Hooded Raven
Mid-Afternoon 0852)34 Cresoukim(3), 2469
Maran Escapes
— — ???, 34 Gilihi, 4 Gilkimitsu, 2469, 10th Age — —
Kaewer groaned as an awareness of the world crashed into her. Head throbbing and heart pounded she jerked upright, the sudden movement caused her vision to flash white and for a moment the only thing she could see was the sullen blink of her Interface: Connection blocked. Connection blocked. That meant something but with the sudden static in her head, she wasn’t really sure what.
I either have a killer hangover or a concussion. Kaewer thought vaguely as she squeezed her eyes against the white and took deep breaths. She remembered she’d been attacked and that a major fight had ensured. She remembered something? rushing down toward her but details seemed scattered and disjointed. Drugs or concussion both seemed equally likely at the moment but if the connection block was still active, she probably wasn’t in friendly hands.
Kaewer took in a deep breath and blinked hard opening cautious eyes to discover a depressingly blank wall staring back at her impassively. She squinted as her addled brain struggled to absorb details, a blue light seemed to suffuse everything with a uniformity that seemed calculated to disturb prisoners.
“Definitely not friendly hands,” She muttered as she scanned the room. It was an incredibly austere cell, and one smaller than the Imperium standard. There was no apparent door or window that she could see and only a handful of narrow slits half hidden around the room to allow air in and out. She was sitting on a shelf carved out of the wall itself, a mildly comfortable nook with no padding. Opposite from her head, wedged into its own small niche was combination toilet/sonic shower/sink. On the wall opposite her ‘bed’ was a small reccess with a pair of stubby nozzles molded out of the wall, a single shatterproof cup rested underneath it.
“Alright,” She muttered. “Time for the the three As.”
Absorb. She was in a very carefully designed cell and… Kaewer glanced down and scowled. She was still wearing her clothes, minus her Kidorlus jacket, with its useful built in tricks and hidden pockets, and her boots. That just seemed rude. She’d spent a great deal of money ensuring that the hidden compartment with its small lock pick set and explosive charge was nearly impossible to find without knowing it was there. Taking her boots without knowing about the compartment seemed unsporting. She patting herself down, just in case they’d missed a pocket or two! — Kaewer winced as she smacked it — She still had that bolt wound on her left hip. So that had been real.
Stars, it hurt but after some careful prodding she was relieved to find that someone had taken a moment to put an actual dressing on her hip. Nothing fancy, just the sort of medicate self-seeking bandage you’d find in most medkits but something that’d keep it from getting infected and easier to heal. She took a moment to wonder if she’d taken a glancing hit through her wards or of it had managed to hit her jacket and its defensive spells first. Kaewer scooted gingerly to the edge of the ‘bed’ and sucked in a breath as her left leg took wait. Walking would suck, running would suck vacuum but both felt manageable? Not advised but manageable. Some on her left wrist clacked against the concrete and drew her attention.
She glanced down to discover she was wearing a strange blackened metal bracelet. Even through her hazed thoughts, she could feel it’s magic and see the dark and vague impressions of runes etched into its surface. She squinted against the frustratingly dark omni-directional blue light to let try and read them. Was it a locater bracelet? Some kind of remote stunner? Did they really think a suppressor bracelet would work on her? After several frustrating minutes of turning the bracelet and squinting, Kaewer’s headache was back with a vengance. She let out a frustrated snarl and reached out to the weave to summon a ball of good, clean light over her head. A violent shock, waves of searing pain and scattering pulses of ice numbness slammed into her, shattering her focus and stiffening her muscles rigid. She toppled off the ledge to convulse on the cool stone floor for long moments and her injured hip added its own protestations .
“Zarvock e ladashi!” Kaewer spat as soon she caught her breath. “You (firespreader) suradecan!” Apparently they’d found a suppressor that would work on her. Although, Kaewer turned a glare to the bracelet, it was really more of a disruptor. Still, the fact that it had worked was frightening. Last she’d heard there were no genuine suppressors or disruptors for nactvagia. Their magic was too different, too instinctual, for nactvin to understand as anything more than vague platitudes. And there were too few nactvagia, barely over a million trained in the whole Imperium, for it to have mattered to anyone with the resources to develop one. Even her dad, who had ressurrected the lineage of magic almost six thousand years ago, hadn’t spent the time yet. The bracelet was going to take some very careful study before she tried to create another weave.
Focus. Kaewer berated herself. You’re still in the absorb phase. Since she was laying down anyway, she rolled over gingerly and pressed an ear to the ground. She spread her hands out, all eight fingers resting lightly against the floor and wall. She took a deep calming breath and focused on relaxing her heart rate. Then she listened, straining to hear the telltale humming, clunking and thunking that was inevitable on a starship or space station. She lay there listening and feeling for almost two minutes before rolling over and pulling herself up right. Her hip was more than a background pain right now.
Right, so how bad are things looking? She thought and stretched a mental hand to open her preferred note taking software up across her vision on reflex and was surprised when it appeared. Well, whatever they managed to do, I still have my full internal Interface functionality at least.
She made two columns appear in the notetaking app. In the first, she put negatives. A bolt shot wound on her hip, no physical tools, no way to detect or hack the local network, and not only was she unable to access her magic safely but she didn’t have a ton of it left either. She’d burned a lot of energy in the fight at Matagin and deflecting a… building? Kaewer frowned and forced her scatter brain to pull the memory up. Suddenly, she was back in Matagin, a thin bubble of her power the only thing between her and the onrushing mass of metal and stone. She’d thrown herself towards the entrance in the vanishing few seconds but her injured hip had slowed her. Desperation and luck has kept her shield up and her moving just outside the worst of the collapse but the sensation of crushing, pounding weight was an endless tide, slamming into her over and over and over and...
Kaewer drew a sharp breath and found herself back in the uni-directional blue light of the cell. She’d curled into a ball at some point, her hip protesting the repeated abuse with increasing fervor. She groaned and uncurled herself gingerly, retreating into the memory of pines dancing in the wind. Breaths, long and slow, came as the trees waved and swayed in the winter wind. She found the core of fear and panic in the memory and released it, acknowledging its validity and reject its hold. Eventually, Kaewer felt grounded and centered enough to pull herself off the cell’s floor and turned her attention back to her list.
Her personal resources were thin. Her enemy seemed to have significant resources and a willingness to use them. They’d made the mistake of underestimating her in Matagin. They’d out-maneuvered her and eventually outfought her but she’d killed a lot of their muscle and a building... and then survived the building falling on her. No one was going to underestimate her now. That would make this a lot harder, unfortunately.
Still, she was alive, awake and only lightly injured, all things considered. Kaewer shook herself and turned her attention to the ‘positives’ column. As long as she was alive and clear headed, she could plot and plan. If she could plot and plan, she still had a chance. Life is hope, as her dad would say. So, positives.
