LRAB Chapter 24 – Breaking locks and condemning the Conclave
Chapter 24 – Breaking locks and condemning the Conclave
Jace trudged along the path that Ollie had laid out in front of him. Saving Greg was something he was happy to do – despite it costing him the hypercycle’s remaining fuel. He got Stardust and some of the vehicle’s components.
The betrayal stung – but he had forgiven the trespass on the street folk code. That is what his last gesture to her meant; he forgave her. But not for nothing: a permanent 25 percent discount and trade-price improvement for going through Quinn to buy or sell goods. She paid for breaking the code, he thought.
Ollie flew above him – at his maximum tether height to keep an eye out as he turned in a circle. "We’re about four days out on foot from your destination."
"We’ve got what, eight days left?" Jace asked.
"Yup."
Jace nodded and used the time traveling to practice. He wanted to figure out the exact amount of time it would take to drain his energy from the new Ranks of Dark Matter Cloak. Several hours of experimenting – with a few stops to catch his breath – resulted in him getting a rough estimate for each Rank. Rank 1 is about an hour if I sustain just that. Rank 2 is half that. Rank 3 is about ten minutes.
He found another one of the abandoned prey-holes to tuck into for the evening, repeated his tarp trick, and slept with sword in hand. The night was uneventful, and he took off again in the morning. "Hey Ollie, question."
"Go for it," he replied as he continued bobbing above Jace’s head.
"Is there a way to increase my energy? A way I can use Skills more often without getting tired?"
"Cardio," Ollie replied. "The more endurance and stamina you have, the more you can use."
"How do my prosthetics play into all of that?"
Ollie floated around his head, "It should mean that your endurance lasts longer than most others because you are not using up energy from moving your legs or arm – well, you are using a lot less. Just the connective tissue." He smiled, "You could always use that Information Boon to find out exactly what the effects are."
"I think someone in The Eternal City will have an answer to that. I’d rather save the Boon for something else."
The two continued on in silence, but Jace was wracking his brain for what he could ask with the Boon. I could ask about some type of secret. Maybe dig up information on a person? The Black Hole Conclave is still unknown.
"I want to use the Boon," Jace stated. "The guy at the top of the Black Hole Conclave."
Ollie nodded and waved his paws in the air as a screen filled Jace’s vision.
<<<<<>>>>>
[Using Boon: Uncommon (Information).]
[Query: Information about Troxanir.]
[Answer: Known only as Troxanir, they are from Oblivion’s Edge. They have the Cosmic Power known as Black Hole, and the Ascended Cosmic Power known as Singularity. Their Class is Warrior at level 100, and their Advanced Class is Archmage at level 80. Their species is unknown and unquantifiable. Current residence in Oblivion’s Edge. Leader of the Black Hole Conclave. [HIGHER RARITY REQUIRED].
<<<<<>>>>>
So, some information is hidden behind a higher requirement. Interesting. Jace looked up at Ollie as the message faded from his vision, "Well, that was a lot of the same information we already knew. But knowing their Class and Advanced Class might be helpful if we end up going up against them."
Ollie frowned, "Yup. Looks like it. Warrior focuses on fighting up-close and personal – pretty versatile. Archmage means that he could throw around literal singularities or even age items through entropy until they turn to dust." His tone was somber and there was a trace of fear underneath it.
Slowly, very slowly as to not alert the Conclave members, he opened the door and came face-to-face with one of the Velenian zombie people. Jace threw himself back as the horde streamed out, shrieking and screaming.
The Conclave members began shouting in panic as tens, then hundreds of these zombie-like humanoids slammed into the barrier surrounding their camp. The barrier sparked and zapped with the deep, brown energy – and the Velenians were turned to ash.
But they kept swarming. Jace kept far away from the chaos, crossing the street. "Go inside this one," Jace whispered. "See if there’s more."
Ollie poked his head through the wall before pulling it back and nodding, "Hundreds here, too."
Jace looked back and saw that the Conclave member’s barrier seemed to be holding as the line of zombies trickled to a slim flow. I wonder how much that barrier can take. Jace cut through this locked door caught the lock, and let the second swarm loose.
