Chapter 46: The Cartographers

Subject: Mille Location: Maliscade - Blightbane Guild

Just when it seemed the situation couldn’t get any more confusing, a second group of armed strangers barged into the Guild hall.

Mille didn’t know who they were, but from the way they sealed the door, she knew they were important. Only The Theocracy’s higher-ups and their Enforcers could seal Maliscade’s doors, and Enforcers didn’t have the authority to seal the Guild’s doors.

She looked down at Caim’s unconscious form, no longer as concerned with the Hexaline Knight beside her.

When someone was hired by the Guild, they were taught basic first aid, and most positions mandated regular refresher courses. Mille knew not to move an unconscious person without a good reason.

Living bombs were enough of a reason.

Caim is breathing, thank The Hexaline, she thought after a cursory exam.

Kneeling by his body, she quickly reported what she was doing to the frustrated Hexaline Knight.

Caim’s strange blue spikes, produced by the defensive spell he cast on her, vanished upon moving, only to return when she was settled. Mille had a satisfactory understanding of the spell’s behavior by now. She was protected while stationary, and there would be a delay upon deactivation before the protection would reactivate.

“I will do all I can to wake him up. I don’t know why, but his spells are somehow still active. I think they will stay that way as long as he is alive but I can’t be completely confident.”

“Do that. I give you permission to use any method, even if it would put him in danger.”

“Y-yes, my lord.”

Mille didn’t know if the Hexknight meant it this way, but he was in such extreme danger in this situation that what she did to wake him would mean little by comparison. They could all die here. As long as she didn’t outright attempt to harm him.

He probably didn’t want her to deal irreparable damage to a citizen’s body, but he was aware that a faron doing anything to bring harm to a human would be punished more severely than if their roles were reversed. Much more severely.

Even a Hexaline Knight couldn’t force her to hurt someone, even if she knew some method like that to wake him. Caim was a better person than Latice, though she would never say it out loud. Not just Caim, she’d die before intentionally harming an innocent.

He probably doesn’t even know that, she reflected. His suspicious background and behavior ruined a chance at a good start to a friendship. But maybe it’s not too late to make up for it.

Noting that the Hexknight had shifted focus to issuing orders to his squad, Mille rolled Caim over and checked him for injuries. The only place he could have been hurt was on the head, and his forehead wasn’t even bleeding anymore. Yet, that wasn’t evidence of perfect health.

Caim’s breathing was fine, if slow, but his fingers had suddenly begun to twitch. Rather than unconscious, it was like he was in the midst of a painful dream. But he was definitely unconscious. He couldn’t be sleeping.

Lost in thought, Mille’s hand slid into Caim’s innermost layer of armor. She touched the cool material lining the young man’s spine.

Subject: Mille Location: Maliscade - Blightbane Guild

“Well if it isn’t another pain in the neck,” Hexknight Latice called out to a man at the door of the Guild hall.

Still trying to gently rouse Caim, Mille also listened in on the exchange from her place on the floor.

The man didn’t respond, but one of his companions beside him began issuing commands to the others. Mille couldn’t see well from here, but this companion had a strange appearance. Not strange for a normal person, just strange for someone with authority.

Really, it’s only her hair color. Are officials really allowed to color it like that?

“Come to greet me? I have my hands full at the moment, you see.”

Latice continued talking, but he still wasn’t getting an answer.

“Already at work and you just got here. Do you know how many of them there are as well, Gil?” Latice went on, somewhat taunting the other man.

Mille realized why this stranger wasn’t responding. He was taxed to the limit, rapidly casting an array of spells all across the hall. Even working in overdrive in such a chaotic environment wasn’t enough to wear his concentration down to the point of miscasting.

It seemed flashy offensive spells weren’t beyond the reach of this man’s talents, and he continued to maintain that incredible speed while he prepared them in advance for unseen threats.

Ethereal grey daggers hovered over his shoulders, poised to launch. He closed his eyes and took a much-needed breath.

“You will call me Gillis or nothing at all,” the stranger finally answered, breathing heavily. “Last count was roughly ten, but that would be around eight now. I can’t tell where they are anymore, but my knights are working on it.”

That explained why a Hexaline Knight knew this Gillis person and why he cared enough to speak to him at a time like this.

It was the knight she’d seen on the train with Caim. He looked different when he was showing off his powers, but his outfit was even identical. Mille was surprised she didn’t notice it until now. Well, she did have an excuse.

“We need to kill them before the spells activate!” Gillis’s companion shouted to the other newly-arrived knights.

The knights moved in perfect sync with each other, attacking specific people in the crowd with spells. They were more common-variety offensive spells, but the casters demonstrated entirely uncommon mastery.

They somehow knew who to attack by using some spell or enchantment. The danger would soon pass with these new combatants in the fight, Mille thought. As she was beginning to breathe easier, an offensive spell unexpectedly deflected off of one of the targets, leaving him unscathed.

“All dead,” the man commented calmly, looking around at the bodies of the other strangers. “This batch, at least.”

Mille looked over to the Hexaline Knight named Gillis, a hand still resting on Caim. But there was nothing she could do.

The last surviving stranger jumped up on a table, supporting his balance with a hand on the pillar beside him. The noise in the Guild fell to the lowest it had been since the fighting picked up.

The survivor was still calm, staring around apathetically at the knights and Guild-affiliated survivors. That was what was so terrifying about him. He saw his companions dead and a hall full of enemies, and he didn’t get more frightened. He’d only abandoned fear.

He’s made up his mind about something, Mille guessed.

