Chapter 86

 

* Weaver’s Road *

 

Jandor and Panson watched as the giant rockwalkers started chucking huge piles of dirt onto the fire to put them out while other creatures headed past them for the barrier.

“It looks like the real battle is about to start,” Jandor said. “Is everyone in their formations?”

Panson nodded. “Yup, everyone’s ready; they’re just waitin’ on us to lead the charge.”

“Then let’s go,” Jandor drew his sword, and without preamble, took off running across the plains with Panson close behind. There was a huge war cry from the soldiers as more than half of the fighting force chased after them.

They reached the blue barrier only a few seconds after the creatures did and jumped through it to stop them. Because of how it was designed, anyone could leave the confines of the barrier, but only registered citizens could reenter, giving the fighters of Weaver’s Road the advantage as long as it was up.

Most of the soldiers took positions in groups along the edge of the blue dome. Two or three would combat a pog or other monster to stop it from attacking and weakening the barrier. Then when they became fatigued or injured, they’d retreat behind the barrier and a new group of fighters would take their place.

However, there were some monsters, like the massive rockwalkers, and fearsome deathclaws that were too much even for a group of soldiers to match. Instead, these were tackled by one of the few teams that had a seal bearer.

Jandor and Panson, fought together against a deathclaw. Panson’s years of experience and mentus-enhanced speed was a good match for Jandor, and the two worked well together, both fighting with swords. Panson parried the black bear’s claws expertly with his blade, giving Jandor the opportunity to deliver quick decisive jabs to its flanks to slow it down.

Not too far from them, Ace, Karmandrian, and Pathos were fighting one of the giant rockwalkers using mentus and mandamus. Karmandrian and Pathos used a combination of wind and fire to knock it to the ground, while Ace used a modified mandamus bind to crush it to dust. The attack was effective but draining. Undaunted, Pathos used healing mandamus to give Ace a boost and the trio went on to find the next rockwalker.

Alyson was fighting against a group of mendars, which were weaker versions of englers that Davron could make quicker and easier. Similar to englers, mendars were disembodied blue-robed creatures with deep-yellow eyes in their hoods. They used a special type of energy attack that sometimes inflicted physical harm and other times paralyzed or incapacitated. Though they were immune to physical attacks, this didn’t slow Alyson down. Her mist blade was the perfect weapon for the bodiless foes.

She easily dodged the energy attacks, and the ones she didn’t were blocked by the heavy shields of the two soldiers who were at her side. As she got close to each of the mendars, her blade sliced into the blue robes, and a pulse of lightning surged through it, destroying it instantly. Unlike the lightning she produced earlier, this required only a small amount of her own adimus energy because the actual effect was a feature of the sword. Alyson’s training with the legendary Thunderstrike served her well using an elemental weapon like the mist blade. She was still able to easily cut down mendars, pogs, and other creatures with practiced ease.

Derrick was also putting his training to good use. Despite being barehanded, he was a formidable fighter, and the Zormon fighting style served him well. It was a style that emphasized small but precise movements and a keen attention to one’s environment. Derrick looked like he was standing relatively still, but he was able to dodge swords, axes, maces, and other weapons with small motions. From an outsider’s perspective, it was as if the monsters were missing on purpose. In addition, he could wrap his fists in mentus energy, like a glove, and knock back even the toughest of opponents without harm to himself.

He fought together with a large group of other band fighters and the team-up served him well. Though they all had different styles, it was still easy for them to work together. Most fought barehanded though some had gloves or claws. The group was not focused on defeating the creatures they encountered but rather just keeping them away from the barrier. They used punches, throws, and kicks to keep the enemy at bay, protecting a large section of the barrier all on their own. Several in the group also focused on the human soldiers, incapacitating as many of them as they could find.

