Path of the Immeasurable Swarm [Worm/Cradle]
- Thread starter derivativeoflife
- Start date
- Crossover
Stahor
BookWorm
- Location
- Russia, Moscow
Does not seems all that complicated.
Exactly what I was thinking of when I made the comment tbh.
- Location
- UK
Maybe if it's a Miss Militia isekai instead of Taylor?
Penumbra 3.1
I was one of the last through the portal. Although there were three Archlords who were nominally in charge of the fortress in Fury's absence, I'd been the first to realize the danger we were in, my scarabs letting me catch snippets of the Monarchs' argument. When I'd ordered them to open the portal, none of them had gainsaid me, so I'd effectively found myself in charge of the evacuation.
We'd gotten everyone out in less than half an hour, no small achievement given that there were nearly a thousand people in the fortress and the portal was the size of a regular doorway. By the time it was empty, the sky was almost entirely red, with only a hint of blue remaining on the western horizon. I could sense Fury's battle with the Phoenix; they were still hundreds of miles away, but moving steadily closer. A trickle of bloodspawn were beginning to enter the valley, which would turn into a flood soon enough. It was past time to be gone.
The portal led back to Ninecloud City rather than Moongrave, presumably since that was where Malice had been when it was set up. The Akura cloudship dock was a seething mess of activity, hundreds of people milling around trying to figure out where they were supposed to go, or gaping at the surroundings in the case of the Seishens. Celebrations were beginning to break out as the news of the Titan's death spread, further confusing things. I flew up above the crowd, ignoring the confusion for now.
I released my scarabs, searching through the Akura tower. I didn't find the person I was looking for. After a minute, I flexed my madra and my will to get the Ninecloud Soul's attention. "Where's Mercy?"
"The Uncrowned Champion is back in the arena," said the Soul, the usual cloud of rainbow light appearing in front of me. "The traditional ceremony has obviously been interrupted, but with the death of a Dreadgod, the city now has even more reason to celebrate. Would you like me to arrange transportation for you?"
"No thank you," I said, shaking my head, and the Ninecloud Soul faded away. I grimaced slightly. Malice probably thought she was doing Mercy a favor by returning her to the adoration of the crowds. Maybe in some ways she was, but I suspected Mercy would have preferred time to recover in private first. Or maybe that was just my own biases talking.
I drew in a deep breath and mustered my patience. The danger was over; a few hours of waiting would make no difference. Instead, I once again busied myself with organizing the evacuees. The Akura tower had more than enough room to hold them all, but getting them settled was still a bit of an undertaking, even if it would only be for a few days.
Meanwhile, I kept an eye on the celebration. My scarabs didn't have the range to cover the entire enormous city, but I could send them high into the air for an overhead view. They'd put Mercy on a cloudship and were parading her through the city in a slow spiral out from the center. The streets were lined with images of her, as well. Crowds everywhere chanted her name, and I wanted to believe there was real gratitude there, not just enjoyment of the spectacle. It eased my heart a little bit, even if I didn't feel inclined to join in.
Finally, the parade approached the Akura tower. A wildly cheering crowd was waiting for her here too, of course. Mercy smiled and waved to them without a single sign of exhaustion as her ship docked. I met her there, my unveiled spirit keeping the crowd back. Hundreds more cloudships clustered around the tower, watching as she debarked. Both of us kept our public faces on, hers friendly, mine slightly stern. Neither of us bothered speaking, the noise of the crowd making it pointless. I gestured, and she followed me as a handful of Golds cleared us a path through the crowd.
It took us several minutes to push through and reach the tower, but the inside was packed as well. For all that she didn't show it, I could tell Mercy was tired; otherwise, she would have stopped and talked. The crowd didn't thin until we reached the upper levels, and I left the guards at the stairs to make sure it didn't try to follow us up.
The moment the door to Mercy's room closed behind us, I grabbed her and squeezed her into a hug. "Don't ever scare me like that again," I whispered. When she'd appeared in the middle of the angry Monarchs and immediately plummeted, I'd forgotten how to breath for a few seconds. It was the most frightened I'd felt since I'd arrived on Cradle.
"I'm sorry," she said, sniffling against me. "I couldn't let them start fighting when you were right there, and I couldn't think of any other way to stop it."
"No. I'm sorry," I said. "I should have realized what would happen." For all the years I'd been on Cradle, I'd still viewed the Dreadgods through the lens of the Endbringers. I wasn't a soulsmith or a refiner; it simply hadn't occurred to me that the Dreadgods were more than just massive threats, that the corpse of a Dreadgod was the equivalent of a stockpile of nuclear bombs. I'd gotten complacent, hadn't considered the situation from every angle. I had to do better.
"It's okay," said Mercy, still hugging me. "I'm sorry I scared you, but I think I would have done it the same way even if I'd known." She looked up, and she was smiling through tears. "We did it. We killed a Dreadgod. It won't hurt anyone ever again. Doesn't that make it worth it?"
"You did it," I corrected her gently. I hoped she was right. I couldn't help but remember the worldwide celebrations which had followed Behemoth's death, only to crumble in the face of Khonsu's appearance. My instincts told me there was again another shoe waiting to drop, but that was nothing I needed to burden Mercy with.
We stayed like that for a few minutes longer. Eventually, she stepped back. "I guess the others are probably waiting for us, right?"
"Take as long as you need. They'll be fine waiting a little longer."
"I'm ready now. It's been a long day, but it's also nice seeing everyone so happy. Are you okay, though?"
"I'm okay as long as you're okay," I told her.
We walked down the hall to one of the many lounges in the tower. Another wave of cheers and applause met us as soon as we entered, but from a much smaller crowd. Grace and Pride were there, of course, along with Meira, Yerin, Lindon, and Eithan. Seishen Kiro and Naru Saeya had also been dragged along by Meira and Eithan respectively, doing their best to hide behind the others.
The room itself was quite a sight. The walls and ceiling were decorated with purple streamers and sparkles. Honest-to-god balloons spelling out CONGRATULATIONS floated against the far wall. A table in the center of the room was taken up by a truly impressive five-layer cake, topped with a cartoonish figure of Mercy. The whole thing was more than a little cheesy, reminding me strongly of a kid's birthday party, which was of course the point. Eithan had set it all up on his own initiative, and Mercy's gasp of delight definitely earned him a few points in my good book. "It's perfect!" she said with a huge smile. "Thank you all so much!"
"It was truly my pleasure," said Eithan, giving her a dazzling smile and a fancy bow. "But I always enjoy having my artistry appreciated."
Yerin snorted. "Seems we're the ones who ought to be thanking you."
"You're welcome," said Mercy. "But I've already been thanked plenty today. For now, the best way you can thank me is by not treating me any different than before." She glanced around the room, and her eyes landed on Kiro, the only one she hadn't been introduced to before. "Hi! I'm Mercy! You must be Kiro. Meira's told me a lot about you, I'm glad I get to meet you!"
I left him to stumble his way though the conversation as best he could; he'd see soon enough that she was harmless, at least in this context. Instead, I wandered over to Grace and Pride. Pride was doing his best to hide his disapproval of the decorations, and not succeeding very well. He nodded stiffly as I approached. "Taylor. My apologies. I did my best to restrain the Arelius clown." Across the room, Eithan waved to him.
I laughed quietly. "No need to apologize. Does she look like she's unhappy?"
"No," Pride admitted after a moment, frowning. "But it isn't dignified. This is the greatest victory our family has seen in centuries. She deserves to be treated with more respect."
