Icarus Awakens

In the name of the Hammer, what is that? Lograve asked Daniel after the repeated screams finally made it to his water-logged ears. He’d ignored the faint sounds at first, thinking them distorted explosions from the enchanted ammunition.

Tak. Lograve was surprised by the lack of any edge in the mental word, given Daniel had been shouting for his release moments before.

What’s happening? He asked, as a school of swarmlings tried and failed to penetrate his barrier.

I don’t know, but he’s knocking them all unconscious.

Tak is fighting all of them himself? Are the villagers supporting him?

No. No, they’re. A pause. They’ve started moving towards us but only now. I think it was the screams.

Is he winning?

Yes! And he’s not killing anyone.

By the Gods. Can you still not see the Host?

No. I don’t think I should get close enough to try either, the archers who are still up are firing bloodied arrows.

Well, I suppose that’s on me. Lograve cut the connection fully to focus once more. The Totem Warrior must be sacrificing himself. Noble, but he’d fall to the influence at some point. Exposure to that much blood made it inevitable, and that wasn’t counting Regeneration. Tak wouldn’t be coming back from this, not unless they found the Host within a minute or so. He’d be remembered for his bravery and his selflessness, and if his actions stopped Murdon from being forced into the lake? How could you repay that kind of debt to a dead man? Lograve would have to think about that later. He was smart. He’d figure something out.

Even with the avianoid’s intervention, all that had been done was turn the situation into a stalemate. The Host was fast, invisible, or both. Or it had fled to the back part of the lake from the beginning. What if there were hidden crevices? He hadn’t been closely inspecting the bottom and sides. Damn it! Nothing happening above would matter if they couldn’t find the Host.

Lograve wasn’t experienced like Murdon was in combining abilities, so the other options he might have used were barred as long as he needed to actively maintain Aquakinesis. While it was a feature, taking direct control of water meant agitating the mana flow within him in such a way that it would prevent the use of an ability. He’d had the years to try and develop a dual-channeling technique as Murdon had but elected to master his feature instead. If he’d taken another path, Lograve could never have frozen the lake as he had today.

Nor could he move through it now with impunity. At the speeds he could reach, he could cross the lake entirely within a minute without fear of the parasites. That meant little as he couldn’t search that area while moving quickly. He’d also be leaving the gestalt behind. He either needed more light or a way to make the gestalt faster. Barring that, he needed luck.

No, he needed reason! The lake was engorged with swarmlings, but they had to be coming from somewhere. If the Host, after discovering the explosive ammunition, continued to employ depth charges then it wasn’t anywhere near the ice shelf.

Where would it hide? A naturally formed crevice far away from the mortals would be the ideal place. If none such existed the Host would probably use its servants to make one. Wait, it already has!

The realization of where the Host was hiding didn’t come from any confirmation from his senses, but from assumption and what he knew of this lake. Follow me. Look to the lake bed, he instructed the gestalt as he started swimming on a path straight down the center. The pace was slower because of what he was doing, but Lograve also knew he was right. He had to be. The chance still existed of some small natural crevice. If that was the case he’d never find it. Lograve bet everything that the Host had chosen one of the plentiful, mortal-made crevices instead.

…

Khare reached the midpoint of the lake and felt Evalyn losing her strength within them. Despite the rapid movement of her lungs, the air she was drawing in wasn’t doing any good. Khare had wondered if the Bard was in danger of exhausting the air itself, although the pressure within them hadn’t changed. That was interesting, but also meant the Bard needed to get out. Khare began breaking for the surface, informing the others as to why.

They opened the way when part of them was outside the water, keeping the tridents ready in case a swarmling tried to burrow into them at this moment. Evalyn poked her head out, gasping first for breath, and then at the sight of the distant thing fighting those who were controlled. Neither recognized it for who he truly was. To them, it seemed some previously unknown monster was taking apart the dominated mortals. Brutally knocking them down and not killing anyone? Strange, but a mercy. If whatever this was could overcome Gadriel and Murdon as well as the others, it would mean everyone left on the ice had a chance.

