Re: Grand Battle S3G1! (Round Three: Caelo Ruinam)
12-11-2012, 01:09 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by SleepingOrange.
TinTen blinked behind his goggles as he stepped out of the hatch leading out of the dungeon and into the hangar. It was almost ironic that his discomfort in the sudden, blinding light was probably his only current problem that he wouldn’t try to tie in some way to Scofflaw, but was the one most directly resulting from his actions; when the Tyrant cum Sadist had recalibrated Caelo Ruinam’s energy expenditures, he’d significantly lowered the light levels in the portions of the fortress that didn’t really need visibility too much (i.e. just about anywhere that was more likely to be occupied by a rat or ancient guardian than a soldier or technician) while simultaneously activating a number of skylights and observation ports that lit the hangar up with the midday sun without having to waste power on clunky old thaumoelectric devices. The end result was a .07% increase in Ruinam’s overall efficiency, a four minute faster recharge time on the Sunstroke device, and one very disoriented squid.
By the time he’d rubbed the stars out of his eyes, the enormous room’s occupants had already sized him up, considered their options, and proceeded to discount him: he wasn’t one of the heroes they’d been warned about, he wasn’t on the ever-growing list of Known Threats occupying the fortress’s lower regions, and he certainly looked like the kind of thing Midday or her lieutenants would dredge up to serve some sort of horrible purpose. He was certainly no Ursus, certainly not as bad as that guy with all the organs. Not even as bad as some of their more tentacular superiors. If he was just a monster, or if he was another vigilante that the heroes had drafted into their increasingly-ragtag cause, well… There were hundreds of them. They could afford to wait until he did something to prove himself a target a lot more than they could afford to accost a trigger-happy senior officer on Midday’s constantly-rotating roster of psychopaths and twisted geniuses. And so the ones who had even noticed him went back to their business, which mostly involved looking as military as possible while waiting for the next ground invasion and trying not to wonder if Ruinam had rendered them obsolete. They’d seen what happened to unnecessary personnel in the past.
TinTen, for his part, tried not to visibly blanch as the place and its occupants came into focus; he certainly hadn’t been prepared for or expecting to wander directly into a bigger military presence than he’d even seen at any given time on the Battlefield. Or their legions of mechs and exosuits and what were clearly armed atmospheric combat vehicles. Or their very, very shiny white uniforms with what looked like a bloody solar star on them. He tried not to let himself be overwhelmed, or at least not to show it. He wasn’t sure how much he’d succeeded.
At least it was heartening that none of them had made any move to apprehend or even accost him; most seemed entirely content to ignore him entirely, even the ones who had to have seen him enter. If he’d been lead into this place, he reasoned, and his goal was across it, then there was no reason to worry about the outcome. He just had to trust in his own judgment and prognostication. He noted with a little spark of hope that there were a handful of nonhumans interspersed throughout the ranks of the soldiers, more of them occupied with shouting at the men than marching formation drills or maintaining equipment and a number of them pretty clearly not bothering with any kind of uniform or insignia. The trick would be to act like he knew what he was doing. Like he had every right to be here and anyone stopping him was an idiot and worse an impediment to someone much more important than they were. He pulled out a datapad and strode-slithered onto the polished floor.
It worked surprisingly well, although TinTen didn’t know that it was only their leader’s burning-hands-on approach to commandership and her higher-ups’ tendency to get murdered and replaced with little notice that let it. Besides, humanity as a species was always a little cowed by authority and tended to assume people who acted like they were right or in charge were. There was eusociality for you. A little easy to exploit from outside.
All in all, it was probably the best way the scientists could have accomplished this portion of his trek; on the other hand, if he hadn’t been so preoccupied with projecting the illusion of belonging, he might have noticed when he walked past the communications and engineering office that contained Scofflaw Prime and his pair of doppelgangers.
---
The brain gave grim little green smile as he watched a monitor.
“Excellent. TinTen has passed us by without notice, and is en route to Midday’s bedchambers. He will likely discover Blue Ray’s remains in short order.”
“Oh. Good.” The heart paused for a few moments to consider, before blurting out “Oh no! You don’t think she’ll kill him, do you?”
“Perhaps. Why should it matter? It simply saves… Ah, no, you’re right. It would be disadvantageous if he were to be killed before Tengeri could acquire her weapon. Nevertheless, our position gives us little ability to influence his survival. He seemed competent enough on the way here. At the very least, he should be able to hold his own long enough for the Tengeri to reach the merchant.”
The heart sniffled. “Well, yeah, all that stuff too… But, well… It’s just… It’s been a long time since anyone’s hated us that much, you know?”
Green Ray gave him a sidelong look. “I find myself thankful that I am not the Prime, and will never have you as an integral part of my personality.”
---
It was Alex’s turn to look surprised. “Yeees, magic. Are you telling me this thing doesn’t have a mana battery?”
Huebert nearly scoffed and said something to the effect of don’t be ridiculous, there’s no such thing as magic, but… Thoughts of Vio and Miles stayed his tongue, then thoughts of the Fool kept it held. And when it came down to it, what were psionics, really? It sure sounded like magic to him.
Instead, he just shook his head. “No. It just uses a regular power cell to store energy you siphon off a spacecraft’s propulsion drive.”
She gave him a blank look. “To do what? If that’s not magic, what’s it firing?”
“Oh! Light. It, uh, it concentrates the… And… Ionizes? Ionizes something?”
The blank look continued.
“Look, I don’t really know the details. I just fire it. I could take it apart and fix it and put it back together with my eyes closed, but I don’t really know what all the various bits, you know, do. Not really the physics type.”
Tor might have been able to chime in at this point, but as soon as Huebert had said “spacecraft”, his mind had wandered back to planning a dry sauna. It was such a good idea! Why hadn’t someone else had it yet? What hadn’t everyone ever had it yet?
“Well, you don’t really look it.” She turned back to her assembled party. “I’d love to hear more about what you do know about that thing, but we’re going to have to walk and talk. Time’s of the essence here, like I said.”
She began to address the group itself “Now, I know you all saw how big this place is from outside, and I know you know that we can’t afford to waste a second in stopping Midday. I hate to say this, but we’re going to have to split up, and I want–“
She was interrupted by the hermit bursting out of his shack with no fanfare, waving an ancient-looking parchment and babbling.
“Wigocher flarpan farya richeer!”
Alex turned to Baghim. “What’s he going on about?”
“Ah, I think he means he has a map.”
“A map… of what? Of Caelo Ruinam?”
The cleric patiently translated, then nodded. “Yes, of Caelo Ruinam. It’s mostly the dungeons, but there’s a pretty good floorplan of the upper levels too.”
“We already have a map.”
“He says… He says this one’s better. It was actually made by the builders way back when, not just pieced together from rumors and legends and fragments.”
