Amy froze. Then she all but spit as she talked. “Fuck! They didn’t tell me. It does that kind of thing all the time. In my world, we’ve had a lot of creatures come through interdimensional portals. They’re mostly magical creatures, but every now and then we’ll see some strange mixture of magic and science, and sometimes… Sometimes we’ll see something purely scientific.”
Her face twisted, and then she sighed. “I’ve told you that we’ve fought The Thing That Eats for years, but what I didn’t tell you, because I didn’t know, was that it collected them. We’ve got humanoids called the Elder. Think of them as a cross between vampires and elves. The Thing collected them—along with anything else it could get. Cyborgs? Sure. Centaurs? Definitely. It took anything it could get.
“So yes. It would definitely go after people with powers. I don’t know what it plans to do with them, but it gets stronger when it eats. It gets weaker when it splits though. Other Bloodmaidens have seen it split, eat as much as they can, abandon its hosts and devour them.”
Rod turned to her. “No shit? That thing is messed up.”
Cassie glanced between Amy, Rod, and Samita. “I know Amy’s wards are the only thing standing between us and being hosts, but you guys are all alone in there. There’s got to be some way I could ditch it, slip through and help.”
Amy and Samita turned to stare at her, simultaneously saying, “No!”
Cassie frowned for a second before saying, “Look, I get it, but we’re not helping much out here. We need to get in there, and I’m the only one of us who can.”
Shaking her head, Amy said “It will go after you. It knows the League took it down. It also knows that you guys don’t have any protection from it but my wards. I don’t want to sound like the Council, but you’re the weak link. The Council has its own wards, but if mine break, you’ve got power and no protection.”
Cassie held up her hands. “Ok. I won’t, but we need to get inside soon.”
Haley bit her lip. “I just thought of something. Camille’s the only former Justice Fist member who got a ward. That means Sean, Jody, Dayton, Shannon, and Julie are all vulnerable. They’ve all got powers, but no secret identity. It wouldn’t take much for The Thing to find out about them, and then they’ll know all about us and HQ and everything.”
That’s when everyone got quiet.
I broke the silence with, “You’re right, and that includes Lucas too. Plus, Marcus and Sydney weren’t part of the raid, so they don’t have wards.”
Amy leaned in toward the phone. “You need to get them into HQ or out of the city immediately.”
Samita glanced at Amy but faced us. “HQ would be better. I set up wards in case we needed to quarantine all of you when you came back. I’ll send you an email that tells you how to operate them. You should be able to keep all of them safe long enough for us to figure out a way to get in.”
Rod raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure? The way I see it, the only way we’re going to get in is to break the Council’s barrier.”
Samita pursed her lips. “Now you’re thinking like a troll.”
Rod shook his head. “No. We haven’t found any weak spots so far. If the Council has a way in, they’ve hidden it pretty well. I’m not sure we have time to find it before things get bad in there.”
Sighing, Amy turned toward Rod. “I know you don’t think we’re going to find one, but you can’t ward a city this size without leaving a few holes even if they’re unintentional. Warding an entire city is hard. Past Bloodmaidens have done it, but there’s always been a hole. I wonder how the Council did it?”
Samita leaned back, “I don’t know, but they couldn’t use Rudolph the Fat’s basic wards for fortifications because it requires more specific knowledge of this place than they’re likely to have.”
“I don’t know,” Amy said. “Reliquary told me that the Council has teams assigned to the larger cities. If they constructed the wards one at a time over the course of years, they could use Fennic’s fifth principle to stabilize…”
It only got more obscure from there. Haley caught my eye and shook her head. I’d have interrupted, but I had a bad feeling that many people felt the same when listening to me.
I let their words wash over me, wondering how we could get them in, and where any holes in the wards might be. Maybe I could come up with a better way to search. Too bad the next Stapledon weekend wasn’t coming soon enough. Maybe I could email Dr. Nation.
Thinking about Stapledon, I felt suddenly very stupid. I knew how we were going to get them into the city.
