Debates

“That seems like a stupid idea,” Gin was the first to speak up. “Yes, let’s play around with the stuff that was just attacking us. Wonderful idea.”

“I have to agree with the sentiment,” Lord Brighton weighed in. “While I trust Seer Varnik’s insights, to jump right into trying to invoke some unknown summon would be foolhardy at best. This enemy has proven very capable of hijacking magics. Even if in their absence it would be harmless, none of us are in the position to counter a renewed ****.”

“I have to object on one point,” Goe interjected. “It took time for them to worm their way into the barrier and had to co-opt a barrier-to-barrier transport system to send and control the ash golems. I doubt they would be able to intercept this without buildup.”

“I concur with that idea,” Martius chimed in. “Even if these ‘Forge’ people are set up right outside this barrier, it would take time for them to slip in. It would be easier for them to brute **** their way in.”

The gnome rolled his shoulders. “But if you’d prefer to play things safe, I’m sure if we put our heads together, we could make a containment system. Just in case what Mr. Newman calls forth isn’t benevolent or gets overtaken. You can’t tell me being able to question either some remnant of a god or an enemy agent isn’t something we can make use of.”

“Perhaps a compromise can be made,” Vel interjected. “We move to a fresh barrier and use a containment system as suggested. There are too many answers we could be missing out on by avoiding this path. And, I’m sure even if we declined to do this now, it would be done later regardless. Best if we do it while there’s a large number of us to counter any aggressive moves.”

“That is an agreeable path forward,” Verida said. “I’m sure we can use what we learned during the fight to ensure our safety.”

“We do have a good feel for their magic,” Vivian spoke up, looking over to Estelle.

“With all of us putting in our two cents, I’m sure we can stop anything bad from happening,” the witch added.

There was a murmur of agreement amongst the aethersmiths that such measures were possible. With the general mood of most of the assembled to try, Brighton and Gin had little choice but to relent. John could tell Gin was far more against it than the Lord Protector.

As the aethersmiths, Vivian, Estelle and Martius began to work on the containment magic, Rowan cleared her throat.

“I believe there is something I have to divulge,” she said. “During the fight, something changed with my sword.”

“Given that it turned out to be some relic of our original home, made to fight in the war, that’s not surprising," Vel remarked. “Some ancient memory pulled out to suit your needs.”

“It’s more than memories of battle tactics,” the squire confessed. “After our meetings with the imprint of Gep’kes Ani, I began to see and feel things. Hands guiding me into new stances, tight grips to forestall a risky move. And right as I was about to unleash a powerful new attack, I saw a faint figure. It was hard to make out; I could only say they had dark skin, red hair and seemed to have armored arms. And that they were the right height to be of dwarven heritage.”

“That is an interesting development,” Lord Brighton said, his voice serious. “Has there been anything more since?”

Rowan shook her head. “After my large attack, whatever it was became fainter. And once we escaped, I didn't feel anything else.”

“I see,” Lord Brighton remarked.

“I am fully prepared to submit to an examination,” Rowan said, her head bowed low.

“If I may interject, Lord Protector,” Lorelei spoke up. “The longer we wait, the fainter any trace may become. I can perform a reading right now.”

A contemplative look crossed Lord Brighton’s face, as he weighed things in his head.

“You may,” he finally said, his gaze falling back onto Rowan. “This won’t excuse you from a full work up once we return to the manor.”

“Of course, sir,” Rowan remarked, hand going to her brow in a salute.

“Squire, keep your mind calm and body still,” Lorelei ordered in a soft voice as she moved over to her, arms lifting up as she was about to give Rowan a hug. Her arms remained about a foot away from Rowan, bent slightly at the elbow, palms pointed up.

John strained his senses to try and feel what was going on, but either it operated on a wavelength unknown to him or was so subtle he couldn’t perceive it. Thankfully, Lorelei was the type to verbalise what she was seeing.

“There is a sapience intertwined with you,” she intoned, her voice taking on a breathy quality. “One that shares a faint relation to our hosts. I cannot see much of her, the haze of distance is keeping me from seeing details, but there is the feel of metal upon her and a great weight in her arms. I cannot feel any ill intent. The faint scent of sulfur burns my nose.”

Lorelei’s arms fell to her side limply suddenly, her whole body sagging as if relieved of a great burden.

