Crowned in Black: Chapter 7

Some people drowned their sorrows in liquor. Some with drugs. My drugs of choice were flying with Karalti, motorcycles, and crafting healing potions, in that order. Once we finished studying and marking maps, planning different entry and exit routes, and otherwise getting ready for the horrors of Lovi, I found myself feeling restless. Karalti was sleeping and motorcycles sadly didn’t exist in Archemi - yet - so I took over an empty room in the fort and went on a brewing spree.

[You have crafted a new Medicine: Boneshatter Poultice]

[You have discovered a new herb: Opium Poppy]

[You have discovered a new Medicine: Milk of the Poppy]

[You gain 126 Skill EXP (Herbalism)!]

[You gain 55 Skill EXP (Alchemy)]

[You reach Level 12 Alchemy.]

[You cannot advance to Level 16 Herbalism. Reason: Journeyman Training required.

[You qualify for access to Journeyman-level Advanced Crafting Skills related to Herbalism. Would you like to know more?]

“Not right now.” I didn’t need to hear the spiel, because I had a rough idea of what I needed to do already: study up for an exam overseen by Masha. I planned to ask her about it sometime. Once Ignas was safe.

Ebisa’s words still rattled around and around in my head. Ignas had always been patient and fair, even when he was running the Nightstalkers out of a pit-fighting club in Cat Alley. Even when I’d pissed him off in front of Pasha Aswan, he’d taken me to a sitting room and talked it out. He’d taught me a lot about leadership then, too. Over the last half a year, we’d become good friends. But knowing he was proud of me? That he had actually been watching my back from a distance? It was giving me feels I wasn’t ready to deal with, or even really name. Vague shit, all of it keeping me from sleeping.

I grimaced, and reached for another bottle to start brewing again, only to realize I was out of flasks. Blinking, I checked my inventory. Oh. I’d brewed about fifty pots, multiples of every recipe I knew and had the ingredients for. Health potions, stamina potions, plus medicines to head off cardiac arrest, regrow limbs, recover HP, sedate or rouse people from comas. I hadn’t planned on using up my entire supply of herbs, but… well.

“Shit.” I rubbed my arm across my eyes. I could hear voices outside, followed by the roar of a small personal airship coming in to land. That meant it was time to start thinking about the mission, but my legs felt like lead. Not because of the challenge ahead - but because of what I feared we might find.

“Hey, Hector. Our ride to Lovi is here.” Karalti’s voice chimed in on cue. She sounded refreshed. “Something the matter?”

“No, no, I’m fine… just uh… got a bit carried away on the potion making.” I began to pack up, folding all my lab glass and brewing equipment back into my inventory. “Making sure we’re prepared, you know? Anything we don’t use on the mission, I can take back to Karhad when we drag Jacob out of the dungeon and put him to work in the hospital.”

“Did you get any sleep?!”

“No, but I’m fine. No penalties or anything. I’ll grab a nap on the ship.”

“Alright.” Karalti sounded dubious, but she was mature enough now to know when not to press on something like this. “We’ll talk after the mission? Like, umm… a debrief!”

“Maybe.” Even the thought of a ‘debrief’ made the agitation worse, so I did what soldiers are trained to do: I drew a deep breath, stuffed my feelings into a box, slammed the lid down on it and said ‘fuck it’. Problem solved. “Don’t worry about me. Just wound up.”

“Mhmm.” Karalti didn’t sound any more convinced than I did. “Come downstairs as soon as you can though, okay?”

“Be right there.” I thumped the side of my head and chest to knock some sense into my stupid digitized brain, and strode for the door.

***

The plan to get into Lovi was simple enough: air-traffic into the city was closed, but Torquist’s small airship was transporting a mana-powered carriage. The ship dropped it off, and the five of us - not including the unseen presence of Mehkhet - loaded in. Vash was, in fact, wearing a dress. Not a revealing one, much to everyone’s disappointment. The fashions in Revala were similar to the traditional clothes of tribes in Sweden and Finland: tall red hats and intricately embroidered, dark blue coats for the men, layered neck-to-ankle wool dresses and fur caps for women. Both sexes wore reindeer leather boots. Because Vash was going as a high-priced hooker, he also wore a hooded cloak with a long fringe of beaded suede that covered his face.

There was a lot of traffic flowing in and out of the gates of Lovi between sunset and midnight. Nervous travelers, opportunistic foreign merchants bringing in supplies to hawk to the Ilian occupiers, workmen reporting to their press gangs, swaggering mercenaries and - more alarmingly - the sleek Sangeti’tak war machines of the Mercurions, their feet crunching against the gravel road as they passed in or out of the city. The smallest of them looked like fantasy versions of the powered armor I was used to seeing on the battlefields of Earth. Nine feet tall, just big enough to contain a pilot, bristling with weapons and humming with magic. People shied away from them, not just because of the wickedly curved blades that hung from their wrists. 'Sanghe' was the Mercurion word for 'blood'. Every one of the machines had a vicious grinder intake and valves that blasted waste out the back, like a woodchipper. But for meat.

