Chapter 11 - Astralis

Note : Probably going to be the last chapter in this streak, though I might get chapter 12 out if I can just so it's an even 14, two weeks' worth ^^

Chapter 11

Starborn Mountains, Continent of Kauvis

Starfire Valley

She took a split second to shove the squishy aside as she prepared to blast the skeleton to its component atoms...only for said squishy to shove on her gun as she fell, fouling the AI's aim.

The bolt of incandescent plasma screamed off into the sky.

Sapphiria tried to bring her gun back to bear, but the undead was fast. She jumped back to try to give herself space, and the creature just followed her, striking out with its stilletto and-

"STOP! YOU FUCKING IDIOTS, STOP!" Screamed out Kalia, and both combattants froze.

"She shot at me." Commented the skeleton, and Sapphiria swallowed. Those things could talk? Nevermind, if a skeleton could be animated, of course it could talk. Humanity had built a freaking loudspeaker much sooner than a working bipedal automaton after all.

"I'm not now." Retorted Sapphiria.

The skeleton tilted its -his? Definitely masculine voice anyway- head.

"Perhaps because my stilleto is centimeters away from piercing your brain."

"If you believe you can outrun light and put enough force in that thrust to pierce my helmet?"

The skeleton looked down, and the laser pistol pointed straight at his torso.

"Fair point."

"Are you two done?" They looked aside as Kalia finally got back up. "Cease with the damned dick measuring contest already."

"I believe that given my current physical condition, we would be evenly matched in that respect." Commented the skeleton, drily."

Sapphiria was sorely tempted to retort 'don't be so sure', but held her peace. She had, after all, never made use of her ambassador's...reconfiguration feature in that respect. She was lucky enough to not need to go from Nimue to Merlin. At least she dearly hoped so. If this was anything like Safehold she was nuking the church into rubble.

The skeleton slowly, almost placatingly, withdrew his weapons, and sheathed them. Sapphiria did the same, with a slight delay.

Kalia sighed.

"Well this is just...Gregor, meet Sapphiria. A...friend, who we found in the tunnels."

"Jumpy friend." Noted the skeleton.

"If I wasn't, your mage-magistrate wouldn't be alive." Said the AI, and the skeleton exchanged a look with the young woman, who simply nodded.

"Then you have my deepest apologies then. And heartfelt thanks for returning my friend to me alive and well."

"Don't mention it. My apologies for shooting, I wasn't expecting you."

"Apology accepted." As Kalia opened her mouth, Gregor extended a skeletal hand. "Gregor Eonus. Formerly of the thirty-third Imperial legion, and in the service of the mage-magistrate as part of the Malrikan province's defensive force. What's left of it anyway."

"He's my second in command." Filled in Kalia, still glaring at them both. "Who, by the way, probably shouldn't have been skulking around, waiting for me to come back."

"Why, everyone needs a hobby." Said the skeleton. "I assume you didn't find what we were looking for?"

"No, but I found her. She's...well, she's been living in the mountains. For a while. A while while."

Sapphiria had the distinct impression that if the skeleton still had eyebrows, he would have raised them.

"Well well well. That is quite interesting." The skeleton made an elaborate bow, prompting the mage-magistrate to facepalm. "Welcome to the settlement of Astralis, lady Sapphiria. The last bastion of humanity in the Starfire valley."

*****

"With winter fast approaching, and foraging in the valley becoming ever more dangerous, we've had to ration supplies." Said Kalia as they went through the...'streets' was too polite a word.

Sapphiria's head was almost on a swivel, scanning and cataloguing everything.

It...wasn't as bad as she had feared.

It didn't mean that it was good however.

"So that explains your expedition's food. No offense, but...I'd noticed." Said Sapphiria, as Kalia nodded.

"We've all had to tighten our belt. If we want to have a hope of getting through the cold, we have no choice. Thankfully, one of our main focuses was getting everyone under a solid roof before the first snowfalls, and that ought to be done in time."

'Solid roof' wasn't how Sapphiria would have described the quasi-huts, but she held her peace.

A look at the people however told her a lot. Despair was gripping this place, but they weren't broken, not yet. If she had to take a guess, they were thinking that if they were to go down, they would go down swinging, fighting onto the bitter end rather than giving up.