Evalyn was speaking to them as she retreated. Many things, with gratitude coming first. Questions, both about the ice, and what Lograve’s plan was. She alone of the remaining force couldn’t contact Lograve while she was within their Mobile Armory.

“Reveal” was what Evalyn heard when Khare tried to answer. Despite their time together, they didn’t know her well enough to be more insightful. She asked another question but kept playing as well. Whatever it was didn’t register well enough for Khare to feel like answering blindly and she didn’t reiterate, so the matter was dropped.

He only needed half a minute to catch back up given the renewed playing of the Bard. The Host hadn’t been discovered yet, but it would be soon. Five more minutes and they’d be at the lake’s edge. Lograve was still swimming down the center while the gestalt were off in two groups trailing by the side.

They reached another section and watched carefully as the platform began to rise. That was what Lograve had deduced, that the Host was hiding below one of the bridge sections like a slug underneath a rock. When not in use, these sections were made to conceal themselves on the lake floor to avoid the wrathful attention of monsters.

Lograve was gambling that there was no other part of this lake that offered better concealment and that the Host felt it necessary to seek such a place. Doubling back and checking the rest of the lake would- wait! There. The inner vines of Khare’s being twisted together tightly as they saw fresh spawnlings leaking out the sides of one of the sections up ahead. Spilling out from overabundance.

So, it was quivering in fear? Keeping itself trapped underneath a section, but powerless to stop its form from reproducing and giving itself away? Good. Khare readied their tridents and an ability that would lash them rapidly around within a short distance of themself, just in case the Host came for them. No gestalt ability required an incantation, for obvious reasons, so it was still usable underwater.

Lograve sent out a mental signal and then hovered over the bridge segment. Sensing a mortal above it, the bridge began to rise. It didn’t matter that there wasn’t a connection to land formed by its other segments. It was well-designed, enchanted by a Builder in the service of the Incursion Army that had first taken the region. Each section was enchanted to act alone so that failure of the enchantment at one point wouldn’t cause the entire bridge to go down.

Beneath the roughly square shaped piece of enchanted stone, the Illustrious Slave Host twitched. The pressure on it was being relieved, which meant it was being exposed. It had squeezed itself into a safe place far enough away from the mortals to avoid their detection, or so it had thought. That so many had escaped its swarmlings and then had been able to ignore them in the water came to it as a surprise. As the square bridge section lifted, a cloud of swarmlings burst out from all sides. Hundreds, there had to be. In the gestalt’s senses, they were poorly lit by what moonlight made it down this far, as well as the faint shimmering from the bridge.

The gestalt closed in as Lograve dashed through the cloud of swarmlings. The Arcanist was confident in his defenses and used the disruptive tide around him to cut gashes into it. The circling motion that both intersected the swarmlings and the space above the bridge was enough to keep it elevated. As other gestalt unleashed more long-range attacks able to cut through the water, a darker shape emerged among the others. It was of the same basic structure as the swarmlings, but ten times as large and without the orange coloration. On the main body, there were crevices that ran up from the center between where the flagellates parted. Red, to break up the blue of its skin. Swarmlings were passively disgorged at regular intervals from each side.

Khare focused their intent on the Host and Marked it. As an ability, it was less extensive than Daniel’s in that it did not reveal the creature or even apply to more than one at a time. Still, it let Khare sense the Host’s general direction. It wasn’t getting away now.

Despite their speed, other gestalt made it within range of the Host first simply because it darted toward the other group. At that moment, Khare learned of another difference in the Host’s biology. It speared through one of the level 1s in that group, instantly destroying it. The entirety of their vines weren’t gone, but the gestalt didn’t have enough mass to shift its integral connections around the spiked point of the Host.

In essence, earth gestalt were giant knots. Trying to untie them the normal way would be impossible, if only because they wouldn’t let you. But if the vines were untied and laid out in straight lines, the gestalt would die. If the bindings of their form were undone in any significant way, they lost the ability to spread their will across their form. Fire was another major concern, but only because that could easily and totally destroy one without appropriate defenses.

