Chương 43: 42-Deus Ex Machina

Dawn began shouting, growing increasingly agitated as her confusion deepened. Jenna didn't blame her; from Dawn's perspective, she had just fainted in her apartment and woken up on a battlefield, surrounded by a hostile army. Gone was the icy, hyper-competent mentor who had guided them for the past few weeks. In her place was a frightened young woman, struggling to make sense of the chaos around her.

Jenna sighed and enhanced her perception until she could feel Dawn's vital points as easily as if she were reading a book. She pinched a nerve in Dawn's neck, doing it with such precision that it would have earned her an invitation to the next Vulcan nerve-pinching seminar, had such events existed. Dawn's eyes rolled upward as she fell senseless. Jenna caught her as she slumped to the floor. She enhanced her Mind, seeking a way out of their predicament.

Thousands of possible tactical permutations thundered in her mind.

"How is it looking, Jenna?" Bob asked her as the Federation troops assembled into formation, ready to charge at their position.

"Not good, guys," Jenna answered.

"If it were only the Feds, we could probably try to find a way out of this. Teleport will not work—they have already shielded against it."

"I could probably come up with some kind of distraction, giving the Circle's troops enough time to reach us, but we are also facing five Immortals, some of them with dominant mental attributes. As long as they remain a factor, my simulations can't be trusted."

"There is some good news, though—they have to go through the Feds to reach us." Just as she finished talking, the Immortal hit squad came into view. They had materialized just outside the invisible dimensional barrier the Feds had conjured to keep them from escaping. A small blessing—the Feds had inadvertently helped them without meaning to. Jenna saw a figure on top of the hill, standing next to a trooper, signaling instructions with a pair of handheld flags—a small but fit woman holding a spyglass.

The enemy commander. Captain Taylor looked through her spyglass. A rift opened four hundred feet west of their target—just outside the dimensional barrier her wizards had erected. Five figures crossed the tear. She had been present when Colonel Hawking had addressed the Coven and recognized some of them—the Coven of Immortals had sent reinforcements. The Losers were as good as dead.

"Signal our troops not to harm the newcomers; they are allies," she said, turning to the com tech, who was reduced to waving flags, just like in the days of old. The tech was gaping at the battlefield.

"If these are our allies, I would not like to meet our enemies." Taylor looked back at her troops—the newcomers were tearing through them. Hate looked at the weaklings in front of him. Pitiful. Pathetic. Not worthy of his hate. But he was feeling generous today and gave it to them anyway. He shed the humanoid body he used to attend Coven meetings and resumed his true form: a draconic serpent with iridescent scales and glowing red eyes.

He released his hate, which erupted from his mouth in the form of a cloud of fire. It clung to the flesh of the three squads in front of him. They broke formation, screaming as they felt exquisite pain that fed on the soul itself—a pain far more powerful and intense than anything the pain receptors in human skin could provide. Hate screamed with them. He felt all the pain he caused; such was the nature of hate, to be hurt as much as it hurt others.

It was horrible agony, but he knew his victims were suffering it too, and it felt good.

"Hit me! Hit me!" screamed Payback as the Mechas stomped on his armored body. He rose weakly only to get stomped again. His sinister enchanted armor was dented in several places, and blood ran freely from his mouth. They clobbered his body until he could not stand anymore. Then he stood up, unharmed.

"My turn, now," he said as he released his magic, fed by the abuse that had been piled upon him and multiplied by his nature and his name. Scraps of Mechas rained all over the battlefield.

"How are you going to play this?" Resolution asked Betrayal.

"The same way I always do, I am afraid. I will use some clever illusion and make them kill each other, thinking they are fighting us. God, I hate this," he answered. Betrayal was a decent man. The Compendium was fond of its cruel little games; making an honest person act as the personification of treason was allowed—it was the ultimate betrayal, after all.

"Necessity could have sent us two alone. It would have sufficed, and these poor bastards would not need to die," Resolution pondered aloud as he watched Spitefulness flay the wounded Federation soldiers with her magic whip, smiling her beautiful, cold smile. They all knew they were going to die the moment they had accepted Necessity's plan. He and Betrayal wanted to go with dignity. Spitefulness, Hate and Payback did not want to go alone. They intended to take as many as possible with them.

