Cataclysm Conquest | Chapter 13: A Troubling Report (First Draft)

Please give me your thoughts on this, and be generous. I need to know if this feels off in any way, especially the later part and the inherent escalation.

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Monday, November 28, 4 S.E.

“Really? Just like that?”

Leonidas nodded at Aylar’s question and watched Synthra’s face grimace into displeasure, the Sorceress’ long nails trailing through the Queen’s hair where she lay with her head in her lap. The three of them were seated in his rooms as per usual, enjoying a late brunch—which meant Leonidas had scarfed down a hotdog eagerly—and discussing his dinner with Xarina.

“It was out of nowhere,” he admitted, idly circling the Aetherwine in his glass, “but I’ll admit it makes things easier for the Kingdom—and it gave me some interesting insights into being a Cataclysm.”

Synthra grunted at his words and eyed him, lifting her chin haughtily.

“And she is so confident that she won’t love you, is she? Are we somehow less than, after falling for your bigheaded charms?”

Aylar giggled at her after the quarter-dragon spoke, and Synthra glanced down with a betrayed look, while the Queen covered her mouth.

“Oh, I am sorry, Synthra,” she said with another giggle, “but it is quite amusing to see you so disgruntled. This is precisely what we wanted, and here you are puffing your cheeks like the woman slapped you on the posterior.”

Synthra let out a ‘hmph’ of displeasure at the accusation, cheeks coloring, but never stopped massaging Aylar’s scalp, her voice taking on a tone Leonidas might have called sulky from anyone else.

“The woman cannot just decide she will marry him. She barely knows him!”

“She knows him better than we did when we fell for his charms,” Aylar pointed out in amusement, reaching up to tap the redhead’s nose. “She knows him far better than most do, given their dinners, and Kairi approves of her. She is rough around the edges, I will grant you that, but she is not the enemy, Synthra.”

Leonidas smiled wryly at the exchange and sipped his Aetherwine, avoiding interjecting as he watched them talk. Sometimes, one had to know when to retreat instead of engage, and this was precisely that kind of moment.

“Fine,” Synthra huffed, “but it still feels ridiculous. Agreeing to marry this idiot, and have his child, all without love? What manner of insanity is that?”

Aylar arched an eyebrow at her in amusement again when she finished.

“Synthra, I married Leonidas without being in love with him. I am now, but I certainly wasn’t then.”

Synthra grunted and frowned down at the Queen.

“You were infatuated, Aylar, and we both know it. Ugh! You are so determined to make excuses for the woman. She always looks at us like we’re somehow bewildering, and I know it’s because of our love for Achilles!”

Aylar laughed again and grinned, reaching up to gently cup Synthra’s jaw.

“Dearest Sorceress, I think this is far less about her acceptance of the proposal, and far more about the timing. You can deceive yourself and perhaps even our darling King, but you cannot deceive me,” Aylar observed shrewdly. “You are worried she will steal your proverbial thunder.”

That, finally, seemed to hit the mark, and Synthra muttered curses under her breath.

“She will not!” the Sorceress said finally, scowling at both of them. “Achilles will propose to me at the Christmas Ball, and it will be perfect! Perfect, I tell you!”

Leonidas raised his glass and left hand in surrender when Synthra turned her glare on him, and smiled back into her golden eyes.

“Believe me, love, it will be,” he assured the Sorceress, who tossed her hair in self-satisfied approval. “You’ll be the talk of the Kingdom, right, Aylar?”

The Queen glanced at him, then glanced at Synthra, and smirked mischievously.

“Oh, probably,” she said with a twinkle of mirth in her eyes, “though the news the King will have finalized the last condition with the Svartfenn will spread like wildfire.”

Synthra’s eyes widened at her words, and Aylar immediately bit her lip, seemingly realizing she’d taken the teasing a bit too far.

“Oh, Synthra,” the Queen said quickly, “I am only teasing. The gossip magazines have been raving about your pending engagement, and you are still featured as the epitome of beauty on so many of them,” she assured the Sorceress. “Xarina may be exotic, in the way Svartfenn are, but she has nothing on your curves.”

Synthra eyed Aylar carefully and then looked at Leonidas, who just smiled wryly while lifting his Aetherwine and nodded in agreement.

“Love, if you don’t know how much I enjoy your curves at this point, I’m afraid there’s not much more I can do to prove it.”