So different. Each species fragile in its own way. Khare led the charge in his group as those close to the Host attempted reprisal strikes. Weapons scored hits, but even if their enemy was a swarm host it could survive attacks from lesser arms. It seemed like the normal swords, spears, or likewise being used were barely scratching it. And the enchanted weapons they did have?

Khare watched as a gestalt Knight reached out with the sword they carried and struck a blow. Instead of damaging it, the few wounds the Host had been dealt closed! That had been one of the weapons Daniel had made. Lograve had mentioned something about this, but Khare hadn’t quite grasped it. Those gestalt who hadn’t seen the effects were warned, but they also couldn’t communicate as effectively underwater. Another disadvantage of not being able to move their vines as easily as above ground.

That was proving to be too costly. The Host was quick, outspeeding all of them except Lograve. The only exception was when it tried to impale one of them. If the gestalt survived, they would constrict around the Host to buy time for the others. This is what happened when Khare’s group reached the others. The Berserker had used their dash to intercept the Host, sacrificing a third of their mass to restrain it. This was their best chance. Khare raised all of their held weapons, priming Coordinated Strike. Both of their tridents were included in the set, as well as some of their daggers. Thrusting attacks would minimize the risk involved in hitting the gestalt that bound their target. Concern was there of the sudden healing of the Host in response to their weapons, but what other option did they have? There was a trick here that they wouldn’t discover unless they tried everything.

The knots within Khare tightened as the ability triggered. While they didn’t have arms per se, not when in their normal form, they had a limited number of the equivalent of shoulders with which to handle weapons. Khare had far more vines than they could use to manipulate weapons, although certain powers from their class helped mitigate that. This was a quantity over quality approach to the Martialist class which became both through the attention of a certain Artificer. Khare could be a volley by themselves, carrying tremendous firepower relative to their level and intensity of the ability. But as the first trident struck, Khare’s metaphorical heart stopped when they perceived wounds around the host, injuries their brethren had struggled to inflict, seal. The trident itself only grazed the scaled hide.

They wanted to abort the assault, but it was too late. Committed attacks had that weakness. The next trident hit the Host and it screamed. An undulating sound made the water itself ripple and swarmlings burst out. Khare would have wondered how it was screaming without lungs if they also didn’t talk without them. Besides, they were staring intently at the flesh which was blackening where the trident had hit. Then, his daggers hit and it was like nothing had happened. The creeping dead tissue reversed course and his second trident was torn out of the creature by its writhing. As a result of the gestalts’ exchange in total, the Host was left with no injuries.

Emotions flowed around the gestalt like the water itself, invisible to everyone without their species’ Empathic Link. Frustration and urgency saturated the picture, all taking that for granted when reading the others. Pain, predominantly, from the Berserker. Disbelief from some at the Host’s continued survival but comprehension from Khare and those who were familiar with what made their second trident special.

Lograve reached out to them after noticing what was happening. The earlier warning was clarified with what Khare knew now. Use lightning and avoid radiant. Notes of caution from his allies came too, focused on the weapons they were holding. Communal disbelief faded as comprehension spread to take its place. Resolve followed. One more experienced than Khare indicated a desire for their weapon, but communally this idea was rejected. Khare had the Bard, and the others seemed to agree they were the best to wield it for now.

So much for his multi-weapon skills. It didn’t take an Empathic Link to register the confusion from Evalyn as he replaced his radiant weapons next to her, but there wasn’t time to try and explain the situation. They had to strike quickly before- too late. The Host was able to escape from the pin through its desperate movements, fearing the very weapon they held.

It didn’t come back. Why would it? The Host had thought it could take the lesser enemies, up until the point one had revealed it carried its weakness. In fact, two others of the gestalts had lightning-based powers they had previously used to help charge the lightning rods. The problem was any lightning they used would be dispersed throughout the lake and harm them as well. Only a very specific enchantment prevented that. It was a miracle they even had this trident. Khare hadn’t been envisioning this exact scenario when they asked for the second one but had appreciated the value of having a lightning weapon they could use underwater. Honestly, the only reason they’d asked for it was that Daniel had freely made other weapons for it. Why not ask for more?

