Chapter 353: Break

Chapter 353: Break

Tala was learning something about herself.

As it turned out, she did not like fighting the eye-beasts, and they were especially annoying up close.

Flow cut them well enough, but she was constantly under pressure from dozens of directions, the magic so thick that it was pushing her in an almost physical manner.

Currently, both of her Leshkin shields, and her three defensive discs were glowing with absorbed powereach a different coloras she did her best to move them with her aura, keeping them in place between herself and the given attacker.

At the same time, she was striking down thing after thing.

At close range, that was the only word that seemed to fit.

They were things.

Each eye stared with hollow emptiness, making the eye-beast seem more a conduit to a distracted mind than the physical form of a consciousness.

They made no sound of pain.

They didnt try to avoid injury if taking a blow would allow another of them to land a hit.

They each acted with identical instincts and reactions.

It was creepy.

Tala was fulfilling her role within the unit, bodily keeping their enemies back as the others supported her.

Still, more than half of the monsters that she came across were at least mostly blind due to Master Limmestares efforts.

The unit was in a relatively tight cluster near the exit, with less than a minute remaining before Mistress Suile could reseal this nightmarish wasteland.

Terry had recovered enough in the last couple of minutes to help once again, but he hadnt come back to being fully combat effective, so while he would have been an immense help, they were saving him as an asset for their final retreat. They were also hoping that he would be a bit more recovered by that point.

The avian had been in a bad enough way that hed allowed Mistress Vanga to offer him some healing, and that had been a big help to his recovery as well.

He was on Talas shoulder, shifting as she moved, and practically dancing from foot to foot as he waited for the signal that it was his time to shine once more.

The beasts had enough magical weight that Tala couldnt draw them into the void within Flow, but Flow still cut them well enough, stealing iron even from their alien blood.

With the stark reminder and near miss of Master Limmestares massive glass blade, Tala was incredibly careful to keep her strikes confined to the beasts torsos and legs.

As the time needed to maintain the cell came to a close, Tala was punching and kicking as much as using Flow, just trying to maintain space.

As she used her hands and feet for such percussive tasks, she controlled Flow using the ring around the top of its hilt between tossing it out and pulling it back.

She only had a few more siege orbs, but she was holding those back until

Now! Master Clevniss voice came into her head via Alat.

Alat, targets!

Tala tossed out her last handful of siege-orb pairs, targeting each of the sixteen highly compressed spheres at a different beast, far back into the mass of creatures, mentally chosen and highlighted by Alat.

They were purposely evenly spread around the arc they were defending.

Sixteen supersonic cracks staggered Tala backward, but much less than the orbs blasting outward staggered the eye-beasts.

An instant later, she broke the workings and all sixteen exploded, throwing back even more of the creatures and leaving treacherous, frozen ground behind, littered with broken corpses.

That was the signal for Terry, and the little terror bird became a not-so-little avian of destruction.

Even with Talas clearing action, and Terrys dervish of death, Tala still had to fight to retreat, her defenses awash in hostile power.

She was the last to step back through the entrance of the cell, leaving only Terry within.

Mistress Suile spoke sharply. Tell me when.

Tala glanced her way. Start now. Then, Tala shouted, wrapping power through the words to make sure they carried, TERRY!

Existence began to warp, the cell closing.

Terry flickered out onto Talas shoulder, more of his feathers bent, broken, and smoking than not. Still, he didnt appear to have sustained any direct damage to his flesh in the short engagement.

Despite their valiant efforts, three eye-beasts came through the closing gateway after Terry, even as the cell resealed.

Blessedly, as theyd been told to expect, as soon as existence sealed the cell, the creatures stiffened and collapsed, dissolving into an oddly sandy smoke, which filled the air with a cloying, harsh smell.

Theyd done it.The roots of this story extend from novell bìn origin.

Theyd finished maintaining a cell that contained a beast-god.

Everyone took a moment to just breathe, before Mistress Cerna cleared her throat. You all were fantastic, Master Limmestare; you kept the numbers manageable, and you, Tala and Terry, you two managed those numbers beyond expectation.

There was a round of agreement and smiles.

Still, the woman grimaced, that was awful. Im going to be putting in my report that there should be a minimum of three Paragons involved when they again work on this cell, unless the Refined are specifically chosen to counter those creatures.

Tala shook her head. I still cant believe that they were merely figment-manifestations of the prisoner.

Another round of agreement followed that.

It was Mistress Suile who responded this time. Beast-gods are, often as not, lethal opponents for Sovereigns. Its only because the beast couldnt involve itself directly that we attempted this cell at all.