“And why,” she said slowly with a dangerous edge to her voice, “Didn’t he mention that we had a reliable map of the place we were going to storm before we docked?”
“He… He says he wasn’t sure which ancient flying doom citadel we were talking about until we got here.” Baghim’s simple face creased in slight confusion. “I think he’s joking?”
Alex pinched the bridge of her nose, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath, deciding not to press the issue further. She simply took the map and spread it out against a nearby wall.
“Alright. Setting aside why it took us this long to hear about it, and why he has the map in the first place, this is still going to be a huge help. Obviously it doesn’t have a big star on it saying “Evil Overlord” anywhere, but we can still make a few guesses as to where she might have ended up.” She paused. “Except I can’t read any of this. Baghim?”
He hurried over and the pair of them set to making a few notes on what looked like important places. “It’ll save us a lot of time, but I think we’d still better split up to cover more ground. Once a group finds her nest, get on a whisperstone and let the rest of us know. We all know we can’t take her on alone, so… Just don’t do anything stupid.”
She turned back to Huebert. “You still coming with us? We could use someone that could provide suppression like that.”
He looked over his shoulder and thought back to his conversation with TinTen, then shrugged. If it was all that important, destiny or whatever would bring them back together.
“Eh. Not like I’ve got anywhere more important to be right now.”
---
“Hey, I can’t let you in there!”
Ah. Well, it would have been too much to hope for everything to go perfectly.
“Have urgent message for superiors. Cannot be delayed.”
“That’s great, but I’m going to have to see your credentials.”
TinTen drew himself up to as close to tiptentacle ashe could without overbalancing. “Do not have time for insubordinate underlings!”
The unlucky door guard rolled his eyes. “Yeah, but it doesn’t take long to–“
“Takes even less time to replace impudent grunt!” The Meipi whirled on the man, drawing a weapon and pressing it against his perspiring forehead, staring down everyone who had stopped what they were doing to watch the spectacle. “Who wants field promotion? Better pay, increased benefits, must be willing to take orders and not prevent superiors from doing own jobs. New positions opening in five, four, three…”
It seemed no-one did. This was all fairly par for the course for some of Midday’s more monstrous and megalomaniacal operatives anyway, especially if he was about to deliver some bad news to her Ladyship; at that point, they usually just wanted everyone else to match the stylish new exit wound they were about to be sporting. Slowly and overtly nonthreateningly, the soldier reached for and pressed a button, and his door slid open.
“Should kill you anyway.” TinTen muttered, holstering the pistol. “Be grateful.”
He swept through, his coat flapping behind him and the door closing with a dramatic thud. He kept sweeping and glaring right up until her turned a corner into a corridor he felt pretty sure was empty, then leaned against the wall, extremities throbbing as his hearts pounded. It had been… He didn’t even know how long it had been since the last time he’d had to bluff like that. And the last time he’d only come out the other side of it because Huebert had been there to stop things from getting very lethal very quickly when he’d slipped up.
He was just… He was just so tired of constantly fearing for his life. Moving from one tyrant to another, always fighting a war against someone. That said, at least the Duchess hadn’t had unparalleled control over space and time. He didn’t know how much longer he could do this. Didn’t know how much longer he could keep pretending not to be terrified every time he had a weapon trained on him. He just wanted to go back to his planet and live out the rest of his days peacefully perfecting sonic weapons that would tear organisms apart from the inside out without having to worry about civil wars and guerilla campaigns and battles to the death.
Ultimately, though, that desire just strengthened his resolve. Kerak was dead; TinTen had seen the little savage atomized with his own eyes. With Scofflaw eliminated, there would be absolutely no reason left for the survivors to be in conflict: he and Dr. Nyoka and perhaps Tor could pool their knowledge and expertise, and between them they would be able to escape or overthrow the Fool. Then, there was a stretch of jungle with his name on it back home and all the large game he could ever hope to test his creations on. The subsector could just fight its own wars without him.
He straightened up – as much as he could ever be said to be straightened – and continued in the general direction of Lady Midday’s chambers, although he certainly didn’t know that’s what his goal was. Another person might have been put off or worried by the bodies that littered the path ahead of him; TinTen merely took it as a sign that he was meant to get where he was going. For all he knew, Scofflaw had attacked the guards himself, and it was just more evidence that this was where he needed to be.
Of course, the fact that the majority of them had survived their head wounds made that seem unlikely.
---
Sir Dokuromets rubbed his inhumanly broad chin with one shovellike hand. “A flighty one, this friend of yours. Always running off somewhere. Do you truly believe he will be able to fight your Fool when the time comes, Calidad?”
“She. Tengeri is a wo- is a female,” corrected the cuboid, stalling for time before eventually simply lapsing into silence. “I believe… I believe that she’ll do what she thinks is right, when the time comes. She always has.”
Of course, it’s easy to trust someone when you’ve known them your whole life, even if your whole life has been measurable in hours. Velobo, hesitant as he was, was probably more certain about her than she was herself.
“Indeed? Then for your sake, I hope she simply hides her warrior’s spirit well. Or finds a new one to replace it!”
He guffawed appreciatively at his own ostensible joke, joined cacklingly by Tykidu. The birdman eventually piped up with “She could never have half the spirit of the warrior that Dorky has!”
Dokuromets sighed. “Yes, thank you, Tykidu.”
Somewhat put off, he ruffled his feathers and continued. “No, I mean… Maybe it would be better if Dorky were the one to take him on! With the Gauntlet of Genko and a god-killing weapon, nobody could stop him!”
“Hmm…” the mountain of muscle rumbled contemplatively. “Perhaps I could finally face a foe worthy of my great skills. Worthy of the power of The Gauntlet of Genko!”
Without pause, he began striding off, his smaller companions rushing to keep up. “But that is a question for another time! First, there are more pressing matters to attend to, then we can discuss this Fool and his folly. With the Gauntlet at my side, and activated thanks to my dear friend Calidad, Lady Midday will stand no chance!”
It occurred to Velobo at this point that he had no idea where any of them were heading.“How are we going to find her?”
“Ha! Sir Dokuromets has the heart of a warrior, and it will never lead him astray!”
“Plus,” Tykidu chimed in, “There’s Gimeri’s telepathy.”
Dokuromets scowled. “Yes, there is that too.”
The octohealer proudly flicked her flower with a tentacletip. “Ja, ees very handy. I can map places around us without having to see them first, and I can find people if I know who I’m looking for.”
“Between my heart, Gimeri’s mind, and Tykidu’s wings, there is no place we cannot go, and faster than any others!”
“Would you like me to lock onto Lady Midday?”
The knight broke his stride for just a moment, but recovered admirably. “No. First, there is someone else we must see.”