"Don't worry," I said, patting him on the shoulder. "I'm sure there will be plenty of more dignified celebrations soon. For now, I think she'd like it if you tried your best to enjoy yourself."
Pride was still frowning, but he nodded anyway and made his way over to Mercy. "She's really going to try and change things, isn't she?" asked Grace after a moment.
I nodded. "It's going to be hard. Most of the clan still thinks like Pride. They'll heap praise on her, but they're not going to like actually listening to her, not when she's telling them things they don't want to hear."
"Well, she's already done the impossible once. Why not again?" said Grace. "She'll be fine. You should take your own advice. Enjoy the party. Have some cake."
That got a smile out of me. Seeing Mercy in danger, and especially being unable to do anything about it, had brought old instincts floating back to the surface. I had a feeling I was going to need those instincts again soon, but I didn't need them right this very moment. With a deep breath, I set my worries aside for the time being and went to get a slice.
Although I'd seen Grace plenty over the last couple of weeks, I'd been busy enough keeping up with Lindon that we hadn't had many opportunities to just sit down and chat. Apparently, her team had had quite a few adventures and misadventures during the month I'd spent training with the Oracle Sage, and we spent a while swapping stories.
"...So Pride charges right in before we can finish encircling their camp, you know how he is. The bandits all scatter of course, and we manage to grab most of them, but one of the Truegolds gets by us and makes a run for it down the canyon. Some kind of force and wind Path, I think, he was really fast. Anyway, Pride goes chasing off after him while the rest of us clean up. A couple of minutes later, the ground starts shaking. We all think it's the Titan waking up early and start panicking, but then Pride and the bandit both come running back, and they're being chased by the biggest stampede of sacred bison I've ever seen. There had to be two or three hundred, the whole canyon was completely full of them."
I nearly choked laughing on my piece of cake. "Had you finished tying up the bandits yet?"
"Most of them, and some of them were also injured enough that they couldn't run. So each of us ended up needing to grab two of them over our shoulders, and we ran for it down the canyon. Saeya flew up to get the cloudship and brought it down along side us, and we had to jump in while we were still running. And of course that cloudship was really only made for a dozen people, and we had about twenty prisoners, so we all kind of ended up in a big pile until we could get out of the canyon. On the plus side, the bandits were downright grateful to be arrested after that."
I wiped my mouth with a napkin, still chuckling. "Could have been worse. At least you didn't nearly get eaten by alligators."
"Alligators?" asked Grace, raising an eyebrow.
I nodded. "One of the ways the Sage of a Thousand Eyes made me train my senses was by using myself as alligator bait," I said, then began describing the various tasks Cladia had given me during our month of training.
"You're right, that's much worse," said Grace, laughing. "At least it paid off, right?"
"She knew what she was doing," I agreed.
Grace hesitated for a moment, then asked, "Do you think I'd benefit from that kind of training?"
"I think you probably already have," I said honestly. "How many times have we sparred together? Hundreds, right? That's not so different from fighting blindfolded."
Grace nodded, seeming to deflate slightly. "Right, of course. I guess I tend to forget my senses are already sharper than normal, since I'm used to it. I just got excited for a moment and thought if I got the same training you did, you know…"
I frowned. I didn't think Grace was jealous exactly, but it had to be a bit hard for her. She might have been the star talent of her generation if she'd been born twenty years earlier, after all. "Well, I'm no Sage just yet, but I can tell you that sharp senses alone aren't enough. For one thing, you have to know which Icon you're trying to sense in the first place. You have to consider how your Path represents who you are as a person, and what concept that embodies."
Now Grace was starting at me attentively. What I was telling her wasn't a secret, but it wasn't exactly common knowledge, either. Sages and Monarchs didn't tend to offer public lectures. "Do you think there's an Icon that might fit me?" she asked.
I shrugged. "That's something you'll need to figure out for yourself. The Sword Icon isn't out of the question, but you'd be better off asking Yerin about that. Hypothetically there are an unlimited number of possible Icons, but only a few dozen have ever actually been recorded, the ones that represent more familiar concepts."
Grace was silent for a moment, digesting that. "I'm guessing that isn't all there is to it, though?"
"It's not," I confirmed. "At the most basic level, being a Sage means being able to overwrite reality with your will. The more you advance, the stronger your… presence in reality becomes, which makes the process easier. And pushing for advancement also naturally trains your willpower. But…"
I hesitated for a moment, chewing on my lip, then continued. "Even most Archlords never push themselves hard enough to develop the level of willpower you need to become a Sage, or a Herald for that matter. The best way to train your willpower is to push yourself beyond your limits, over and over again. To willingly throw yourself into life-threatening situations. To get horribly injured, and keep pushing anyway, and never let yourself rest."
"And… Is that what you recommend?" she asked hesitantly.
"No," I said immediately. "To push yourself that hard… it's not healthy. Anyone who's capable of it has something wrong with them, at least a little bit. Maybe they're so arrogant, they can't even imagine the possibility of failure. Or… Maybe they just lost the ability to care what happens to them." I paused again, then shook my head. "Regardless, the most likely outcome of pushing yourself like that is just dying. You need a large helping of luck to survive, on top of everything else."
"I see," said Grace. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry."
"It's alright," I said, shaking my head again. "I've made peace with that part of myself. As long as you consistently push yourself to your limit but no further, you'll likely get there eventually. It doesn't have to be a race."
Grace nodded. Then she chuckled slightly, pushed her hands together, and offered me a mocking bow. "Thank you for your words of wisdom, honored Sage."
I snorted. "At least wait until I'm actually an Archlady to do that."
We wandered over to the other side of the room, where Eithan was attempting to teach some excessively complicated card game to Mercy and Pride; I strongly suspected he was making it up as he went along. Pride had clearly been roped in by his sister, and looked like he'd rather be stuck in a sack with an angry dragon. Elsewhere, Naru Saeya had gravitated towards Meira and Kiro, ironically the pair she felt most comfortable with. I figured they were all circumspect enough to avoid any diplomatic incidents, but kept an eye on their conversation anyway.
A couple of hours into the party, I sensed something metaphysically heavy approaching. There was a burst of shadow, and Fury appeared in the middle of the room. On the ceiling. He promptly fell on his head, then sprang back to his feet, shaking himself. "You know, Charity makes that look a lot easier than it really is," he said with a grin. I coughed to hide a laugh; most of the room seemed to decide the best course of action was to pretend they hadn't seen anything.
"You're back!" exclaimed Mercy, jumping up to hug him. "The Phoenix?" she asked.
"Running with its tail between its, ah… wings?" He shrugged. "Guess that doesn't quite work. Honestly, I think it just took it a while to figure out the Titan wasn't there anymore. Still the best fight I've had in decades. Wish I could do it again."
"Well, I'm sure you'll get another chance sooner or later," said Mercy, reaching up to pat him on the shoulder.
Fury's grin became strained, then faded away. He sighed. "I won't," he said. "Guess it's best you just hear it now. I'm leaving."
Mercy frowned. "Leaving? For where?"
"Up there," said Fury, pointing towards the sky.
"You're ascending?" asked Mercy, her eyes widening. "But why?"
"Can't have too many Monarchs running around," said Fury. "It upsets things. Plus, the others don't like it much."
"Oh," said Mercy, her head sinking. "How long until you go?"
"Not long," said Fury. "Naria and most of the kids are coming with me. Not Charity, of course. A few others, as well. It'll take them a couple of days to get here, but then I'll be off."
"You're not even going to wait until we get home?" asked Mercy.
