Chapter 207: Council

Chapter 207: Council

The early morning sun felt warm on Rain’s armor as the reds and oranges of the sunrise gave way to the pale blue of the day to come. A handful of puffy clouds played on the horizon, the last reminders of the storm that had accompanied them here. The air itself was bitterly cold and heavy with the scent of salt, but the wind was low and the waves were gentle, lapping quietly against the iceberg beneath him.

Slowly, the haze faded from Rain’s eyes behind his visor, and he came back to himself with a start.

Where...?

Looking around, there was no sign of the Warden or Citizen Barstone. Even the Citizen’s ship was gone, though he spotted it as he turned, the frigate floating peacefully with the rest of the fleet, as if it had never left. Ameliah, Vanna, Samson, Tarny, and Sana were standing in a line beside him, dazed expressions on their faces as they stared out at the now completely blue horizon. According to his HUD, it was just after seventh bell. He’d lost over an hour.

“Hey...” Rain said, his voice coming out as a croak.

Ameliah stirred, then jerked. She gasped, raising her bow and dropping into a crouch as she swiveled her head from side to side.

“Where’d she go?”

“I don’t know,” Rain said, looking at her, then shifting his eyes to Vanna as she gasped and pressed a hand to her chest. “The Warden pulled something out of Velika, and then... Shit, Velika!”

Rain whirled, his boots crunching against the ice as he dashed toward the crumpled form lying at the center of the platform. Detection promptly informed him it was a person, not a body, and he relaxed slightly, crouching down and gently rolling her over. Behind him, he heard a startled shout as Tarny snapped out of the trance, followed by a high-pitched yelp from Sana.

“Captain?” Samson asked, speaking over their confused murmurs. “What’s happening? What happened to the Warden?”

“How much does everyone remember?” Rain asked, rising and looking at Ameliah, who had followed him. She knelt to check on Velika, but Rain had already put the ex-Citizen out of his mind. She was unconscious, but breathing, with snow and frozen drool crusting her face. Had she been just anyone, he’d have feared frostbite, but there was no way regular ice could hurt someone like her.

“I...don’t know,” Ameliah said. “After the Warden stopped Barstone, she put everyone in a trance or something, then she started talking to me...reading my mind.” She crossed her arms, rubbing her elbows. “She wanted to know about Ascension and why I joined. After that, she told me something...something I’m not sure I wanted to know.” There was a brief pause as she struggled, her emotional distress clear from the trembling intensity of her soul.

Rain took a step toward her. “Hey.”

“I’ll tell you later,” Ameliah said, her soul quieting as she pressed down whatever was bothering her. She shook her head, then looked back at Vanna. “We talked a bit more after that, but then she stumbled, and I had to catch her before she fell. She thanked me, then said Rain was three fries short of a Happy Meal, whatever that’s supposed to mean.” She shrugged at him. “She also said she was jealous and that I should never, ever, EVER let him go.”

Rain’s thoughts, already reeling from the Happy Meal comment, sputtered to a halt. As he worked to form a reply, he noticed that Sana was turning pink again, but fortunately, Vanna came to his rescue.

“This doesn’t make sense,” she said, hugging her arms close to her chest. “After Vatreece did...whatever she did...to Barstone, she was talking to me. It was everyone else who was in a daze, including you.” She uncrossed her arms to point at Ameliah, then spread them wide in a gesture of hopeless bewilderment. “She kept asking me about my past. Like, who I was, where I came from, and how I ended up second in command of Ascension before I was even awakened. Then, just like you said, she stumbled, except I was the one to catch her. And then, after she thanked me, I was just...here.”

“So, this is the power of a platinumplate,” Samson said, clearly disturbed from his tone and the way he was resting a hand on the pommel of his sword. “My experience was much the same as Vanna’s. I believe the Warden spun our minds into distinct, hallucinated realities. Terrifying. Terrifying to think that the world I saw was naught but fiction. Tarny? Officer Sana? Did the Warden speak to you as well?”