Her Interface was still functional, just lacking network access. That meant her captors hadn’t hacked the device itself or decided to rip the implanted device out of her skull. As the owner of said skull, she was relieved by this. That gave her access to a suite of useful programs and a way to track time, which was it’s own blessing. She was also certain she wasn’t on a space station or ship. After forty-one years of nearly consistent shipboard deployments, there was no way to disguise the feel of a ship or station. That was really good news because she’d unconscious for roughly twenty-three hours. If she’d been shipboard, the odds of finding her would be astronomical. But, twenty-three hours wasn’t enough time for her to have been moved off Iradathkin and down onto another planet. So, while she could be almost anywhere on Iradathka it limited the options to one planet out of hundreds. She’d be willing to bet she’d not even left Iradath itself. The city of forty-eight billion sprawled across much of (Iradathkan continent name) and it was much easier to hide there than in any of the small towns or cities spread across the rest of the world.
Her conspiracy had escaped, she could remember that, and they were only a few hours raven flight from the Estate. Their arrival, coupled with the havoc she’d wreaked, would’ve set off alarms across across the Imperium. The scale of the manhunt that had to be going on right now was hard for her to imagine. Not only was she the daughter of Aroven Jirvaerka and Silviana Croinac-Jirvaerka, but she was an active duty Kidorlus Lieutenant. The Navy didn’t take kindly to their personnel being attacked regardless of their status but the daughter of their highest office? If the Ancestral Watch, the Kidorlus battalion permanently stationed over Iradathka, hadn’t started dropping in force, it was only by an act of Silviana. That much attention and heat would force her captors to lay low for days. Any effort to move her would be nearly suicidal. That gave her some time to work this problem out.
Kaewer paused and passed a glare around the cell. Speaking of captors, where were they? She’d been awake at an hour and a third and fairly active in that time to. She was surely being monitored, even if she’d not found the pickups. So why hadn’t a few thugs grabbed her as she recovered from the suppressor bracelet and taken her for questioning? That would’ve been the optimal point of disorientation for her and while she was too well trained for such a cheap tactic to work, most criminals wouldn’t have the realization and try it anyway. The Imperium didn’t engage in torture, euphemistically named or otherwise, but a lot of the Imperium’s underworld organizations did, as well as several of its neighbors.
Still, if her captors were content with letting her sit and stew in a cell, she had things to study and injuries to try and ignore. She did her best to find a ‘comfortable’ spot in the bed nook and then took a deep breath and let herself fade into her senses. Nactvagia could perceive and manipulate existing weaves without drawing on the internal well of power needed to shape magic. It was part of their more instinctual connection with the aethyr that regular nactvin didn’t understand and couldn’t effectively defend against. Really, only another nactvagia could but only if they were in close physical proximity and paying attention. As her senses spread across the warp and weft of reality, she was surprised her captor’s had bothered with the suppressor bracelet. The whole cell was buried under so many tension spells that casting a spell would be like pulling a large piece of pasta through the eyelet of a needle. Technically possible but incredibly difficult and very wasteful.
Kaewer wasn’t sure what going cost of black market tension spells but there was a reason most government agencies preferred snarl spells for their mage cells, even if they played havoc with unharden magi-tech. To have this degree of dampening on a cell… It spoke of a large, sophisticated organization with deep pockets. One that dealt with powerful mages on the regular, specifically draiker and Atalarian. From the number of mercenaries that’d attacked her, she was willing to bet this was not even close to their only safe house either. So, what organizations had the wealth, drive and audacity to kidnap her in the middle of the day from the heart of Iradath and maintain a network of sophisticated safe houses?
“Ah, zarvock,” Kaewer swore and dropped her head back against the stone wall. “You guys are Vanished Court, aren’t you?” They were the only organization that made sense but by the stars Kaewer hoped she was wrong. If she wasn’t, and she neither escaped nor was was rescued, she was going to die.
The Vanished Court had been formed in the Late Seventh Age, by the most hardened and fanatical loyalists of the old Faea Queens in the waning days of their Empire. For most of the last seven thousand years, they’d waged a guerrilla war and terror campaign against the old Drailleon Empire and it’s successor Splinters. In order to support their campaign against the ‘occupation’ government, and its successor, they’d infested the criminal underworlds of all three Splinters and a number of Wilder nations. Despite the fact that, the majority of modern Vanished Court activity related to their criminal empire rather than the restoration of the Faeaoran empire, they were still the resistance organization at their core and Kaewer was related to an ancient enemy. The Croinac Clan, her mother’s family, had been a ‘collaborator’ clan during the Drailleon occupation and played a small but crucial part in the formation of the UDF. They were part of the reason she’d grown up with her own personal escort of armed guards.
Still, Vanished Court or not, she had to figure out this star blasted suppressor before she could do anything so Kaewer settled back into her nook and fell into her magical senses. If they wanted to give her time, she’d take as much of it as she could manage.
Almost an hour later, Kaewer was just finding herself relieved and annoyed, and annoyed that she was annoyed, by the stupid bracelet on her wrist when a sound cut the near perfect silence of her cell. She glanced up from her ‘nap’ to see a section of wall sink into self and roll outward. She squinted from the glare of normal light behind her as two tall, gangly figures stepped into the cell. Then everything flashed into a static of pain as the ladishi bracelet went off in a sharp burst.
“Ladishi you,” Kaewer spat, back arched as the echoes of pain retreated. One of the trolls, for only a troll had that body profile — all arms and small lower jaw tusks —, had crossed the small cell and now loomed over her. They’d clearly been watching her writhe in pain with some pleasure and something flashed in their eyes as Kaewer swore at them.
“No need to use the surabai bracelet, you piece of maiso. I’m bored enough to have come quiet- OOF.” She’d seen the punch coming but the troll was an enforcer, all dense wiry muscle, and she was flat on her back recovering. She doubled up, coughing and gasping as she tried to recover the air that’d been forced out of her lungs.
“(Faea ‘bitch’), we don’t want you to come quietly,” They rumbled and grabbed Kaewer roughly by the back of her shirt. The troll dragged her out of the bed nook, uncaring of the hard fall she took.
“Surabai finally!” Kaewer gasped, biting down on a scream as her injured hip hit the hard stone. “You guys suck at this whole hostage taking thing.” She let out a small oof as the troll dragging let her slam against the door frame.
“Seriously, I’ve been awake for hours. You gave me enough time to figure out who you were and take a nap! It’s unprofessional. I really thought the Vanished Court was better than this.”
{Can I shut the (Faea ‘bitch’) up?} The second troll rumbled in Faeaoran.
{We can’t kill her, Boss says he needs her alive for now.} Her present captor said back.
