Snakes and Ladders-25

Chapter 25

Ow…

Ow…

I’m getting my thoughts together or trying to after getting whacked by the thingy. I’m a little punch drunk I think and I feel this…

I open my eyes and The tips of it’s tentacles around this nasty looking mouth are glowing purple and I feel it hit me hard…this sensation of all these spikes being driven into my head, into my brain!

I scream and roll around as I’m having the worst migraine attack ever!

I can feel it drilling, pushing and prying into me…

Drilling and trying to get into my mind.

Okay you want what’s in here; you want to use pain to keep me down!?

I let it inside and I trap it in a huge body that I hated, the pain of being so wrong and the feelings those soul crushing feelings of being trapped like thins of never having a hope in hell of ever being the person that my soul was screaming out to be.

There’s no pain like being stuck in that whole overweight zone. Yeah people can say all they want about weight loss and all that other shit but it hurts, it hurts and it sucks. Add in being transgendered and the sheer hell that is when you really, really know that’s who you are and there’s nothing you can do but die to get out of that?

Pain, I know pain asshole.

It’s recoiling out of my mind and still pain drunk a little I grab at its mind.

It wasn’t expecting that.

Losing a limb, the sick hurt and tiredness of being so huge. The sheer ughh of a diabetic crash…and all the hurt and hate and the sneers of those that I had tried to let know and they just won’t give you the chance to explain or you just can feel that this would never be accepted no matter what.

I’m trying to drown it in it.

And I’m getting to my feet the whole time. I’m used to pain. I think I’m used to pain so much that I can likely just laugh off stuff that might seem crazy.

And maybe I am crazy because I just can’t help myself as I push myself off the floor and I wipe the spit off my mouth and stalk towards it.

“Who…..”

“Lives in a pineapple under the sea?”

“La, la, la, la…”

Its strange eyes widen at me and it does something and levels the staff at me again. It fires and I can see it, barely but it’s this ripple that you almost can’t see in the air. I pull my sword and swing straight down actually pulling from Bhlaze and using the whole energy feelings to boost the cut and I slice the force wave in two.

I feel it grazing my armor on either side of me.

“Surprise Squidsworth.”

It tries it again.

I take a step still drawing on Bhlaze and I spin my body but use his feelings of a wing over and put some of my energy into it and rotate/dance almost even around the path of the shot.

I see a several flashes of light as there’s Illisia up and blood running from her mouth and there’s this bubble of green light around one of her hands and she’s got her fingers all in one of those witchy point at you thingies and in that bubble there’s these little faeries made of light shooting bows at the squid.

Seven bright arrows hit it dodging around things and even me like little guided energy arrow missiles and they thunk and sizzle into Squidsworth.

It lets out this screamy squealing sound of pain that reminds me of the things from the Aliens movies.

I close in and swing my sword at the thing.

It blocks with the staff. The reverberations along my blade are really heavy duty and I’d have instant blisters if not for the leather on my hilt and my armors gloves.

And again and again and again we’re trading off blows and it’s a pretty even match because this thing is not as skilled a fighter as it is at doing the magic stuff it’s trying to do and I’m holding my own.

But there are sparks flying with each blow we have and it’s damaging my sword. There’s also the fact that I’m gaining a slow advantage as the thing seems to be running out of just raw stamina.

I haven’t been in better shape that someone in awhile. It’s a damned good thing that it’s in a fight too. There’s another big swing and I block it and the stress is just too much and my blade ends up shattering on me. It gurgles a hissy like chortle at me and when it does that I grab the tentacles around its mouth with both hands and I pull its head down hard and fast into my knee.

I used to bounce; I know how to fight dirty.

More of those fae arrow energy bolts hit it too. That’s some spell because as close as I am they zip around me. I knee it again and it touches me with its staff and there’s a flash and a thump to my chest and I hurt. It’s like a baseball bat to my boobs right through my armor.

Oh that’s like getting hit in the stones in a whole other way….

I get blasted back and it screams and there’s glowing purple goop-blood flying out of it because I hung on really tight and it ripped off all but two of its tentacles. Its snaps its head down at me fully enraged and it points the staff at me point blank.

I grab the bottom like grabbing a hockey stick from someone when you’re on the ground and use my weight to pull that end towards me really fast and sending the tip right in front of its face.

