Chapter 127 – New Arrival
Everything gets a bit chaotic at that point. The table cracks beneath the god’s impact, and papers are sent scattering through the room and billowing into the air.
Glass and void wrap around my torso, yanking myself and Aquenno back from our sudden new arrival. My heart skips before I realize it’s a misplaced instinct for Kanin to protect us; Aquenno immediately attempts to fight him off, yelling and scrambling to get to Blair.
“Kanin,” I try to call over Aquenno’s desperate cries. I pull at the loop of void and glass that wound its way around my torso, and my talons sink into it like tar. “Let me go. We need to get help—we need a healer!”
I don’t blame Kanin for not immediately recognizing Blair. The prone form is covered in blood, her hair matted and stained. Most worryingly, she hasn’t tried to get up.
After a moment of hesitation, Kanin releases myself and Aquenno, who hurries over to his god’s side.
“Lord Blair,” he cries, squeezing one of her arms. “Hold on. You’ll be alright. Hold on!”
“Mir, send a healer to the library,” I mentally say. I Check Blair, and suck in a startled breath.
[HP: 203/10,000]
“Sent,” Mirzayael confirms a moment later. “Why? What’s going on?”
I grimace, moving to Blair’s side. Her eyes are closed, and her chest rises and falls in shallow breaths, but she doesn’t stir as Aquenno shouts her name.
“It’s Blair,” I tell her. “She just appeared in the library, and she’s badly injured.”
“Blair?” Mirzayael repeats, surprised. “The god? How did she get hurt?”
I grimace, keeping a sharp eye on her HP to make sure it’s not slipping any lower. “I don’t know,” I admit. “But I can take a guess.”
Aquenno spends the night by her side, and when it’s clear the god isn’t about to wake and explain her concerning state, I’m forced to retire as well. The healers are able to close her wounds, but she lost a lot of blood, and more than anything, she needs time to rest and recover. For all that magic can do in this world, it’s still not a cure-all.
Mirzayael and I hold a meeting with the other councilors first thing the next morning to explain the situation. Harboring a weakened god in our city is… complicated, to say the least. The one thing protecting Blair is her anonymity; the only people who know what she actually is are in this room. Well, us along with Kanin and his friends. It might complicate things if any of the Travelers Check her, however.
“I was already uncomfortable with her visits before,” Torim grumbles. “But harboring here—healing her—is something else.”
I rub at one of my temples. “I understand. I can’t blame you for the way you feel toward the gods. But Blair wasn’t involved with the attack on Fyreneth—that falls squarely on Lorata’s shoulders.”
Torim wrinkles his snout. “Any god who did not speak out against such an atrocity is complicit in it.”
“I agree with you.” I find a loose feather on the back of my wrist and comb it out, frowning in thought as I spin the pink-orange plumage between my fingers. “Yet, I suspect that absolves Blair, in this case. I don’t believe she was a god then.”
“What?” Nek and Torim say simultaneously.
I glance at Mirayael and Dizzi. I’ve already shared the theories Dizzi and I discussed with Mir, and while initially shocked, she actually seems rather delighted by the idea that the gods are all frauds.
I guess that shouldn’t surprise me.
“I Checked Blair’s age last night,” I admit. “She’s three-hundred and seventy-two years old. Given the time dilation in the Heavens, this makes it difficult to say if she was around when Fyreneth’s Fortress fell. But it’s entirely possible she wasn’t.”
Granted, she’s much older than I expected, as I believe she only recently ascended to godhood, but that’s two god data points that show they’re only hundreds of years old, not thousands.
Nek shakes his head. “How can this be? The gods are supposed to be eternal.”
Dizzi’s feathers ruffle with excitement. “Right? They’re obviously lying about a whole lot more if something this big has been kept under wraps.”
“Most importantly,” Mirzayael adds, “it means they’re not immortal. Blair’s state more than confirms this. We could probably even finish her off, if we wanted to.”
I look at her in shock. “Mir!”
She holds up her hands. “If we wanted to! It was a hypothetical. Besides, if I’d wanted to kill her, I would have done it last night.”
I suspect my look just grew more horrified, as she chuckles at my expression.
“Sorry. Bad joke?”
“Bad joke,” I agree.
“My point,” she says, “is that the gods are clearly susceptible to harm. We’ve repelled them from the city—they can be gravely injured. They may be stronger than mortals, but they’re not invulnerable. And that means they can be fought.”
I grimace. She’s right, but I hope it won’t come to that. While I do believe we could defeat—or even kill—a god if we pooled all the city’s resources, how many Fyrethians would that cost?
Even losing one is too many for me to stomach.
“Speaking of,” I say with a sigh, “Kanin sent me a message last night while I was asleep. Blair apparently woke up at one point to deliver a message.” I open my Contact interface. “Verbatim, he said, ‘Blair woke up for a minute. She seemed really out of it. But she told me to warn you that the gods are coming for your city, because of the Travelers. All the gods.’”
The message actually continued for a bit after that with a rambling apology and promise to help however he could; I know he harbors a lot of guilt over all this, but enabling him to rescue the Travelers was just as much my decision as his.
The room is quiet for a moment as the weight of the words sink in. Then, Dizzi laughs. “What else is new?”
Mirzayael even chuckles. “We’ve been preparing for that since Lorata’s champions appeared in our throneroom. The Travelers being here changes nothing.”
“Good to have confirmation, I suppose,” Torim sighs.
Only Nek seems to take this with the gravity I believe it deserves. “Did she say when?”