Despite the coordinated effort, the press of monsters and soldiers was relentless, and dozens of Weaver’s Road fighters were cut down as the battle wore on. Davron and Gamdon stood near the back, impassively observing. The crystal at the tip of Davron’s mind mage scepter pulsed each time a creature was destroyed, and when it did, he casually resummoned the same creature from the Book of War back onto the battlefield, making for an endless hoard of monsters. He seemed content to let the battle go on like this, waiting for the Weaver’s Road defenders to be slowly whittled down.

Tabatha, however, was not as patient. She made her way past countless skirmishes to approach the barrier, but before she could reach it, a tall, blonde-haired woman in a mandant-purple robe stepped into her path.

Tabatha smiled maliciously. “If it isn’t Ace’s little guardian pet.”

Alice wielded a short sword and had a sharp look in her green eyes. “Is that supposed to rile me? I’m not ashamed that I love Cal. Are you? Is that why you’re throwing this little tantrum; because you can’t deal with your own emotions?”

Tabatha unsheathed her sword. “You must really want a fight. Actually, I’ve always wanted to fight a guardian one-on-one.”

“Then let’s dance,” Alice said as she raised her own sword.

Just as she was setting her stance, a giga pog came out of nowhere from her blind side and crashed into her, sending the guardian flying.

“Maybe later,” Tabatha muttered as she sheathed her sword again.

She didn’t have time to waste on an epic duel with someone she cared little about. Her goal was fixed, and she wouldn’t be deterred. As she walked to the barrier, she saw Alice fighting frantically against twenty giga pogs. Seeing that the creatures would keep the guardian busy, she put her hand on the barrier and closed her eyes.

 

***

 

“So how does this work?” Becky asked as she stared at a stone podium that was near the back of the massive underground room that held the city core. The podium looked near identical to the core interface at the front of the room, except it was all white and had a polished sheen like marble.”

“This is a direct energy transfer interface,” Ben explained. “Fortunately, they already had one here. I guess it was so that the Daughter of the Sun could supply the core with energy from the Sun Stone. I only had to adjust it to allow it to channel mentus energy. All you have to do is put your hand on this and you can pour your mentus directly into the core.”

“Uh, okay,” Becky glanced furtively at Bernie.

Bernie seemed to get the hint. “Ben, just give us a sec.”

“All right, just go when you’re ready,” Ben said as he walked around the core to where Harsale was waiting.

Becky waited until Ben was out of earshot before turning to Bernie, a panicked look on her face. “Okay, I know this was my idea, but I have no clue how to do this.”

Bernie chuckled. It was rare to see the usually composed Becky fret about not knowing something.

“This isn’t funny,” Becky squealed, punching him in the arm. “I can’t screw this up.”

“You won’t,” Bernie assured her. “This is really easy. It’ll be a good first lesson for you.” He gestured to the podium. “Go ahead and put your hand on it and close your eyes.”

Becky did as instructed, though she gave Bernie a sour look before closing her eyes.

“Mentus comes naturally if you’re concentrating on it. Just focus on that part of your mind where you feel energy flowing.”

“Okay,” Becky said hesitantly. It came easier than she thought. It felt like there was a well of energy at the back of her mind that she never knew she had. “I’ve got it.”

“That’s your adimus energy. Now, just let it flow out of you, down your arm, into your hand. As long as you remain focused, your adimus energy will convert to mentus energy as it leaves your body. You may feel a little resistance, but that’s natural.”

Again, this seemed to come easily for her. She could feel the energy flowing down her arm until it reached her hand, and the moment that happened, she felt something tug at her, mentally, as if the tablet was sucking the energy out of her body.

“Whoa, I can sense…something. It’s like I’m connected to something much bigger now,” Becky said as her mind raced with new information. “There are 21,395 registered citizens in Weaver’s Road.”

“Okay, you’re definitely connected to the core,” Bernie chuckled, “probably a bit more than you should be, but that’s fine. Just keep pushing your energy through the tablet. You have to give it enough that you’re actually replenishing its energy but not so much that you’re draining yourself.”

Becky’s eyes flew open at this. “How do I know how much that is?”

