Malcolm Tent
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Wish upon the Stars chapter 554
🕑 Added 2024-02-07 00:58:43 +0000 UTCCamden was, as we expected, furious. The normally composed noble grabbed the table we usually sat at under the end an without blinking, hurled it sideways, smashing the end into the fireplace in the dining room and shattering the brickwork so thoroughly we could see the next room through the hole.
“Fucking SPENCER!” He bellowed. “A whole planet? Are you fucking KIDDING me? I know he’s a fucking monster but this is beyond the pale. And Sara? How could she be part of this?” He slumped into a chair, burying his face in his hands. “What the fuck do I do?”
I hesitated. “Can’t we just deal with it later? We don’t even have a time table. It might not be too urgent.”
He laughed hollowly. “No. We know exactly when it’ll happen. The day of the final showdown with Clairdon. Spencer wants me to die, and he wants it to be as painful as possible. Snatching defeat from the jaws of my victory is just his style, not to mention if we’re already mid battle our defenses will be nonexistent.”
“Shit.” I cursed. “Ok…well, that might not be as bad as it sounds. We still have my wishes. We can rope in some of the other nobles and lock them into geasa to prevent news from leaking.”
His head snapped up, confusion crossing his face. “You’re not…leaving?” He asked in disbelief. “I mean, I appreciate that, but…are you fucking insane? This whole planet is going to be overrun by stone lions.You should leave. Hell, I want to leave, and I probably would if I wasn’t sure my asshole cousin had at least one contingency for that, probably something involving a bomb on a ship. He likes doing that. He killed two of my siblings that way. And one of his.”
“That’s not a bad idea.” I said slowly. “Why don’t we evac the planet? If we announce whats going to happen-”
He shook his head. “If the Earl is in on it that won’t work. Causing a public panic is illegal. He’d send the planetary guard to arrest you. That’s a valid use of his power. I’m also guessing he issued a blockade on the mirror world. That’s going to draw attention eventually, but inter-planetary calls are expensive, they don’t happen too often at lower levels of society.”
“And the nobles are all scared shitless of the Earl.” I guessed with a sigh. The worst part was that while the Earl couldn’t do shit to me, if the planetary guard showed up I’d be screwed. Those guys were all D-rank or lower. I cursed under my breath. “So what the hell do we do? How do we stop this?”
He shrugged. “We fight. If we take the battle to Clairdon early when he’s unprepared, we can scoop up the territory. Once Saltzberg is under our control, we can start building up defenses and moving the citizens out of the way.” He glanced at my sister, who had been unusually quiet since we arrived. “They’ll come up out of the well, I take it?”
She started, needing a second to catch up. “Ah, yes. There are other entrances to the surface but they’re further out. It’s unnecessary to delay. They’ll probably tear their way out though, and that hole will get wider. Any chance we can start on the defenses early? Some of the buildings near there are for sale.”
Making a curious sound, he grabbed a map, rolling it out before realizing he’d thrown our table across the room and pinning it to the wall with a few throwing knives he pulled from thing air. “South side? Let’s see.” He ran a finger over the area. “Coulomb Bakery shut down a few months ago, and Art’s Dirt Depot has been hemorrhaging money for years…damn, the Altamont Smithy.”
He pointed at a specific spot and I leaned in to squint at the image. To my surprise, as I did, the map fucking zoomed in. Neat. “How popular is the Altamont Smithy?” I asked hopefully.
“Very.” He said with a grimace. “They’re also OLD. Place has been there since Saltzberg was founded. They won’t sell.”
I cursed. “Do we need them? Two buildings should be enough. We expand them into one large compound surrounding the well and then start reinforcing the ground there. When the big showdown happens, the lions will be held at the walls and so will Clairdons people. We hit them and then draw them out. Drip feed the lions and maybe even use them against Clairdon.”
“Won’t work.” Said Chelsea with a shake of her head. “The higher ranked ones will punch right through. What we need is to make another exit point, something that leads somewhere we’re less worried about them ending up. When the big boys come out the high rankers can take care of them.”
I wished Callie was here. She’d have some ideas, but Chelsea and I had come alone, because my girlfriend wanted to check in with her recruits. Gabe was handling mine, but Abel was much less trustworthy when unsupervised.
Camden seemed intrigued by the possibilities, and I left them to argue particulars, turning to the one out of place person in this room. “Demia.” I said cautiously. “Can you teach me a formation I can drill into my people that will help dealing with the lions?” I had some ideas for possible weaponry, but their use would be critical.
She looked surprised to be acknowledged. She’d come along because Camden had thought this was some kind of debriefing about my century, and he said he trusted her implicitly.
“I may have some ideas.” She admitted. “I’d prefer to see the creatures, study their vulnerabilities, but barring that, there are several defensive formations that allow for spear work. I assume you did want to corral them and stab them to death and aren’t stupid enough to fight an army of animals head on?”