Tykidu’s face fell as much as a beak could. “But… But why, Dorky? You already have the Gauntlet, you don’t need to do what Greenman wants. We should just–“
“Silence! Is Sir Dokuromets the leader of this band or isn’t he?”
Tykidu looked abashedly down, scuffing his claws on the floor. “You are.”
“Then we will do as I say! There are… Considerations that have nothing to do with the Greenman’s sniveling words that we must see to. Gimeri!”
“Ja?”
“Lock on to Alex.”
---
As Lady Midday roughly tightened the last strap on a garment that could probably most accurately be described as a singlet, she finally felt less exposed.
Which was utterly absurd, of course, since the bathrobe had covered significantly more of her than any of her outfits did; as fond as she was of white leather, she wasn’t fond of very much of it at once. She ran one wickedly-sharp fingernail up the side of her stiletto heel and smiled. It was good to be comfortable again.
Nearby, Jetsam was just beginning to regain consciousness, his eagley eyes cracking open and glaring hatefully around. The first thing he became aware of was the godawful splitting headache that threatened to completely overtake conscious thought; the second thing he became aware of was the smugly bored looking woman sitting on the remains of her bed; the third thing he became aware of was the desire to kill everyone, ever. Forever. Son of a bitch. Fortunately, the second and third things were easily reconciled, and might even go a long way towards distracting him from or even fixing the first thing. Unfortunately, he was so busy noticing those first three things that he completely missed the odd weight around his neck and shoulders. Without a second thought, he pounced, snarling and dripping acid from his beak.
To her credit, Lady Midday didn’t flinch, or even react at all to the dracodactyl’s leap; it was probably for the best, since it looked like one stray gasp would either leave her with a broken rib or one fewer exotic corset in her wardrobe. She simply sat impassively, projecting the air of put-upon arrogance she had long since perfected and waited for Jetsam to strike. He never did.
As soon as he got within claws distance of the sorceress, he found his limbs pinned to the floor, his momentum stopped, and his homicidal impulses effectively shackled. There was a bolt of pain through the runed collar he hadn’t known he’d been wearing and the distinct impression of self-satisfied laughter at the back of his mind.
“Ah, good,” Midday purred. “You’re awake. I have a task for you.”
Jetsam fully intended to make his response a glob of lethal spit to the face, but at the last moment he felt his neck wrenched aside and the ball of acid sizzled harmlessly on the floor.
“Stop damaging my bedchamber, it’s been destroyed enough already. That’s an order, by the way.”
The dragon growled. “Lady, you’ve got about five seconds before–“
“That’s enough.”
Despite not having been nearly enough, Jetsam found that it was.
“If you stop resisting, this will be easier for you. If you keep resisting, it will be more fun for me. That’s entirely up to you.”
“Entirely up yo–“
“Be silent until I dismiss you.”
He lapsed into silence and settled into trying to turn hateful glares into literal murder weapons, a skill he had thus far failed to master across a multitude of lifetimes and bodies.
“There are a number of intruders in my new fortress. Chief among them is a group of heroes bent on taking down the fortress and killing me. Obviously, I can’t have this happening. You are, to the best of your abilities and without any stalling or distractions, to find these heroes and dispose of them. Ensure that the girl, their leader, is killed.” Because she didn’t get where she was by being stupid, she added “Keep casualties among my troops and damage to Caelo Ruinam itself to a minimum.”
The dracodactyl just sat sullenly in front of her.
“What, are you waiting for a picture? This isn’t a complicated job. You’ll know when you see someone who’s not with me, and the collar will make sure there’s no self-deception or ‘mistakes’.” She gestured languidly at the door. “Go.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Jetsam lumbered directly away from the door, picked up speed, and shouldered his way through the wall; his wings caught the open air and he soared away, circling back around Ruinam’s massive exterior while screeching as much in bestial instinct as homicidal frustration.
“An interesting definition of minimum.” The wind from the newest fashionable wall-hole to add to her collection whipped Lady Midday’s hair around for a few seconds before a stone shutter slammed shut and sealed the room again. It didn’t really bother her: the room was just another room; even the fortress itself was just a means to an end which she could replace with a dozen other means at a whim. What was more noteworthy and the cause of the grin creeping across her perfect if recently-butt-marred features was the anticipation of watching her new pet tear apart the idiots that had been a thorn in her side for entirely too long. If the real heroes had survived the Sunstroke attack – a possibility she suspected as much as she relished – then she’d be able to scry on the collar at a moment’s notice and watch their demise in gory detail. If not, well, there was still plenty of fun to be had watching a full-grown dragon go to town on a pompous buffoon and his menagerie of sycophants.
To say nothing of seeing the dracodactyl endlessly prowling her corridors, magically compelled to complete a literally impossible task. Doubtlessly terrorizing her troops in the process. And becoming increasingly furious and insane as time went on.
Lady Midday might have wiggled her toes with glee if they hadn’t been so thoroughly encased in an inordinate amount of boot. Life was good.
---
O’Keele had taken Tock and Gareth the mage to explore in the direction of the Flux Core and Grand Library, while Alex had headed off with Baghim and Tor to investigate the various royal chambers; Huebert was tagging along with the latter group, Alex peppering him the whole way with intrigued questions about his various weapons.
As they stood at a crossroads, Baghim referencing the map and trying to figure out exactly where they were, she turned one of Huebert’s sidearms over and over in her hands.
“And it doesn’t even explode if someone hits it with a counterspell?”
He shrugged. “Probably not. I mean, I can’t see why it would. ‘Sjust energy.” He looked up at one of the dim bulbs that lit the corridor. What if magic was just energy too? “What about those? Would they?”
Alex glanced in his direction before turning back to the gun. “Hmm? No, not even if they were powered by a spell. Electricity’s not magic.”
“Oh. Then, yeah, no. I don’t think so.”
It was amazing. Most of her world’s inventors had never really seen the point of not using magic alongside more mundane forces; after all, everything worked better with a little enchantment, so why not? But all Alex could think of was a future where every conflict didn’t boil down to who was or had the biggest, baddest wizard. One where nobody ever accidentally tore open dimensional rifts full of eldritch things that hated all life just because it was easier to power things with the elemental plane of fire than nuclear fission. A world that would never have bred a Lady Midday.
As Baghim pointed and the group continued, Alex had in her mind already defeated the sorceress and was leading people towards a time nobody had to fear her kind again. An age of reason and an end to power-hungry occultists. A place where she could pace across the entirety of her fars and forest and back without once encountering a mutated slime thing or malignant goblin shaman. It was all so perfect.
She was snapped rudely from her reverie by a booming voice from across the large room they’d just entered.
“Hail, adventurers!”
“Oh, sweet Lyna’s taint.” Alex completely missed Baghim’s affront at the casual blasphemy. “You have got to be kidding me!”
“Fear not, for Sir Dokuromets does not seek to challenge you again! Instead, he bears an offer for you and your followers.”