The Host slipped away into the darkness of the distant lake. Khare could track it, but they couldn’t catch it.

…

Don’t use radiant weapons, gods damn it! Lograve cursed at the gestalt as yet again the Host was healed purely from the touch of the shimmering metal. Damage absorption. Worse than immunity, the monsters would steal the energy of the attack instead of ignoring it. Stronger variants of dragons had this for the element they embodied, for example. But finally, seemingly in spite of his repeated attempts to warn them, the gestalt understood. Khare’s lightning-charged trident was enough to seriously wound the Host. Of course, follow-up attacks negated this, but when the gestalt put away their other weapons it was clear they’d gotten the message.

Too late. The Host had tasted a weapon that could kill it and was retreating faster than even he could go. This fast, it could avoid any area they targeted with lightning should they switch to plan B. Every minute the Host avoided them was more sand out of a timer he couldn’t see. Daniel, do you have anything that can slow monsters?

No. Stop disconnecting me!

I’m sorry, I had to focus and your screams-

I was watching Hunter beat himself to death, and you had me locked up the whole time!

Gods. So it could take hostages. What’s happening with Tak?

Most of them are down, and he’s dragging them over to where the bridge is whenever the fighting stops.

Smart. How has he not become affected yet? No, never mind. We’ve found the Host but it’s too fast.

Can’t you freeze the water around it?

Too fast, Lograve reiterated. It’s taking all I have to keep the swarmlings off of me. We need to slow the Host!

Couldn’t you make the gestalt faster?

I think Evalyn’s still inside Khare, but even with her, they're too slow. If only they were water gestalt- That same feeling in the back of his head made him pause. Something about what Daniel had said, but that couldn’t be it. Hold on, I’m coming up. The gestalt are tracking it now, some of them at least.

They’ve got Identify Creature too?

Nothing so absurd. Lograve shot out of the lake in a spray of water and swarmlings, both falling back down as he used Aquakinesis to very carefully shield himself and then create a platform under him. Manipulating the ice this quickly taxed him, but he managed it through the finer control level 4 gave him as well as the years of practice he had with the feature. He spared a glance at the ice shelf now rapidly shrinking and froze himself. What was that? What is that?

Tak.

What!?

I don’t know, but he’s not- both of them winced as the thing that was probably Tak unleashed another scream on a downed mortal. He’s not killing them.

I need to focus! Something else on the ice shelf caught his eye. Where the melting edge met the water there was a fibrinous material spreading out like the tendrils of a translucent jellyfish. Spider’s silk, spun by the creature now defending Tlara’s unconscious body. Why was that silk giving him that same odd feeling?

Time passed as Lograve desperately thought through the powers he could have gotten from level 4, knowing it would have to come from intelligence. Something to do with enhancement, silk? Speed? It wasn’t making sense, because there was a third piece that didn’t fit. He opened his journal to the page with one hand, holding it out in front of the lake and the ice shelf. What was it? Maybe some incantation related to part of these clues, while the others were what his ability did. If it was a feature, he should have felt the passive effects by now. Unless… It was hope more than reason that made Lograve reassess his assumptions. A plea that the perfect solution to this scenario was actually within his grasp.

He drew more water up in the space in front and below him, where the swarmlings were still trying to get to him and the gestalt hopelessly pursued the Host. He didn’t make a solid platform, but a pattern in mid air. Yes, somehow, he was on the right track but it wasn’t quite right. He looked to where the Artificer was standing a short distance from Hunter and rotated it in his direction. Daniel, is this pattern correct?

There wasn’t an immediate response. Uh, no, it’s not. Why does this matter? Lograve sent a mental jab which spurred Daniel into being more helpful. There should be two lines one the second and fourth branches. No not those, the other, yeah.

