Spark of War (Progression Fantasy)

El ignited a sword in her hand as soon as her brain registered what she was looking at, despite the square being completely still. Corpses—stacked like firewood—filled the space around some kind of monument at the center of the park. A perfect ring, about a foot thick and twenty feet tall, stood atop a small pedestal, complete with stairs on one side. The inner part of the ring practically gleamed—Polished electrum, from the looks of it—though the outside stood bumpy and rough, like some kind of rust or growth on it.

Four paths had been left clear into the square, though one seemed to have some kind of metal tubing about as thick as El's leg running down it and into the distance out of sight. And, as for the bodies, the piles were above even the roofs of the nearby houses. There had to be hundreds of them. Thousands?

Despite the horror of what El was looking at, though, something about it was wrong. Not just morally wrong, but… naturally wrong.

She paused between two of the piles of bodies, Laze and Nidina hovering to a stop beside her, and all three of them stared wide-eyed at the scene. None of them spoke—maybe none of them could—while they inspected the carnage.

But, was it carnage…?

El turned her attention to the bodies immediately to her left. Men, women, children, clothing of different types from simple shirts and pants to the same kind of uniform Tas wore. Pilish soldiers too? The still-open eyes stared lifelessly into the air, but just as many sat closed. She could see minor injuries, but beyond what amounted to little more than scratches and bruises, she couldn't see a single, obvious cause of death.

"What killed them?" Nidina asked, likely coming to the same conclusion as El.

"Whatever it was, it even scared away the scavengers," Laze added. "No birds. No rats. Not even bugs."

El's eyes widened. That was what was bugging her! All these dead bodies, and not one bird cawing and fighting over the meal. No flapping wings or shuffling for a better position.

"Something in the air?" Nidina asked. "Flame armor doesn't seem to be reacting to anything."

"It's not infallible," El said, but she had to agree. "Besides, these people didn't put themselves into piles like this. Somebody—or something—else must've done it after they died."

"You think these are the refugees from Pili?"

"Some of them are for sure," Laze answered. "Look at the clothing. Probably the people of this town, though, too. This is horrible."

"Anybody see any threats?" El asked.

"None here," Nidina spoke first.

"Looks… clear," Laze added.

"I want to take a closer look at that monument," El said, slowly gliding forward, sword still at the ready. "Whatever did this kept the bodies away from it; there might be a reason."

As El got within fifty feet of the ring, a strange sort of pull—kind of like another gravity—gently began to tug on her. Toward the ring. At forty feet, the sword in her hand flickered like a strong wind was blowing it, again, toward the ring. At thirty feet, El stopped, the pull actually strong enough it made it difficult to breathe, like it was pulling directly on her lungs.

No, not her lungs, she realized as she spotted symbols inscribed along the inner electrum band of the ring. That feeling, she'd felt it before—when the Stormbearer had been ripping her wings out of her back. A tearing sensation so deep and violating, it sent a shiver straight through her body.

It was pulling on her Spark.

"Stay back," El warned the others. Even at her distance, the sensation was more than uncomfortable, and she actually backed away when she was sure the others had stopped getting closer.

"That hurts," Laze said. She and Nidina quickly followed El until they were again back outside the fifty-foot radius from the ring.

"What the Blaze is that?" Nidina asked. "It felt like it was trying to rip my insides out."

"It was after your Spark," El said. "I felt the same thing when Sol almost… back in Guld. Not as strong as then, thankfully, but I'll never forget that sensation. I think we know what happened to these people."

"The ring ripped their Sparks out?" Nidina asked, disbelief tinging her voice. "Is it strong enough to do that? It hurt, sure, but…"

"Burn it, the steps." Laze pointed at the base of the ring where four stairs led up to a small, flat, almost altar-like space. "They must've walked the people right up and through the ring. If it hurt from thirty feet away, imagine going right through the middle of it."

El looked at the four mountainous piles of bodies around her—she didn't really need to imagine. Her head went back to the ring, and she frowned.

"Something doesn't make sense. Don't get me wrong, I think you're onto something," she said to Laze. "But, how would anyone be able to stand the ring tearing at their Spark while they moved the bodies from where they would've fallen to these piles? Sure, maybe it takes going through the ring to actually be fatal, but being that close? It'd be agony."

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"That's not even asking what the point of the whole thing is," Nidina said. "I hate to say it, but there are much easier ways to kill this many people, if that was the goal."

"It couldn't have been. Has to be something more than that for somebody to go to all this…" El trailed off as she stared at that inner band of electrum again. "Burn it, how much do you want to bet that's double-forged electrum?"

"Double…? Like the golem?" Laze asked.

"And like the chamber in it was built it. And the one in Guld," El said.

"… the one that ripped people's Sparks out to feed to golems? To power them?" Nidina asked, catching on.

"Exactly," El said. "If Wirock really is where Felps got the technology to build that process, it's not so far fetched."

"And you think they'd just leave a Spark-sucking ring in the middle of a town like this?" Laze asked.