“Oh, yeah, no, you’re in a great position to be bargaining after the, what, eight times we’ve kicked your ass above your shoulders? Nine?” She turned to Huebert. “Do me a favor and drop this nincompoop for me so we can actually get a move on.”
“That seems a little… I mean, he’s not even doing anything.”
“Every minute he and his clowns delay us is another minute closer Midday gets to wherever she’s taking this place.” Her eyes were practically bugging out at this point; farming didn’t really do much to prepare anyone to have the fate of the world on their shoulders. “Do you know how many people live in Triple City alone?”
“Well, uh, no.” Huebert grinned in spite of himself. “Is it three?”
“Augh!”
She began stomping across the floor, eyes not moving from the door at the far end.
“Fine, whatever, fine. If you guys don’t want to fight, great. We can all use the rest. It’s got to be embarrassing for you at this point, anyway.”
She was only a few yards from drawing level with Dokuromets and the other two. And a third thing? A cube thing? Whatever, it didn’t matter. Her own party made to follow.
“But I do not have time for you, or your offer, or whatever stupid thing you think you’re planning.”
“Maybe you should just hear him out first, ja?”
“Jjjno!”
As Alex brushed past the huge man, his hand snaked out and grabbed her by the wrist. She glared at him, face set with palpable disgust and hatred. “Please, wait. I have the Gauntlet of Genko now, and…”
“Oh my goodness, that is so great, I can not say how happy I am for you, get your fucking hands off me you apetroll.”
“Its power is beyond what even I might have hoped, and with it, Sir Dokuromets has gone from just being the strongest to achieving unimaginable superiority over all mortals!”
“If you say your name like that one more time, I will personally hire the most powerful witch in the Smokeveil Mountains to curse it so that anyone who so much as thinks about you vomits snakes. Let. Go. Of. Me.”
By this point, the knight was visibly sweating. “And with it in my grasp I was thinking I could allow you to join–“ Alex’s nostrils flared and he hurriedly changed tack. “That is, I was hoping we could join you, and… Defeat the Lady together?”
“I don’t care,” Alex hissed, barely audible, “How many stupid accessories you strap onto your greasy self. I would rather ally myself with a rotting banshee than spend five minutes with a musclebound moron who can even screw up something as simple as opening a floodgate. I would rather you go to Midday right now and tell her exactly where we are, what we’re doing, and everything I’m allergic to than try to fight her with you around. Just… Just suck swamp and die.”
Tykidu, who had been sulking since they had begun tracking Alex, looked like he was about to burst into tears. “You can’t talk to Dorky like that!”
Alex aimed a kick at the little harpy. “Oh, get a life, you feathery little cretin.”
She pulled herself out of Dokuromets’s increasingly slack grip. “In case it wasn’t clear. I reject. Your offer.”
Beckoning to her companions, at least one of whom was still reeling at her frankly uncharacteristic tirade, she stalked off. Behind her, Gimeri was desperately trying to comfort Tykidu, who was frantically clinging to his idol’s leg; Dokuromets himself was the picture of defeat, six sets of knuckles practically dragging on the ground.
As Alex opened the door, he muttered “I love you.”
---
TinTen stopped. Something gave him a good feeling about this room. Who could say what it was? An omen? Destiny? Squids’ intuition?
It was probably the obvious signs of a struggle, actually, but that was barely mystical at all.
Without hesitation, he slipped in, honestly expecting to run smack into Scofflaw then and there.
Instead, it was Lady Midday who looked up at him from her pre-deceased predecessor’s desk. How did people just keep wandering into her quarters? New Ray and his attackers was one thing, but then a wandering sea serpent and now this tentacle thing? There were going to be some changes in her guard if this was becoming a regular occurrence.
That said, her Science Masochist had just suffered a severe attack of dermatological acidosis, so she was in the market for a new head button-pusher. Between the lab dress, the goggles, and the unsettling appearance, this one looked like a good enough candidate, although she’d probably need to change the title if she was going to start going through them like maintenance staff. Chief Researcher Pro Tem? Disposable engineer? She shook her head and blinked; neither of those were any good, and it had nothing to do with the situation at hand anyway.
TinTen for his part was rather nonplussed. This didn’t seem anything like anything he might have predicted. Since Midday’s floor had already patched itself back together, he had no way of knowing that for the second time in under an hour he was standing only meters away from his goal; he really had no way to proceed. Such a completely unexpected situation had really swept the wind out of his sails, and he just stood staring around the room and blinking.
It wasn’t long before Lady Midday’s usual demeanor reasserted itself. “What? This had damn well better be important.” She didn’t even bother gesturing at all the inconsequentialities on the desk by way of explanation; her time was implicitly more valuable than anyone else’s could ever be.
“Uh… Appear to have… Lost way.” He fumbled with his datapad. “Interruption unintended. Apologies.”
Perhaps not Science Masochist material, then. That actually managed to make her even angrier; the dracodactyl had been a threat and a treat, and the worm was at least interesting. The fact that some idiot technician had just managed to blunder into her private quarters was just insulting. She crossed the room in three strides and lifted the shocked scientist up by his collar. He was astonishingly light.
“You have ten seconds to demonstrate to me why I shouldn’t incinerate you right now.”
One tentacle fumbled for his holstered pistol, but she slapped it away.
“Now it’s five.”
---
Alex rounded on Dokuromets, slowly and as if someone else had simply grabbed her head and started turning; her face was a rictus of shock and nausea. After silently staring at him for several seconds while he stared at his feet, she spat “You disgust me.”
She pressed the door’s switch again, not bothering to look back. “Don’t even think of following us.”
“This wasn’t how it was supposed to go!” He finally bellowed, grabbing his head and face with four hands and pummeling a nearby statue with a free one. “It’s not right! I’m the strongest! What more could you want?”
She didn’t respond.
“No! NO!” With a wordless howl of rage and grief, he drew his staff with his Gauntleted hand. Baghim’s hands flew to his face while Huebert’s dove for his rifle, but it was too late; nobody was faster than Sir Dokuromets! He swung with all his might and all his pain at the base of her skull and as the sickening crack echoed through Caelo Ruinam, time seemed to freeze on the tableau of faces left in its wake.
Gimeri’s rubbery features were resolving into fear and betrayal, while Tykidu’s beady eyes registered only abject horror; Baghim was the very picture of loss and hopelessness, matched in intensity only by the way Velobo was staring up at Dokuromets’s demonically-furious mask; even Tor, who had only known anyone here briefly and impersonally, felt a great sadness pushing its way through the fog and onto his face, while Huebert’s confusion was quickly turning to righteous rage at anyone who would dare strike a defenseless woman. The girl’s own face had barely had an instant to slacken into mild surprise before her neck had broken.