Why didn’t you draw it that way the first time?

I was just doodling! Why does this matter?

Lograve ignored that and the follow-up question, fixing the copy of the pattern in front of him. Still not right, but it was closer. Time was slipping away, what was he missing? He flipped the page with his thumb to where he’d repeated the structure several times, altering the notation to align with the arcane theory he’d been investigating as of late. The alterations were mostly concerned with representing the points as if they were three dimensional. Much easier to reproduce with an ice sculpture, especially when the seventh sense was guiding him. And, apparently, Daniel. I see what you’re doing. Make the points connected by two lines level with each other.

Why? Lograve did so and found it fit better with whatever his mind was grasping for.

It’s just how it works. Whatever this was, the Artificer was familiar with it. This was also enough of a distraction that it was edging Daniel back from whatever abyss he had neared.

What else?

I, hang on I’m trying to remember. It’s been years since I studied this and I wasn’t trying to make a career of it. Ok, the angles of parts coming off the large branching parts that aren’t level should be at equivalent angles to themselves.

Lograve blinked. He wished Daniel could express that in any other way than verbal, but that’s what he had to work with. He slowly rotated the sculpture, trying to pin down what Daniel was describing.

No, not like that. It’s shaped like, uh… Daniel was correcting the structure again. Caltrops! You have caltrops here, right?

Ah, of course. Instead of angling each of the three points Daniel had specified equivalently to the fourth connecting each branching larger point to the main structure, Lograve arranged them so the connections between each other were equidistant. That description painted a much clearer picture in Lograve’s mind. Why didn’t he just say that to begin with? He was close. Anything else?

That looks right, I think. I never really saw how this looks three dimensionally.

Then how did you know how to correct me?

There are just rules about how chemistry works! Daniel thought defensively.

Chemistry? Another word for alchemy. Now that made no sense. Lograve played with the arrangements of other points Daniel hadn’t commented on, feeling the fit in his head grow closer and closer. I’ve almost got it. If this works, then I don’t know, but you may feel like you’re under the effect of Bardic music.

You’re working on a buff?

It would be rather silly to make ice sculptures just for the heck of it. He smiled, looked at Murdon struggling against what was ostentatiously a level 2 opponent, and found he couldn’t drop the smile. As surety of his power filled him, the name of it was revealed by the same strange instincts which had guided him. “I have Ritualism, Murdon,” he whispered as if making a wish. “I don’t know how, but I do. Hold on, we’ll get you better.”

The final piece clicked into place. The clues had led him right to this. An array power, prompted by the patterns woven by the silk shocker. His desires for enhancement magic, and the symbol Daniel had provided which had first piqued his curiosity due to its similarity to others. Ritualism, a level 6 Arcanist power. No one acquired it before then because there were no benefits to it before then. But likewise, nothing an Arcanist of Lograve’s standing could obtain explained what was about to happen.

Intuition told Lograve he’d spent enough time and mana preparing the spell and gave him a rough idea of the area he could target. Smaller than what he’d expected, but it would cover the gestalt and they were in range. He brought his arms together and then pushed them forward as if to propel the mid-air symbol towards them. The ice composing the symbol splintered apart and ephemeral light replaced it. Rushing forward, it washed over the gestalt in the lake and they shimmered where the circle hit them. When the effect was over Lograve slumped forward as a mana surge erupted from him, the rapidly draining energy significant enough to produce a notable force in the world. As for the magic he’d cast, that had a different impact on the battle.

Lograve beamed for a moment, caught in the rush of discovery. Then pain made him look down and he couldn’t stop himself from shouting, “Oh come on, really!?” Attached to his leg was a swarmling that had managed to jump up to him while he was distracted.

…

Below the breaking ice and writhing surface of the water, the gestalt pursued the Host at a maddeningly slow pace. No longer did it charge them. Instead, every swarmling in the lake converged in an attempt to take them down. The small creatures did relatively little damage on their own, but the combined mass was beginning to tax them. It was like being buried by pebbles. What was worse, every time Khare had to rip one off of them they had to pause to do so. This was hopeless. Even spreading out again into groups didn’t afford them any better chance to get close and take it out. Beyond that, it was only Khare’s trident that could score the critical blow. The others had abandoned their weapons with the intent of constricting the Host to create an opportunity. One that would never come if they couldn’t touch it.