They both strolled slowly up to their targets. It was a beautiful summer morning, and they wanted to enjoy it as much as possible—it was the last one they would see. The other three members of the group also took their time, but not for aesthetic reasons, at least not in the conventional sense of the word. They finally reached their goal. So much trouble for this—two teenagers, a middle-aged man, and one unconscious young woman.

"Oh, God, I am so going to enjoy this," Hate hissed as he prepared to consume them.

"Have some respect," Betrayal said, clearly annoyed.

"Respect? I am Hate!"

"There have been thousands of Hates throughout the Coven's history. Each of these four is unique," answered Resolution.

"I will try to make this quick," he said to his opponents. The Losers were all adopting battle stances, even the Everlasting, whom he knew to be currently powerless. They were not going out without a fight. Suddenly, holes erupted under their feet, and the five immortals were quickly enveloped by crushing tentacles that sucked their powers. Resolution heard Spitefulness protest as they were all dragged into Limbo— "No, that was not one hour," she cried. She was right.

Less than fifteen minutes had passed since they had entered this plane. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. He felt relief as darkness closed upon him, ending his shame. Taylor started swearing as she watched her troops get slaughtered. The Compendium had betrayed them. They were supposed to be allies, but they had slain fully half of the troops she had stationed there. She realized that the Icosahedron was the only remaining leverage the Federation had.

If the Coven got it without their help, she could all but forget about the promise for symbiotic dungeons for all Fed towns. Then, suddenly, a miracle. Taylor watched in awe as Limbo devoured the Immortal hit squad. They could still turn this around. They could win this. They would get the artifact and would not give it away until that duplicitous Necessity had paid them for their service.

"Flag new orders!" she told her aide.

"Fall back into formation. Use maneuver 26." Maneuver 26 was a ranged attack maneuver. She was not going to lose more soldiers over this. McKenzie was the squad leader of the second Infantry squad. She read the flagged message correctly.

"26," she shouted, as the gunners prepared their wands, ready to release their magic missiles. The grenadiers summoned toxic orbs that rained poisonous gas on their targets. Before the attack began, the Guardians used their magic shields to project force fields that would protect the squads.

"Sergeant, something is wrong," said Lebowsky, one of the more experienced Guardians. His shield was not contributing to the force field. It was vibrating violently, almost shaking.

"What is the matter with your gear, Lebowsky?" the sergeant asked.

"I don't know, Sergeant, it has never done this before." Then his shield exploded, taking his arm off and killing the two men standing in front of him. The gunners tried to release their magic, only for their wands to explode as well. A series of explosions rippled all over the battlefield, tearing the squads apart. Many broke formation and ran in fear, trying to escape the massacre. Others held their ground, reformed into new squads, and kept fighting—these were the ones who died.

"Oh my god," Taylor said, suddenly understanding what was happening. She took the communication amulet. Flags would be too slow to do the job if she wanted to save her men.

"Do not use your gear. I repeat, do not use your gear. All Fed-made enchanted items are spontaneously exploding, I repeat, do not use—" Taylor could not go on, as her communication amulet exploded suddenly, taking half her face off. The Losers watched, amazed, as their enemies fell by the score.

"Stop using your items, you idiots. They are killing you," Jenna almost pleaded.

"Are we doing this?" asked Billy, feeling sick.

"I certainly hope not," Bob answered. Necessity watched the scene of carnage from his throne at Nowhere, without revealing its emotions. All around it, the Coven tried to make sense of what they were seeing. What had happened to the kill squad? Why had Limbo claimed them so suddenly? Why had the Federation's gear malfunctioned? Necessity remained silent for almost one minute. Then the Coven's leader called for someone.

"Exchange," it calmly asked. Exchange came forth. He came from a bulky, ogre-like race with a single horn in the middle of their foreheads. He had a powerful mind and was known as a calm appraiser of events and people. Necessity sometimes asked for his take when he wanted an unbiased opinion. Exchange approached the throne dais.

"What happened here?" Necessity asked. Exchange pondered for thirty seconds.

"This is the second time someone has used the Final Hour in known history. The first was Continuity, a single Immortal, probably as the Final Hour was meant to be used."

