Skybound - Chapter 25: Clippity Cloppity

Morgan Mackenzie was flying. The nature of her flight and the effects of her newest skill, however, beggared attempts to capture them in such a spare word. Urgency compelled her to discard caution and travel under the cover of night despite the risk; the magic she had sensed, and the danger it posed to her friends, drove daggers of fear through her spine. [Soar] wasn't fast enough, and she was burning too much stamina just to maintain her pace. When no new skill suddenly revealed itself, she turned to her unspent skill points, dumping most of them into the one entry that best fit her purpose.

You have gained the skill [Windcutter]!

The new skill did not truly allow her to fly faster. It did something better, in her opinion. At a cost of mana that was only manageable given her monstrous regen, the skill cut through the air in a narrow cone ahead of her direction of travel. The lowered density in front of her reduced the pressure, and the practical effect was that she could ride her own personal jet stream as she was pushed forwards along the edge of a bubble of higher pressure atmosphere.

The downside was control, or rather the complete and total lack of it. The core of the skill itself was almost certainly meant to be used as an offensive ability first and foremost. It empowered her wings as it pushed her ahead according to whatever her trajectory was at the moment she activated the skill. To either side, her wingtips glowed a pale azure as they cut through the atmosphere with almost zero resistance. Afterimages trailed her wingtips like blades.

The cost in mana was astronomical, however. When she tried using [Spell Surge] on the skill it simply failed to activate, and the thought of forcing it triggered her instincts sharply enough to almost induce vomiting. She could only maintain the spell for a bare handful of minutes before dipping below the halfway point of her reserves. On the other hand, the benefits were undeniable. Morgan had no way to be sure, but she was certainly reaching speeds close to that of sound, if not a touch faster, in the brief moments before she released the skill's effect.

Though she had taken the skill for a boost in travel speed, it did have more directly applicable uses.

You have resisted the [Terrifying Screech] of an [Icetalon Harpy]!

Morgan hardly noticed the kill and experience notifications as she physically blasted her way through another two harpies with the magically sharpened edges of her wings. She had flown all night, and mental exhaustion from such constant use of her magic had led to inattention and subsequently her flight right through the territory of the harpies. Individually they weren't much trouble to deal with, but after she incinerated one of their elites the rest of its kin were unrelenting. On the other hand, slaying the [Audra Nivia] had pushed her to level forty-nine. It had also enraged the normal harpies, and they chased her far beyond their original territory. She had fought a running -- or rather a flying -- battle through the night and well into the morning.

Nonetheless, she was finally beyond the flying horde and thus she poured on the speed. Without the need to keep flinging spells and defensive shields, her mana managed to recover in between uses of [Windcutter]. She could still feel the echoes of the distant magic she had sensed, and worry over her friends spurred her wings as she continued her flight.

====================

Terisa Aras slipped silently through a stone doorway into a building that should have been a crumbling ruin, yet wasn't. The uniform brick walls didn't even seem old, and certainly not ancient like the outer walls of stone that surrounded the city. The buildings and streets were eerily maintained by the silent golems that tended the grounds. The constructs seemed unaware of the party of adventurers that had entered through the gates, or at least willing to ignore them so far. Prudence demanded they take no chances, however, so it was with furtive steps and hushed voices that the party made their way.

Stepping lightly in the tracks left by the others, the huntress made her way across an alley and into the next building. This one had an open atrium or large parlor, and Kojeg nodded quietly as Terisa continued past the doorway. Raminez tended to Biggles, who reclined on a low stone bench. The binding of such powerful familiars had left the necromancer in a persistent state of exhaustion, such that potions or elixirs would have done more harm than good. Only natural rest could recover the man's strength. Foz and Kels'Miros stood over a stewpot, heated by a stone inscribed with runes, powered by a small mana crystal. She waved to both as she headed up the stairs at the back of the room.

