Chapter 317: A Fallout of Dust

Alex lay on the ground flinching as a noise like turbulent water coursing through a waterway throbbed in his ears. He grabbed the sides of his head and tried to make sense of what had just happened. All around, the world was raining dust. ‘Why? What hap-...the experiment. The chaos essence and core remains had exploded!’

Charred grass, soil and bits of debris fell on everyone and everything, while the earth rumbled beneath him. Through the rushing in his ears, the sounds of coughing, and moaning hit Alex from all sides. White dots—after images from the blast—floated before his eyes, obscuring his vision through a thick layer of dust.

‘Get up,’ he thought. ‘Get up!’

He tried willing his body to move, but every twitch made it scream. ‘You’ve gotta get up. Cast mana to life and get up!’ Alex clenched his teeth behind his mask and began casting the spell, pushing through the Mark’s interference until; a connection formed between his mana pool and life force. Power flooded his body, erasing some of his pain, clearing his senses.

Now he could move.

Now he could worry about the others.

Beside him, Isolde was groaning, trying to stand, but her entire body shook like a newborn fawn’s. Carey was curled up with her arms covering her ears as she wheezed into her mask.

“Don’t worry,” he murmured, using his cloak to wipe dust and bits of rubble from his mask’s lenses, then reached for the two of them and placed either hand on their backs. “I’ve got you.”

Focusing on Isolde first, he cast mana to life again, channelling more energy and—for the first time—using the spell on someone other than himself. A connection formed not between his mana pool and lifeforce, but between his mana pool and Isolde’s vital energies.

She tensed as the energy poured into her, steadying her, accelerating her healing.

“Thank you…” she panted, taking deep breaths.

Alex nodded, casting the spell to help Carey. Wheezing calmed, her breathing became steadier as she moved her hands from her ears and silently nodded. The side of her mask remained pressed to the earth; it looked like she couldn’t speak yet.

“Stay down until you get your strength back,” he said. “I’m going to see how the others are doing.”

The ground had nearly settled. It should be safe enough to walk on.

“Careful…” Isolde’s voice was a bit breathless. “That was an explosion of chaos essence. Who knows what might be happening underground. You never know with chaos.”

Alex nodded. “I’ll be careful, and that’s why you should stay down for now.”

Pushing himself to his feet, he waved away sifting dust drifting in front of his mask…and noticed a massive shape looming between him and the direction the blast came from.

“Look out!” He shouted, dropping into a defensive stance. ‘What in all the hells is that? Did something form from all that energy? Did something mutate?’ His mind raced.

Then he made out four massive arms.

Claygon, but how had he gotten between him and the explosion? Or had the blast thrown him behind his golem.

‘I must’ve lost track of—’

Claygon’s head turned, his eyes looked straight at Alex.

“Holy shit!”

The young wizard jumped back.

He hadn’t instructed Claygon to turn his head. He hadn’t given him any instructions at all. The golem had done it all on his own. Their eyes met. Through their connection, Alex felt something touch his mind. It was a curious, hesitant touch. Like a newborn lamb taking its first steps.

It was unmistakable.

There was an awareness there.

A conscious thought, though it was too faint to understand.

As abruptly as it came, it faded, leaving Alex both excited and confused. The young wizard stared at his golem. There was no mistaking it.

Claygon was becoming sapient.

“Claygon?” Alex said his name.

Nothing.

‘Claygon?’ he sent a thought to his construct.

No response.

His mind mustn’t be fully formed yet. Or maybe it’s just awakening. Or maybe it’s fully formed, but he’s not ready to talk or—

Alex shook his head.

He couldn’t think about that now.

‘Thanks,’ he wholeheartedly thought toward Claygon. ‘Thanks buddy. You helped us. Seriously. Thank you.”

Alex checked him over, then patted him on the back. “You’re alright. Now, let’s help the others.”

Thoom.

