Ch. 2.33 | An Esmat-shaped Egg
PoV: Sanya
Sanya and everyone else found themselves back at the guild hall. Aisha had called down Nadiyya and Lania as well. Calinichia was off somewhere doing her own thing, as she did.
Aisha had ordered the army back to the garrison. It was kind of a bad look to summon them just to break them back up. At least they could announce they had been victorious against Zulfaqar.
Something quite like [Spatial Sense] yet eldritch in origin kept twitching in the back of Sanya's mind. It was like some special connection notifying her of a kin . . .
“There are way too many things on the agenda, now,” Aisha slumped into one of the bench seats after a bout of pacing. “Sanya's report of the morning—not only before the ‘battle’ but explaining what on Heliux's forsaken hellscape she did during that.
“With Zulfaqar gone, all his territories are now leaderless, including Glorestra. They'll be unstable . . . Actually, there are probably a lot of people below him who will handle things. Knowing Zulfaqar, he had probably placed some policy for order on the high chance that he died. So . . . Oh, and we still haven't heard from the Spatial mage I kept at Hope.”
“I say we leave the cities alone and let them come to their own stability,” Fazl suggested. “As you said. I'll trust Zulfaqar has a plan for posthumous security across his holdings.”
Fazl was floating around, as usual. An Aeolian mage with one leg only really had one good choice, and that was perpetually holding up a [Flight] spell.
“You just don't want the responsibility of more cities,” Aisha replied with a roll of her eyes.
Fazl shook his head. “It's merely thrusting your work onto more people, barely any harder,” he waved his hand in dismissal. “No. I don't want to conquer them. And I feel like it'll be harder to keep everything together when the entities come.”
“If anything, everyone being united could give us an edge. Humanity together against the eldritch.”
Fazl shrugged. “I don't think we have time to go and take the reins from the cities, anyway.”
“We'll revisit this, but it's really low compared to everything else . . . Our own people first.”
Fazl nodded . . . absently. It was clear that he, at least, was not revisiting this.
Aisha turned towards Sanya “Sanya?”
“. . . Yes?” Sanya turned away from the half-cuddle with Mai, who sat next to her on one of the benches. Empty lunch plates sat on the table.
“I . . . I don't know. I'd ask you about . . . everything but I don't think it matters.”
O-okay? So she doesn't need me for anything?
“Nadiyya! Can you send birds towards Hope and the kilometers between there and here?” Aisha continued, completely unrelated to anything Sanya could do.
“Awww . . . sure thing!” Nadiyya said. She had to coax Lania off her lap before running up the stairs, her footfalls pounding down the hallway. She probably made her way to the back balcony to do her Fauna mage work.
Lania had looked so small compared to Nadiyya, especially sitting on her lap. The two of them had been inseparable, probably to an unhealthy degree.
Sanya glanced towards Mai, Sanya probably couldn't say anything. Despite everything, Mai and Sanya were basically glued at the hip and Mai had declared Sanya was the only one for her. Their relationship was probably unhealthy.
That [Spatial Sense]-like ability bugged her, as if poking her and begging for attention. Sanya brought that alien awareness to the forefront of her mind. She could intuitively figure out where it was pinging from.
. . . From between Calderae and Hope.
Sanya would let Nadiyya confirm anything before she jumped on it. Though, there really was only one answer as to what—or rather, who—that was. It could also be the answer to the missing army, which would be utterly tragic. Sanya hoped that it would not be the case.
How would Aisha handle it if she found out one of her own had massacred more of her own? What if that individual could not take control? Would Sanya have to put them down? Her stomach turned at these developments.
Nadiyya ran back down to the first floor in a flurry of hurried steps, feet stomping down the stairs, tail flicking.
“Thing!” she cried out. “Big scary meow-nster thing! Between Calderae and Hope!”
She had been gone for a mere few minutes. Her Temporal bubbles seemed to be amongst the best of Temporal mages. She was even a Fauna mage on top of that. All the others were in training with copies of the grimoire and were nowhere near as special as Nadiyya currently was with it.
Sanya's stomach dropped. “That couldn't be . . . could it?” Nadiyya basically did confirm it, even if her words could be more articulated.
“Is it an eldritch entity?” Aisha asked. Yes, it was.
Nadiyya shrugged. “It could be.”
“Was it gray, with lots of limbs? Incomprehensible to fully form your attention on its appearance?”
Hey! Not every eldritch entity was gray or had lots of limbs. This was a caricature or a . . . generalization. Eldritch entities came in more shapes and sizes than humans! It was like saying all mammals had two legs and two arms and—something—had lots of hair? . . . Although comparing eldritch entities to mammals was probably inaccurate still.
“I guess? . . .” Nadiyya said, basically a “yes”.
Aisha cursed. Her expression turned to Sanya in what could only be described as betrayal and disappointment mixed into one.
Sanya took a deep breath. “Soooo—”
“You lied.”
“More like I forgot? . . .”
“Forgot what?” Aisha was running out of patience, or perhaps she had. She was going to snap, and when she did, she was going to bite Sanya's head off. Well, errr, she could try?
“That Esmat's parasite would hatch at some point too.”
“What? ‘Hatch?’ Wait. Did you say ‘too'?”
Sanya fidgeted with her fingers. “Esmat's parasite may have . . . fully grown? Shed its host and become its own thing? There is a chance Esmat can take control of it.”
Aisha blinked. “Are you saying your parasite ‘hatched’ and that you took control of it?”
“Yyyyyes?” Well, as much as a person could take control over their own mind, I guess. Sanya did not need to get deep in the specifics.