He shook his head. "Hanging around would only cause problems. Especially now, with the Dreadgods all riled up. Sorry," he said, giving her a sad smile. "You still need to show me your fight. Let's watch it tomorrow, okay? Just you and me."
"Okay," said Mercy, hugging him again.
I couldn't say I was too torn up emotionally about Fury leaving. The two of us hadn't precisely disliked each other, but we hadn't exactly been close, either. I was concerned mostly for Mercy's sake, and Charity's to a lesser extent, although I'd never gotten the impression she had a particularly warm relationship with her father. But it would leave the clan significantly weakened until Mercy or I could replace him. Perhaps the Monarch factions had some sort of treaty which punished anyone who tried to raise additional Monarchs? Something to ask Charity about later; I was determined to seek out and remedy any holes I had in my knowledge about Monarch politics before I made more mistakes.
"Ah… Apologies," said Lindon, approaching Fury. "Can you tell me exactly where you fought the Bleeding Phoenix? My home is near there, I'm afraid it might have been damaged."
Fury chewed on his lip for a moment. "Honestly couldn't tell you. The fight went all over the place. Not many cities out that way, I'm sure we didn't pass over any. But if it's just a village, I doubt I would've noticed." He shrugged. "Sorry."
"It's a valley," said Lindon, sounding slightly desperate. "There's a mountain with a white ring over it. Did you see anything like that?"
Fury opened his mouth, then paused and closed it. He fixed Lindon with a stare, and Lindon shifted uncomfortably. "You know, I don't think I ever heard exactly where you're from," he said after a moment.
"It's called the Sacred Valley. It's very remote, I doubt you'd be familiar with it," said Lindon.
"You might be surprised. Would you say there's anything odd about it?"
"Odd?" asked Lindon. "Only how weak everyone is. No one has even reached Gold for generations."
That was quite odd, I thought. Sacred beasts would reach Gold if they lived long enough, even in very aura-poor regions. If everyone in Lindon's home was stuck at Jade or below, why hadn't they already been wiped out?
"Huh," said Fury. "Well, that's kind of awkward. I didn't think people could even live there."
Lindon frowned. "Apologies. I don't understand."
"This isn't really a secret because everyone with the power to do anything about it already knows, but don't go spreading it around, okay?" said Fury. "If your home is the place I think it is, then it's built on top of the prison for the fifth Dreadgod."
That statement brought several seconds of absolute silence. "The fifth Dreadgod?" I eventually asked.
Fury nodded. "It's called the Slumbering Wraith. I don't really know much about it, just that it's imprisoned in the Labyrinth, under a huge boundary field that suppresses the sacred arts. Mother explored it once, back when she was still a Sage. She thinks they originally tried to lock up all the Dreadgods in there, but the other four escaped."
"Hold half a second," said Yerin. "You said there's a boundary field that suppresses the sacred arts?"
"It's supposed to make a Monarch as helpless as a Jade," said Fury. "Or a Dreadgod."
"And what about a Sage?"
"The same thing, I'd expect," said Fury, shrugging. "Anyway, I'm not sure how close the fight came. I'm sure we didn't pass right over it, but it still might have been close enough for bloodspawn to show up. But, uh, if you care about anyone in there, you should probably move them somewhere else. With a Dreadgod dead, the others won't go back to sleep in a hurry. Sooner or later, one of them will remember where the heart of the Labyrinth is and head back there."
"I understand. Gratitude," said Lindon, bowing. "How long do I have?"
"Dunno. Could be next month, could be ten years from now. I wouldn't wait around, though. Also, I'm done waiting around too. See you tomorrow, okay, Mercy?"
"Can I-" began Lindon, but Fury had already vanished in another burst of shadow.
The mood of the party was thoroughly dampened, but no one seemed hit harder than Yerin, who collapsed onto a couch in an unusual display of vulnerability. It took me only a few seconds to put the pieces together; I'd always vaguely wondered how the Sage of the Endless Sword could have died without a fight that the entire continent would have noticed. Lindon clearly realized the same thing, and sat down next to her with his arm around her.
"He was looking for a way to get rid of my blood shadow without damaging my spirit," said Yerin. "If it weren't for me, he wouldn't have even had a reason to be there."
"You can't blame yourself," said Lindon immediately. "It was his choice to go there. Even if you'd somehow known about the suppression field, what do you think he would've said if you'd asked him not to go because of the risk?"
"He'd've asked me if I was chipped in the head," said Yerin, mustering up a weak smile.
Lindon kept his arm around Yerin, but after a few seconds his attention shifted to Mercy. "Apologies, but is there anything I could do to convince your mother to defend my home?"
Mercy shifted uncomfortably, biting her lip. "...Probably not," she said eventually. "Monarchs usually only fight Dreadgods when they need to protect something important. Otherwise, they just evacuate everyone they can and let the Dreadgod wander around until it goes away or falls back asleep. Uncle Fury was really only fighting the Phoenix for fun."
"I see," said Lindon, his face falling slightly. I was sympathetic; I'd certainly gone to extreme enough lengths to keep Brockton Bay alive, shithole that it'd been. But Mercy was correct that by far the best defense against a Dreadgod was being somewhere else. "In that case, I'd like to request your family's aid to evacuate."
"Of course!" said Mercy, brightening. "We're already in the process of resettling the refugees from the Titan, so it shouldn't be too hard."
"It may be more difficult than you expect," warned Lindon. "Like I said, no one in the Sacred Valley is above Jade. They'll need constant protection outside. Also, they have no contact with the wider world. They won't understand the scale of the threat they're facing, or respect your family's authority. Just convincing them to leave will be a challenge."
"How many people are we talking about?" I interjected.
Lindon frowned as he thought. "The Wei clan has maybe thirty or forty thousand people spread through our territory. The other two clans are similar. The four schools probably have a few thousand each. I don't know how many unaligned sacred artists there are, but not more than ten or twenty thousand. Maybe a hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand total?"
I nodded. That would be a relatively simple number to move if all they needed was transportation, but as he'd said, the situation was more complicated than that.
"I'm sure we can manage it, even if they need extra help," said Mercy confidently. "I'll ask Aunt Charity."
"Gratitude," said Lindon, briefly removing his arm from around Yerin so he could press his fists together.
The party ended shortly after that, no one really feeling like celebrating anymore. Mercy and I went to bed immediately afterwards. Lords didn't need much sleep, but it had been an exhausting day for both of us.
As usual, there was no need to go looking for Charity; she summoned Mercy, Lindon, and myself to her office the next morning. "First, congratulations on your victory," she said to Mercy, offering her a rare smile. "You've made the family proud."
"Thanks!" said Mercy, beaming back.
Charity nodded, then turned to Lindon. "You wish for our help to evacuate your home," she stated, not phrasing it as a question.
"I do," he said, bowing. "I am willing to use my reward for the Tournament on it, if necessary."
"Our Monarch forbids anyone from entering that territory. However, in light of your exceptional performance during the Tournament, an exception has been made."
"I am deeply grateful for your assistance," said Lindon, bowing again.
"I am not offering any assistance," said Charity. She turned back to Mercy. "For the last two years, your training has been focused entirely on the Sacred Arts. Unavoidable, given the Tournament. But if you are to lead the clan one day, you will need more than the Sacred Arts alone. I have discussed with your mother, and she wishes for you to organize and lead this evacuation effort on your own."
"Me?" asked Mercy, her eyes widening. "But I've never been in charge of anything like that before!"