That was something.

They were looking at her, clearly surprised by her presence and bright white armor. It was probably enhanced by the fact that their leader had gone on a vital, not to mention highly dangerous expedition and returned with, well, what had to look like some kind of paladin in shining armor to them.

She could hear the whispered conversations and speculation, both behind and before them as the rumors outpaced their progress. Gossip was the only form of communication that broke the lightspeed barrier after all, or so went the joke in the Navy.

Their technology however...when she'd seen Kalia's firearm, which wasn't so much a rifle as a kind of lever actioned repeater carbine, she'd immediately started drawing hypotheses. Early 'second' industrial revolution she'd guessed, when humanity had gone from powered industrial machinery to powered everything. Possibly a backwater region which depended on imports.

That was a bit shattered now. She'd seen a blacksmith hammering out what had to be a sort of piston and what had to be some kind of mechanical technician arguing with someone over a cart.

Except that the cart didn't have any horses and appeared to have an engine unit, though her scanners returned errors when trying to find what it was powered by. It was still, however, a cart. Not a truck, and certainly not a car.

Then there were the soldiers. Armor straight out of the middle ages, with some using firearms, while others had spears, shields, swords...

But...if the armored skeletons' armor was enough to stop a plasma blast at point blank range, that armor was probably a lot tougher than she would believe. Furthermore...the 'enchanted' weapons those skeletons had used had managed to damage her armor. Maybe that wasn't possible for bullets? She had so many questions she dared not ask.

"One of our problems however is going to be heating." Kalia grimaced as Sapphiria shot her a gaze. "I know! Heating problems in a forest, ridiculous, right? Well, chimneys aren't exactly great to heat anything, and we can't manufacture stoves now can we? Let's not even talk about insulation."

"Plus foraging is becoming a problem."

"Precisely. And logging garners a lot of unwelcome attention. Hiding trees crashing down isn't exactly something you can do."

"Speaking from experience I assume?"

"And then some. It's like ringing the dinner bell for all the undead in the area. And here we are. The old Imperial outpost. The heart of our little settlement."

Kalia needn't have said it, Sapphiria would have guessed.

After all the buildings were made out of solid, chiseled stone, with only one exception, the central...'keep' wasn't the right word, but it was the only one that came to mind.

That one was made out of concrete.

Well, the romans had built entire harbours out of the stuff, but it was still a bit jarring to see it in the same place as makeshift mud and wood huts.

"It's well preserved." She commented, and Kalia nodded.

"The Empire built things to last." She grimaced. "I just wish it hadn't been the case militarily. No offence Gregor."

"None taken." Said the skeleton.

"So...why aren't you with, you know, them?" Asked Sapphiria at last, gesturing in the vague direction of the other end of the valley. It wasn't raining anymore, but the weather was still bad enough the mountains were basically outlines.

The skeleton stopped.

"I...I'm not Soulless. I mean that's obvious, right? I'm Risen, my soul came back alongside my mortal remains. Some of my fellows decided that their oaths to the Empire were above all else. I...did not. I felt the call in my very bones, can still feel it now in fact, but I chose not to answer."

"The call?"

The skeleton shrugged.

"It's what we call it. Whatever the heck turned all the Soulless against us. Not quite a compulsion. Not for Risen anyway. It's a bit like...like how the legates transmitted orders to officers in the old days. An impression, a feeling. I don't know how to describe it."

Sapphiria was very glad she was wearing her helmet.

Because she did.

That was a textbook description of how it felt for a human soldier to be in a tactical network with an AI. Not quite regular communications, but not quite a hivemind either. It was the in-between compromise the Federation had worked out to allow human troops to serve in the field, without having them crash the effectiveness of the regular combat formations they were attached to.

Worked with ships too. Though in this particular case she had been instructed to be careful to only activate that when in combat. The humans got a bit touchy otherwise.

They didn't like to be reminded that the ship's AI saw everything happening onboard. It simply couldn't be any other way, even with privacy programs keeping it below the conscious layer for an AI, but it was something that was...considered less than polite to mention, let alone emphasize.

