Icarus Awakens

The bunker had been breached. Murdon had spent as much time as he could fortifying the position, directing those with applicable powers to set traps while everyone else fired as much as they could with the ballista. When the first true elite had touched down he'd even led his squad out to hold them off despite Quala's limited mana, and though that had bought time, they'd paid for it with blood.

His armor enhancement had long since worn off, and though Quala's prayer on him remained, combined attacks from the newly arrived monsters and Aurus' defenders indiscriminately bombarding the area had left him battered and bloody. That was fine, he'd fought through worse. Lograve was the issue. Despite ice armor layered over an enchanted vest Daniel had made, he was doing poorly. His old friend seemed to be slowing down compared to the other level 4 survivors of the Thormundz. The Arcanist should have had enough time and opportunity to help relieve the excess level disparity he'd taken on when advancing early ahead of the lightning dragon hunt. He hadn't said anything, but if Murdon was any judge there was more holding him back than the months he'd spent with his magic suppressed.

Regardless, they'd been forced back into cover when the sky became too filled with enemies. The secure doors held briefly, but they had never been intended to resist persistent hits from high level individuals. When the first broke it seemed the only sound left was the occasional ballista firing behind the defensive line he'd established. Then a fire blast roared toward them, Tounaki only able to siphon off some of the attack before it landed.

Quala was out of the fight at this point, leaving only one other to tend to those burned. There'd be no relief for him or any other over level 2, though. Raising his shield with a roar, Murdon expelled dark breath across the choke point in front of him, ice immediately creeping up to seal out the necrotic mist. A spike over a meter long immediately slammed into it and broke through, Lograve grunting with effort as he patched the hole before anything leaked through.

Then a mixed volley crashed through, striking the toughened barricades the Star Cleric still following them had made all the more durable. Cries still went out as either splash damage or a lucky hit got through, a level 1 Berserker even going down to a wound Regeneration couldn't help her survive. Return fire drilled through the openings while Lograve worked to close them just as Murdon had instructed, but he knew they were only buying time.

They were outnumbered, exhausted, and surrounded with no escape. Actually winning this engagement was a distant dream, their only real options were surrender or to hold out as long as they could. With the monsters all networked with Zozar and Soraso there was a real chance they would be taken alive if given the chance. Murdon wouldn't strike down any who tried seeking mercy, but he also had no intention of giving up.

"Quala, report!" he shouted backward, and the Cleric taking cover by the ballista told him what she saw out of the firing ports.

"The earth gestalt are still fighting but they're losing a lot of people. Zolyra's slowing down too, I can't see any of those runes on her body." The Cleric's voice echoed cleanly through the hallways behind him, not disguising how hard she was keeping it steady. "We need to do something!"

"Holding them here is all we can do," he shot back bitterly, deflecting an arrow that had shot through the mist toward him. It seemed some of their twisted foes could still hold mortal weapons. "Zolyra must have something left. Every monster we tie up here, every ballista we deny them, weighs in her favor. Hold!"

A particularly large hole shattered in the middle of the ice wall due to combined attacks against it. Tounaki looked between that and her waist and pulled out a kinetic wand. "Going for a big spell!" she shouted over the battle. Most took one look at her and hunched closer to the ground with hands over their ears, knowing what was coming. Orbs of fire began to gather around the Arcanist as she activated Fireball Storm. She swept her wand forward and they flew off, growing bigger as they did so. Normally this attack would cover a large area and risk backsplashing off the ice wall across even this short distance, but the wand amplified her control over her preferred element.

The entire bunker shook as the explosions resolved, concussive force making Murdon shift as he regained his bearing. His Necrotic Breath was partially dispersed from this, but he'd honestly been surprised it had lasted this long considering any significantly powerful wind-based ability could clear it. Then his eyes happened to catch an odd pattern in the swirling, disturbed dust.

"Invisibility!" Murdon yelled, too late, as a six-limbed, blatantly carnivorous monster exited stealth near Lograve's position. It tore through a couple lower level Blessed nearby without any issue before leaping at the Arcanist. He tried to dodge but had been caught off guard, attention completely taken up by maintaining the wall. Murdon and others tried to rush to his aid, but the monster had attributes on par with his and a far more nimble body.

