Awakening the Lightforged

Estingai studied the door for a moment, then frowned as her Auroramantic senses registered a change. The number of signatures had decreased. Only one was active now. Blacknodes like her own, sensing for anyone nearby using Auroramancy. Estingai’s use would be concealed by Sila's onyx gemcrest. Samjati shrouded, Natari revealed.

Estingai almost told Sila to dim his gemcrest so that those on the other side of the door wouldn't be as surprised when she knocked. She hesitated, though, and brightened her orangenodes again, just long enough for one last peek into the past. Her hands barely shook at all this time.

When she saw Nightstone members filing orderly into the room, hurried, but not panicked, Estingai dimmed her orangenodes again. Only a small amount of Auroralight remained in her pair of orangenodes. Maybe a twelfth of their full capacity. She didn't transfer it to her other biogems. Depleting her orangenodes always left her with a foggy recollection of anything that happened until she restored light to them.

Taking a deep breath, Estingai turned back to Sila and signaled for him to dim his blacknodes. She kept her own bright. Stepping up to the metal door, she knocked, wincing at the metallic echo that bounced off the stone walls, then shouted the code.

"Phantom's balls."

Kozasana snorted, the sound barely audible over the echo of Estingai's voice.

Estingai turned to her friend, and found Kozasana with a wide smirk splitting her full Natari lips.

"You're joking."

Estingai shrugged, managing a bit of a smile. "I helped Raima come up with it. I have yet to hear of a situation where he wasn't an asshole."

The others laughed, and some of Estingai’s tension left her.

If they can still find laughter in a place like this, maybe…

Estingai shook her head and straightened her shoulders. It wasn't time for that right now.

No one had answered, and the Auroramantic signal on the other end hadn't changed.

Estingai waited a moment, frowning, then knocked again and shouted the code louder.

Once the echoes died and there was still no answer, Estingai brightened her clearnodes and pressed her ear up against the cold, smooth metal.

Nothing.

That seemed wrong to her, but these doors were thick, and she realized she didn't have a frame of reference for how well she should be able to hear through a few inches of titansteel and aluminum.

"I don't like this," Sila murmured.

Estingai didn't either. It was up to her to make sure the others didn't panic, however.

"I think I need to rip it off," she said.

Kozasana looked at her wide-eyed. "How? We don't have any greyarms."

Estingai shrugged. "The stone around the door. I can move that."

"Shouldn't it be built to withstand something like that?" Farykas asked.

"There's only so many precautions we can take," Estingai said. "Plus, that works as a failsafe if there was a malfunction with the door or the generators. That's probably what happened here." She looked around at her team. "Just cover me. I can't imagine they'll be expecting someone to tear open their door."

As her companions formed up to either side of her, Estingai fell into a horse stance. She extended one arm toward the door, and the other toward part of the stone wall opposite the massive slab of malfunctioning metal.

For a moment, she thought of using her violetnodes and aquanodes to superheat the stone and turn it into lava around the doorframe. That would be easier to manipulate, but that amount of heat would require more Auroralight than she was comfortable using down here. Splitting the stone with her greennodes and moving the frame back would still take a lot, but…

Estingai weighed the options in her mind, trying to make a rough calculation of the costs, then brightened her greennodes. She would try to do this in one shot.

Flexing her hands, Estingai looked to her companions. "It might be a good idea if you all give me some space. Cover from the flanks of the door."

They nodded, then gave her room.

Estingai shot them a half smile in thanks, then put her helmet back on and used her greennodes to reach out to the stone on either side of her. She anchored herself on the wall, and felt at the stone around the metal door. Once she had the image in her head, she brightened one of her opalnodes and flared her greennodes.

A loud, bone chilling crack split the air, echoing through the tunnels, accompanied by a rumble that made Estingai's stomach clench. Stone and metal scraping stone, and a loud grunt from Estingai, followed that as the door and its stone frame lurched toward her, covering about half the distance.

Estingai dimmed her gemcrest back to its resting level and took a few deep breaths. Her heart pounded and her body felt like she'd been just run through one of her old conditioning workouts.

She removed her helmet, wiped the sweat from her brow, then put it back on and trotted forward.

No one's come out to kill us, at least. That must be…

Estingai's veins turned to ice as she stepped up to the opening she'd created. The room beyond was dark, but she brightened her clearnodes on reflex. Between that and the ambient light from her companions' torches, she could see the charnel house that had once been the core of Ghostmine.

The dead lay everywhere.

Cut, burnt, torn apart.

Estingai swallowed even as she primed her gemcrest, falling into a fighting stance. One hand gripped her sidearm. The other she stretched out to the side, fingers splayed, ready to wield a hardlight construct.

She tasted bile. Her palms began to sweat.

Memories of how the light had winked out of the underground chamber a week ago at the Deathknight's arrival flashed before her eyes.

