MBGSP Chp 153-155

Chapter 153 - The Greatest Huntress

The front end of the railgun shattered as the carriage hit the suspension springs of  the hard stop and blew straight through them, twisting the rails outward. The concussion from the passing dart splatted the broodling near the muzzle, instantly liquifying its entire body to black ichor that splashed across half the turret—my half of the turret, coating everything in a layer of obsidian filth that tasted… horrifyingly good to my goblin taste buds.

Below us, Lura’s aim was true, this time. Her shot struck the null devil on its back, ten meters behind the base of its skull and a little to the side. The shot sank into a piece of oozing flesh that missiles had scraped clean of chitinous armor. The flesh warped, and then the shockwave of the expanding railgun fountained black ichor out the sides of the creature, spraying geysers of goo around its chitin segments. The creature ballooned around the site of the impact, then collapsed in on itself as the railgun round punched out the other side, taking with it an appreciable amount of the null devil’s pureed innards.

There was no roar, no death rattle, no mournful call. Simply the deafening hypersonic CRACK of the railgun, and the null devil finishing the fall from the stars it began all those centuries ago.

This time, the broodlings truly did flee. The grasping lance of them scattered, dispersing into the wind as each fled in a different direction.

“Tell my hunters to chase down every last one of its brood!” declared Lura. “Let none escape to prowl this land as its sire did.”

“That’s oddly altruistic, for an orc,” I commented.

“Nay, little brother. If there are none left to hunt, never can my feat be bested!”

“That makes more sense.”

Still, I repeated her order over the intercom. The fighters below didn’t even need to be told, not really. They were already chasing the individual  broodlings down. All the sounds of combat on the decks above us has ceased, replaced by cheers and the mad howling of zealots. The canoneers would have a field day putting this in the ‘histry books.

The corpse of the null devil twisted through the air below us. Eileen put us in a steep descent to follow it, and I leaned out the front of the turret to watch. Now dead, the black smudge of the creature’s taint began to dissipate. It wouldn’t be long, I figured, until the System was once again able to communicate. Over my head, the glowing, warped ends of the railgun rails still sizzled from heat. Lura approached and looked up at them herself.

“What, pray, o’ king, would we have done if the beast required a third shot?”

I grinned back at her. “Just be glad we didn’t test fire it.”

Lura began to laugh, and leaned out the opening herself. “A greater quarry this land has never seen, little brother. Twas my vision, lead, huntsmen, and marksmanship that felled yon beast. But twas your artifice which carried us. You share in this glory.”

“I have little interest in glory,” I said. “But, congratulations on taking it down—despite this not being the plan.”

“Spoils, then,” said Lura. She wrinkled her nose at the black ichor smear the broodling had left—along with a fetid, caustic odor. “I doubt much that its flesh is good for eating, but surely a creature of that size has materials both common and exotic.”

I pursed my lips. “Aye. We can always use more materials. Armor and ichor, ammonia, nitrates, stomach acid, or whatever passes for stomach acid in an alien. Teeth, claw material, whatever organs made it capable of flight without wings and whatever let it survive the vacuum of space. We’ll take anything you can spare or don’t want.”

“You shall have it. The harvesters at China Lake have already begun to relocate, though weeks it will take, if not longer, to process the entirety of the beast.”

Lura retreated from the opening. I watched a few moments longer as the creature fell through the air, until the massive carcass struck the dunes, blowing out a ring of dust and sand. The shock rumbled through the air, sounding like the crash of distant thunder. The characters in my flight data window started to stabilize, finally, showing an airspeed and altitude figure that wasn’t complete gibberish.

System? I asked in my mind.

No answer, yet. Not even awaiting query. Well, the menus were slowly coming back so it was only a matter of time. Or maybe the creature kept some amount of its blocking mechanism even after death. I left the railgun opening and climbed to the upper deck with Armstrong, past the sight of battles and holes torn in the hull where the broodlings had forced their way in. I went to the cockpit, instead, to check on our pilot. Eileen whistled as she worked the flight stick for the lumbering jet. Her flight goggles were pulled down, despite the cockpit being entirely enclosed, and looked every bit the quintessential early aviator—once you got past the blue fur and 1-meter stature.