“That is all I can see,” she said breathlessly. “The connection between Rowan and this helper is a permanent one, though one that is rather faint by default. Holding the sword likely reinforces it, but that is outside the scope of my ability to determine and skill to test.”

“That will be something the scribes will have to look at,” Lord Brighton said.

“I think there’s some argument that we have, if not a right, an interest in this sword,” Vel spoke up. “There aren’t a lot of artifacts of Olnaght in our possession, none of that quality. And our smiths may be able to find something your people might miss. Something in how we worked our magic that’s unique to our people.”

Lord Brighton regarded Vel for a moment. “I see no harm in having one or two of your smiths take a look along with us. Since the situation seems to be growing more dire, there’s no reason for us to forgo the idea of alliance and cooperation.”

“If this examination is in furtherance of our alliance, then perhaps we can add to the number working on it,” Verida interjected. “I’m sure Vivian or Estelle adding their expertise could be beneficial.”

“Yes, let’s make it a proper team building exercise of this,” Vel remarked, clapping his hands once. “Many hands make light work and all that.”

“I wouldn’t mind pitching in,” Estelle added from where she was working with the aethersmiths, looking over to Vivian.

“I’ll sit this one out,” the redhead said.

“I think we’ve gotten a bit away from the most pressing issue in front of us,” Lord Brighton interjected in a firm, steady voice. “We can discuss the logistics of doing a deeper examination of the relic sword after we see if Mr. Newman’s idea works. And I believe before we attempt it, we should curate what we plan to ask then. There is a time limit to consider.”

“Right,” John spoke up. “If I’m fully restored by the time we try this, the summon will last eighteen minutes. I don’t think we should play around with adding elemental types to try and extend that.”

“A fair idea,” Vel remarked. “Should keep the variables as low as possible. Though, while getting a chance to speak with some aspect of one of the old gods is something I think most of us would like, is it wise to go all out? If this goes sideways, you’ll be powerless.”

“But I won’t be alone,” John countered. “If it was just me or a few of us, I’d play it a lot more carefully, but if we’ve got more than a few heavy hitters in attendance, I’m optimistic things will be fine if they go wrong.”

“We can make the barrier with a failsale that will eject us if someone other than us tries to take it over,” Hwe suggested from the group of aethersmiths. “Usually, tricks like that don’t work since anyone worth their salt in barrier craft could pick it out and disable it, but a sudden manifestation already in the barrier could make a violent subject miss it.”

“Layering a containment spell around where its being summoned could also interfere with its senses,” Estelle added.

“I can handle that,” Vivian offered.

“Sounds like they’ve got all the angles covered,” John said as the crafters continued to work, their discussion dipping into low background noise.

“Indeed,” Lord Brighton murmured, tipping his head to Vel and Gin. “Your fateweavers are commendable.”

“There’s a wrong they feel needs to be righted,” Vel remarked. “They put twice the maximum effort into this and still feel like it isn’t enough.”

“We’ll have to tell them to not take too much time making the barrier,” Gin added before turning her attention to John. “How long until you’re at full power?”

“Not long,” John answered. “I can do some meditation to speed things up if they get the barrier up and running quickly.”

“We can get it done in an hour,” Hwe shouted over to them.

“Then I’ll be ready in an hour,” John said.

“I’m done meditating. What’s up?” John asked, his eyes closed as he sat in a quiet corner of the room. With an hour to kill as the aethersmiths along with Vivian, Estelle, Martius and Lorelei worked on the barrier, everyone else separated to pass the time in their own way. Lord Brighton had gathered Ramirez, Rowan and Gaunt for a private debriefing, something Vel had mirrored with Tok. The rest of them broke into smaller groups, mainly resting from the unexpected fight.

Kiera had nervously approached him during his use of Bask, her whole demeanor hesitant. She jumped when John spoke up, his eyes opening to see her flushed face.

“I-I didn’t want to interrupt,” she mumbled. “This summon thing is important.”

“Not as important as you being comfortable,” John said. It was cheesy, but the last thing he wanted was any of his girls feeling like he wasn’t considering their feelings. He slid over to give the bluenette space and Kiera sank down next to him.

“Thanks,” she muttered, her face growing slightly more red even as she leaned against John. “Um, I wanted to talk about what happened. About that w-woman you met.”