On the second floor, Terisa ducked to the side as a metal and glass insect barely the size of her closed fist softly buzzed into the room through an open window. She saw Dana looking down at an illusionary construct projected over a table that showed a partial map of the city in gentle shades of blue and gray. The flying golem hovered over the engineer's shoulder before latching onto her armor with a faint click. Runes lit up on the worldwalker's armored gauntlets and another section of the map was revealed to complete the display of the city.

"The signal is stronger inside the barrier, but so is the interference," said the armored woman. Dana tapped the edge of the image and it rotated smoothly with the gesture. "I've narrowed down the general area to the southwest district, but there so much random noise coming from what looks like a sub-basement level near the city center. I can't narrow it down any more than that until we get closer."

"A few of us would have no trouble making it through the golems still in the city," said Terisa. "But we'll never get everyone through while carrying Biggles, and my husband's skills don't tend towards stealth. So far we've been lucky with only cleaning and maintenance golems in this district, but I did spot a combat type patrolling the main avenue between the gate and the palace."

"Any trouble getting back to the ship?"

Terisa raised a single eyebrow. "Not for me, no. They've got the outer hull patched up to keep the cold out, and your mana reactor is still putting out heat so the snows won't be an issue. The nightstride and her cubs seem to be hibernating under the engine room where it's the warmest. Not that anyone will go in there and check, but the beastkin can smell them in there. I think the cats have the right idea, sleeping til spring. We're definitely not getting the ship flying again until after snow's end, at least not without a miracle or you hijacking the city's artisan golems."

"If I were actually a [Golemancer] class that would have been an option," replied Dana, as the metal insectoid drone took off from her shoulder once again, flitting out the window for another scouting flight. "I can make a few simple bots like the dragonfly and control them with my suit's interface, but I can't directly manage more than a handful of units with my skills. I'd have to wipe their cores and reprogram them from scratch, and that's just about as opposite from my specialty as it gets. All my skills and [Skills] either support my suit, or heavy systems and mechanical engineering. I don't code."

"I'm not sure what that means."

"It means I can build the machine, but I can't script an intelligence. Even the bots we used at Castra Pristis weren't programmed by me. I built the bodies but the golemists at Thun'Kadrass programmed their cores for me. I could learn the basics, I am learning the basics, but the best I've done are my dragonfly scouts."

Terisa gave the engineer a wry look. "Let me guess, they have a guild that won't tell you diddly without a binding contract?"

"Got it in one," snorted the worldwalker. "Just like their cannon and powder, and a dozen other industries. In my world dwarves are portrayed almost universally as short grumpy bastards who love smithing and drinking. All the stories leave out how they're almost all lawyers too."

Terisa sat on a stone bench built into the wall of the room with a sigh. "I don't understand this city. Golems simply don't do this, and there's not enough mana within the dome to allow for a natural dungeon environment. If I didn't know better one could be forgiven for mistaking this place for Meadowspire's inner district, or Stormbreak Academy, and not the wildlands."

"Well the barrier seems to be blocking out most of the ambient mana, but leaves enough for the constructs to function and maintain the city. I'm pretty sure something is controlling all the golems though, and I think it's damaged. The clearest signal is the ping we followed here, but there's repeating patterns and spikes in the background static that aren’t present outside the dome. They may be stuck in a maintenance loop."

"If this city was the cause of the Steel Crusade then we're definitely lucky it isn't working, but that just makes me even more nervous. We need Biggles' new familiars, but we can't give him any more potions without risking poisoning him."

The other woman slumped low as her suit's legs shifted to a more chair-like stance, staring absently at the map with her chin on her hands and elbows on the table. "Well, with Morgan's help we should be able to chop off the front section of the ship and get it airborne again, but we'd be leaving a lot of the food and most of the haul from the expedition itself. But leaving isn't an option until our friendly [Necromancer] finds the crown the drakes wanted."

"[Anima Curate] now," mused the huntress. "It's a rare thing for a necromancer to reach a class evolution towards a form that doesn't rely on enslaving spirits. It's why there's so few of them at higher levels. Most fall to the temptation of the darker paths, and then the [Oracle] gets involved directly."

The engineer contemplated the words for a moment. "Curator of souls, huh?"

