CHAPTER 587: SORRY ABOUT THIS

“Good evening, gentlemen.”

Blake smiled as he approached the handful of civilian and player guards protecting one of the holy city’s teleporter beacons. It turned out they had three—the central beacon in the emperor’s palace, two others (including the one Blake had entered) on the outskirts.

Like the one in the orc tower, none could be moved or shut down. Jeong was in the process of surrounding them all with guards and other protections, including a fortress-like structure, undead creatures, and a confusing series of gates.

It had been extremely annoying to get through it all.

“Who the hell are you?” snapped one of the men with a captain badge. But he didn’t get up from his seat. In fact, all the guards still sat around their tables playing cards, looking completely unconcerned.

It was one of the beauties of Blake’s Adaptive Veil. Now that he actually knew how to use it, he had a whole portion of his brain observing the guards—figuring out what they expected to see, and adjusting accordingly.

If they stopped and talked, of course, they’d realize their guest couldn’t be: a new replacement, part of the cleaning staff, and a messenger. But you didn’t discuss something that seemed unimportant. You just went about your day and moved on.

“Sorry, sir.” Blake shrugged like a helpless peon. “They told me to say there was, uh, wounded comin’ in? From the south, I guess. That you should be ready.”

“What?” The captain turned and squinted. “Why the hell wouldn’t they send them to the palace? We don’t have the…oh fuckin’ nevermind, like you’ll know anything. Bellick, get the gurneys. Do we even have a fuckin’ healer on? No. Course we don’t.”

The room swirled with action and make-work effort. Doors opened and closed. Trunks creaked. Wood and metal clattered. Blake waited and slipped inside the final door once they started ignoring him.

One more corridor, then an Un-Made series of locks, and Blake was through to the beacon in a circular room. The flat platform shimmered with power. The interactive device attached to it blinked with dull but ready lights. Navi popped out of his pocket.

“Teleportation Beacon is active and functional, Master. But you should set the coordinates and de-activate the warning mechanism. Then your allies can come through at any time.”

“Thank you, Navi.”

Blake took a breath and did as suggested, easily manipulating the device with his arcane understanding. Then he activated three different versions of True Making. The guards would be coming soon. And though he’d entered quietly he wasn’t going to be able to exit quietly. Best to prepare everything now.

A little piece of his brain told him he was about to cross a line. That his plan, as conceived, departed from his behavior so far in the Great Game. It would be hard to explain to Mason and keep his respect. It would make him more like Jeong.

But he’d looked at it from every angle. He’d tried to find some way out, some way to still be something Mason understood. But he couldn’t see it. His brother was many things, but he wasn’t a monster. If he managed to do what had to be done, it would break him. He’d live with the guilt for eternity.

Blake was the only one who could save him from that. Because Blake had always lived with the gift and curse of imagination. To see the world as both hero and villain might. He could be the monster required.

Construct after construct formed and grew around the beacon. Blake had planned everything he needed for days, but left plenty of room for error and chaos. He had enough practice now to keep his True Making at least within certain margins of error.

He grinned as his medieval ‘soldiers’ formed, similar but different. A samurai. A legionnaire. A viking with a ridiculous, ahistorical horned helm.

Footsteps were coming down the hall by the time he’d finished. The guards were making their way towards the beacon. Blake had Dreamwalked and given Ilya a precise time to send his people. He looked at his watch, and frowned.

“What’s coming, Navi,” he whispered. His familiar’s light went dark and she zipped straight through the wall, then back.

“Three players, master. The civilians waited outside.”

Blake took a calming breath. He had a little more time. He sent his constructs to stand beside him, then created a slim barrier that looked just like the metallic surface of the wall. The guards came to the door and stopped, arguing about the lock.

“Who left this open?” The tone was more accusatory than panicked. “Did Jerkins leave the fucking thing inside again? I swear to Christ. I could have him whipped to shreds.”

The door creaked, and the three men entered the dim light of the beacon’s room without so much as looking at Blake’s one way wall.