The redhead eyed him for a moment and then grunted in acceptance, her expression softening mildly as she nodded.

“My grandmother’s blood has made me singular, I suppose,” she said in a deceptively self-certain voice, though the fragility of it was all the more evident in the fact that she’d embraced the compliment, instead of ranting about being reduced to her physicality like she normally did. “Plus, every time I use that sashay technique, Achilles looks like he’ll burst a blood vessel.”

Aylar smiled up at her supportively and wiggled her eyebrows the way Leonidas had taught her.

“Synthra, my darling bond-wife-to-be, I nearly burst a blood vessel when you sashay. Your hips are exquisite.”

Synthra blushed toward her ears at the compliment and smiled shyly down at Aylar after she spoke.

“Really?” she asked in a surprisingly vulnerable voice.

“Really, really,” Aylar agreed, and smiled when Synthra bent to kiss her, bringing their lips together intimately for a moment, in which Leonidas hurriedly focused on his Aetherwine and not the thoughts that shamefully filled his head.

“Fine,” Synthra murmured against the Queen’s lips, kissing her again briefly and then resuming the stroking of her hair, idly suckling her lower lip as she looked back at Leonidas. “But you had best not fumble that engagement, Achilles!” she said in warning, her usual fire entering her voice again. “I don’t care how pretty her stupid eyes are.”

Leonidas just laughed and lifted his glass and hand in surrender again.

“I won’t, I promise,” he said assuredly, “Aylar will no doubt be there to walk me through it step by step.”

The Queen, humming in satisfaction, simply nodded, and Synthra seemed satisfied by the response.

“I will say, though,” she said after a moment, grimacing against her own thoughts, “the information she gave you is valuable. I didn’t put much thought into it, but it makes quite a bit of sense. Spirit Strengthening will impact you more profoundly than anything else. It’s the beginning of true Core enhancement. I definitely felt my [Everflame Core] strengthen and grow more profound after my Tempering.”

Aylar sighed wistfully at the statement and glanced down, idly running her hands over her life-swollen belly.

“I cannot wait to deliver,” she said in response, her voice a mix between impatient, excited, and thoughtful. “I have so much Cultivation to catch up on. You are all going to leave me in the dust. Leonidas may reach Elite before I even manage to attain Contender.”

Leonidas snorted quietly at that.

“Not with my Experience requirements, babe,” he said off-handedly, staring into his Aetherwine. “I’ll be lucky to reach Elite before you hit Ascendant. It’s 60,000 Experience from 30 to 31 for me, and after doing the addition, it’ll take me 345,000 Experience to reach Elite in total after I reach Contender. You’ll only need 172,500 or so. You’ll leave me well and truly in the dust.”

Aylar and Synthra both looked at him empathetically when he glanced at them, and Leonidas waved a hand a moment later.

“It’ll be fine,” he said bracingly, realizing he was being sulky himself. “It just means I’ll be a damn expert through every tier. Ceruviel thinks it might even make me stronger due to raising my Attributes between tiers, since I’ll be fighting twice as much, theoretically, as anyone else. I’ll probably be the strongest Ascendant on the planet by the time I eventually reach it.”

Both women nodded after a moment, and Synthra looked thoughtful.

“Increasing your Attributes through training instead of pure point allocation could have unseen benefits,” she murmured, falling into what he called ‘Adventurer’ analysis as her background in the Guild reared its head, and she fell into analytical focus. “You already have monstrous Attribute scores for an Adept. If you keep increasing them steadily through training, you may even gain a hidden benefit during Body Reforging at Ascendant rank.”

Aylar nodded after a moment, humming in thought herself.

“And the Duke and Duchess should both be Paragons by then,” the Queen said with interest. “If not close to Transcendant. Their limits are both marked as Saints, so the two of them should, theoretically, breach the seventh tier before your Ascendant tribulation. Synthra, Bardulf, Kairi, Xarina, and Parnym certainly will be Ascendants—well, assuming no one is delayed by pregnancy or limited by Growth factors.”

Synthra blushed up to the tips of her ears at Aylar’s words and cleared her throat thereafter, pursing her lips for a moment before speaking.

“I wish to at least reach Elite prior to, um, such a condition,” the Sorceress said carefully, her voice hitching up an octave. “Though if it happens,” she murmured, glancing at Leonidas and then looking away shyly. “It happens.”