She glanced back on hearing us enter.

“Hey, boss! I’m ‘boutta turn back to China Lake. Take a load off!”

I moved up to the copilot seat “Nice flying, Eileen.”

She grinned a wide smile of tiny, sharp teeth. “Ain’t nothin! Someone’s gotta push this great hog around. Figured I’d have to fight you for the stick once you came aboard, though!”

I chuckled. “Let me guess, you’d have won?”

“You know it!”

I leaned forward in the chair and looked down at the tool bag left in the corner. “Where’s your copilot?”

She shrugged. “Ah, well, when the little ones swarmed us he went to join the fight. Ain’t come back,”

“Ah,” I said. There was a lot of loose blue fur stuck to that black ichor. I didn’t have a total number of the goblins killed in this battle, but we’d lost several fighters and half or more of the crew of the command jet. Still, the ratio was starting to shift towards spending material and equipment over goblin lives to accomplish tasks. Goblins were less likely to die by the dozen with machines acting as force multipliers. Yet they were still dying by the dozen as the challenges we faced grew in lock-step.

I couched my chin in my hands. “We’ve come a long way, since that first glider flight to liberate Canaveral.

“Have we?” asked Eileen, tilting her head. Genuinely perplexed at my statement.

I suppose to my air delivery captain, this rapid progression through basic unpowered flight all the way to high-altitude jet engines must seem as natural as any other tech tree unlock. When we put our first manned capsules into space, she’d probably be kicked back in the cockpit, whistling or humming as she soared through the cosmos as though it were any other Tuesday.

In the distance, the brass dome above the Ifrit city glinted in the sunlight.

“Once we drop Lura off, we’ve got some work to do ahead of us,” I said. “Need to have a king-to-king chat, clear the air with our fiery friends.”

“The Ifrit were real keen to kill that thing, yeah?” asked Eileen.

I nodded. “It’s terrorized them for so long. They might be safe outside the walls again for the first time in a long time.” I ran a hand through my fur. “I don’t think I appreciated before, just how brave they were to leave the city in a convoy to trade with us. A monster like that on their doorstep? Even with their paladins.”

Eileen shifted in her seat. “They’re not all gonna leave us, right boss?”

I cocked my head. “What do you mean?”

“Well, now they can go home, right? I don’t want ‘em all to leave. I want ‘em to keep flying with me.”

I laughed, long and hard, before answering. I pointed at the subtle fire peeking out of the control console. “Eileen, the exiles aren’t with us because they didn’t have a choice. They’re with us because they chose to stay when the rest went home. They’re as much a part of the tribe as any of the bluffs you visited or the orcxiliaries. Heck, Taquoho even broke up their union and reforged it around a turbine engine.” I looked over at the glinting dome again. “And if their king doesn’t see it that way? Well, then I’m going to have a few more choice words for him.”

I slapped Eileen on the shoulder. “But that’s tomorrow’s problem. Everything at China Lake ready?”

Eileen grinned again, now reassured. “Of course!”

I leaned back, listening to the drone of the engines and the wind for a while as we flew back towards the salt flats.

<Chris>

I sat up. System? I did it, we pushed through and beat the null devil. I don’t know how, but we managed it.

<You must keep advancing.>

What do you mean? We did keep advancing.

<I can say no more.>

Chapter 154 - The City of Brass

“There it is,” I said, leaning out the side of the helicopter and pointing at the carcass of the null devil. A camp the size of a small town had already sprung up around it. Orcs were processing all day and partying all night in their own personal brand of the Burning Man festival. Only this one was more Carving Beast. “Man, they don’t waste any time, do they?”

“I shall take your word for it,” said Rufus, from his seat as far from the door as it was possible to get. The half-badger wasn’t much more fond of flight by rotary as he was flight by fixed wing, but he at least understood the utility of being able to fly above the ground faster than he could cross it on foot. He’d get used to flying eventually.

