Rain Harlow
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(Vol 6) Chapter 26: Undercurrent
🕑 Added 2024-08-23 15:09:04 +0000 UTCSammy-as-Ralindin double-cast two fireballs from the air as she backpedaled at high speed, maintaining distance from the giant mechanical insects. One after the other, fiery explosions cracked in their midst, and three failed to dodge or resist at all. They exploded in a burst of inner energies and crashed downward in multiple pieces.
One was just clipped and damaged a wing. It steered its fall right into the spooled-out staff wires, latched on, holding, and soon ‘jerked the chain.’ In the split moment, Sammy did not fully know if she could let go, so she braced and held on for dear life.
Despite her preparation, the wires simply spooled out more slack, and moreover, some broke off and shot through and around the insectoid machine, enveloping it. It struggled uselessly as sparks of energy flared and bits of frame and inner workings were shredded and ripped out. Not long after, it went dead.
The dragon was not so easy to disable, however. It rolled around, bucked, and clawed at the restraints, snapping a few wires, though it only got more entangled in the process.
Meanwhile, the Grand Artificer gave a feral cry of rage and thrust out his arm — the forearm of his armor seemed to grow a miniature mechanical dragon head, and it shot out a great lance of fire.
Sammy dodged it, and then another that came right after, great spears of flame shooting past her to hit the stone walls beyond.
The third lance shot wider and nowhere near her, as Spanzurat seemed to convert it into a whip-like blade and sweep it down at the wire lines.
This again?! Leave my staff alone!
With no real recourse to stop it with a spell in time, Sammy flung the rest of the staff with all her might, at an angle to avoid the slice of the fire. A long shot…
Fortunately, the staff obliged her like it was another limb, bending and contorting its slack to elastically avoid the fire, then edge just past it with a final whip crack dodge. The dueling fire whip of Spanzurat whiffed.
The dragon had managed to begin summoning up another breath attack from its gut by appearances, its nostrils heavily smoking as it turned its head upward with strain and difficulty, aiming at the mass of wires and at Ralindin high above, no doubt hoping to catch it all in one spray.
Sammy remained quick enough to take advantage of the opening, however. She invoked the obvious right spell element for the right occasion: electricity. She hesitated in the last moment on the target, though.
Instead of going for the dragon itself from the outside, she fired the arc at the wire lines instead.
Lightning shot from her fingertips, hit the wires, and the mechanical dragon spasmed and flopped. It smoked from every tiny gap, and smaller explosions went off inside it. The titan gave another fingernails-on-chalkboard scream as it was entirely caught in a seizure.
Ralindin took over here, hand held out as she maintained the electrocution. “Do you see the ease of checks and balances by the mastery of elements? It did not begin externally, Grand Artificer. First, a mastery of the self. There is only one other to attain it, though many of you seekers think otherwise. One allied to another will not stop him. Only all against him can. This toy is not the answer you think. We’ll begin by taking it apart for a few phantoms of the equation, though.”
“Enough!” the Grand Artificer called with a pained groan, eyes locked on the dragon. “Cease your torture! I yield. Gangremach yields. Do not destroy him. You have no idea the… sacrifices I’ve paid to fashion him. Do not let it go to waste, and I will cooperate.”
Ralindin relented in frying the dragon, and it flopped limply, still smoking and even on fire in a few places. With a smile, she hovered closer to Spanzurat, crossing her arms behind her back. “Oh, you’ll do more than that, my dear new friend. You’ll swear an oath and you will obey. That is the necessity and reality of what we face, I’m afraid. You will see it and understand all too soon.”
Ralindin ignored the man’s hateful scowl. It was a dark world, and she had to corral conquerors in the only way they understood or respected. It was an unfortunate beginning, but a start that was necessary. So she had foreseen through the muddy waters of time and fate. It was a reflection of before and would be a reflection of after. So it was for her to cement and secure the very foundations and roots of a grand Work of Progress.
She hoped her first ‘corralled conqueror’ fared as well in her efforts sent to a distant land. Time was short, an alliance was needed immediately to blunt the tide about to fall, so she had to gamble her…
Lover.
It was awkward and bewildering that she had tripped into a paramour — almost literally. It was not something she’d ever once considered until suddenly she was being tumbled into a bed. She somewhat suspected the strange alchemist had such intentions from the beginning. When so charged, she’d been coy and not confirmed or denied it. It made the matter of who conquered who rather unclear.
Ralindin didn’t mind that. At least one whose loyalty was freely given was… pleasant. Ideally, they’d all be that way.
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In the palace of Almura Kaeda, seemingly sitting at her ease and idly sipping wine, Azure tried not to let the agent she was acting as sweat. It was an effort.
