The wayward commander
Location: skyworld - the ivory tower
Wordcount: 3653 (+4)
Edward Portsmith: Level 1 EXP:
////////// (4/10)
Level 12 Sectonia (holding 4 level up) (37/120)
As the angels mustered outside of the Ivory Citadel, within a man sat upon a
throne of whispers with a
tome of corruption open in his lap, its fangs digging into the flesh of his thighs, tendrils digging into the open wounds, and also guiding him to turn the pages.
His the cloth adornment on his armor was stained with black, his hair unkept and untended, his skin pale, black veins covered his eyes and ears like a blindfold, and yet despite all this, the corruption did not suffuse his body like it did the reanimated angels. Simply clung to him. Guided him. Deceived him.
A gurgling rumble rocked the tower as the angels took flight, spurring its eldritch defenders to action, but to Edward it roared like a siren, shill and loud. His eyes rose from the tome and beheld not horrors and undead, but mortal soldiers of dozens of species, dressed in red uniforms marked with a symbol that was a cross between a gear and an ankh.
Magic as a mechanism, the symbol of the commonwealth, Edward’s lost home. A home lost to the forces and magics of gods, gods that the corruption whispered were coming for it again.
The book snapped shut, tendrils unwinding, teeth retracting leaving black clots where they had pierced him. He stood, placed the tome upon the throne, and then picked up from beside it his magelock rifle, ready to defend his country.
Had that gun been all he’d been good for, then he would have been the same as the corrupted angels that surrounded him, the casualties of his plunge into this tower several weeks before when the corruption had been weaker. When he had foolishly thought he could understand it, beat it at its own game, and turn the automata of the citadel back to the path of the light under his command.
When the throne and time had called him, he had been allowed to keep his mind for three reasons. The first sat atop the two towers of the Citadel, bowstrings being pulled back and readying to fire. The second was made clear as he pressed a hand down to one of the three tomes hanging from his waist. The tome of Pyromancy flared at his touch, and then drank from the array of mana batteries also attached to the belt, causing a wave of heat to wash out across the citadel, causing the weapons of its corrupt defenders to glow searing hot.
The third was far more simple: it needed a commander
He ascended the stairs , scanned the incoming forces, the corruption drawing the faces of
godir over their leaders, and decided where he was needed most.
”Fliers, mages, rangers, draw them in. Rogues and line holders, prepare the pre-planed hammer and anvil strategies at the entrances” he commanded, using general terms for the mix and match forces under his disposal, who he saw as humans, goblins, giants, catfolk and more, rather than the dead and the unholy.
He then turned and began to ascend towards the battlements, ordering
”Magelocks and constructs with me,” gaining the jerky attention of a squad of corrupted feather bows that had their armaments
modernised, as well as hulking stone
consruct warriors and small hovering
construct sentinels.
He arrived just as battle was joined, gesturing with his hand to direct his magelocks to take cover behind the constructs, as well as doing so himself. Magic and searing hot arrows filled the air, which did admittedly result in some of the archers being set on fire as the feather-shields reflected the statuses back at them. A worthy sacrifice, however, as the individual burning debuffs were rather weak, effectively letting them strip those defenses in anticipation of more potent debuffs or fully stacking 5 more stacks of burning on them afterwards.
The man knew his enemy, even if he was blinded to the fact that the reason why this was is because he’d fought beside them. Instead he simply assumed he had studied them, which made the new additions to the enemy’s forces what took his focus, one of which stood out in particular.
Another angel, some dragon knight, a human with keys of all things as weapons and the now mounted Edelgard fell into known parameters, so the giant bee represented the biggest question mark when it came to the new addition, and thus the biggest potential spanner in the works of his plan.
There was a simple solution to this however, and that was to command his troops to
”Eliminate that unknown variable”As he called out the command, a blood red aura surrounded Sectona, as each and every bit of fire power on his tower turned her way, guided by the marked debuff she’d just gained. Spells and ballista bolts were lossed, but most dangerous of all the firepower were the magelocks, who after a moment of stabling themselves via speccircles, unleashed a thunderous musket volley of searing hot lead at the queen.
