Chương 85: Chapter 78.5 - Irreversible Damage

++The bloodshed and destruction in Orapathaqi was unfortunate, and I would sooner have prevented it, but there was no real doubt in my mind given the circumstances. ++ - From the writings of Isabel Vornholt, 'The Great Lich'. 1, 891 A. E. Bagran had barely been able to wait for the signal to charge.

He was the son of one Winzorth Grandmaster and the great grandson of another, magic ran through his veins as purely and potently as did nobility run through any Duke's, and the whole, vast history of the Voret line was leaning down on his shoulders. And now was his chance to prove it. Talent, training, natural excellence—it would be harder to list the qualities he didn't have than the ones he did. And of those missing qualities only one truly stung him now; a suitable bride. He already had her, of course.

She was just a bit slow on the uptake, and this siege was his chance to show her that. Moments trickled by like syrup leaking from fat fingers. Bagran felt every second as an affront to him. He ought to have been the one leading this damned charge, he ought to be a Regimental Leader among the magicians here. His great uncle had been, even when he'd lost the position of Winzorth Grandmaster to the old fool currently holding it.

Things would already be over if Bagran were where he belonged, but of course the battle magicians didn't do things the normal way. The half-educated thugs in Garamon's battlemagic corps were easily half commoners by volume, and those of them from a properly bred magician family were usually the rejects of that family. They insisted on seniority above all else, jealous of the prodigieswho would otherwise rise to the top. Well fine.

Bagran was used to petty people doing petty things out of petty jealousy; it was, as his mother had always said, a simple consequence of greatness. And he had greatness enough to weather it now. Oh yes! Greatness enough for a thousand slights against him, and the memory to recall them all. One day he would be at the head of this army. No. He would be at the head of Winzorth. No! This army and Winzorth, and all the other magician institutes of Garamon—of the world, even.

One day he would be the most powerful man to ever live, more powerful even than the Gods. … Hm. Now there was a thoug—the signal came, and Bagran's ruminations on destiny and birthright were cut short as his legs started moving.

I was starting to wonder what all the fuss was about warfare and the horrors of combat. Making my way through the siege, slaying one magician after another and sweeping lower-level warriors aside like leaves before a gale, I found the whole thing rather trivial. There would be no nightmares for me, those would be enjoyed only by the defenders unfortunate enough to try and fight me.

Which were numerous, because I did not take long to cut deeper into the city than the rest of my allies, and was soon swarmed by disorganised imbeciles, half of which hesitated to even attack me. There are advantages to resembling a teenage girl I suppose. As much as I was enjoying myself, I also made sure to remain serious. This was not simply leisure, regardless of how fun I found the carnage. I was here for a purpose.

I had read enough of Garamon's history to know that this siege would be followed by looting, rapes and burnings. Book burnings. In a city this old, with necromantic arts and culture dating back millennia. That was not something I had any intention to permit, but I had to be realistic about my ability to stop it. That ability did not exist, so instead I would limit the harm as best as I could. Orapathaqi was a large city, despite its ancient origins.

Once I got past the initial obstacle of fighting through enemy magicians and soldiers, I was still left with the more mundane problem of needing to navigate a vast, foreign settlement. Ironically, this would have been easier for me were it even more ancient. Had it been founded a brief few thousand years earlier, Lord Dread would surely have set foot in the place before his war with the Gods, and my memory would have remained unblemished all these years later.

As things were I was limited to intuition rather than recollection. Always less reliable, especially for a lich. So much less reliable, in fact, that I opted for another method entirely. Once I was far enough from the front of the fighting, I spared my next magician kill and seized the incapacitated man by his throat, glaring down into his eyes.

"Where is the Temple of the Dead?" I demanded. In all likelihood, my Old Estalian was broken. I had only been learning it for a brief few days before leaving after all, and even a lich's mind can only soak up information so quickly. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. Still, it was good enough for him to understand.

"It's… north, north of the city, in the district with… no lights." Undead do not like lights. The weakest of them are actually slowed and enfeebled by it, while even the mid-level ones find it irritating and distracting. I believed him. And I did not want anybody to hear from him where I had gone, so I sent a quick burst of conjured lightning up through his brainstem to fry the tissues above. Painless and instantaneous, as payment for his good information.

I put that good information to work and set off once more at a jog, my body finally starting to tire from the exertions. Meat. Ugh. The district in question was easily found, especially with all the fires burning in Orapathaqi now. I saw it as a vast shadow consuming much of the architecture and headed right there. Caution, or perhaps paranoia, had me ready to be ambushed as I made my way through it, but I was not.

Instead I had a free shot through the street right up until I approached the large temple that crowned the shrouded section. Caster-priests was not an especially ambiguous word. If there was anywhere in the city I could expect to find stores of magical knowledge, this was it. Fifty steps led up to the top of the structure.