"I am aware. I mean no offense," said Charity with a glance at Lindon, "But your mother does not consider this task to be of particular importance. To be blunt, even if you fail catastrophically, she will still see it as valuable experience. You, on the other hand, do consider this task to be important, which means you can be trusted to give it your full attention and effort."
"I understand. I won't fail!" said Mercy. "But, um, I'm not really sure where I should even start."
"I suggest you start by making a thorough list of what resources and assets you will require. When you're finished, speak to Justice. I will provide transportation back through the portal to Sky's Edge, but nothing more."
"Right. A list of everything we need to evacuate a valley full of Jades," said Mercy nervously. "Lindon can still help, right? It's his home, he probably knows what we'll need better than me."
"Your friends may help, as long as you don't attempt to pass your responsibility off onto them."
"Right. Got it," said Mercy, still shuffling nervously. "I guess we should probably get started, then?"
"You should," she said. She gestured for them to leave, but then held up a hand to me. "Stay a moment longer, Taylor."
I nodded, settling down in front of her desk and waiting for Mercy and Lindon to close the door behind them. Charity didn't speak immediately, so I asked, "How much help should I give her?"
"Make sure she does not in fact fail catastrophically," she said. "Allow her to make her own mistakes, but none that would result in disaster. Failing here would badly damage her confidence, not to mention potentially turning two of the Uncrowned against us."
"I doubt a disaster is likely," I said. "At worst, she'll realize she didn't bring enough resources to get the job done and need to wait for more. But I think she's more likely to go overboard and bring too much."
Charity didn't respond. Instead, my senses prickled slightly as she exerted her authority. It felt like a blanket being laid over us; something to prevent eavesdroppers, I guessed. I raised an eyebrow. The number of people who might eavesdrop on us here was quite limited, although there was of course always Eithan.
"I find myself disturbed," she said eventually. That was cause for another raised eyebrow. I'd seen very little in the world capable of giving Charity pause. I stayed silent, waiting for her to continue. "Until I overheard my father last night, I did not know a fifth Dreadgod existed or was imprisoned in our territory. I was never aware the Akura clan knew what lay at the bottom of the Labyrinth."
That was surprising. I'd never gotten the impression that Charity was all-knowing, but certainly most of the things she didn't know were beyond Cradle. The fact that she'd been kept ignorant of such an important piece of information was… well, disturbing, as she said. "Why not?" I asked.
"That is exactly the question," she said. "My father, I understand. He keeps secrets because it simply doesn't occur to him that anyone else might want to know. But my grandmother certainly has a reason. I asked her what it was, she told me she didn't want to worry me."
I snorted. That was a load of horseshit if I'd ever heard one. "You're wondering what else she might have forgotten to tell you," I said.
"Just so. My grandmother, as you are aware, might be described as a private person," said Charity dryly. "But I always believed I was in her full confidence. After all, the great majority of the work of actually managing our affairs is left to me. One would think I would be informed of all the pertinent details of the territory I manage."
Trying to comfort Charity would have felt incredibly unnatural, so instead I just asked, "What do you need from me?"
Again she paused. "My skill at reading Fate is middling at best, but I've felt an approaching threat. Something to do with the relief effort our Monarch ordered Mercy to lead."
"Dreadgods?" I asked in alarm.
She shook her head. "No. Those are always obvious, even to me. The Bleeding Phoenix is flying directly away from the Ashwind continent and shows no signs of turning, and the Weeping Dragon is currently meandering around the Iceflower Continent. This is something subtler, although subtler than a Dreadgod is a very low bar. Grandmother is more adept at reading Fate, but all she'll tell me is that she has it in hand."
Yesterday, Charity might have just accepted that. That was the trouble with keeping secrets. For all that Charity could be ruthless when needed, she was a fundamentally decent person. If Malice was hiding things from her, the most likely reason was that Charity would disapprove. And when it came to Mercy, anything Charity disapproved of was likely something I would disapprove of.
Would Malice knowingly send her heir into danger? No, wrong question. Facing genuine danger was an inescapable cost of advancing if you ever wanted to reach the highest levels. How much danger would Malice knowingly send Mercy into? I drummed my fingers on Charity's desk. If there was one person I was fairly confident Malice would never seriously risk, it was Mercy. But just yesterday, she'd risked the lives of a considerable portion of her family, myself included, for a chance at obtaining a Dreadgod weapon. That was an extreme case, but it certainly demonstrated Malice wouldn't hesitate to lay her cards on the table if she thought the prize was worth it.
"What's she hoping to gain?" I asked eventually. "Does it have to do with the Labyrinth, or is it something else?"
"I don't know," said Charity. "I intend to learn what I can. But in the meantime, I'm counting on you to look after Mercy. She'll be vulnerable, especially in the suppression field. You have better senses than her, and more experience. Trust your instincts. If anything feels off, don't hesitate. Get her out."
"Of course," I said. She held my gaze for a moment, and an unspoken understanding passed between us. This wasn't to be shared with any of the others; it wouldn't do to show even the slightest hint of internal dissension within the Akura clan. But above all else, we'd keep Mercy safe.
Even from her own mother, if necessary.
We'd gotten everyone out in less than half an hour, no small achievement given that there were nearly a thousand people in the fortress and the portal was the size of a regular doorway. By the time it was empty, the sky was almost entirely red, with only a hint of blue remaining on the western horizon. I could sense Fury's battle with the Phoenix; they were still hundreds of miles away, but moving steadily closer. A trickle of bloodspawn were beginning to enter the valley, which would turn into a flood soon enough. It was past time to be gone.
The portal led back to Ninecloud City rather than Moongrave, presumably since that was where Malice had been when it was set up. The Akura cloudship dock was a seething mess of activity, hundreds of people milling around trying to figure out where they were supposed to go, or gaping at the surroundings in the case of the Seishens. Celebrations were beginning to break out as the news of the Titan's death spread, further confusing things. I flew up above the crowd, ignoring the confusion for now.
I released my scarabs, searching through the Akura tower. I didn't find the person I was looking for. After a minute, I flexed my madra and my will to get the Ninecloud Soul's attention. "Where's Mercy?"
"The Uncrowned Champion is back in the arena," said the Soul, the usual cloud of rainbow light appearing in front of me. "The traditional ceremony has obviously been interrupted, but with the death of a Dreadgod, the city now has even more reason to celebrate. Would you like me to arrange transportation for you?"
"No thank you," I said, shaking my head, and the Ninecloud Soul faded away. I grimaced slightly. Malice probably thought she was doing Mercy a favor by returning her to the adoration of the crowds. Maybe in some ways she was, but I suspected Mercy would have preferred time to recover in private first. Or maybe that was just my own biases talking.
I drew in a deep breath and mustered my patience. The danger was over; a few hours of waiting would make no difference. Instead, I once again busied myself with organizing the evacuees. The Akura tower had more than enough room to hold them all, but getting them settled was still a bit of an undertaking, even if it would only be for a few days.
Meanwhile, I kept an eye on the celebration. My scarabs didn't have the range to cover the entire enormous city, but I could send them high into the air for an overhead view. They'd put Mercy on a cloudship and were parading her through the city in a slow spiral out from the center. The streets were lined with images of her, as well. Crowds everywhere chanted her name, and I wanted to believe there was real gratitude there, not just enjoyment of the spectacle. It eased my heart a little bit, even if I didn't feel inclined to join in.
