Published at 22nd of October 2023 9:43 am

Book 3: Chapter 30

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"You said they gave this to you and hurried off? Who is the officer? Where are they now?"

Recognizing the voice of the shorter officer, who she had eavesdropped on before, Ryn grinned. It seemed as if the papers had gotten into the right hands. A faint flicker of movement down at the end of the hall alerted her that someone was coming. And so she turned and stood by the door, half leaning, half at attention. A harassed-looking clerk was carrying a stack of papers down the hall, and as he got close, his eyes narrowed in something resembling suspicion as he caught sight of Ryn. Rather than panic, she just shot a glare and made a shushing noise before jerking her thumb at the door. The clerk, who had been about to ask her who she was, seemed to get the message, and with a nod and a grimace, carried on his way. About halfway down the tunnel, he heard a door open and close, and a muffled thump and looked back. The hall appeared completely empty, making him think that Ryn must have entered the office. After a moment of confusion, he shook his head and kept going, disappearing around the corner.

A few seconds earlier, the guard who had come to make the report had walked out of the room, his eyes widening as he saw Ryn leaning up against the wall. Before his mouth could open or his hand lift, she sprang into action. Her body seemed to transform into a large shadow, massive wings erupting from either side of her as they wrapped themselves around the guard. With the same movement, Ryn launched herself straight up towards the ceiling, her shadow wings dragging the guard with her. The passage, lit by lanterns, had deep pools of shadow, mostly above head height, and it was into these that she disappeared. The guard was entirely immobilized, his body locked rigid by the shadows that bound him.

More wings seemed to spread from Ryn, fixing her in position atop the ceiling. She held her breath, her eyes fixed just to the right of the clerk who had turned around to avoid alerting him with a direct stare as she waited to see if he would notice the commotion. Everything had happened at a tremendous speed, but she had learned to never take things for granted when it came to sneaking around. After a moment of confusion, she saw the clerk turn and leave from her peripheral vision, causing her to let out a small sigh of relief.

She was still getting used to the powers that her awakening had brought, most of which seemed to revolve around shadow manipulation. What was strange, however, was how varied her powers seemed to be, and how naturally they came to her. Feeling the faint mark on her arm pulsing, she didn't spare a glance as she lowered herself back down, listening at the door once more. The terrified guard, still trapped in her shadow, could only stare as he saw Ryn carefully ease open the door and slide through, pulling him after her.

The room was empty, though Ryn could hear voices up a set of stairs that led to the observation floor. The tube she had brought had been opened, its forged seal tossed to the side, cracked and discarded, and the sheets of paper it contained were spread out on the table. How Garrett knew what a military order looked like, and how he had managed to recreate the royal seal, Ryn had no idea, but from the sound of excited conversation coming from upstairs, it was clear the two officers had not been able to tell the real thing from the fake.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and Ryn's eyes scanned the room. At the last moment, she darted forward, sliding underneath a table. The guard was still with her, his eyes wide, his body stiff, and his mouth blocked by shadows. Hiding under the table, Ryn tucked herself and the captured guard up and underneath the tabletop, trying to expose as little of her body as possible. There simply wasn't another good place to hide in the room, but that didn't matter, as the two officers hurried down the stairs, their attention entirely fixed on the forged orders.

“These are different from what we were given in the briefing,” the shorter officer said.

“Doesn’t matter,” the mustached officer replied, tapping on the table right above Ryn’s head. “Most likely, these are based on new reports of the situation over there. Disperse these orders."

"Gladly, sir."

The next few minutes were a frantic rush of people entering and leaving the room, as the various orders were sent out to the different units. Though she had been able to read them just fine as she loaded them into the message tube earlier that day, Ryn wasn't actually sure what Garrett was planning. Each order simply named a specific location and a series of actions that the soldiers were to take. Many of them seemed to be encoded, and when Ryn had asked Garrett about them, he just smiled and shrugged, leaving her in the dark. The officers, however, seemed to understand exactly what was being said. When the last of the orders had been sent, she heard the mustached officer let out a sigh.