There’s a hum for a second and this split second of me being totally able to read the expression in its features.

Sometimes…oh shit is universal I guess.

There’s this pop right after that of its head exploding in a burst of goop-blood.

I sag in relief and exhaustion and that almost gets me as the fighting is still going on and Kyte and Ryann are suddenly there with their blades cutting and blocking around me and I pull my daggers.

I shove my tiredness back to where I used to put the long haul tiredness and I get back into the fighting. Thankfully the ones that were hit by my first “Freightliner” are all down for the count and that’s certainly helped us a hell of a lot.

It’s the three of us in a tight circle and there’s orcs all around us and they’re really pressing in trying to overwhelm us and that’s also to our advantage as there’s a fair number of those tech-majik firearms going off in the battle here so while they want to tear us to shreds they’re also making fairly decent cover from the blasters and the guns.

I’m using my knives to cover the flanks of Kyte and Ryann who are the more skilled fighters. There’s always a chance of a blade slipping through one’s guard and that’s what I’m watching out for. When I see an opening usually when one of them locks up an orcs weapon in a parry I drive a dagger in.

There’s so much blood on my daggers they first get slick and then tacky as the blood is drying on my blades and my gloves. I’m sure it’s actually sunk in through and has soaked to my hands.

Then we’re moving ahead as the line break with the orcs and we’re fighting these short things with sharp teeth, yellow eyes and ears with jagged points and waxy whitish looking skin and they have firearms that make up for them being around four feet high. They have hand held weapons too and their bloody strong for their size and where the orcs fought to the last man these are trying to escape through side doors.

We take down about half of them before the rest take off being routed. The doors they used are sealed shut tightly from the other side and I feel this huge thump on the other side when I try to force one open.

Ryann clasps me on the shoulder. “No point they dropped blocked it.”

“Drop blocked it?”

“Kobolds, they rig their exits so they drop a section of the tunnels they use behind them.”

“Kobolds?”

“Yes that’s what these things are; they’re the smiths and builders for the dark powers.”

“Oh…” I blink and look around and he’s right this, this whole chamber is like a smithy or a factory floor full of weaponry and racks of weapons and forging equipment in a mixture of old school and tech-magic machinery.

I find a spot to sit and take a break and breathe, trying to rest. I really have a new respect for the guys back home that are soldiers and have to run missions like this. I never thought in my wildest dreams though that I’d be here the way that I am and that I’d be right smack in the middle of a mission like this.

I think I zoned out of it and come too it only when Kyte leans up against me and nudges me with her shoulder. Okay she’s all angry and tightly wound ever since I’ve known her but right now she seems oddly calm and at peace.

She hands me a blue foil? packet and a spoon. I look at her. “What’s this?”

“Rice with duck and vegetables.”

I look at it. Oh it’s a Sylvan MRE. I see a circle of symbols on it but it’s like a sticker? I watch the others pull these stickers off and do the same and feel it trigger some power laid onto it and it fills? And heats up and pops open like microwave popcorn at the top and I can smell roasted duck and wild rice with this rick nice steam coming off of it and I dig in.

I inhale it actually as it’s really good and as close to fresh as one of those microwave meals you get in the grocery store. I’m not used to the veggies though as there’s water chestnuts and those little bits of asian baby corn in it along with mushrooms and other things.

Ryann sits with us and does the same and even has these plain sealed up bars that turn out to be brownies that he shares with us. Kind of good and different with this thick layer of icing in the middle that tastes like hazelnuts.

People are taking turns eating and keeping watch as we’re dealing with injuries, refuelling and searching the place which is what Illisia is doing while she’s eating and if she comes across some of the troops with us that need healing as she does that she does some healing magic on them as well.

I head over to her and pick up the remains of my sword and frown at it. I know it’s a weapon and it’s used to kill but it was my first sword and it feels like I lost a friend in a way. Considering that it’s been used so much in this fight alone so many times to save my butt I think it’s okay to feel this way about it.

Illisia looks at me. “Sorry it was a good blade.”

“It was a gift from the commander at Steadfast.”

“Keep the hilt and the guard and bring it to him and the smiths and tell them just how much that blade meant and did. They’ll like that. And you should keep it as a trophy too of besting one of the Mind Eaters.”

“Mind Eaters?”