"Wait, wait, wait," Nidina interrupted. "The electrum on the inside of the ring, we recognize that, sure. But, the outside's been bugging me. That bumpy stuff."

"Wear and tear from the elements?" El asked.

"I don't think so," Nidina said. "I can't tell for sure without getting closer—which I'm not doing—but I think I saw something similar on the hull of the Bucking Bride. When you ordered us to get out and push, I saw these shell-like things down near the water line. I asked the captain later and she called them barnacles. Had some choice words about them and how they ruin the speed of a ship, but they're basically things that live underwater."

"Okay, so they didn't normally keep the death-ring in the middle of the town square, but somewhere close in the sea?" El asked. "And then they brought it out now because…?"

"Because of the seawyrm attacks?" Laze offered. "Maybe they're building another golem to try and protect themselves."

El couldn't help but clench her teeth at the corpses all around them. "Just like Guld? How many people did they sacrifice for this?"

"If what Tas said was true, these people weren't real Wirockians," Nidina said with a shrug. "They could've been… expendable."

"Or…" Laze said, a finger tapping her lip as she thought. "Maybe we're seeing something horrible because that's what we're expecting to see."

"Pretty sure the piles of corpses would be horrible no matter what my expectations were," Nidina pointed out.

Laze started a little, but nodded. "I don't mean that, sorry. Look, twice now, we've seen nations sacrificing their people in exchange for strength. The Guldish did it to build that golem fort to try and protect their Ember. And we did it—Pycrin did it—to build another golem to steal that same Ember. In both cases, the people were seen as nothing more than fuel to power war machines."

"Sounds like the same thing is happening in Pili as well," El reminded her friend.

"True, so, three times. But," Laze said, holding up a finger. "What if we're just assuming that's what happened here. Look around, this town was obviously attacked…"

It was? El pushed her attention past the literal piles of bodies to the buildings around the square. Huh, Laze was right. The damage wasn't the same as what they'd seen in the fort towns, but there were definite signs of fire, and that wall over there had been smashed through. Even though Tas had mentioned the town was "rough," this couldn't be what he was talking about.

"What are you thinking?" El asked Laze.

"It's just a possibility, and it could be exactly like what we've seen before. On the other hand, what if all these people had seen what they were up against? Sure, it looks like there are a few soldiers here, but once they ran out of bullets, what were they going to do? And most of the people look like your average, everyday person. Like the refugees we've been escorting.

"Faced with the hangnails—or worse, the seawyrms—what hope do they really have?"

"Other than this town, this island nation looks pretty difficult to get onto," Nidina said. "Look at those mountains on either side of the town. They go right to the coast. Anybody—or anything—trying to get in deeper would either be in for one Blaze of a climb, or they'd have to pass right through this town. I don't know what the other sides of the island are like, but…"

"That's exactly my point!" Laze said. "The people here, they'd probably know that, right?"

"And…? What's your theory?" El prompted.

"Maybe they asked to be turned into golems," Laze said. "Like the 'true' Wirockians. If that would give them some measure of safety, they could've made that choice. Bits said the real Wirockians were strong. Really strong. If all these people got their own golem bodies, it could be a like a second chance for them."

"She… might be onto something," Nidina said. "Could be like citizenship. These people might've walked through the ring by choice."

El rubbed her head as she thought about her friends' suggestions. Would people really give up their… well… everything to be put into golem bodies? She looked down again at the square and its piles of corpses, and just that perspective made her eyes widen a little in comprehension. How could she ever really understand what they went through? None of those people down there had the same kind of power she did. When it came to things like war—or getting attacked by horrible sea monsters—most of the people she was looking at would have little to no agency, no control over their own lives.

Becoming a golem might've just given them some of that control.

"We'll leave it as a possibility," El said. "Either way, though, it doesn't look like we're finding any answers here, and I'm not willing to bring the refugees on the Bucking Bride until we have some."

"Should we search the town?" Nidina asked, hovering a little higher so she could get a better look at things from above. "I'm seeing more damage to other sections. There were definitely attacks, but it's almost like they were contained. One area over in the far back corner looks almost completely untouched. Could be survivors. Witnesses."

"The ring is connected to something," Laze said, pointing at the tube running from the base of it and down the road. "Nidina, can you see where that goes from up there?"

"One sec… ah, there it is," Nidina said. "Let's see… that looks like some kind of main street it's on. Goes right to the edge of town, and then straight out. Heads deeper into the island, but there's a forest not far away."

"The tubing goes all the way into the woods?" El asked.

"Seems that way."

"We're going to follow that," El said, making the decision. "Even if we found any survivors—and I don't think that would be quick or easy—we couldn't do much for them. They may not even know anything, and we'd still end up going to look for ourselves."

"We trying to keep ourselves hidden this time?" Nidina asked. "I don't feel like walking again…"

"No more hiding," El said. "Laze and I are going to stay low to the ground and follow the tubing, in case it goes down some side path in the woods. Nidina, I want you to gain some altitude and follow from up there. Keep an eye out for anything that stands out and let us know."

"Got it," Nidina said.

"Good. Let's figure out what the Blaze is going on here."