Alexandra fon Reinhau, chosen one of humanity and savior of destiny, was dead.
TinTen blinked behind his goggles as he stepped out of the hatch leading out of the dungeon and into the hangar. It was almost ironic that his discomfort in the sudden, blinding light was probably his only current problem that he wouldn’t try to tie in some way to Scofflaw, but was the one most directly resulting from his actions; when the Tyrant cum Sadist had recalibrated Caelo Ruinam’s energy expenditures, he’d significantly lowered the light levels in the portions of the fortress that didn’t really need visibility too much (i.e. just about anywhere that was more likely to be occupied by a rat or ancient guardian than a soldier or technician) while simultaneously activating a number of skylights and observation ports that lit the hangar up with the midday sun without having to waste power on clunky old thaumoelectric devices. The end result was a .07% increase in Ruinam’s overall efficiency, a four minute faster recharge time on the Sunstroke device, and one very disoriented squid.
By the time he’d rubbed the stars out of his eyes, the enormous room’s occupants had already sized him up, considered their options, and proceeded to discount him: he wasn’t one of the heroes they’d been warned about, he wasn’t on the ever-growing list of Known Threats occupying the fortress’s lower regions, and he certainly looked like the kind of thing Midday or her lieutenants would dredge up to serve some sort of horrible purpose. He was certainly no Ursus, certainly not as bad as that guy with all the organs. Not even as bad as some of their more tentacular superiors. If he was just a monster, or if he was another vigilante that the heroes had drafted into their increasingly-ragtag cause, well… There were hundreds of them. They could afford to wait until he did something to prove himself a target a lot more than they could afford to accost a trigger-happy senior officer on Midday’s constantly-rotating roster of psychopaths and twisted geniuses. And so the ones who had even noticed him went back to their business, which mostly involved looking as military as possible while waiting for the next ground invasion and trying not to wonder if Ruinam had rendered them obsolete. They’d seen what happened to unnecessary personnel in the past.
TinTen, for his part, tried not to visibly blanch as the place and its occupants came into focus; he certainly hadn’t been prepared for or expecting to wander directly into a bigger military presence than he’d even seen at any given time on the Battlefield. Or their legions of mechs and exosuits and what were clearly armed atmospheric combat vehicles. Or their very, very shiny white uniforms with what looked like a bloody solar star on them. He tried not to let himself be overwhelmed, or at least not to show it. He wasn’t sure how much he’d succeeded.
At least it was heartening that none of them had made any move to apprehend or even accost him; most seemed entirely content to ignore him entirely, even the ones who had to have seen him enter. If he’d been lead into this place, he reasoned, and his goal was across it, then there was no reason to worry about the outcome. He just had to trust in his own judgment and prognostication. He noted with a little spark of hope that there were a handful of nonhumans interspersed throughout the ranks of the soldiers, more of them occupied with shouting at the men than marching formation drills or maintaining equipment and a number of them pretty clearly not bothering with any kind of uniform or insignia. The trick would be to act like he knew what he was doing. Like he had every right to be here and anyone stopping him was an idiot and worse an impediment to someone much more important than they were. He pulled out a datapad and strode-slithered onto the polished floor.
It worked surprisingly well, although TinTen didn’t know that it was only their leader’s burning-hands-on approach to commandership and her higher-ups’ tendency to get murdered and replaced with little notice that let it. Besides, humanity as a species was always a little cowed by authority and tended to assume people who acted like they were right or in charge were. There was eusociality for you. A little easy to exploit from outside.
All in all, it was probably the best way the scientists could have accomplished this portion of his trek; on the other hand, if he hadn’t been so preoccupied with projecting the illusion of belonging, he might have noticed when he walked past the communications and engineering office that contained Scofflaw Prime and his pair of doppelgangers.
---
The brain gave grim little green smile as he watched a monitor.
“Excellent. TinTen has passed us by without notice, and is en route to Midday’s bedchambers. He will likely discover Blue Ray’s remains in short order.”
“Oh. Good.” The heart paused for a few moments to consider, before blurting out “Oh no! You don’t think she’ll kill him, do you?”
“Perhaps. Why should it matter? It simply saves… Ah, no, you’re right. It would be disadvantageous if he were to be killed before Tengeri could acquire her weapon. Nevertheless, our position gives us little ability to influence his survival. He seemed competent enough on the way here. At the very least, he should be able to hold his own long enough for the Tengeri to reach the merchant.”
The heart sniffled. “Well, yeah, all that stuff too… But, well… It’s just… It’s been a long time since anyone’s hated us that much, you know?”
Green Ray gave him a sidelong look. “I find myself thankful that I am not the Prime, and will never have you as an integral part of my personality.”
---
It was Alex’s turn to look surprised. “Yeees, magic. Are you telling me this thing doesn’t have a mana battery?”
Huebert nearly scoffed and said something to the effect of don’t be ridiculous, there’s no such thing as magic, but… Thoughts of Vio and Miles stayed his tongue, then thoughts of the Fool kept it held. And when it came down to it, what were psionics, really? It sure sounded like magic to him.
Instead, he just shook his head. “No. It just uses a regular power cell to store energy you siphon off a spacecraft’s propulsion drive.”
She gave him a blank look. “To do what? If that’s not magic, what’s it firing?”
“Oh! Light. It, uh, it concentrates the… And… Ionizes? Ionizes something?”
The blank look continued.
“Look, I don’t really know the details. I just fire it. I could take it apart and fix it and put it back together with my eyes closed, but I don’t really know what all the various bits, you know, do. Not really the physics type.”
Tor might have been able to chime in at this point, but as soon as Huebert had said “spacecraft”, his mind had wandered back to planning a dry sauna. It was such a good idea! Why hadn’t someone else had it yet? What hadn’t everyone ever had it yet?
“Well, you don’t really look it.” She turned back to her assembled party. “I’d love to hear more about what you do know about that thing, but we’re going to have to walk and talk. Time’s of the essence here, like I said.”
She began to address the group itself “Now, I know you all saw how big this place is from outside, and I know you know that we can’t afford to waste a second in stopping Midday. I hate to say this, but we’re going to have to split up, and I want–“
She was interrupted by the hermit bursting out of his shack with no fanfare, waving an ancient-looking parchment and babbling.
“Wigocher flarpan farya richeer!”
Alex turned to Baghim. “What’s he going on about?”
“Ah, I think he means he has a map.”
“A map… of what? Of Caelo Ruinam?”
The cleric patiently translated, then nodded. “Yes, of Caelo Ruinam. It’s mostly the dungeons, but there’s a pretty good floorplan of the upper levels too.”
“We already have a map.”
“He says… He says this one’s better. It was actually made by the builders way back when, not just pieced together from rumors and legends and fragments.”