“The squiddy thing, it’s called a K’rakken and it’s is a minion race of the Chthul.”

“The Chthul?”

“The dark evil that had enslaved everyone in this system ages ago.”

“Oh…right you were slaves right?”

“Yes, gathered here in this planet and the moons were transformed using its powers and technology to become slave farms for all the different beings here and the different races that make up the Sylvan Republic.”

“So this thing being here means this thing’s back?”

“Not back but like we’ve feared and known for awhile it still has a hand in trying to destabilize us.”

“So this Chthul wasn’t killed?”

“No we defeated it and in the Great War we forced it to leave the system and it hasn’t returned.”

“But this thing is here now.”

“The Darklands were the home base of the Chthul while it ruled here and we think that it left many troops behind here this is why the goblins and orcs and kobolds are here they’re descendants of the troops left behind. We think the K’rakken is either descended from that too or they’re powerful enough to survive the passage of time or that the Chthul is some how sending agents here by something it left behind to spy on us to see when we’ve become weaker.”

“So if that’s the case…”

“Lyam may be getting support from the Chthul in his war in another attempt to weaken us like the last civil war.”

“The last civil war?”

“The Summoning War, it was actually a civil war between the nobles that believed they solely had the rights over everything and many of the mage folk that were treated like they were just workers fit to do as the nobles had commanded. It began actually pretty small with protests but the very vain and the very wealthy old nobility had responded with crushing force.”

“I’ve seen that home.”

“Likely, we might be “Elves” but we’re still people and we’re still very flawed at that.”

“So the nobles went too far and pushed the mages and then things got violent.”

“Yes at some point the mages went darker and dabbled in powers that they shouldn’t and they decided that they were the new nobility and they recruited for the darker sides of our cultures and allied with the Chthul’s creatures and they opened gates to places that gates never should have been opened to and we were suddenly in a very deadly war almost as bad as the war where we became free.”

“And you think the Chthul engineered this?”

“Pretty sure, there were incursions in space that kept the stellar navy in steady conflict with the Chthul’s war fleet.”

“And without the navy there was even more violence here.”

“Yes, and we honestly would have lost that war if it hadn’t been for Shaya’s parents being made High King and Queen in the middle of it.”

“But Lyam was a traitor even then?”

“Likely but no one knew it and he was a brutal warrior and noble he was the ruler of Skywood and his court raise people way more aristocratic than Kyte. The Old King Justane was a blunt man and hadn’t much use or ability with magic but had married into Greenwood royalty and Prince Dorian the current king had his magic from that side of the family. When the eldest son and the king were killed in an ambush he had left Dorian to be king because he would be best suited to actually mend over the hurts of the war with our people instead of Lyam who would have done the gods only knows what to ensure that this never happen again.”

“So Lyam’s less than happy that Dorian was made king.”

“As we know now and he’s been hiding and recruiting those that want to see the old ways when we were a kingdom only.”

“So the Shaya’s parents…”

“Took us from a monarchy to a republic with politics that have let people and such have a say in everything and the king is more like the tie breaker when it comes to the laws and he is the head of the royal army and navy charged with the defense of the realm.”

“So the noble houses have their own troops?”

“Yes but the nobility that become knights and such will not have their titles recognized at court unless the serve in the forces of the kingdom.”

“Okay but what’s stopping the king from being an asshole and taking everything over if he wants to.”

“Honor mostly but also the dragons and their riders and the temples.”

“The temples?”

“The temples to the gods have political power but they also have real magical power and resources but during the war with the Chthul they were saved and granted sanctuary in The Holy City in exchange for their oaths to maintain the balance between all Sylvan peoples. The last king’s grandfather was a lot more of a prudent man and granted royal lands in perpetuity in exchange for them building temples off of the main planet and decreed that all temples on all of the moons were embassies of The Holy City. For that he asked the temples be a buffer between the rich and the poor.”

“So do the temples affect politics?”

“Of course they cannot be part of the voting block with the people but the temples all are awarded a court representative that acts as the people’s critic to ensure that any laws passed are as fair as can be. Unified votes of the temple representatives also can over turn any laws and send them back to be argued by the courts.”

“And the temples have this on the federal level only?”

“Federal?”

“The uhm High courts with the king.”

