Icarus Awakens

Gestalt played a different role in the societies of the Octyrrum compared to other mortals. Each race had their quirks and places where they could thrive. Special powers, special trends in initial attributes, diets, there were many ways to distinguish them. Some even had ancestral languages they carried on in addition to the common tongue. But the people of the elements? They were the most insular. The most different. In some places, the most despised.

A mistake had been made during the Grafting. It must have, because why else were they so different? That legacy, and the questions, remained through the ages as a spur of discontent. Worse, as a title. Mistakes. It wasn’t as bad on the outskirts of the world because gestalt normally lived on the outskirts of society in sanctuaries. The Thormundz would have had a mighty one with Kob as its head, but…

The equivalent of a crippling speech impediment wasn’t the only factor, or the most important. They looked like monsters. In this world, there had been a monster that looked like almost every species in existence, but only the gestalt looked like monsters. A minor caveat that meant everything.

The earth gestalt of the Thormundz were together and apart from the other mortal species, as usual. Those that had survived the dragon were now moving through the waters of the lake. Earth gestalt could swim. How could they drown? Exceptionally strong waters could tear apart their mass and kill them through scattering, but the lake would be calm if not for the actions of themselves and the enemy. There were two exceptions to their number. Khare thought once again of the one within them and the space they occupied. It was like a hollow under a tree, a narrow space just under the trunk and surrounded by the roots. Invisible to the outside unless rot took the wood and exposed it. Level 2 had given Khare the ability to make it sizable, enough for ten people to fit if they kept nothing else.

Of course, air was a problem. Khare worried about that since they weren’t familiar with how breathing worked. Another separation from the mortal races as the earth gestalt sustained themselves from sunlight and assimilation of nutritious soil. To make matters worse the Bard was playing, exerting herself which would reasonably use up her limited resources like how gestalt had to be conservative when venturing underground. She was playing a melody, just for them. They could sense the space within at the same time as the world about. Music. At least that bridged the gap. If they couldn’t understand Bardic music then they’d be at an even more severe disadvantage to the other races, to say nothing of being able to become Bards themselves.

The second exception raced around them. The Arcanist, who’d taken to the lake just moments before, was already charging ahead faster than any normal shavi or other primarily aquatic race. He should have been instantly controlled by their target after setting one foot in the water now infested with parasite-bearing squid creatures, but water moved around the mage just as quickly as he did through it. A protective shell that battered anything that tried to reach him. The gestalt couldn’t compare to that speed, not continuously. A Berserker among them had a trance that allowed for unexpected bursts of movement, but even this couldn’t match the velocity with which the Arcanist himself moved.

A voice entered Khare’s mind, speaking to each of the gestalt. The one that could only be Lograve, though without seeing the speaker it was hard to tell. Khare knew how long the speech lasted, but couldn’t discern the individual words. Just a glimmer of the intent and idea of what was said. There was no science to it, at least none devised that Kob had told them of, to how gestalt processed spoken and written word. A grand speech might give them the equivalent of a single word, as Murdon’s had before the battle, while a single sentence could carry more weight.

Khare readied their weapons, following what they’d sensed from Lograve and, better yet, the consensus among their kin as to what had been said. They were each independent filters for the world around them. Different perspectives of something they couldn’t quite grasp alone. Like blind mice, each describing the different parts of the elephant they grasped. Not the metaphor Khare would have used, but it still held.

…

Lograve blocked Daniel out as he continued to surge through the water. It wasn’t complete, the anguished cries were still there, but he’d cut the Artificer out of his network so the gestalt wouldn’t hear him. He felt no regret for the deceit. He didn’t feel anything at all but a deep, biting rage that tore at him for every moment it went unsatisfied. He’d been ready to abandon everyone else right up until the moment it was clear he’d be leaving Murdon behind as well. No, he wasn’t going to let his friend sacrifice anything else. He wasn’t going to lose him.

There was one other thing. In the back of his mind, the sensation of awakening. People described it in different ways, like being close to coming out of a dream, on the cusp of solving an indescribable problem, or even that itch just before a sneeze. There was an undiscovered power just under the surface that Lograve was close to realizing. Maybe the one he had received from reaching level 4. If he was close now, then there was something he was doing that was related. He’d caught the faintest sense of this feeling when the battle started, or perhaps a little before. With the singularity of his determination clarifying his mind, it was easier to detect now.