"I see." She answered, neutrally. "I mean no offense, but that's not exactly...reassuring."

"I understand that. Hell, I support it. If something happens I sure hope somebody can put a sword through my skull before I turn against my people."

"Fair enough." The doors of the central keep flew open, and a tall, remarkably well built pair walked out.

It didn't take a genius to realize they were siblings. Roughly the same height, the man slightly smaller than the woman, but despite their build both seemed to be scholars of some kind. They also dressed very differently to, well, everyone else. Different cut, colors and style. Until then she'd seen a mix of purple and red, but these two had azure blue and even what seemed like lapis lazuli stones.

"Greetings, countess, we are glad of your safe return." Said the man, giving a deep bow, alongside his sister.

Kalia let out a quiet sigh, and nodded.

"You may rise. Sapphiria, I present to you Teman and Malry Solaph, representatives of the kingdom of Turlor, our liege."

The AI's eyebrows rose. Right, her nation had sworn allegiance to another.

"Please, milady." Said Teman as he smiled. "You are a representative as well, as a countess of the realm."

"Right. Let's go inside, please, there is much to discuss. Is Ramina here?"

"She's in her workshop." Said Malry, pointing her thumb over her shoulder. The siblings parted ways, letting the small party through, before closing the doors behind them, giving them a few seconds where they were almost out of earshot, at least if one was quiet enough.

"You're a noble?" Whispered Sappiria. The Federation's positions on nobility were...complex. The AIs had become a de facto nobility but they didn't like to be called that. Besides, if one posited that they were nobles then she was effectively royalty and a damned princess. But they couldn't deny they effectively were, and as long as the constitution was respected and Federal laws implemented -not to mention taxes paid in full-, individual worlds could rule themselves however they wished, which had resulted in a fair number of relatively stable constitutional monarchies.

"The magistracy doesn't have nobility. We're ruled by mages, period. But..." The countess shrugged. "The kingdom requires nobility, and a condition for vasselage was to establish one. The only compromise we could find was to make all the mages in administration and military command some degree of noble and then make some rules of primogeniture for any magically inclined children."

"Sounds...problematical." And given what Kalia had said, probably intended to fall apart. Her not-so-subtle hint that the magistracy would be independent again boded ill for the future. She'd seen the aftermath of the Theocracy breaking up with her own eyes, alongside many other historical examples in her databanks, and while wars of independence tended to be somewhat cleaner, civil wars in general were almost always a monstruous bloodbath.

"We play the cards we're dealt." Whispered the young woman back, before smiling as the two rejoined them. "So, any news?"

The 'representatives' looked a lot more relaxed now, and Sapphiria realized they had probably been putting on a show. Not for her though. Interesting.

"Not really." Said Teman. "Our foraging parties' attrition rate is still climbing, and their bounty grows ever more scarce." He coughed. "We could venture beyond the valley, of course, but..."

"We don't know what happened to Penrose's people. No, absolutely not. Anything that can disappear a dozen strong party without a trace is not something we can afford to tackle right now." Said Kalia, and Sapphiria's ears pricked. So that was why the mage-magistrate, argh, countess for short would do inside her mind, hadn't mentionned foraging beyond the valley.

"Very well." Teman bowed briefly, and Malry jerked her head towards the AI.

"So, what's with the shortstack in paladin gear? Stumbled upon a wayward crusader trying to get away?"

Kalia almost choked as she came to a halt, the rest of her party tensing up, including Gregor interestingly enough.

"She's-"

"Kalia! You're back!" A door slammed open and a woman in what looked like some steampunk novelist's idea of an engineering outfit stepped through, holding a plate of...it looked like bronze, but her sensors were returning nothing but error messages. "I managed to-"

The woman's eyes, orange much like Kalia's, went wide as she saw Sapphiria, and she promptly dropped the plate.

"Ramina, are you okay?" Asked the mage-magistrate, concerned, before watching in mute amazement as the woman prostrated herself.

Sapphiria swallowed, heavily.

Because before laying down, she'd seen recognition in the woman's eyes. She'd looked at her power armor and instantly realized what it was.

"Honored high elder. You honor me with your very presence." Squeaked Ramina, and the AI sighed.

This...was going to be a long day.