“Do not fret,” Aylar said with a mischievous grin, “I am quite sure that will be taken care of long before Elite rank. The King is—”

The doors to the room opened abruptly, and Leonidas silently thanked God, turning to see Kairi marching into the room with Ceruviel, of all people, hot on her heels. His eyebrows rose in surprise, and he looked between his sister and Mentor, who were wearing matching expressions of cold anger.

“Problem?” he asked curiously, glancing past them at the sheepish face of Leona, and motioning her to relax with a flashed smile as she bowed her head and closed the doors.

“Yeah, you could say that,” Kairi said irritably, tossing him a folded note. “Have a read,” his sister finished, marching over to give Aylar and Synthra both a kiss on the cheek and then filling herself a glass of Aetherwine, while Ceruviel drifted over and promptly sat down beside Aylar, smiling at her and Synthra tightly before looking at Leonidas.

“Well, this ought to be good,” the King said, while his wife and wife-to-be both turned their attention to him, and his sister wordlessly passed Ceruviel a second glass of Aetherwine.

Silently, Leonidas opened the note and read the contents.

Eidolon Pendragon,

The situation in the East has worsened considerably.

A Terran Elite calling himself ‘The Khan’ has managed to seize large portions of the Terran city known as Detroit and has amassed a sizeable force of followers within its confines. He is still waging a war against the other factions, but he is winning ground with alarming speed.

He means to march upon Dawnhaven after the next six months at an unknown time, though it is definitely after the six-month period, with numbers well surpassing our own, to seize the [Aetherium] reward the System placed on His Majesty’s head. These forces appear to be organized into what he calls ‘Warbands’, numbering somewhere in the vicinity of twenty thousand apiece.

I have managed to discern that he possesses somewhere in the range of ten to fifteen of these Warbands, or perhaps even more, and while they are primarily poorly trained and poorly equipped Conscript fighting forces, their strength is in their numbers, and should not be easily discounted.

The Crown must be ready for this threat with all possible haste. It is my recommendation that efforts to secure against this threat be made as an utmost priority, and plans for meeting this enemy in the field be drafted before he is able to swarm the Thronehold with his rabble.

A surprise assault on Detroit may be an option, if the Archon-King desires it, but it will not be won without cost. I will attempt to create covert alliances with the Khan’s enemies, but that cannot be readily relied upon as a path to victory.

I will send word if I am able, but my situation in Detroit has become unstable. Please warn the King that the Khan’s power appears to be some form of what the locals call ‘fission’, and has the ability to rapidly erode the vitality and life force of all that it touches.

If all goes well, I will speak with you in person soon.

Ever your loyal Shadow,

Tarsys Methren

Leonidas finished reading the letter and felt his blood run cold at the last paragraph, while Aylar and Synthra looked between him and the two new arrivals with worry. In his Core, he felt the Dirge stirring, singing to him immediately in reaction to his rising fury. His Willpower asserted itself to suppress it, but he couldn’t completely dissipate it. A fission power? When tied to the descriptions Tarsys had given… that could only mean Nuclear fission. His eyes rose and locked onto his sister, and she just nodded once in confirmation. The King’s expression darkened, and he turned to Ceruviel, his lips pressed into a thin line.

“How many in the Aegis?” he asked directly.

“Three thousand entirely trained, one thousand almost there, and another thousand beginning. The Seventh Legion should be armed, equipped, and staffed in time,” she said calmly, “but that still leaves you outmanned three to one if those numbers are accurate, and you cannot afford for Uriel and I to leave the City, not with the rumblings from across Lake Michigan. This is on you, Leonidas.”

The King grunted under his breath and wordlessly moved the letter to Aylar and Synthra with Psi, allowing the two to answer their unspoken questions that way, while rising from the couch with a grim expression.

“Numbers matter in War, but less so when the disposition is uneven,” he said quietly, his mind working at the problem already as memories of his campaigns in Elatra flashed through his mind. “It’ll take ten months for the Heartland Wall to be finished, and if we aren’t careful, it’ll be a trap rather than a defense. I can’t afford to fight this conflict behind Dawnhaven’s walls.”

Kairi drained her second glass of Aetherwine with a gasp of air and nodded her head in immediate agreement.