Blood's metallic tang mixed with the pungent stenches of burnt hair and flesh as they filled the air, but the bodies themselves hadn't begun to smell yet.

As her companions shone their lights through the room, one of them retched.

Near the back of the chamber, a Lightforged in sleek, shining armor somehow untouched by blood, held a struggling Natari woman in the air by her throat.

“You know where they are,” it said. “My contact only provided coordinates for this base, but rats always know where the nearby dens are.”

Its voice wracked Estingai with shivers. It was too normal.

Her stomach twisted. There were a few other huddled, whimpering forms, bruised and clutching at stumps or limbs bent the wrong way.

Estingai had taken down a few of these monsters with Svemakuu and the other Knights, but as this one turned to face them, cocking its head, she found herself paralyzed.

"I thought I'd caught all of you."

The demon tossed the Natari woman to the side. Her body hit the wall with a crunch and crumpled to the stone floor. That and the wicked, silvery antlers that curved out from the top of its masked helmet told Estingai that this monster was a Samjati traitor who had chosen to fight for Ynuukwidas. They'd given up something of themselves for the powers of a Natari Auroraborn, and the gift of being extremely hard to kill.

The tall, masked monster started toward them, slow, but purposeful. The shining mask that hid its face mocked ancient Samjati traditions. Everything about it seemed to drain what little light illuminated the room.

"Run!" Estingai hissed, throat dry

"Siluumwe! Go!" Kozasana said, shouldering her rifle as she flanked Estingai. "Warn the base. We'll hold it off."

One of the torchlights flashed. Moments later, the scout’s supernaturally fast footsteps echoed down the tunnel.

"The rest of you, too," Estingai ordered.

Kozasana shook her head. "We're staying."

"We're with you, Estingai," Aari added.

The Lightforged stopped, cocking its head again. The movement made it seem almost like some grotesque puppet operated by the God King.

"Estingai?" It said. "One of the Nightmother's Knights Reborn?"

Hearing the thing say her name made Estingai's stomach curdle.

The monster's laugh nearly made her vomit.

"That makes this so much more interesting."

Estingai brightened her gemcrest as the Lightforged turned its masked gaze on her, then she stopped. She could do nothing as the monster sped across the room with greynode-enhanced speed.

“Estingai!”

No. No! I—

Visions of the Deathknight returned to her. It looked so much like this Lightforged. But this one wielded no massive blade.

“Perke! Cover her!”

Then Aari was in front of her. The envoy—not an Auroramancer—leveled his rifle and fired at the approaching Lightforged. Even with the dead bodies to dampen the sound, each report became an explosion in the stone-walled room.

The bullets did nothing. Aari hadn’t aimed for the biogems at the edges and joints, and the aluminum-plated sections of armor could somehow block rifles and small arms fire with barely a scratch.

“Get her out of here,” Aari shouted.

Estingai grunted as someone yanked her back out the opening between the stone chunk she'd ripped from the wall and the smooth stone archway around it. A quick glance behind told her it was Kozasana.

The Lightforged slammed Aari against the massive doors, shaking the freestanding miniature wall. The snapping of his bones as his body broke reverberated through the tunnels. It nearly made Estingai retch, but snapped her out of whatever had held her back.

Aari's death was on her now. Just one more to add to the list.

As the Lightforged followed her and Kozasana around the slab of metal and stone, Estingai brightened her greynodes for speed and her rednodes for hardlight.

She formed a shield over one hand and drew her sidearm with the other, firing at the biogems on the Lightforged's armor as it approached.

She didn't hit a single one.

Estingai's greynodes let her sidestep a blow that would have shattered her shoulder, then bash the monster in the head with her hardlight shield.

Even as the Lightforged recoiled, it spun. Hardlight flashed, and Estingai roared at a sudden line of heat down her thigh. She looked down to find her pant leg torn.

Blood spilled from a cut nearly the length of her forearm.

She looked up. The Lightforged loomed over her.

Then fire blazed before it.

Estingai scrambled back as the monster turned its attention toward Farykas.

Hands pulled her up, and she groaned at the white-hot pain in her leg and the weakness that followed.

"Run," Farykas shouted. “She needs to make it out.”

Estingai realized that he was shouting at Kozasana, not her, and that her friend was the one pulling her away from the Lightforged.

"No torches," Kozasana hissed. "We need to get out of here without it following. Run! We can slow down once we’ve made it somewhere dark and far enough to hide."

Estingai barely heard her words, eyes fixed on Farykas as he tried in vain to hold off the Lightforged.

"Estingai! Now!"

Swallowing bile, Estingai turned and sprinted with her friend away from the Lightforged, trying to ignore the searing pain in her leg.

She hoped it would be too dark for bloody footprints to give them away.