"But they haven't ordered us to move."

"No, just a reassignment of action once we do," came the troubled reply. "I'm really not sure what they're waiting for."

Ryn, who had had more than her fair share of interactions with powerful figures, knew exactly what they were waiting for, and what she was waiting for as well. Finally, it came. A soft tug on her heart, and a word spoken through the dream flower in her mind.

Now.

Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and moved. The two officers were standing by a large map of the city, speaking quietly, when Ryn emerged from underneath the table, her feet making no noise as she crept towards them. Both officers were awakened, and she could feel the intense power radiating from them. Though they were not quite shapers, it was clear that both were close, and considerably stronger than she was. If she did her job right, however, that wouldn't matter. Thanks to the power she wielded, her soul spark was entirely hidden, and the energy signature, which should have given her away to the two awakened officers, passed unnoticed as she drew close.

It wasn’t until she was a few feet away that one of the officers, triggered by some sort of sixth sense, suddenly stopped and looked around. As soon as he did, Ryn sprang into action. The guard, who she had captured, was flung towards the two officers, causing them to turn and defend against the flailing body. That turn put the mustached officer within striking distance, and Ryn's hand shot out, attempting to grab the token at his waist. With a shout, the officer jumped back, unleashing a palm strike to knock Ryn's hand away. But even as he did, her hand seemed to transform into shadow with a poof, causing him to lurch forward as his palm passed through her arm.

The other officer stepped forward and unleashed a punch, smashing the guard, who had been flying through the air, into the floor with enough force to cause the room to shake. Issuing a silent apology to the unfortunate guard, Ryn slipped past the mustached officer's guard, her hand suddenly shifting directions and shooting up towards his face. He quickly lifted his hands to block, but she suddenly sprang to the side, racing past him. Confused, he turned to follow, not noticing when a tendril of darkness brushed against his belt.

At a full sprint, Ryn shot up the stairs, practically bouncing off of the walls as it curved around. The two officers tore after her, letting out shouts, but she moved with an unnatural quickness that they couldn't copy, her dark wings allowing her to accelerate rapidly. The two officers were no slouches either and they made it to the top of the tower a few seconds later. Their weapons were drawn and their eyes scanned for threats as they arrived at the observation floor, just in time to see her place the token she had stolen from the mustached officer against the horn artifact. A loud blast echoed from the horn, long and deep, echoing over the city, and with a jump, the soldiers below snapped to attention. One of the officers standing on the high bridge had just gotten the last order sent out, and as he looked at it, he heard the sound of the horn.

"I guess it's time to go, boys," he yelled, his voice nearly drowned out by the echoing sound that covered the city.

In the far distance, the Maragoth heard the sound as well, and its head snapped up, looking towards the bridges. It seemed to sense the threat the sound represented, and was about to charge that direction, when its eyes flickered, and its head turned towards the southeast. It was in that direction the Dreamer's Inn lay, and on a bed inside of it, Garrett's body. With a piercing roar, the Maragoth lunged in that direction, driven by its master to kill Garrett. Behind the army, a group of six powerful-looking warriors, each dressed in gleaming armor, stared at the half-soggy paper they had been given.

"Take down the main threat," one of them said, his voice almost as deep as the horn. "What do they mean by the main threat?"

One of his companions, a hard-looking woman, with a jaw so sharp it could be used to slice bread, rolled her eyes and gestured in the general direction of the Adventurer's Guild.

"I'd say that massive undead monster. What was it called?"

"Maragoth," one of the other warriors supplied helpfully.

"Right. I would say it's probably that undead Maragoth," the woman said. "Come on, let's go."