"Still uses necromancy," nodded the huntress. "But with less focus on destructive death magics and a lot more oomph behind beneficial rituals. He'll not have his full power until he fulfills the terms of his familiar contract though. He agreed to find the crown and return it to Drakenth."

The dragonfly returned, halting their conversation for a moment to add another section to the glowing hard-light map. More details emerged, and the last section of the city was revealed to be vastly different from the ordered and in-tact buildings. Trees and brush and dilapidated, crumbling walls made up a roughly circular section nearly a mile wide. It looked like a garden grown wild, frozen in the still beauty of winter. It was the only part of the city that actually resembled ruins, with the stone bones of buildings punching through nature's growth.

"The ping I've been tracking is smack-dab in the middle of this section of the city," Dana reported, spinning the illusion with her fingers and zooming in slightly. "I've got...well, you could call them wards, but they're not quite like enchantments as you would understand -- they're more like...well, they're enhanced versions of tripwires and sensors like I'd use back on Earth, but--"

"I get it, Dana. You've got alarms and traps in place to give us warning so Biggles can recover."

"And he's going to be out for at least another six hours, maybe longer. I want to scout the signal before we go looking for the crown."

Terisa stood to look down at the map, recalling the patterns and routes of the patrolling golems. The drone was only able to mark their positions at the moment it captured the images, but most of the automatons followed predictable paths. All except for the obviously combat-capable guardian models.

"With just the two of us we can get to this zone in an hour or less, unless one of the guard types picks up our trail. I wouldn't be worried about dealing with just one, but all the stories agree that they can sense when one is damaged and converge on that unit."

"How long until you can use [Celestial Shot] again? I'm confident I can deal with any of the smaller ones relatively quietly, but if armored or ranged units show up it'll get loud."

"Another day at least," the huntress replied, resting  a hand on holstered handgun at her hip. "It's not that I can't use it if there's an emergency, but it'll kill my regen and sap the strength from any of my skills that use stamina. It's a combo type of skill that draws power from my sister's soul as well as my own, but Althenea doesn't recover like a living creature. That skill strains her physical structure and draws on my essence to recover. Use it too much and it can pull more than I can give, lowering my vitality and constitution. It can even permanently reduce my attributes."

Dana stepped away from the table, catching in her hand a rune-inscribed cube that ejected from the side of her armor. "Morgan's spatial enchantments blow bags of holding right out of the water," quipped the engineer, pressing the top of the cube before dropping it onto the floor. The runes lit up with traces of mana, flickering briefly as several soft clicks could be heard. Suddenly, the corners and edges of the cube split and began to separate as more squares and triangles folded out of somewhere within the not-space of the cube. The polygons clicked into place, the cube growing larger as more pieces rotated into existence. Dense purple mana swirled within the gaps, and the cube expanded to almost four feet per side and locked into place with a ratcheting thunk! The top split from corner to corner, opening up like a flower. Terisa simply raised an eyebrow at the grinning worldwalker.

"Nifty box, innit?" Dana chuckled, grinning as interlocking sections of her armor popped open and disconnected from the main suit. She gently lowered them down into the box and began pulling different pieces back out. Armor plates of a different material in softer grays and pale whites with oddly checkered patterns of coloration. "Without your [Celestial Shot] we need to be able to drop more firepower if possible."

With a heavy clank the stubby weapon on her shoulder disengaged and flipped forward to drop into her hand. Into the box it went, and out came a blocky octagonal cylinder of similar diameter to Dana's arm and a hand's width longer. The woman's improved stats allowed her to lift it with seeming ease, to flip it onto her back where it locked into place on the armor. A stack of metal disks covered in similar runes as the cube followed. An inch thick and four times as wide, half the disks had the outer edge banded in red, the other half blue. They slotted into gaps in the armor's sides, separated by the colors. As the armor reconfigured to accommodate the new gear, the soldier tapped a rune on the side of the box and it began to close in a hypnotic reversal of the way it opened.