I shake my head. “Hopefully we can get that information from Blair when she wakes. But based on the time dilation, I’d expect soon. Between hours and days.” And it’s likely Blair sustained her injuries trying to deliver that very information to us.
Mirzayael holds a hand out to me, and I take it, lacing our fingers together. Her expression softens. “Don’t worry. We have the Dungeon Core. We have Fyreneth’s Fortress and all the magic she designed for us. We have you. We’re ready.”
I return the look with a smile that I fear comes out more worried than reassuring. “I believe you.” But even so, the whole pantheon is a lot more to combat than we’ve tested against.
Unless it doesn’t have to be the whole pantheon.
“We need to speak with Blair,” I say. “Or Aquenno, if she still isn’t awake. We may have additional preparations we can yet make. As many contingencies as possible.”
Mirzayael nods. “Additional contingencies are something I will always approve of.”
“Oh!” Dizzi says. “Speaking of. I made something that might help.” She fishes something out of her satchel and tosses it to me. I snatch at it, entirely unprepared for an exercise in hand-eye-coordination, juggle the small stone, and after a brief moment of panic, finally manage to clap it securely between my hands.
I open my palms to find a rock with intricate spellwork carved over its surface. Dizzi tosses a couple to Torim, Dizzi, and Mirzayael as well. She points an accusing finger at the last one.
“And don’t feed this one to the Dungeon Core!” Dizzi cries. “I know it was a prototype but that was totally rude. You know how much time it took to make this?”
“Knowing you?” Mirzayael, turns the stone over in her hands. “Less than an hour, once you worked out all the kinks.”
“That’s—” Dizzi splutters. “That’s entirely correct and beside the point!”
Check, I think, looking at the rock.
[Check,] Echo says. [Artificed stone created by the mage Dizzi. The spell circuit is designed to transfer spoken words between other linked stones in near-real-time.]
“I call them telestones,” Dizzi says, eagerly leaning forward. “While active, if you speak into one, your voice will come out of all of the others, see?” She taps her stone, and the runes light up green as she holds the rock up to her mouth. “I figure it would be useful for coordinating across the city when dealing with the gods.” Her voice echoes out of all the other stones as well.
“Radios!” I cry. “Oh, Dizzi, you’re a genius.” My voice also echoes back through everyone else’s rocks, so I quickly move mine to my side to avoid the inevitable feedback loop. I give Mir a skeptical look. “You didn’t really feed one to the Dungeon Core, did you?”
She holds up her hands in helpless defense. “It kicked a champion out of the city. I thought it deserved a reward.”
Honestly, fair enough.
Nek turns his around in his hands in fascination. “Can you make more of these?”
“This would be incredibly useful for different groups of guards on watch to carry around,” Torim agrees.
Dizzi grins. “Way ahead of you! I’ve had four more in the works. Should finish those this afternoon. Probably can make another ten by tomorrow.”
“Amazing,” I say, pressing some magic into the spell circuit to de-activate and re-activate the magic. “How long do they last between charges.”
“Uh, only an hour or so,” Dizzi admits. “Okay, so they’re not perfect! But you keep them with a group of people, the soldiers should be able to rotate who charges it to keep them going around the clock.”
Room for improvement, but excellent tools in our backpocket, nevertheless. The amount Dizzi has grown as an artificer over the last six months, since we started gaining access to outside magical texts, is truly staggering. That girl’s going to change the world, I’d put money on it.
“Perhaps I was preemptive with my earlier suggestions,” Mirzayael thinks to me privately. “This is a perfectly acceptable alternative.”
“Suggestion?” I repeat, not following.
“Of expanding your mental network to include the councilors,” Mirzayael clarifies. “I know you were reluctant. Maybe I should have waited to explore other options first.” She gives Dizzi a considering look. “I underestimate her, sometimes.”
“I think we all do,” I admit with a chuckle. I’d actually forgotten about that conversation—it feels like it took place months ago. But everything with the gods has happened so quickly, and so much has changed in a matter of weeks.
“I’m glad this is an acceptable alternative,” I say. “I admit, I was willing to propose the idea to the councillors after everything that transpired, despite my misgivings. I felt a bit guilty for not agreeing after Lorata’s champions arrived. I worry I keep putting off important decisions until it’s too late.”
“No,” Mirzayael says. “It was a lot of pressure to put on you. I knew you were reluctant, but I was putting the city before your mental comfort. Perhaps with good reason—but Dizzi has shown me there were alternatives we could have discussed first.” Her mind is warm with a particular comforting brand of thoughtfulness, reflecting on both herself, me, and Dizzi. “As much as I tell you to relinquish responsibilities to others, it seems I should be taking that advice for myself as well.”
My chest blooms with renewed affection for the woman. I appreciate her more than I can say. Though, with sharing my emotions directly for her to feel, I suppose I don’t have to.
Just as I’m about to adjourn the meeting, a message appears in my Interface.
[Kanin: Blair’s awake and seems to be doing better. If you want to talk to her, now’s the time]
[Fyre: Thanks for the update. I’ll head your way soon.]
“Well,” I announce to the room, “it seems we’ll be getting our opportunity to speak with Blair sooner than we thought.”
And only a few seconds after that, a second message appears in a different private conversation.
[Blair: Hello, Fyre. I hope you are willing to hear me out, after the way we last parted. I have much to tell you.]
I smile fondly.
[Fyre: Of course, Blair. I’m always willing to listen.]