"When you sent five at once, the allotted sixty minutes were divided equally among them. That was why your final hour lasted only for twelve minutes." If Necessity was stung by the implied critique in Exchange's assessment, he did not show it.

"As for the Fed gear suddenly exploding, I think we all know that mass-production of magical items had not been nerfed until now because you were clearly pushing the Compendium in the opposite direction."

"The Compendium was destroyed fifteen minutes ago. Any pull you had over it disappeared, and rules returned to normal. All their equipment was nerfed at once—it seems a suspicious timing, but the truth is that it should have been nerfed weeks ago."

"In short, I think your management of the whole situation has been abysmal," Exchange concluded.

"Thank you for your input, Exchange. You may retire," Necessity answered dispassionately. Many eyes glared at the Coven's leader as Exchange went back to his seat. Exchange watched the rest of the Coven's reactions. His brain ran billions of simulations simultaneously, studying each of the Immortals from infinite perspectives. Necessity was losing its grasp on them. One more fiasco and they would rebel against him. Then he turned his mind towards Necessity itself.

Once, the Coven's leader had been a figure of mystery and wonder to him. Not anymore. His mind was so advanced now that he could read Necessity like a book. He knew how the Coven's leader would react to any situation; he could guess with almost total certainty what Necessity was thinking now—there was nothing Necessity could do or say that could surprise him anymore. Exchange's intellect had always been a thing of wonder. Now it was the most advanced instrument in the multiverse.

Another gift from his benefactor, one that had allowed him to craft a perfect lie. A lie that disguised the immense power of his patron and laid the responsibility for his actions at Necessity's feet. All had bought the lie, save the Coven's leader. Exchange knew Necessity suspected something—the timing had been too perfect. That was fine. That was good. Everything was coming along. Necessity stayed long after the last Immortal had left the Hall of Reunion.

Exchange's lies had been very convincing, but they could not fool him. He had checked the Final Hour's description inside his own log. Unlike the rest of the Immortals, he knew the exact place where to look—the benefits of having played this game for a long time. The Final Hour: Enter any plane of reality you wish, for one hour. When the time is up, become Exiled. If more than one person enters at the same time, the allotted stay period is divided among all participants. It was pretty clear, after all.

But he knew something was amiss. That last sentence did not exist one hour ago. Someone had added it. Who had the power to do something like this? This was rewriting reality at a fundamental level. Exchange's explanation about the Federation's tech fiasco was also suspect. He knew something like that would happen sooner or later, but his calculations had predicted at least three months before the tech became unstable. Necessity had not pressured the Compendium to delay the nerf. It was just not possible.

Nerf Modules were not centralized in the Compendium—they were an integral part of every copy of the system Experientials acquired when activated. The Icosahedron was not necessary to keep any subroutine active; all components of the system—competencies, quests, Exiles, and nerfs—would keep working even with the Compendium erased from existence. The Icosahedron was only necessary to introduce the system into an inactive world. Once introduced, it would replicate like a virus.

Calculations could be wrong, but having the Federation blow up just after the death of the Immortal assassination squad? Too many coincidences—he did not believe in coincidence. Even more troubling, Exchange had to know his lies would be obvious to Necessity. This was not a coup; this was a public challenge— I am coming for you, and I am not worried about anything you can do. Who was he working for? Where did his master get those powers? One problem at a time.

The Federation was his primary tool for retrieving the artifact. Now he had to improvise. The Compendium's erasure did not lessen his need to recover the Icosahedron; on the contrary, it was now more urgent than ever. The Circle did not know that. For them, the Artifact was now a useless memento. They could not be more wrong. The Coven needed new tools. The Losers walked back to the Circle's positions, carrying Dawn's unconscious body. Bob had given Jenna the Icosahedron.

She tried in vain to scan it for signs of activity. It was wholly and truly inert. Billy watched the sky, looking at something only he could see.

"Damn it. The dungeon has released a huge Essence cloud. I do not have AP left—I can't do anything about it. This is going to cause trouble. It will generate a lot of new dungeons in the area." They passed among the corpses and the dying, heading back to their friends. They had won. It did not feel like a victory.