As we passed over the camp of the beast, I marveled at its length and size once again. This alien creature dwarfed anything in Earth’s history. It was bigger than any dinosaur or whale had ever grown, and now dead and half-buried with a layer of sand blown over top, it more resembled part of the landscape than a living thing. Just a black, rocky outcropping in a desert of dunes.

Hey System, how come I didn’t get a new variant or something for taking out the null devil?

<Credit for killing the REDACTED was awarded to the Dawn’s Light tribe.>

I scowled. Figures.

We passed low over the site of the null devil and continued on toward the shining dome a few kilometers south of where we’d brought the beast down. The Ifrit capital had weathered the attack from the beast, though it looked worse for wear in doing so. I hadn’t imagined a disagreement over a lie would leave them so vulnerable, but Lura had said their active defenses were below the norm. Apparently the city being a revered site of what the orcs believed to be the spirits of their honored ancestors didn’t preclude a bit of mischief from time to time. And in fact, they believed the grandfather spirits would grow restless and bored without a bit of challenge now and then.

“We have seldom seen the city in such a state,” said Tamaho, echoing my own sentiment. His vessel tapped the floor with a pointed foot. “A great service you have done.”

“Enough to convince the king?”

“That remains to be seen. You are aware of his terms.”

We flew lower over the dunes as we approached the city, shooting an approach to a flat spot outside a towering stone gate carved with geometric patterns. The gate was currently open, but guarded. I could see both Ifrit in mobile vessels and paladins out, clearing away rubble and scrap from the most recent attack. Surely they would have been watching the battle from their city.

The paladins moved to form a line around the gate as we came in for a landing. They weren’t alone, either. Larger mechanical vessels accompanied them, looming even over the human heads and with interlocking armor panels. Each had sharp blades at the ends of robust limbs and a clockwork crossbow mounted high and manned by a paladin. Some sort of military vessel, then.

“Who are those?” I asked, pointing.

“They are Ifrit war forms. They are driven by unions of a dozen or more.”

I whistled. “That’s a complicated marriage. How do they all get along?”

“They are united by a desire to protect the city. These Ifrit also operate the crystal lances you saw.”

I craned my neck, looking at the spires that broke the smooth surface of the city’s dome here and there. “Those magic lightning guns?”

Tamaho waved a foreleg. “That is a crude and reductive description of their function of natural arcana. But somewhat accurate. It requires a union of 20 or more to charge and discharge one. As you can imagine, the null devil was resistant to all but the most powerful of magical attacks. If tensions are high and unions splitting and reforming, there may have been few enough warriors capable of keeping the null devil at bay. It is fortunate we were able to intervene when we did.”

The helicopters settling blew out a ring of dust, and a few dozen of my secretive service piled out to establish their version of a perimeter. That constituted them all standing in one spot gawking as Armstrong yelled at them, but I didn’t expect the Ifrit would be outright hostile while recovering from the attack. I stepped down from the passenger compartment myself. Tamaho leapt down in my wake and then spread his rotors to take to the air. Rufus edged his way down, but once solid earth was beneath his feet it seemed like the trader found his courage again.

Sparkers and builders also piled out of the helicopters, dragging equipment with them. They began to hammer away at a rough scaffolding even before the Ifrit war forms approached us.

Tamaho hovered forward, pale fire flickering as he conversed with the warriors in their own language.

System, do Ifrit not have access to the common language like everyone else?

<Most Ifrit are older than the common language. Few make an effort to develop the skill.>

Makes sense, I suppose, if few of them ever leave the city.

The System had been more willing to answer certain queries since the null devil’s defeat, but still refused to broach certain topics. I wondered if its conflict with the null devil had limited it in some way, but one of those topics it staunchly refused to acknowledge was its own nature or the extent of its abilities, or the null devil itself.