Sectonia meanwhile was advancing herself to take out some ballista. Using the powers granted by the Radiance to rain lasers and swords of light down upon the corruption in front of her, with her tesla coil, and heartstopper aura causing damage to any of the corruption that got close. And to add insult to injury, on top of that she had her Chaos Shield up, so any corruption that managed to get through her advancing line of lasers, swords, the occasional light ring or three, and her minions would just find their attacks bouncing off the mighty shield. She had gained a large amount of power within the past few weeks, and it was on display here. And this was evident to Edward who decided to mark Sectonia, causing all of his minions alongside those operating the ballista she was moving to destroy to attack her.
At first the increased volume of attacks got her notice, but she kept on her advance… at least until the ballista targeted her as well as those hiding behind the contraptions. Well, guess it was time to actually stop having ‘fun’ crushing these things with a slow march and instead do what she came to do. After all, her shield was strong, but taking too much concentrated fire couldn’t be good.
Using her blink, she teleported much closer to the magelocks with a rapid series of after images following her, the light around her becoming blinding as she summoned swords on the platform they were stationed on before shooting many beams of light all around herself in a 3 wave blast towards the contraptions and the magelocks.
Lasers hammered into the stone construct, cracking some and breaking others even as they did their job of providing cover, and each one that fell immediately got a sentinel hovering over it to begin resurrecting it. That was according to plan. What was not was the swords stabbing up and out of the floor of the tower itself, bypassing every defensive barrier.
The ballista, entirely unable to move, had its bowstring cut by a rising sword, rendering it entirely useless. Edward himself sidestepped a rising blade, pulling the corrupted magelock next to him out of the way as well. The rest of his troops were not so lucky to have their general on hand, and several were skewered on the spot.
Edward internally cursed and dismayed at the sheer number of deaths that had just occurred in the blink of an eye, but externally kept his cool. If the general showed fear or doubt, that would sweep through the ranks, and then everyone under his command would be dead.
”Magelocks, back into the tower!” He commanded, not willing to waste their ‘lives’ simply as fodder to soak up this attack, their weapons entirely impractical for this foe.
He however was still armed with something useful, slinging his magelock rifle over his shoulder and drawing a pistol of the same make. He fired off shots as he kept moving, directing the retreat and using his free hand to help his wounded, physically hauling them to their feet and urging them on with words of encouragement that fell on dead ears.
Despite having put the ranged core in disarray, Sectonia’s blinking charge echoed Urial’s blazing dive, and what Edward had prepared for her now was unleashed upon the queen as well.
Half a dozen corrupted angels champions, wielding greatswords and covered in crystalline growths and heavy armor, launched themselves at the queen bee, while several ayfids emerged from hiding spots within the black spikes brabling the tower top, rising up above the queen to bombard her with rapid fire energy blasts.
Sectonia, being smug as she was having walked through and annihilated her ballista, and now this tower, fell right into this trap. While a strong shield, it still lacked the true power the chaos heart held and with the previous punishment the shield took, once it took the initial ambush set by Edward, the commander could see the very rainbow shield he had seen earlier finally shatter. Seeing this herself, she summoned Antlers to act like a buffer, Summoning 2 golden ones nad a red one to surround her.
These being ground pounders however opened them up to assault from the constructs, the stone hulks lumbering in to deliver crushing blows with their mighty mauls.
All of these forces being around the bee queen in close quarters would find that she had a lot of area of effect attacks that were tricky to deal with in close range. First her newly acquired powers were on display as every corrupted angel around her felt their vitality slowly drain as they were around her as her heartstopper aura stripped it away from them. Actively the queen let out bursts of energy that not only healed her when done, but damaged everything near her as homing skulls chased them.
Granted being much more skilled than the riff raff outside, when she tried her rings of light or void globules as attacks, the angels could dodge them with a bit of difficulty; At first they found her attacks easy to dodge, but after getting hit by a light ring making a sudden 90 degree turn after it was dodged to correct itself, they learned that her attacks had a bit of a trick to dodging them. Still, thanks to her auras, they were on a timer. Although being surrounded by an ambush, they’d find that they’d have to keep her engaged in melee or she’d start to fill the area with projectiles again. And with her antlers guarding her back, they’d find she wasn’t a slouch with her swordplay either, although her spells were far more dangerous. That and her size made it easy for more than one angel to engage her at a time, even with her antlers making it difficult to flank her. Still, those angelic sword strikes left a lingering fire effect on her, which while it was annoying and painful, it wasn’t as effective as it could be thanks to some of her items.
