The Peak of Misdirection

The Lawmen faced dire casualties: some two hundred of them had already perished, and their attackers showed no signs of tiring. Miles and Tita now had to chase the Lawmen as they disengaged to try and focus on Golgon’s group. On one of her bounding leaps, Miles managed to catch the ankle of a fleeing Lawman; with a swing of her body and her feet planted at either side of his helm, she just had to tweak her pelvis hard enough to snap the scared, turned head of the confused Lawman.

EX LEVEL 2!

Miles had not reached this level often… but she had never even seen if there was a third level; the Lawmen always dissipated, or overwhelmed, before she ever had the chance. Whatever it is, I’ll show it to that bastard the moment I find him- And then she did: nearly missing him, Miles saw the tell-tale blue wings of the Lawman Purifier diving into the First Station. Her mission was to lead Lawmen away from the First Station, not draw them there… but if the Purifier managed to kill John- “Take care of this,” Miles suddenly yelled at Tita before, with another powerful kick off from the corpse she was riding, she launched herself towards the Lawman fortress.

Tita was now torn between orders… but where Miles could handle herself and wasn’t being followed, Golgon and his lot were clearly getting the lion’s share of Lawman attention. The tentacle elf continued onwards until she came close enough to strike dead the Brave bearing down on a distracted Rosa. The **** of her tentacle slapped the poor bastard through a nearby wall, bringing Rosa’s eyes to the flexible limb quivering over the alleyway. The elf and the mage didn’t bother sharing words; their mission was known, and the enemy was legion.

But ignoring this regrouping and resurgence of resistance was the one who came so bent on snuffing it out: Daedro, who now bobbed and weaved through open, emptied hallways to reach the Warden as soon as possible. By the time he thought to try and reach the Warden directly via the Network, she had been incapable of answering him; if anyone else therein raised alarm for an intruder to her base, none reached out to him for want of protocol. With nothing left but to solve the problem himself, Daedro ordered his Shapers to get to work without him. It was risky, given the power of the enemy, but they would not arrive for another minute, at least.

By Daedro’s estimate, that was plenty of time. If the Warden was dead and her killer was still there, then this would end in moments... and if the killer wasn’t, then Daedro already knew where he would go next.

Deeper inside, with Botuk ever at his heel, John tunneled down to the basement entrance in six short hops through the Station’s barren, lifeless walls. White runes of light washed boring, blue surfaces in the Spartan accommodations for the Plate’s alleged law keepers; all that glittered here were the plates of Lawmen armor on those remaining guards who searched blindly for the enemy. Without the Warden to mitigate this confusion, the Lawmen Network for the Plate quickly became a bundled mess; the occasional reports of something suspicious, followed by silence, did not help any of the stragglers herein.

The Warden, meanwhile, was being **** to have a very different conversation. Her replies came with struggled gasps as they were **** to meet John’s questions; so rushed was her enslavement that she still couldn’t understand how he willed her to act.

“Is there really a spy in the Bitter Nines?!”

“I don’t know!” Her voice was deep and bassy, almost masculine. She ran while missing a pant leg, but otherwise she was still dressed head-to-toe as the Warden of this facility… only none of her usual airs of confidence and command were now present, nor her all-knowing look as the Network piped intel into her mind. The Network was silent to her now.

After meeting Miles, John was **** to wonder how “she” she really was, but that was very near the bottom of his list of questions for her. “How- oh…!” John paused in their leaping through the floors as he passed one of the first floor offices… and noticed the table there: a single, rectangular brick of pure kelbok, the greenish refined stone that John had only seen hints of in peeking up at the Ninth Disk. Despite its clean appearance, its surrounding accoutrements suggested a sinister purpose: small bits of surgical equipment, pliers, and a number of other too-familiar instruments of ****.

But it wasn’t the instruments he was interested in. In a single bound he leapt into the room and tried to lift the massive slab of kelbok; it slowly rose as he lifted it, shocking the Warden with this sudden, inexplicable display of brute strength. This is perfect! Right, if I… yeah…

Whatever this intruder’s runes, the Warden feared they may well have rivaled even the Peak’s own.

Botuk blinked in confusion. Had she really thought that? How could she dare-?

“How many Lawmen are coming?” John grunted as he finally put the massive block on its short side; standing upright, it nearly touched the ceiling and was too large for John to wrap his arms around it.

“At least three thousand- How are you- what are you doing?” Her questions numbered too many and her rights to answers too few.

But John obliged her with a knowing chuckle. “Just setting up some insurance… and…” Holes opened in reality above and below the massive slab. It fell with violent speed… and again… and again in perfect, uninterrupted harmony. The massive block became a blurred pillar of green running between portals as it reached terminal velocity; the **** of its journey created a violent breeze inside the office, but not violent enough to err its path. “… done. Right, let’s keep going.”

“G-Going-?” But a portal opened up and, per his last order, she continued to follow him unerringly. They left the strange and dangerous phenomenon to find yet more.