Speaking without thinking, I told them, “I know how to bring you in. I’ve actually got two ways. First, the Starplate would be an option if I didn’t care if you arrived. I have no idea how to use it. The second idea, though, is really obvious. Chancy has been teleporting us to Stapledon, and he teleports straight into HQ. I’m betting Lee knows how to get a hold of him. If I ask him about it, I can also find out what he says about the fact that I can hurt The Thing.”
” that includes too” WHO?
One moment of inattention and I mess up an entire sentence…
Thanks for noticing. Fixed.
You’re right, and that includes too -> You’re right, and that includes ??you?? too
ALSO!
Vote for LoN! http://topwebfiction.com/vote.php?for=the-legion-of-nothing
The sentence now contains a crucial extra word…
Does it mean that nick has the potential to be a wizard?? because his body soaked enough magic from Lee as a result he is now generating his own mana?
Are we looking at Nick the future techno wizard
Error:Rod raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure? The way I see it, the only we’re going to get in is to break the Council’s barrier.”
Fixed:Rod raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure? The way I see it, the only way we’re going to get in is to break the Council’s barrier.”
Error: If they constructed the wards one at a time over the course of years, they could Fennic’s fifth principle to stabilize…”
Fixed: If they constructed the wards one at a time over the course of years, they could use Fennic’s fifth principle to stabilize…”
Keep up the Great work.
In other words…
add “way” after only
add “use” after could
Ok, new typo:
but I had bad feeling that many people felt the same when listening to me.
add “a” after had
Thanks. Fixed.
Yet another very interesting update, and this on many levels:
First off we get to learn more about the Thing That Eats and how it operates and is capable of splitting itself with each split making it that much weaker and we also learn something that’s rather logical, that it gets stronger whenever it devours people.
In this context the use of powered individuals makes sense as the power of the host offsets the Hunger’s weakening and thus still allows it to fight and eat other people, more than it would be capable of with a powerless host and perhaps even whole in a powered host.
So given that, it stands to reason that each of the parts within the powered hosts will keep on getting stronger each, in time, possibly becoming more than the original whole, adding that to the fact that the thing is known to have consumed some of it’s former host one could think this is part of it’s design: split the more it can with each part eating as much as possible, then when each parts are deemed strong enough they leave their hosts, eat them, become even stronger and then finally reunite agains and become something strong enough to eat everything on the planet that is not it. A very clever design for a weapon meant to wipe out life, especially combined with other…stuff that enhance lifeforms like powers for instance, Lee’s people are good at what they do…
The other intersting thing we get from that update is that Bloodworld(my name for Amy’s reality)seems to have had a great number of inter reaity travelers which is quite a thing, so the question is had this reality more tavelers than others or is it just that Amy is aware of all the instances there has been there(or at least most of them) due to her status as the Bloomaiden as opposed to people of the regular legionverse who might not be aware of a lot of extrareality incursions.
But the most interesting point in this update in my opinion is the revelation of the existence of things both from magic and science something that up until now did not seem possible and I must say I like it, not only because of the possibilities it offers but also because it is rather logical given the existence of Lee’s people and how they can use both to extreme degrees. Also given Nick’s current ability to hurt the thing one wonders if Nick won’t be the fist guy in the legionworld(my name for the main legion earth)to blend the two, oh maybe not directly but by creating devices that harness magic for him. hell I would love to see Nick do that just to see the Magic council’s reaction. eh perhaps Bloodworld!Nick managed to do something like that in the years since we last saw him.
Another thing I wonder,not really tied to this update but still, how dothe Cabal and the Magic side of things interact ? I mean the cabal has been around for quite a long time so they have to have come acrosso each other at one point. Eh would the ancient equivalents/equivalents of the magic council and other practioners have thought the Cabal’s power an unknown for of magic ?
error: jody has turned into jodi
Thanks.
At least Nick’s somewhat self-aware. I’m loving the arc so far. I’m curious to see whether all of this magic going on is going to have him try learning even a little bit, all in the interest of improving the armor, of course. Or maybe he’ll find a way to double down on the tech side and use that to further develop the wards now, and maybe improve them once this is over.