Controlled bursts of freshly-launched blue magic soared through the air at the stranger, but he didn’t even react. An invisible barrier dispersed the magic before it could reach his person.

If the man’s clothes were enchanted, Mille couldn’t see why. A worn brown shirt and baggy green trousers wouldn’t normally be worth enchanting. His forehead beneath short black locks of hair was covered in dried sweat.

Gillis’s knights had spread out. More attacks launched from every direction, but nothing broke through the final survivor’s seemingly-impenetrable barrier.

“This as far as we go, friends,” he announced, not addressing the onlookers.

Mille had to strain her ears to make out the words through a now-endless barrage of various spells.

The mournful stranger cast a glance around the hall, fixating on three people in particular.

First, Hexknight Latice, who could be seen ordering his knights to prepare to seal off the surrounding area in case the mages couldn’t break through. He wasn’t a mage, but his experience beyond the wall seemed to have given him an idea of what to expect in situations like this. He was cautious.

Then, the stranger looked over to Hexknight Gillis, whose eyes were closed in some kind of heightened trance. Even though she couldn’t see it, Mille knew he was spreading his magic across the entire hall, acting on some arcane strategy.

Finally, and only briefly, Mille thought she saw the stranger looking down at Caim with a perplexed bitterness. It wasn’t for long, for the hall was fraught with emotion and desperate action.

“I knew we didn’t have long from the moment I found myself in this contemptible place. I never hurt anyone. I never told them anything about me. I-”

The stranger was distracted by a brilliant white light swirling around his legs. Mille hoped it was some spell that had broken through the barrier, but it didn’t seem to hurt him. Rather, he began to ascend to the upper level of lanterns affixed to the pillars.

“At the start, I thought it would be fun to be somewhere else. I admit it. So when she gave me power and sent me away, I was giddy. This power is strong, but I learned what it was like to be just one person in a rotten place. Nothing was expected of me, but I was a prisoner here.”

White energy began to swirl around the man’s hands, now, and he held them outstretched. He was still calm.

“I’m not some kinda’ moral perfectionist or whatever, but I didn’t hurt anyone. They didn’t either, but you people know that.”

He took a deep breath, and Mille noticed the people around her beginning to act strangely. They swayed as they walked, dizzily stumbling away from the area. A couple of victims even lost their balance and fell over.

Only the humans were affected, but the hall’s population was almost entirely human so that hardly mattered, and it was unlikely anyone else noticed this. Mille was also already kneeling beside Caim’s body.

“You all can be the ones to see the first real decision I’ve made since I came here. I said I’m not a bad person, but I was alone when I ended up here, and even though it was as a prisoner, I was with that group for a long time. Even though I easily disabled that ‘forgotten magic collar’, it wasn’t like I could leave or anything. So I spent my time with those poor people.”

“Now!”

On Hexknight Latice’s command, a Welder Knight extended his arm and fired a hook from his armor. It harmlessly glanced off the shimmering air around the enemy.

The stranger just smiled when the knight fell prey to his own forward momentum and stumbled. His heavy armor broke part of a table on the way down.

The stranger’s smile vanished, but not because of the knight. He was longer calm. Angry tears streamed down weathered cheeks, his body shook.

“They were like my family. You didn’t necessarily kill all of them and not before you were attacked first, but you would have if you had the chance, right? Because that’s how things work here, right? I hope those things in the strange fucking clouds eat the rest, but I can at least take a bunch of you with me. Right!?”

He sounded crazed, crying, laughing, and gesturing to the ceiling as he described what Mille believed were the leviathans.

Maybe they had a different word for them beyond The Barrier.

Some of the clouds may have been different than in the past years, but Mille would be hard-pressed to call it weird. The weather changed sometimes. But, could the meridi be working on some kind of atmospheric weapon? Were they using the leviathan as weapons? How could that even be possible?

“It was like she reached into a damn hat when that dull idiot gave me my power. I never thought it made sense. At least it’s powerful. At least you’ll die pretty fucking quickly. Isn’t that nice to hear?”

He was just talking to himself.

“Oh, but the building will probably block a lot of it. What are your buildings even made of over here? The villages we passed on the way looked ancient compared to this place. You know what? None of it makes sense, so I probably shouldn’t question it with what time I have left. You’ll die, that’s enough for me.”

Suddenly, Mille’s body was propelled back. She skidded to a stop a few steps from Caim’s body, but Caim’s body was no longer there.

No, actually, he was still there. Caim was also standing on a table now, but he didn’t look completely conscious, swaying about as he tried to stay on his feet.

He was whispering while looking up at the stranger. Mille couldn’t make out any of the words. Cautiously, she moved closer and reached out.

“Flash grieve rose. Conduit back. Broken path without. Error strand.”

Just when she finally heard a string of words, she was surprised to find them unintelligible. They were like a jumbled pattern of clashing concepts belonging anywhere but this moment. Then the whispering stopped.

“This is harder than it looks, benign creature,” he said, and she paused in confusion. “Just stay out of it.”

He was still battling his balance with rigid movements. Mille opened her mouth, not caring whether the words were adjusted to sound more human, but still, she couldn’t find her voice.

“Correct for…. adjust the...” he said surprisingly coherently.

Mille saw the glittering mechanical beast form in the space between the stranger and Caim. The winged insect he called “Scion”.

“So that’s how he does it,” Caim said. “Is it really so weak? Or, rather… Has he truely developed this much in such a short time?”

Before Mille could think of what the words meant, Caim had turned around. His eyes were… well, they were actually quite normal, but something was definitely “off”.