“I...yes,” Sana said, straightening herself up and tugging on her jacket. “Yes, she did.”

“And me,” Tarny said, nodding. “Now, thinking back, it seems ridiculous that she’d want to talk to a lowly Beacon, but it seemed so natural then. It felt perfectly reasonable for her to want to know what I thought about Ascension—about what we were doing and why we were doing it.” He looked at Rain. “It was like a dream.”Ñøv€lRapture marked the initial hosting of this chapter on Ñôv€lß¡n.

Rain shivered, but not from the cold.

Mental Ward was active in the rotation, but if she had a piercing skill...

...

I should have tried Aura Focus! Why didn’t I think to try Aura Focus?!

*pop*

“Ah!” several people screamed.

[Hello!]

“Where the hells were you?!” Rain demanded of the slime that had just splatted atop his head, losing what little composure he’d been managing to maintain.

[Dozer talk Grannybrain!] Dozer said, quivering with excitement and clinging to Rain’s helmet as he moved. [Ask many whats! Ask how Dozer am be Dozer! Confuse!!1!]

Rain reeled, echoing Dozer’s sentiment and ignoring the errant ‘1’ in the string of exclamation points. “Dozer says he was talking to the Warden...” he said, trailing off. Reaching up, he dislodged the slime with a loud sucking sound, depositing him instead on his shoulder as his thoughts continued to churn.

Dozer should have been in my soul when Vatreece popped in, but he wasn’t. I didn’t even NOTICE!

Someone began to talk, but Rain raised his hands, making a shushing sound as he closed his eyes. He began examining his thoughts, turning each one over and checking it for any lingering influence. There was nothing.

...

Filth, that doesn’t mean it’s not there...

[⟬filth⟭!]

“Um, Custodian Rain, sir,” Officer Sana said hesitantly.

Still in a daze, Rain tore his eyes open to look at her. “What?”

Sana came to a stop, hugging her woolly jacket tight about herself. “She, uh, Warden Vatreece said... She said I should go with you, that is, um, if you’ll have me. She wants me to join Ascension. She said you’d need my help and that you were a good person.”

“She told me there were no good people,” Rain said, starting to feel a bit numb.

“She also wanted me to—”Sana began, but Ameliah cut her off urgently.

“Sorry, Rain, Nails is Messaging me. He says he tried you first, but that he couldn’t make a connection. Everyone is waking up now, and he says...” Ameliah held up a finger, tilting her head. “He says the Warden came down the stairs and froze Velika before she could slit Mahria’s throat, then...” She paused again, her finger still raised. “He says Vatreece wanted to talk to him, to give him some tips, Mentalist to Mentalist, plus a warning not to— Hold on. He says Halgrave just woke up, and he is not happy. Crap.”

[Crap!] Dozer agreed, busily climbing the side of Rain’s face to get back on top of his head.

“We need to get down there, Rain,” Ameliah said. “People are starting to panic.”

Rain clenched his jaw as he nodded.

If there’s a compulsion in there, worrying about it won’t help. Oh, gods.

He clapped his hands sharply to rip his thoughts away from that dark path, then began determinedly striding for the ramp. “All hands meeting! Ameliah, tell Nails we’re coming. Samson, drag Velika inside, will you? Vanna, please go get Jamus and Carten, then meet us in the command room. Sana, with me.” He plucked Dozer off his head with another sucking sound—the slime really didn’t want to go—then shoved him into the officer’s arms. “Here, keep him distracted, will you?”

Existential crisis later. Time to be the captain.

All told, it took the remainder of the morning for things to settle down, and finding a space big enough for Rain to speak with everyone at once had proven impossible. There were two hundred and forty-one people on Temerity at the moment, about half of them being part of Ascension proper, with most of the remainder being the new members’ families.

