Chương 288: 288

Mark left Aethercall for tomorrow. For now, as Isoko slept in her room, completely exhausted, Mark was awake and active in his room, playing with some candles while Quark checked the feed from outside. Quark popped up with an update, now." Goblins advance on the western front, on the other side of the Shine, and yet they cannot get near the waters." Mark looked up from the candles, and Quark provided a view projected onto Mark's vision, onto an otherwise-blank view.

The terraformers had cut a bunch of pools into the land on the other side of the Shine, and in those pools they had placed water elementals. They had put a bunch of stone elementals further inland, where the land was more solid, though they hadn't put nearly as much coordination into the stone elementals as they had the water elementals. The water elementals formed a line of disruption, nearly 50 meters deep, with one water elemental every 20-ish meters.

It was a triple band of slightly-offset water pits, each filled with death for anyone who showed themselves. It would wash away in the next big storm, but it could be rebuilt rather easily. A band of goblins had gotten through the stone elementals and through the first line of water elementals, but by the second line of water elementals… It wasn't going well for them.

Mark watched as Quark highlighted three different instances of goblins walking along, trying to be sneaky, and then one stumbled on a rock, alerting an elemental they were hiding from, or they raised their improvised shield too high and an elemental carved underneath, or they simply walked, practically unwittingly, down the edge of a sloped water pit, right into jaws of elemental death. The scene repeated here and there, at the edges of the terraformed land." Pretty good ritual, huh?"

Quark said, "The instances of humans fighting the goblins directly have gone even better. A lot more people are going out there, too, ever since the first teams out there reported their findings to everyone else." Quark showed two teams carving through goblins who basically did not know that the humans were even there. It was weird. Like watching Farmers of Verdago ritually scything down wheat for a harvest.

Mark looked back at the images of elementals, and said, "I need to figure out how to kill elementals better." But… Later. Mark looked at the candles sitting in front of him… He made a few signs with both of his hands, telling the wick of the candle to, 'From-the-mind, Ignite to heat/light and banish the dark/cold of the contained-space.' The candle's wick, which was already burned, flickered to life, to flame. The small glow of the fire sputtered and then stabilized, and the room lit up, just a little.

The problem was that Mark had taken 5 seconds to make those signs, and those particular signs were rather strong ones. Mark blew out the candle. He signed, 'From-the-gut, Fire.' Nothing at all. Mark hummed. According to the Applied Sigaldry texts hovering in the air on the other side of his vision, Mark should be able to start a flame with the basic signs. Mark tried again with the basic sequence. Another failure.

Mark grabbed some of his adamantium, rapidly spun it on itself, and then brought the radiantly-hot metal to the candle's wick. The wick burst into flames and even a few little sparks, and then the candle flame got real low because Mark had burned the wick so hard that it had mostly turned to ash. What was left barely rose above the surface of a pool of hot wax. It had taken Mark a flash of thought to make heat and fire happen through adamantiumkinesis."

You know, this is nice and all, and I can already see how it'd be useful, but… It's not as fast as using adamantium," Mark hummed, then added, "And I need to go experiment with Union." He looked at the goblins and the elementals.

"… And I guess I have targets out there— ugh." He shuddered, thinking about the archmage twins.

"Where are Lancer and Buckler, now?" Quark beep-booped, thinking, searching, and then he answered, "The Archmages Lancer and Buckler checked in 2 hours ago, and then they went back out into the field." Mark hummed, then he looked toward Isoko, sensing how well she was. She seemed to be doing okay, but she was deeply asleep, her vector fully inward and bouncing around— And then she caught sense of Mark's vector, and Mark pulled back, but it was too late. Isoko woke up two rooms away, feeling joyful.

A minute later she opened Mark's door, wearing all of her armor, asking, "Wanna go kill some goblins that can't stand up straight at all?" Mark was already putting on his scales, but he said, "It's kinda nasty for us to be just slaughtering them all, right? I mean… they have diplomats… I still want to kill them all, of course." Mark winced at himself, saying, "Ughhh! I felt bad even thinking about giving them leeway. But at the same time… Have you seen what Lancer and Buckler are doing?"

Mark hadn't seen it, but Eliot had, and Eliot's reaction had been enough for Mark to not dig too deep. Isoko easily said, "On the one hand, they're goblins, so yeah. Kill 'em all. On the other hand, they are capable of reasoning and thinking, and it's kinda sketchy to kill them all. But that's a problem we humans have; we can empathize with anything, including enemies. Sometimes, as with other humans, empathy helps us connect and see that we're not all so different after all.