Water. It wasn’t the worst medium a gestalt could be suspended in, that was magma, but it was still aggravating. This was not their domain, and every gestalt sensed this on a basic level. They were not meant to fight in such a terrain, and they would tire far before one suited to it. This was hopeless. The time to kill the Host had been when it was emerging from the dragon’s corpse, only none of them had known that. On the ice they had a chance, now they were watching defeat bloom before their eyes.

Then something odd happened. A ring of light washed over the gestalt who had regrouped to try and come up with a better plan. From what they could sense, there was a pattern in the water that traveled within the center of the ring. It was moving too fast to dodge, but Khare didn’t feel threatened by it either. Rather, when it touched them, the entire world shifted. Khare knew about enhancements, of course. They were actively under the effect of one courtesy of Evalyn and had listened to the combined might of the Bards during the second and final phases of the dragon fight. It was a similar experience to the band, only more intense, and more focused.

Specifically, Khare was jittery. Their vines were twitching with energy as if they hadn’t just been in a prolonged and desperate fight. The others were feeling it too, the complex color overcoming the others that had been the background of their communal Empathic Link. Then, the speed kicked in. Time itself remained constant, but everything else around Khare slowed except for the other gestalt. They were moving faster than they could on land. Faster even then Kob had been able to go before their ill-fated choice to ascend to level 5 early. They were tearing through the water! The more experienced of the gestalt recognized that this degree of improvement couldn’t have come from any power of the first three levels, not if it was letting them corner the Host that had masterfully evaded them before.

This was it. Khare’s grip on the trident faltered only because the effect on them made grasping it more difficult. In every other way, they were prepared. They slowed themselves fractionally to let the others go first. Another shriek resounded through the water as the first gestalt made contact, easily dodging the attack the Host made as it rapidly turned on them. First one set of vines, then another. Like ropes pulling down a giant the cluster of gestalt ahead of them fought against the Host’s superior strength. Whatever enhancement was on them didn’t improve that attribute, but they had numbers and the ability to finally catch their prey. Khare paused for a moment more to ask themself where to strike. The creature had no eye. Its main body was just a tapered tube and the slits that spawned the swarmlings. One of those then.

Khare selected what was widely considered the most basic of abilities for this attack: Strike. It was to Martialists what Jump was to Totem Warriors. All it offered was a very minimal improvement to damage and armor penetration, in exchange for very little cost mana-wise. Contempt didn’t drive this choice, although Khare felt it for the monster they attacked. Strike was simply the only ability they had that would work with only one weapon.

It was all they needed. The trident’s bite was as devastating as the first hit, only now the gestalt were aware of its life stealing affinity for radiance. They were done giving it second chances. Another Strike, hitting into its exposed innards and spreading the blackness that was death across its body. The water around the creature sparked each time they struck, but neither they nor their allies were injured. The other villagers hadn’t held this weapon’s enchantment in high regard. Fools. By the fourth strike, it was over. The Host wasn’t dead, but it couldn’t escape them. Khare would keep lashing out until there was nothing left. They would, except they too recognized the inevitability of their victory. Pausing before the fifth strike, Khare released the trident and passed it to the gestalt next to them. They were an Arcanist who had no business holding such a weapon, but they did it anyway. They impaled the Host and passed it on, trident going from vine to vine as the others held the Host in place.

The message was clear, although only the gestalt themselves were there to witness it. The species lived and died together. This victory belonged to each, including the ones that hadn’t survived the Host’s attacks. Even if the mortals above didn’t acknowledge what they’d done for them, within the circle of gestalt each stabbing the Host, there was community. They would remember, and they would endure.

By the time the trident had made it to Khare’s vines a third time, the Host was dead.