As Rain crossed the threshold to the council room, the distant rumble of hundreds of conversations dropped to nothing thanks to Subtlety’s old Muffler, sitting just inside the entrance. Closing the door for good measure, Rain fought back a tired sigh, reminding himself that he was still pretending to have his shit together. He didn’t stop himself from heading for the coffee carafe that had been set up on a side table, though.

“Right,” Vanna said after a moment. “This is Fecht we are talking about. Even with all the Citizens under her control, and even if she’s confident, Vatreece said she was dying. She could still lose.”

Rain rubbed his eyes through his visor. “I never thought I’d miss the 24-hour news cycle. If there was a battle somewhere, in the DKE or the Empire, how long would it take the news to get here?”

“Twenty-four hours is as good a guess as any,” Ameliah said with a noncommittal gesture. “There’s a platform here, and a busy one, too, not a stub connection like Brightside. We’re on the main transit path to Bellost from the heart of the DKE.”

“Right,” Rain sighed. “I keep forgetting about that. I’m too used to being off the grid. We could even send someone through to Estervale if we wanted to. The Watch has a Mindcaster there, and unless the Warden issued a gag order, they’d know if anything had happened anywhere in the DKE.”

“I’d just as soon no longer be in the DKE,” Smelt said, entering the conversation at last. “Are you really suggesting we hang around here to sate our curiosity, given what just happened to us?”

Rain shook his head. “You’re right; even if Vatreece shuts down Fecht, she might not bother with the Adamants in Three Cliffs right away. They could still come here. No, we’re leaving Barstone, the only question being how soon. Do we need any more supplies, or could we leave this instant?”

Smelt grunted. “We have enough to reach Fioe or Eastspar, even with the ice slowing us. After that, fresh water is going to be an issue. Tallheart, have you made the purifier I asked you for yet?”

“I have not,” Tallheart replied. “The integrity of the ship takes priority.” He shifted his gaze to Rain. “To repair it properly, I will need titanium, hmm, and time to learn its secrets.”

“All the more reason to find a safe harbor,” Samson said. “If we need more supplies, we can acquire them in Eastspar.”

“Um,” Atyl said, followed by a polite cough. “Our financial situation isn’t the best, actually.”

“Before I went into Barstone yesterday, you said we were fine,” Rain challenged. “I didn’t spend that much, did I?”

“Fine if all we’re buying is food and water,” Atyl clarified. “Not fine for titanium. I’d never heard of it until a week ago, which means it’s expensive. Adventurer expensive.”

“Priceless, actually,” Rain said, recalling that Atyl hadn’t been at the meeting where he and Tallheart had first gone over the details. He raised a hand, as it looked like Atyl was about to respond. “It’s not something you buy. As far as we know, only the Empire knows how to refine it. We’ll need to learn to make it ourselves, but that’s a longer-term project.” He turned to Tallheart. “If we keep the iceberg, can we make it to Eastspar without something breaking?”

“The enchantments on the hull are failing,” Tallheart said with an unhappy rumble. “There are small fractures throughout. The mana network has been disrupted.”

“So that’s a maybe,” Rain said, shaking his head. “Tarny, please take an action to have Bakal and Mahria reinforce the ice and try to streamline it a bit. It needs to hold together even if the ship doesn’t. Have them start as soon as we’re done here.”

“Noted,” Tarny said.

Rain looked back at Vanna. “Do we need to let anyone off?”

Vanna shook her head. “Nobody has asked to leave.”

“Do we want to let anyone off?” Ameliah asked. “Bakal is useful, and I admit he’s the tamest, cuddliest pirate I’ve ever met, but the stray Guilders? Thrast and Cessa? Thrast is trouble, and I barely know anything about Cessa beyond that she’s a Fire Mage.”

“Exactly,” Rain said. “She’s higher-leveled than Kettel or Ava, so it would be great to have her to help heat the boiler. Tarny, another action, see if she wants to join, assuming she qualifies, and if not, see if you can come up with a contract or something so we can hire her on a temporary basis. As for Thrast, we could do without him, obviously, but I’m not in favor of kicking anyone off. We can boot him at Eastspar if he becomes a problem.”