Jaws clenched over Lograve's head sparking a tremendous fury within Murdon. He bashed the monster off his friend before it could do more damage, hoping that if anything, the secondary effect of Quala's prayer would have saved him. Yet, as their defensive line crumbled with the loss of the ice wall, Murdon looked down and saw that Lograve's body had been frozen solid.

…

Cheers erupted across the sending stone after Alex passed along news of their victory. Daniel heard Spinner's voice the loudest, though it was quickly drowned out by what sounded like an experimental roar from the wyvern Wisp was possessing. Tlara's voice was nowhere to be heard, though he gave her the benefit of the doubt. Daniel took the sending stone off the mount on his head and held it up victoriously. "We did it. We did it!"

"We can use the weapon now?" Evalyn asked, the Bard still in the process of dumping any corruption and excess mana into the astral rift to bring herself out of paranormal danger.

"I had to enable manual control," he explained quickly. "We need to go back to them and figure it out, but that should be the last thing."

"Sure we don't need this thing?" Shuni asked, gesturing to the industrial nightmare directly under the rift. It had a large cylindrical chamber surrounded by tubing that fed into the floor, multiple consoles surrounding it. "Didn't turn on."

"Must be the rainbow drive. The Arcadian says there's enough power to fire the cannons, so we'll worry about that later." Those too, he added internally, thinking about the cages in general and the corrupted avianoids within. They'd had their mana structures scrambled for centuries, waiting a day or so to be cured shouldn't hurt. He shifted closer to her and whispered, "Hey, thanks for the save."

"Oh yeah. Puts us at what, two to one my favor?" She tilted her head mischievously. "Gotta think about how you'll make it up to me."

"I could take you across the world in my spaceship once we fully cleanse this place."

Shuni shrugged. "Eh, it's a start."

"How long has it been?" Khiat asked from further over, the triumphant tone in her voice giving way to worry. "We had to come all the way here.

"About one hour," Tak guessed, and Daniel grimaced as Quick Mind verified the approximation. That was a long time to be fighting, though reasonable for a large scale invasion.

Still, Zolyra would have been holding off Zozar the whole time. He activated the teleportation function of the rift and found himself standing on the floor the gun battery they'd cleared earlier. There were only two cutters to bring through with them, Padri would have to recover the fragments of the rest later.

Looking around the room, it seemed the two massive energy weapons hadn't moved or otherwise indicated their powered state. Daniel scrambled to search the elevated platform, finding a console that was now active. They'd have been screwed without his ability to understand foreign languages as the text displayed wasn't in any the team was familiar with, but he managed to navigate and gain a basic understanding of what needed to be done. The news wasn't all good.

"Fuck." Daniel turned to where Hunter was pacing, remembering something Alex had mentioned about when she'd first come through the portal. "Can you read this?"

The ringcat was currently using his Focus power to override his natural form over the bipedal one and had to put both forepaws on the counter to look at the screen. He squinted, and then nodded. "Some of these are strange words, but I do understand most of them."

"Thank god. Shut up Tak," he added preemptively. "I thought these were just energy cannons, but the firing sequence mentions loading ammunition."

"Which we don't have?" Evalyn guessed, grimacing. "Daniel, if we have to clear another rift-"

"We're not there yet. I need everyone but Hunter watching those two guns. It's not obvious where they're loaded and I don't want to miss a hatch opening if it's small. Hit 'proceed' when I tell you to, Hunter." He stood in the center of the room, then had a thought. When in doubt, call an Engineer.

Padri warped into the gun battery and listened with a frown as they explained the problem, glancing at the two remaining cutters as he did so. "Hmm, fifty percent casualty rate," he muttered to himself after the quick explanation.

"To be fair, better us than them." Tak pointed out, to which sage wisdom Padri nodded.

"That was the intent. Still, improvements to be made." He put the spectacles that served as his Focus on and peered closer at the cannons. "So, these are what will save Aurus?"