John stood at the top of the stairs leading into the basement; the guards normally posted here were now scattered in their search, but the glint of armor at the bottom triggered a reflexive spell from John. A tunnel opened between the two Lawmen Braves waiting down there; John’s quickcasted strikes ended their lives in short enough order. With so little to distract him, John relayed the battlefield intel to his minions with no change to their orders… for now. “Are they coming all at once?”

“No,” Botuk choked as she watched her Braves be slaughtered so effortlessly, “they have all taken wing from the other Stations and will arrive in short bursts, and almost a-all those of the Ninth Disk will be channeling in by bridge... unless their orders change! These are not my words-!”

“You don’t have a choice in answering my questions, so stop fighting it already,” John muttered. A knot of Lawmen at the bottom of the basement was what Zalla had predicted would be there; they would guard the evidence storage rooms, and especially the vault, with their lives and expertise...

… so why was no one here? John found no sign of the guards, weapons, illusions, or anything else to greet him as he arrived at the inexplicable basement of the First Station. Did they withdraw to help the fight...? John was greeted only by what the model had shown, though its enormity hadn’t hit John until now: the basement was an eagle’s foot where the back talon was the stairwell John had just descended. The ceiling was twelve feet above once he reached the lowest landing on the stairs, and from there the hallway split into the three other digits. Flanking him on either side, and all along the paths to the ends of each hall, were heavy blue doors with large, silver locks at their centers. Each lock was ornately forged with a polished finish and circular reliefs for what John suspected to be the “keys” Golgon and everyone else referred to: mana-bearing devices meant to be inserted therein to unlock these vaults.

Only one vault stood apart from the rest: the very same Zalla described as holding all the metals they needed. This door’s metal shined like opal under water, but was forged bare of décor or polish; it was a slab of denial bolted to the door with golden locks that, as John focused on them, glowed with a shimmer mere gold did not possess: a prismatic sheen danced on the surface of pelos, the highest refined metal in Vantage, and that sheen so danced without moving one’s eyes or perspective. It was hypnotic when one appreciated it in stillness; it was dizzying as John tried to focus on it while moving towards the vault. He looked at the hinges and saw they were silvery zeetok; how much had gone into fortifying this vault? It almost made more sense to sit here and steal the damn thing…

Well, shit.

“Are all the refined metals in the big vault?” John asked offhandedly.

Botuk’s eyes went wide as saucers… and yet her answer could not be choked down. “No!”

“No, they’re not there?” John almost thought she managed to resist.

“They are not,” she almost wept, “and whatever you do to me… you’ll never have them!”

John turned to regard her, confused. Zalla had to tell him the truth, and her intel was barely a day old… so how? “How much of… never mind. Where are all the metals that were here, now?”

“They were moved seven hours ago by order of the Peak,” she all but hissed, “and moved with minimal escort by the Ninth Disk Lawmen who came to retrieve them.” The drop of despair in the Human imposter’s features gave Botuk a bit of hope, even as she knew her life was forfeit… even as she knew her men and women would still die in droves. “I should have known that the Peak foresaw this danger; her wisdom has trumped your thievery, and soon it will annihilate every member of-”

“The Bitter Nines,” John suddenly gasped.

“Yes,” she triumphantly declared, “none shall-”

“There’s really a spy, then…” John racked his brain for culprits on the short list of possibilities: Golgon, Hurk, Kitok, Cidi, and Miles. None of his human companions would even know how to be spies for the Peak, if they were so inclined, and none of his summons could betray him. Did Zalla have some latent connection that permitted-? No, he even asked her if she could still contact the Network for his own spying purposes; she could not. Then how…? How were they going to leave empty-handed after being put in so much danger, as his allies were still out there, still in danger, for nothing… except…

John looked at the vault. “What’s in there now?”

“Nothing; it lies bare and empty.”

“You still have the key?”

“I… do,” Botuk hesitantly declared as her hands searched the small pocket where she kept it. Despite being defeated and rematerialized, the Game had left her with her equipment in the state it left the world: damaged, but still present. She produced the key to confirm her report to him; it shimmered as the lock did. John gave it a hard stare.

Pelos Key (Access Only): magical item. Enchanted to complete a magical circuit constructed from the combination of alchemical reactions and runic coding and made from grade IV pelos, this key holds 1,000 mana in the form of an encrypted security code and cannot be modified without dispersing all the mana contained inside.

Very different from what the pelos key we need apparently does… so is it even a good substitute?

John had one more idea… but it was silly at best, useless at worst. But with the Purifier on his way and some hundreds of Lawmen getting ready to swarm his beleaguered allies, John didn’t feel he had much left to try before aborting the whole operation.

“Botuk, are there any metals or valuables in any of these other evidence rooms?”

“Yes,” came her very brief summary of what she hazily remembered to be some dozens of examples of improvised weapons, stolen gear, illicit ****, and other dangerous chemicals or tools.

John nodded. “Good. I’m going to call in some extra help and you’re going to pick out the best stuff down here until we've taken it all.”

Botuk narrowed her eyes as she tried to discern his plan, but he had already begun the summoning. "Take it where?"

John didn't bother answering.