{Didn’t say nothing about unhurt.}
{Do you two (fire spreaders) really think I can’t speak Faeaoran?} Kaewer interjected, {And I can walk, thank you very much.}
{We know exactly what you can do (Faea occupier slur),} Troll two retorted. {I was hoping the threat would shut you up.}
“Then you have really bad intel,” Kaewer snorted and then grunted as troll two kicked her, hard, in the ribs. “Sura! You two definitely ate your breakfasts.” Another kick and Kaewer held up a hand. “Look, let me walk and I’ll shut up. Being dragged like this is just wasting everyone’s time and I’m sure your Boss will let you beat me after he talks to me too.” The two trolls glanced at each other and troll one shrugged and hauled Kaewer sharply to her feet.
“You so much as look down the wrong hallway and we’ll get to beat you before and after the boss talks to you,” Troll one growled. Kaewer held up her hands placatingly and pointedly didn’t say anything. She’d been hoping to have a few more hours of solitude but she’d figured out the bracelet and was about 70% confident in her ability to shatter it without stunning herself. It was a blunt instrument, barely worth the dignity of the metaphor and the crude mass of hair trigger spells designed to knock her senseless the moment she drew the slightest power would be easy to unravel. Trick was going to be doing it without triggering them. Still she worked well under pressure and imminent interrogation definitely counted as pressure.
The safe house wasn’t what she’d expected, given the expense of the cell. She’d half expected a suburban mansion or something equally extravagant. Instead, she got bare concrete halls and a slightly musty scent that implied some sort of underground structure. It was probably a disused set of maintenance tunnels or an underground skimmer park converted into a moderately habitable but off the record base. but it could be any number of things. It explained how they’d been able to hide such a dense mess of tension spells from any official notice, deep enough underground and far enough from anything that mattered and no one would notice it. She was really concerned by the number of heavily armed sidhe, trolls, dwarves and carnaven she counted on the winding walk across the base.
“Hands,” Troll one growled as they stopped before a generic metal door. Kaewer flashed her most winsome smile and made her eyes wide and guileless.
“I already promised I’d be on best behavior, do you really think I— ?” The suradec troll thumbed a remote and waves of pain and shock rolled from the bracelet again. Kaewer crumpled but she’d seen it coming enough to land on her right side this time. Troll two was already locking binders around her legs before she’d finished gasping.
“Bachot’en zarvock! I am going to make you choke on that remote!” Kaewer snarled as Troll One leaned down with a pair of handcuffs.
“Big talk from the (Faea ‘bitch’) on the ground,” Troll One snorted. They slowed long enough to punch Kaewer hard in the sternum and cuffed her while she was coughing for air.
“Slowly,” Kaewer wheezed as Troll One dragged her to her feet. Troll Two slapped her sharply across the back of the head and while Kaewer was sorting out the ringing in her ears, she was dragged into what had clearly been a large cleaning closet at one point. A lone chair sat a foot away from the concrete wall, bathed in harsh light from a pair of hovering lights. Kaewer really didn’t like the chair was sitting above a drain, or the look of the covered tray sitting next to the room’s utility sink. A sidhe in a stylish baby-blue and white pantsuit sat across from the chair, with a holocam floating next to them and a dead-eyed draiker loomed behind them. She was hauled bodily into the room and slammed into the chair, Troll Two taking a moment to loop a chain around the chair and through her cuffs.
“This isn’t really my genre,” Kaewer said, squinting against the bright light. “Don’t get me wrong, I respect an individual’s kinks but with this face, I’m really better cast in cuddlecore. Oof!” Troll One backhanded the back of her head again and she blinked away stars.
“Ah yes, the famous Jirvaerka snark,” The sidhe sneered from behind the lights. “It is incredible how mundane it is.”
“For my first casting call with a big shot of the Vanished Court, I’m really disappointed by the venue you chose. I mean abandoned underground is such a cliche.” Kaewer had to hand it to the trolls, they were experienced bullies. This time she got a sharp rigid fingered jab to the ribs and bit down another grunt.
“I do not find your snark amusing and my people are aware of my preference.”
“Yeah? Well everyone’s a critic,” Kaewer gritted. If she could just keep this (firespreader) talking long enough, she’d have her moves figured out and could dismantle the bracelet. “So, to who do I owe the displeasure?”
“You don’t recognize me?”
“I can barely see you and some (firespreader)s keep smacking me in the head. So it’s safe to say I have no idea who you are.” The lights dimmed enough for Kaewer to make out the sidhe’s features in detail and she frowned. There was a vague sense of familarity but it could’ve been the zealot’s gleam in their eye.
“Much better! That’ll help my complexion on camera too. Seriously, who is your producer? Even rookies know enough to not—”
“Enough!” The sidhe’s slap lacked the raw power of the trolls’ hits but they’d put their best effort and a running start into it. Kaewer blinked hard against the hit and tasted blood. “You’re going to answer my questions and refrain from extraneous comments.” Kaewer met the sidhe’s furious gaze and worked her jaw slowly. Her teeth felt fine but she’d definitely cut her slowly, deliberately, spat a wad of blood on the floor.
“Why the bachot’ should I do that? You’re Vanished Court. You’re not simply going to let me go.”
“You’re right. But, my mother raised my brothers and I that decorum is important, even when you’re dealing with baseborn scum,” The sidhe said as they walked over to the covered tray and started rummaging. “Still, I’ve seen what happens when someone tries to have a civil discussion with you. I supposed violence is more your style.” Kaewer’s brief relief at seeing only a hammer in their hands vanished at the specific phrase ‘civil discussion’.
“Oh? A hint of an idea? Let me help you remember,”
“Surbin suradec!” Kaewer screamed as the sidhe brought the hammer down on her left hand. Bones cracked and Kaewer bared bloodstained teeth into the sidhe’s face.
“I can’t remove it like you did with my brother, not yet. This is going to be more fun though.”
“You’re one of the Marán,” Kaewer growled as the dots connected. “I’m impressed, we didn’t know you existed.”
“The youngest Marán brother. My family did their best to keep me safe and having you (Faea ‘Occupiers’) know I exist would’ve ruined that. Still after you killed my older brother, I joined the cause. Not having a record made me the perfect person to maintain our interests here.”
“Well, not anymore. Welcome to his world, Imperium’s most wanted. Hunted and stalked across known space. Still, this is very personal. Jarída never let it become personal, didn’t even threaten me during his hearing.” Kaewer paused to spit another globlet of blood onto the floor. “He did call me all kinds of names though.”
“That tends to happen when you blow off someone’s left arm,” Again the hammer but this time higher, middle of her forearm. Kaewer swallowed a scream but didn’t feel her bone crack. The Marán should probably have left this to his troll enforcers but this was deeply personal. Still, enough was enough. She wasn’t about to sit here and take any more punishment.
“Injuries happen when you take and kill hostages,” Kaewer rasped. Something familiar tremoured on the edge of her magical senses and she tamped down on a grin. Was that what she thought it was? The feeling happened again and Kaewer’s heart leapt. (And more banter)
“At the risk of getting beaten further,” Kaewer barred ocher stained teeth. “I have a question.”
