Icarus Awakens

Jeras’ head jerked next to Daniel and the man collapsed. Half of his skull had just gotten blown out. How? Then, something impacted his shield and knocked him back. By the third instance he’d figured out what it was. She’s using the Shroud to fire pieces of stone at us. That’s cheating! There was something to be said about the fact that the Casia’s most fearsome weapon wasn’t the death rays, but her simple ability to manipulate the Shroud. It was effectively supreme telekinesis combined with an invulnerable shield around the projectile to prevent you from doing anything to it before it landed.

At least she’s not making a maze of invisible barriers, or just hitting us with the Shroud, Daniel thought. But then again, he could probably burn through those with all the mana he had now, and his lightning hadn’t been affected. Casia might have been trying to do that earlier and just given up when Daniel unknowingly bypassed them. I still need to get her locked down. Jeras was stirring again. “You don’t have any other helpful powers, do you?”

“I don’t think so.” The Vanguard sounded strangely unsure, as if, well, as if the stone that had passed straight through his head might have caused brain damage. Still, Daniel had a feeling that wasn’t it. Another rock cracked against his barrier, the Artificer standing over Jeras to cover him. These stones drained the shield’s power far less than any of the Spire weapons, but he also couldn’t recharge it now.

Casia floated above imperiously, almost gloating. “Get ready to charge her,” Daniel said. “What I’m about to do is going to draw a lot of fire.”

“Fine.” Something was definitely off with the avianoid, though he wasn’t any less intent on killing Casia. Another piece of stone pried from the Eye was railgunned towards them, Casia seeming to believe she’d discovered an undefeatable strategy when Daniel called upon the wind. With the storm gone it was less intense, making this gust cost so much it dropped his reserve by a few percentage points. He’d spend it all if it meant killing her.

The Sun Spire fired automatically at Daniel, but its lens was not positioned appropriately. Focusing earlier attacks now backfired, while above an ephemeral fist slammed into Casia and knocked her out of the sky. His lightning had pierced her Shroud, so why not the wind? Half of her body was compressed against the Shroud shield around her as it fought the pressure in vain, but this dealt no meaningful damage.

What it did do was get Jeras in range, reactivating the taunt power. Casia immediately hovered up as far as she could get, the Vanguard having just enough range to skate the tip of his sword off the bottom of her Shroud. This infuriated the Vanguard, who struck out with several incredibly fast incantation attacks in an attempt to scratch her.

Casia was lining up another shot with a huge chunk of masonry when Daniel activated his recharged wings. She saw him coming and tried to dodge, but a gust from the back launched her towards him. The Sun Spire fired, missing of course, and Daniel’s hand broke through the Shroud to close around her neck.

The lightning in his shield flowed into her, solidifying the sand where he’d grabbed as the cast off light did the same to the rest of the body. As Daniel had discovered with Hunter’s body, he could manipulate his lightning to allow him to touch things without hurting them. Focusing the shield entirely on his hand was also possible.

As lightning coursed through Casia, the two impacted the Moon Spire under the remains of the gem after the propulsion from the wings carried them across the Eye. The part of Casia directly affected by the lightning had turned to glass and cracked on impact. The rest of the body was more of a sandstone consistency after exposure to light and cracked as well, but did not shatter. When the light of the wings faded, the damage there began to repair. Daniel also felt things break in several places along his arm and he lost his grip, falling away.

With his wounds failing to rapidly heal and his shield gone, Daniel knew if Casia didn’t die here, both he and Jeras were dead. It all came down to the last gambit, and the two others participating in this battle. On the way, he’d activated Called Shot. Khare wasn’t the one firing, but they could still pass along the message.

Khiat lifted her bow and prepared herself for the shot. Survival aside, part of her knew that if she hit her mark, her power would grow. She walked a path apart from the others, having no class and yet still advancing under the grace of the Octyrrum. All she had were instincts when it came to her powers, and they told her that this was the most important arrow of her life so far.