“Messenger said wounded. But there could be orcs or some shit on their tail. Hit the shielding and make sure the alarm and whatnots on.”

One of the men walked towards the device. Blake’s time was officially up. He wasn’t the indecisive sort, but he had no idea what ‘the shielding’ would do, and he was seriously considering making some kind of move to…

“What the hell is that?”

The approaching guard stopped and stared at Blake’s fake wall. The other men turned, and they all squinted and quirked or lowered their heads trying to understand.

“Was that always in here? Looks like a loose wall panel or something.”

“How should I know? Just go fucking look at it.”

The beacon still hadn’t activated. The young man was walking forward with a not very bright expression, but in a few steps he’d be close enough to touch the thing. Then he’d follow it around, and find Blake and three multi-colored warrior statues.

He expected even Adaptive Veil wouldn’t overcome the incredulity. Could he use Mental Influence? Not fast or powerful enough. Mind Control? Yes maybe. But the mana required was a problem and what he really needed was the captain in the rear. He saw only one obvious solution…

The young man was running his fingers down the fake wall now, looking back at the others with a shrug. Blake took the javelin off his Centurion’s side, lifting it in the air with Telekinesis. He charged an Arcane Blast with another piece of his Partitioned mind.

The guard tugged at the wall, which pulled the flimsy thing over and forced him to step back. It hit the ground and shattered. He and the other two men blinked and looked up, staring at a now totally revealed Blake and his constructs.

“Sorry about this,” Blake said.

He mentally ordered his minions to attack, tossed his javelin at the far guard, and slashed his Arcane Blast across the third.

The closer player didn’t even flinch until he was getting hacked apart by constructs. The middle guard slopped into two pieces as the Arcane Blast hit him. But the captain flashed blue with some kind of defensive power, the javelin dropping at his feet.

Blake yanked at him with Telekinesis. But the man’s powers resisted that, too. The Captain stumbled backwards in panic, falling and crawling away on all fours as the constructs plodded towards him.

“Help!” he shouted. “We’re und-…”

The samurai construct took off the poor bastard’s head in a single, shield-shattering swipe.

Blake commanded his warriors to pick up bodies (and the head), and rush it all back to the beacon room to stuff in a corner. There was blood everywhere, so that was a problem. He stopped and activated his Unmaking, doing what he could to clean it up.

“More coming, master,” Navi said as she zipped back through the wall. “Four players. Two civilians. Weapons drawn. They must have heard.”

Blake winced and moved out of sight from the hall. If the players were low tier he didn’t doubt he could kill them, even without surprise. But the civilians would run off and get help, and he couldn’t do a damn thing to stop them.

Seconds ticked by.

Blake considered summoning a fourth permanent construct, despite the mana loss. But he likely couldn’t keep them after this first stage of the plan. And he needed to be able to summon more later.

As he hesitated, light and arcane energy sparked from the beacon.

[Incoming teleportation] the system voice announced pleasantly. [Please clear the teleportation pad. Thirty seconds to activation.]

Blake let out a long, slow exhale. It didn’t mean he was out of the woods, but it meant disaster was (for the moment) averted. He kept out of sight as best he could, but the eastern players soon came running.

“That’s blood,” one of them whispered.

Powers flared as the players readied themselves for combat. It wouldn’t be so easy as last time. But Blake still wasn’t concerned. He readied to float his spear, and send his constructs, willing but not eager to use a Mind Rend if needed.

The players were too cautious and moving slow, which was a mistake. Every second they delayed brought Blake’s allies closer.

“Identify yourselves,” yelled an obviously fearful voice. “There’s no way out of this structure from the inside. And reinforcements will be on their way.”

“I’m afraid not,” Blake called, hoping to delay them more. “I replaced your floor’s communicator with a talking construct. I’m sure it sounded real. Oh and I turned the alarm into colorful dust.”

Delay tactic or not, that was all true. He was hoping the others would turn around and run, concerned by his words. Instead they attacked.