“What?”
“Why did it take you so long to start this little… therapy session?” Kaewer flopped her battered left hand by way of emphasis. Stars, that was a bad idea… as pain pulsed up her arm. “Clearly you’ve been thinking about this for a while, you even brought camera equipment. I’m happy you delayed but why?”
“I was offsite. You have no idea the scale of the network I run.” The sidhe glanced sideways as he said it, his control not quite good enough to hide the fear in his eyes.
“Follow up question, if that’s okay?”
“What?”
“Are you fireproof?” (THIS IS at 1233 on 34/4)
“What do—” The door slammed open and a wild-eyed sidhe in low-profile body staggered several steps in.
{Boss! He found us!} Kaewer took the opportunity to unleash her mental claws against the bracelet.
{What? How?} The Marán demanded. Kaewer barred her teeth as each shoddy but tightly drawn weave in the bracelet snapped almost at once.
{I don’t know but— } The ringing and popping of the metal bracelet was drowned out by a series of earth-shattering explosions. Dust flaked from the room’s ceiling.
Kaewer let her magic surge upward and wove several spells at once. Emerald blades appeared and disappeared, slashing the cuffs and bindings to pieces as she plunged the room into a deep blackness. She rolled out of the chair, gritting her teeth against the pain in her hand and hip.
“The Grey Tempest himself is coming,” She said, her voice a blast of icy wind wafting through the darkness.
“Stop her!” The youngest Marán shouted. “Break this (Faea damn) darkness!”
Kaewer slammed into the sidhe still in the doorway, an emerald punch dagger appearing long enough to slam twice into their guts as Kaewer bounced both of them off the far wall. She caught herself even as the sidhe fell screaming and began running. She had no idea about the layout of the safe house or even if it was truly underground but she could sense the familiar magic of her father burning bright several levels above her. That was her lodenstone. She just had to go up until she could get to him. And the best part about re-purposed underground structures? They had all the security and safety mandated exits still.
She skidded around a corner, left arm curled tightly against her body to try and keep from jostling it and let out a surprised shout as she almost ran bodily into a pair of dwarves who were running toward her. Kaewer’s feet flashed, bringing her in a twisting spiral between the two dwarves even as she lashed out with her magic. Synthetics, metals and flesh crackled and squealed as a point of absolutely cold appeared in the face of the dwarf on the left. Even as that dwarf went down with a gurgling and creaking scream, Kaewer twisted and directed the energy she’d just pulled from the environment into a lance of fire. Light flared and then died as the second dwarf’s defensive wards fought to stop the blast of energy. The fiery lance cut a burning arc across the dwarf’s chest and then Kaewer was past them, turning a corner at random and hobbling down the hallway at her best speed when the world seemed to bounce.
“Stars above!” Kaewer flung her left arm out to catch herself as the entire structure bucked and shook like an injured verep. Pain flashed white across her vision as she slapped the unforgiving stone wall with her ruined hand and Kaewer lost track of time for a long moment. She found herself on her knees, gasping sharply for air with the grumblings of the structure still reverberating down the bare hallways. She’d only lost a few seconds but she needed to do something about her arm but not here. The hallway was too exposed, even casual observers could stumble across her. Kaewer pulled herself to a feet with a grunt of pain and began running again. She spotted the regulator mandated emergency exit sign and turned in the direction indicated. The Vanished Court would be hunting now, they had their own comms after all, but they couldn’t have a lot of spare manpower. Kaewer was making a bet they’d go for the elevators first and the stairwells second, or even third if this was a converted parking garage. A lone guard wouldn’t be an issue.
As luck would have it, the emergency stairwell didn’t have a guard, or even a door on it. Kaewer spared a stray second to wonder if that was a recent renovation or something left incomplete by the canceled project and shook her head. Adrenaline and pain made her thoughts wander more than usual. She stumbled up half a flight of stairs before pausing to duck into a mostly blind turn of the stairwell. Out of casual observation, she took a moment to weave a spell. Emerald light blossomed along her arm and spread to encase her fingers. The rigid shell of energy spread a pair of bands across her torso, becoming the magical equivalent of a hard cast. She added a small healing spell, just enough magic to dull the pain into a distant ache. It was an inelegant solution but about the best she could do. It would keep her from worsening the injuries until she got to a real healer. Probably.
Another explosion shook the stairs, the same mad verep shaking the ground. Dust and fragments of concrete shook loose, filling the air with a thin haze. Kaewer started running up the stairs. She had to get to her dad quickly. He was holding back in case one of his big spells injured her or dropped debris on her. He was only throwing big spells after he’d sensed her own magic. If she could get him soon, he’d be free to truly cut loose. A smaller ripple of explosions echoed through the stairwell and she focused her senses on the familiar magic.
He was about four levels up. That was it. She had to run up four flights of stairs and break through a line of hardened criminals and terrorists who were facing the scariest enemy they’d ever fought. With one arm in a cast. And Low on magic. Kaewer snorted as she turned another loop of the stairwell. As her dad would say: Easy enough then, eh puppy?
{Move people! He’s on level four!} Kaewer swore as the door in front of her burst open and a Sidhe waved a motley crew of shooters through the door. There was the universe’s complication.
With nowhere to hide and no time for anything fancy, Kaewer drew upon her tired reserves and cut loose with a blast of forked lightning. The emerald energy bolts slammed into the six of Vanished Court shooters pouring onto the landing and wards flared. In the same breath, Kaewer flicked her right arm out and her wing-blade flicked into being.
The sidhe officer was just starting to react, head turning to see what had hit them when Kaewer slammed the front edge of her blade into their back. The hardlight blade cut through the thin plates of the light armour and gouged a trench through bone and flesh. Kaewer dropped low, turning over her right shoulder and carving a furrow in the concrete as she tapped the landing for balance. Two lances of emerald-tinted ice burst from suddenly crackling stone driving upward with enough speed and force to impale the pair of goblins still staggering from her lightning bolt.
Kaewer threw herself into an forward roll as a gun phoomed in the tight space. Sapphire bolts of energy cut the air as she rolled under them. Instead of the fluid lethality of a verep pounce, the roll turned into an awkward tumble that forced Kaewer to dismiss her wing-blade lest she disembowel herself.
She ended up at the feet of the troll with the heavy machine gun. Either by his species impressive regeneration abilities or raw luck, he’d seemed to have taken the bolt better than everyone else and had reacted quicker than she’d hoped.