Standing under the Sun Spire, Khiat was about half a kilometer away from the Moon Spire where her target was briefly stunned and pinned to by the force of landing. Daniel had torn apart the Shroud, giving her an opening. While a normal archer would have despaired at that range, even Daniel’s stolen crossbow not able to effectively go that far, she was a dusker. The draw weight of her bow was in the hundreds of kilograms. The only caveat was what they’d tied to the shaft, requiring adjustment to the aim.

The archer aimed high and fired, using Pinning Shot as she did so. The arrow flew with an arc of light, passing over the newly made throne at the apex before it began to fall. Its flight took long enough for Casia to see it coming, but she couldn’t respond in time. The Spoke only acted by itself in response to Daniel’s actions and didn’t come to her rescue this time, as it hadn’t for each of Jeras’ earlier strikes. The arrow hit center mass, dealing relatively little if any damage. What was attached to it changed everything.

It turned out that Khare had been walking around with a weapon of mass destruction. The rod of enchanted light given to him by the city guard so that they’d survive the jail cell hadn’t been recovered in the confusion surrounding their release. Considering it gave the gestalt direct sunlight at all times, they had a strong motivation to keep it. Absorbing that continuously while within their Mobile Armory had allowed Khare to heal from injuries even at night, when their kind of gestalt were traditionally weaker.

It was fortunate the light from Daniel’s wings had been discovered as harmful to duskers before they’d ever had a reason to bring the rod out, as it was also constructed from heliorite reclaimed from equipment Daniel had sold to the city Artificer.

The effect on Casia was similar to a dusker, the sand making up her true body hardening to stone. This didn’t kill her, but at the same time the arrow and rod were sealed inside while the shaft pinned her. This went beyond the radiant dagger she’d been stabbed with. The faint glow of that had hurt intensely. Now, a being who had felt no pain for years was exposed to unimaginable agony.

Then, Jeras hit her. The Vanguard had continued charging after Casia and landed on her a few moments after the arrow. He held his greatsword in one hand, wildly swinging into the target of his vengeance. Casia tried to summon barriers again but confirmed what she had discovered earlier in the fight, the Shroud refused to appear inside or too close to any living creature. Given the choice she would have ended the fight at the start by bisecting someone with it, but the Spoke had refused. Jeras was too close for her to block off his attacks. Now, she started to feel fear along with the pain.

The Vanguard frowned as the heavy blade failed to do much to his opponent, and flipped it in air to reverse his grip. He brought the pommel down again and again until Casia’s head was just dust. Pausing, he saw that this wasn’t enough, and threw both of them to the ground where he kept hammering away.

With a last bit of effort, Casia managed to direct and fire the Sun Spire towards Jeras, but that hardly mattered. The ray of fire would have given him mild burns unfocused, while through the lens it only severely scorched his torso. Rocks thrown towards the Vanguard struck but he did not stop. Holding the blade now in bleeding hands, Jeras steadily demolished his hated enemy, scattering the debris across the eye.

…

The localized destruction of the Spires ceased as soon as Casia’s soul was driven from her vessel, and the throne in the center of the Eye melded back into the dais. Daniel walked slowly over to Jeras, still bleeding mana and with many injuries from that last attack. “You did it.” The Vanguard didn’t respond, in fact he seemed to barely be breathing. “Jeras?”

Feathers started molting off of the man, where they hadn’t already been scorched or blown off. His bond power had needed to keep him going, not maintain his appearance. It had stopped doing even that. “I knew what this would cost. I’ve been dead for a while, it’s just catching up with me.”

“Wait, maybe I can do something.” He didn’t know who this was, but the guy had put down the one who’d killed Hunter. If it had just been Daniel in that fight he didn’t think he could have physically torn apart Casia like that. “I-” Daniel trailed off as Jeras turned, and he saw that the man’s eyes were completely white.

“It’s been taking everything. I didn’t know until the gaps became too much.” Jeras looked down to where Casia had been and frowned. “I don’t remember why I was doing this. I don’t remember… who I am.”

