Gatecrashers of Ash

A spike of pure rage lanced through Teri’s head as the display of the trial was overtaken by black smoke. Rage that was coming from the courtyard outside. The sheer intensity of it took the goblin by surprise and she lost her footing as everything else became distant. She barely felt Aeolia’s hand grabbing her arm before her balance totally failed her, the contact letting Aeolia’s worry and quiet focus blunt the heat of anger.

With her senses less overwhelmed, Teri could now feel the sharp call of panic and fear that was coming from all around her. It was the same chorus that rang out from her kinsmen the night of the attack.

“We’re under attack,” Aeolia said, her tone deadly serious.

“From the courtyard,” Teri gasped out. “And it’s angry. So angry.”

“Great,” Aeolia cursed. “Suprise attack and no weapons.”

It was a bad situation. The only one of them that had any weapons on them had been John. Sure, most of them had magic to fall back on, but Aeolia didn’t and her innate magic wasn’t one that would help.

A soft melody of tense, measured focus sang to Teri, Verida’s connection to her via the manifestation further blocking out the hostile emotions as the goddess raced over to them. Her hands were glowing with purple light, a pair of thin sticks plucked from one of the decorative trees lining the walls of the room were quickly growing under her nourishing power.

By the time she reached them, they had grown into long staves, one remaining blunt, the other shaped to a thorny point.

“Here,” the goddess said tersely, handing the second one to Aeolia. It did not need saying the other was intended for Kiera. “We need to join the fight. I do not know what’s happening, but…”

“It’s bad,” Aeolia summed up, taking the weapon. “Just our luck. Maybe you pushed things too far with Fortuna.”

“If you had to deal with her arrogant ass for as long as I had to, you would have chewed her out too,” Verida replied.

“That’s above my paygrade, Ver.” Aeolia smirked, leaning over to the goddess and giving her a quick peck on the lips. “Fighting monsters is more my thing.”

Aeolia let her wings flare out before giving Teri her own farewell kiss and dashing towards the sounds of battle.

“Shall we go find Kiera?” Verida asked, her now free hand falling on Teri’s shoulder.

Centering herself on Verida’s calm, Teri nodded. It was probably a good idea to stay together.

Kiera wasn’t sure what was happening, or why, when the screams began, she raced towards them, ignoring her own fear and the sudden pressure that settled around her head. Some part of her reasoned it was what Aeolia and Beth would do, what John would do, and that she should do the same, to be the person they thought she could be. Another part of her knew that Verida was trying to reach her, to equip her with a staff to use, but waiting wasn’t something she could do.

Everyone had gone out of their way to help her, after everything she had helped Phantom Reach with. And she didn’t want that kindness, that second chance, to go to waste. She made it to the courtyard outside the ballroom among the first wave of people, seeing the black, ashy cloud billowing out of the transport archway like fog. And from it, figures walking out.

They were about the height of the dwarves around her, made entirely of ash and made to look like armored warriors in jagged plate. They bore similarly brutal looking weapons, swords and spears, and were advancing on a group of children. Hastily dropped art supplies and a mostly finished victory banner sat on the ground as the kids ran from the invaders.

Scales bloomed on Kiera’s arms as she raced towards the attackers.

“Get inside!” she shouted at the kids, her voice cracking at the unusual volume it reached. She slowed for a second as she reached the fallen art supplies and picked up one of the sticks the kids had been using to prop up their banner. It would have to do until Verida found her.

‘I have to be careful with my mana,’ she thought as she readied to fight. ‘I can’t let Verida fade away.’

Her heart was racing when the first creature attacked her. Up close, she could see the particles of ash the thing was made from and an idea came to her.

‘If I time it right, I might be able to break these things apart.’

When the ash creature struck out with its sword with a quick thrust, Kiera parried it with her improvised staff. With her mana running along it, she was able to deflect the ashen weapon, but the **** needed left her weapon straining. She lacked Aeolia’s expertise in the way of weapons, but she figured it wouldn’t stand up to one or two more blows. So she had only one chance to try and dispel the monster.

The ash creature made another attack, an overhand strike that was somewhat more sluggish than its first against her and Kiera moved to deflect it. Her staff shook violently from the feedback, her magic applying just as much **** upon it as the blade was, and it began to splinter. But it carried out its purpose well enough, giving Kiera an opening.