A grenade-shaped object flew into the room, and exploded. White light and a horrible noise pierced Blake’s senses, completely overwhelming him. He shifted the agony to a Mental Partition, and readied his constructs to kill.

It was hard to tell with blurry eyes, but it looked like a player with a shield came first. Blake’s constructs swarmed and struck, slashing and stabbing and holding the guards at the entrance with sheer mass.

They were all psionic, and Blake grinned as he watched some kind of magic attack from the rear sizzle and bounce off their bodies. But he didn’t want the enemy to run.

He had his minions miss or pull their blows, falling back into the room as if ineffective. The good little players chased.

What was before a controlled slog became a chaotic melee. Blake lifted his spear and made a few more. An arrow bounced off his Psionic Shield. Some arcane missile absorbed into his Psionic Resistance. None of it was powerful enough for Navi to even call it out for countering.

Mid-fight, the teleporter blinked its warning. It flashed with another burst of arcane power, and several humanoids started to materialize.

Blake’s heart beat faster for the first time since he’d arrived. It was too many. He’d asked Ilya for a goblin wizard, the assassin, and his half-dead engineer Pliny. But there were at least five coming through.

Could he have been betrayed? It was always his first thought, especially since Seul-ki. But he didn’t see how or why. Maybe the timing was just an extreme coincidence and these were eastern players coming from somewhere else in the ‘empire’.

If so, it was bad. Maybe very bad. But he could maybe still take them if he went all out. The confined space was a problem, so he was going to have to move fast and hit hard. He put a hand on his demonic necklace, loathe to use a Mind Rend so soon. But it was targeted over a small area…

He squinted from the light as the teleportation finished. When he was able to see, he recognized the huge profile of Malik Earthsoul, lord of the Earthblood clan and defacto leader of the tower orcs. He wore his renowned dragonscale armor and carried a spiked mace.

Beside him was Halvar Stoneblood, the new lord of the grey tower, and Blake’s sometimes rival and hopefully now ally. They also had Chillix, the fat goblin wizard lord in charge of the Greenblood remnants. The engineer Pliny. The goblin assassin.

Blake could hardly believe what he was seeing. How could Ilya have sent the orc lords? And Chillix? He and all the other players paused long enough to stare. Blake’s constructs did not.

His Viking slammed an axe into some player’s arm. The guy screamed and slumped to his knees, and the violence woke everyone from their pause. Malik roared and charged with his mace held high, looking halfway between anxious about being teleported, and thrilled to see an enemy.

Magic and powers whipped across the room in pure, glorious chaos.

“Run and get help!” one of the guards yelled towards the civilians at the back. “Go now!”

“Sorry about this, too,” Blake said, watching them turn. He pushed the players aside from the corridor with a Telekinetic burst, then hissed at the assassin. “Kill the ones at the back. Now!”

The frightening Greenblood assassin blinked with a puff of dark smoke, and two screams sounded from the corridor.

Blake watched the civilian guards die one by one, and felt almost…disappointed. He ignored the battle as the last players died, waiting for some system message or warning. Nothing came.

It would make what he had to do far easier. But a little piece of him had wanted the tactic to fail.

“What a sad world,” he said with a sigh.

Malik crushed the last groaning human on the ground, looking down at Blake with a happy grin and a raised fist.

“I like you, Wizard,” he growled. “Everywhere you go, battle and killing follows.”

Blake smiled at him politely. He had never lingered on harsh realities, and put the death of the civilians from his mind. If they’d wanted to be safe, they shouldn’t have become guards.

He also had a job to do, and little time to do it. Jeong and his main people would be getting all kinds of patron alerts.

“Follow me,” he said, rushing down the corridor towards the side of the fortress he’d already Unmade a hole.

The enemy would be waiting for him at the gates. But he and his people would simply walk out a side wall. They’d hide in the dark, disappearing into the city and waiting for a night until Mason was ready. Then they’d break into the palace, and Jeong’s ‘hidden’ dungeon. And kill a lot more civilians.

His orc and goblin allies followed behind him without a word.

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