Etan Za'Darmondiel.
***
Our last two months in the Darkroom were undoubtedly the most emotional time of my life. There was never a time like it, before or after. Here, in this forge of legends, we strangers-turned-unlikely allies became an unruly band of schemers and scourges; saviors and saints. But it was not until the Crucible that we became the legends of legends.
We were all in the field at the time. On our own in separate parts of the world when we found ourselves ambushed, assaulted, or raided by our technologically advanced enemies. They came from the skies, seas, and depths of the earth. Colossal motherships released waves of exosuit-equipped warriors, power-armored knights, and augmented soldiers while they rained spells from the Darkroom's ceiling.
That we could manage.
So too could we manage the following month, when the Darkroom seemed to grow frustrated with our success and saw every creature that survived the past month develop super-powered strength and constitutions on top of their arcana and increased intelligence.
We managed only because we regrouped, however. Still scattered across the room, we warred alongside the comrades we'd gathered across the Bodhi Tree, akin to the old days in the War Phase. But the third month of the Crucible saw that change.
All creatures native to the Darkroom rose in strength, constitution, arcana, and intellect like before. And so, those nations we once decimated and thus left in the backs of our minds swept toward our lands with little to stand in their way. For they were aided by the beasts they once preyed upon.
Therein brought about my first experience with unbridled joy. The first time I truly had fun in combat. The first time I truly played- laughed, frolicked on the battlefield like an elf in the forest.
Me and my companions returned before anyone else in the Troupe- and long before the others received the recall. Teleportation brought us to Ring of Residence, where we let the nebulous powers within us flow to our borders, filling each square kilometer with at least one of our spectral clones. Then we began the walk.
The astral legs of my true self melded with my ki as it always had, turning them semi-corporeal- enough so they could move my body through the Ring with great speed as my true self's fists lashed out at the relatively few creatures who dropped in our lands from above. Unlike before, however, my new nebulous nature left a legion of radiant misty clones in the wake of my attacks that saw fit to lash out in kind.
Likewise, Tacnan Gemeye let loose the martial arts I showed him, blending them with his sorcerous powers to dart through the Briarfare with Turr to disable enemy vehicles or exterminate the invading beasts with grim precision. On their own, Ginku and her multitude of nebulous clones held the line at our borders while the clones of Rimoire and Glok paraded them to listen in on their communications or pop off spells to devastating effect.
By the time the lands had been cleared and we regrouped at the border, the cunning goblin's seeds of disinformation had already leaked through enemy lines. They were led away from Delphilios Court, Cloudwalde, and Port Curdenweld; only to be recalled to those same locales when their commanders caught wind of their actions—effectively bracketing them in the kill zones designated by the Black Wolf Brigade.
As per their designation, they arrived from the skies in the form of a meteor. A screaming meteor that burned from the howling rage of nearly five dozen wolves huddled inside.
It burst above the ground and sent smoldering stones showering down, bursting in explosive shockwaves that launched smoldering seeds that just so happened to be shaped like wolves.
It had been some time since I had seen them; their growth was palpable. No longer did they dive after enemy groups with reckless abandon. They sank their claws into the ground, fertilizing it with a thick brush of scalding roots and simmering squash that uprooted their tanks and exploded in flowers of smoke and heat. Making it all the easier for their companions to streak through the perimeter on their buggies and bikes, dismount to slash and bite until nothing remained, and mount up to repeat.
Throughout it all, Freki's bards were above, preforming circus tricks and providing an air of revelry that spurred the meteor pack on until little remained, wherein the arrival of Rickley's payload saw the tone of war shift.
Rickley, sitting on her Fly-Plane, who in turn was sitting on her frog, sitting on her toad, sitting on her Croc who was laying on a log, blasted the haunting sounds of war drums and horns she composed for our battles. The macabre call served to uplift us all, making us want to move our bodies in ways that terrified our enemies. Enough to make them tremble in fear at the realization that the Elven Devil's Troupe had been recalled to war.
Wrong that though may have been, it mattered not. Our enemies were formidable. Their fear did not last long, and they reacted accordingly.
Lightning flashed in the skies above Steepcairn, leaving lingering clouds that thickened as winged behemoths of arcana and steel emerged from them to rain fire on our position. However, they were countered at once by the streaks of blue that appeared from the east, launching comets from both the ground and sky.
While their bards joined Rickley and the Fruitful Five's concert, Norsh's sky skimmer released a swarm of orc-sized drones that collectively broke the line of sight between the ground and sky. First with sheer volume. Then with sheer firepower.
Meanwhile, Penny and Rhonda raced around Steepcairn's border at great speed, outmaneuvering their targets even while using their blessings from the Divine Engineer and their innate magic to install air defense systems or to weld enemy vehicles into a chain of barriers. Our lines were extended that much further. Thus we pushed further ahead, uncaring of the metal rain beginning to fall.