I nodded. “We do need more information about their physiology, but most likely.” I turned to call out to Camden. “We were supposed to meet up with your armorer, though that kept getting pushed back. I trust they can do weapons too? Or know someone who can?”
Callie had mentioned plans to wish for a detailed description of the Stone Lions, so I’d only be doing the base five today for Camden. Since it was Saturday we’d be free to get in touch with the armorer all day, and should have plenty of time to squeeze in some quick research. Callie checking in on her century was more formality than anything so it shouldn’t take long. They were off for the weekend too, she just wanted to stay available. That was part of why I hadn’t worried about sending Gabe to deal with things.
“Of course.” He said with a smile. “Though I’ve seen your staff, and it’s better quality than anything my smith is likely to have the materials for.”
I waved him off. “Not for me. I had another idea. Anyway, let me go get Callie and the others. We should probably bring Bethy too, since I know she’ll throw a fit if she doesn’t get creative input. Where is your armorer anyway?”
He chuckled. “Sonia works in the basement. She says the sound of idiocy throws off the crafting process. I brought her with me when I came here. She’s a distant relative, though not close enough to the main family line to be a potential threat. She’s got an…interesting personality.”
“I’m sure she and Bethy will get on like a house on fire then.” I laughed, imagining the damage our fashionista vampire could do with access to a skilled armorer. We’d never wear the same clothes more than once ever again.
He shuddered. “Please don’t joke about that. We had to pay triple for D-rank fire suppression on the basement. They weren’t happy about tying the higher ranked spells into the general ward schema. Sonia is…enthusiastic, when crafting, and she isn’t particularly worried about fire because of her inborn Skill.”
I wondered exactly what that Skill might be, but I didn’t have time to ask. Instead of going to find her, I flexed my soul and shot a message off to Callie to bring everyone here. It was an odd sensation, because while the bond worked over distances, this particular feature felt less intense when we were separated.
The message seemed to wing off into the ether, at least until I got a quick affirmative response from my girlfriend. “They’re on their way, and I told Callie where to find us.” I informed our host. “Why don’t you take us down to meet your armorer, and I can ask my questions before anyone arrives to start work on their armor.”
Shrugging, he gestured for us to follow. “A few rules before we go down there. First of all, don’t speak to Sonia until she acknowledges you, if you interrupt a crafting session and something goes wrong she WILL try to kill you. Second rule, don’t touch anything, even innocuous looking stuff, because it might be enchanted or possibly cursed.”
We both nodded, and he led us to an innocuous door in the corner of an alcove off one of the main hallways. It didn’t look too sturdy…but the bulky metal door covered in bars and locks behind it looked nearly impenetrable. Camden led us into the room between the two doors, closed the one to the hall, then stepped up and started yanking bars and turning knobs.
The metal door began to glow with a roiling blue green light, and the light brightened after each undone lock. Once he finished with the bars, he pulled out a ring of keys and started unlocking locks.
“This opens much easier from the inside.” He said as the door finally swung back, opening onto a stone staircase leading down. “We’re more worried about people getting in than anything getting out.” He paused. “Except during Sonia’s golem phase. But that was before we got to this planet, and she grew out of it after the…er, incident, at Lichtenbright.”
Leading us down, he ceased all talking, and remembering his earlier warning I did the same. As we got deeper I could hear a rhythmic ringing sound echoing along the stairway. Clang. Clang. Clang. It was pretty obviously metal on metal. When we reached the bottom of the steps, Camden held up his finger to his lips and slowly eased open the door, waving us in.
We emerged into a massive stone room. Along the walls were dozens of devices and objects I had no knowledge of and couldn’t begin to guess the purpose of. In the center of that room, standing over a flat cube of dark matte material glowing with blue runes, was a tall, willowy woman with scarlet hair.
She had on an apron over light clothes to protect from sparks presumably, but her heavily muscled arms were scarred and bare down to the forearm where her gloves covered her vulnerable fingers. Said fingers were currently gripping a huge square headed hammer set with glowing blue stones.
As she slammed down her hammer on the unidentifiable shape on the cube, I focused harder, triggering eye of revelation to try to see what she was staring at, since it wasn’t her anvil.
I gasped as I saw the air around her manifesting a huge blue holographic image. As she brought down the hammer, a big chunk of it lit up, changing shape as the blow landed, and she used her non hammer hand to shift the pair of tongs holding the object. This time the image lit up in a different spot.
Inhaling sharply, I realized what this was. That anvil thing created a giant representation of the magic and material in that item she was making, allowing her to adjust her control and forging to address minute, normally imperceptible issues. Even if Perception could let you see fine details, that was only external. The internal stuff wasn’t visible. I grinned to myself. Yeah, THIS was who I wanted making my armor. I couldn’t wait to see what she could do.
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