“Just focus on your adimus, that’s the energy you’re feeling. You’re a skillmaster, so your adimus energy recovers rapidly, way faster than anyone, even guardians. All you have to do is make sure you’re not sending out energy faster than you can recover it. You’ll be able to tell, just trust what you’re feeling. The core will let you know if it’s getting enough to make a difference.”

“All right,” Becky closed her eyes again and focused on the flow of energy going from her to the core. She tried to block out all of the extra information she was receiving and focus only on the cores energy reserves and what she was sending to it. Slowly she opened the mental faucet until the slow trickle of energy became a strong steady flow. She didn’t feel any fatigue, but the core pulsed with new life.

“I think I’m doing it,” she said excitedly.

Ben suddenly returned. “Good, it’s working; you’re restoring the core’s energy pool.”

 

***

 

Alice was completely overwhelmed. Without anyone to help her, she was stuck fighting over twenty giga pogs. She was able to hold her own and not get hurt, but she couldn’t get past them to Tabatha.

Though she was focused almost entirely on the barrier, Tabatha couldn’t help but chuckle at how similar the situation was to another that happened recently.

“You know,” she called loud enough for the guardian to hear, “this reminds me of when Ace and those two other guardians were fighting pogs to get to a burning building in Murrilogic. Of course, I didn’t know he was there at the time. When I discovered that guardians were in the city, I saw it as my chance to get connected with the Fantasmal Government. I’d just pretend to be trapped, they’d rescue me, and then I’d reveal who I was and hopefully find out more about what happened to everyone. Never in my wildest imagination did I think Ace would be with them, already playing the hero and trying to fight Davron. I guess it makes sense though. How long have you two been together anyway?”

Alice didn’t answer, feigning like she couldn’t hear her. Not only was she too busy fighting the myriad of pogs, but she had no intention on being goaded by the melder.

“I only ask because Ace never mentioned you at all, not one time in his entire story about his forty years on Mendala. Maybe your relationship wasn’t all that important after all. Is that it?”

“Just keep talking,” Alice grunted as she swung her sword wildly at the two pogs charging toward her. “The more time you waste on me, the better.”

Tabatha laughed. “Like I can’t break this flimsy barrier and watch your pathetic display at the same time.”

In truth, she was right. Though it seemed like her focus was split, her mind was almost completely engrossed in following the flow of the barrier’s energy until she found the source. Because of its size, it took a few minutes, but she finally traced it all the way back to the core.

Manipulating a core’s energy was no simple task, but after the struggle she had with the seal, this seemed much easier, especially since it was clear the core was already in a weakened state and low on energy reserves. With the soldiers and monsters working to weaken it further, the core barrier was in a truly vulnerable state. Seeing this as an opportunity, she slowly began pouring her own energy into the core so that she could start taking control. The entire barrier pulsed in response.

Realizing she was running out of time, Alice desperately called out to her comrades mentantly. <Cal, Pathos, Karmen, I need you guys!>

 

***

 

“Ugh,” Becky doubled over in pain.

“What’s wrong?” Bernie rushed to her side. “Is it pulling too much energy?”

“No, it’s not that.” Despite the pain, Becky didn’t take her hand off the tablet. “It feels like something is tugging at me. I think there’s something affecting the core.”

Bernie turned to Ben. “Tabatha?”

“I don’t know much about melders, I’ve never even met one before, but if she can directly manipulate energy, then she may be trying to poison the core’s energy pool to force it to shut down,” Ben said. “It’s probably similar to what the rift did to the Acumen core. If anything’s just slightly off in a core’s energy pool, it can cause massive problems.

“You should disconnect yourself from it,” Bernie warned Becky. “She could end up hurting you too.”

“I can’t,” Becky said. “If I stop, then she’ll take down the barrier. Ashley needs more time.” She closed her eyes. “I think I can send even more energy to try and strengthen the barrier faster.”