Even I was unaware of Iris' return. Like everyone else, I had been on the move for hours. Hunting. Preying upon those of our enemies who sought to regroup, redistribute, or relay information, personnel, and equipment. A field of digital red lines that only we could see changed that. They formed a ring around the entirety of the Steepcairn, blanketing the forest and the air above them with the words {Danger Zone.}
That image came with the shared channel brightening to the sound of the Praefectus Noctis' cold tone delivering a single order through a simple message. {"Two thousand six hundred ninety-one seconds."}
Having the agency to decide our paths for ourselves, we all went about the orders differently. Geri and Freki continued their battles in the sky and on the ground, releasing evermore power to decimate and push the enemy away from our lines. Blude and her Mafia remained scattered in the Darkroom's oceans and seas, where they would remain throughout the Crucible to take advantage of the resident nations engaging in total war. Reina and Wilson, like Iris, were preparing for the counterattack. Or rather, a flurry of decisive blows.
None of us, however, were protecting Iris. For she had protectors of her own acting near and far. A high elf that could make himself appear like our enemies and waltz easily through their bases. A half-dwarf who performed witchcraft on our damaged machines and weapons. A half-orc who could adapt her body to have any weapon on the fly and another orc who became a plague to the enemy's fortifications.
No matter who they were or what their role was, they moved at great speeds without the aid of mana bolstering. They punched through armor, lifted vehicles, and made repairs to themselves without stealing life, using spellcraft, or relying on enchantments. Yet they used those things still to execute their tasks with an efficiency that left their often doll-like faces placidly cold. Their often doll-like faces, aglow with crimson light saw to it that their patron would have the time needed for her spell.
A spell ranked above all others.
The most dangerous of them was the one spent the most time with, both now and before. Deeke, her Executor. A human who was subjected to the barbaric war games in Mazi. A boy who had the honor to fight on behalf of his three younger siblings; and lost. When Iris found him, his skull was cracked, his limbs were broken, and his jaw was missing. Thus she merged his body with Dimensionite to turn him into a living machine.
Then, my training saw him become a machine monk.
So it was, he fought alongside me, never relenting in his applications of violence like an engine at full throttle, even when Freki positioned his trains to rain down on the enemy or when Leary dropped from the skies in a frenzy of bloodlust. He cackled and howled everywhere he went, Leary, lashing out with twin hatches while bone spider arms skittered him to and fro the war zone.
When Iris released her Technomancy, it poured. Across the entirety of the Cairn, it swept, seeping into the depths to infuse the materials she manifested with her Molecular Magic into the very bedrock. With them came the enchantments and the Arcanites she conjured and imbued with whatever application of her Mana Affinity she came up with. The blue circuits of her magic saw them fit inside their cannons, launchers, and bays she created or be nestled inside the low wall that soon rose around the perimeter; and when it faded, something else bloomed.
A sheer wall of arcana sprouted from the depths, splitting the land cleanly apart before a deep hum began reverberating through the land. The horizon began to shift. The trees beyond our borders were flattened by the winds produced by ours rising above them. The mountains to the north soon towered over their neighbors to the east and west, releasing a feral roar from the depths that bathed the danger zone in a conflagration.
Steepcairn ascended. And with its ascension came a rain of hellfire spawned by the mechanized turtle shell on the base of our territory.
Providential batteries of cannons, each as big as a cathedral, began a volley of magic fire, ice, lightning, acid, poison, and explosives that never ceased. Instead, their fire spread to the edge of the land bridge on which Steepcairn used to sit and crawled forth still. Their shells rained on the oceans to the north and south, decimating their fleets with explosives and the hurricanes or whirlpools around them. City-like arrays of mana missile launchers released ordinance upon those cities we destroyed back in the War Phase. Arcane bombs saw to even the places we had not been.
Nothing was left untouched.
With her magic spent and seeing to the distant lands of the enemies before us, Iris turned her reddened eyes toward the enemies nearby.
A single wave saw her release what felt to be the entirety of her mana well and the divine mana within her. It swept over everything. The guns and mech or tech wands of our enemies turned alive, shifting to birds that nipped at their fingers to be released, then rapidly sang out spells at point-blank range. Their power armor reformed without warning, crushing the inhabitants as they shifted into small monkeys that ran loose amidst the chaos. Their airships, tanks, and carriers grew bestial, filling their insides with arcane and often burning machinations that crushed and ground those within to paste.
Entire cities began attacking their inhabitants. And it only got worse when the rest of us followed suit.
All of us released the breadth of our abilities. Some more than others.
