Weapon Master of Kush

‘’And?’’

The shrewd young woman leading the new council of Kushite refugees asks with all seriousness conveying confidence beyond her age in her bearing, still, some of her nervousness is plain to me.

‘’He is improving,’’ I say looking at the three others. Each newly risen leaders having taken charge during the defence and now retreat with everyone else either dead or too cowardly to come forward.

‘’How much of an improvement,’’ the eldest of them asks pulling his tattered coat about himself trying and seemingly failing to keep away the cold elements from his lean frame.

‘’He is improving as well as can be expected for someone that previously had the bare minimum amount of training required to reach 1st tier before all this unpleasantness began,’’ I try not to be threatening in my demeanour but I am annoyed. It takes years to properly train a warrior.

‘’Unpleasantness,’’ the third of the council says with an ironic smirk. ‘’You have a way with understating that tickles my bones, First Sword.’’

The man is a thief, swindler and murderer that led one of the most notorious gangs in Cyphris but now here he stands, an accepted leader of the remnants that remain.

‘’I have not accepted the position of First Sword to this council nor will I, find yourself another champion to stand for you. I do not mind training any that you pick.’’

‘’You are the most skilled and experienced body warrior left in all of Southern Kush, if not you then who would bear the burden? Besides, training the Sage Killer is more important than anything else.’’ The last on the council of four says without giving anything away in her demeanour.

The cold wind blows her rags about without causing any visible discomfort, her grey-silver hair billowing more than it should with the wind exposing her small face and long graceful neck yet somehow leaving the rest of her untouched. Grey eyes lock on mine, deep eyes completely unreadable yet brimming with inner power having gained much from the recent Awakenings.

‘’I can recommend you a few candidates.’’

Her peircing gaze turns to the man on my left so far silently watching the exchange without much action.

‘’What do you say First Mage? Do you think we could find another for the position of First Sword more suited than the weapon master?’’

His eyes turn to me, he is nervous in my presence as he has been since his childhood, he turns back to the council facing his questioner without flinching from her gaze. Still fresh but he has a spine at least, they could do worse for First Mage.

‘’I think there is no better time than now to start grooming everyone we have left for the various positions that are needed to keep our people safe. We are going to have to rebuild, its best we start now.’’

‘’Spoken like a true bureaucrat,’’ the first woman says, ‘’and he isn’t wrong.’’ She looks at her counterparts in the council having silent communication with them.

‘’Recommend us 7 names and train all 7 along with the Sage Killer if that won’t be too much of a burden for you, Weapon Master. You also First Mage, we will assign 6 others to train and share the burden of responsibility with you in executing the council’s will and protecting our people. From now onwards the will always be seven (7) Swords and Mages amongst our people.’’

The First Mage bows slightly in acceptance.

‘’First Scribe, you also need to find 6 others to share responsibility and leadership with.’’

‘’Yes of course mistress,’’ the young man says quickly. ‘’I will need some help finding help though, I’m afraid not many of my Order survived.’’

‘’What do you need?’’ the grey-eyed grey-haired councillor asks.

‘’We are few remaining, stretched thin trying to catalogue all that have survived and the abilities that have manifested amongst the people. We have spoken amongst ourselves, we need to train new scribes from the children and teach them our histories and our ways lest we forget with all we’ve left behind.’’

‘’History and such can be taught later when we’ve found somewhere to settle in safety, our priorities have already been established,’’ The eldest says in a growling grumble moving towards a bolder whilst not leaving the circle so he’s out of the wind. ‘’Take all the children you can handle, there isn’t much better for them to do. They’ll have to learn on the march ‘cause we aren’t slowing for anyone. Captain Rail, you will assign some men to assist the scribes.’’

‘’My men are of better use protecting the people ensuring the safety of the routine ahead.’’

‘’And so far there has been nothing of threat in our route. Don’t blow smoke at us Captain, everything lucky or smart enough to have survived so far is also fleeing to the coast with the rest of us.’’

‘’I can spare 20 men,’’ the remaining military man of rank grumbles, fist clenching tight in angry shame.