 

***

 

The barrier pulsed again, this time shining a much brighter blue than before. Tabatha felt an intense resistance, almost like an electrical shock, and pulled her hand away on reflex. “What the…”

It felt like the core was fighting against her. Though this wasn’t impossible—all cores had embedded safety and antitampering mentus—it seemed far more powerful than what the weakened core should have been able to produce. It was almost as if it was gaining strength with each passing second. Undaunted, she put her hand back on the barrier, gritting her teeth to bare the pain, and started fighting against the core in earnest now.

 

***

 

“Guys did you hear that,” Ace called to his two guardian companions. “Alice is in trouble.”

Pathos scanned the mentant realm even as he dodged a heavy boulder that a rockwalker slammed into the ground only inches from him. “She’s fighting giga pogs not too far from here. Wait…she’s near Tabatha. It looks like Tabatha’s already got a hold on the barrier. We’ve got to get to her.”

“How?” Karmandrian asked as he used wind mandamus to forcibly push back a second rockwalker.

The trio were fighting five of them now and every time they defeated one, another would appear seemingly out of nowhere. They were effectively boxed in. Ace was growing weary from the constant fighting. Unlike the warriors from Weaver’s Road, neither he nor the guardians could retreat to the other side of the barrier. They weren’t registered in the city core, so the barrier denied them entry.

“We just need to figure out a way to take these things all out at once,” Ace said.

“Again, how?” Karmandrian shouted, clearly frustrated.

“I’m working on it!’ Ace barked back.

 

***

 

“She’s really strong,” Becky said. She’d been pouring energy into the core for fifteen minutes while also fighting against Tabatha, and it was slowly wearing her down. “I don’t know how long I can stop her.”

Beside her, the core was pulsating with multiple colors swirling all over the semi-transparent surface. Ben was examining it using a small spherical device that looked similar to an orcrus. “Okay, I think I see what’s happening,” he announced after several seconds. “She’s trying to restrict the energy going to the barrier, basically disconnecting it from the core so it will go down. Becky, can you sense where the barrier is from your connection?”

“Uh…I’m not sure,” Becky said frantically.

“Okay, don’t panic,” Bernie said in a hushed whisper from beside her. “Just take a breath and change what you’re focusing on. You can send energy without needing to monitor it, right?”

Becky took a deep breath and calmed her racing pulse. “Right,” she confirmed.

“Okay, now open your mind to what you’re connected to, all of that information you’ve been blocking out, let it in but don’t try to process all of it, just let it wash over you.”

Becky listened intently and tried to do what Bernie said. Up until then, she’d been blocking all of the additional information she’d been receiving, but now she took down that mental barricade. It felt like she was hit by a physical wave, but just as Bernie told her, she didn’t resist it, just letting the feeling wash over her. It felt like she was submerged in water but could still breathe.

“All right,” she said in a much calmer voice, “now what?”

“Now, just ask yourself: where is the barrier?”

“What?” Becky scrunched her nose in confusion.

“I know you’re not familiar with the mentant realm, but this is sort of like a crash course. You can sense everything inside the core; now all you need to do is single out the one thing you’re looking for,” Bernie said calmly.

He knew what she was doing was far more difficult than using the core through its regular interface, but because Becky needed to supply it with energy directly, she had to keep using the energy transfer terminal. He only hoped that she could handle this.

After a minute of silence, Becky smiled. “I understand now. I can sense the barrier.”

“Great, now instead of supplying power to the core, bypass that and send your mentus energy directly to the barrier itself,” Ben told her.

“All right…here goes,” Becky said.

 

***

 

Tabatha swore loudly as she was once again rebuffed. “Why is this stupid thing fighting me? How strong is this core?”

All along the barrier, several of the monsters were still beating on the blue energy dome repeatedly, but unlike before, the barrier not only didn’t flicker, it seemed to be growing stronger.

Where was the barrier getting this extra energy even as she was choking off its connection to the source? It almost felt like there was some sentient force that was directly struggling against her. Undaunted, Tabatha put her hand against the blue aura again and started to retrace the path of energy, looking for this new source.

