5.11 Familiar bowels

Difference: Minimal
AN: Happy holidays.

Waylan tapped Irwyn on the back again. The first time, his friend had clearly not felt the sensation - probably his own fault for accidentally concealing it. It was hard to balance being hidden from enemies yet able to signal allies. The taps happened in a pattern, almost a code, though not quite as complex. Old Crow had taught them that, because perhaps one day they would need to communicate without words or even sight, just touch.

Of course, the system had to be rather simplistic on account of being formed of just damn taps. There were ways to spell whole words that way, a letter at a time, but that would take impractically long. So, there were just a few messages that could be relayed. The one Waylan conveyed was ‘I am moving ahead’. Originally meant for sneaking through dark tunnels or shafts, but it worked well enough in the current circumstances.

The reason he needed to let Irwyn know was that the brilliant bastard was doing a bit too well against the undead after everyone else had vanished. Wave after wave of his blinding bright magic crashed into the risen sods, breaking their sheer numbers with overwhelming power. They were probably trying to wear Irwyn down with sheer numbers - not knowing there was no point.

Unfortunately, that also meant that every centimeter of that open doorway just so happened to be completely impassable. Waylan could slip through some surprisingly tight places, but a wall of steel vaporising fire was a tad too much for him. Hence the signal. 

Irwyn thankfully reacted that second time around. He put one hand behind his back, then raised five fingers. Waylan presumed that to mean as many seconds of an opening. Hopefully they were in something of an agreement, otherwise he was about to become an hour past well done. Getting into position right beside the door, Waylan waited for his opportunity, which came just a moment later.

Irwyn interrupted his stream of constant magic, all that brilliant golden fire somehow leaving behind no remnant embers. Not even heat. Bloody ridiculous, that something could vaporize a cunt without even warming up his shoes. Waylan decided not to think too hard on that and instead slipped through the opening as quickly as he could, making sure to stick as close to the wall as possible. 

Good thing as well, since Irwyn had to still do something to keep the horde at bay. The moment he dropped the continuous barrage, the undead seemed to perceive weakness like loan sharks, and a steady stream turned into a rush. Irwyn had to dispel that notion by sending his own swarm to meet them. A thousand needles sailed overhead, then melted anything they struck - but nothing else. 

After that first surge, the undead seemed to reconsider and decreased the numbers aiming for Irwyn again, returning to attrition attempts. Not that there was any shortage of them. The towering empty hall Waylan remembered was literally filled to the brim with undead that seemed to be replenishing as quickly as they died. And not just because of Irwyn either.

There were eight total entrances from the outside pathways that resulted in the hall, he remembered. Each one of those was clearly seeing struggle of some sort. Though Waylan didn’t get enough vantage to actually see how they were faring, just flashes of magic peeking from above the crowd. The vaults unnatural darkness that clung to the distant edges of the room also did not help with observing. The only battle truly visible for him, beside Irwyn’s, was taking place overhead.

Five figures were stuck in the most volatile standoff Waylan had ever seen. Three were clearly trying to pressure the other two, but Waylan had no idea which ones were on their side. WIth no magical senses, he could only go off of visuals, and if the past months had taught him anything, it was that there was no way to tell the real undead apart with just his eyes unless they wanted to be recognised. What he did see was that the duo was obviously slowly losing. 

They were hidden in a blizzard of see-through flakes, spinning at rapid speeds. At the same time, the two were also intercepting attacks before they could hit said barrier. Waylan could not tell which of the two did which, as they literally moved faster than he could perceive. He could only guess what was happening from the continuous explosions occuring around and at the edge of the storm.

Numbers still seemed good to have even for mighty mages, though. Waylan couldn’t see the trios attacks either, but they were constantly flickering from spot to spot in the air and almost no explosions were happening anywhere near their bodies. The only few he had noticed were clearly aiming towards the strange crystalline device near the middle of the large hall. He had also been looking for that, trying to see if it was being protected. Because if the undead bothered, it was clearly still useful.