The problem was, Lograve couldn’t do much himself. Aquakinesis was taking the majority of his will to hold together. All achieving level 4 had done for that was to expand the range, capacity, and force of manipulation, and dramatically so when first heightened. It was a benefit only received by those who’d awakened the feature before level 4 and an example of just how complicated managing powers could be at higher levels. The strategy of heightening useful features immediately upon waking became less viable later on.

As it stood, Lograve was putting all the capacity of his Aquakinesis into speed and in the protective shield around him. This was necessary to keep the hundreds of the swarm off of him. The water churned with the blue and orange creatures, along with clouds of red where parasites swam freely. Lograve was sure those afflicted would stay in the lake for only one reason. He could appreciate the thoughts behind the design of this creature. It was meant to hold aquatic territory, making it unassailable to most. Beastmasters were a hard counter, but they’d lost almost every one of their monsters in the initial moments. Only Tlara had retained hers and it was staying with her and wouldn’t follow anyone else’s orders.

The dragon had killed just over sixty of their number. That had been terrible, but it had been over the course of an hour. This slave host had, in just under a minute, dominated the rest. The loss was so terrible not because of the monstrosity’s power. It was a lower leveled threat than the dragon itself, according to Daniel. It was in the circumstances that it depended, the same ones they’d tried so hard to put in their favor. All the work they’d done, only to throw things into this evil’s hands.

They were going to kill it. Lograve could not think of what the world would be if they failed. Somewhere in the darkness of the night-shrouded lake was a creature controlling all of the smaller ones and his friend, and they were going to kill it. In some stupid twist of fate they had the perfect weapon for it. He just needed to find the host and lead the gestalt to it.

As for fighting it himself? He wanted to, desperately. But one parasite slipping past his defenses meant death, or close enough to it. The host probably contained millions of the red menace and, judging by how thick the water was with its spawn, reproduced them rapidly. Only the gestalt could get up close and try to attack without fear of reprisal from the parasites. As for what else the host may have to defend itself with? Lograve didn’t know. He didn’t even know if this damned thing could turn invisible. It was level 5, it was possible, although his Sense Magic feature should help spot it in the worst case. The main problem was the lake was too big. It was fairly deep, maybe a hundred meters at its deepest. It was also a kilometer wide. He was moving faster than most mounts one might use, aquatic or otherwise, but that was still a massive area to search in the time he had.

Daniel had given him crucial information, revealing the extent of the threat before anyone else had realized they were slowly losing people to the enemy. Even so, the timer on the effect’s permanency weighed on him because he couldn’t see its hands moving. At least Murdon didn’t have Regeneration. Anyone infected who had that was likely gone forever. No one here could bring back the dead and they couldn’t reach such a healer in ten days. He paused for a moment when the darkness behind him caught up to the gestalt. Losing them here would be difficult, but not impossible. When they were swimming they loosened up the constriction of their vines, making it appear as if they were a moving colony of intertwined eels. I still haven’t found it yet. I may have to split off.

Lograve felt impacts in the water. Aquakinesis didn’t give him a sonar-like ability of the kind William possessed, they were just that forceful. What? Dive! Get down! Sink! He added a few more words in the hopes the point would get across. One of his fears was coming to life before his eyes.

The Host wasn’t unintelligent. While it wouldn’t have the brutish attribute array of a dragon, it would make sense that its intelligence or wisdom would be higher given its role as a controller. Even though it appeared the Host couldn’t use the abilities of those it had taken over, it had already demonstrated an understanding of their passive features and equipment. Thomas, trying to heal Tlara in his first moments under its command, showed it also knew what could affect its parasites. The exact degree to which the Host knew mortal powers was unknown, but it grasped strategy.

The impacts were exploding ammunition. Neither he nor the gestalt had been injured as it appeared the purple arrows didn’t travel as far in the water before activating. Regular ammunition had been sent at them as well to similar effect. The controlled warriors were firing at random with whatever ammunition they had on hand. That was fine, the only weapons with the ability to punch through the water unaided by powers were the crossbows, of which there was only one left outside the hands of Daniel. Go deeper, and even that would be out of range. What worried him were the dark shapes obscuring what little moonlight was coming through. Those without ranged weapons were being sent into the water to fight them.