He shrugged. That can happen. Im sure it will be fine. Remember this and try to think of them more next time. He smiled encouragingly. Come on. We want to be well on our way before we camp for the night.

Right; with Rane along, well need to do that.

Alats voice came into her head with an exasperated tone, -You factored that in, Tala. You werent planning to arrive until tomorrow evening, and that gives you more than twelve hours for the long, winter night to pass.-

Oh huh, thats true. She smiled and turned to get back up to speed.

Rane bent and launched himself, his magics leaving the ground unaffected as he was simply imparted with motion upon himself, no backpressure required.

Hes right, he should be able to fly with that. Hes only lacking a bit of control and greater throughput.

-Hes going to be incredibly mobile once hes Refined and has gotten used to the changes.-

Thats the truth.

She began to run, being careful to not push off too hard and disrupt the landscape.

They were both shaping their aura to mimic the form that Master Grediv had demonstrated for them.

Tala was better at it than Rane, but they were also going much slower than Master Grediv had taken them upon his blue disc.

They were also going slower than Talas unit traveled, but her unit didnt much mind creating some magical resonance.

Calling down arcane and magical creatures was a bonus, rather than a detraction, for the fully combat-ready unit, though they did try to keep it to a reasonable level. No one wanted to disturb some of the near god-beast creatures that were known to live deep within the mountains to their north.

Though, those seem to be in hibernation of some sort. Theyd wake up one day, and Tala was not eager to be a contributor to that wakening.

Rane's leaps were really the next best thing to flying, with him only touching down every few hundred yards, depending on the terrain.

He was constantly surrounded by a nimbus of power contained but not masked by his aura.

What that meant in practice was that his power was easily visible to her magesight but did not stand out like a beacon on a hill would to her mundane vision.

Tala, for her part, was mostly coated in iron, the main exception being her eyes so that she could practice unifying her voidsight, magesight, and mundane vision, rather than treating them as separate things. Her eyes were the best means of doing that practice she had been able to find.

Aside from her eyes, she uncovered her mouth and ears to speak with Rane whenever they took a short break or paused to choose a specific direction of travel.

They also had a short break for lunch, during which Tala began to talk about the Beast-god of Dreams and what she and her unit had faced within that cell.

Rane was suitably impressed, asking a lot of questions, and talking through their tactics, successes and places for improvement.

Terry came out of Kit every so often to flicker around through the surrounding hills and groves, but he never stayed out too long.

He was still rather exhausted from his fighting against the eye-beasts.

Rane called Terry over on one of the avians outings, and Tala saw Rane speaking and the bird preening, though she couldnt hear the words.

Terry had a bit more pep in his flicker after that, though he still didnt spend much time outside of Kit.

All in all, they passed a pleasant day, passing through well-known countryside.

When the sun began to set, they found a nice dell, sheltered by trees with the lower end of the small valley pointing to the east.

The trees were old and large, their branches mostly bare for the winter, though some few leaves still clung on here and there.

A little spring welled up near the top of the valley, just beside a short cliff, and the water flowed even through the snow, with a light mist of steam rising from the flow.

A hot springs? She didnt remember such being marked on any map that shed seen. Though, it was a rather small one, without any pool to speak of.

The little brook ran toward the east, exiting the small depression on that side, between the trees, making its way out into the wilderness, where it made an iceflow when the waters heat reached its end.

Quite a few larger rocks were scattered about haphazardly, casting irregular shadows across the white and gray landscape.

The snow bore many small animal tracks, and some larger prints, as expected from around such a ready source of water this time of year.

All in all, it was a beautiful spot.

Tala placed Kit down against a low stone face on the high side, and the sanctum spread out, exposing windows along with the entrance door, making the cliff suddenly look like a quaintif well appointedhouse, dug into the rock and stone.

The windows were just that, so Tala was able to see into her own bedroom as well as the main dining room and one of the guest rooms.

Hmm thats unideal. With that thought, and her desires directed toward Kit, the windows became opaque from the outside, though they were still obviously windows.

Better. Thank you, Kit. She made sure to send her appreciation toward the cliff-house.

The cliff-house, of course, did not respond.

She stretched, looking toward Rane who was staring up at the clear sky, the last light of day fading from view and the stars beginning to be revealed. Rane?

Hmm? He glanced her way, his face still mostly pointing upward. Its looking to be a stunning night. I really am glad that it is clear on this side of the range.

Theyd passed through the cleft-pass early that morning, leaving the clouds behind, for the most part.

It had made the day all the more picturesque.

She smiled. So it is. Shall we grab dinner? We can finish discussing the cell.

He looked back up and nodded. Id like that. Can we eat out here?

Tala felt her smile growing. That sounds lovely.