{This is awkward,} Kaewer said, looking way up the lanky frame into the grimly unamused tusked-face. She gave a small wave. {Think you could help an injured ialar up?}
{I’d rather you stayed do— } An emerald spark had drifted up from Kaewer when she’d waved and a sudden explosion of fire cut off the troll’s sentence. He went up like a torch, spellfire clinging to his oily skin with a vicious intensity. His screams melded horribly with the sudden racket of energy bolt fire as the troll crushed his trigger in pain. Kaewer could only curl into a ball as energy bolts tore into the concrete of the stairwell, filling the air with splashes of eat and flecks of concrete.
“Nevinas e (Crush)!” Kaewer gasped and braced herself as unfamiliar magic rushed toward, the spell to clean and quickly crafted for her to react. It hit with a squelching sound and a splash of hot liquid made worse for the sudden silence that filled the stairwell. Kaewer rolled to her good knee and met the bemused eyes of a another draiker. A quick glance at what was left of the troll showed her told her everything she needed to know.
“Whatever they’re paying you can not possibly be worth all this,” Kaewer said, fighting to keep the sudden fear out of her voice. The troll had been crushed and vivisected(need other word) by their own clothing. It’d been a powerful and vicious spell that’d killed the burning faea almost instantly and she’d barely felt it coming. She’d been busy praying not to get shot but still, that was terrifying.
“A moment,” The threadmancer held up a finger and then intoned in a gravelly voice, “Tachirauk deri tanoras.” Kaewer tensed as she felt the magic surge but the spell wasn’t aimed at her. The threadmancer’s draping outfit writhed itself into a nest of drifting tentacles.
“There, now you won’t pull one of your nasty tricks like you did on my associate there.”
“Trust on the tip of a blade,” Kaewer agreed with a shrug of her good shoulder. That had been a very well cast spell. Very little wasted time or energy had been taken to form that weave and her seamery had absorbed almost entirely. Kaewer’s initial assessment had been right, this mage was good. “Do you mind if I stand? My hip is killing me.”
“Please,” The threadmancer gestured magnanimously. “Then we can finish this fascinating conversation.” Kaewer staggered to her feet and paused to straighten her under-tunic.
“So, Kaewer Jirvaerka.”
“So Vinial Threadmancer.” Kaewer kept her voice non-nonchalant, even slightly disaffected but her mind whirled. Was this threadmancer a true believer or just a mercenary? Could she be bought? Could Kaewer trust her if she could be?
“Vinlar Soru,” The threadmancer said with a small bow. “A delight to make your acquittance.”
“Were it under other circumstances,” Kaewer returned, dipping her own small bow.
“I’m sure,” Soru matched Kaewer’s dry tone. “You were commenting about the status of my employment?” The building shook again.
“A nacvin of your obvious talent,” Kaewer gestured to the devastated corpse of the troll, “Clearly understands the futility of trying to engage the inevitability currently tearing his way through everything that Marán could scrap together.”
“Capturing you would help level that playing field. And net me a pretty bonus too.”
“You can’t spend chikune if you’re dead or in prison. Unless you think Marán will take you with him? Out of a sense of gratitude and propriety, of course.”
“Oh, I’m sure he’d be overcome with gratitude,” Soru said, gesturing at Kaewer’s bound arm with a wry smile. “He does seem to be an ialor of passion.”
“One could say that, if you were being polite,” Kaewer said with a matching smile. “I prefer to call him a sadistic little suradec whose more than a bit stupid.”
“That would be a more honest assessment of my current boss,” Soru agreed as the sound of cracking stone and concrete filled the stairwell. “You can see why I might be open to exploring new options.”
“Were you at the ambush in Matagin?”
“That zarvock? Stars no!” Soru snorted dismissively. “I’m not a VC zealot or a particularly stupid merc. I was an enforcer for the (Iradath location) Pit until two days ago when I sent here with instructions to keep it safe. They doubled my rate and threatened me with a painful death if I told anyone anything. You know usual stuff.”
“You didn’t wonder why they’d double your rate?”
“Oh I definitely did but that’s the merc life, especially for a grey market merc. Your employer is usually doing something stupid to get you killed and you hope they’re wrong.”
“Kill any Virunos or Kanshufen?”
“Do we really have time for 20 questions?” Soru’s collected expression broke as a strange roaring filled the stairwell. Kaewer wasn’t actually sure what her dad was doing that would create such a sound. Part of her was glad she wasn’t see it. The rest of her bet it was something really cool.
“I get safer by the second,” Kaewer made a show of stretching leisurely. “You, on the other hand, get closer to finding out if your beautiful threadmancer outfit is actually as fireproof as promised. Answer the question, it’s important to me.”
“No. I roughed up a more than my share of Virunos but I’ve never killed one.”
“Any kids?”
“What?”
“You rough up any kids?”
“Sura no! I’m a grey market mercenary, a monster,” Soru grimaced as Kaewer raised an eyebrow and glanced around. “Yeah okay, I made a bad choice of employer this time around. But generally speaking my work involves guarding warehouses for assorted sketchy employers and evil corporations. Occasionally that puts me crosswise with a Nosy and someone gets a broken arm and a black eye.”
“Grey Merc means you aren’t protected by the Outfit Accords,” Kaewer pointed out. “You will face legal consequences for actions taken under contract with the Vanished Court.”
“Yeah, I thought about all this before I killed old tall, slimly and flammable. Way I figure it, there’s being held on suspicion of terrorism and there’s being held on suspicion of terrorism with a Jirvaerka vouching for you,” Soru said with a shrug. “I’d really rather take my chances with the latter.”
“I can’t promise you get to walk. Stars, even considering that would probably get me charged with something, or at least yelled at by my CO… and my mom who is sort of everyone’s CO.”
“Promise me you’ll do your best and I’ll turn state’s evidence against Marán and the (Iradath Location) Pit they had me at. But if I do go to jail, I’ll need to go to one of those fancy really safe ones because the VC will be out for blood and I’d rather not escape a quick death at the hands of your dad for a slow death in an Imperium prison.”
“I’m just a Kidorlus Lieutenant, I don’t actually have that much political power.”
“And I’m just a drop dead gorgeous ialar without any awesome thread magic skills,” Soru said with a snort. “Do we have a deal, Jirvaerka-Croinac or are you going to try and burn your shirt away before I can stitch you up in it?”
“That was all the down at plan C, I’ll have you know,” Kaewer said with a wolfish laugh. “But, we have a deal, Soru the Audacious”
“By Oath and Magic Both,” Soru intoned, holding out a hand.
“By Oath and Magic Both,” Kaewer intoned, classing forearms with the threadmancer.
“Good,” Soru said, her tone suddenly brisk and composed. “Now, we need to go, boss.”
“What?”
“I’m still tapped into the Vanished Court’s comm-net and Marán’s figured out which stairway you took. Apparently someone had the presence of mind to scream into general channel.”
“Oh. Uh,” Kaewer paused to look back at the pair of goblins still writhing on the ice pillars. “Oops.”
“And folks, I present our glorious scion of the Sapphire Falcon herself.”