“And why,” she said slowly with a dangerous edge to her voice, “Didn’t he mention that we had a reliable map of the place we were going to storm before we docked?”
“He… He says he wasn’t sure which ancient flying doom citadel we were talking about until we got here.” Baghim’s simple face creased in slight confusion. “I think he’s joking?”
Alex pinched the bridge of her nose, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath, deciding not to press the issue further. She simply took the map and spread it out against a nearby wall.
“Alright. Setting aside why it took us this long to hear about it, and why he has the map in the first place, this is still going to be a huge help. Obviously it doesn’t have a big star on it saying “Evil Overlord” anywhere, but we can still make a few guesses as to where she might have ended up.” She paused. “Except I can’t read any of this. Baghim?”
He hurried over and the pair of them set to making a few notes on what looked like important places. “It’ll save us a lot of time, but I think we’d still better split up to cover more ground. Once a group finds her nest, get on a whisperstone and let the rest of us know. We all know we can’t take her on alone, so… Just don’t do anything stupid.”
She turned back to Huebert. “You still coming with us? We could use someone that could provide suppression like that.”
He looked over his shoulder and thought back to his conversation with TinTen, then shrugged. If it was all that important, destiny or whatever would bring them back together.
“Eh. Not like I’ve got anywhere more important to be right now.”
---
“Hey, I can’t let you in there!”
Ah. Well, it would have been too much to hope for everything to go perfectly.
“Have urgent message for superiors. Cannot be delayed.”
“That’s great, but I’m going to have to see your credentials.”
TinTen drew himself up to as close to tiptentacle ashe could without overbalancing. “Do not have time for insubordinate underlings!”
The unlucky door guard rolled his eyes. “Yeah, but it doesn’t take long to–“
“Takes even less time to replace impudent grunt!” The Meipi whirled on the man, drawing a weapon and pressing it against his perspiring forehead, staring down everyone who had stopped what they were doing to watch the spectacle. “Who wants field promotion? Better pay, increased benefits, must be willing to take orders and not prevent superiors from doing own jobs. New positions opening in five, four, three…”
It seemed no-one did. This was all fairly par for the course for some of Midday’s more monstrous and megalomaniacal operatives anyway, especially if he was about to deliver some bad news to her Ladyship; at that point, they usually just wanted everyone else to match the stylish new exit wound they were about to be sporting. Slowly and overtly nonthreateningly, the soldier reached for and pressed a button, and his door slid open.
“Should kill you anyway.” TinTen muttered, holstering the pistol. “Be grateful.”
He swept through, his coat flapping behind him and the door closing with a dramatic thud. He kept sweeping and glaring right up until her turned a corner into a corridor he felt pretty sure was empty, then leaned against the wall, extremities throbbing as his hearts pounded. It had been… He didn’t even know how long it had been since the last time he’d had to bluff like that. And the last time he’d only come out the other side of it because Huebert had been there to stop things from getting very lethal very quickly when he’d slipped up.
He was just… He was just so tired of constantly fearing for his life. Moving from one tyrant to another, always fighting a war against someone. That said, at least the Duchess hadn’t had unparalleled control over space and time. He didn’t know how much longer he could do this. Didn’t know how much longer he could keep pretending not to be terrified every time he had a weapon trained on him. He just wanted to go back to his planet and live out the rest of his days peacefully perfecting sonic weapons that would tear organisms apart from the inside out without having to worry about civil wars and guerilla campaigns and battles to the death.
Ultimately, though, that desire just strengthened his resolve. Kerak was dead; TinTen had seen the little savage atomized with his own eyes. With Scofflaw eliminated, there would be absolutely no reason left for the survivors to be in conflict: he and Dr. Nyoka and perhaps Tor could pool their knowledge and expertise, and between them they would be able to escape or overthrow the Fool. Then, there was a stretch of jungle with his name on it back home and all the large game he could ever hope to test his creations on. The subsector could just fight its own wars without him.
He straightened up – as much as he could ever be said to be straightened – and continued in the general direction of Lady Midday’s chambers, although he certainly didn’t know that’s what his goal was. Another person might have been put off or worried by the bodies that littered the path ahead of him; TinTen merely took it as a sign that he was meant to get where he was going. For all he knew, Scofflaw had attacked the guards himself, and it was just more evidence that this was where he needed to be.
Of course, the fact that the majority of them had survived their head wounds made that seem unlikely.
---
Sir Dokuromets rubbed his inhumanly broad chin with one shovellike hand. “A flighty one, this friend of yours. Always running off somewhere. Do you truly believe he will be able to fight your Fool when the time comes, Calidad?”
“She. Tengeri is a wo- is a female,” corrected the cuboid, stalling for time before eventually simply lapsing into silence. “I believe… I believe that she’ll do what she thinks is right, when the time comes. She always has.”
Of course, it’s easy to trust someone when you’ve known them your whole life, even if your whole life has been measurable in hours. Velobo, hesitant as he was, was probably more certain about her than she was herself.
“Indeed? Then for your sake, I hope she simply hides her warrior’s spirit well. Or finds a new one to replace it!”
He guffawed appreciatively at his own ostensible joke, joined cacklingly by Tykidu. The birdman eventually piped up with “She could never have half the spirit of the warrior that Dorky has!”
Dokuromets sighed. “Yes, thank you, Tykidu.”
Somewhat put off, he ruffled his feathers and continued. “No, I mean… Maybe it would be better if Dorky were the one to take him on! With the Gauntlet of Genko and a god-killing weapon, nobody could stop him!”
“Hmm…” the mountain of muscle rumbled contemplatively. “Perhaps I could finally face a foe worthy of my great skills. Worthy of the power of The Gauntlet of Genko!”
Without pause, he began striding off, his smaller companions rushing to keep up. “But that is a question for another time! First, there are more pressing matters to attend to, then we can discuss this Fool and his folly. With the Gauntlet at my side, and activated thanks to my dear friend Calidad, Lady Midday will stand no chance!”
It occurred to Velobo at this point that he had no idea where any of them were heading.“How are we going to find her?”
“Ha! Sir Dokuromets has the heart of a warrior, and it will never lead him astray!”
“Plus,” Tykidu chimed in, “There’s Gimeri’s telepathy.”
Dokuromets scowled. “Yes, there is that too.”
The octohealer proudly flicked her flower with a tentacletip. “Ja, ees very handy. I can map places around us without having to see them first, and I can find people if I know who I’m looking for.”
“Between my heart, Gimeri’s mind, and Tykidu’s wings, there is no place we cannot go, and faster than any others!”
“Would you like me to lock onto Lady Midday?”
The knight broke his stride for just a moment, but recovered admirably. “No. First, there is someone else we must see.”
Tykidu’s face fell as much as a beak could. “But… But why, Dorky? You already have the Gauntlet, you don’t need to do what Greenman wants. We should just–“
“Silence! Is Sir Dokuromets the leader of this band or isn’t he?”
