Exploration- Chapter 29

Chapter 2 of 3 today.

Chapter 29- Spatial Disruption

Lightning answered my decision before thought finished forming. I lifted my hand and sent a crackling bolt straight into the clustered Lawkeepers who were trying to reform behind the tents. The strike didn’t arc politely or dissipate on the first body. It tore through them in a jagged path, jumping armor to armor, flesh to flesh, leaving smoking corpses where disciplined soldiers had stood seconds before. The smell of scorched metal and burned ozone filled the air, sharp and undeniable. They weren’t our primary opponents, but I wanted to keep them out of the battle.

Samvek surged forward at the same time, abandoning measured footwork for raw momentum. Lightning burst from his body in violent pulses, not channeled through his spear but thrown outward as blunt force, smashing into Marken and driving the larger man back step by grinding step. Each impact rang through the stone like a hammer strike, the sound vibrating up my legs. Samvek’s eyes were bright, focused, and hungry, but he wasn’t wild. He was choosing every strike.

Marken answered with brute discipline, meeting Samvek head-on with blows that would have pulped a lesser fighter. Steel rang against steel as spear and armored fists collided, sparks and lightning spraying with every impact. Samvek took a hit that would have broken ribs and answered by slamming his knee into Marken’s chest, following with a lightning-charged elbow that cracked armor and drove the Dreadnought sideways. The exchange was fast, violent, and relentless, neither man giving ground for long.

The three of them were choosing to gang up on Samvek assuming he was the more dangerous of foes. That was fine with me. It had been a while since I got to play pure support. I still remembered back in the early days when my build went more that way. I also got to smile when Samvek cast haste.

If there was one spell that all by itself had the potential to change a battlefield that was it. I felt the surge in my reaction speed but stayed back as Samvek now had no trouble keeping up with all three. I expected one of them to have a counter for it, but so far they didn’t have enough time to do anything but try to stay alive.

I shifted my attention outward and raised force constructs around us, not as walls but as moving barriers that intercepted flanking attacks. Combined with Samvek’s speed they made him untouchable. The enemy weapons struck my force fields, hard, and made them either shudder or break, but they still served their purpose.

Most of the remaining Lawkeepers, those who had managed to survive the lightning storm I unleashed in their midst rallied and moved forward. I wasn’t sure whether to admire their bravery or pity them for the divine compulsion which pushed them to their deaths. A single spell was all that it took to end this threat. I dropped the temperature in front of them with Cone of Winter’s Debuff, the air frosting solid in an instant as bodies slowed, froze, and then shattered under their own momentum.

Darros reacted first, planting his feet and throwing his hands wide as golden sigils flared around him. The lattice between him and Vespa thickened, lines of life mana snapping taut as he redirected another killing blow meant for her straight into his own chest. He roared through the pain, armor deforming and then repairing in the same breath, holy energy surging to keep him standing. Vespa never even flinched, already repositioning with fluid steps, trusting the bond to carry the cost.

That freedom allowed her to press Samvek a bit more. It was clear that she’d done something to speed up her own attacks, because for the most part she was keeping up with him. I could already sense that the Psi reserves he had were nearly extinguished. The enhancement ability was impressive but we’d have to figure out how to manage it since he didn’t have any direct regeneration of Psi.

I almost got distracted watching them fight and didn’t notice when she veered off suddenly and attacked me. Precognition gave me just enough of an edge that I was able to dodge while it whispered to me feeding me a set of sensations rather than images.

Vespa moved like a blade sliding between heartbeats, her attacks subtle and perfectly timed, aimed for joints and gaps that would end most fights instantly. I intercepted what I could with force constructs shaped into angled planes, catching her strikes and turning them aside by inches. The ones I missed skimmed past close enough to burn, but never landed clean, my body already shifting where it needed to be.

Since he didn’t have to worry about her, Samvek met Marken again with a thunderous clash, spear and lightning coming down together. This time he didn’t just push, he tore. Hunger flared visibly around him as Marken staggered, vitae ripping free in a rush Samvek couldn’t entirely control. I felt the spike through our bond, raw and intoxicating, and Samvek let out a sharp breath as the stolen strength flooded him. His next strike came harder, faster, the spear punching through armor and driving Marken to one knee.