Daniel could only look on as he saw the cost of the power Jeras had reached for. It was horrifying. Bonds can do this? Lograve had mentioned this kind of bond, but Daniel hadn’t appreciated what the product of negative emotions was capable of until now. That thought made his heart hurt, mixing with the pain of his other injuries. “Thank you.” He didn’t know if that mattered, but he wasn’t just going to leave the dying man without saying anything.

He walked for about a minute before it all crashed down on him. Daniel broke down, tears flowing freely. Mana as well, that hadn’t gone away with Casia. Neither did he care in that moment. One of the only things that could have dragged him out of abject misery was the voice that spoke to him. “Daniel? Is it over?”

Khare tentatively spoke as well. “Functi- alright?” Daniel blinked. He’d never heard a gestalt stop in the middle of a word and go with another one. He looked up and saw the two had come out of the Spire.

“What happened to everyone?” Khiat asked when Daniel didn’t immediately answer. “Are they…”

“Hunter’s dead.” It felt like stabbing himself in the chest to say. “Everyone else, I don’t know.” The moments immediately after Hunter’s death were jumbled. He remembered seeing them all die, but their bodies weren’t here. The memories gave him a headache to even reach for, like trying to think about the time just before he’d been sent to the Octyrrum. Daniel didn’t think they were dead, though. Had he done something? “They’re out there, somewhere,” he said eventually, the barest scrap of hope in his voice. He saw his friends standing there, two people he would have considered monsters a year ago. “We’ll find them. We’ll find someone who can help Hunter. There has to be a way to bring him back.”

Khiat thought for a moment before saying something he hadn’t expected at all. “Wait, Aughal has someone!”

“Someone what?”

“Someone who can bring people back from the dead. In the Hand’s church.” She looked around and Daniel could just make out despair on her face. “Oh no! We need the body.”

“Seriously!?” Daniel stood up, ignoring his broken arm. “Where? We need to get there right now!”

The dusker was about to say when they all felt it. A presence. It pressed down on everything, not malignantly but just by being there. Something of immense power that dwarfed even the mana within Daniel, and he was passively restoring Khiat and Khare’s reserves by proximity alone. The Artificer had a terrible thought. The Origin Beast? But no, this was coming from the wrong direction. From the center of the Octyrrum, not the Thormundz.

Khiat fell to her knees, which inadvertently threw Khare off of her. “I can’t believe it,” she murmured, awestruck in a complete turnaround of emotions.

“What? What’s going on?”

“Hammer!” Daniel didn’t realize what she was talking about for a few moments, and when he did he only had one thought.

Now? You only show up now? But there was also fear. One of the gods of this world, who were themselves a fragment of it, was in the region. They must have just crossed over, except, if he strained his eyes, it almost looked like something was-

The air rocked as a being four meters tall appeared, arriving faster than Casia had managed while manipulating the Shroud. The arrival didn’t come with as intense a shockwave as Daniel would have expected, though. No, this god was able to control that and only wanted to make it clear he had arrived. As if being the source of the presence pushing down on everyone wasn’t enough.

He appeared as a human, proportionally over twice as large but otherwise true to the race. Wrinkles and weathered skin, along with some gray in the hair, made Daniel guess mid-50s. He wasn’t fooled though. This was the god of transmutation, surely he could appear however he liked. Right now, it was as a sage craftsman. He wore something like a blacksmith’s apron crossed with divine robes. Hanging off of loops and in pockets were tools of every nature. The very air around him shimmered, not like with Daniel’s cast-off overabundance of mana, but with the promise of change. As if to come too close to this figure would be to come away different in every way.

Hammer looked down and seemed to take in every detail of the city at once. Daniel couldn’t help but be intimidated as the eyes settled on him last. He couldn’t speak. He imagined everyone else in this city was either on their knees or cowering in fear. Daniel himself recognized the power before him and didn’t doubt for a second this was a divine. At the same time, he’d never really prayed to the gods here or felt an inclination to worship them. In a small way, whenever he thought about religion here he got the feeling of going to another denomination’s church while visiting extended family. Daniel would be polite and respectful, but he couldn’t express the same amount of emotional attachment as the congregation.