So that was his best shot at making a difference. Waylan had no delusions about his combat capabilities as he prepared to approach properly into the crowd. The thief had left his bag behind the corner. It was supposedly ‘made for stealth’, but it was about the least subtle thing about Waylan. Nor did he hold anything in his hands and he had stripped before the operation had even begun. Just his skin and whatever lay within. The subtlest way he knew.

He still hesitated before taking that next step. For the moment, he was by the very corner of the room where almost no undead trod. But just a few strides away, he would be in a crowd so thick anyone would presume a dozen trampled corpses under normal circumstances. Yet he knew what had to be done. If there was any impact he might make, it was right then. He took a deep breath, then strode ahead.

To hide from the world was to be detached from it. The transfigured darkness that was his flesh did that naturally most of the time, to the point Waylan had to actively try to be visible, but that passive state was by no means his limit. Mages had spotted that state in the past and he could not allow that. Therefore he pushed the techniques as far as they would go.

There had to be a rhythm to his steps. To his breathing. Even to his very thoughts. Patterns he had first stumblingly learned as barely more than a child, even if he had no idea what they were at the time. Gymnastics - both mental and physical - he had practiced every day of his life, yet never reached the true depth off. Waylan didn’t know what casting magic was like, but he understood damn well the feeling of reaching for perfection and knowing it was still so far out of grasp. But even imperfect, he was getting close. Though imperfect, the world hid him better than ever before.

The crowd of undead took up the entire floor. But that was also a hyperbole. This was no hill of sand, but a mess of feet and bodies, not perfectly fitting puzzles. Even as eerily organized as the horde was, there were still gaps. Spots beneath the fingertips, space under the chin, gaps above the feet. Waylan could not hide all of himself from the world, but mostly would serve just fine. 

He strode across that boundary between existence and vanishing, leaving only a wisp to deal with the former. And even that little figment was concealed from all but the sharpest of unnatural senses. Most importantly, the part of him that remained anchored in the world carried none of his Soul. A nifty little trick that gave him the confidence to dare approach at all. That was what the dead were best at finding after all - also why he had practiced extensively.

As the crowd passed by him, Waylan refused to lose focus for even a moment. Detection would mean certain death. By step and leap, barely able to navigate by the device’s sheer size, he got closer by the second. Then he reached his destination and found a new problem. One he perhaps should have predicted.

The artifice was guarded, but not in a way he ever had the displeasure of seing before. While basically all of the undead had been mostly human so far, these were far from it. Ten totems surrounded the device, each three meters tall and as thick as Waylan’s arm was long. And from every individual one sprouted hundreds of eyes. Watching the device with obsessive focus as they flickered up and down independently of each other. 

They did not spot Wayaln himself at least. Those were not meant to detect intruders, but rather any problems with the towering device. The moment he tried something though, they would see. And if he had to guess, they were build to react inhumanly quickly. There were no hands attached and he couldn’t begin to guess at magic, but he didn’t even need to wonder if that could be overcome, because there was another protector.

In the middle, right beneath the great crystal wrought device sat another figure. Humanoid, but with three additional pairs of arms grafted to its body - one of which even sprung from the back. Naked but with none of the bits usually associated with that. It also did not have a full head, just a faceless half lump.

And before Waylan’s eyes, he saw it crafting more undead. One pair of hands flickered around, manifesting corpses from thin air. Likely retrieving them from somewhere spatially rather than creating, he presumed. The next mended the bodies of any significant wounds or flaws, and the remaining two animated them unto unlife. Those would then stand up and join the horde. At that rate, it was making perhaps ten risen corpses a minute. How long would it take to make an army with such a pace?

Waylan wasn’t good enough at math to make a half-decent guess. But he certainly wasn’t so stupid as to not see that whatever was sitting in the very middle of the machine that had vanished everyone would be far more than the little him could handle. So, he needed an opportunity. 

Therefore the thief stepped as close the the device as he dared and stood still with a slight smile. Wherever Elizabeth had gone, he was sure she would not let herself be fettered for long.

****

Senior Inquisitors Hildrin took a shuddering breath as she and Algor followed Elizabeth von Blackburg into the Void. The sensation of loosened natural laws was particularly unpleasant for an experienced Domain mage who was used to feeling their boundaries so acutely, though SOUL was on the milder side of that spectrum. 