Finally, the parade approached the Akura tower. A wildly cheering crowd was waiting for her here too, of course. Mercy smiled and waved to them without a single sign of exhaustion as her ship docked. I met her there, my unveiled spirit keeping the crowd back. Hundreds more cloudships clustered around the tower, watching as she debarked. Both of us kept our public faces on, hers friendly, mine slightly stern. Neither of us bothered speaking, the noise of the crowd making it pointless. I gestured, and she followed me as a handful of Golds cleared us a path through the crowd.
It took us several minutes to push through and reach the tower, but the inside was packed as well. For all that she didn't show it, I could tell Mercy was tired; otherwise, she would have stopped and talked. The crowd didn't thin until we reached the upper levels, and I left the guards at the stairs to make sure it didn't try to follow us up.
The moment the door to Mercy's room closed behind us, I grabbed her and squeezed her into a hug. "Don't ever scare me like that again," I whispered. When she'd appeared in the middle of the angry Monarchs and immediately plummeted, I'd forgotten how to breath for a few seconds. It was the most frightened I'd felt since I'd arrived on Cradle.
"I'm sorry," she said, sniffling against me. "I couldn't let them start fighting when you were right there, and I couldn't think of any other way to stop it."
"No. I'm sorry," I said. "I should have realized what would happen." For all the years I'd been on Cradle, I'd still viewed the Dreadgods through the lens of the Endbringers. I wasn't a soulsmith or a refiner; it simply hadn't occurred to me that the Dreadgods were more than just massive threats, that the corpse of a Dreadgod was the equivalent of a stockpile of nuclear bombs. I'd gotten complacent, hadn't considered the situation from every angle. I had to do better.
"It's okay," said Mercy, still hugging me. "I'm sorry I scared you, but I think I would have done it the same way even if I'd known." She looked up, and she was smiling through tears. "We did it. We killed a Dreadgod. It won't hurt anyone ever again. Doesn't that make it worth it?"
"You did it," I corrected her gently. I hoped she was right. I couldn't help but remember the worldwide celebrations which had followed Behemoth's death, only to crumble in the face of Khonsu's appearance. My instincts told me there was again another shoe waiting to drop, but that was nothing I needed to burden Mercy with.
We stayed like that for a few minutes longer. Eventually, she stepped back. "I guess the others are probably waiting for us, right?"
"Take as long as you need. They'll be fine waiting a little longer."
"I'm ready now. It's been a long day, but it's also nice seeing everyone so happy. Are you okay, though?"
"I'm okay as long as you're okay," I told her.
We walked down the hall to one of the many lounges in the tower. Another wave of cheers and applause met us as soon as we entered, but from a much smaller crowd. Grace and Pride were there, of course, along with Meira, Yerin, Lindon, and Eithan. Seishen Kiro and Naru Saeya had also been dragged along by Meira and Eithan respectively, doing their best to hide behind the others.
The room itself was quite a sight. The walls and ceiling were decorated with purple streamers and sparkles. Honest-to-god balloons spelling out CONGRATULATIONS floated against the far wall. A table in the center of the room was taken up by a truly impressive five-layer cake, topped with a cartoonish figure of Mercy. The whole thing was more than a little cheesy, reminding me strongly of a kid's birthday party, which was of course the point. Eithan had set it all up on his own initiative, and Mercy's gasp of delight definitely earned him a few points in my good book. "It's perfect!" she said with a huge smile. "Thank you all so much!"
"It was truly my pleasure," said Eithan, giving her a dazzling smile and a fancy bow. "But I always enjoy having my artistry appreciated."
Yerin snorted. "Seems we're the ones who ought to be thanking you."
"You're welcome," said Mercy. "But I've already been thanked plenty today. For now, the best way you can thank me is by not treating me any different than before." She glanced around the room, and her eyes landed on Kiro, the only one she hadn't been introduced to before. "Hi! I'm Mercy! You must be Kiro. Meira's told me a lot about you, I'm glad I get to meet you!"
I left him to stumble his way though the conversation as best he could; he'd see soon enough that she was harmless, at least in this context. Instead, I wandered over to Grace and Pride. Pride was doing his best to hide his disapproval of the decorations, and not succeeding very well. He nodded stiffly as I approached. "Taylor. My apologies. I did my best to restrain the Arelius clown." Across the room, Eithan waved to him.
I laughed quietly. "No need to apologize. Does she look like she's unhappy?"
"No," Pride admitted after a moment, frowning. "But it isn't dignified. This is the greatest victory our family has seen in centuries. She deserves to be treated with more respect."
"Don't worry," I said, patting him on the shoulder. "I'm sure there will be plenty of more dignified celebrations soon. For now, I think she'd like it if you tried your best to enjoy yourself."
Pride was still frowning, but he nodded anyway and made his way over to Mercy. "She's really going to try and change things, isn't she?" asked Grace after a moment.
I nodded. "It's going to be hard. Most of the clan still thinks like Pride. They'll heap praise on her, but they're not going to like actually listening to her, not when she's telling them things they don't want to hear."
"Well, she's already done the impossible once. Why not again?" said Grace. "She'll be fine. You should take your own advice. Enjoy the party. Have some cake."
That got a smile out of me. Seeing Mercy in danger, and especially being unable to do anything about it, had brought old instincts floating back to the surface. I had a feeling I was going to need those instincts again soon, but I didn't need them right this very moment. With a deep breath, I set my worries aside for the time being and went to get a slice.
Although I'd seen Grace plenty over the last couple of weeks, I'd been busy enough keeping up with Lindon that we hadn't had many opportunities to just sit down and chat. Apparently, her team had had quite a few adventures and misadventures during the month I'd spent training with the Oracle Sage, and we spent a while swapping stories.
"...So Pride charges right in before we can finish encircling their camp, you know how he is. The bandits all scatter of course, and we manage to grab most of them, but one of the Truegolds gets by us and makes a run for it down the canyon. Some kind of force and wind Path, I think, he was really fast. Anyway, Pride goes chasing off after him while the rest of us clean up. A couple of minutes later, the ground starts shaking. We all think it's the Titan waking up early and start panicking, but then Pride and the bandit both come running back, and they're being chased by the biggest stampede of sacred bison I've ever seen. There had to be two or three hundred, the whole canyon was completely full of them."
I nearly choked laughing on my piece of cake. "Had you finished tying up the bandits yet?"
"Most of them, and some of them were also injured enough that they couldn't run. So each of us ended up needing to grab two of them over our shoulders, and we ran for it down the canyon. Saeya flew up to get the cloudship and brought it down along side us, and we had to jump in while we were still running. And of course that cloudship was really only made for a dozen people, and we had about twenty prisoners, so we all kind of ended up in a big pile until we could get out of the canyon. On the plus side, the bandits were downright grateful to be arrested after that."
I wiped my mouth with a napkin, still chuckling. "Could have been worse. At least you didn't nearly get eaten by alligators."
"Alligators?" asked Grace, raising an eyebrow.
I nodded. "One of the ways the Sage of a Thousand Eyes made me train my senses was by using myself as alligator bait," I said, then began describing the various tasks Cladia had given me during our month of training.
"You're right, that's much worse," said Grace, laughing. "At least it paid off, right?"
"She knew what she was doing," I agreed.
Grace hesitated for a moment, then asked, "Do you think I'd benefit from that kind of training?"
"I think you probably already have," I said honestly. "How many times have we sparred together? Hundreds, right? That's not so different from fighting blindfolded."