Tykidu looked abashedly down, scuffing his claws on the floor. “You are.”
“Then we will do as I say! There are… Considerations that have nothing to do with the Greenman’s sniveling words that we must see to. Gimeri!”
“Ja?”
“Lock on to Alex.”
---
As Lady Midday roughly tightened the last strap on a garment that could probably most accurately be described as a singlet, she finally felt less exposed.
Which was utterly absurd, of course, since the bathrobe had covered significantly more of her than any of her outfits did; as fond as she was of white leather, she wasn’t fond of very much of it at once. She ran one wickedly-sharp fingernail up the side of her stiletto heel and smiled. It was good to be comfortable again.
Nearby, Jetsam was just beginning to regain consciousness, his eagley eyes cracking open and glaring hatefully around. The first thing he became aware of was the godawful splitting headache that threatened to completely overtake conscious thought; the second thing he became aware of was the smugly bored looking woman sitting on the remains of her bed; the third thing he became aware of was the desire to kill everyone, ever. Forever. Son of a bitch. Fortunately, the second and third things were easily reconciled, and might even go a long way towards distracting him from or even fixing the first thing. Unfortunately, he was so busy noticing those first three things that he completely missed the odd weight around his neck and shoulders. Without a second thought, he pounced, snarling and dripping acid from his beak.
To her credit, Lady Midday didn’t flinch, or even react at all to the dracodactyl’s leap; it was probably for the best, since it looked like one stray gasp would either leave her with a broken rib or one fewer exotic corset in her wardrobe. She simply sat impassively, projecting the air of put-upon arrogance she had long since perfected and waited for Jetsam to strike. He never did.
As soon as he got within claws distance of the sorceress, he found his limbs pinned to the floor, his momentum stopped, and his homicidal impulses effectively shackled. There was a bolt of pain through the runed collar he hadn’t known he’d been wearing and the distinct impression of self-satisfied laughter at the back of his mind.
“Ah, good,” Midday purred. “You’re awake. I have a task for you.”
Jetsam fully intended to make his response a glob of lethal spit to the face, but at the last moment he felt his neck wrenched aside and the ball of acid sizzled harmlessly on the floor.
“Stop damaging my bedchamber, it’s been destroyed enough already. That’s an order, by the way.”
The dragon growled. “Lady, you’ve got about five seconds before–“
“That’s enough.”
Despite not having been nearly enough, Jetsam found that it was.
“If you stop resisting, this will be easier for you. If you keep resisting, it will be more fun for me. That’s entirely up to you.”
“Entirely up yo–“
“Be silent until I dismiss you.”
He lapsed into silence and settled into trying to turn hateful glares into literal murder weapons, a skill he had thus far failed to master across a multitude of lifetimes and bodies.
“There are a number of intruders in my new fortress. Chief among them is a group of heroes bent on taking down the fortress and killing me. Obviously, I can’t have this happening. You are, to the best of your abilities and without any stalling or distractions, to find these heroes and dispose of them. Ensure that the girl, their leader, is killed.” Because she didn’t get where she was by being stupid, she added “Keep casualties among my troops and damage to Caelo Ruinam itself to a minimum.”
The dracodactyl just sat sullenly in front of her.
“What, are you waiting for a picture? This isn’t a complicated job. You’ll know when you see someone who’s not with me, and the collar will make sure there’s no self-deception or ‘mistakes’.” She gestured languidly at the door. “Go.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Jetsam lumbered directly away from the door, picked up speed, and shouldered his way through the wall; his wings caught the open air and he soared away, circling back around Ruinam’s massive exterior while screeching as much in bestial instinct as homicidal frustration.
“An interesting definition of minimum.” The wind from the newest fashionable wall-hole to add to her collection whipped Lady Midday’s hair around for a few seconds before a stone shutter slammed shut and sealed the room again. It didn’t really bother her: the room was just another room; even the fortress itself was just a means to an end which she could replace with a dozen other means at a whim. What was more noteworthy and the cause of the grin creeping across her perfect if recently-butt-marred features was the anticipation of watching her new pet tear apart the idiots that had been a thorn in her side for entirely too long. If the real heroes had survived the Sunstroke attack – a possibility she suspected as much as she relished – then she’d be able to scry on the collar at a moment’s notice and watch their demise in gory detail. If not, well, there was still plenty of fun to be had watching a full-grown dragon go to town on a pompous buffoon and his menagerie of sycophants.
To say nothing of seeing the dracodactyl endlessly prowling her corridors, magically compelled to complete a literally impossible task. Doubtlessly terrorizing her troops in the process. And becoming increasingly furious and insane as time went on.
Lady Midday might have wiggled her toes with glee if they hadn’t been so thoroughly encased in an inordinate amount of boot. Life was good.
---
O’Keele had taken Tock and Gareth the mage to explore in the direction of the Flux Core and Grand Library, while Alex had headed off with Baghim and Tor to investigate the various royal chambers; Huebert was tagging along with the latter group, Alex peppering him the whole way with intrigued questions about his various weapons.
As they stood at a crossroads, Baghim referencing the map and trying to figure out exactly where they were, she turned one of Huebert’s sidearms over and over in her hands.
“And it doesn’t even explode if someone hits it with a counterspell?”
He shrugged. “Probably not. I mean, I can’t see why it would. ‘Sjust energy.” He looked up at one of the dim bulbs that lit the corridor. What if magic was just energy too? “What about those? Would they?”
Alex glanced in his direction before turning back to the gun. “Hmm? No, not even if they were powered by a spell. Electricity’s not magic.”
“Oh. Then, yeah, no. I don’t think so.”
It was amazing. Most of her world’s inventors had never really seen the point of not using magic alongside more mundane forces; after all, everything worked better with a little enchantment, so why not? But all Alex could think of was a future where every conflict didn’t boil down to who was or had the biggest, baddest wizard. One where nobody ever accidentally tore open dimensional rifts full of eldritch things that hated all life just because it was easier to power things with the elemental plane of fire than nuclear fission. A world that would never have bred a Lady Midday.
As Baghim pointed and the group continued, Alex had in her mind already defeated the sorceress and was leading people towards a time nobody had to fear her kind again. An age of reason and an end to power-hungry occultists. A place where she could pace across the entirety of her fars and forest and back without once encountering a mutated slime thing or malignant goblin shaman. It was all so perfect.
She was snapped rudely from her reverie by a booming voice from across the large room they’d just entered.
“Hail, adventurers!”
“Oh, sweet Lyna’s taint.” Alex completely missed Baghim’s affront at the casual blasphemy. “You have got to be kidding me!”
“Fear not, for Sir Dokuromets does not seek to challenge you again! Instead, he bears an offer for you and your followers.”