"And now I'm loaded for bear," stated Dana with a savage grin. "It won't take out something like the chimaera, but it'll chew threw anything lighter than an abrams if we have to get loud."

=======================

The Horse Knight could sense a familiar signal outside the city. It could also sense many signals inside the city. The broken CORE still sent signals within the city, but those signals were jumbled, confused, and vastly weaker than they had been before the flying-bringers-of-flame hand managed to breach the dome. Sometimes the signals from the CORE ceased completely, only to resume some days later. It had been much easier to patrol the area around the estate of Katherine-friend since that day, and grew easier still as the days had passed. Until the servitors obedient to the CORE no longer approached this one section of the city.

The signal from afar had broken the monotony of centuries, or at least it would have, had the Horse Knight been able to feel or understand the concept of such a thing as simple boredom. It did not understand such things, and it did not care that it did not understand. One thing it did understand though, was that it's objectives were incomplete. Its objectives had not been complete since Katherine-friend had ceased moving and no longer climbed on his back to play. It needed clarification of those directives in order to understand its duty, but the Master was no longer present. It could not stray far from the estate to seek clarification, the duty to stay near and protect Katherine-friend was one of the few things that did not require interpretation.

However, the new signal had grown ever nearer as winter wasted itself impotently against the city walls and protective barrier. That signal contained words that were as the words of the Master. The Horse Knight's Adaptive Determination Matrix had performed as it was designed to perform, and it had made a determination. It had determined that if the Master was unavailable, then those that were most like the Master must clarify the objective.

The other functions built into the Horse Knight's own core also performed other calculations. It understood that the ones who had generated the signal had been attacked by something, and that a massive battle had taken place outside the walls. The CORE's signal had been silent for many days, but the overwhelming surge of death aspected magic and the sudden burst of wind and life magics that rapidly dwindled to nothing could be felt clearly despite the dampening effect of the barrier. It also knew that several entities had passed through the northern gate of the city, and then similar signals to the first signal from outside had suddenly appeared. An even weaker signal seemed to flit about in the skies under the dome, different from both the CORE and the signal that talked like the Master.

And now the signal that contained no words but still had the same flavor as the talking signal was coming closer. What the Horse Knight sensed was strange, however. The signal grew clearer, but the details picked up by its other senses were odd and contradicting. Mana, sound, scent, and other forms of energy, all these things the Horse Knight could sense. Whatever was approaching did not appear as a static entity to its sensors. Sometimes metal, sometimes flesh. A heartbeat laced with faint metallic lightning, sharp and wary and lethal, but also curious and eager. The golem was also wary because sometimes the new entity did not seem alone, as if a shadow danced around it. For certain approximations of feeling, as much as it was capable of such things, the Horse Knight was eager to meet this new existence in the hopes of receiving clarification of the directive.

It soon sensed a problem, though, and the Adaptive Determination Matrix within its chest began to draw deeply on the golem's mana reserves as it quickly began to heat, its processes accelerating. The new entity had made a miscalculation when crossing a footbridge near a garden district. The path taken had avoided the wider and more frequently patrolled main boulevards and avenues, but the entity must have been much heavier than its faint footfalls would suggest. Closer to the estate where rested the remains of Katherine-friend, the repair and maintenance servitor golems no longer patrolled. All such units in the past to stray too near to the district had fallen victim to the Horse Knight's directives to protect. As such, the foot bridge had not been inspected or repaired in many tens of thousands of days, and part of it crumbled.

The silence of the city was broken.

The servitor units no longer approached the Horse Knight's territory, but the Guardian and Sentinel models had no such restrictions. They also had extremely powerful senses. Almost as capable as the Horse Knight itself. Several began to rapidly converge upon the area, mana flaring under the dome as they went from passive to active scanning.

This was a problem for the Horse Knight, as it could not know or calculate the combat and survival capabilities of the new entity. It lacked the data. Without the right data, it was impossible to determine the threat difference between the new entity and the city's guardians that were quickly approaching said entity's location. It was determined that these circumstances were a threat to possible clarification of the directive.

The directive required clarification.

The Horse Knight began to move.