Ahead of us, more Ifrit were coming out of the city. They formed something of a hodge-podge of brass vessels, no two of which were exactly alike. Dozens had already congregated, including several of the simple manual labor forms loaded with rubbish and scrap. Several of them pushed close to the paladin cordon, eavesdropping on the conversation between Tamaho and the war form Ifrit, or simply gawking at his hovering vessel.

The war form vessel turned, and flared a bright vermilion green. A small, four-legged vessel bounded out from behind the press, exchanged a few flickers with Tamaho and the war form, and then turned and skittered back through the city gates.

Rufus leaned forward. “A trusted royal messenger,” he said. “To take Tamaho’s words to the King.”

Tamaho floated back toward us. “We have informed the Ifrit that the words Rufus brought upon his last visit were true, and that we are not prisoners as Haut Voclai Behen Mira Do has claimed. But as Tabun and Horal have often been seen as eclectic and willing to pursue knowledge and practice bordering on the taboo, our words do not carry the same weight. It is problematic for Haut Voclai Behen Mira Do that their account is disputed. But their union began in much higher standing.”

“Well,” I said, “They do think I’m blackmailing you.”

“The city is also somewhat in shock at the defeat of the null devil, but they do not yet understand your role in the event.”

Several of the gathered Ifrit, and even some of the paladins began pointing, and I glanced behind to see the builders inflating a balloon attached to a tether on the scaffolding they’d hammered together. The balloon lofted a wire, and the sparkers at the base of it were busy working a portable generator and fiddling with nobs and dials on their devices.

“Well they’re about to get a lot more accounts that dispute Haughty Von Haughty’s story,” I said.

The balloon continued to float upwards, straightening the long-range antenna wire as it rose. I heard the radio crackle on the ground as Bluff Apollo started to make contact. The sparker equipment burst into flames, but the flames quickly siphoned off into a ready clockwork vessel at the side of the scaffolding. The Ifrit stumbled sideways, impaired by their trip over the radio signal. Another followed, and goblins began to switch out brass vessels and pieces of goblin artifice for the Ifrit to possess. The first few made their way over to the line of paladins and announced themselves with flashes of colored light. The whole gathered crowd was starting to look like a rave with all the chatter going around. But more and more of the Ifrit arrived via radio.

Not all of them had wanted to come. Some of them felt as much a part of Tribe Apollo as any goblin. But they all understood the stakes if the King wasn’t told the truth. It knotted my stomach, watching all of the Ifrit we’d worked alongside for the past months, popping out of the radio and returning to the City of Brass. But every single one had to be accounted for. That was what Rufus had told me. Only the return of every Ifrit will assuage fears that the others are being compelled against their will.

“Are we sure this is everyone?” I asked. I never had a solid count on the amount of Ifrit kicking around the bluffs and joyriding in the buggies and choppers. Unions split and reformed with different members, and any single entity could have as few as a single individual or more than 10. But I didn’t think any of the exiles that had remained when the malcontents set off back to the city would screw over any of their fellows.

The royal messenger skittered back through the gate, sprinting at top speed to speak with Tamaho.

“The king has permitted Tribe Apollo entry, and granted audience for you, myself, and our friend Rufus,” said Taquoho.

“Alright,” I said. “Let’s go set the record straight.”

Chapter 155 - The King of 1000 Names

From the outside, the brass dome had looked like a single solid object. From the inside, it appeared more to be a lattice that crossed over the city, as well as the primary method of Ifrit transportation. Hundreds of brass rods criss-crossed overhead, glowing with the subtle light of Ifrit shooting down their lengths. On the ground, we walked past vessels of every shape and size, decorated with every geometric pattern and fractal imaginable. It was like walking into an art-deco steampunk city without the steam.

The war forms kept pace with us, as did a dozen or so paladins. If any were the ones that had visited Bluff Apollo, I would have been hard pressed to say which. My own secretive service were allowed to keep their weapons, though all of them were slung in favor of hefting brass jars filled with Ifrit unions through the city. Soft flames flicked out from vessels to touch other unions that we passed in a gesture that looked like a fiery high-five.