”cycle charge it to stay out of that aura for as long as possible!” Edward commanded the wilting fliers as he pulled the last of his ranged core back. The constructs meanwhile he left to tough out the damage aura, because if the guardians fell the sentinels could simply nip in to pick them back up again.
Rather than fully retreat however, he crouched down on the stairs so that the top of them obscured him from view and pulled out his magelock rifle, gesturing to the rear of the rifle angels to do the same.
Once they were in position he called out a command of
”Fliers back!”, causing the corrupt angels attacking the queen to withdraw just as their commander and a half dozen rifles stood up. Rings glowed around them as they aimed, and the red aura surrounded Sectonia again as they let out another thunderous barrage at the now shieldless queen.
Sectonia was getting tired of this retreating game this ‘commander’ was doing. But retreating meant that while he was repositioning, he wasn’t attacking while the queen was keeping herself up and about. And with his new command to deal with her heartstopper aura, it gave her quite a bit of breathing room. Hm…. considering he couldn’t stand up to her, perhaps he was quite weak. The tactical brains of the corruption as it were, as without his orders, these things were quite… foolish as they slammed themselves amongst the angelic defenses of skyworld.
Speaking of getting to this commander, she’d have to clear out these forces and his own personal defenses. And first was taking out the recent corrupted angel that decided to engage her. She’d use this one as an example, and hopefully blast through that defensive line of the commander at the same time.
Focusing energy in one of her hands as her wings glowed, Sectonia used the charged up light power she had gotten from the light based damage she had been dealing earlier to blast the angel and everything behind it, aiming towards Edward’s defensive line with the great draconic laser of light. Although she’d be taking some retaliatory shots from Edward’s defensive line with their lack of fear from getting a giant laser blasted at them. She’d then use another ability on the angel she blasted as the main target of this beam with her Reaper’s scythe, causing a grim reaper’s scythe to finish off the weakened corrupted angel before it could get away.
Still though, getting riddled with annoying shots and burns wasn’t her idea of ‘fun’, and she found this annoying and painful, although she wouldn’t let Edward see that. Weren’t those angels on her side supposed to come once she took out that ballista or were they doing something else?
Right on cue a cry of “For Father!” came from behind her, followed by a volley of arrows launched by feather bows, slowing shots putting an end to the corrupted angel’s harrying of the queen, while photon arrows softened up the constructs for her minions.
After their opening volley, the archers peeled off to the side, clearing the way for feather swords and shields to dive down into the fray alongside Sectonia. Lastly among their rank and file, the feather-staffs doused the flames lapping at the queen’s vitality, and shored it up as well, undoing much of the corruption's hard work.
Their leader, an Angel Champion, cleaved clean through one of her corrupted kindred as he led the charge, before saluting the queen with his blade, exalting her for taking down the ballista so swiftly.
Their arrival was Edward’s cue to leave, the commander ordering
”Living, fall back! Constructs, hold the line!”, turning to hurry down the stairs alongside his remaining mage-locks, while the last corrupted champions dove for lower windows, leaving only the (least beaten thanks to the sentinels resurrection ability) construct units to hold the line.
“Strange, I didn’t expect to hear a voice from the corrupted. I could swear I’ve heard that one before as well” the champion commented as he casually blocked a blow from one of the constructs, before calling out for his troops to “let the fallen run, we will bring them peace soon enough. Secure this landing zone first” even as he dismembered his stone foe’s offending arm with a massive glowing blade.
Such a line of action was exactly the one Edward had predicted and hoped for, the commander priming the top of the tower to blow… just as soon as his wounded were clear of the blast radius.
Edward was making an escape, and considering what the angel said and what Sectonia has seen over the past few days, the fact that he was intelligent in an ocean of instinct was definitely something that shouldn’t get away. Well, with another heal from her death pulse, she got ready and used her blink strike to cut off Edward’s escape.