I started to feel wary as our carriage rumbled towards the crowd of guards. The occupation was fresh, and Lovi was swarming with soldiers. Nearly thirty of them were crowded at the front gate. Only about half a dozen of them were actually working, checking papers and rifling through carts. The rest were half-drunk, too busy watching for lone women or soft-looking merchants to shake down to notice the single carriage whirring its way across the bridge. Me and my squad were dressed in the white and gold livery of House Torquist, thick fleece and leather coats, breeches, and boots. Ebisa drove the carriage, her spine ramrod straight as she fluidly manipulated the magitech controls. Karalti and I rode on the back as coachmen, hanging onto a rail behind the passenger compartment bearing the Lord and his 'lady'. I expected us to be stopped, but instead we breezed through the gates with nothing but a wave from the sober, but still overworked and unattentive guards.

I'd spent enough time in warzones to be able to read the city, and it felt like it was about to explode any second. The Ilians were trying to enforce normalcy as quickly as possible, so stores were open, wares were on display, and workers were busy cleaning hookwing stalls and trucking wheelbarrows. But there was a thin, high note of tension that I could feel in my teeth. The most obvious signs were the Ilian soldiers swaggering among the Revalan crowds. They took food without paying, grabbed at women when they felt like it, gathered in packs and bulldozed men out of their path. The Revalans stepped around their occupiers with dark expressions and clenched fists. The hostility of the proud citizens of Lovi was held in check by only three things: the Mercurions stalking the streets in their flesh-eating powered armor, the dragons that occasionally wheeled high above the city, and the presence of Vlachia’s own Dreadnought airship as it cruised slowly overhead, casting a cold T-shaped shadow over the streets.

“That’s the fucking Henrietta,”I thought to Karalti. “They’ve requisitioned it. We aren’t flying out of here.”

"No. No, we’re not." Karalti’s voice was bittersweet with grief. "And… I can feel them, Hector. My brothers and sisters. They hate Lucien so much, but there's nothing they can do to stop themselves from obeying him. Their pain calls to me. It makes my hearts hurt."

"Don't worry, Karalti. We'll get him." My mood darkened as I saw a pack of Ilian soldiers corner a peasant girl and shove her into a wall, knocking a basket of apples from her hands. I itched to help her, but the carriage was already speeding past the scene toward the cathedral.

"I know. The day they let us escape from the Eyrie was the day they died. They just don't know it yet."Karalti's voice took a hard edge to it, a predator's cold focus.

The Lion Palace was like something out of a German fairytale, a sweeping white castle built on top of a hill and surrounded by a carefully maintained, wooded parkland. It rose above the city like hands reaching for the sky, framed by high walls and slim buttressed towers. But the palace wasn’t our goal: we diverted down a winding cobblestone road, passing rows of silent, darkened townhouses, and entered the grounds of the Golden Cathedral of Lovi from the delivery gate. Ebisa deftly steered the carriage into an alley beside the priory and brought it to a whirring halt in front of a pair of black-robed men.

"Finally!" The older of the two hissed to us. He was wringing his hands, eyes wide and white in his face. "My lord, I thought you were to show just after sunset!"

"Shh. Keep your voices down." Torquist leaned to look out the window as we jumped down. Vash flung the door open and stepped out, already stripping his finery. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I saw a group of four nervous people crowding back in the stables: Torquist's actual servants, who stepped forward to take our clothes as we began to undress, and replace them with our more familiar gear.

"I'm the leader." I stepped up to the priest once my armor was back on, the Spear slung over my back. "We'll be in and out with the royals as fast as we can. Are you ready for the extraction?"

"We have a wagon and draught hookwings ready." The priest bobbed his head, wringing his hands.

"Wait in position and stay calm. If there's trouble at the palace, we won’t lead it here." I clapped him on the arm, and turned to my team. "Alright, everyone. Basic squad composition: Ebisa and Vash take point at every possible opportunity. Karalti, center positions and flank. I'm the best healer on the field, so I'll take rear and focus on crowd control in case shit goes south. Ignas is our number one priority: if we have the chance to rescue the queen or the princess, we grab them. But if they can't walk, we're going to have to leave them and stage a separate extraction. Everyone clear?"

"Understood." Ebisa saluted to the chest with the crispness of an experienced soldier. Karalti mimicked the UNAC salute, drawing her feet in and bringing the blade of her hand to her temple. Vash grunted and picked his ear. It was as good as a salute from him.

The priest led us quickly around the church, then inside of it through a vestibule. Liric was the god of the sun in the western nations of Artana, and everything inside of here was white and gold, almost too bright to look at. An amber-scented hush fell over us as we entered the brilliantly lit cathedral aisle, and bustled down to the elaborate altar near the empty choral stands. The priest removed a plain iron key from his belt, and unlocked a cleverly hidden door with shaking hands. He handed a second key to me. "Follow this tunnel down, always heading to the right. There will be three doors. You want the one straight ahead. It will take you into the Old Catacombs, which connect to the cellar network beneath the city. I have marked the route to the palace on your map, but, be careful. Lovi was built on an ancient tribal battleground, and the catacombs are far, far more ancient than this city. The restless dead wander. Skeletons animated by seid, and worse. We also do not know if the usurpers have posted guards in the tunnels near her majesty's palace."

I was operating on the assumption they had. "Thanks. Take care of yourself. We'll be back as soon as we can."

"Lord and Lady watch over you, my lord. May they have mercy on my queen and country." The priest made a sign of benediction, forming an ‘O’ with his fingers and gesturing in a spiral, then ushered us through. He closed the door behind us, and left with a hurried swish of robes against marble.