When that happens we need to step back and really think about who we want to be as a society and shit like that, and that means that sometimes bad guys need to die so that they stop bothering the rest of us. Like… Their ability to be free, thinking, acting individuals, stops when they infringe on the freedoms of others to be free, thinking, acting individuals." Mark was kinda stunned. Isoko noticed. She grinned.

"We were talking about it a lot in Inquisitor training, which you missed, but those are the highlights. I'm sure I got most of it wrong— and whatever! Let's go kill goblins!"" One more thing." Mark looked at the melted wax sitting at the top of the candles he had been practicing with, and he made the simple sign for, 'From-the-gut, Chill/grow-cold/lose-heat.' Nothing happened. The wax remained liquid.

So Mark went with, 'From-the-head, fire vanishes in the surroundings and energetic-matter returns to sleep/stillness in a softness/gentleness of cool/not-hot.' The wax puddle lost its heat, the clear surface turning opaque as that heat was lost to the environment. Sigaldry took a lot of words to accomplish something, and it didn't act that fast… At least not as fast as Mark's current Powers worked.

Also, every cast seemed to 'use up' something inside of Mark, that was very similar to how he 'used up' his Power when he wasn't actively restoring his astral body strength with Union. It was Mark using up his free mana, obviously. Isoko said, "Neat!"" I mean… Yes." Mark said, "Objectively, yes, this is very neat. But…" He trailed off. Isoko grinned.

"Not that impressive compared to everything else we can do."" Exactly." Isoko walked out, saying, "We'll be able to do a lot eventually!" Mark followed, asking, "Where do you want to go?" Isoko paused right before the pole leading down to the first floor. She looked at Mark, and asked, "Have you ever partied with Derek?"" I have not, actually."" He's a cool guy. Let's go pick up one of him from Eliot's place and test out some weapons, too." Mark grinned.

"That's a good idea."" I have good ideas all the time~" Isoko said flippantly, but inside she was beaming. Mark just smiled. Soon they were in the air, Mark opting not to take the tram since they were at Alert 1, and he was in the Kaiju Squad and he could fly wherever he wanted. A lot of people were giving that sort of clearance, though, so Mark had to fly above a lot of other people, who were also happily flying free inside the settlement. Soon, Mark landed in the war district, at Cybersong Industries.

The place had undergone a transformation. It still looked like a brutalist grey brick on the outside, but the inside had been changed into machines putting together stuff in assembly lines. Derek was there at a shooting range in the back, firing guns at targets, while another pair of Dereks took turns using a weird-looking sword against a solid stone target. They marveled at how the sword easily buried into the stone. Mark landed with Isoko and they went inside.

It was kinda noisy, but enchantments glowed on the walls, dimming the noise. Eliot was in a testing room beside the manufacturing plant alongside Sally, with Sally marveling at something she was holding. Derek was in there, looking at stuff, while Eliot was going over something with someone else. Not Julie or Herb Sacredcut? Mark wasn't sure who could be there, though. Mark entered first, and was surprised.

Andria, the Mithrilkinetic, Mithril Blooded, and the apprentice of guildmaster Rylan Drakemore of the Builder's Guild, stood next to Sally, with four different obviously-mithril swords hovering around her, each of them looking like waves turned into blades. Sally had been marveling at a full-mithril sword in her hands, and she wanted to buy it but she was worried; probably worried about having enough to afford it. What was Andria doing here? A business deal?

Well she was a mithrilkinetic, and she wanted to work with Mark, and now that Mark was looking at her and she saw him, she was surprised but also rather happy. Eliot looked up and said, "Hey, Mark! You met Andria, right?" Mark went, "Yeah, I have. Hello, Andria." Andria grinned wide.

"Hello, again!" Isoko introduced herself, holding out a hand, saying, "Isoko." Andria happily shook Isoko's hand, saying, "Andria!" There was probably a lot of conversation to have here, but Mark wanted to go out and experiment with Unions on goblins, and Isoko was itching to go out there, too—" Mark, can I talk to you?" Eliot said, gesturing to the side. … Mark supposed he wasn't getting away from at least a little conversation.

"Sure?" Eliot relocated to a different room, and Mark followed. With the door closed behind them, Eliot said, "So I want her working for me. I need a mithrilkinetic. But she has the hots for you. I'm sure she'll calm down, though, and she has a clean history. If you're not comfortable then tell me now and I'll break it off." Mark groaned, "Ughhh! Shit, man…" He reoriented, "It's fine! She's a great mithrilsmith as far as I know… right? I did read that right, right?"" Oh yeah.

