NOVEL NEXT 362. To the Capital
They headed out. There were more regions around the edge of their region, and more pieces of the greater being to pick up, but keeping Brightbriar from doing whatever horrific thing he planned on doing with Rosamund took precedence to collecting more pieces. Besides, who knew if there were other pieces, or if they were weak, like the infants. The King and the Prince seemed like the most powerful pieces, and he'd already grown significantly stronger for absorbing them. He didn't know that he could challenge Brightbriar, but he felt much better about making the effort now than he had beforehand.
Collecting the pieces seemed like a long-term effort. Months, if not years. On the other hand, Brightbriar could be playing matchmaker right now, and already have a greater-being bun in Rosamund's oven. His long-term goal and this kingdom, handed to him on a platter. At the longest, that would take nine months, and in all likelihood, he had a way to speed up the processes. Ike didn't want to be off searching for pieces, only to get back and find an emboldened Brightbriar in charge of the region, and all the region's soldiers between him, Brightbriar, and the piece of the greater being known as Rosamund.
At the end of the day, he only knew where one more piece of the greater being was for sure, that that, was in Rosamund. No matter how he looked at it, the answer was to return to the capital and at least sabotage Rosamund and the prince, if not face down Brightbriar.
Of course, he had no proof that any such thing was happening. It was nothing but speculation. If he got to the capital and no Brightbriar plots were going on, he'd simply go back to hunting pieces of the greater being. But the chances were too good, the idea too realistic, for Ike to just ignore. He had to find out. And that meant going to the capital.
Besides, he had something to ask Scar, and she was at the capital, too, along with the other collaborators. He'd been putting them on the back burner for a while, but it was time to move that pot from simmer to boil. He needed to face down his destiny.
Maybe that was it. He'd been afraid. Afraid of facing Brightbriar, and learning truths about this greater being that he didn't want to know. But there was no more time to deny his origins, and his destiny. He had to face it sometime, and it looked like that time had arrived.
The fog didn't continue infinitely upward. Mag flew over the clouds and dove down to point them in the right direction. On the other side of the foggy region, another wall blocked their exit, but before Ike could even lift his sword, the wall collapsed into a hundred stone golems, who moved aside to let them pass. It was a little intimidating looking at them, even though Ike knew he could beat the golems if it came to a fight. That much animated stone was no joke. If it all slammed down on him, it would hurt like hell, even if he'd survive the hit.
Out of the fog, and back into more reasonable levels of humidity. Ike took off his bandana, mopped his brow, and tied his hair back again. Although they'd taken a roundabout way, the capital city was now visible in the near distance; the route they'd taken skirted through the regions along the left side of their regions, but had taken them closer to the capital. He looked back down the wall of mountains from whence they'd came, back to the place they'd entered the region from. Somewhere down there was a very angry centauress and her troupe of centaurs, who were ready to kill Ike and his friends when they emerged from the region they'd entered. He snorted under his breath. Wasn't his fault he'd gone a long way through the region and emerged at this far end, far from their anti-puppet entry point.
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Now that he'd figured out Brightbriar's real goal, it made more sense that the regions weren't full of puppets. He'd expected puppet armies, standing at the ready, but that only made sense if Brightbriar wanted to crush this region. True, Brightbriar had a puppet army, was willing to add to it, and had more than enough puppets to crush this region, but his end goal wasn't to crush this region, it was just a side effect of his true goal, a way to gain the control he craved so his child could be raised 'properly,' or to punish the region after his child failed to be perfectly raised. Thus, since his goal wasn't conquest and destruction, he wouldn't focus as hard on keeping a huge standing puppet army at all times; what he had was enough, and if he needed more, he had plenty of raw materials in the form of the mages who lived in the region.
"Sure hope Palio isn't waiting for us back on the other side of that region," Wisp commented, apparently sharing his thoughts.
Ike nodded. "Yeah, hope not. She'll be waiting a long time."
"You'd think she'd get bored," Mag said, fluttering down to join them.
"Herbivores have lots of patience. Way more than us carnivores," Wisp explained. She leaned in toward Ike. "It's because they don't need a whole lotta brainpower to hunt grass."
"Yes, thank you, Wisp," Ike said. He was pretty sure the centaurs ate meat, too, but he was also pretty sure Wisp didn't care.
"Speaking of, I never got to eat one of them. I should've eaten that Palio while I had the chance," she said sadly.
"A loss for the entire world."
"Right? We'll never know if they taste like people or horses. Or both! Or neither…"
Ike shook his head. "I guess you'll just have to eat puppets."
Wisp stuck her tongue out. "Yuck. I'd rather eat bugs."
Ike gave her a deadpan look. "You're a spider."
"It's not much of an admission, it's true," Wisp allowed.
Mag hopped in place. "I'll go take a look at the city."
"Yeah. We should close in pretty quick. Don't want to give Brightbriar too much notice that we're coming," Ike said.
Wisp nodded, then vanished. A tiny black speck hopped onto his shoulder. "Mission received, sir!"
Ike looked at the spider on his shoulder. I don't know what I expected. "That does work, I guess… doesn't help me, but it works."
"What about the wolf skins we had? The ones that turned us invisible," Wisp said.
"Do we still have those?" Ike wondered aloud. He sorted through his inventory as he jogged off. It wouldn't do much, since Brightbriar could doubtlessly sense his aura, but it would still provide a little cover on the approach to the city.
Off toward the city. The capital, that had been on his horizon since day one, which he'd been avoiding since day one. Straight on toward destiny.