“Okay, I shouldn't be surprised about you anymore,” Aisha muttered with a shake of her head. “If Esmat can take control, as you did, then how much danger are we in?”
“I'll teleport over there and check it out. I can probably help Esmat take control if they can't figure it out. Then—no danger at all.”
Aisha sighed, then nodded. “Go. Right now.”
Sanya could chain [Organic Displacements] until she found Esmat.
Or she simply could. Her eldritch-ness made her vaguely aware of others—that weird tingling sense she had been feeling. All she had to do was tear a portal and bring herself over there. She had a strange spatial awareness of the world—especially the area once underneath the tempest.
The only problem with the eldritch portal method was the whole weakening-the-barrier thing.
. . . A little weakening of the barrier would not hurt if she could get a second eldritch entity on humanity's side. Sanya would grin mischievously if it would not look weird, since no one could read her thoughts and understand why she would make that expression.
She did not trust time to be on her side, no offense to Esmat.
So, Sanya rent reality and then passed through, arriving amongst rolling hills and flat plains of green grass and—if only!
No, the grass swayed gray and lifeless in the wind, a hair away from blowing away to dust. Drained bodies lay sprawled over the landscape, torn and bloodied. Their ragged clothes appeared more lifeless than the shriveled bodies and crimson pools.
“Esmat!” Sanya called to the writhing eldritch entity. “You can take conscious control over a limb and cast [Organic Consumption] on your brain to destroy the worst of the eldritch instincts!”
Sanya repeated the same thing in Eldritch.
She placed herself in the sky with a little spatial manipulation and surveyed the scene. The sky was blue and clear—the ground was far from either.
Ouch.
Twenty-four of their best mages lay eviscerated around Esmat. All dead—not a single one would be able to be saved
Sanya did not need to worry about Esmat attacking her because they were kin, and hopefully Esmat recognized that. While a competitive species, they were united in conquering. As long as Sanya did not steal the life force Esmat had harvested, or directly attacked them, then she should be fine.
Where were the other group of two thousand still not accounted for? . . . Surely Esmat hasn't destroyed them all?
They certainly weren't here, at least.
Maybe Esmat had used portaling to chase the other, larger group, and this was merely one smaller site of carnage.
“Come on, Esmat . . .” Sanya murmured.
Purple magic gathered at the end of a limb as it twitched, fighting its designs. Orbs and fog of purple gathered into a formation Sanya knew—[Organic Consumption].
Yes!
The spell successfully locked into place, and Esmat released it, casting the spell.
Sanya stayed there in the air, utterly invested in this particular event as Esmat cast it again and again and again.
The appendages and body flashed around in rage while Esmat held onto that one limb. Did this count as self-harm? Annihilating one's own mind in order to take better control of its new, melded form?
Esmat stopped. Hopefully that mean they had been successful in reconstructing their mind to the familiarity and reliability they wanted.
Sanya floated closer. Conversation distance.
“You can reshape yourself back into a humanoid form,” Sanya educated. “You'd probably find that, but I want to make sure.”
She repeated it in Eldritch for good measure, like her words before. Otherworldly screeching that Sanya still found utterly distasteful. Human languages were so much easier.
Sanya watched as Esmat shaped themself into a humanoid form. Much like they had looked before, but ephemeral. Their bangs hid their eyes, like Nadiyya’s but much neater. Their hair also was less than half as long as Nadiyya’s. Esmat looked neither masculine nor feminine. There was nothing particular about their complexion or height or shape. Esmat was just Esmat.
“Sanya? What on Heliux's forsaken hellscape was all of that?” they asked, trembling, voice quivering. “I—I watched myself kill all of them. It was so easy. It felt like a slaughter where my assassinations felt like a neat kindness against evildoers. Sanya—I killed our people.”
Sanya floated fully back down to the ground. “Me too. I killed probably upwards of a hundred Speleothem citizens when the parasite cracked me open . . .” Not that Speleothem people were exactly their people, but, close enough.
“Are you coping? How?”
“I don't know. Just accept it happened, and that it was bad. We have to move on somehow . . . I just annihilated twenty-thousand people and the leader of a budding nation. That's thousands of people with families . . .” Sanya did not know what to say. Were these the right words? How could she comfort someone when she could barely comfort herself?
Esmat winced.
“Can we . . . go back to Calderae now? Do you know about the others groups?” Nadiyya could probably find them with her birds, but Sanya wanted to check first hand from the . . . perpetrator.
“I consumed two groups of twenty-four.”
Sanya nodded. “Okay, so the two-thousand group is fine. That's . . . good.” What was she supposed to say? Really?
“Sanya,” Esmat said. “I killed forty-eight of our best mages.”
“Sorry. I'm not good with this at all,” Sanya admitted. She was just blatantly trying to get Esmat to stop—to shut down all the sobbing. To push it down and lock it away. At least her own.
Sanya linked Esmat without touch and cast [Globetrot Anchor - Calderae]. She did not ask if Esmat was ready to go. Sanya made the better decision not to use her eldritch powers to tear open a portal.
The longer she could delay the inevitable, the better. Could a mere infiltrator-herald defeat the bigger entities? Could two? If she was a lower, weaker, sneaker thing . . . then did she stand a chance at all against the fully-fledged beings and the entities of the higher echelons?
At least in the beginning, the entities would probably be starved and thus weak. As long as Sanya could kill them when they breach, and would have an added benefit of saving people—getting to kill the entities before they sowed destruction.
Sanya looked towards Calderae, more walking through the packed streets and navigating towards the guild hall.
“I really should have set an Anchor at the Guild Hall by now . . .” Sanya grumbled.