“Oh bite me,” Kaewer snapped as she stripped the dead sidhe of sidearm, a cheeky Razor Ridgeback with a sleek after-market conversion kit and some flashy wood grip upgrades. The little semi-auto pistol was a flashlight compared to her Fractures but any gun in a storm.
“Real nice,” Soru whistled as she spotted the pistol. “Didn’t realize (Sidhe name) had such good taste. Too bad he absolutely put a nacsou lock on it.”
“A good one too,” Kaewer agreed, she took two quick steps to the landing’s edge and fired three shots down the stairs. Someone squealed in pain and energy bolts phoomed back in response. “In fact, took me almost a nine and two third seconds to crack it. Now, I believe we should be running?”
“Oh look at at me, I’m a Jirvaerka. I can hack tech that the entire underworld struggles with in seconds despite two days in captivity,” Soru grumbled, waving her hands in sarcastic punctuation. She pulled a grenade off the smoldering pile of tenderized meat that had been the troll, primed it and threw it over her shoulder as she jogged after Kaewer.
“Don’t forget the light torture,” Kaewer added, sparing a grin over her shoulder that sent the air in the stairwell fleeing. Soru made a ‘but of course’ gesture as the whump from the grenade echoed up the stairs.
———
Soru had always considered herself a harden veteran. She’d taken contracts that put her in some of the darkest holes of the Imperium and sent her to some deeply questionable corporate holdings in the Wilds. She thought she’d understood war.
She’d been wrong.
Whatever was happening on this floor was war and that reality made her cold.
The sound hit them first. What had been disconcerting when muffled by layers of concrete was simply overwhelming in person. The persistent wail of the fire suppression systems and panicked staccato of energy bolt fire hit them first but snarl of fire and the screaming — so much screaming — followed quickly. Then came the other sounds. Crackling of ice, booms of lightning, buzzsaw sound of something, and the rumbling and shattering of stone. All of it pounded them in a cascading cacophony of terror.
Then the smells hit. Choking smoke carried the notes of bolt seared air (burnt chocolate smell?), flares of ozone, the stink of melted and seared flesh, torched plastics and synthetics, and smells Soru couldn’t place.
The part that shook her though, the thing that drove her brain to gibber in self preservation? Was the all-consuming knowledge that this came from one source. She’d known that intellectually but some part of her had never really believed it. Now, confronted with the stark reality, every part of her soul rebelled at the thought of facing it and she was on its side.
“Stay close,” Kaewer shouted over an indefinable hum that twisted at Soru’s guts. “I’d hate for dad to hurt that pretty face of yours.”
“Aye, that would be the tragedy,” Soru retorted, trying to inject her usual wryness into her tone. From the smirk on her new boss’s face, she was pretty sure she’d failed.
“Right, we just have break through a couple of VC shooters still brave, desperate or stupid enough to be trying to fight dad and then we’re home free. Is the VC running any kind of L-net?”
“If they are, they didn’t give mere mercs access,” Soru tapped the small object in her ear. “I have comms access only. If it makes you feel any better, they’re all just crapping their pants right now.”
“It does but it doesn’t help keep us from taking a bolt to the back,” Kaewer paused to consider Soru and her seamery. “Alright, it doesn’t help keep me from taking a bolt to the back.”
“I’m planning to stay really close, if it helps.”
“My hero,” She said with vague swooning gesture that was ruined by her wolf’s grin. “If you take a bolt for me, I promise we’ll get you a good healer.” She sobered and glared down the hallway. “We go on the next— BOOM”
Kaewer and Soru scrambled forward while the building leapt and shuddered beneath. The heat bloom smashed into them, robbing Soru’s mouth of any moisture she’d managed to find. Kaewer rounded a corner and immediately put two bolts down range. Soru rounded the corner and saw a pair of Vanished Court operatives stumbling, a third already falling.
“[Stumble]!” She shouted, throwing the spell down the hallway. Both operatives staggered as the threads of their clothing pulled their legs out from under them. Kaewer squeezed off another three shots, hitting each operative once.
“Good shooting,” Soru panted.
“Thanks but— down!” Kaewer’s eyes went wide as she glanced past Soru’s shoulder.
“What? Oof!” Soru barely got the question out before Kaewer tackled her. A stream of energy bolts cut the air over their heads and Soru’s brain caught up. She joined Kaewer as they scrambled through the nearest doorway.
“How many?”
“At least one troll and four Sidhe. They look like they were looking for us.”
“Yeah they were,” Soru said with a grimace. She pulled the small device out of her ear. “And now they know I’m working with you.”
“Well, we picked a solid broom closest to get cornered in,” Kaewer snorted. She ducked out of the door and snapped off two shots only to roll back as a torrent of energy bolts tore through the space she’d just been. “Another twenty feet of space and we could ambush them. I’m about out of energy but can you get a fog in the hallway?”
“I do threadcraft and a bit of enchanting. Other than that, I can barely meet the national standard.”
“Can you sense thread from around the corner?”
“If it’s my thread, yes. Otherwise no, line of sight only. And area but I need to be able to see it.”
“Well, maiso.” Kaewer swore, tone conversational. She ducked out of the door low and put another series of bolts down the hallway. “That makes this complicated but I have an idea.”
“Is it a good idea?”
“I made a deal with you so…” Kaewer quirked and eyebrow and shrugged.
“Point,” Soru agreed with a grimace. “What do you need me to do?”
“If I pass out, you’ll need to hold them off and be ready to look non-threatening.”
“Pass out?” Soru shook her head and glared. “Those are two mutually exclusive things.”
“You’ll know when to do either. Now, I have to do this before they put a grenade around the corner. Close your eyes,” Kaewer laughed. Soru didn’t wait for clarification this time and slammed her eyes shut. Sharp light strobed at her closed eyes and then an explosion pressed hot air into the room and the roar of spellfire filled the hallway. She opened her eyes and Kaewer was leaning against the wall with a grin on her face.
“Your brilliant plan was to throw battle magic when you’re exhausted?”
“Basically,” Kaewer panted. “I hope you can use that little Whisper I saw strapped to your thigh because I’m officially out of go.”
“You burnt yourself out for that?” Soru demanded.
“You’ll see,” Kaewer sighed scooting herself into the back of the closet and miming a grenade explosion.
“Sura!” Soru spat and scrambled over Kaewer to take her position by the door. She glanced down at her outfit and murmured, “Tachirauk deri tanoras.” The layers of her seamery began to writhe as her activation spell poured power back into the cloth.
“Ade,” She intoned and mimed pushing her arm out through the door. A tendril of thick (colour) fabric pushed through the door and was met by a stream of energy bolts. Bolts slammed into the fabric with flashes of sapphire but the enchanted material didn’t tear or burn.