Tossing the forged order to the ground without another thought, the warriors took off, launching themselves into the air. Their armor glowed brightly as they sprinted forward, each step leaving a bright footprint hanging in the air as they raced over the soldiers' heads. The soldiers were streaming across the bridge now, each following their officers, who were taking them to their positions in the defensive line. Meanwhile, the six Shaper-level warriors headed straight for the Maragoth rampaging in the distance. Once they had crossed the river above the soldier’s heads they dropped down to the street and accelerated, sprinting toward the monster who had just hit the side of the Brass Tiger Syndicate’s defensive line.

At the center of the fight, Paskal had finally driven the slug-like necromancer back as the damage from his powerful blows piled up. During the initial stages of their fight, the transformed necromancer had shrugged them off like they were nothing, but over time, the ethereal tiger claws had done so much damage that the necromancer’s potent corrupted life force couldn’t keep up. Despite his growing exhaustion, the leader of the Brass Tiger Syndicate could sense his chance and was about to unleash a furious attack to end the fight once and for all when he heard the roar of the Maragoth growing louder, and his heart sank.

He had already been fighting all night, and his forces had been decimated, with nearly seventy percent of his gang falling as casualties. The only thing that had kept him on the battlefield was the clear knowledge that if he didn’t fight until, the other seats would likely push him from his seat as one of the ten strongest gangs. Gang members could always be recruited once more, but the stain of cowardice couldn’t be washed away. Without realizing it, he had been forced into an unwinnable position, and when he finally understood what was going on, he found he had no choice but to keep fighting.

All that changed when the behemoth crashed through the buildings, sending stone and brick flying across the battlefield. The entire street where they were fighting was already in ruins and the defensive line thinning, but adding a rampaging monster made of bony spikes to the mix caused the defensive line to shatter as the gang members were driven mad with fear by the aura rolling off of the maragoth. So far, only awakened had been fighting Agma-Yoth’s chosen, and their resistance against its aura had kept them from fleeing instinctively, but that wasn’t the case for the members of the Brass Tiger Syndicate. Screaming, their eyes wide with terror, the gangsters abandoned their positions, fleeing into the streets and allowing the pressing horde of zombies to break through.

Cursing under his breath, Paskal jumped back, clearing nearly thirty feet in a single bound as the Maragoth lunged forward. In a single snap, its jaws closed over the slug-like necromancer. If Paskal had still been attacking, he would have been chomped up as well, and a bead of sweat rolled down his forehead as he watched the Maragoth casually tear the necromancer in half. Black blood and corrupted flesh splattered across the ground as the maragoth threw its head back and swallowed the undead slug down with a heavy crunch.

The bits of damage that the maragoth had suffered in its fight against the adventurers began to heal and it swung its head down, its burning eyes fixing themselves on Paskal. Terror seized his heart as the gang leader realized it was about to come for him. Just before it charged, he heard a shout and a heavy chain with a hook on the end flew through the air. It fell just above the creature’s shoulder, the hook catching on one of the maragoth’s neck bones. On the other end of the chain, Tellson and half a dozen other adventurers pulled as hard as they could, trying to force the maragoth to a stop. That bought Paskal a moment, just long enough for him to turn and sprint away, barely avoiding the blast of necrotic mist that the undead monster spat at him.

Fleeing into an alleyway, Paskal was forced to block when a zombie who had broken through the line jumped toward him. Shoving his forearm into its teeth with enough force to shatter them, Paskal slammed his other fist into the zombie’s skull, crushing it with a single blow and causing a spray of viscera to paint the alley wall. Hearing a shout, he looked over his shoulder and saw Gero, who was still tangling with the tall necromancer with the scythe. She seemed to be on the defensive due to the zombies swarming around her, and was desperately trying to retreat. Catching sight of Paskal, she shouted through the din of battle.

“Help me!”

An ugly look appeared on Gero’s face as Paskal just sneered and turned away, never considering helping her for a moment. In his estimation, this battle was lost, and with it the district. He had heard the loud horn, signaling the army to advance, and as far as he was concerned, this was now their problem. Leaving Gero to her fate, he dashed off into the maze of alleyways, intending to find a place to hide until the storm blew over.

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