Grace nodded, seeming to deflate slightly. "Right, of course. I guess I tend to forget my senses are already sharper than normal, since I'm used to it. I just got excited for a moment and thought if I got the same training you did, you know…"
I frowned. I didn't think Grace was jealous exactly, but it had to be a bit hard for her. She might have been the star talent of her generation if she'd been born twenty years earlier, after all. "Well, I'm no Sage just yet, but I can tell you that sharp senses alone aren't enough. For one thing, you have to know which Icon you're trying to sense in the first place. You have to consider how your Path represents who you are as a person, and what concept that embodies."
Now Grace was starting at me attentively. What I was telling her wasn't a secret, but it wasn't exactly common knowledge, either. Sages and Monarchs didn't tend to offer public lectures. "Do you think there's an Icon that might fit me?" she asked.
I shrugged. "That's something you'll need to figure out for yourself. The Sword Icon isn't out of the question, but you'd be better off asking Yerin about that. Hypothetically there are an unlimited number of possible Icons, but only a few dozen have ever actually been recorded, the ones that represent more familiar concepts."
Grace was silent for a moment, digesting that. "I'm guessing that isn't all there is to it, though?"
"It's not," I confirmed. "At the most basic level, being a Sage means being able to overwrite reality with your will. The more you advance, the stronger your… presence in reality becomes, which makes the process easier. And pushing for advancement also naturally trains your willpower. But…"
I hesitated for a moment, chewing on my lip, then continued. "Even most Archlords never push themselves hard enough to develop the level of willpower you need to become a Sage, or a Herald for that matter. The best way to train your willpower is to push yourself beyond your limits, over and over again. To willingly throw yourself into life-threatening situations. To get horribly injured, and keep pushing anyway, and never let yourself rest."
"And… Is that what you recommend?" she asked hesitantly.
"No," I said immediately. "To push yourself that hard… it's not healthy. Anyone who's capable of it has something wrong with them, at least a little bit. Maybe they're so arrogant, they can't even imagine the possibility of failure. Or… Maybe they just lost the ability to care what happens to them." I paused again, then shook my head. "Regardless, the most likely outcome of pushing yourself like that is just dying. You need a large helping of luck to survive, on top of everything else."
"I see," said Grace. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry."
"It's alright," I said, shaking my head again. "I've made peace with that part of myself. As long as you consistently push yourself to your limit but no further, you'll likely get there eventually. It doesn't have to be a race."
Grace nodded. Then she chuckled slightly, pushed her hands together, and offered me a mocking bow. "Thank you for your words of wisdom, honored Sage."
I snorted. "At least wait until I'm actually an Archlady to do that."
We wandered over to the other side of the room, where Eithan was attempting to teach some excessively complicated card game to Mercy and Pride; I strongly suspected he was making it up as he went along. Pride had clearly been roped in by his sister, and looked like he'd rather be stuck in a sack with an angry dragon. Elsewhere, Naru Saeya had gravitated towards Meira and Kiro, ironically the pair she felt most comfortable with. I figured they were all circumspect enough to avoid any diplomatic incidents, but kept an eye on their conversation anyway.
A couple of hours into the party, I sensed something metaphysically heavy approaching. There was a burst of shadow, and Fury appeared in the middle of the room. On the ceiling. He promptly fell on his head, then sprang back to his feet, shaking himself. "You know, Charity makes that look a lot easier than it really is," he said with a grin. I coughed to hide a laugh; most of the room seemed to decide the best course of action was to pretend they hadn't seen anything.
"You're back!" exclaimed Mercy, jumping up to hug him. "The Phoenix?" she asked.
"Running with its tail between its, ah… wings?" He shrugged. "Guess that doesn't quite work. Honestly, I think it just took it a while to figure out the Titan wasn't there anymore. Still the best fight I've had in decades. Wish I could do it again."
"Well, I'm sure you'll get another chance sooner or later," said Mercy, reaching up to pat him on the shoulder.
Fury's grin became strained, then faded away. He sighed. "I won't," he said. "Guess it's best you just hear it now. I'm leaving."
Mercy frowned. "Leaving? For where?"
"Up there," said Fury, pointing towards the sky.
"You're ascending?" asked Mercy, her eyes widening. "But why?"
"Can't have too many Monarchs running around," said Fury. "It upsets things. Plus, the others don't like it much."
"Oh," said Mercy, her head sinking. "How long until you go?"
"Not long," said Fury. "Naria and most of the kids are coming with me. Not Charity, of course. A few others, as well. It'll take them a couple of days to get here, but then I'll be off."
"You're not even going to wait until we get home?" asked Mercy.
He shook his head. "Hanging around would only cause problems. Especially now, with the Dreadgods all riled up. Sorry," he said, giving her a sad smile. "You still need to show me your fight. Let's watch it tomorrow, okay? Just you and me."
"Okay," said Mercy, hugging him again.
I couldn't say I was too torn up emotionally about Fury leaving. The two of us hadn't precisely disliked each other, but we hadn't exactly been close, either. I was concerned mostly for Mercy's sake, and Charity's to a lesser extent, although I'd never gotten the impression she had a particularly warm relationship with her father. But it would leave the clan significantly weakened until Mercy or I could replace him. Perhaps the Monarch factions had some sort of treaty which punished anyone who tried to raise additional Monarchs? Something to ask Charity about later; I was determined to seek out and remedy any holes I had in my knowledge about Monarch politics before I made more mistakes.
"Ah… Apologies," said Lindon, approaching Fury. "Can you tell me exactly where you fought the Bleeding Phoenix? My home is near there, I'm afraid it might have been damaged."
Fury chewed on his lip for a moment. "Honestly couldn't tell you. The fight went all over the place. Not many cities out that way, I'm sure we didn't pass over any. But if it's just a village, I doubt I would've noticed." He shrugged. "Sorry."
"It's a valley," said Lindon, sounding slightly desperate. "There's a mountain with a white ring over it. Did you see anything like that?"
Fury opened his mouth, then paused and closed it. He fixed Lindon with a stare, and Lindon shifted uncomfortably. "You know, I don't think I ever heard exactly where you're from," he said after a moment.
"It's called the Sacred Valley. It's very remote, I doubt you'd be familiar with it," said Lindon.
"You might be surprised. Would you say there's anything odd about it?"
"Odd?" asked Lindon. "Only how weak everyone is. No one has even reached Gold for generations."
That was quite odd, I thought. Sacred beasts would reach Gold if they lived long enough, even in very aura-poor regions. If everyone in Lindon's home was stuck at Jade or below, why hadn't they already been wiped out?
"Huh," said Fury. "Well, that's kind of awkward. I didn't think people could even live there."
Lindon frowned. "Apologies. I don't understand."
"This isn't really a secret because everyone with the power to do anything about it already knows, but don't go spreading it around, okay?" said Fury. "If your home is the place I think it is, then it's built on top of the prison for the fifth Dreadgod."
That statement brought several seconds of absolute silence. "The fifth Dreadgod?" I eventually asked.
Fury nodded. "It's called the Slumbering Wraith. I don't really know much about it, just that it's imprisoned in the Labyrinth, under a huge boundary field that suppresses the sacred arts. Mother explored it once, back when she was still a Sage. She thinks they originally tried to lock up all the Dreadgods in there, but the other four escaped."
"Hold half a second," said Yerin. "You said there's a boundary field that suppresses the sacred arts?"
"It's supposed to make a Monarch as helpless as a Jade," said Fury. "Or a Dreadgod."
"And what about a Sage?"
"The same thing, I'd expect," said Fury, shrugging. "Anyway, I'm not sure how close the fight came. I'm sure we didn't pass right over it, but it still might have been close enough for bloodspawn to show up. But, uh, if you care about anyone in there, you should probably move them somewhere else. With a Dreadgod dead, the others won't go back to sleep in a hurry. Sooner or later, one of them will remember where the heart of the Labyrinth is and head back there."