“Threadmancer Kasemivil! I demand you honour your contract with the Vanished Court!” Soru grunted. That was Marán’s voice, she knew he’d been chasing Kaewer but hadn’t really expected him to be on the front line. Things must be really bad. (12/15/24) This shouldn’t be Maran or the following illusion shouldn’t be
“Sorry but facing down the Grey Tempest is a lot more than I signed up for,” Soru shouted back. “I’m not one of your fanatics. You can consider this my resignation!” She leaned around the edge and squeezed off a trio of shots blindly. Her Whisper whined softly as it spat its own sapphire bolts. She heard Marán spit something angry sounding in Faeaoran.
“Then die impotently like the (faea word for occupier) you are!” Something rippled through the hallway and Soru had to grab the splintered and torn edge of the door to keep from falling over. The world outside the broom closet spun away from her, a vortex of colour and shadow clawing at her gaze. Energy bolts slashed out of that chaos driving her away from the door with a curse.
“Uh boss? This is bit more your specialty than mine”
“Just hold out,” Kaewer mumbled “and watch out for grenades.”
“Oh like that’s going to be easy,” Soru spat as several shapes rushed out of the vortex. She leveled her pistol and fired only for the figures to vanish like smoke. That was going to be a problem. Her Whisper was a holdout weapon, it’s power pack was going to run out of charge awfully quickly and she didn’t have a spare power pack.
Another cluster of shapes rushed the door, the eye tearing vortex making her fire unsteady and inaccurate. Her first two bolts hit shapes that vanished like smoke and two more simply faded but the fifth leaved a very real submachine gun at her and fired. Her seamery’s automated responses reacted faster than she could and a swirl of cloth filled the space in front of her. Sapphire bolts splashed against the enchanted fabric, flares of energy that tried to bunch holes or burn the material.
“(Slash!)” Soru yelled after a second of surprise and a small snarl of razor thin threads snapped forward, lashing at the air blindly. Someone screamed as her attack bit into flesh and the gunshots stopped. Her defensive tendrils dropped away revealing a Sidhe with a ruined arm and several slash marks across their left cheek.
“(Slash!)” Soru intoned again, directing the spell with several sharp twitches of her fingers. The razor thin threads tore themselves free from their target and danced in the air, slashing as she directed. Blood sprayed from the Sidhe’s suddenly torn throat and Soru pushed the body back into the hallway. Energy bolts hammered into her chest, the heat punching through enough to burn her skin.
“Surabai (fire spreader)s!” Soru snapped, she grabbed Kaewer with one hand and fired blindly into the vortex with the other. She dragged both of them into the narrow cover of the wall. “I hope your plan works out because I’m running out of options, boss!” They’d used the concealment of Marán’s illusion to gain a firing position on them.
Kaewer held up a finger and grinned. She pointed the finger out the door and Soru felt her soul drop through the floor. The presence she’d felt since coming onto the floor was suddenly everywhere. It was a raw pressure pounding into her in waves. The vortex of shapes and colours suddenly blazed with a dark grey light that filled the illusion until it shattered and revealed a hallway awash in fire. A dwarf and sidhe shaped pair of torches were crumpling, weapons clearly melted. Then the gunfire began again, the volume of bolts phooming down the hall staggering.
Soru couldn’t see who was shooting at who but the volume of fire told her that most if not all of the surviving VC operatives were here now. Something that swallowed light and distorted space tore down the hallway, pulling in energy bolts as it went. The deep buzzsawing sound that followed the gravitic distortion gnawed at her guts and Soru staggered to her knees. Soru glanced out the door to see a figure in black and silver plate armour stalking down the hallway. He was wreathed in a blazing aura of dark grey and sapphire energy that seemed to stop or swallow the now disorganized volley of energy bolts. Spells began to roll off him, storms of ice spears flashing moments ahead of waves of fire. Shattering stone sprayed around the hallway and more gravitic distortions simply appeared. Soru did the only she could and curled into a ball around Kaewer as the world around her came apart.
An indefinable length of time later, Soru felt the overwhelming presence behind her like a nightmare and swallowed against her desert dry mouth. Kaewer grinned and extracted herself from the threadmancer’s protective huddle. Soru held herself as still a statue as her new boss chirped a happy, if exhausted greeting.
“Hi dad, I found this threadmancer. Can I keep her?”
————
“Hi dad, I found this threadmancer. Can I keep her?”
“Thank the Ancestors, you starborne child of mine!” The armoured harbinger of death gasped and pulled Kaewer into ferocious hug.
“Ouch, sura. Watch the arm,” Kaewer said shifting slightly to keep the hug from crushing her magical cast. She wrapped her good arm around her dad’s armoured shoulders and tapped her forehead to his helmet. Quietly, with a voice thick with emotion, she added, “It’s good to see you, dad.”
“Oh stars, you’re hurt!” Kaewer tamped down on a chuckle as Aroven Jirvaerka, the Grey Tempest himself, leapt back as if she’d come a glass rose. “How bad? What happened? Who did this to you?” His voice dropped into an pool of liquid fire at the last question and the world seemed to shudder.
“Bad enough that I’m going to need a draiker healer,” Kaewer admitted with a grimace. “There’s a third Marán brother and unlike Jarída he’s taken my continued interference with his family rather… personally.”
“Did he now?” Kaewer wrinkled her nose as the air in front of her crackled with sudden energy.
“Yes and he was running the illusion you shattered so odds are he’s making for a bolthole ,” Kaewer poked a finger into the armoured chest plate of her father. “So tighten the cordon and get your eyes up. I’m completely surin right now and they’ve cut off my Interface from the Pulse Net so I’m not going to be helpful.”
“They what?” Her dad tilted his helmeted face, reminding Kaewer of a confused verep. All lethal grace and sincere befuddlement. Before she could answer, he shook his head and waved a hand through the air. “Never mind, not the time. The Guard is moving in so let’s get you out of here.” Her dad took two steps out the door and paused when Kaewer didn’t immediately follow him.
“What?”
“They know I have a new friend out there?” Kaewer asked him gesturing at Soru who was regaining her composure.
“Yes, of course,” Her dad frowned at her. “I’m not sure about getting to keep her though. She’s a Vanished Court operative, even if she had a change of heart. Just about every security organ on Iradathka is going to want to crack her open and drain her for useful intel and we’re not going to be able to stop that.”
“She’s already agreed to cooperate,” Kaewer nodded, “Only way I would’ve accepted her help”
“C’mon threadmancer, I need a shoulder to lean on,” Kaewer said, tugging Soru to her feet. “Can’t get in my dad’s way.”
“Ye— yeah, sure thing boss,” Soru stammered, shaking herself and after a steadying moment turned a solemn gaze on the armoured figure. “I swear by Oath and Magic to abide by my deal with your daughter, Vinialor Grey Tempest.”
“Good enough,” Aroven said after a long moment. He gave a decisive nod and turned his attention to the smolder hallway they’d been fighting. “Carry her with your seamery. We’re withdrawing at once and I don’t think she can walk.”