“Or sooner,” Tallheart rumbled. “He has proven that he is able to swim.”

Ameliah snorted.

“Okay, it’s settled then,” Vanna said, standing up. “We’re leaving right the hells now. Unless there are any objections, we should probably call the meeting.”

“No objections, but wait just a moment,” Rain said, motioning her back down. “We need to finalize where we’re going.”

“North,” Smelt said, crossing his arms. “Duh.”

“Yes, obviously,” Rain said patiently, “but are we stopping at Fioe, or are we pressing for Eastspar?”

“Eastspar would be better if we can make it,” Samson said. “Fioe doesn’t have a teleporter, and it has a bad reputation—both the city and the Citizen, not that we’ll have to deal with the latter.”

“Eastspar, then,” Vanna said. “Good enough for me. We can always stop sooner if it looks like we’re not going to make it.”

“Where after that, though?” Romer asked.

Rain opened his mouth but found himself interrupted by a low rumble.

“Yelfenn.”

Rain raised an eyebrow, swiveling his head to peer at the antlered smith. “What’s in Yelfenn?”

Tallheart blinked slowly, meeting Rain’s gaze.

Oh. I’ll ask him later in private to make sure, but if it’s what I think it is...

“That is not much of an answer,” Vanna observed after the silence began to stretch.

Rain nodded to Tallheart. “Okay, Yelfenn.”

“Wait just a damn second,” Smelt said. “That’s still in the DKE.”

“I am aware,” Rain said. “Tallheart wants to go there, though, so that’s where we’re going.”

“But—”

“Smelt,” Ameliah said, interrupting him and raising her hand high above her head. “I vote for Yelfenn. It’s still in the DKE, yes, but it’s right in the middle of the northern coast. With the Citizens under the Warden’s control, it’s probably as safe as anywhere, on this continent or off. Safer than passing by Splendor and risking our luck with the Bank, certainly. It’s near the West Nov passage, too, so we don’t have far to go if we decide to try our luck in Rellagia. The port cities tolerate Guilders to one degree or another, provided they keep out of politics.”

Rain raised his hand, adding his vote for Yelfenn, though it was hardly unclear where he stood. He looked at Vanna. “What do you say, Commander?”

“Yelfenn,” Vanna said, raising her hand as well and looking at Smelt. “Sorry, brother. No time to argue.”

Samson looked at Tallheart speculatively. “There is something there you need?”

Tallheart, after a moment, nodded slowly.

Samson nodded back, then raised his hand as well. “Good enough for me. I vote for Yelfenn.”

“Fine,” Smelt said, heaving a sigh, clearly outnumbered. “I just want to know why, is all.”

“You do not need to,” Tallheart said, his face even more unreadable than usual.

Rain stood before anyone else could respond, clapping his hands to gather their attention. “Vanna’s right; this meeting has gone on too long already. Tallheart, tip Staavo out of his hammock and get us moving. Smelt, find Shu and have him chart us a course close to shore, the shallower, the better. Tarny, I want Bakal and Mahria out there working on the iceberg. Atyl, find Kettel and have him meet me at the boiler. I’ll get it up to temp, but others will need to work shifts to keep it going. Myth and Reason haven’t had time to make more fuel yet, so we’re running on people power. Ameliah, can you scout, please? It’s day, so minor mana usage shouldn’t draw anything too horrible up to say hello, but I’d feel better with you up there to warn us. Maybe take Emerton with you if he’s available. Samson, I want a full combat party topside at all times, too, and someone watching Velika to tell me if she so much as wiggles an eyelash.” Lifting his almost-forgotten coffee, he cracked his visor and poured the lukewarm liquid down his throat before slamming the mug back to the table with slightly more force than he’d intended. The heavy ceramic didn’t break, but it wouldn’t have given him pause for an instant if it had. He had far more important things to worry about. “Let’s MOVE, people!”