But what struck me most odd about the city was the relative silence of the place. Aside from the whirr of clockwork devices, the soft step of the paladin boots on the sand, and the distant ringing of hammers, very little within the city seemed to create noise. Ifrit communication was visual, so there were no conversations. Neither were there cars or engines, no shopkeepers hounded us with deals, and unlike goblin villages there were certainly no explosions or manic squawking. It was no wonder the paladins grew up mute in such an environment.

The structures we passed were just as odd as the brass lattice, contorting in strange shapes that accommodated the vessels of the individual unions that dwelt in them. More than once we passed what I took to be a shrine or furnace of some sort, only to see a mechanical vessel no larger than a Chihuahua creep its way out for a peek at the procession.

The thoroughfare itself was open to the elements, and sand accumulated in corners and crevices. Where the wind blew it clear, it revealed old and worn designs on the tiling beneath our feet. Ahead, a large building that resembled a blown glass lantern rose above the stone and bare metal construction of the rest of the city.

“I take it that’s the palace?” I asked Tamaho.

Tamaho had folded his wings to walk alongside, and he tapped his pointed feet nervously as he regarded the structure. “It houses the King of 1000 Names,” he said.

Rufus leaned over. “Just hope the king doesn’t demand a formal greeting. We’ll be here all week,” he said.

“Wait, that’s literally 1,000 names?” I asked. “That’s not a metaphor?”

“Just so,” said Taquoho. “At present, the king is a union of 907 Ifrit, though when I left the king was a union of 1022 Ifrit. That so many of their members would reach such discord speaks to the tumult Haut Voclai Behen Mira Do has caused with his falsehoods.”

The war forms and the royal messenger stopped us and held up a claw to me in an unmistakeable wait gesture. Ahead, I saw a familiar ornate form that I’d last seen departing Bluff Apollo with his cronies and a load of ceramic components. I narrowed my eyes at Haut Vo-whatever.

“The king bids I attend,” said Taquoho. As if also noticing, Tamaho spread his rotor blades and took to the air. All around us, Ifrit closed in, vessels angled for a better view of the Ifrit who could defy gravity and float freely through the air on six axis of movement. Tamaho joined the royal messenger and disappeared through the opening in the narrow domed palace.

“Great, we’ll just wait here, then,” I said. Some of my retinue were already becoming impatient, edging further away from the group to gawk back at the Ifrit. But it wasn’t just Ifrit in the city. Besides the paladins, I spotted a group of humans in clothes very different from the people I’d seen at Habberport. Another group in deep robes and hoods moved through the square, giving us a wide berth, and I could see curved rams horns coming from inside their hoods.

“Boss, Midnighters,” said Armstrong, pointing off to another side. Sure enough, I spotted a palanquin—different from the one that carried Cla’thn, along with more royal guards. They watched us openly, with several of the serfs and attendants openly whispering amongst themselves.

“What are they all doing here?” I mused.

“TrAdE,” said one of the war form Ifrit. The voice was rough, and sounded a bit like the wind whipping through a bonfire.

“You speak the common language?” I asked, looking up.

The war form lifted one of its pointed legs and pointed it at a passing group of humans with skin the color of blue coal. “ThEy tRade…”

“Ah,” I said. I nodded to the Midnighters. “What about them?”

The war form tilted to the side to examine the bug people. “CoME spEak kIng. ThEY seEk,”

“Seek?” I asked. “What do they seek?”

“TheY sEEK. SEarCH. WorLDs.”

“Yeah,” I said. “They’re astronomers. They search for other worlds.”

The war form tapped its foot in the dust impatiently. “seek THIS.”

Before I could make heads or tails of what the Ifrit was trying to say, the royal messenger emerged again and tapped on the steps of the palace for our attention. Rufus sighed a breath of relief beside me. “No formal greeting today. We can go in.”

I followed Rufus up the stone steps and through the arch that opened up into a brass dome. The irregular shape of the palace on the inside felt a bit like being inside a brass sculpture of a tornado, and I looked up at the rows of rails lining the dome. Fire raced along them, smooth and continuous. On the floor, Tamaho’s vessel sat, lifeless and empty. Next to it, an ornate vessel I recognized as Haughty von Haughty’s.