 

***

 

“I’ve got it,” Ace said finally. “Pathos, trap them all with the strongest bind you can manage. Karmandrian, wrap a mentus barrier around them specifically to block sound so that we can’t hear anything inside of it.”

Neither of the two exhausted guardians argued or questioned the plan. Ace and Karmandrian used wind to force the five rockwalkers together, and then Pathos wrapped them tightly in the amber binding aura, which they immediately started to pound angrily against.

“This won’t last longer than a few seconds,” he warned.

Karmandrian surrounded the mandamus bind with his own mentus barrier, both blocking the sound of the rockwalkers screams as well as reinforcing their energy prison.

Ace stepped up to the rockwalkers and put his hand on the amber aura. “Mittius Mentenus Resonance.”

For a second it seemed like nothing happened, though the rockwalkers stopped pounding on the amber dome. Then, cracks started to appear on the surfaces of all five creatures until they all simultaneously broke apart and disappeared.

“What did you do?” Karmandrian asked in awe.

“Think of it like a sound bomb,” Ace said. “I found and used the specific sound frequency to break them apart.”

Before Karmandrian could query further, they heard a scream in the distance. Davron was suddenly on the ground, clutching his head with one hand and his mind mage scepter with the other. Gamdon was next to him, holding the Book of War and calling for troops to come help. Several giga pogs and deathclaws also moved to surround them.

“Whatever’s going on, we’ll never get to him through all that,” Ace decided. “Let’s just go help Alice.”

The trio took off toward the other side of the battleground.

 

***

 

“There you are,” Tabatha smiled to herself as she traced the barrier’s energy back to the new source and realized it wasn’t part of the core, but an actual person. This intrigued her, and through the connection, she was able to detect the interloper’s adimus signature, which was essentially a way to uniquely identify someone in the mentant realm, and this one was familiar.

“Becky?”

Tabatha was so confused by this revelation that it almost distracted her. How was Becky able to supply a core with that much mentus energy? The amount it would need would far surpass the limits of any normal mentant. She scanned Becky’s adimus signature more thoroughly but couldn’t tell what her true adimus classification was. She wasn’t a mentant, mind mage, summoner, quickener, or guardian; all of those were things she could easily differentiate. Whatever Becky was, it was something she’d never seen before.

As she pondered this, she heard a shout from behind her. She turned to see Ace, Karmandrian, and Pathos joining Alice in her struggle against the giga pogs. Cursing again, she returned her focus to the barrier, knowing she had only a short amount of time before she’d be interrupted.

It didn’t matter how Becky was doing it, or what she was; all that mattered was stopping her. She closed her eyes and focused, this time not on the barrier, but its lifeline, the single person supplying it seemingly unlimited energy.

 

***

 

“Argh!” Becky groaned and almost dropped to her knees.

“What’s going on?” Bernie asked as he helped her up.

“I think she found me.” Becky was sweating profusely now. “I don’t know what she’s doing.”

“Okay, you need to stop,” Ben said.

“No!”  Becky clutched the podium with both hands as if daring them to pull her away. “I’m not letting her beat me.”

She was now using far more energy than she could recover. Her goal wasn’t to power the barrier but to beat back the melder’s influence. Her mind raced through the information provided by the core, and she activated any function that could be used to defend against Tabatha’s invasion, effectively turning the entire power of the core against her specifically.

 

***

 

Tabatha was groaning in pain as well, but she relentlessly dug her fingers into the barrier. This struggle felt familiar. Just like with the seal, her target was now actively fighting against her, but this time she knew what to do. She reached deep inside of her, tapping into what she now knew was her own internal reserves of power. Her aura became palpable once again, and she started to drain the barrier of energy and convert it to her own to give her even more strength. She placed both hands on the barrier, twisting it like she was trying to physically rip it away.

With a guttural roar she forced out as much energy as she could in one massive pulse, which caused the ground to quake. The blue aura suddenly flickered and then disappeared. The city’s barrier was gone.