‘’Since we’re at the topic, where exactly are we going?’’ The scribe gets several sour looks directed at him for the question which have him shrinking with their weight.

‘’Away from here,’’ the young woman leading the council says wistfully. Pointedly not looking into the far distance where the black stain that used to be the richest territory in the Kushite empire bloats like a festering wound.

...

The silence is pronounced.

‘’There are still some Celestian vessels moared in Creece, Embizweni and Alanda, we’ve sent our fastest messangers to stall them so we may buy passage.’’ I point out.

‘’You would have us beg our most stalwart enemies favour? They’ll robe us blind and watch us starve as they laugh from their ships, if they don’t have mercy and impale us on their spears before taking our women and children as slaves.’’

The Captain spits, disgusted. Understandable from a man whose been fighting the Celestians his entire life, I’ve been alive since before our two people made war with each other though, hence I advised this course of action.

‘’At least they are people, at least they are Gaian and not some other-worldly creatures bend on slaughter and blight! Don’t come here with your self-righteous anger stirring the fighting men against us like we have better options, if we did you’d have pointed them out by now, speak if you are so full of ideas! Where should our people go? Where is there safety?’’

The old man turns ashen grey with fiery cracks breaking across his exposed skin, heat radiates from him as he seemingly gets larger in his anger. The older grey-clad woman calms him with a delicate phantom hand on his shoulder, breath hisses hot from his nostrils as he calms himself, shrinking back to normalcy.

Having taken charge is not the only reason these four are now the new council, power will always remain in the hands of the powerful. However that power manifests.

‘’You may question us in these meetings as is appropriate Captain, but insubordination on a decision already made will not be tolerated. You understand?’’ The young woman asks the captain in a mild almost casual manner, he nods reluctantly but wisely keeps his mouth shut.

I suppress a snort, they grow up so fast.

‘’Good, now, First Scribe. Tell us of the deviant abilities that have been catalogued amongst the people so far, are the any with potential of being mage killers?’’

The scribe starts listing off abilities that people have been exhibiting since the mass Awakenings. Everyone and their mother now has some sort of mana ability, most with a caveat unique only to them. From people turning into sand, disappearing completely from sight, dissolve into the ground, displays of unreasonable amounts of strength, some abilities immediately useful with others being completely impractical.

The few fighters that remain have all mana evolved mostly towards paths they were already on as warriors, with the young man Ori the only one to have become a complete mana null. A very rare Awakening deviation but not unheard of according to the scribe.

A scout rushes to the Captain, whispering urgently in encrypted words.

‘’There is movement from the Blight, something comes,’’ Captain Rail says in alarm.

Like most others my eyes immediately turn to look at the ugly blackness a stark contrast to all things holy and pure far in the distance where once we made our homes. The Blight isn’t advancing again thank the heavens, I relax slightly knowing its not the Sages themselves that are moving.

‘’Go all of you, see to our defences,’’ the council leader says to everyone.

I turn to leave but am stopped by a call from the council leader.

‘’Weapons Master, will the Sage Killer be ready?’’

‘’He will have to be.’’

*

Sachihiro

There are deep crevices and dark smoking tunnels of sulphur in my route that delay my progress. Strange creatures that pepper me with stinging attacks, twisting paths that lead to dead ends, bouts of spiritual depletion that lead to fear, anxieties, confusion and doubt that needs me to sit still and meditate for hours at a time. The Underworld is vast, stark and from what I’ve seen almost wholly inhospitable but some forms of life do find ways to persist here.

The hours turn to days and the days to ten-days I feel, though I have no way of noting when a one day ends and another begins with no orientation and no sun with which to mark such occasions.

It’s a testament to how vast my spiritual reserves were that I didn’t go mad from the cold dark isolation of that stark place when first I got here. In fact, now that I think about it that place I arrived at was particularly harrowing to the psyche and though I am physically stronger now I’m not sure how well I could endure down there again without that thick lake the spirituality I previously enjoyed.