“(Lift) e (Carry),” Soru intoned as Kaewer held up her good hand.
“No, wait! Soru, I don’t think this is nec — ” Kaewer began as the enchanted tendrils of Soru’s seamery swept her off her feet. “Ssary.” She finished with a sigh.
“This is going to be humiliating,” Kaewer grumped as Soru settled her across her body and began to run, enchanted clothing holding Kaewer steady. “I bet there are (Imperium word for paparazzi) out there.”
“By now? Probably a whole swarm of them.” Her dad agreed, waves of dark grey magic still rolling off him.
“Any chance of letting Soru put me down before they can see me?”
“You helped me write the protocols, what do you think?”
“Can’t blame a ialar for trying, can you?” Kaewer tossed a smile over Soru’s shoulder.
“With you, imusira? I learned a long time ago that not only can I, but I probably should,” Her dad retorted with a dry chuckle. He turned suddenly and a hail of burning spheres flashed down the hallway.
“Ancestor’s above!” Kaewer was close enough to hear Soru’s scream over the series of explosions that shook the level. Dark grey spellfire suddenly filled the hallway behind them, the enchanted fire melting even the reinforced concrete.
“That’ll discourage pursuit,” Aroven said turn back without breaking a stride. “This next bit is going to be tricky. How’s your vertical, threadmancer?”
“My what?” Soru asked, her voice cracking.
“Your vertical jump?”
“Uh…”
“Never mind,” Aroven said with a vague hand wave. “We’re about to get to my dynamic entry point and I’m going to toss you up to the next level. Don’t drop my daughter.”
“Uh? Oh my stars!” Soru screamed again as she suddenly felt her and Kaewer lifted into air by an invisible force. They flew up through a jagged and melted hole blown in the ceiling, pulled inexorably by something. Before they slammed into the hallway’s bare concrete walls, Soru’s seamery reacted. Tentacles of cloth shot out to stop their rush and they staggered as the force let them go.
“You good?” Aroven asked as he landed next to them with a few casual bouncing steps.
“We’re good, dad.” Kaewer said, patting Soru’s cheek with her good hand. “Soru here is having a existential crisis but her seamery is quite well made.”
“Good because we’re going to do it again so I need her moving.”
“I’m… functional,” Soru said shaking her head. “That was terrifying but I’ll manage, Vinialor. Where’s the next hole?”
“Halfway across the level but I’m not wasting time. There are still a few zealots alive giving my Guard a hard time. So I’m going to make a faster way out.”
“I’m leaning back toward terrified,” Soru managed in a small voice. Aroven flashed her a grin that was so much like the one she’d seen on Kaewer’s face that she could read the centuries of father-daughter history in it.
“Go stand over there and (hold onto your hat idiom). This is going to karaide.”
“It’s been fifty years and you still can’t say it right,” Kaewer groaned as her dad butchered the intonation of ‘flash’. Instead of sound cool, it sounded stilted and military.
“Hush, chirufu, this is going to pretty impressive.” Aroven retorted, making actual gestures as he gathered power. Kaewer grunted but didn’t say anything. He was putting together a spell that Kaewer could only describe as a tapestry, nothing as a simple as a weave and she didn’t want to jog his metaphorical elbow.
With a blinding flash and a sound more felt than heard, Aroven unleashed his spell. The sudden lance of dark grey energy punched straight through the level above, turning reinforced concrete and supporting metal into glowing slag and dust. A ponderous grinding sound filled the air as the molten and torn edges of the hole reshaped. Pillars of slag formed as the whole structure tremored and bucked from the blow, the reformed debris keeping the entire structure from collapsing.
“Ladishi,” Soru breathed as she and Kaewer moved to look up the hole. The rumbling of collapsing levels could still be heard as sunlight danced in the billowing dust
“That’s going to be… expensive,” Kaewer said glancing over at her dad. He winced and shrugged.
“I might have overestimated the quality of the construction materials but this will save time.”
“So, you’re going to… what throw us all the way up there?”
“Yup. Get ready. There will be Jirvaerka Guards, Virunos, probably some Trip-I and Kanshufen waiting for you up there. Oh, and a proper medical team.”
“Right, of course.” Soru was sounding a little mechanical to Kaewer’s ear but she supposed it was better than being a gibbering mess.
“Ready?”
“Uh huh.” Soru nodded woodenly and crouched slightly, as if she was about take a hit.
“Good, I’ll be up as soon as we wrap this up.”
“Be safe,” Kaewer said with a smile. “Someone really hates this place’s structural integrity.”
“Ha ha. Smile for the (Paparazzi),” Her dad deadpanned and then they were falling up the hole. The same force, her dad’s gravity manipulation it seemed like, pulling them up with increase speed.
“Oh suurrraa!” Soru screamed as they raced past shattered hallways and rooms.
———
Soru managed to maintain the presence of mind to order her seamery to brace as they neared the top of their upward fall. Every scrap of cloth not holding Kaewer to Soru’s chest flared around them like a giant airbag and they still landed with enough force to rattle Kaewer’s teeth. Soru stumbled and dropped to her knees, her seamery almost deflating as she ran out of energy. Kaewer settled onto the floor in front of her with a groan. That had rattled every inch of her body and set every injury screaming.
“Thanks,” She said, managing to give the threadmancer a weak smile as Soru sagged to the ground next to her.
“Chikar!”
“Puppy and Toy confirmed! Securing now!” Figures in the familiar forest green and bronze armour and livery of the Jirvaerka House Guard swarmed the two of them. A halinwas with the bright purple vest of a medic appeared in Kaewer’s vision.
“We’ve got you, vinlar.” They said with the steady tones of a professional. “I’m going to give you a painkiller before we move you onto the stretcher. Okay?”
“Wait,” Kaewer gritted, holding up a protesting hand. “Get me a Guard.”
“Vinlar,” The halinwas began but their crest flattened when an armoured figure appeared.
“I’m here, chikar. What is it?” His voice was almost as familiar as her father’s had been and she smiled.
“Hi, Jinde.”
“Hi, chikar,” He tapped the front of his helmet in a ‘smile’ gesture, “Now, what is it? The medics want to get you out and I agree with them.”
“Take care of her,” Kaewer muttered, squinting against the rising pain and crashing adrenaline. She gave a weak gesture in the direction of where she thought Soru was. “Not just asset. Did good.”
“Of course, chikar,” Jinde said with a bob of his helmeted head. He glanced in what she assumed was the direction of threadmancer and let out a low chuckle. “She’s very pretty, chikar. Do you think she plays an instrument?”
“Sura you. You (fire spreader),” Kaewer retorted as the medic put an injector to neck and pain killers swept through her. She heard Jinde chuckle but the sudden absence of pain proved more important than a retort and she left herself slip into blackness.