"I understand. Gratitude," said Lindon, bowing. "How long do I have?"
"Dunno. Could be next month, could be ten years from now. I wouldn't wait around, though. Also, I'm done waiting around too. See you tomorrow, okay, Mercy?"
"Can I-" began Lindon, but Fury had already vanished in another burst of shadow.
The mood of the party was thoroughly dampened, but no one seemed hit harder than Yerin, who collapsed onto a couch in an unusual display of vulnerability. It took me only a few seconds to put the pieces together; I'd always vaguely wondered how the Sage of the Endless Sword could have died without a fight that the entire continent would have noticed. Lindon clearly realized the same thing, and sat down next to her with his arm around her.
"He was looking for a way to get rid of my blood shadow without damaging my spirit," said Yerin. "If it weren't for me, he wouldn't have even had a reason to be there."
"You can't blame yourself," said Lindon immediately. "It was his choice to go there. Even if you'd somehow known about the suppression field, what do you think he would've said if you'd asked him not to go because of the risk?"
"He'd've asked me if I was chipped in the head," said Yerin, mustering up a weak smile.
Lindon kept his arm around Yerin, but after a few seconds his attention shifted to Mercy. "Apologies, but is there anything I could do to convince your mother to defend my home?"
Mercy shifted uncomfortably, biting her lip. "...Probably not," she said eventually. "Monarchs usually only fight Dreadgods when they need to protect something important. Otherwise, they just evacuate everyone they can and let the Dreadgod wander around until it goes away or falls back asleep. Uncle Fury was really only fighting the Phoenix for fun."
"I see," said Lindon, his face falling slightly. I was sympathetic; I'd certainly gone to extreme enough lengths to keep Brockton Bay alive, shithole that it'd been. But Mercy was correct that by far the best defense against a Dreadgod was being somewhere else. "In that case, I'd like to request your family's aid to evacuate."
"Of course!" said Mercy, brightening. "We're already in the process of resettling the refugees from the Titan, so it shouldn't be too hard."
"It may be more difficult than you expect," warned Lindon. "Like I said, no one in the Sacred Valley is above Jade. They'll need constant protection outside. Also, they have no contact with the wider world. They won't understand the scale of the threat they're facing, or respect your family's authority. Just convincing them to leave will be a challenge."
"How many people are we talking about?" I interjected.
Lindon frowned as he thought. "The Wei clan has maybe thirty or forty thousand people spread through our territory. The other two clans are similar. The four schools probably have a few thousand each. I don't know how many unaligned sacred artists there are, but not more than ten or twenty thousand. Maybe a hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand total?"
I nodded. That would be a relatively simple number to move if all they needed was transportation, but as he'd said, the situation was more complicated than that.
"I'm sure we can manage it, even if they need extra help," said Mercy confidently. "I'll ask Aunt Charity."
"Gratitude," said Lindon, briefly removing his arm from around Yerin so he could press his fists together.
The party ended shortly after that, no one really feeling like celebrating anymore. Mercy and I went to bed immediately afterwards. Lords didn't need much sleep, but it had been an exhausting day for both of us.
As usual, there was no need to go looking for Charity; she summoned Mercy, Lindon, and myself to her office the next morning. "First, congratulations on your victory," she said to Mercy, offering her a rare smile. "You've made the family proud."
"Thanks!" said Mercy, beaming back.
Charity nodded, then turned to Lindon. "You wish for our help to evacuate your home," she stated, not phrasing it as a question.
"I do," he said, bowing. "I am willing to use my reward for the Tournament on it, if necessary."
"Our Monarch forbids anyone from entering that territory. However, in light of your exceptional performance during the Tournament, an exception has been made."
"I am deeply grateful for your assistance," said Lindon, bowing again.
"I am not offering any assistance," said Charity. She turned back to Mercy. "For the last two years, your training has been focused entirely on the Sacred Arts. Unavoidable, given the Tournament. But if you are to lead the clan one day, you will need more than the Sacred Arts alone. I have discussed with your mother, and she wishes for you to organize and lead this evacuation effort on your own."
"Me?" asked Mercy, her eyes widening. "But I've never been in charge of anything like that before!"
"I am aware. I mean no offense," said Charity with a glance at Lindon, "But your mother does not consider this task to be of particular importance. To be blunt, even if you fail catastrophically, she will still see it as valuable experience. You, on the other hand, do consider this task to be important, which means you can be trusted to give it your full attention and effort."
"I understand. I won't fail!" said Mercy. "But, um, I'm not really sure where I should even start."
"I suggest you start by making a thorough list of what resources and assets you will require. When you're finished, speak to Justice. I will provide transportation back through the portal to Sky's Edge, but nothing more."
"Right. A list of everything we need to evacuate a valley full of Jades," said Mercy nervously. "Lindon can still help, right? It's his home, he probably knows what we'll need better than me."
"Your friends may help, as long as you don't attempt to pass your responsibility off onto them."
"Right. Got it," said Mercy, still shuffling nervously. "I guess we should probably get started, then?"
"You should," she said. She gestured for them to leave, but then held up a hand to me. "Stay a moment longer, Taylor."
I nodded, settling down in front of her desk and waiting for Mercy and Lindon to close the door behind them. Charity didn't speak immediately, so I asked, "How much help should I give her?"
"Make sure she does not in fact fail catastrophically," she said. "Allow her to make her own mistakes, but none that would result in disaster. Failing here would badly damage her confidence, not to mention potentially turning two of the Uncrowned against us."
"I doubt a disaster is likely," I said. "At worst, she'll realize she didn't bring enough resources to get the job done and need to wait for more. But I think she's more likely to go overboard and bring too much."
Charity didn't respond. Instead, my senses prickled slightly as she exerted her authority. It felt like a blanket being laid over us; something to prevent eavesdroppers, I guessed. I raised an eyebrow. The number of people who might eavesdrop on us here was quite limited, although there was of course always Eithan.
"I find myself disturbed," she said eventually. That was cause for another raised eyebrow. I'd seen very little in the world capable of giving Charity pause. I stayed silent, waiting for her to continue. "Until I overheard my father last night, I did not know a fifth Dreadgod existed or was imprisoned in our territory. I was never aware the Akura clan knew what lay at the bottom of the Labyrinth."
That was surprising. I'd never gotten the impression that Charity was all-knowing, but certainly most of the things she didn't know were beyond Cradle. The fact that she'd been kept ignorant of such an important piece of information was… well, disturbing, as she said. "Why not?" I asked.
"That is exactly the question," she said. "My father, I understand. He keeps secrets because it simply doesn't occur to him that anyone else might want to know. But my grandmother certainly has a reason. I asked her what it was, she told me she didn't want to worry me."
I snorted. That was a load of horseshit if I'd ever heard one. "You're wondering what else she might have forgotten to tell you," I said.
"Just so. My grandmother, as you are aware, might be described as a private person," said Charity dryly. "But I always believed I was in her full confidence. After all, the great majority of the work of actually managing our affairs is left to me. One would think I would be informed of all the pertinent details of the territory I manage."
Trying to comfort Charity would have felt incredibly unnatural, so instead I just asked, "What do you need from me?"
Again she paused. "My skill at reading Fate is middling at best, but I've felt an approaching threat. Something to do with the relief effort our Monarch ordered Mercy to lead."
"Dreadgods?" I asked in alarm.