“The interplay between the Marquess of Squares and the Jack of Circles is curious,” Vartemore — the accursed Iteration of Orswyth — mused as he played yet another strange card on the ‘gaming’ table, making a bewildering network of linked interactions with four numbers in each corner of the card. “Funny how this humble Jack reaches across so many spaces between with the mere number one so prevalent.”
The room was spacious and barren but for one guard within shouting distance. It was almost like a dining room. The table was a circle with a big star indent in the middle where the cards were played. Vantemore was a gray-skinned devilish being with curled pointy horns and expressive, green eyes, dressed in robes one part erudite, one part fashionable flair, and two parts ‘technomancer,’ for lack of any other term she could come up with.
He called it ‘cosmic energy,’ though, so I guess Cosmomancer is the term? His title was simply ‘Heavenly Guide,’ or ‘Guru’ as he preferred to be addressed.
Azure, in the body of Tanjhere, The High Alchemist, nodded sagely to his words, despite not really knowing very much about the game or what he was talking about. Well, she understood he’d just made a bridge that captured a ton of points.
She couldn’t invoke Tanjhere for help, either, because she didn’t know! The very inventor of the strange card game was sitting across from her. The goal of the game was a three-fourths share of the numbers ‘in interaction,’ once over a total of 144.
She was losing. Badly. She’d closed the lead a little each play, but it seemed like less and less. His play, after she stared and mentally calculated it, put him well over two-thirds again, basically seventy percent. Her prior play, the Rook of Diamonds, had pulled it just under that.
Am I barely staying afloat or is he just playing with me?
She drew her card, then opted to discard for one more. She gained the Tetrarch of Diamonds with all threes, and the Queen of Pentagrams with a big panoply of numbers. Kings and Queens were big, with a number in the middle that converted all that were connected of the same value.
She had to take her time looking at the board to even understand if she could capitalize.
Endless Sky of Fucks, there’s too many options! Where do I put this bitch?
It seemed like he wanted her to say something, so she cleared her throat and put on a typical mysterious, coy expression to more or less randomly blather, “Here I thought one was the loneliest number.” It was some crap Samantha had sung to herself once. “That you’ll ever do.” Damn it. That makes no sense. What, is the song one encouraging orgies?!
But the Guru laughed like it was a great joke and saluted her with his goblet. “Very true in theory, in this game at least. Nonetheless, it seems to be what we all want to become at the end, hmm? The one, sole winner, taking the board and dismissing whatever subtleties remain as irrelevant and unnecessary.”
“Yes,” Azure muttered vaguely, barely paying attention due to the pressure of figuring out the math of dozens of different play interactions. Especially with the Queen. Fuck, why is this my challenge?! I bet Samantha is bashing in heads right now. She absolutely is, while I have to do some stupid puzzle! “Wouldn’t it be?”
“Perhaps for them, but the cards go back into the deck to play another round, another day, or even another hour. Minute. Every configuration bears a lesson to remember, observe, and absorb.”
Azure opened Tanjhere’s mouth to speak but paused. I need to remember the advice I’ve received. What is the commonality of it all between Ozra and Sammy? Who I want to be. What I’m good at. To learn to transcend the Role and put my stamp on it…
The words of the Guru took on a new dimension as she replayed them in her head. Listened. The new dimension was an undercurrent.
She looked at the cards and suddenly stopped seeing numbers. Faces and roles. Monarchs, leaders, officials.
A political canvas?
She took in the image of the Marquess of Squares and considered its intended meaning. Suddenly, the memory of Tanjhere crystallized like a treasured diamond in her mind. It was the beloved borderland leader, Uvred Faefriend. She looked at the Jack of Circles and saw the renowned merchant-explorer, Baggundur.
Each card, she saw another, and realized it was the Commonwealth of Yunderhoth itself, of which the Guru was the very unofficial guide and protector of with his Order of Solvers. At least, each card represented the most key figures within it. Leaders and legends.
The cards she’d played were suddenly quite garishly out-of-place and ridiculous. In the map of that realm, she’d sewn chaos and disrupted the careful harmony.
Azure lifted her eyes to study the Guru, who sipped wine and watched her implacably.
This was never a numbers game. It’s a people’s game! A communication of subtlety and a lesson, while also being a test of my skills if I wasn’t too dull to see it. He could’ve beat me at the numbers many hands back, I bet. But what is he saying? What is he asking?
It struck her like another lightning bolt eureka. As it did, she barely stifled her excitement, and quickly played her Queen card — confidently. On the edge. Barely connected. She kept one finger on it.
Representing Samantha. It has to be bloody right! Please!
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Comments
Rain Harlow
Thanks for saying so!
Tiffany Miller
I'd fallen behind on reading this glad I'm caught up and sad at same time cause now no more to read
