Adamant Blood

The days bled together.

Sigaldry gatherings took place in a warehouse-like structure that Eliot built when Mark was out killing goblins and rescuing teams in the field. When Mark participated and led Unions of Understanding in that warehouse, goblins massed outside the walls, where they were rained-down upon with artillery and spellwork. Mark slept, and 4 teams were killed, to the person, by goblins that came out of the ground when Mark wasn't active.

150,000 people were living in the settlement on the 10th of July, 2049. Gate Day was 5 days away. At noon on the 15th, the big portal would be open for 4 hours, and then billions of goldleaf worth of goods would flow in both directions. A great many people should be gone by then, with most of them leaving daily.

Aurora opened the small gate early, each day at noon for 5 hours each time, to allow for the exodus. All across the settlement, in the wake of the goblin surge, many people realized that they did not want to be in an active warzone, and especially when Aurora started to press on those contracts they had signed. Mark wasn't sure how all of that worked because he was doing hourly rescues on warrior teams all day long, every day, until it was time to do a Sigaldry party, but he heard from Eliot that the settlement would only have 80,000 people in it by the 15th.

"You have to do the party, Mark," Aurora said.

"Oh my gods," Mark mumbled. "I do, don't I."

"Here," Aurora said, offering pills. "They're no-sleeps. Sleep replacement pills. I lived on them when I was your age."

Mark got back to it, feeling a lot more awake.

The settlement was already feeling like a ghost town by the time Brawny Battle Tuesdays at the stadium came around. Mark didn't go. He flew overhead, though, and he saw empty stands and barely anyone on the field. Aurora hadn't forbidden the Brawny Battle, but the usual drive to fight was gone from many people, because they, like Mark, were out there killing goblins and clearing land as fast as they could. It was tiring work, and the number of goblins never seemed to end.

It was easy to see why the goblin problem never went away.

"The goblins die, the smaller animals survive, there's a dearth of monsters in the area, and so some bugs or worms or even slimes all pop up, everywhere, and then the goblins feast," Mark said to Lola, during one of their brief lessons. "Except for the goblins, Eliot tells me it's what happens outside of all the major cities on Earth, because Castellan can only turn off monster spawning inside the city, and so the demons increase spawns outside the city. It makes it all seem so… so incredibly frustrating."

"That's by demon design," Lola said, "The constant wear. You thrived in that environment until you needed to be active for 20 hours a day. It's a slog. It'll get better when we can reestablish some cultivated monster habitats. That way all of the monsterizing is contained."

"The more monsters we kill the more the Veil itself forces monsters to spawn… Is there no way to take control of the Veil itself, at least locally, to prevent that?"

"Of course there is," Lola said, not surprising Mark at all.

"But there's a drawback," Mark said.

Lola nodded. "Three known ways:

"You know the first way. It's all about farming the land outside of the walls with known monsters in a delicate balance of ecosystems and all of that. Okuana does that the best of anyone, and most of their methods are used by everyone. The only thing we don't use is necromancers and/or greenspeakers to force monsters and plants into self-supportive ecosystems. They call that Green Death Ecology, as opposed to what we're doing, which is monster farming. Anyone can do monster farming, so it's the safer methodology. Aluatha simply doesn't have the necessary necromancer and greenspeaker culture to support that sort of thing. If it gets really bad we'll plant some Elemental Ecology out there, and that will kill the spawns, too, but that has other issues.

"The other two methods are to poison the land so much that even monsters cannot spawn, or expand Castellan influence far, far beyond the walls. The drawbacks are rather self-evident. To cut a large explanation short: Poisoning the land poisons us, and expanding Castellan weakens Castellan to the point of non-viability.

"Okuana does the second one, though, in addition to Green Death Ecology. But, if the Lightbody Titan would have attacked a settlement of Okuana, even with all of that stuff around them, in my professional opinion they would have needed to abandon such a settlement. Aluatha has much stronger walls and we're mostly secure behind them, but Okuana's walls are less walls and more fields of control, and goblin waves would have overwhelmed them."

Mark had a think.

Mostly, he thought about those toxic miasma slimes that someone had put around Rome's Vatican, to preserve the historic building and prevent monsters from encroaching upon it. That miasma was pretty special, though; it only worked against living things. Really strong poisons and miasma usually broke down stone, and especially things like fabrics.

Mark looked at Lola, and asked, "How bad do we have to poison the land to kill all of the goblins?"

Lola answered, "Pretty bad, but not bad enough that you're not the only one thinking about that particular solution. The problems with such a solution, in this case, are that some goblins will spawn that are immune to poison, or they become Miasma Shapers, or they get something like Poison Body. The problems with poison when it comes to mutative monsters like goblins are myriad, as I am sure you already know."

"Well yeah, but anything can turn into a bad poison monster inside of a poisonous environment. There were some radiation and toxic slimes next to the Vatican in Rome that worked well, though?"