They charged forward toward the barrier, and the Conclave members stood on the other side, weapons brimming with various energies. The barrier sparked, zapped, and thrummed...before fading. The swarm descended, and Jace observed as the makeshift camp turned into a chaotic mess. Raising his right hand, he grappled the side of the building and got up above the fray, clinging on with his feet as he saw the battle unfold.
The Conclave members were throwing around blasts of gravity – waves of purple that shot outward in a shockwave and forced the Velenians to the ground. The pressure increased even more, and they turned into a fine paste from the force of gravity weighing down on them. Another cluster was carved through with a line of grey-white energy that desiccated them before disintegrating their forms.
More splashes of colors and elemental energies – fire, water, blasts of air, shards of metal – all went flying into the horde of creatures and devastated their numbers. The energy threw off cascading arcs of residual power, and Jace could feel the heat, cool, wind, and even felt his energy drain slightly as metallic shrapnel reached him.
They’re winning, Jace thought as the Conclave members held firm. He raised his left hand – now uninjured and fully healed, holding the sword – and focused on the eight targets. I’m assuming there is a horde in each of these buildings. Then, a thought struck Jace. These doors were locked from the outside. These people were locked in there to die. Jace felt a sense of unease at using these zombie-like figures that were condemned to such a terrible fate – succumbing in the dark.
But he shook the feeling off. They don’t have higher brain functions. The magitech nanites took that away from them. This is setting them free. Dark Matter Dart (Rank 4). He had one spare dart that he sent towards the lock on another door across the street. The other eight sped to the Conclave members – one apiece, focused on their torsos. He felt extremely weak, and his Cloak faded away as the bolts of invisible-to-others, purplish projectiles flew out.
The darts blew holes through the armor of the Conclave members. The sudden injury that all of them suffered was enough to let the horde turn the tide. The lock he shot across the street clattered to the ground, and another group of zombie-like creatures swarmed out. The situation grew dire, and Jace saw the Aspirants struggling to hold off the rush of monstrous forms. They had seemingly expended all their energy.
One of them, with the Cosmic Power symbol of a Black Hole on his hand, screamed out. "Oblivion awaits!"
"Get up higher!" Ollie shouted. Jace aimed his prosthetic, fired up, and ascended. Glancing back down, he saw reality begin to distort and warp. A small, black dot he could barely make out appeared in front of the Aspirant.
And then reality collapsed with a roaring, distorted slurp sound. The space around the newly created singularity twisted and warped as everything within a fifty-foot sphere vanished. The horde was gone, the camp, all the Aspirants. There was nothing but a fifty-foot-deep hole in the center of the crossroads. "Ollie...what was that?"
"It was a Skill. I did not have enough time to figure out that one’s Class, but I would bet that it was something akin to a Battle Mage. Think of that as a more generic Swordmage."
"Are they all dead?" Jace asked.
"Yup. Every one of them. Too bad this wasn’t the main force with the drill." He crossed his little arms, "They would rather go to their oblivion than die to these things."
Jace felt disappointment. I was hoping to get a ton of Stardust out of this. "Do you think every one of these buildings is filled with more of these people?"
"Yes. But to verify? Only one way to find out." Ollie made a swinging gesture, "Swing to another building and I can check."
Jace nodded, aimed the grapple at the next building across the alley, and swung over. He clamped his feet onto the new structure, and Ollie flew inside. He poked his head back out and nodded, "Yup, more in here."
"This would be an easy way to get a lot of Stardust," Jace replied. "I can just recover my energy, go invisible, and clear out every building."
Ollie nodded, "Yup. That would be a smart play. But we are on a time crunch. At this rate, we will barely make it to the Black Hole Conclave’s site. We cannot spend long here just farming Stardust."
We can come back later. They aren’t going anywhere. He looked out at the few still milling about the street, aimlessly wandering. I can come back through this way and rack up a ton of Stardust. He used the grapnel arm and his feet to keep swinging from building to building, making it to the edge of the city before he clambered down and continued the journey towards his Quest.