As the poles and the equator were being bathed in fire and ice, Blude and her Mafia swept through the treasure rooms, vaults, and armories of our enemies of every capital city in the Darkroom, then began working their way down. They emptied everything and gave it to us. Some of it. Then they left, ensuring to leave trap spells that would see those cities buried in ice, scalded with steam, or submerged in water when their rulers reincarnated or returned to gaze upon their work.
As the nebula above crawled with the clones of me and mine, Wilson used it to his advantage, releasing the bombs he spent infusing with his four broken affinities to devastating effect. His Corrosive magic blended with his Decay Magic to attack the healing factors of the resilient beings we warred against. It acted against both the weak and the strong, either canceling it out or supercharging it to the point of runaway growths and tumors. Though it didn't kill them so much as render them helpless.
That was what the other bombs were for. The Disastrous Chemicals attacked their forces via the lands. The resulting smoke and slurry seeped into the ground in ways that saw earthquakes rise and persist throughout the rest of the month. The dust they kicked up melded with the air, creating dust devils, tornadoes, or typhoons that grew ever-larger as they crept around the room, spreading more his chemicals to the seas, the skies, and all the lands between them.
Thus we alone had our reprieve, even in the Crucible.
Thus our reprieve was shattered come the final month of the Crucible, when four domineering figures stood above the remnants of those warring nations. The first proxies and the coveted undead. Lana, Doyle Wolfgang, Olga Godzuik, and Zaraxus; each with 11 proxies of their own.
Thus we determined everything had to go. The Interitus Protocol.
Thus we used everything.
We used every ounce of our power for every punch; every bit of mana for every minor spell; every instance of cunning for every maneuver; for that was the only thing capable of keeping those four at bay.
Even the arrival of the Black Brood gave us no reprieve. They appeared like a great tide of alien wickedness that devoured all there was in sight. No city was left standing. No animal was left moving. No suitable beings remained to satiate their jaws except those four and the divine few they had with them.
It took everything we had to make it through the crucible. But eventually, we did. The end was declared. Thus Steepcairn returned to its place and everything within the Darkroom was resurrected. The cities rebuilt themselves. The lands became vibrant once again. The inhabitants soon gathered around the Cairn for the final time. Not to attack. To celebrate.
Something I still was not used to.
And so, I watched while the others paired themselves into their groups of like-mindedness. Reina and Iris- two sides of the same coin. Blude and Wilson, with their overlapping niches. Geri and Rickley- who strangely enjoyed each other's distant company. They all went off to various places to show off the things they'd made and done. Things that would be replicated and used to terrorize those who would come after us.
I turned toward Leary and Freki, who'd bonded while frolicking through the battlefield to the point of sharing a dumb exuberance that I was sure my brother would relate to seamlessly.
"Try not to run so much next time, Ratter." Leary was saying to a goblin with gleaming scimitars.
"Imma scout, Leary. Runnin's what I do."
"Well, I enjoyed the hunt. Now we harvest and feast!" Freki cheered, swinging a barrel of ale around as if it were a mug.
I grew distracted by someone trying to sneak up on me. Olga, it turned out to be. Though not as I met her before. What we faced in the last month was only a clone of Olga, made from the fighting spirit she cast aside when coming here. This, however, was what remained.
"I know that look in your eye." She said. "It's a familiar one. A look of disbelief coupled with knowing you're where you belong. Yet, you have a feeling. Something's missing."
"Not a feeling." I snorted. "I know my family is missing. But I cannot bring them here without an ensuing battle. A Drow battle. Short, destructive, and decisive."
"Not a battle." Olga shook her head. "War. Now that you know the horrors, the cost. Is it worth the reward?"
I looked about the Troupe and their subordinates and thought of the many Legionaries spread across the Bodhi Peninsula. Those who would bring countless others to this room to be trained. Knowing what we drow knew, knowing our zeal; our militant drive for perfection... "It is."
"However," I turned my gaze back to her. "The cost is mine to pay. Mine, and anyone who wishes to help me liberate my family. Those who are worthy, at least."
"Well, you've got about 200 here." She laughed, looking back to the revelry. "Plus one more. But my fight is over. My help comes after you bring them here."
"I can understand them. Why you?"
"Can't you see it?" She smiled in that strange way humans did. So child-like, full of exuberance and emotion, yet charming. "We're two sides of the same coin. Educators. The guiding hands of change for the future generations."
For whatever reason, it was something I chose not to look at just yet. So I turned my gaze to the Troupe.
But of course, Olga Godzuik still had words for me.
"And try not to look so lonely. If you want company, just go to your friend. He's over there."
Friend. It was only the second time such a thing had been said. Other words have been used, yes. Companion. Peer. Teacher. Subordinate, even. But only once before was I called his friend. A crude, ridiculous notion, I believed it to be at the time. Now, however…
"I still know not what that word truly means. That battle, I suppose, is the start of my true war."