worthless. I gave myself that moment of wry humor as I used my bare strength to rip apart a… gerbil, I want to call it. A gerbil-rat thing attempting to gnaw at my face.
Break over, I continued casting.
There were so many targets. There was so much to kill.
It continued hour after hour. Monsters continued to rain down from above until…
Well, until they didn’t. Eventually there was some small amount of quiet, at least in our corner of Terra Vista.
When it started we'd been over a village. There wasn't much left of that village anymore. A few of the people had survived. Even as I went to heal, I glanced at the sky.
Streaks of orange light continued to cut across it in the distance though there were less of them, and they seemed thinner. We’d fought off a surge of some sort,. Maybe they’d been testing us. Or maybe they'd sent enough monsters. Maybe more places had been overrun. It was impossible to say from the middle of nowhere, Terra Vista.
In truth, there was only one place I was worried about.
Instead of helping the village, what I really wanted was to check on Cape Aeternia. Couldn’t leave though. If I left, most of our ship's defense would be gone. Besides, there could be survivors.
The hexa-hydra, the great threat I'd been hunting and couldn't even deal with because I wasn't strong enough, wasn't even there as we flew over on our way back to Central Command, run off or eaten.
At some point during the fighting Starbreaker had departed. That wasn't too surprising. He might’ve claimed to have been there to keep us honest but I was pretty sure he’d just been bored. The moment there was a real emergency, he’d left.
If I had to guess he probably went back to check on his family. Couldn’t blame him. After all, it didn't look like anywhere had been spared. If the middle of nowhere was being inundated with so many monsters, I could only imagine what some of the more civilized places had to deal with.
Like the monsters we had to clean up around the village.
Hundreds had made it past us. Most had been dealt with by the local folk, but we helped finish them off.
Finally, it was over.
The most disquieting part was seeing Calbern. He was haggard. His clothes were torn to pieces. Mine likely weren't any better but on him it was different.
"You okay there old man?" I asked, clapping him on the shoulder.
He staggered slightly under the weight of my hand. “If I may be honest, that was a good deal more than I was prepared for, Master Percival,” Calbern admitted, giving his head a shake before restoring his steely demeanor. “If this is the nature of the threats we will be facing, I feel I shall be making progress with greater haste than I foresaw. Whether it will be enough…”
“Glad to have you at my side old man. Let's see if we can't find Inertia somewhere in all this.”
Inertia was unsurprisingly in the midst of a lot of disassembled parts. The only difference was this time, instead of the parts of a machine, she was standing in the midst of body parts. Tresla was nearby, smoking on her pipe as she watched Inertia pull apart a scaled beast of some form. I was pretty sure I would’ve had a hard time identifying it even before Inertia got to it.
There was a lot of frustration leaking out of my friend, steam rolling off her in waves.
“Things got worse,” Tresla said rather matter-of-factly, looking up at the streaks of light in the sky.
“Bit of an understatement,” I agreed, sitting down on an overturned table that had been inside of one of the nearby homes not long ago.
There wasn't much in the way of triage to do. Those who survived the initial wave had already been healed. Those who could fight stayed to fight. Those who couldn't had retreated to a central tree. I hadn’t noticed before, but as I inspected it, I saw it was a veritable enchanted fortress. Likely for events exactly like this. According to one of the nearby villagers, most of the local folk made it inside in the first couple of minutes.
There were a number of defenders who saw us off. There wasn’t much point in us staying. These were tougher Terra Vistans. They were used to monster attacks, if not in such ludicrous numbers. Now that they knew to expect it, they'd be watching. Next time monsters fell from the sky, they’d be ready.
My instinct was forget all about the local trouble and head back to Cape Aeternia, to make sure my people were safe. To use Homespark and pull Ari and Bevel close. Wasn’t worried about Nexxa, but wouldn’t have minded talking with her.
Again, that’d leave everybody on the Iron Curtain with only Calbern and Inertia to protect them. Wouldn't really be fair. A call on the mirror was surprisingly broken, though Ari was able to confirm they were safe.
There'd been no problems back home; not even the Frigid Peaks had been hit. It seemed Terra Vista had gotten the worst of it, at least between the two regions. Sidhe had managed to make enough progress on her network that we knew the Forgelands hadn't been hit nearly as hard.
It sounded like most of Terra Vista’s major cities would be fine too, with the amount of defenses built into each. It was the rural folk that would’ve been hit hardest.
We set course back towards Central. At least I could drop off more than enough body parts to fill Halina’s idiotic quota. The monster attack had been good for that, if nothing else. I could hardly be jubilant about it, considering the number of lives likely lost elsewhere.
Our return trip wasn't particularly fast. While we didn’t swing wide, we stopped everywhere that was still under siege, weeding out monsters, helping the elves survive.
Terra Vista had barely started to recover from the civil war and then this.
Our progress towards Central slowed as the density of communities increased.
It was at the point where I didn't have sufficient storage to keep processing materials. Far beyond. Should’ve likely enchanted something by that point. We did have a spatial vault onboard the Iron Curtain, but it wasn’t one I’d built, so it wasn’t that strong. It'd been on the list but there was always something more important. For the most part a Waygate was a better use for our scant worlds materials than a storage vault.
“Feel like there aren’t nearly enough flying monsters?” I asked Calbern after taking down one of the few we’d seen, a ice raven with a wingspan of only a dozen feet.
“There are relatively few,” Calbern agreed, flicking his blade clean of monster blood.
“Inertia believes they prioritized killing the mobile threats first, leaving the rest for later,” Tresla said from her place on Inertia’s back. “Which is why we’ve seen so few since the first few hours.”
I looked up. There had been an awful lot of people crossing the sky at incredible speed. That included several teams of elves.