Claygon walked beside him as he began looking around. The dust was clearing; most of his fellow Generasians were in different positions on the ground. Some were sprawled out, some flat on their backs, some on their sides curled up, most clutched the sides of their masks, holding their ears. Everyone was coughing, gasping for breath, while trying to shake ash and dirt from their lenses. Those still on the ground weren’t as fortunate as he, Isolde, and Carey were. They’d had Claygon to shield them and block most of the blast. A few of their teammates' masks were off, their ears were bloodstained. Alex silently thanked Claygon again.

Professor Jules’ wall of force was…completely gone. Uneven, gaping cracks spiderwebbed through the earthen wall, trailing lines of loose debris to the ground.

Alex was awestruck at what he was seeing and took a moment to examine the shattered wall before looking beyond it.

“By the Traveller!”

Through the haze, a massive ball was rising high in the sky from the other hill, expanding and growing in waves; a tower of smoke reaching toward the heavens. His eyes followed the column as it ascended, watching as it grew and flared.

No, it was too big to be a column. A massive cloud was forming.

Shaped like a mushroom.

He turned his attention to the hilltop below it, squinting through his lenses, trying to see where the explosion originated. The smoke was too thick to see most of the blast site…but what he could see looked vastly different from before.

Shorter.

The terrain had been completely altered, reduced by the explosion. The grass and scrub covering the sides and surrounding hills were scorched, and still burning.

Tracking the smoke down to the top of the adjacent hill stopped Alex cold, the peak of that hill was just about gone. The slope was flattened and the vegetation, a brushfire.

A flash lit up the smoke.

Crackle!

Alex bounded back as a crack of lightning ripped through the smoke, repeating three times.

Boom!

Billowing smoke parted, revealing…chaos.

Sparks, lightning bolts, momentary flashes of light and waves of force crashed together: aftershocks from the reaction and discharges of chaotic energy released in the aftermath, as the remaining dregs of mana burned away.

Boom!

Alex ducked as another burst of force pushed aside more smoke.

For a heartbeat, a crater was visible.

A wide crater, roughly ten feet deep, spread across the hilltop where Jules’ forcefield once stood. Forceshield and wind-and-rain shield had been obliterated, leaving a dustbowl of ash, sparks, and an odd bubbling pool of molten metal.

At first, Alex’s mind couldn’t process what he was looking at, but then it hit him: he was seeing the steaming remains of Jules’ golem. Solid brass had been reduced to boiling liquid in a flash.

“By the Traveller!”

In alchemy, they’d learned that it took temperatures of over two thousand degrees to melt brass. For a solid brass golem to boil away like that…the sheer amount of heat and pressure that must’ve built in the forceshield…

A chill went through him.

Must’ve been apocalyptic.

He started thinking about what the intensity of a blast like that could’ve meant.

What would’ve happened if Jules hadn’t erected a forcefield around the test site? Or if she hadn’t raised a wall of force between them and the blast? What would have happened if they hadn’t been behind cover and a good distance away, or if they’d conducted the test in the research tent?

Alex looked up at the mushroom cloud forming above the blast area as the smoke drifted over the site, hiding it from view. In his mind, he saw the cloud rising, but not from an isolated hill, but from the blasted wreckage of their encampment.

Everything and everybody would have been reduced to dust.

He thought of his friends returning from the stone-harvest to find a smouldering hole, devoid of life.

Dust. Dust. Dust.

Another flash of light broke his contemplations, pulling his attention back to the research team.

‘Focus, that didn’t happen, never mind what might have,’ he thought. ‘Focus on what’s actually happening right now.’

Watchers of Roal were getting to their feet with their staffs and blades at the ready, scanning for threats. Blood mages had restored their own energies, and were the next to stand and survey the surroundings.

Alex made his way over to Meikara who was shaking off the last of the aftereffects.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“Do I look alright?” she groaned. “By all the heavens and hells. Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” he pointed at Claygon. “He shielded Carey, Isolde and me from the worst of it,” he glanced at the golem fondly. “Claygon’s fine too. Have you seen the professor?”