Lola shook her head. "Valid on Earth does not mean valid on Daihoon."

"Ahh, yeah. I assumed, but… had to ask." Mark looked around Lola's office, which was located to the right of Magic Street in Mage Society. It was rather bare, but she still had her landscapes on the walls, and that one framed painting of Freyala that Mark remembered. It was mostly impressionistic. And then Mark glanced at the time. "Ah! It's late already." Mark took a breath and stood up, saying, "I've got to sleep before Gate Day."

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Lola paused. "Uh… Mark. What day do you think it is?"

"The 14th?"

"It's the 15th, and the Gate is opening in 2 hours— I have a cot in the back. Go go! Go get your sleep—" And now Lola got mad. "Mark! I had no idea you were this ragged. I'll have to talk to— Forget about that. Go ahead and sleep. I'll be here."

Mark felt a bit weird about it, but Lola brushed a Union of Purity/Impurity through the space, and it was fully clean, and so Mark crashed onto the bed. He barely had to use a Sleepy Union to drift off—

Mark woke up fast.

Lola stood by the door, asking, "Ready for the gate?"

Mark got up, shook himself off, and said, "Ready."

Ten minutes, one no-sleep pill, and one flight through the illusionary barrier of Mage Society, and Mark dropped down onto the Kaiju Squad Balcony of Castle South.

Everyone was there.

Kandon Valen, True Brawny and Telekinesis, stood by the side, next to his kaiju sword with its adamantium black edge and mithril body. Aurora and Yoro stood off to the side, going over some tablets and pressing some buttons; neither of them would likely be involved in the day's event. Quentin's face was on a monitor to the side, along with an image of the Command Center and everyone bustling around, fully prepped for the day. Sam Ranger, Threadmaker, was next to the main monitors, tapping away at his own tablet, coordinating with Quentin on various things. Lee Windhopper, Sky Shaper, was on the couch, cold pack on his forehead.

Mark started healing Lee even before he visually saw something was wrong because Mark had felt his injured vector on the approach.

Lee sighed out in pure relief.

Mark asked, "What's wrong with him?"

Kandon answered, "Healers are saying it's mana stress."

"It doesn't make sense!" Lee said, sitting up and putting the pack to the side. "I've literally never had this problem before, and Mark healing me makes me feel 100%!"

Kandon told Mark, "Stop healing him."

Lee was hopeful, eyes full of brightness.

Mark frowned, and then he stopped healing Lee.

Lee's eyes practically clouded right in front of Mark as his eyes narrowed and his forehead creased. "FUCK!" Lee put the pack back on his forehead. "FUCK!"

Aurora spoke up, "It's not a problem. We're getting Lawful Goose for a goosing and then he's going back, and we're also getting two archmages from Crytalis. Archmages Lancer and Buckler. They're coworkers from my dragonslayer days. They can take out a kaiju themselves, which they will be doing. Everyone else is on support. Mark: They'll be joining you in Mage Society as Rank 3s under Walaria."

Mark was sleep deprived but the no-sleep pill helped, so instead of thinking too deeply about archmages and whatever, he simply said, "Yes, ma'am."

Lee complained through his cold pack, "Fucking archmages? What's a rank 3?"

Kandon said, "Mage Secrecy shit." He told his sister, "Hopefully we won't need them long term."

Everyone wondered what that meant—

"So let's get this out of the way," Aurora said, bringing the room to order. "Archmage Lancer and Buckler are going to come here and do Gate Day practically all on their own. But with you, Mark, and Lawful Goose coming through for a honking, the archmages should be able to finish off Gate Day within 20 minutes. And then they'll go off into the distance, and the cameras are turning off when it comes to them, because they have Contracts that require them to brutalize sapient life. Goblins count. They're going to go out there and do horrible things to sate their demons, and no one is going to look their way or try to stop it."

For a moment, silence.

And then Mark asked, "Do they need help with the goblins? Because I'd like to get rid of all of them."

"I'll get in on that," Lee said, "As long as Mark can keep me upright."

Aurora sighed, then said, "No, Lee. You're grounded for at least 2 days. If your mana stress isn't better by then then you're going to Crytalis for a specialty healer, or maybe back to Earth for a week. I'm not sure which would be better for you but I'm sure some doctor knows."

Lee mumbled, "If I wasn't in so much pain I'd argue against that. Just so you're aware! I'm no quitter."

Mark grinned. The only one who had been out there as much as him had been Lee. His attacks were pretty bad against individual threats, but a tornado could certainly kill a lot of weaker goblins quite well and easily clear out entire little goblin villages. "I'll ask a few healers if there's anything I can do for you, Lee."

"Thanks, Mark! You're a real one," Lee said, pushing his ice pack onto his face.

Aurora looked at Mark, her vector worried, but she let it go and checked the time.

It was 11:54 AM, on Thursday the 15th of July, 2049. Gate Day was 6 minutes away, if nothing weird happened between now and then.