“Guess when putting out fires across an entire nation, they had to prioritize.” Terra Vista wasn’t small either. Despite looking like a small wedge on most maps, it encompassed more land than the continental US.
“Speaking of priorities, Master Percival, I believe we are no longer needed here.”
“Right. Onwards,” I said in agreement.
Not once over the next week did I return to Aeternia. There wasn’t a break long enough to justify it. Barely had time enough to snatch an hour of sleep every other day.
To say we’d been stretched thin by the time we made it back to Central Command would’ve been too kind. The airship docks had been half full last time we came in; now they were almost empty. When we landed it didn't take long to discover things had changed and not in a small way. We've been greeted by bureaucrats the last time we landed.
There was no fancy robed functionary waiting for us. Just some poor elf who looks confusedly between their enchanted clipboard and us. They tried to inform us that in the current state of emergency all Terra Vistan aircraft were being commandeered by Central Command.
It didn't take long to explain we weren't Terra Vistan.
Neither Halina nor Starbreaker had time to see us. Though even as the crew unloaded the crates of monster parts, I did manage to get someone from House Foreshtall.
Even had Ventus to serve as a witness. As I was trying to convince the poor elf to sign off on the delivery, I asked about just getting the Low Council to sign off instead.
“Sorry sir, the Low Council are dead.”
“What do you mean they’re dead?” I asked the overworked elf, fighting down the urge to pick them up and shake them.
They shrugged, gesturing at the busy cargo bay.
“How does that even happen?” I demanded of no one in partiucular. They should’ve been safe inside Central.
Ventus decided to answer, “From what I’ve been hearing, monsters broke through the parks. Attacked the rings.”
“They overwhelmed the enchantments?”
“Have to check, but if I could find someone to take the bet, I’d put my money on sabotage,” Ventus said, drawing one of his taloned fingers across his scaled throat.
“Unpleasant. Not much point speculating. We'll work with what we know. You’re sure there’s no way I can get confirmation from house Fores’thall these goods have been delivered?” I asked, waving towards the crates of body parts we'd meticulously harvested specifically to get Halina off our backs. “Still owes me a key to free her kids grandkids too. I’ll need that before we head out.”
“I uh… I’ll see what I can do sir,” the young elf said snapping off a salute before running away. He didn’t bother verifing the contents of the crates.
I sighed, hoping either Halina or Starbreaker would somehow appear soon. While Ari said everything was fine back in Aeternia even with more monsters falling from the sky…
Why was I stuck helping a bunch of ungrateful elves? It didn't help that I hadn't seen her or Bevel in nearly a week. While it wasn't terrible, with everything going sideways, I had a feeling that if I didn't see them soon it'd be a long time before I saw them again. Of course that just felt like an appropriate reaction when the world was falling apart.
Luckily the young man soon returned. Or perhaps not so luckily as he informed me Starbreaker was on his way to verify our haul. The elven Djinn-souled strolled in, casual as anything, stopping and looking at the crates. He gave them a nod before turning to me. “Magus Percival.”
“So did she tell you how to fix the kids?”
“I managed to get it out of her,” Starbreaker confirmed, stepping forward. “Though I'll be coming back to see them home safely myself.”
“Respect that.” Appreciated it even. Wasn't like I wanted to have to fly them back down after. Plus he did leave his airship parked atop our research tower.
We both turned to go back aboard the Iron Curtain when the entirety of Central shook.
“That can't be good,” I observed, trying to see past the gantry arms that were holding the Iron Curtain in place. Unfortunately there wasn't much to see from where we were standing.
“It wouldn't have been, no,” Starbreaker said in agreement, hand on his sword as he leapt upwards.
A simple solution I should’ve thought of. I blamed my lack of sleep. With a pull of my aura, I followed him up above the loading docks. A new wave of destruction had been wrought along one side of the core.
An airship had slammed into one of the empty berths ripping several gantry arms free. If the destruction stopped there, it wouldn't be so bad.
It didn’t. Those gantry arms had fallen thousands of feet to land in the enchantment halls, some of them slamming all the way through to the under city. Looks like we're going to be delaying our departure, Starbreaker said even as he leapt down. Much as I hated the man at the moment, I agreed with him, following immediately behind him. While he dealt with the upper halls, I went to the Undercity.
A section I hadn't been in before. I hadn't even realized there were separate sections.
Neither of us sat around. While Starbreaker and his people took care of the enchantment halls, I went deeper.
The destruction was worse than I expected. The Undercity folk had already been balancing on the brink. Damage like this combined with the sudden war, and the undercity was it was ripe for all sorts of despair. Calbern landed behind me less than a minute after I had.
Moving forward, I pulled rubble away, healing as I went.
There were a surprising number of people I was able to save. Even one who'd lost the entirety of their upper forehead. Restore Form powered up by my Hydra-soul was proving its worth. Though that injury did eat through mana faster than I was used to.
Didn't take long to move through the first sector. It took fifteen minutes to sort out those I could save from those who were too far gone. Anoter fifteen passed to before I finished the critical healing.
When I was done I went to find Starbreaker and found him performing similar triage. Despite having more healers, there’d been even more injured in the Enchantment Hall. Another hour went by before we managed to make our way out.
“I find myself owning you thanks once again,” Starbreaker said as we made our way up to one of the lifts away from the emergency. Neither of us were freshly rinsed, having only bothered to get rid of the blood once the healing was done.
“You don't have to thank me for doing the right thing.”
“I shouldn't, no, but I find myself…” Starbreaker trailed off Looking out the window at nothing. “I do not like you, Magus Protectus Percival of Cape Aeternia.” Starbreaker stated, turning to glare at me. “Yet I find myself respecting you more than most I’ve known. It is uncomfortable.
“I will see my people to safety and then I hope not to see you again for many years.”
“That makes two of us Starbreaker.”