The light faded from the Dreadnought’s eyes and Samvek fell to his knees with a gasp. I knew all too well how potent the raw surge of vitae could be. I needed to finish the battle but after that I’d have to make sure that Samvek didn’t become addicted.

Vespa shouted something sharp and commanding, and Darros answered by slamming his hammer into the ground. A wave of binding light surged outward, trying to lock Samvek in place long enough for Vespa to finish him. I countered instinctively, throwing up layered force constructs that fractured the spell into harmless shards of light. Lightning answered my will a heartbeat later, slamming into Darros and blowing him off his feet in a shower of sparks and shattered stone.

That was when I saw it clearly, the spiritual element to the connection between the two of them. There was both mana and spiritual energy in it. Here all the mana was raw, but I knew what this was acting like. Life mana was one of my affinities after all. I reached for it without hesitation, slipping my awareness into the flow and asserting control the same way I would over any other living current. The connection resisted, rigid and authoritative, but it bent under my grip, strands unraveling as I seized the flow and cut it clean. A combination of Spirit Singing and my affinity was all that it took. I lacked the level of control I would have had when using the system back home, but it was enough. Their ability was powerful but lacked finesse.

Vespa and Darros were professionals, even with the death of their comrade they were still on mission. She lunged forward and stabbed straight at the kneeling Samvek, or at least that was what she tried to do. A three layered force construct stopped her magically enhanced thrust while also leaving her open.

Wayfinder opened a deep cut in her abdomen. Her eyes widened as she staggered back a step from the unexpected injury, but she quickly recovered.

Darros screamed as the redirection failed. “Sister.”

He charged at me swinging his hammer, but was too slow to hit me. I ducked and wove around him, while using force constructs to keep Vespa at bay. I’d noted the same last name, but finding out that they were brother and sister helped explain a bit more about the spiritual connection they had.

Darros came at me with a roar that carried more rage than discipline, his hammer arcing toward my head in a blow meant to pulp rather than strike clean. As dangerous as he was, it was refreshing to know that their façade of perfect order was just that a façade. Push hard enough and it would bend, twist, and perhaps even break. I slid inside the swing, Wayfinder already extended, the polearm’s shaft catching his forearms and redirecting the force just enough that it tore past me instead of through me. Lightning snapped from my free hand and crawled across his armor, not enough to kill him but enough to stagger his step and break his rhythm. He was strong, terrifyingly so, but I had not choice other than to occupy both of them.

Vespa tried to exploit that opening immediately. I felt her intent spike and threw up layered force constructs without even thinking, three angled planes snapping into place between her and Samvek. Her blade struck them in rapid succession, each impact shuddering through my constructs and chewing away at their integrity, but they held long enough. I saw her frustration flash across her face, just for an instant, before she shifted tactics again.

Darros slammed his hammer down and the ground flared with law-bound light, trying to pin me in place. They weren’t exactly the most imaginative bunch, once you learned their patterns.  

I let the energy wash over my boots and stepped through it anyway, trusting my balance and my read of the flow. Wayfinder came around in a tight, brutal arc that bit into his side, cutting deep enough that blood sprayed across the stone. He grunted and tried to pull back, but I stayed on him, lightning bursting from the blade as I drove it forward again.

The second strike broke something fundamental. His aura faltered, the rigid certainty that had anchored him unraveling as the law magic lost coherence without Vespa’s support. I twisted the polearm and wrenched it free, then stepped in and drove it straight through his chest, feeling resistance give way as his body finally failed. Darros sagged forward, hammer slipping from numb fingers as the light in his eyes dimmed and went out for good.

Vespa froze for half a heartbeat when she felt him die. That pause cost her blood. I surged forward and caught her across the midsection with a slashing cut that opened her armor and scored deep into flesh. She hissed in pain but didn’t panic, shadows already folding around her form as she retreated in a blur that my force constructs couldn’t quite pin down.

She vanished as suddenly as she’d appeared, leaving only a faint distortion in the air and the copper scent of blood behind. My senses were generally pretty good, but whatever spell or ability that she used, hid her even from me.