Would the Host try to preserve its slaves? Probably, if Lograve understood its design philosophy correctly. Would it know they couldn’t breathe water? That was the real question, along with what the Host would do once it was directly threatened. Lograve assumed it would sacrificed everyone under its control to save itself, but would it hold hostages? Could it conceive doing that?

He thought to ask Daniel who had jumped in, but relented. The Artificer had stopped shouting about a minute ago and he hadn’t been paying any attention in the moments prior to the silence. Lograve knew what trapping Daniel in the orb might do, but he was the last sane person up there assuming Tak had fled. As he darted downwards, Lograve reached out with his mind to try and find the avianoid, this being the basic function Telepathy unlocked at level 1. Nothing. Must be out of range, which was good. Quala could provide backup so long as he told her enough of what was going on to understand. She had Iron Mind. Would that be enough to resist?

…

The explosions around Khare disrupted their form like a sudden current. Consciousness faded for a moment until the natural coherence of their form re-established itself. It was like if a human was struck on the head, needing some time to recover. Khare began diving as soon as they regained control, though this was slow as well. The one benefit was that the further they went down the more his form was able to keep compressed due to the water pressure, at the expense of speed. Aggravation unavoidably bubbled up in their mind. They preferred ranged weapons! Bows, throwing daggers, though not crossbows as the mechanisms could endanger vines if they were careless. Perhaps a simpler version could be made if they could get Daniel to understand the idea. And, if both of them survived.

Khare themself was under no immediate threat. The worst the Host’s minions could do was try to crush their vines, which wasn’t the best strategy for dealing with them. The parasites they injected during this did reach their sap but could do nothing with that either. It wasn’t just that Khare didn’t have proper blood, they also didn’t have a brain. Not that they understood that as the reason, but by now some of them had to have been infected enough to turn. That none of them did was proof enough for the gestalt.

The influence of their own personal Bard gave Khare the edge over all of the others, besides the Berserker. It was more rhythm that drove them than anything else, and Evalyn was smart enough to play something fast. They found their movements syncing up with the music, allowing them to push through the restrictive medium more easily. Whether that would translate to a combat advantage remained to be seen.

Khare was using their weapons while they moved. The swarmlings died so easily they couldn’t tell if the song was doing anything. That was partly due to one of the gifts Daniel had given them. The tridents, so mocked by the others, were shredding through them. A single touch was all they needed to instantly kill the small things. They’d use them both to destroy the Host the first chance they had. This monster had taken their allies and their brethren. Even Thomas, while personally grating to Khare, was comfortable in their presence and Khare counted him among their friends. That was something no gestalt took for granted. They’d fought together, and now the Cleric was bound by chains they could only break one way.

There was Tlara as well, Khare supposed. Khare did not have as much conflict with the Beastmaster as others, not having been provoked by her in the slightest. Absence of negativity, perhaps.

Evalyn said something from within. Atmosphere? Air? No, she wasn’t panicked anymore than the light fear kept under control, so still breathing. Rephrasing, that was good. So many mortals just repeated exactly what they said the first time as if that would help. Climate? No, it was mood, how had weather come into the picture? Was she asking how they were feeling?

Khare wanted to respond in many ways. If it were one of their kind, they could intimate some of what she wanted just through the Empathic Link. Beyond that, gestalt were able to hold multiple conversations at once with the same individual so long as they did not need to converse deeply, do something else at the same time like fight, or speak of disparate, complex topics. They could speak of their trepidation, their concern that they wouldn’t be able to do it. Their fear of losing friends. The excitement still burning away from killing the dragon. Their gratitude towards her.

How could Khare begin to express all of that in one word? Consciously, they weren’t making that choice. They tried to say more, but in the end, Khare’s speech could only convey the barest of coherence. The curse. The legacy. That which their progenitor had sworn to defeat before the night they’d died. “Determination,” was what Evalyn heard. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but it was what she needed to hear. The music kept on, the tridents claimed more monsters, and the Host remained undetected. From above, bodies fell.