She had some deep doubts about the current plan. All of which basically came down to ‘how arrogant is the girl being’. Even if she was a specialist in navigating the Void - which technically could be the case, as her expertise was not mentioned in the dossier - it was always hubris to think that one knew better than the Rot what they could overcome. Particularly with Void mages and their propensity for Pride.

Yet with someone so young, there was always a chance that the Rot was indeed actually underestimating them. That compounded with how the local infestation was relatively unprepared. That trap device had caught them off guard, but it had most likely been built well in advance of their raid. There had been less than an hour between the initial detection and their attack starting so there was only so much that could be prepared from some angles, such as trapping the Void without a specialised Ravener.

More realistically though, Hildrin thought they would make it back to the vault where the lady would quickly succumb to a dozen wounds taken along the way. Maybe she would have a life saving treasure that could preserve a spark of Life for after the operation, though one Conception mage was frankly a secondary worry compared to the number of Senior Inquisitors at stake. If they all perished, it would leave ripples on the strategic scale of the war. Eight Domain mages subverted meant a swing of 16 in the overall balance. Unacceptable.

“Before we begin, please do not speak of what you are about to witness,” the Blackburg girl said, interrupting Hildrin’s thoughts. “Especially to my cousin. It would have major political repercussions. To the point it may affect war readiness in the future.”

“There are no sides other than against the Rot,” Algor reminded. Though his smile clearly said how realistic he thought the moto to be. 

Had the geezer tried to make a joke? Hildrin could hardly believe her ears. He did supposedly have grandchildren, so maybe he was always notoriously stiff just around peers. Rarely did a Senior Inquisitor talk with a stranger under 50 outside of interrogation - much less in presence of another colleague. It was simply a matter of delegation and usefulness. Most people took many decades to amass the magic needed for even the mildest individual relevance.

“I will live by that saying when I hold a Name,” the heiress just chuckled, and the sheer hubris behind that confidence startled the Senior Inquisitor out of her prior thoughts. “Details can be settled in the aftermath. Now hold on.”

Bonds of Void magic stretched out towards them, then formed something close to cocoons, enveloping the two of them. Hildrin did not have the knowledge or senses to know exactly what was happening, but she could somewhat guess that they were… shrinking, for the lack of a better word. Becoming less geometrically expansive under the Void’s rules. Those who trod the black depth could sometimes do that for their passengers, though she assumed that for someone under twenty it was a major feat. Perhaps the girl’s confidence was more earned than Hildrin had assumed.

Then she felt the young lady’s magic explode outward. The trickle that had been her magical presence surged, turning into a raging river. The enchantments keeping her exact number of Concepts hidden were surely straining under the sheer pressure. But Hildrin was no novice. As a Senior Inquisitor, she had a century of experience with hunting some of the trickiest prey hidden within society. So she could estimate, based on the output, and what she felt baffled her.

Because that amount of magic, applied internally as seemed to be Elizabeth von Blackburg’s preference, spoke of nine Concepts, perhaps more. The very edge of Domain, half a step into it even. A state common among those who had failed to grasp that final inspiration for countless decades and thus progressed beyond the normal upper ‘limits’ of Conception by the sheer weight of time.

It could, of course, be an item. Some kind of external tool that raised her power at a great cost of either artifice, herself, or both. But such treasures would make their activation apparent. Hiding external aid was incredibly difficult, and generally not worth the investment. Hildrin would have sensed that. Somehow, it felt more likely that she was feeling exactly what was happening. Which was ludicrous by itself.

Anyone claiming a Domain under the age of 40 would be considered a seedling for a Name, the lead prodigy of their generation or at least age group. So what does one call someone who may well achieve it in half that time. Or practically a third, given the length of adolescence.

No wonder it would cause an uproar if such a prodigy was revealed. Everyone in the entire Federation would want to know how that hiding had even been done. How no rumors from a spar or a servant could have slipped. And the next question would be of how fast she could climb further still. There was no certainty when embodying Truths or claiming Names, but it sure as the Aspects heavily correlated with talent. Nut she did not know enough about noble politics to know what damage those questions could cause.