Channeling her memories of Aeolia and Beth, Kiera gave her best impression of a battle cry and thrust her hand into the chest of the ash warrior. Immediately, she was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of auras flowing through it, at least a dozen, all burning red hot. The impressions of stout dwarven men filled her mind, all grim looking with shaved heads and beards decorated with various metals and gemstones, arrayed in ways that seemed like marks of honor and rank.

Despite appearance and decoration, they were united in intent, stoked by some **** beyond her sensing that drove them into a bloodthirsty fervor. But something about the auras bleeding through was off. They faded in and out of focus; for a moment nearly vanishing from Kiera’s perception before becoming fully, almost painfully, vibrant.

And linking all of these discordant auras, one in particular stood out. It was human, a woman acting as the hub from which all these golems stemmed from. She was the ultimate source of the attack.

Kiera attempted to focus on that central aura, but the fluctuations and clashing energies made trying to get a good hold on it a difficult endeavor. It was like trying to grab something falling through shifting sand, sand that was searing hot and fought against her every action.

A shift in the magic **** Kiera’s probing mind back, her body flinching in time with the psychic push. The golem, unfazed by her attempt to disrupt it, moved to strike Kiera before she could recover. Kiera hastily moved her staff up to defend, but the magic running through it was uneven and couldn’t deflect the sword blow.

Solid ash met simple wood and the blade snapped the staff easily. Before momentum could bring the weapon down upon her, Kiera felt a gust of wind race past her. The golem’s hand and sword exploded into a cloud of ash as Aeolia corkscrewed through them in her natural size.

She righted her flight and landed next to Kiera, shifting to her full size as she did.

“You okay?” Aeolia asked Kiera, gaze focused on the golem. Kiera knew she was ready to spring back into the fight once she was assured she was alright. A small nod was all Aeolia needed before launching herself at the golem.

The ashen simulacrum wheeled back, its dispersed arm and weapon reforming from the ash of its body. As it began to fight Aeolia in earnest, Kiera took a breath to center herself. She cast away the broken staff and focused. More and more people had rushed into the courtyard to stem the tide of ash, but she filtered them out, her mind going over the sensations of the aura she had felt.

She could feel her body begin to change as she tried to mantle it, the hot and gritty aura of that woman beginning to overtake her own. It stung as it clashed with the elements of Verida’s aura that had merged with hers, fire and plant resistant to working in concert, but Kiera had to try. Mimicking their summoner was the best chance she had to disrupt them. Confuse the magic and cut it off from the source.

Kiera felt her body shift, growing slightly taller, bustier and hair lengthening until it covered her eyes. She struggled to keep her arms in their dragon form, an itch burning under her scales as the two opposed elements were **** to remain in close contact, strongest on her hands.

Kiera looked out from under her now long bangs, her hair now a bright teal instead of her usual softer blue. The transformation was tenuous, the faint amount of the aura she had been able to take was stretched thin and keeping her arms dragonified was only adding to the strain.

So, when Aeolia had created an opening, Kiera jumped back into the fight. Like before, she struck the golem with a palm strike, sending a jolt of her mana into it. This time, however, she didn’t try to scan for more auras or try to grasp the faint flickers she could feel. Now she just let her attuned mana flow into the golem’s chest with one goal in mind: overwhelm and shatter the connection between the summoner and the summon.

Her mana crashed against the flow of animating magic, causing the golem to seize up, its body shaking. With one more push, Kiera fully disrupted the flow of magical energies and the golem fell apart.

Kiera felt her transformation drop, both the form of whoever sent these golems and her arms faded, leaving her as herself.

“Nice trick,” Aeolia said quickly as she slid next to Kiera. “Guessing that was whoever sent these things?”

Kiera nodded, a sudden wave of fatigue hitting her. “Didn’t get a lot from it. The connection was strained. Not sure if I could do it again.”

Aeolia brought her arm up, but before she could clap Kiera on her back or pull her into a quick hug, the pile of ash in front of them began to glow a dull red. Before either of them could react, it began to reform, growing back into its warrior form.

“You may want to get back and recover,” Aeolia advised, bringing her weapon to bare. “We might need you to pull off that trick again.”

Kiera nodded as Aeolia began to fight the reborn ash golem. Her eyes swept across the courtyard, where a number of dwarves and the two Order members were fighting the golems. Even the two knights seemed to be having issues, not in vanquishing their enemy but in dealing with their respawning keeping them locked in one place. Their fallen enemies reformed far quicker than the one she and Aeolia were fighting.