Now, a figure from the stained-glass windows has walked through the church doors. What’s more, Daniel had something he truly needed to ask a god’s intervention for. It was too perfect and too infuriating at once. Now? If you’d been ten minutes early Hunter wouldn’t have died.

Immediately after having that thought Daniel had a heart attack, but Hammer didn’t seem to have noticed his impiety. If he could read minds at all. After a few more seconds of chafing under the stare of the god, Hammer finally spoke in a voice befitting his appearance, firm but gentle with a hint of knowingness. “Little one. Why have you come into conflict with your sibling?” The question completely threw Daniel. In fairness, the god also seemed not to fully know what to make of the situation.

It was difficult for Daniel to respond, both due to the crushing presence and the fact that he’d broken at least one rib. “Sibling? I, I don’t have any family here.”

This caused Hammer to furrow his eyebrows as the god grew more confused. “You don’t know? Something truly strange must have happened to you, for you to even leave the Thormundz. Oh, little one, fear not. I do not blame you.” Hammer took in the Spires once more, eyes moving across them like he was reading something. “Ah, still hale. Fear not, nothing has been done that time won’t mend. It is still good we have chosen to meet in this kingdom. I may have taken far longer to arrive were I not already on the way here.” He floated down to the Eye, and out of the corner of his Daniel saw Khiat start to tremble. He was too confused to be overcome with awe.

He’s not talking about the towers like they’re alive or something, right? Because that would be crazy. Daniel certainly wasn’t going to ask, because he had something more important to say. “Uh, hi,” he said lamely, struggling to come up with an appropriate way to address this person. This god. “One of my friends died stopping people from destroying these Spires. Please, you have to help me bring them back.”

Hammer half-smiled in an amused way. “You made a friend?”

“Yes?” If Daniel had imagined a situation where he talked to a god before this, he’d never have come up with this exchange. Hammer was far too familiar with him and perplexed for no apparent reason by the concept of Daniel making friends. He wasn’t that bad at it. He doesn’t think I’m someone else, does he? “I’m Daniel Brant. If you didn’t know. Uh, my god?” He cringed at that but he was extremely off right now. He’d gone from pain and misery to hope and confusion in an instant.

“Truly remarkable. I have never had the pleasure of making an Incarnate such as you. Certainly not one that could leave their home region without any apparent repercussions.” He walked closer to Daniel, ignoring everyone else present, and smiled fully. “We will discuss this more, and I must know what influenced you in the Thormundz. Ah, but I forget myself.” He did glance towards Khiat and Khare then, frowning slightly at the gestalt. “Not in front of the mortals, no.”

This was starting to feel like two different conversations. Or, and he really hoped the god couldn’t glean into his thoughts, is this guy senile? “I would be happy to tell you anything you want to know, Hammer,” Daniel replied with as much respect as he could stuff into his mouth, also just deciding to go with the god’s official name and forgoing any attempt at titles. “Could you help him? Please?”

Hammer gave him another odd look. It wasn’t uncaring, but a strange mix of surprise and pride. “Alas, that power is currently in Hand’s domain. But we will see her soon, or rather her Proxy.”

“I’m going with you?” Daniel didn’t see how he could object, and would gladly go if that meant bringing Hunter back. Hell, they could probably help him find his other friends and figure out what was going on with his mana. Going with the affable god didn’t seem like the worst idea, but he had to know. “Why me?”

“You truly have no idea.” Hammer smiled at him. “Why, little one, I am your father.”

“What!?”

“We should be off. This isn’t a topic one discusses openly.”

“Wait you need to-“ Daniel was cut off as the god waved a hand. There was a twisting sensation across his entire body, and before he lost consciousness, a feeling of great acceleration.

…

It took half a minute for Khiat to finally stand. Her heart was pounding, her mind trying to process what she had just seen and heard. Daniel was gone. Almost everyone from her team was, there was no trace of them on the Eye. Looking over the city and the sky beyond, lighting up in the predawn hours, she turned to Khare and asked, “What do we do now?”