Spear of Destiny: Chapter 16

"I can't believe it." Rin balled her fists on top of the table in front of her. "The Warsinger... he destroyed her?"

The five of us were seated in the dining hall: me, Vash and Suri on one side of the table, Rin and Istvan on the other. We had plates of torkany in front of us, the characteristic Vlachian stew of tender Europasaurus meat, vegetables, dried peppers, sour cream, and potato dumplings. It was delicious, but only Vash had cleared his plate: everyone else had forgotten their food, listening anxiously as I recounted the battle with Ororgael, what he'd done to Withering Rose, and the heap of shit we now found ourselves in.

"I think 'wrecked' is probably more accurate," I said. “‘Destroyed’ implies it no longer exists. It’s still there. It's just FUBAR."

"How could one man destroy such a thing?" Istvan asked, almost as horrified as Rin. "Wasn't it made to withstand battle with the Drachan?"

"In theory," Suri drawled. "But given Ororgael and-or his dragon was able to cut it in half, I'm starting to think Withering Rose was a bit overrated."

Rin made a sound of exasperation. "That’s not true! Don’t you remember how it cut down all those sandworms? We haven't even given it a chance yet.”

“Then how did he blow the damn thing up?” Suri gestured vaguely in the direction of Dakhdir.

"Think about it. Firstly, the Warsinger was... is... old and weakened from millennia of immobile storage.” Rin ticked off on her fingers. “Secondly, it didn't have any mana to power its defenses. None of its magical protections can be active if it doesn't have an energy source. And after it fell over? Anyone can wreck a defenseless machine."

"But still, it must have taken an incredible force. And thus we return to Istvan's question." Vash had his feet up on the table and his heavy fall of braids draped around his chest like a scarf, smoking furiously. "How does one man wield such terrible power? How does anyone, even an Architect, cause such destruction? Stranging the land for miles in every direction? Corrupting and empowering a sandworm, turning a legendary war machine into junk?"

"I don't know," I said. "And that's a problem. Before Ororgael, when Baldr was just Baldr, I know he had a unique Advanced Path. 'Spirit Knight'. But I don't know anything about it."

Suri sucked on a tooth, looking up toward the ceiling. "Yeah. No info on it in the wiki."

"We'd have to find a Path tutor to tell us, or another Spirit Knight. There might actually be a Spirit Knight trainer in Taltos," Rin said, her blue-on-blue eyes flicking between the four of us. "As for how he got so strong... Well, I knew Michael - Ororgael - when he was alive. Not well, but I knew him. I'm sure that in addition to setting up ways to possess and take over players, he organized experience caches for himself when he was first uploaded, or maybe even before then. Items, level up bonuses, something like that."

"Would the system permit that?" I asked.

"Sure. Archemi’s still in beta, so there's all kinds of bugs and exceptions and unfinished places. Rin replied. " I mean, imagine like, a room that can only be opened after certain preconditions are met, like a dungeon area only Michael could access. It's filled with small, harmless mobs, but if you kill them, you get ten thousand EXP per head. That's the kind of stuff Devs do to test environment-avatar interactions, to make sure OUROS is spawning mobs correctly. NPC enemies are supposed to be challenging, but proportionate, right? So a test environment might allow a Dev to rapidly level to see if the dungeon began spawning the correct level enemies. Michael's team, the Neuromorphic R&D Division, had access to those kinds of sandbox tools. Spawners, 1-hit weapons, special potions, special magic..."

"Like Void-element stuff?" I linked my fingers together, leaning forward on my elbows.

"Maybe? But that stuff wasn't ever supposed to be for players," Rin said. "At least, that's what I heard around the office."

"You were an artist among the Architects, were you not?" Vash pointed the stem of his pipe at her.

Rin bobbed her head. "Yes: I worked in environmental modelling. Mostly architecture... I helped design Taltos and a few other cities. But, like, all this stuff with the Drachan and the Void monsters and everything is just unreal to me. They were just meant to be like any other NPC enemy. I don't understand why Michael's so obsessed with them."

"He really likes to rant about the Drachan and viruses," I said, stirring my spoon through my stew and taking a mouthful. "And squalor. He likes that word."

"Ugh. It's so weird." Rin rubbed her face with both hands. "I mean, I know the artists who designed the Drachan. We had little plastic figurines and stuff in our pod. One of them was named Terminus the Deadline Drachan, for crying out loud. We were contracted with a big toy company. They were going to make pencil cases, and t-shirts..."