She's good, and she'll get better," Eliot said.

"She wouldn't be Rylan's apprentice if she wasn't good." Mark stared off into space for a moment, thinking, and then he said, "When she delivered that sensor she talked about wanting to work with me. I was eventually going to talk to her about working with me, but she can work with you, first."" Yeah, I saw the recording of that when I was installing it. That's why I talked to her." Mark snorted.

"Okay?" He wasn't sure how he felt about Eliot, what, sniping Mark's contact?

"… Really?" And then Eliot said something that threw Mark for a major loop, "So! We want to kill all monsters. I want to start with goblins. We're gonna need volunteers that make us uncomfortable, and we're gonna need to work with people like Lancer and Buckler, as long as they can keep it under control. Andria, too, though her issues are gonna be easier to navigate for all of us but you. And then there's Derek, who is gonna be awesome in a whole lot of ways. But then there's the goblins.

It's gonna get bad, but I want to end the threat that has harmed humanity for ten thousand years, and I want to do it in my lifetime. It's gonna get messy. It's gonna get bad. And I mean really, really bad, Mark. Assassins and everything like that. But I want to do it. Will you walk this walk with me?" Mark was kinda stunned. Eliot's vector was solid. Serious. And then Mark focused. It was as easy as killing a goblin to say, "Absolutely, Eliot. Kill all monsters." Eliot grinned, just a little.

And then he moved on, "So I saw that you want to take Derek out into the field, so take some guns and go do that. Also! Whatever ritual you did in Mage Society is already being noticed, a lot. Next time you do something like that we should do it at the church and tie it into the walls of the settlement. It'll last longer that way." Mark grinned.

"Do you know how to make a mobile ritual that continually does… whatever it was we did? I'm not even sure what I'm asking."" I do not! Not outside of Castellan. But ask enchanters and Reeni; they'd know more. But I do know that my Mind Shield and your Ring of No-Metal-Wealth are just magical languages laid down into solid form, and you're learning a bunch of languages, so I'm sure you'll figure it out." Mark had a weird, giddy moment."

'Languages laid down', huh? That's exactly what enchanting and artificing are, aren't they."" It's more complicated than that, of course. Enchanting is basic language put into effect. Artificing is more… technical? Like attaching a small computer to an enchantment. That's artificing. 50/50-ish enchanting/computerization. Stuff like that. Tinkering is 95% computer, 5% enchant." This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there."

Ah, yeah, I heard that… somewhere else— Anyway! Good luck with Andria. Show us some guns?" Soon, Mark was in the sky again, hauling Isoko on a handle, her hoverbelt doing most of the work of keeping her aloft, and also carrying a single very excited Derek on a chair, along with a bunch of guns and some ammo. Sally had elected to stay behind and talk with Andria about mithril swords, and Eliot had also, of course, stayed behind.

Quark filed a flight plan along the way, and soon Mark was flying over the walls, to the plains in the north." So Isoko said she didn't care where we went, but anywhere you want to go, Derek?" Mark asked." Anywhere is fine! I'm just happy to be here!" He really was, too. Mark grinned and Isoko chuckled at the pure honesty." We're going to the wasps and flower fields, then!" Mark announced, over the thrum of his spinning blades. Isoko yelled out, "Sure!"

Derek gave a thumb's up with his free hand and he slipped a little on his chair, but he rapidly held tight and Mark secured his seat a bit more. Mark picked the wasp and Red Spray flower farm, where some corrupter gophers had encroached a few weeks ago and almost taken out a team. Soon, they were flying over it. It looked much the same as before. Mostly green, medium-tall grasses, with Red Spray flowers like tiny red fireworks growing high above the green. Wasps should have been everywhere.

There should have been lumpy dirt-pillars all over the place; the colonies of the wasps. There were a few lumpy broken things here and there across the field, and a lot of scattered wasps that were mostly dying. The goblins had come at them hard and heavy, eating them all and digging out the pillars to eat the grubs inside, killing the next generation of flower pollinators. The wasps were still mostly dying, and there were a few goblins out there, hunting them down, eating them as much as they could.

The wasps would be dead in a few days; gone forever from this location. The flowers would follow. Or at least that's how it had been. Now, it was different. The ritual was working. The goblins slapped their hands together, trying to smush the wasps as they had before, but they smashed their hands together too high, or too slow, and the wasps got in and stung and bit.