"Hopefully. Hunter, hit it." At Daniel's command, the ringcat mashed a pawn on the console. Then again, before with a sigh he reverted to hybrid form and used a finger to select the right option. The screen he was on was a guided process for loading and firing the weapons, likely meant as a failsafe when someone couldn't direct it through the Arcadian. The first step brought the weapons from rest and prepared them to load, at which point they'd find out how screwed they were.

A loud mechanical sound filled the space as the twin turrets began to move, the space below them opening. Shuni couldn't help herself and glanced over the edge as they rotated, staring down with wonder. "It's, I think this is the sky limit from the other side! There's a drop of about ten meters." She put her head under the lip, making Daniel wince, and then came back up. "Huge cut out too, I think these lower and rotate in the space."

"Yep, think that's a safe bet," Daniel said, bemused, as the front of one of the guns passed right by her head and into the space. While she'd gawked, the rest had watched as the cannons transitioned from a horizontal to vertical position before being lowered. Two struts connected to it ascended a track, keeping it from falling completely through and retaining a fifth of its length above the floor. What looked like an oversized belt feed then descended on each side, connecting to a chamber that opened just before it made contact. "Alright, that looks good. Hunter, does the screen say anything?"

"Uh." The ringcat appeared to reread it a few times. "It's out of things to shoot."

"Come on, we're so close," he complained, while Tak tapped on one of the loaders to confirm it was empty. Starting to sweat a little, he ran over to the console and confirmed what Hunter had initially determined. The cannons' ammunition store was empty. If the belts fed directly to that then it wasn't likely they'd find anything by going there either. He was wracking his brain when Padri spoke up.

"Can you disconnect this from the weapon?" He gestured to the other belt and the thoughtful look he was giving it gave Daniel hope. Hunter moved away, grumbling something about paws as he shifted back. The console allowed him to move away from the primary firing sequence, but a red alert remained in the top center showing the current issue. Finding maintenance options, he accidentally popped the one Tak was next to off first before selecting the right one.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Time crawled by extremely slowly as all watched him make observations, glancing inside the cannon as well as the loader. In what was at first a ridiculous display he pulled out a small log from his bag of holding, though after only ten seconds of working away at it with a knife he'd reduced it to half its original size. The material just flew away, giving Daniel a better idea of how Padri had managed to make all of his new constructions so quickly.

He then placed it into the cannon manually, tsk'ing as the undersized rod fell unevenly into the chamber. The Engineer moved it to the loader, nodded when it was flush, and then looked back and forth. "Curious. I wonder if…" Padri then put his carving knife into the chamber, and it all clicked for both him and Daniel when it floated perfectly in the center. "Ah, magnetism. Strange."

"It's some kind of railgun!" Daniel used a brief burst of Telekinetic Reach to force pull the wooden rod Padri had made to him. "Is this what the bolt should be shaped like?"

"Based on my observations, I am fairly certain. But how does this work?"

"Magnets accelerate it to extreme speed along the barrel," Daniel replied quickly, searching through his bags of holding. "Come on, come on…" Every bit of enchanted metal he had was placed on the counter in front of him, all of it the andorite and hammerite he'd had left over from making the blast bow. Since they had unique material bonuses he hadn't needed for anything else, and monster parts had proved a far steadier supply, he'd left the scraps alone. His shoulders dropped as he came to an easy conclusion. "It's not going to be enough. For half of a rod, maybe, but I can't use other stuff as filler or it could screw with it firing. I don't even know if it needs a specific metal. This sounds like something powerful enough to matter, but not if we don't have anything to shoot!" Damn it, Lograve would probably know.

A single voice spoke calm to his panic. "Why not just use your quick craft thing you shout?" Daniel blinked at Tak, and then slapped his forehead.