“This Khan is an Elite, Ace. You can stop him, but you’ll need to use [Cataclysm Overdrive],” Kairi declared bluntly, “and you’ll need to be a Contender, big brother. There’s no more time to dither. You need to Tribulate. I trust Tarsys, Ace. He’s one of my best—and this was written in his cipher, and marked with the right codes. It’s a real warning.”

Leonidas looked toward Ceruviel while she watched him, her lavender eyes grim, and then turned toward Synthra and Aylar, lowering his gaze to his wife’s belly and the children innocently growing within her. His children. His responsibility. A breath left him, and he turned back to his Mentor.

“Accelerate the conscription,” he said to her finally, voice cold and steely. “Offer one platinum to anyone who enlists in the Legions in the next three months.”

His eyes turned, and he raised his voice.

“Leona!”

The doors banged open two seconds later, and the Exemplar strode in, hand on her sword as she came to attention.

“Send runners,” Leonidas commanded sharply. “I want the Council, including the Prime Minister, the Primarch, the Marshal, Vice-Marshal, and every Legate and Tribune in the War Room tomorrow at midday.”

Leona nodded, then paused for a moment.

“Your Majesty, Minister Brightblade is still on the mission to retrieve the Ambassador from—”

“Tomorrow, Leona!” Leonidas cut in with an edge to his voice. “Send a damned Ascendant to fetch him if you have to, but I want him here tomorrow.”

Leona’s eyes widened slightly, and she snapped to a salute, turning to blitz back into the corridor and shout orders, while Leonidas turned back to the four women in the room, their faces locked on his with surprising calm.

“You cannot panic, Leonidas,” Ceruviel warned him steadily. “You must be the anchor, or your people will panic with you.”

Leonidas sucked in a breath at her words and nodded once.

“Thank you,” he said to her, asserting his [Archon’s Will] and mastering his unrealized trauma flare-up as he turned to Aylar, Synthra, and Kairi. “If what Tarsys says is true, I need confirmation. I don’t care what it takes, Kairi, get me confirmation—then get me more of it. Tell Yvrain to deploy every goddamn Night Sister she has if necessary, but I want more intelligence as soon as possible.”

His sister finished her third glass of Aetherwine in a long gulp and then wiped her lips.

“Got it,” she said easily, stepping toward the door. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, put together an ops package,” he said flatly, his heart steadying in his chest. “Unleash your Ordo on Detroit. Tell them I’ll pay one gold for every one of the Khan’s men they kill. No targeting, full random chaos. No needless risks, but I want that son of a bitch writhing in logistical issues. Ten gold per officer, on top. The more chaos they can spread, the longer we have to prepare. Keep a task force in Dawnhaven, but send the rest of the Specters. Maximum effect, Kai.”

His sister stared at him for a moment, and then her face lit up in excitement.

“Now that is an order,” she said with a grin, going so far as to salute before racing out of the room with a bark to the Aureates to get out of the way.

“What about us, Leonidas?” Synthra asked, while Ceruviel watched him in calm, assessing silence, and Aylar eyed him quietly.

“Go to your mother,” Leonidas said to Synthra. “I want her at the meeting, with the Guild Council, tomorrow at midday. No exceptions.”

Synthra nodded as Aylar sat up, and the Sorceress rose from the couch, pausing only to take his face in her hands, kiss him fiercely, and then stride out of the room with her dress flaring around her legs.

Leonidas absently sucked on his lower lip after she left, and Aylar peered at him calmly. “I will begin crafting an address for the Press,” the Queen said steadily, her full lips quirking into a quiet smile. “They will be better assuaged after the conscription offers go out if I speak to them. I will not lie, but I will assure them it is a matter of preparation for Avalon’s expansion, and a sign of your generosity owing to the Christmas season. Not entirely untrue, but it should divest them from a desire to dig too deeply.”

Leonidas nodded to her in gratitude as the Queen rose, stepped over to kiss him lovingly, and then walked toward his study, settling herself at his desk while Ceruviel let out a quiet hum.

“What?” he asked her after a moment, turning back to his Mentor.

“Oh, nothing,” the Duchess said, smiling mysteriously. “I was just thinking how right I was.”

“About what?” he asked with a frown as she rose from the couch.

“About you, my boy,” she said warmly, and stepped past him with a fond look, patting him on the shoulder maternally while heading for the door. “You really do make an outstanding King.”