Although instead of striking him with a sword, she scooped up the retreating man before he could even draw his sword, her hand so big that Edward looked like a toy in comparison. And to make sure he couldn’t give better orders to stop his ‘kidnapping’, she used a single finger to silence him as she summoned a red antler behind herself to keep his troops busy and make a semi escape to give some distance to continue her plan.
The fastest way to get information from someone like this, at least in a way that was expedient and not messy, well, there were a few methods. But one method of hers would be much more expedient than the other. Summoning her striker Nastasia, the business woman took one look at the situation and didn’t even need to be commanded to get what was going on. With a simple “k’ay, time for you to get with the program.”, she used her powers on the restrained Edward. The man struggled at first, but fell under her command soon enough, despite the corruption still clinging to his face.
Sectonia could loosen her grip on the man at this point, whom gave her a salute saying “Praise Sectonia.” With that, she gave him a nod and made her way back to the Angels to make her get away, saying.
”Now, tell me what you know about this ‘corruption’, and your name.””Edward Portsmith your majesty, and most prudent would be that, under its sway, I rigid both of these towers to explode once the battlements where lost” the man who could now see clearly and yet was at the very same time under yet another thrall-hood, informed her crisply and calmly despite the fact that they were quite little in a room full of magical gunpowder who’s fuse was lit.
He pointed that out a moment later, naturally, specifically identifying a mound of otherwise inconspicuous ammo crates to be the home of the explosive charge known as an unstable mana core, the impending detonation of which could not be stopped.
”Well then…” Sectonia said, surprised and both pleased and concerned at this outcome. With her duty done Nastasia had desapawned, and now there wasn’t much to do but escape this tower before it exploded. And unlike before, she couldn’t just blink away with her ‘new commander’ in tow, she’d have to get out the old way of flying. Getting Edward in a much more firm, although not hurtful grip, Sectonia used her other hand to cast Haste upon herself and zoomed up and out of the tower, bypassing and taking hits from whatever corrupted entities stood between her and the top.
Upon leaving the tower, she told the angels to fall back, as the corruption had set this tower as a trap for them all in the end. But she wasn’t going to get caught in an explosion if she could help it without her Chaos Shield.
While confused, the angels on her side didn’t disobey her instruction and escaped a few moments later, although the timer on Edward’s final gambit was short and while it saved the angels from outright dying from the explosion, some of them were still too close to it and got badly injured from the tower debris. Having hasted herself, Sectonia was much further away from the blast radius, leaving her and Edward unharmed.
”I suppose asking questions further from the front lines would be better. A commander would do best behind allies after all.” Sectonia said, learning to adapt to what Nastasia’s mind control offered her. Unlike true mind control, Edward had his loyalties shifted to Sectonia, but was otherwise fully himself and autonomous. Time would tell how much this would fight against the corruption, but if there wasn’t much she could get thanks to this corruption, a friend heart might fix things, those seemed to fix anything.
”I’d prefer to fight closely behind allies, if that serves your majesty. A commander should ask nothing of his troops that he himself will not do” Edward replied, having already shown a proclivity to lead from, if not the front, then at least right behind it. Given that he then proceeded to explain that
”I also have intimate knowledge of the defenses I myself prepared, and the locations of the corrupt cores that are the hearts of the enemy, which would be best provided first hand to your majesty's forces” this strategy certainly had had its flaws in this specific instance.
Still, because the queen had not removed it from where it clung to his senses, time would only tell how much it would be able to sabotage his attempts to serve his new master. Something that Sectonia had been thinking about as well. For having such a strong ability, she hadn’t used Nastasia all that often. Usually due to the restriction of needing to hold someone down for quite a long period at once and having little opportunity to do so.
Well, perhaps a ‘trust but verify’ method could be used here. Or… an experiment perhaps. A more thorough test of this power. Compare what Edward told them to their own intelligence, then see what intelligence he tells after a friend heart cleanses the corruption. Perhaps it would be the same, or different. But that would help Sectonia understand this lesser understood power of hers.
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