“Oh, yeah, no, you’re in a great position to be bargaining after the, what, eight times we’ve kicked your ass above your shoulders? Nine?” She turned to Huebert. “Do me a favor and drop this nincompoop for me so we can actually get a move on.”
“That seems a little… I mean, he’s not even doing anything.”
“Every minute he and his clowns delay us is another minute closer Midday gets to wherever she’s taking this place.” Her eyes were practically bugging out at this point; farming didn’t really do much to prepare anyone to have the fate of the world on their shoulders. “Do you know how many people live in Triple City alone?”
“Well, uh, no.” Huebert grinned in spite of himself. “Is it three?”
“Augh!”
She began stomping across the floor, eyes not moving from the door at the far end.
“Fine, whatever, fine. If you guys don’t want to fight, great. We can all use the rest. It’s got to be embarrassing for you at this point, anyway.”
She was only a few yards from drawing level with Dokuromets and the other two. And a third thing? A cube thing? Whatever, it didn’t matter. Her own party made to follow.
“But I do not have time for you, or your offer, or whatever stupid thing you think you’re planning.”
“Maybe you should just hear him out first, ja?”
“Jjjno!”
As Alex brushed past the huge man, his hand snaked out and grabbed her by the wrist. She glared at him, face set with palpable disgust and hatred. “Please, wait. I have the Gauntlet of Genko now, and…”
“Oh my goodness, that is so great, I can not say how happy I am for you, get your fucking hands off me you apetroll.”
“Its power is beyond what even I might have hoped, and with it, Sir Dokuromets has gone from just being the strongest to achieving unimaginable superiority over all mortals!”
“If you say your name like that one more time, I will personally hire the most powerful witch in the Smokeveil Mountains to curse it so that anyone who so much as thinks about you vomits snakes. Let. Go. Of. Me.”
By this point, the knight was visibly sweating. “And with it in my grasp I was thinking I could allow you to join–“ Alex’s nostrils flared and he hurriedly changed tack. “That is, I was hoping we could join you, and… Defeat the Lady together?”
“I don’t care,” Alex hissed, barely audible, “How many stupid accessories you strap onto your greasy self. I would rather ally myself with a rotting banshee than spend five minutes with a musclebound moron who can even screw up something as simple as opening a floodgate. I would rather you go to Midday right now and tell her exactly where we are, what we’re doing, and everything I’m allergic to than try to fight her with you around. Just… Just suck swamp and die.”
Tykidu, who had been sulking since they had begun tracking Alex, looked like he was about to burst into tears. “You can’t talk to Dorky like that!”
Alex aimed a kick at the little harpy. “Oh, get a life, you feathery little cretin.”
She pulled herself out of Dokuromets’s increasingly slack grip. “In case it wasn’t clear. I reject. Your offer.”
Beckoning to her companions, at least one of whom was still reeling at her frankly uncharacteristic tirade, she stalked off. Behind her, Gimeri was desperately trying to comfort Tykidu, who was frantically clinging to his idol’s leg; Dokuromets himself was the picture of defeat, six sets of knuckles practically dragging on the ground.
As Alex opened the door, he muttered “I love you.”
---
TinTen stopped. Something gave him a good feeling about this room. Who could say what it was? An omen? Destiny? Squids’ intuition?
It was probably the obvious signs of a struggle, actually, but that was barely mystical at all.
Without hesitation, he slipped in, honestly expecting to run smack into Scofflaw then and there.
Instead, it was Lady Midday who looked up at him from her pre-deceased predecessor’s desk. How did people just keep wandering into her quarters? New Ray and his attackers was one thing, but then a wandering sea serpent and now this tentacle thing? There were going to be some changes in her guard if this was becoming a regular occurrence.
That said, her Science Masochist had just suffered a severe attack of dermatological acidosis, so she was in the market for a new head button-pusher. Between the lab dress, the goggles, and the unsettling appearance, this one looked like a good enough candidate, although she’d probably need to change the title if she was going to start going through them like maintenance staff. Chief Researcher Pro Tem? Disposable engineer? She shook her head and blinked; neither of those were any good, and it had nothing to do with the situation at hand anyway.
TinTen for his part was rather nonplussed. This didn’t seem anything like anything he might have predicted. Since Midday’s floor had already patched itself back together, he had no way of knowing that for the second time in under an hour he was standing only meters away from his goal; he really had no way to proceed. Such a completely unexpected situation had really swept the wind out of his sails, and he just stood staring around the room and blinking.
It wasn’t long before Lady Midday’s usual demeanor reasserted itself. “What? This had damn well better be important.” She didn’t even bother gesturing at all the inconsequentialities on the desk by way of explanation; her time was implicitly more valuable than anyone else’s could ever be.
“Uh… Appear to have… Lost way.” He fumbled with his datapad. “Interruption unintended. Apologies.”
Perhaps not Science Masochist material, then. That actually managed to make her even angrier; the dracodactyl had been a threat and a treat, and the worm was at least interesting. The fact that some idiot technician had just managed to blunder into her private quarters was just insulting. She crossed the room in three strides and lifted the shocked scientist up by his collar. He was astonishingly light.
“You have ten seconds to demonstrate to me why I shouldn’t incinerate you right now.”
One tentacle fumbled for his holstered pistol, but she slapped it away.
“Now it’s five.”
---
Alex rounded on Dokuromets, slowly and as if someone else had simply grabbed her head and started turning; her face was a rictus of shock and nausea. After silently staring at him for several seconds while he stared at his feet, she spat “You disgust me.”
She pressed the door’s switch again, not bothering to look back. “Don’t even think of following us.”
“This wasn’t how it was supposed to go!” He finally bellowed, grabbing his head and face with four hands and pummeling a nearby statue with a free one. “It’s not right! I’m the strongest! What more could you want?”
She didn’t respond.
“No! NO!” With a wordless howl of rage and grief, he drew his staff with his Gauntleted hand. Baghim’s hands flew to his face while Huebert’s dove for his rifle, but it was too late; nobody was faster than Sir Dokuromets! He swung with all his might and all his pain at the base of her skull and as the sickening crack echoed through Caelo Ruinam, time seemed to freeze on the tableau of faces left in its wake.
Gimeri’s rubbery features were resolving into fear and betrayal, while Tykidu’s beady eyes registered only abject horror; Baghim was the very picture of loss and hopelessness, matched in intensity only by the way Velobo was staring up at Dokuromets’s demonically-furious mask; even Tor, who had only known anyone here briefly and impersonally, felt a great sadness pushing its way through the fog and onto his face, while Huebert’s confusion was quickly turning to righteous rage at anyone who would dare strike a defenseless woman. The girl’s own face had barely had an instant to slacken into mild surprise before her neck had broken.
Alexandra fon Reinhau, chosen one of humanity and savior of destiny, was dead.