.jpg)
Lightning extended from Gipson's hands, striking the Foxkin full in the chest. The sparks crackled all over her body, all exposed fur standing on end.
Had anyone else in our party taken that eldritch blast, we'd have been knocked unconscious, possibly even killed. I know it hurt Katrya, but when the discharge ended, she still stood.
And she was angry.
I've seen the Foxkin in a lot of fights. I believe I've mentioned before that she participates in Arena battles, the illegal ones. I've seen her take a severe beating and come out grinning.
I've never seen her angry before.
She charged at Gipson, Ci-claws flashing. Every time she swung, she hit, with terrifying force and speed.
And every single blow deflected off his robes, producing visible sparks.
The sounds of battle from below seemed much farther away than they actually were. The explosions of dying wraiths were farther apart, almost naturally synchronized with the techno-beat of our live-stream. There were more wounded than my drones could handle; even Gordi had started applying first aid.
Ellie cast her circle again, this time around Gipson, while Vamir summoned his thorny shades, hoping to crush him within their constricting embrace. He shrugged off both spells.
I must admit, I felt a moment of despair. Then I saw the smirk on Ron Gipson's face, and Katrya's anger infected me. I poured that anger, along with every bit of personal Power I had left, into another attempt at a teleport block around the conniving Councilman.
The bubble appeared...and held. I did the same, halting my race for the altars.
Aru did no such thing, keeping his eyes on the goal, but as he tried to pass our foe, Gipson released the lightning again. The bolt passed through Aru, then continued to strike Katrya, then me. The male Foxkin absorbed the brunt of the shock, which still failed to fell the ex-BP Specialist. By the the time it reached me, the bolt had little force left, and grounded out through the scaffolding.
Then a single canister sailed through the air, launched by a spring mechanism that had twice before failed at just such a crucial moment. The fragile container struck Gipson squarely in the chest, and shattered against his impenetrable robes. He glanced down, then cocked a disbelieving eyebrow at Varfana, who had shot the thing at him. His sneer widened, and I got the distinct impression that he was about to shout, "Fools!" or some such epithet.
Then he caught a whiff of the gas, and his face took on an entirely different expression. His facial muscles tightened into a rictus. He tried to take a step, and got halfway through it when the paralytic took hold. His body froze, rigid as a statue, in a rather enigmatic pose, one hand raised, teeth bared.
He died in that position, as Katrya's Ci-claws sliced cleanly through his throat. His head fell to the metal rebar of the platform, followed by his body, each separate thud sounding much louder to me than the noise of the ongoing combat below.
Katrya said something to me, which I didn't catch right away because I was speaking to my VP. "Parker, broadcast the Maxwell clip alongside livestream. If Ama agrees to it, play the Whole. Thing."
And then it registered. The Foxkin had apologized. "Sorry, Zeke," she'd said.
"Sorry? For what?" I stared for a moment. When she didn't respond right away, I said, "We have work to do. Let's go." I headed for the top, where Aru was en route.
Behind me, Katrya said, "Eh. I thought you would want a few more blows."
I didn't look back. "I've killed enough people."
"Probably better this way," said Vamir. "He didn't get a chance to try to teleport away."
Katrya made a grunting sound without further comment.
The halfling piped up. "Dang, since he seemed immune to magic I was going to wack him."
That caught my attention. I wanted to answer it somehow, to tell her not to be so eager to kill. That every death will eventually make her wonder whether there might not have been some other solution, if only she could have found it in time.
But, no. Again, those weren't the words needed right now. Instead, I stopped walking, looked her in the eyes, and said, "Gordi, it is a testament to the strength of your heart that you were here today. Never forget that. And you can tell your sister that I said so."
I saw Katrya nodding sagely as she passed us on the ramp. There's another emotion conveyed by a nod. There must be a class they give at the Academy.
Gordianus grinned. "She got the height, I got the backbone."
We joined the others at the top of the scaffolding. Around the Core - Elenya's Tree - were openings in the fibrous exterior, each one ringed by raised runes. No altar stones this time, but the runes were the same language that Aru had painstakingly learned. "We might wanna go in order since there's now more ideal conditions," he suggested.
We placed ourselves, and then placed our Cair, in the order he directed.
For a few moments after the last Ci was placed inside the opening, nothing happened. Then, vine-like roots moved to curl and twist around the handles, and the handles were drawn deeper into the Tree. Slowly, the pulsing light of Elenya's Tree slowed, and dimmed.
I held my breath. I think everyone at the top did. I suspect that Jane and all her sisters did, as well.
And then...the Wall dropped.
As we stared up from below, the surface of the rock above us began to crack, and the scaffolding shook. I felt weightless.
We, all of us, were gently rising into the air.
Some voices rose in awe, some in panic. One halfling squealed in delight.
The rock of the cavern ceiling split open along several of the developing cracks, but the pieces did not fall. They, too, rose up and away from the ground, floating away.
Behind them: darkness - a void dotted with pin-pricks of distant light. I heard Ms. Blackrose emit a gasp of joyous recognition. "Stars!" The word was echoed by more than one voice.
Ahead (or, above, without gravity as a point of reference it is surprisingly difficult to orient oneself), a large, circular rock, illuminated from the side by a star not as distant as the others, its surface partially obscured by wisps of white. The image finally resolved itself in my mind: clouds, in the atmosphere of a planet.
Elenya's Tree did not continue out into the void of space, still seeming cut off where it had been in contact with the now-deactivated Wall, but now it looked like energy radiated out from that stump-like end, swirling in a greenish-purplish haze that slowly began to extend out across the entire city.
It's still difficult to say whether the magical haze descended to envelop Æstas, or if the ground arose to push everything up through it. Either way, the end result was the same: once through, the view changed from void and haze to daylight - true daylight, not lamps embedded into a ceiling of rock - being filtered through green leaves on a massive tree that reached up into an open sky.
All around, the city extended outward as it once did, but that is not to say that it was unchanged: the outer structure of the Core was gone, and many places where the ground was stone was now instead covered with green growth.
Æstas, the City Below, had been restored to the surface.
This is one elf's (admittedly biased) account of events, as I recall them. I still have a hard time believing that we, a random group of strangers assembled by a voice possessing the AutoChef, pulled this off. Changed the whole damned world.
But then I look around, and I see, not an end of an adventure, but the beginning of one. I wonder what place we will have in it...and then I realize that the answer is: whatever place we make for ourselves.
Some will undoubtedly want to explore. That tone of voice from Cecily Blackrose when she named the stars...I've only heard that from her before when she spoke of Hilda. We might want to claim those leftovers sooner rather than later.
And some may choose to stay and protect the city. I have been thinking that, with a chance to start fresh, we will want someone to help guide it in the right direction.
But first...I think I want to take someone out to a quiet dinner. After all, a man's got to have his priorities.
..::Kai::..
No comments:
Post a Comment