When the goblins tried slapping the wasps off of each other, it was more like they were brushing away the wasps instead of killing, and the wasps came back around for another go. Mark grinned at the wasps winning their war, and then Mark Unioned with Good and Bad, giving the goblins all the Bad, and the wasps all the Good. Derek jolted as he shared in the Good. They all watched as the wasps suddenly, decisively, gained the upper hand.

The wasps murdered the goblins for a good minute, aiming for eyes and throats and burrowing into brains and otherwise, the goblins unable to do anything at all, and then another minute passed, and finally some of the goblins started to run. Many times the goblins looked up at Mark, Isoko, and Derek, but mainly at Mark's big spinning blade. None of them recognized Mark as a threat, even though Mark had been killing them for a week. The memory of fear faded way too fast, in Mark's opinion.

And then one of them looked up, scanning the skies for more wasps, thinking he was safe, and he finally, finally, noticed Mark. Mark was only 100 meters up! He wasn't invisible at all. That goblin screamed and ran fast. The others looked up and tried to see what the first had seen, but they didn't see Mark at all… But then one of them did. And then the other. And that caused the group to rout. The wasps winning didn't bother them. But seeing Mark? That worked. They ran.

Most of them had no idea what they were running from, but they ran anyway. Isoko commented, "Slow on the uptake, huh!"" Even with this big downdraft they didn't notice us… This is really good."" Yeah that's fucking weird," Derek said, trying to understand… he looked around, and then he looked up at Mark and Isoko." Everyone is noticing this? Did… did you guys do something?" Mark grinned.

"Get a Mage Society contract, Derek!"" I have been trying!" Derek said, a fire burning in his vector. Mark had accidentally stepped onto a landmine. Whoops.

"Ah. Sorry. I forgot about your, uh, difficulty getting anyone to trust you."" Oh! No. Not… Ugh! Uh…" Derek moved on, "You're doing something big in Mage Society too, aren't you? Everyone is talking about how Mage Society here is the place to be… The influx of people is— I should just take the 20 years of servitude, yeah?" Mark and Isoko both paused. Mark said, "Fucking 20 years? Is that what they're demanding of you?"" That's fucking rude," Isoko said.

Derek shook his head, waved a hand, and he didn't want to talk about it. Mark and Isoko shared a moment, but Derek shared that same moment, too, since he was a paladin of Freyala and he had a Unionsense, too. All of that understanding just made Derek double down on his 'I don't want to talk about it', though, so Mark..." Okay!" Mark made a decision.

"If Freyala trusts you, then I'll see about speaking up for you in Mage Society—"" Nope nope no!" Derek said, though his heart was beaming with joy.

"People already think I'm some sort of charisma monster, able to bend people to my will. So… Uh. No. I will gladly party with you, though! For anything! Thank you, though… Thank you." Mark decided… to nod, and said, "Okay. We're going in." Isoko brightly said, "Let's go, like, over there, or somewhere. That big open spot." Mark flew that way. Mark landed on bare ground, just outside of what might have been a goblinfruit village at one point in time, but which had been smashed solid by a great power.

Probably Buckler. There were broken trees and slightly-flaming wreckage, and a few goblins milling around, trying to pull stuff out of their former homes and make something of it all. They didn't see Mark, Isoko, or Derek at all, which was kinda freaky. They just wandered around, poking at wreckage. One goblin was even pulling a brother out of the broken ground, sobbing, not even realizing that his brother was already dead. … Shit. Mark said, "They almost look like people.""

Of course they're people, Mark," Isoko said, hand to the hilt of her sword.

"That doesn't mean shit." Derek took the guns from Mark's offering tendril of adamantium and began copying himself into a bunch of white-webweave-wearing clones, each of them taking a gun, as one of them said, "They're a lot worse than people. Fucking hate goblins." Another Derek asked, "You're here for Union experiments, yeah?" Another Derek said, "I always wanted to try 'here and there'!" Another Derek excitedly said, "Maybe you'll pop out of one of the goblins that you pick for 'There'!

In like a bloody explosion, like what they've done to… Uh…" He went quiet. Another Derek pushed the last one away, along with a bunch of other Dereks, more appearing by the moment, all of them saying, "We've never made a replicating goblin! We swear! It doesn't work like that so you don't have to worry about us falling to goblins!"" It happens a lot, though!" Another Derek said. And then another Derek rallied the rest, saying, "And now! TO WAR!"

The others yelled, one Derek per gun, an entire squadron of guys pumped up for the fight, all of them roaring, and then they descended on the husk of a goblin village, firing as a coordinated group, Unions of Good and Bad linking all of them. Each Union was a little bit different, and Mark kinda marveled at what he was seeing, at the Derek using a Good/Bad focused on physical power, at the other Derek focused on surety/clumsiness but not an actual Union of those actions.