The temperature increases steadily as I travel further and further into the underground, the Library map largely outdated but giving a comforting sense of direction. I ignore the feather-light awareness of the thread in my mind pointing me in another direction, I ignore the slight nagging compulsion to follow that thread. At some point Phosphorus’ geas lost some of its bite but the fact that it’s there at all is a black mark of shame.

Why can’t a person deal with a Spirit once and be done with it? Why do they always cling and make things more difficult than they need to be?

I stop as the stone crumbles like glass under my feet. The feel from the frequencies tells me the stone-glass is almost a metre deep in a ragged line almost 10m at its widest, this was a river of flowing stone not so long ago I realise. How does that even happen?

I take it slower.

I come across many strange phenomenon that start to paint a picture of a straggle having taken place here, a struggle that bent the laws of nature in places. Much is destroyed though there shouldn't be much destroyable down here.

There are boulders larger than hills scattered about that have recently broken off from somewhere, areas of floating stones where the downward pull of gravity is as light as in water.

There are areas of such extreme heat and cold that I immediately start to blister and boil as I walk into them without having felt the slightest of pain before my body starts falling apart disrupted by the energies.

Two of my healing potions are exhausted seeing to those wounds.

I go around such temperature phenomenon as much as I can as carefully as I can. The place is a natural disaster mine field, each new ‘field of struggle’ more weird than the last circumventing the natural laws in ways that challenge or outright bar any further progress.

A titanic struggle took place here of that there is no doubt. But the range in which the fight must have taken place and the multitude of abilities used boggles my mind to consider the further ahead I head. With the oculus the ceiling to this area I can’t glimpse its so far up yet stalactites from above are pierced into the ground like vast gardens of giant stone trees piercing from the black sky.

There is no blood, there is no tissue from wounds or limbs of the dead. Just scares in the rocks, broken sections of hard stone, crystalline rivers of dry magma and residues of power so potent I can’t tell what type of energy may have caused them. Their lingering effects slowing but never stopping my progress to the gate that could take me to Pangaia in a single step.

I don’t forget the reason I almost allowed myself to succumb in that tuning-stone. Another of my children is dead, dead at our Foothill home where I considered most safe, dead where we should have been safely hidden from all these happenings. I need to get home fast, I need to make sure that the little ones-

My blood sings a burning song as I step into a dazing sensation of shimmering heat. There is no burn in the heat but a blood tickling so strong that I contort involuntary dancing to the contor of the power I have stepped into. My bones click into unusual angles with the twisting of muscles pushed by the odd flow of blood within me.

[KRRRRRR]

Muscles rip, bleeding bruises across my stretched out form. Using the next changing contortion I push myself up and backwards landing in a tumbling roll out of the energy field.

[MHHH HOOO.]

I breathe deeply, a twitching mess on the floor but alive. That smarts, but it’s not as bad as that boiling place was, I breathe deeply letting myself calm.

I’ll wait it out, the trembling is subsiding. It’s best not to force the body into recovery before its ready for healing. I let the shaking and trauma bleed off before getting up and drinking a portion of a healing potion. The taste is strongly bitter but I can almost immediately feel myself getting better. I lie down as comfortably as I can whilst trying to perceive the boundary of the energy field with careful awareness of all my senses.

*Deep breath.

The potion works vastly better when I rest to let it work instead of exerting myself and I’m just too intrigued by these lingering power phenomenas not to try to perceive them at the very least.

Mmmh, how does this feel to my senses.

If I can solve the trick to it I may be able to go through it instead of around it, which could save me from going hours in the wrong direction. I take the time to feel the energies and how I perceive them, how they make themselves known to me.

Between 40 to 70 minutes later I’m still nowhere to making sense of what made my blood react that way so I get up, my body is healed enough to be almost at peak condition. Even some of the fatigue having slightly washed away but I’m hungry.

These potions are strong.

I snack on the meal bar as I run along the boundary of the blood contorting energy field occasionally testing with a finger to check whether or not I’m passed the blood curling phenomenon.

The rerouting around is frustrating but I’ll get there, nothing will stop me from getting to that gate portal.