"Hang on a second. I got a quest to deal with this before we went hunting Withering Rose. Matir said something about the Drachan in it." I pulled up the menu in my HUD. "Here we go, 'The Second Drachan War'."

Rin, Suri, and Istvan leaned in.

"Okay, this is what Matir said. ‘When the Architects created this world, the Drachan were always instead... intended to be a fear... fearsome opponent’." I read haltingly, struggling with the written words. "But something is not right with the order of things. A voice whispers to me that they are no longer of this paracosm. I do not know what this means. Been... Being Starborn, you are not a child of this world. Perhaps this expression has greater sig…significance to you.'"

"Beyond operational parameters?" Rin repeated. She scrubbed at the side of her head with the heel of her hand, screwing her eyes closed in thought. "Urgh. I don't know enough about the SysAdmin side of things to make sense of that."

"There's someone who might," Suri said heavily.

I looked at her. "Jacob?"

She nodded.

"I assure you that two weeks alone in a cell has softened his outlook somewhat," Vash remarked. "And he has come to trust me. I will speak with him about it, if you like."

"No. It's not your job," Suri said. "Of all of us, he's most likely to talk to me."

"Suri, no. You don't have to do that," Rin urged. "Let V-Vash do it. Or even me. He might listen to me. I was one of his co-workers."

"I’ve gotta do it." Suri lifted her chin. "For one thing, I'm the best procedural interrogator you've got. For another, I don't have any good reason to be afraid of him anymore. He's rotting in our dungeon now, and if he doesn't change his fuckin' tune, he'll stay there."

"She's right. It's her choice to make," I said. "Suri is good at grilling people. She'll get the information we need. "

Rin pressed her lips together, eyes shining with emotion, and gave her a nod. "Okay. Just know I'll be here for you if you need to decompress afterward, alright?"

"As will I," Vash said. "You can sit on Uncle Vash's knee and cuss out the little dickstain for an hour or two. Istvan can vouch that I am an exceptional agony aunt."

"I said you are agony," Istvan muttered. "Just agony."

"You're so full of shit." Suri grinned. "But thanks, all of you. You're good friends."

“I’m glad.” Istvan sighed, and shook his head. "I hate to always be the pessimistic one, but I struggle to imagine how this information will help us in the coming weeks and months. Even with information on how Ororgael managed to wreck the Warsinger, what can we do against such a man? What is the point of having a Warsinger, if Ororgael can pierce it in a single strike? What you described is something I believed only the gods could do."

Vash grunted. "There is that."

Suri shrugged, and looked down. So did Rin.

"We do everything against it," I said firmly. "Because sure, he's powerful. He’s probably cheated himself and his dragon to max level and thrown in some other exploits for good measure. But the fact of it is, there will always be some asshole who wants to take away your freedom and subjugate you to his selfish, ass-backwards agenda. In this time, in this world, Ororgael is that asshole. But you know what? The only reason he and his lieutenants felt the need to cheat was because they weren't strong enough to exercise real power, real strength. We ARE strong enough. We can fix the Warsingers. We can free Ilia's dragons. We CAN pull this world together, starting with Myszno, then Vlachia, then all of Artana. And if we can't stop him here, we'll go to Daun, and we'll work with the Lys and the Tuun and defeat him there. Believe me when I say we WILL win. I will NOT let this motherfucker do to Archemi what the Total Wars did to my planet!"

I'd gotten to my feet as I spoke, standing with my hands flat on the table. The others looked at me strangely.

"Sorry," I said, sheepishly. "Didn't mean to get so shouty."

"No, your Grace. Don't apologize." Istvan drew a deep breath. "While you were speaking, I felt my heart swell. That is a good feeling, Hector. The feeling of determination replacing fear."

"Same," Rin said, softly. "I believe you. I believe we can find out why Michael is doing what he is, and that we can beat him."

Suri nodded. "If anyone can, it's us. We have two parts of the Triad already. Hector and Karalti are the Paragons of this age. Me and Withering Rose are the Warsinger. All we need is the second Artist."

All eyes turned to Rin, who blushed bright blue. She held up her hands. "Wait! Whoever the Artists are, I’m not one of them! I'm nowhere near good enough. They’re probably on, umm, Zaunt or something…"

"Ahem." Vash wiggled his aurum metal fingers. "Lady Palmer and her five daughters would beg to differ. If you can design a metal arm with enough control that a man doesn't rip his own cock off, I’d call that talent."