It took John a moment to clock she was referring to Rita. Between the fighting, recounting the fighting and planning their next steps, their brief interaction had fallen into the background. He had told the assembled group of her attempt at parley and they had drawn the conclusion that she was the person Kiera had mantled during the invasion here.

“What do you want to know?” John asked. “Her Observe wasn’t exactly a full bibliography.”

He summoned it anyway, the lack of a guild affiliation and personal information stark in comparison to other sheets.

“J-just what she was like,” Kiera answered. “H-her aura wasn’t coming through very well. It took a lot for me to get enough so Vivian and Estelle could make the s-spell to break the ash golems. And I didn’t get much of a feel for her. There was too much interference from everything else in the ash to get a good read on it.”

John took a moment to gather his thoughts, his left hand rubbing his right wrist. “She started off trying to play it calm, but that didn’t last long before she insinuated it would be great for us to keep fighting. With a lot of references to fire. She did know about the clan’s history, at least the whole ‘exile’ thing. She tried to bait Tok using them. And she recognised the moves Rowan could use to counter her fire magic.

“There was something under it all, I think,” he continued after a brief pause. “When I made a break for the arch, she tried to stop me, right when you, Vivian and Estelle were trying to sever their connection to us.”

“It was more them than me,” Kiera flushed. “I was just there.”

John smiled at her, his arm wrapping around her shoulders. “You were the cornerstone, if I understand the magic right. Without your ability to sync to Rita’s aura, they wouldn’t have had that easy a time trying to break the link.”

“I-I guess,” Kiera cutely muttered, her body shifting to press harder against John’s side.

“Anyway, that caused a sort of vision to happen. I was a little girl getting inducted in some religious ceremony. When you transformed into her, did you have light blue hair?”

Kiera nodded. “A bit lighter than mine.”

“Then it was her memories I saw,” John muttered more to himself than to inform Kiera. “I saw her hands getting burned on some pillar and heard her reciting some scripture until her throat was raw. And right before I hit the arch with Hex, a hand grabbed my wrist as if it was a lifeline, trying to pull themselves out of the ash that surrounded us.”

“You think she was calling out for help?” Kiera asked.

“It feels that way,” John admitted. “Maybe not consciously, but somewhere in her mind, she wants to be free of whatever the Forge is. I can’t help but think there’s some odd mental magic at play. When I saw Rita touch that pillar, there was a flash of pure anger, almost like it was just flooding in.”

“Teri mentioned she felt rage coming from the golems,” Kiera provided. “And every aura in the golems was hot. And not like how fire mana is hot either. It’s hard to explain.”

“You don’t need to, I get it,” John said, leaning his head against hers.

“If w-we cross paths with her again, do you think we have a chance to help her?” Kiera asked softly, relaxing into his embrace.

“Don’t think we’d lose anything by trying,” John answered. “I think I’m too much of a softy when it comes to people who need help. I almost jumped into a fight at Cammie’s the first time I was there because some punks tried to shake them down for money. Had Senka’s vessel out and everything.”

“That’s why we love you,” Kiera said in a sleepy, quiet voice.

John blinked. None of the girls had ever said that to him or each other, to his knowledge. And the only time he could recall anyone saying it to him was from Brenda, before she became involved with them carnally.

‘Love,’ he worked the word over in his mind, each repeat conjuring a memory with his girls. Training with Aeolia, listening to Vivian explain complex arrays with passion, joking with Beth, Senka’s hugs both material and mental, sneaking Teri into the house to watch something, cooking with Brenda, watching Kiera draw, touring Estelle’s collection of magical doodads, walking through the forests with Verida, Anita proudly show off her newest discovery about the world.

These memories and more ran through his head, his emotions becoming unbearably clear. He loved them. Each of them with all his heart and being.

He let out a shaky breath, careful to not disturb Kiera. Nothing changed about how he felt about them, but somehow, everything did and it left him both giddy and nervous.

‘Of course I would have this revelation right before possibly interrogating a goddess or fighting some insane ash monster,’ he lamented. Kiera shifted against him, the bluenette struggling to stay awake. Her mana was key to keeping Verida’s manifestation up, and after all the fighting, she was in the worst state of all of them in terms of mental wear.

Before he could add worrying about her to his mental load, he caught sight of the aethersmiths sending two of the members out of the room. More importantly, he saw Vivian and Estelle heading his way.

‘Show time.’