“No.” She shook her head. “What about Isolde and Carey?”

“I healed them a bit. Isolde should be on her feet soon, Carey’ll probably be down longer, but she seems to be alright.”

“Right, I’m glad you know some blood magic now. Here, come on. We could use the help. Let’s find the professor first.”

“Right.”

A Watcher was looking up at the cloud. “We’ll have to establish a perimeter around the site and send up a flare, not that we’ll need it. I’m pretty sure you’d have to be unconscious or dead not to have seen or heard that blast. The whole of Greymoor probably heard it, but let’s hope no monsters are bold enough to come investigating…”

She pointed at the smoke.

“...we’re ready for them, whatever comes. When you find Professor Jules, let her know what we’ll be doing.”

“We will,” Alex said as Meikara nodded.

The Watchers moved off while Alex and Meikara separated to cover more ground in their search for Jules. Meikara’s fellow healers attended to everyone downed by the blast.

Near the wall, Alex soon found the professor struggling to stand. The lenses in her mask had shattered and her spyglass…was nowhere to be seen.

He fought the urge to gasp when he saw her face.

Droplets of blood ringed her eyes.

“Professor! Can you see? How are your eyes?”

“I’m fine…” she groaned. “The broken lenses cut the skin around my eyes, but my vision’s fine. Blast it, I didn’t get down fast enough when I felt the energy building. I was trying to reinforce the forcefield and the wall.”

“They probably saved a lot of us, professor. Hold still for a moment,” Alex said, falling into himself and casting mana to life another time. Jules tensed as her life force was fortified. Alex continued pouring his energy into healing her until she waved him off.

“There, there,” she said. “That’s enough now. I’m not so decrepit that you have to keep re-energising me for the rest of the day.”

To illustrate her point, she pulled herself up using the damaged wall. Alex detected a slight tremor go through her, but chose not to mention it.

“Go, others need your skills,” she said, looking at the mushroom cloud. “By all the deities and mana of the world…” She shook her head. “Staring at it’s not going to change anything.”

“Professor…” He looked at Claygon.

“Yes?” She squinted at Alex.

“Nevermind, later.”

“Right. Off to it, then.” She and Alex began attending to anyone who needed help nearby.

All around, blood mages were healing wounds and bolstering the injured. Alex joined them, going from one person to the next, repeatedly casting Mana to Life. He cursed, feeling his mana decreasing. Mana to Life was an absolute pig on mana.

He’d been trying to ration it so his pool didn’t run dry but fortunately, he wasn’t the only one healing. The blood mages were using their skills and tools to get folks back on their feet, but it didn’t hurt to have more help.

There were still researchers down, disoriented or injured. Isolde was already up and moving, but Carey was just struggling to her feet. The difference between how quickly Isolde was recovering compared to Carey, was stark. Isolde trained for combat, Carey didn’t. The noblewoman had fortitude that Carey didn’t.

All of Alex’s training hadn’t been for nothing either; his endurance and stamina were significant. Even with Jules’ force spells, the wall, and Claygon shielding him; a year ago, he would probably still be groaning on the ground with his eyes rolled back in his head.

The healers were working quickly, and thankfully, most injuries looked superficial. Bumps. Bruises. Some cuts. But, as a precaution for a few folks who’d lost consciousness, or bled from their ears, they were revived and put on forcedisks for more extensive checkovers in Generasi.

All in all, most of the research team were soon healed and back on their feet, supporting each other, talking about what had happened.

When the last of the injured were finally cleared, the researchers turned their attention to Professor Jules. She was looking at the sky, intently watching the spreading mushroom cloud.

She sighed.

“My apologies. This…was obviously unexpected. Sometimes discoveries in magic and science can be wonderful. Sometimes they can be terrible.”

She pointed at the cloud.

“We’ve discovered something terrible today.”