I cheated without even attempting to climb them, leaping at the base and modifying the propulsion method from my aether sled to throw back a jet of the material angled just so to send me flying up. I landed just a few strides short of the very top, fortunately with enough deftness that I did not wound myself. That was impulsive, in the future I would have to make sure I tested tricks like that on level ground. It worked this time though.

Ornate stone awaited me as I headed for the entrance, worked into a grand arch framed by mural-clad walls. They depicted one or several Gods, though not the ones of Garamon. I barely resisted the urge to blast them apart anyway. Gods of any kind are not something I enjoy, and it was only the historic value of this place that stayed my hand. Within the temple, the darkness abated. It was lit now by odd, green flames which I felt a tinge of magic to as their light struck my skin, though I could not be certain why.

The question was joined by many others as I headed deeper through the halls inside. To my eye, it almost resembled the interior of Itenzhor's ruins. There were clear differences, even outside of the lack of natural wear, but I could see a similar architectural style. Perhaps this place was inspired by the other. That was interesting, and had very serious implications. Sakhent was considered a dark figure in Garamon, and by all accounts he was not well thought of in modern Estalia either.

But those accounts had to make their way across the ocean before reaching my books. I wondered how accurate they were about the views of a people as insular and secretive as Orapathaqi's priesthood. My personal shield crackled and fizzed in the air as I walked, its edges rubbing on the ground, still not quite seamless enough for me to run at full speed without clipping the shield onto itself.

That sound, and the occasional flash, would give me away, so I did not bother with subtlety as I headed through the chamber and started blasting open doors. Books. I was after books, or scrolls, or tablets—anything that looked like it might hold a shred of ancient wisdom, that would be safer in my hands than those of the barbaric soldiers about to tear through here. Before I found any, I found fire.

It reared up just as I entered a room and moved fast enough that I knew it was not natural before I had even started moving. The waves of flame hit my shield, stripping away aether like charred skin from a condemned witch and throwing me back with the shock of it. I could not see. My eyes were overloaded, light too intense to make anything out of what was going on. My attacker knew where I was—they had memory to go off—but I had yet to locate them and my eyes were useless.

So I looked for their mana instead, and saw it outlining their Vessel just as always. My hand splayed out and I hurled an aether capsule at them, filled with water and made with one of its walls far thinner than the others. The thin wall was burned away fastest, leaving a gap aimed directly at the enemy magician that vented out superheated steam with pressure and speed enough that the rest of the capsule actually exploded with the air resistance of being shot back.

The flames stopped, my trick having bought me a few moments. I lifted myself up with a burst of force rather than waste time standing manually, locking eyes with my enemy. A short man. Old, dark skinned though not half as much as the Grandmaster. He had wide, frantic eyes and a hateful sneer and his lips were moving so fast I could not tell if they formed a prayer or a spell. My hands moved just as fast.

Our magic missiles met with a sound like temple bells tolling, then bounced from each other to strike our respective shields with a sound more like those same bells clumsily bouncing downhill. My feet left the ground, and my body left the room. I struck the wall just outside it. The wall did not survive my impact. I barely did, my shield absorbed the worst of it and spread my deceleration out. Even still I spent some sizable fraction of a second weighing many times more than my body was meant to.

I dropped to my knees and tasted blood in my mouth, felt my ears ringing, my head spinning. Then I ignored the pain and readied another magic missile, a magician-killer this time. A mistake. The other magician had already recovered by the time I launched it, and he parried the spell with his own casting that came too fast for me to fully track. We slew another wall between us in the next clash, and then were hiding from one another between one more.

Both of us, at once, seemed to have mutually decided this fight was not one we wanted to play out in one burst. I was the bolder of us. My attack came through the wall, first as waves of controlled heat to melt and soften it, then as a magic missile made to drill through and detonate against the one shielding my enemy. It exploded the stonework out and left a jagged hole through both surfaces, that I crawled through even as I charged up my next attack and stumbled into the room my enemy hid in.

He clipped me with a spell I did not have time to recognise, noticing only as a sudden, harsh pain in my side that made the eyes water and the legs weaken. My magician-killer flew out next and buried itself in the man's guts, carving through them like a sharp knife through gristle. He made a terrible sound, shivered once with his full body, then fell still. The room was silent all at once, save for the soft humming of my personal shield. I felt the quietude linger only a few moments before a voice came out.

"... Father?" I turned and saw a young woman kneeling in one corner of the room, eyes wide with horror as she stared at the corpse I had just made. Her Vessel shone with magic, but none of it was moving to her hands. I would find no more opposition here. And as of now, I had just located a guide.