“Tamaho!” I shouted. I looked up to the dome. “What did you do to them?”

“Peace, King Apollo. We are here. Horal lends his voice to the chorus that we may speak as we are.”

The whisper came from everywhere and nowhere, and it was unmistakably the voice of Tamaho, or I suppose just Horal, who was the talkative one of the throuple. I relaxed somewhat.

“All right, then. We need to set the record straight.”

“We have examined testimony and memory both. This dispute caused much damage to the Ifrit. It is good that the truth of things is revealed.”

“You mean Haught Voclai’s lies are dispelled,” I said. The fires of the palace flared for a moment. A prismatic wave circled along the rails, and it gave me the impression of many individuals turning to look at one.

“Haught sought to shield the Ifrit from outside danger. Voclai sought to shield the Ifrit from dissidence within. Behen wanted the Ifrit beholden not to outside vice. Mira wanted the Ifrit not dependent on strange artifice. Do feared that the Ifrit outside the walls could not be kept safe. Their and loyalty to the Ifrit remains, though their sight was short. They have diminished us—and in their actions, we have lost standing while seeking the truth. Not only did you return every union unmolested, but you have vanquished our city’s greatest threat. There can be no doubt. The 1,000 names have consensus. Be welcome always in this city, Tribe Apollo.”

“Ah, uh, thanks,” I said. “I’m glad things got sorted out.” I looked at the vessel of the Ifrit that had caused us so much trouble. “What’s going to happen to Haught and the others?”

“Their wisdom joins the choir—tempered by the lived experience of Maduri, who witnessed the defeat of the null devil. They shall remain with the 1000 names—in service and humility.”

“What about Tabun and Horal?”

“We are free to return to Bluff Apollo and once more embrace Quo into our union.”

A heavy weight lifted off my shoulders, one I hadn’t even realized was pressing down. For the lying leader of the delegation, it looks like serving in the kingly union was some sort of community service sentence. Lighter than I thought they ought get for trying to kill Taquoho. But I’d be content to have my buddy back.

“The Ifrit owe a debt, King Apollo. Not only for our actions which have diminished us, but for our defense and our gratitude. And for these new vessels that Tabun has shared. What would you ask? If it is within the power of the king to give, ask.”

I thought. I could ask for materials, money, soldiers, anything. But while material shortfalls were a problem, to be sure, what I needed more than anything else was friends.

“I want our original agreement to stand. Trade for goblin vessels and ceramic parts. I also want freedom of movement between our two cities. I want Ifrit and Appolan goblins to each be welcomed by the other. I want to set up a radio station here so that Ifrit can come and go from the bluffs as they see fit, and I want them to continue helping our technology develop by possessing whatever they please. I also want to start working together to manufacture precision instruments—gyroscopes, accelerometers, magnetometers, and other things more suited to Ifrit clockwork than the Goblin Tech Tree.”

The entire hall flickered in what seemed like muted whispers.

Rufus leaned in closer. “You could have asked for a lot more than that,” he muttered.

“Don’t worry,” I whispered back. “Trade now will be way more than the original agreement. You’re going to make a lot of money,”

“Noted,” he said, satisfied.

The Ifrit apparently shared his sentiment.

“You ask too little, King Apollo. The scales are not balanced. We are uncertain they could ever be.”

“Fine,” I said, biting my lip and wracking my brain. My mind went back to all the different cultures I’d seen in the city. Newcomers, the Ifrit called them. Specifically, I thought of the Midnighters in the square, and the struggle for the war form Ifrit to get his words across. They seek other worlds. They were seeking other worlds in Lanclova—and they’d stopped searching once they met me. I was beginning to suspect something, but a hunch is not a hypothesis, and I needed more observational data.

“I want to know who’s capable of summoning beings from other worlds, who’s been trying, and why.”

The lights raced again.

“We do not fully understand their motives, King Apollo. But here is what we do know…”