‘I need to get a hold of more of that woman’s aura,’ an idea formed in her head. ‘If I get enough, I can better tune the disruption effect and turn all of these off.’

It was going to be a hard plan to pull off, if her current state of exhaustion was any indication, but she had to try. She had to fight.

Lita huffed as she ran towards her workshop, her feet already beginning to throb in pain. The chaos of the attack kept her from really noticing that. Her attention was split between the drone back in the trial, showing Tok, John and Rowan fighting the same ash creations and a simple model figure she had left near the courtyard, where she could keep an eye on the battle. She hoped her efforts to inform them that this wasn’t part of the trial hadn’t been in vain.

‘Why did I listen to Lara?’ she lamented in panicked thoughts as she sped through the halls. ‘I could handle all the drones and keep a link to U-1 on low power easily.’

Granted, nobody could have expected an attack to happen, but she wouldn’t feel so useless if she had some bot to pilot into battle. By herself, she knew she wasn’t anything special, but with one of those, she could help at least.

She nearly stumbled into the workshop, the clashing smells of paint and oil unable to bring their usual comfort to Lita. She panted slightly as she made her way to the alcove U-1 stood in waiting. The gleaming combat robot was hooked up to the grid, charging after being used for one last training session with Tok.

For a moment, she ran her hand across its chest, tracing the gold circuit-like lines she had painted on it, recalling the hours of work she had put in to get everything perfect. She felt her mana spark, the connection forged from that work flaring to life.

Unit-One, U-1 for short, was the best combat machine the clan had. Far more durable and well-armed than the bulk of what they had, units that someone like Vel or Gin would have mobilized, it was Lita’s own personal robot. A gift that she couldn’t say no to, not after seeing how happy everyone had been to give it to her. She was the only one keyed to use it, some fancy mana lock.

Lita undid that lock and U-1 powered up in an instant. With a well accustomed snap, Lita’s awareness was now extended to U-1, giving her a clear view of her own haggard appearance. She didn’t linger on that, instead willing U-1 forward, quickly breaking into a sprint.

The machine retraced Lita’s steps with incredible speed, all its servos and hydraulics letting it match the best runners. From her POV in the courtyard, Lita followed the battle. Thankfully, the clan’s fighters, along with their guests, had been able to contain the invaders and prevent any casualties. Sadly, that seemed to be the only good news. The ashy golems couldn’t be fully dealt with. They’d collapse into a pile before reforming a few seconds later. The same was happening in the trial barrier, but those golems were far more hardy, adding to Lita’s worry. They had numbers on their side here; Tok, John and Rowan did not.

U-1 dashed onto the battlefield and made its way to the nearest battle. With a flare of mana, Lita ignited the wrist mounted blade projectors, thin swords of pure white mana extending a foot past U-1’s closed fists. With practiced skill, Lita piloted the combat bot like it was a dance, weaving between the fights, tipping the balance of each to the clan’s favor before moving on.

She could hear Tok’s lessons on fighting in her head, his words on hitting weak points joining the targeting systems of U-1 to direct where her strikes were aimed. But despite the combat power of U-1, all Lita could do was provide brief respites. The golems kept regenerating.

During her dance around the battlefield, Lita found her eyes fall upon the group from Pruzonia. They seemed to have rallied around their fighters, the winged woman taking charge and leading the other fighters, which included their goddess, now dressed in wooden armor and wielding a sword.

Her gaze fell to the other group of women. Estelle and Vivian were doing something with a series of complex arcane symbols of silver floating in midair. The blue haired woman was saying something to them, the hesitant attitude Lita had seen in her gone. It seemed they had reached some critical point as the arcane script moved and affixed itself to the blue one.

Then she transformed into someone Lita had never seen, the silver script glowing white, and she leapt towards one of the ash golems her companions were fighting. She thrust her clawed hands into the golem and, according to U-1’s sensors, sent a pulse of mana into it.

The golem collapsed into a heap and Lita gasped out loud. U-1’s sensors indicated there was no more mana in the ash. Every other defeated golem had a faint mana signature before it surged as it reformed. Somehow, the Pruzonian’s had figured out how to beat these things and Lita was already making her way to them to find out how.

And Lita herself was back to running, heading for Vel and Gin to relay whatever Purzonia had to say.