She shook her head. "No. Those are always obvious, even to me. The Bleeding Phoenix is flying directly away from the Ashwind continent and shows no signs of turning, and the Weeping Dragon is currently meandering around the Iceflower Continent. This is something subtler, although subtler than a Dreadgod is a very low bar. Grandmother is more adept at reading Fate, but all she'll tell me is that she has it in hand."
Yesterday, Charity might have just accepted that. That was the trouble with keeping secrets. For all that Charity could be ruthless when needed, she was a fundamentally decent person. If Malice was hiding things from her, the most likely reason was that Charity would disapprove. And when it came to Mercy, anything Charity disapproved of was likely something I would disapprove of.
Would Malice knowingly send her heir into danger? No, wrong question. Facing genuine danger was an inescapable cost of advancing if you ever wanted to reach the highest levels. How much danger would Malice knowingly send Mercy into? I drummed my fingers on Charity's desk. If there was one person I was fairly confident Malice would never seriously risk, it was Mercy. But just yesterday, she'd risked the lives of a considerable portion of her family, myself included, for a chance at obtaining a Dreadgod weapon. That was an extreme case, but it certainly demonstrated Malice wouldn't hesitate to lay her cards on the table if she thought the prize was worth it.
"What's she hoping to gain?" I asked eventually. "Does it have to do with the Labyrinth, or is it something else?"
"I don't know," said Charity. "I intend to learn what I can. But in the meantime, I'm counting on you to look after Mercy. She'll be vulnerable, especially in the suppression field. You have better senses than her, and more experience. Trust your instincts. If anything feels off, don't hesitate. Get her out."
"Of course," I said. She held my gaze for a moment, and an unspoken understanding passed between us. This wasn't to be shared with any of the others; it wouldn't do to show even the slightest hint of internal dissension within the Akura clan. But above all else, we'd keep Mercy safe.
Even from her own mother, if necessary.
Charity proves once again to be the closest thing the Akura clan has to a good human being.
Taylor has been given way more pieces to Cradles greatest puzzle than any Lord-realm should have.
And most importantly Eithan shows off his hard earned skills developed on the path to his ideal icon.
Taylor has been given way more pieces to Cradles greatest puzzle than any Lord-realm should have.
And most importantly Eithan shows off his hard earned skills developed on the path to his ideal icon.
Good to see some people starting to become aware of the secrets around them. Lol at Fury falling on his head.
Lol at Fury falling on his head.
Finally read the first book of the series, so I'm understanding things better.
This was a really good chapter. To be honest I was pretty bored with the tournament in your fic, but you're back in it really well with this. I really appreciate that you write Mercy as the prodigy she's described as. I always felt that was said more than seen in canon.
- Location
- Canada
What is that by the way, the icon of the clown?
- Location
- Escondido, California, USA, North America
I think Taylor will either get the Abyss Icon or the Shadow Icon.
CedeTheBees
Probably high right now
- Location
- Somewhere
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Escalation Icon
Eithan really, really wants the Joy Icon.
- Location
- Not Entirely Here
My suspicion is that Taylor inadvertently developed enough willpower to become a Sage through her rather eventful life, and just need to work on reaching for an Icon.
You mean the void icon?
- Location
- USA
This is hilarious. Fury just casually dropping a reference to the 5th Dreadgod. Not even to fully trusted people like Mercy and Taylor, but Grace and Akura affiliates like Lindon and Yerin are here. Can totally see why he thinks it's not a big deal -- surely nobody would be crazy enough and powerful enough to make it all the way down to the SW, right?
See I'm not sure they're the same. Void is emptiness. I see Abyss as more like, darkness/unknown. You don't know what lives at the bottom of the ocean, but something lives there.
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- Location
- Not Entirely Here
That seems like it would be covered by the Shadow icon Malice has.
Taylor knows how things work.
Yeah Taylor is going to need the old monster that she's laid to rest soon. I'm hyped as hell for it to come out and a little guilty for that as well.
Taylor has bullshit willpower but how she got there hurt her in a deep fundamental way that took years to heal and never will be 100% healed.
Look at Taylor being a positive influence.
Fury casually spreading out national secrets is such a vibe.
Charity knows that there is shit that Malice is hiding from her that she should really really know about.
Charity proves once again why she's one of the best people and authority figures in Cradle.
This is where we are going to see stone cold badass Taylor, doing what she really gives a shit about which is protecting the people she cares about.
I read about that and holy shit that was such a gut punch.
Hell I'd say Taylor has Monarch level willpower now that she's a lot more stable.
Evil Atlas
Inspector of Details
- Location
- Denial
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Oooh, here we go. This is very good. Out of the relative civility of the tournament and back into the low-power, high-stakes people-management and intrigue that defined such important parts of Taylor's life. Back in her old element. This feels like a very promising plotline. I'm looking forward to it.
The interactions in this chapter continued to be among the best parts of this fic. The voices are just so well done. It's very satisfying. Taylor masterminding, Mercy bringing relentless cheer, and the oh-so-fitting way that Taylor interacts with people as just people, regardless of power level. It's a joy to read.
The interactions in this chapter continued to be among the best parts of this fic. The voices are just so well done. It's very satisfying. Taylor masterminding, Mercy bringing relentless cheer, and the oh-so-fitting way that Taylor interacts with people as just people, regardless of power level. It's a joy to read.
Taylor almost certainly has the required willpower by now. The trick is the Icon. I suspect she will connect to a new one, possibly by accident. As for what it would represent, I suspect she will embody sacrifice.
As for the prison, Taylor is uniquely suited to conquering it thanks to her experiences in Worm. I wonder if she will have a reason to go down there? And I wonder what secrets she would be able to discover. A prison like that is not a simple thing, being able to create a weaker version of the suppression field would be an interesting development.
As for the prison, Taylor is uniquely suited to conquering it thanks to her experiences in Worm. I wonder if she will have a reason to go down there? And I wonder what secrets she would be able to discover. A prison like that is not a simple thing, being able to create a weaker version of the suppression field would be an interesting development.
- Location
- Escondido, California, USA, North America
Maping is pretty much correct. I think the Abyss Icon differs from the Shadow Icon in that the Shadow Icon focuses on the general principles of darkness such as hiding and fear, while the Abyss Icon has to do with you getting lost in darkness, because light will run out, your senses will fail you, and the darkness will still continue on after that. This relates back to her training with the Oracle Sage. When she canceled the Lord-level light technique she didn't overwhelm it with her Shadow, it got lost in the Abyss of her Immeasurable Swarm.
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If she ever gets an Icon on accident it won't be Sacrifice. She will manifest something like Fear or Terror. Not the Shadow because it relates to hiding, darkness and unknown, and Taylor... Taylor is all about that crushing terror when you see what is going to be your end and know that there is very little you could do to slow it down even for a moment.
Also we may see the first ever Icon manifestation, or at least touching, in a group of people at the same time. Taylor is going to the Sacred Valley where everyone will be at Jade level. I have a feeling whole swathes of people will learn that arachnophobia is not a disorder - it's a survival mechanism.
I'd just like to take a moment and thank everyone for their support, which has let Path of the Immeasurable Swarm achieve this amazing rating on wormstorysearch.com:
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Ahh, but control was something that she strived for but didn't ever get. In fact no matter what she tried she never could get it. And no one else could. Even Cauldron that was supported by Contessa crumbled before Taylor's eyes with most of them dying horribly without achieving anything of note. And her last fight as Khepri only reinforced the notion that control is impossible - because even Scion for all his power was never really in control.