"Why didn't I… Flash Craft." While he couldn't add affixes to items created through the ability, he could alter its physical properties so long as it fit with the formulae he selected. Not that he had tried or anything, but the ability also refused to create any of the coinage metals due to their innate magical resistance. Creating a simple magnetic rod? Easily done, if more expensive mana-wise than if he'd enchanted it the normal way. He did add one twist, basing it off of phasing ammunition in the hopes that would help bypass the sky limit. The regional barrier seemed like the kind of thing to have super shields like the red slashes of the razor stomper, but at the same time it might only work one way.

Daniel tossed his own rod back to Padri, who nodded approvingly and replaced his knife with it. They reconnected both ammo loaders, and the red alert up top was now half yellow, indicating that one side was low on ammo. Without hesitating he tabbed back to the firing sequence, which allowed him to proceed now that at least one of the railguns was loaded. When it reached the next stage, he encountered an issue far harder to solve as well as an Arcadian alert summing up the problem.

Arcadian Security Alert:

>Warning! Dimensional interference is preventing automatic targeting of Aft Starboard Ventral Battery. Recommend target designation by appropriate device.

>Processing…

>Warning! No standard target designator signal received.

>Processing…

>Applicable device detected on user: Acting Administrator. Nonstandard resolution currently enabled for this user.

>Pair detected device as a target designator?

Yes / No

Selecting the only option he could reasonably pick, yet another tab was added within the Arcadian app on his phone. It worked kind of like his Encyclopedia scan, only the loaded railgun began to whir as it tried to track where he was pointing. On the console in front of him, the proceed button had been replaced with 'confirm target', a grayed out 'fire' button right below it. His thoughts raced, taking in the new information. Yet another issue appeared, two, actually, but there were potential solutions for both and would guarantee this would work. One was a gamble, while the other just might get half the team killed.

Since it looked like he'd be at least getting close to the war in Aurus to pull this off, he navigated to his settings app, gave a brief thought about how to distribute 6 of his 7 stored advancement potential, and prayed for a solution that didn't involve splitting the party.

Your Strength is now 25!

…

Your Dexterity is now 25! You have gained Ability: Rewind Shot.

…

Your Endurance is now 26!

…

Your Charisma is now 25! You have gained Ability: Remote Recharge

…

Rewind Shot (Ability, Dexterity, Attack: Ranged Weapon, Domain: Time, Level: 2)

You possess the Power to spawn a duplicate of the next Ammunition you fire with a Weapon: Ranged that you can wield yourself for a modest amount of Mana. The duplicate appears up to 100 meters away from you and traces the path of the triggering ammunition back to your weapon while in flight, becoming briefly Intangible when intersecting it. The duplicate returns harmlessly to the weapon upon return, then loses any Magical properties. This is a Magical Ability that does not function in an area of Magical Suppression.

…

Remote Recharge (Ability, Charisma, Spell, Domain: Enchantment, Level: 2)

You possess the Power to replenish Mana and Charges of Items you have Enchanted up to 30 meters from you. This spell only affects items that require either to function. The mana cost of this spell scales with the mana required by the targeted item, and inversely scales with your charisma. This is a Magical Ability that does not function in an area of Magical Suppression.

Rewind Shot… Normally it wouldn't work because of the 'you can wield yourself' clause, but with Might and Magic… It's not going to change the bones of the plan, but it could help.

As he dragged himself out of his head, he heard Shuni ask Evalyn in an attempted whisper.

"Need me to shake him out of it? I can stealth, come from behind, and-"

"Good news, bad news time," he said quickly, not quite wanting to hear where she was going with that.

"Feels like that's all today has been," Khiat replied. "Every time I think we're about to help everyone something else stops us."

"The good news is that this is the last time. The bad news is… a lot." He rotated his Focus Shield so everyone else could see the target designator. "I can aim the shot at Zozar with this, but I have to see them to do it."

"Oh." As he thought she might, Evalyn understood where he was going with this. "You said you lost connection to this place whenever you go back to Threst. Lograve's crystal?"

"Technically mine that I gave him to study, but yeah." Daniel withdrew the mimic quartz from the bag of cooling. "He made this to help Alex and Ami strengthen their bond and enable a ritual that crosses worlds. It's a gamble, but if Hunter stays here, this might act as a relay through the sky limit. It's the only thing I can think of that could work short of Lograve being here himself, or somehow creating a permanent tear."