“No they have this on each of the moons as well, with the understanding that their representatives at the High court will act as their voices there.”

“Okay, and the King can he make laws?”

“Not since the republic was formed by the current king. He can craft a law and it still has to be presented to the courts.”

“So he hasn’t have absolute power.”

“No, he wished to avoid that temptation.”

“But is there any time when he can just do as he pleases?”

“Only in times of war. But that takes a majority of three quarters of the votes of the court to be officially at war.”

I look at her. “So Lyam…?”

“Lyam wants the throne and his supporters want the days when the king’s word and those in the personal court of the king was law.”

“So he can do as he pleases.”

“So they all can do as they please, abuse whoever they want and to tax people into poverty and control and divvy up the entire kingdom amongst themselves and firmly be in power.”

“But that’d just lead to another civil war wouldn’t it? People wouldn’t stand for it.”

“Which is why they’re doing this now to gather support and outright kill those that stand in their way.”

“But that won’t last.”

“No but he would use dark majiks to really control things. It’d would be extremely hard to forment a rebellion even generations later when the temples are gone and anyone with majik that might have opposed him are gone and the royal mages can read thoughts of those held suspect and try the summarily or just have them killed.”

“That’s insane!” I mean I’ve heard of dictatorships but this seems like a total take over.

“And it is but the power mad aren’t really sane and Lyam has allied himself with all of these dark powers to win and he like so many others before him think that he can be the one to be able to control these powers and be able to out smart the Chthul.”

I’m shaking my head. This is so much more than I had thought. It’s wheels within wheels and just.

“We can’t let him win.”

“No we can’t or those in his camp either since I can well imagine even in that ensemble there are those that think they can take Lyam’s place.”

“So not just him but a whole movement of these people that see the old ways as the good old days.”

“Exactly.”

She’s been looking through things the entire time and most of it she’s getting checked and written down but I did notice her taking some things for herself and letting others do the same with a head nod. Sometimes she’ll shake her head no to some things. A lot of the weapons here made by these kobolds are nasty looking but in that popular gothic kind of way back home. Some are pretty nice but no one is taking them.

They are taking things though that look like they might be Sylvan made though. She tosses me a ring. I catch it and its very nice gold with makings for magic and a ruby stone in the center.

‘What’s this?”

“Laser ring.”

“Laser ring?”

“Yes it’s older magic more of a tool that a weapon really it used light spells specially enchanted and turns it into a short range welding or cutting beam.”

“Mine?”

“Yes, you can use majik and it might come in handy.”

“Cool, this is kind of neat.”

“Neat is good?”

“Yeah neat is good.”

We look through some things some more and she gets away from me as I’m looking for a sword to replace my wrecked one. She calls me over and she has one in front of her sitting in this long spelled rectangular box. It looks like a very expensive weapon.

Picture a scimitar like the Arabs use but melded in style with one of those samurai swords. It has flames following a bird in flight all along the blade set in the metal in shining gold.

“Oh…shiny.”

“It’s a phoenix blade.”

“A phoenix blade?”

“It was a knightly order of magic capable knights back in the Chthul war; they used fire magic pretty exclusively. This was heading to someone very special and important most likely.”

“Why?”

“It’s a magic sword, enhanced sharpness and strength but more that those things it can emit a focused plasma aura.”

“Huh a what?”

“You pour power into it and the blade creates an aura around it that gets so hot that it’ll cut through most things.”

“Wouldn’t that fry the person holding it?”

“No, you’ll be protected.” She passes me the sword in that knightly over her wrist way.

“Me?”

“Wren, you are Erendae, Wren Phoenix yes and I’m here able to unspell this warded box on this mission and theirs is a blade form and you think that this wasn’t something the gods set into motion? This blade was meant to be your sword Wren.”

I take it and stare at it and step back and charge it up and there’s this red-gold light that shines out of the bird decoration with raptors scree and its glowing red…and there’s little tufts of flames coming off of it.

I’m not even hot holding it.

I’m not sure about the whole gods thing since I’m kind of a Christian but this…this looks a whole lot like one of those flaming swords that an angel might have had.

I’m kind of scared of this and yet…

Was this meant for me? Is this a sign?

I have good people here looking at me and nodding like this is.

I cut the power. And look up? “I’ll try; I’ll do my best to keep them safe.”