I considered chasing her for less than a second, then turned away when I felt Samvek stir. He was pushing himself back up, breathing hard, lightning flickering weakly around his hands as the Hunger receded to something manageable. His eyes met mine, clear again despite the exhaustion, and I nodded once to let him know we were still standing.

The battlefield went quiet after that, the couple of remaining Order members breaking and running rather than test us further. I stayed where I was, Wayfinder held low but ready, until the last of them fled out of sight. The fight was over, but the cost of it lingered in the air, heavy and undeniable.

The silence after the fight felt heavier than the clash itself. I let my aura roll outward in a controlled wave, not a threat so much as a statement, and watched adventurers tremble a bit. They stood their ground so that said something about them given that not a one of them was over level 80. As expected, none of the adventurers stepped forward to challenge us, and most wouldn’t meet my eyes at all. Fear and respect had settled into the same uneasy place, and that was fine by me.

I pulled out my silver tag and held it up, while locking eyes with their obvious leader. “We good here?”

He nodded before adding, “Sure, and let me say that was the most impressive thing I’ve ever seen, but with the number of them that are in Basetown now, I wouldn’t put money on you still be alive by the end of the day.”

“How many?”

“Rumor is that another 100 of them came but that some bigwig is with them who makes these guys seem like weaklings. Then again you know how adventurers are, they tend to gossip more than my gran did.”

I chuckled and then turned back toward Samvek. He was upright now, shoulders rising and falling as he steadied his breathing, the crackle of lightning around him reduced to a faint shimmer. “You good?” I asked quietly, keeping my tone even.

He nodded once, jaw tight, and I could feel through our bond that the Hunger had receded to a dull ache rather than a driving force. “Yeah that hunger is quite something. I could see how it would be bad if you got that class before having time to build up personal discipline. But it’s also pretty useful. With that he displayed a notification for me.

Hunger has activated and your hunt has been successful. You have converted a portion of the vitae you claimed from your victim to gain 2% of his strength (208)

          He shook his head then. “Two hundred strength is great even if it isn’t that huge of an amount for us, but that was from one victory. I’m starting to wonder if I can actually catch up to you in stats?”

          I nodded. “We’ve got a lot to talk about including Psi, but out here probably isn’t the best. I expect that she’ll be back with reinforcements sooner than we’d like.”

He agrees and so my attention turned to the pylon. Up close it hummed with a distorted rhythm, mana flowing through it in a way that bent the local rules of space and handed control to whoever held its counterpart. I could feel the pull of it like a hook in my gut, a promise of leverage I didn’t like trusting. It also had a similar spiritual weight to it, but felt more compressed than the items made by Tad. We shared a quick look at then I reached out my hand to grab it.

The pylon pulled free from the ground without any effort.

Teleportation Lock Pylon- set item, 6 of 25.

Range: 1500 feet radius
          Linked to a control rod.

Linked didn’t sound good, but then I had what felt like a good idea in the moment. Save for Winter was essentially it’s own pocket dimension. It stood to reason that if I threw it into there, that it wouldn’t be able to be tracked. The idea turned out not to be so good.

 The moment I tried to put it into Save for Winter, space screamed. The backlash detonated outward, throwing everyone off their feet as the air folded and snapped, and I was hurled a hundred feet into the mountainside hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs. Stone shattered around me, and I hit the ground already forcing my body back into motion before the pain could settle.

I was on my feet again in seconds, shaken but functional, and that told me everything I needed to know. Samvek shook his head, “I thought you knew that spatial storage and space disrupting items wouldn’t play nicely together.”

A quick leap had me standing next to him again. “I was able to store the spatial mana crystal.”

“Right, but that’s just a battery, it wasn’t actively using spatial mana.”

“Fair enough, can’t blame a guy for trying.”

“Tell that to them,” he said as he pointed at the adventurers who were still struggling to get back up, “If they’d been any closer to us, not all of them would have made it. I blame myself though. You’re so capable that I keep forgetting how many things you still don’t know. Now, we should leave that. If it’s linked to something else, they can probably trace it. I’d have liked to take it, but it isn’t worth the risk.”

I looked at my boots for a moment, knowing that he was right. I was doing better, but it still wasn’t enough. “We need to warn Tad anyway. It sounds like thing are about to get rough here.”