A low growl escaped Hunter as he began to understand the plan as well. "You're going there without me?"

"Because I have to." Daniel then pulled out a scroll. "But not alone. I can take two other people with me, and I only have to get within sight of Zozar to make this work. I'll target somewhere we were flying as we left Aurus, and if things look bad we'll bail. Otherwise? This is what we've been fighting for, Hunter. Play our cards right, and you'd get to push the button that wins the war."

Hunter looked balefully at his paws. "Not how I would want to win, but fine."

"Only one shot though," Khiat mused. "This is a big bo- uh, 'gun', but Zozar is a level 6 Blessed, aren't they?"

"I can only have one thing Flash Crafted at a time," Daniel explained, "And my Focus will stop working if it's taken too far from me. Padri, maybe you could look into finding a way to make more ammunition as a backup? Otherwise we'll have to hope the Arcadian can provide enough firepower to one shot them."

"It feels as if we have relied on hope for many things today," the Engineer pointed out. He picked up the wooden rod thoughtfully then looked at the rift. "I may have an idea, but I will not hold you up. Time is ticking, as it were." He disappeared, and with Alex's astral clone having not come over from the main power core that left Wingcraft to deliberate.

"I'll be honest, I don't like this," Evalyn started, "But you're right. Now's the time to take risks. You're putting your neck on the line, so it's up to you who goes with you."

Sigron immediately stepped forward with a hand raised, sheepishly adding, "Obvious?"

"Yeah. You… and Shuni. If you're up for it," he said nervously. The Rogue blinked in surprise, glancing over at Tak with subverted expectations. "We're going to be in the air, and you're better there than he is. I'm not sure if Zozar will notice what we're doing either. Evalyn's out because her song would draw attention, and while your bow is a monster Khiat, we've got single target damage more than covered. Shuni's stealth also gives us a lower profile and a Sneak Attack if anyone does come at us."

It was a logical choice, but also an emotional one. What troubled Daniel was the look on Hunter's face. It wasn't at all what he was really doing, but it sure looked like he was picking his girlfriend while leaving him behind. The potential rift between them yawned dangerously closer. Unfortunately, reconciliation would have to wait.

Shuni flipped a dagger up and down a few times, before nodding. "Well, seeing this shot hit home after all I've done to get it working would be nice. Extending the life debt gap too."

"Guess I'll have to try harder not to die." He nodded at her, then stopped by Hunter to put a hand on his shoulder. The ringcat was still in his true form, but he'd have to shift at some point to make this work. "I'm sorry, I really am. We'll talk about this the first chance we get. I know it's eating into you. Until then, can you do this for me, brother?"

Hunter's eyes flicked to the ground, closed, and then he nodded. For the team. But my feelings… I don't want you to think I am angry. It is just hard.

I know. Don't worry Hunter, we're brothers. Nothing's going to change that. He started walking toward the edge of the clearing in the floor, having to hop a protective barrier to do so. One more thing. Load Lion Charge into our combo attack. I'll give you the other half when it's ready. Just in case, don't let Padri tinker with the one you fire.

That out of the way, he, Shuni, and Sigron dropped into the divide between the railgun battery and the sky limit. His skin began to feel slightly itchy as they left the ship's hull, but it was orders of magnitude less than exposure to the Astral through flash jaunt or even being hit by a corruption attack, so he didn't worry about the other two too much. He looked for the spear tips Bekali had given him and sighed as only the intact trident greeted him. Hoped to save this, but oh well. She's still safe in Pinion's Point, I'm not trapping everyone else here by doing this.

Provoking the Spoke within him to release mana by contesting Threst's, he then merged it with the mana construct and tore a hole in the sky. He held his breath as it closed behind him, waiting for the Arcadian app to vanish, yet it remained. More importantly, Mic check?

What is that? Hunter asked, their Telepathic Link still active.

Doesn't matter. Alright Hunter, wish me luck. Daniel opened the teleportation scroll, set his destination, and activated it.