When they began to move, Hildrin also felt the sheer deftness with which the noble lady wielded both her mana and body. Not just beyond her age, but beyond what most attained in a century of hard practice. And while the Inquisitor could not well perceive what was happening within the Void, the lack of exploding mana meant that Elizabeth was indeed triggering none of the traps that had undoubtedly been placed in the greatest quantity feasible.

And then in a few stretched moments - how Hildrin hated inconsistent dilation - they were through and out. Somehow, the heiress had managed to navigate to near the middle of the room rather than just the edges. Immediately, they took in the situation. The eight entrances, barely holding on against the onslaught; the battle between three Raveners and their two missing colleagues; and of course the Time device that had put them in so much jeopardy.

Its guardian was already floating to meet them. Several Domains, Hildrin could immediately tell. At least two, possibly three, but not focused on combat. Otherwise the creature would have joined the other battle to settled it quickly. Still, even a crafter was hard to kill if they had enough mana to exhaust on defense, which those extra Domains would provide oceans of. And the Inquisitors couldn’t afford to be careless with aggression either, lest there be other tool that could catch them off guard and even worse off. In other words, it would likely be a slog to put the malformed corpse to rest.

“I will try to crack the trap device,” Elizabeth von Blackburg commanded. “You dispatch the Ravener. Use your own judgement for battle.”

By the time she finished speaking, the room was turning darker. The vault’s enchantments drew down on them. An unnatural darkness was growing thick around them, obstructing sight of even a Domain mage. Physical sight, that is. The twisted Soul of the Ravener still shone brighter than a beacon to Hildrin’s other senses. She would not be hindered overly in the coming battle by the ambiance.

Algor was likewise ready, his WIRES gradually expanding into a web of esoteric patterns, based on obscure lores the man had manufactured himself over 200 years. It made them less powerful than genuine natural or ancient symbols, but, much more importantly, it made them wholly unknown to the Rot. 

The abomination did not even glance in the direction of the heiress as she took a long way around their coming battle, likely concluding that whatever defenses were present would be sufficient to halt her. Hildrin showed no emotion to that. After all, the undead would have noticed a mocking smile.

****

The moment their reinforcements arrived and baited the Ravener away, Wayaln began his own preparations. He had carried nothing, but that did not mean he hadn’t actually brought a tool for the task before him. Some of the smugglers he had known would be proud as he opened his mouth and extracted a thick vial of glowing purple liquid from where it had been clenched down his throat.

A borderline vanity project he had taken up on the side with Desir’s help. When they had noticed that the divine ichor from his sippy supply had a tendency to corrode settled magic such as enchantments, Waylan wanted to make a safe-cracker of sorts. Something that would let him open ways into places otherwise sealed shut by magic.

Of course, the application of that had always been dubious. Not even really worth mentioning compared to what Irwyn and Elizabeth could accomplish with contemptive ease. But Waylan was passionate about breaking into places, and sometimes it was fine to make something just because he wanted it.

And through a wonderful twist of fate, magical weapons were structurally not so different from vault seals.

Waylan still hid as the Ravener left the formation to fight. When the eye totems around the device raised a barrier he was already hidden within, but he did not act yet. He had spotted someone else had come alongside the inquisitors after all. And just a few moments later, Elizabeth arrived.

Even as the room darkened, she stood out in that blackness, surpassing it when put in contrast. Like a whirlwind of ebony flames, she cut through the horde as if they were powerless children. With each step, she easily wove through their endless salvos of magic, unbothered by the sheer numbers that surrounded her. Unlike in the hallways earlier she had space. Above and to the sides were places she could maneuver, as mere bodies were far feebler than reinforced walls. So even in that extreme onslaught she was finding time to strike against the barrier. 

Which made the eye totems lapse. Pressured like so, they stopped paying undivided attention to the device and instead focused on defending it from the threat outside. That left the thread within with a laugh in his throat and a smirk upon his lips. Given such a perfect opportunity, Waylan sprinkled his door breaker across as many important looking bits of magic as he could in just a scarce few moments.

By the time the enchantments began to sizzle, he had already vanished again.