Published at 29th of November 2024 9:32 am

Book 3 Chapter 29: Welcome to the Fall

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The druids all sat in a circle in the audience chamber with their eyes closed. The other druids and their companions wove their senses together and tethered themselves to Dantes, entangling with his own perceptions like vines wrapping around a tree as they reached toward the sun. The sensation was deeply uncomfortable for Dantes. His mind and his senses were his own, and he didn’t much enjoy sharing either of them. Still, he forced himself to be open, slowly peeling back the fingers he had clutched around his mind one by one so that they could all access it.

Each of the druids had a different kind of touch to them when they reached his mind. Traizen’s mind was sharp and cold, very different from his warm personality. Murk’s mind felt legion, as if it was always considering the needs of a pack rather than just himself. Mor-Gan-May’s was the most delicate, but tipped with danger, like a talon being gently drawn across bare skin. Lorna’s was wet, hot, and harsh, like a rough kiss in a drunken night of passion. Fizz’s was many things at once, a tentacle, a tooth, a hand, a snout, it was everything it could be. The twin’s felt like a warm breeze blowing through an alley. Coal was like touching a rough stone that had been warming in the sun. Altogether the feeling was overwhelming and reminded him of the loss of ego he experienced when he tree walked, but still he forced his mind to remain open as they all gathered within him.

It took some time, but once they were linked, their focus was one. While he’d always been able to extend his mind, his reach, across the city, suddenly he was able to pierce through almost the entire city at once. He could feel every rat, roach, ant, pigeon, dog, cat, moth, lizard, and every other creature as it skittered along as well as every plant from the smallest weed growing up through concrete to the largest trees in Uptown that were as old as the city if not older.

They took their massive sphere of attention, and Dantes narrowed it. He shrank it down smaller and smaller, focusing on where the sense of taint was the strongest. That brought them to the docks. There were a half dozen new pockets of taint that were scattered around, but thanks to the increased perception through the other druids, Dantes was able to realize that they were all linked to something greater. A larger concentration of taint. It was so big and diffuse that the sharper smaller ones had hidden it from his view. They focused on that large portion, centered on it, and Dantes matched it to his mental map of the city. It was a Leviathan processing center. Half in the water and half out of it. LIkely empty due to the plague that had spread throughout the city.

As their focus narrowed, there was a sudden whiplash as the taint they were focusing on, started to focus on them.

Dantes broke their connection and the druids all opened their eyes, snapping to their feet.

‘She knows we’re coming,” said Dantes, rolling his head to stretch his shoulders as he began to take a quick inventory of the weapons and armor he had.

“We will move quickly,” said Traizen. “You and I will attack her directly. Lorna, Mor-Gan-May, Fizz, Coal, Murk, and the twins will attack and cleanse those other sites of taint at the same time as we attack her. We need to burn her out all at once.”

Everyone nodded, including Dantes, though he was unused to being the one following orders rather than giving them.

“Does anyone need weapons? I have wands, guns, swords, daggers, spears, anything you think you may need.”

“Do you-

“-have more-

“-of the-”

“-bombs?” asked the twins.

Dantes smiled. “I can absolutely get you some.”

The others made their own requests for armament, though Traizen declined anything.

Dantes took the list down to Jayk, whose face was starting to show the signs of rash again and he seemed to be sweating.

He stood as Dantes approached, though was a bit unsteady on his feet.

Dantes placed a hand on his shoulder and spent a few moments easing his symptoms before speaking. When he opened his eyes, Jayk was already looking a bit stronger. “I need you to gather some things for the druids. Can you do that for me?”

He nodded. “Of course boss.”

“And you remember the merc we were trying to bring on retainer? I want you to send him this message,” Dantes pulled a slip of paper from his coat with his hasty scrawl written across it.

Jayk nodded. “Consider it done.”

…

Dantes, Jacopo, and Traizen flew across the docks. Despite Dantes and Jacopo flapping their wings as fast as they could, it was very difficult for them to keep up with Traizen’s eagle form as pigeons, but that wasn’t a big surprise. It was likely harder for Traizen to maintain their slower pace than it was for them to try to keep up with him.

Just before they reached their target, a black cloud began to move toward them quickly, accompanied by a resounding buzz that filled the air. Dantes and Jacopo dove, attempting to avoid the quickly approaching cloud of flies, but Traizen sped his wingbeats and moved toward them. The flies didn’t part, instead they surrounded him as a mass and began to cover him, crawling onto his feathers, his talons, his face, trying to blind and weigh him down.

Dantes landed and shifted into himself, and Jacopo took his place on his shoulder, and Dantes raised his wooden hand, aiming it at another part of the cloud of flies that was approaching him and releasing a blast of flame into it, ceiling a massive swath of them before falling back further before the rest could fully reach him.

Traizen let out a cry, not one of pain or fear, but one of challenge. He beat his wings and suddenly the air grew cold. Dantes turned to see that with each beat of his wings, a massive blast of wind seemed to emanate from him, almost like a push spell, except with each wingbeat thousands of flies were frozen in midair and fell to their deaths. Before long the massive cloud had dissipated into only a lingering mist of flies. Traizen landed next to Dantes, shifting back into himself, cold radiating off of him.

“That was impressive.”

He nodded. “When you’re as old as me, you never truly leave your locus. A piece of it always comes with you, and you always leave a piece of yourself behind with it.”

They walked the rest of the way to the Leviathan processing center. Processing centers were massive, half submerged buildings that acted as docks for Hunter ships. Rendhold had four of them, and gauging by the smell this one had been the last one used before the docks had become completely inactive.

The front was completely open, and was unfortunately lit with perfect clarity by the large glass panes in the ceiling that allowed the workers to work during the day without needing to rely on more expensive or dangerous methods of lighting. Dantes and Jacopo could see writhing flesh, pulsating clouds of flies, and bloody pus running across the floor like a river. Dantes took a cloth from his jacket and tied it around his face. He’d perfumed it with some of Sevryn’s favorite perfume, but even that wasn’t enough to mask the smell.

He offered a second cloth to Traizen, but he refused.

“I’d suggest we attempt to sneak in and find her, but at this point it’s unlikely our former sister isn’t ready for that anyway.”

Dantes nodded. He wanted to suggest burning her out, but the building was on and in the water, and was made of more brick and steel than wood. They’d need to go inside.

Traizen walked in first, moving confidently into the sickening miasma of corruption without hesitation.

Dantes followed behind him, his and Jacopo’s eyes darting around, their senses on high alert for anywhere Serpica might strike. She wasn’t difficult to find.

The processing center had still been in use when the docks had been abandoned. Hanging up in the center of the building, was the rotting corpse of a leviathan. Its features had all rotted away, but there was no mistaking the size of the thing. It’s scales were covered in pustules the size of geysers, insects and rats crawled through rotted holes in it’s flesh, masses of other creatures had become attached to the areas where the rot was the thickest, just as Dantes had seen when he’d cleansed other areas of the city. Sitting on what was once the leviathan’s head, was Serpica, her body cloaked in heavy black rags, and her face covered by the same featureless mask as it had been before. Her four extra wooden limbs still extended from her back, but now he could see what looked like a thin layer of diseased flesh had spread over them.

She stood using her spider-like limbs, and as she did every fly landed, every rat stopped moving, every roach went still, the cats ceased their wailing, and the dogs closed their mouths. All of them turned their attention to Traizen and Dantes.

Serpica moved toward them a few steps in the now silent and still space.

“Welcome, to the fall of Rendhold, and the start of the Mortal Plane’s rebirth.”

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