Derek only had Good/Bad, and he stretched those uses in a lot of ways. Yet another Derek focused on strength. They ripped apart the remnants of the goblin village like a squad of guys running through a target training field. Goblins popped up, alerted at the noise, but the goblins didn't see the humans that gunned them down. Goblins walked out carrying knives and they were sniped through the head and heart at the same time.

Goblins tried to soar away, to flee on Wind Shaper powers, and they fled right into Dereks that gunned them down. It was pretty great, really— A strong goblin appeared, like a flickering green stone, rushing through 2 Dereks before it was stopped by the third, by a sudden focusing of Unions on the goblin. Mark identified the goblin as a speedster, low level, otherwise it would have killed every single Derek on the field.

Mark almost stepped in, but then he watched, amazed, as every surviving Derek doubled themselves and then they focused on the goblin with every form of Bad they could muster. The speedster goblin fainted, dead, even before a concentrated volley of alchemical-silver bullets ripped it apart. Some Dereks picked up the fallen Derek's weapons, and the extra Dereks summoned for the big-Union simply melted away, back into the vectors of the other Dereks.

A minute later and Derek had completed the second pass through the destroyed goblin village. Isoko smiled as she asked Mark, "First time partying with him, huh?"" First time on the ground, yeah. Usually he's, uh… he's dying to kaiju." A few Dereks came Mark's way, one of them shouting out, "There are a lot of goblins out here!"" Always more to be found, though," Mark responded, kinda dreading getting everyone here to the next spot. It was a pain to carry around more than 5 people, and this was 15 people.

But then Derek piled into himself, handing off all of the guns to one of himself while most of them vanished into the vector of the remaining Derek. Mark was a little stunned because every Derek that vanished… Well. It felt like a person dying. Mark didn't recognize it at first, but he recognized it now. Every time a Derek vanished, that Derek had died. Derek didn't seem to care, or maybe he was inured to it. Derek grinned, holding on to 12 guns and not doing a very good job of it.

One of them slipped out, but Derek grabbed that gun by using another Derek. Derek put the gun back into Derek's pile in his arms, and Derek said, "Ready to go! But, uh. Little help?" Mark easily provided help, and soon he hauled all 3 of them into the air, saying, "Are you, like, killing your copies to absorb them?"" Uhhhh…" Derek said, "Not really? Weird question! They're all me, but also I'm me, and we're all the same-ish? So yeah, they do die… But it's not a big deal?"

"… Okay then!" Mark ended up taking on the next group of goblins, for a little Union experiment. There were five of them, and Mark killed off four of them to leave one. That single goblin stood around the corpses of his brothers, poking at their bodies and wondering what had happened. The damned goblin looked like it was going to cry and Mark hated everything about it. Suddenly, Mark was furious.

This stupid fucking goblin was crying over its brothers even while it was prepared to rip into the settlement and Bite and Bite and… Mark ignored that. He breathed in Here and There with the goblin— Instantly, Mark stopped. Something weird had happened. It was like… falling asleep, maybe. The goblin had blinked long and slow and teetered on the edge of consciousness, its vector subdued. And then it blinked fast and saw Mark. Fangs came out, dripping green, as the goblin roared and attacked.

It was not angry at the loss of its family, though. It wanted to breed. Mark beheaded the awful thing. Isoko called out, "That was 'Here and There', right?" Mark called back, "I guess so?" Derek split off one of himself, and the second one moved away from Derek and Isoko, calling out, "Try it with me!" Mark scoffed.

"No way. Not doing human experimentation." Both Dereks scoffed right back at him.

"It's not experimentation! It's practice!" The first Derek said, "I want to know what 'Here and there' does!" … Mark decided, "Okay! Just… Here we go." Mark breathed with Derek, forming a Union of Here and There— Literally nothing happened at all. Mark was sure he was breathing correctly with Derek, breathing in Here and breathing out There, trying to pull Derek to Here, while he pushed himself to There… And nothing happened. Mark tried a bit longer, a few different ways, and then said, "Nothing!"

Mark added, "Let's just kill goblins. Quark has four major villages scouted out within 15 kilometers of the settlement and Aurora… And I want them gone." Isoko saluted sarcastically, saying, "Sir yes sir!" Mark scoffed.

"Don't salute in the field, soldier." Derek nodded as Derek mumbled, "We got chewed out for that by Aurora the other day."