Rin put her hands over her face. Istvan sunk down into his chair. Suri laughed, covering her mouth when it turned into a snort.

"I mean... he's got a point?" I shrugged.

Vash nodded. "A massive one. Eh, Istvan?"

Istvan, face-down on the table, thumped his face down against his forearms.

Rin groaned. "Men."

Suri sighed, shook her head, and pushed her chair back. "Right. Well, I'll leave the measuring contest to you blokes. I've gotta go grill me a rat."

"You want to talk to Jacob now?" I frowned, getting to my feet.

"Yeah." Suri grimaced, stretching her neck and shoulders. "Might as well get it over with."

"In all seriousness, my lady, I would advise against it." Vash kicked his feet down, sitting up straight. "What I suggest we do is deprive him of his dinner tonight. He will be on edge due to the break in routine. Then, first thing in the morning, wake him up and take his breakfast to him, then talk. A man like Jacob is barely two steps above an animal. Associate your presence with food, as you would when taming a feral dog. It will make your words more effective."

"He's got a point." I offered her a hand. "Let's go take the night off. Catch up. Get some rest. If we're lucky, the scouts will be back tomorrow. There'll be shit to take your mind off the past once we've interrogated him.

Suri regarded me with fierce, unblinking eyes for several long seconds. Then she flicked her gaze down, and linked her fingers through mine.

"Alright. You win," she said. “Come on. We’ll see you all tomorrow.”

I gave a little mournful wave back to Vash, Istvan and Rin as Suri gently, but firmly dragged me from the dining hall.

Suri didn't stop once we got outside, heading for the Ducal Suite at a quick, determined walk. I spared a glance for Karalti. My dragon was still sound asleep in the castle's courtyard, her flanks expanding and contracting as she snoozed the night away. Her HP was fine, and her stamina recovering. But as I reached for her mind, I felt a crackle of static pass between us. The Dragonsblood potion was coming due.

"Everything alright?" Suri called from up ahead.

"Oh... yeah." I hadn't realized I'd stopped. I hurried to catch up to her. "Anyway, you look like you're on a mission. What's eating you?"

"Jacob," she said tersely. "I really just wanted to get that little conversation over with, so I didn't have to think about it for the entire night."

"You're running a fatigue debuff, and so am I," I said. "Even if we don't feel that tired, all our mental skills are lowered. We need to rest. Get four hours of shut-eye and then go wake him up in the middle of the night, if you want. You'll scare the shit out of him."

Suri stopped and turned on the scaffolding, reaching out to clutch my forearm. She said nothing, staring at the ground.

“Seriously,” I offered her an embrace with my other arm, and tentatively leaned in. “It’s okay.”

"No, it’s not that," she said. "It’s more that… It must be bloody depressing, dealing with a woman like me."

"Nah. You're at least the third-most optimistic person I know, after me and Karalti." I pulled her into the hug, holding her close. "There's a lot of wisdom packed into that crunchy berserker shell of yours."

"Glad you think so." She turned her face to kiss the side of my head, then leaned back in my arms. "I didn't want to ask this in front of the others, but... would you come with me?"

"To interrogate Jacob?

"Yeah." She looked down. "It's not that I can't handle him, or anything. I'd just feel better having someone at my back."

I pushed a curling lock of scarlet hair from her cheek, tucking it behind her ear. "Sure. What do you need me to do?"

"Hold the door while I go into the cell. Make sure it doesn't close on me. I can deal with being in a cell, I can deal with grilling one of the Wardens, but I can't deal with being locked in a cell with him. You know what I mean?"

"Done and done," I said. "I don't think I ever told you, but among my myriad of other talents, I have a long and storied career as a professional doorbitch."

Suri did a small double-take, quirking her lips. "Myriad? Did I just hear that?"

I actually caught myself for a moment. I had, in fact, said 'myriad' instead of 'many'. Even more surprisingly, I knew what the word meant. "Uhh... yeah. I don't know where that came from. Me ugg. Big man, big words."

"It came from you getting smarter, you jarhead." Suri chuckled, a rich, warm sound that made parts of my body tingle pleasantly. "Jeez. Soon you'll be using words with FOUR syllables."

"Let's see... 'Do you want to make some fuck?' is a phrase that has SIX syllables," I replied somberly. "So that's gotta be, like, genius level."

"Good enough for me. At least I know what you want." She pulled out of my embrace, and tugged my hand. "You have to work if you want that badge, lover boy."

“My pleasure.” Grinning my head off, I let her lead me to the tower, all the way to the bedroom.