The Restored: Chapter Thirty-Four

The instant the three teenagers hit the ground on the other side of the portal, Devi was already pulling herself to her feet. Jin kipped up an instant later, and Kelly staggered to his feet. With his aura so low, he could feel the Wandering Path already starting to suck him dangerously dry, so he snapped. The rush of quasi-alien power flowed into him, and he snapped again, working to try and restore his power as he looked at his companions.

The last thing that Jin had said ran through his brain, and he blinked, then squinted. 

“Fallen Void, what do you mean ‘you don’t want to implicate me’? I get pulling us to another realm to avoid a collapsing airship – you’re probably the only person in the city who could do it so casually – but how is that a bad thing?” 

Then her earlier comments about wanting to blow up the Malapert’s engines before Nexus could use the extraplanar invasion and following disaster as a chance to declare martial law.

“Oh. You’re going now. I thought…” 

He trailed off as he realized how stupid his thought was. He’d thought, since they hadn’t been pulled into Axel’s vault of weaponry, that they’d given up the plan after killing Alyphize. 

Jin and Devi exchanged a look with one another, then looked at him, then back at one another. They seemed to have an understanding pass between them then, and Devi was the one who spoke up first.

“I can try and drop you off somewhere, but… Nexus needs to go.” 

“And what happens after?” Kelly asked firmly. “I understand you hate them, but the fact that about twenty-five people have enough power to bend and shape the laws of the nation to their whim doesn’t go away just because those people are dead. What happens when another Nexus rises up?”

“We just have to make sure that the people who take power don’t collaborate like Nexus has, and it won’t happen again,” Devi said, but Kelly shook his head. 

“We both know that’s not likely. It might work for a few years, but people who want power will only cooperate to give themselves more, and that’s what Nexus is. The people who had power and money realized that if they could work together, even a little bit, the entire undercity and street city could be cast into the pits of the Fallen Void and they’d be just fine. And in the short term, who can organize the city?” 

“The Consulate Archmage,” Devi said seriously. “She’s a member of Nexus, and is a pretty good fighter. I bet now that Alyphize is dead, she’s going to step up and start leading the purge of sacrifice demons from the city.” 

“Then what you’re suggesting is effectively handing a member of Nexus a solo-ocracy!” 

“I don’t think that’s a word,” Jin said, frowning. 

“Whatever, you get my point! Why do you think giving one person all of the power is going to help?” 

“Well, she won’t. The corporations will elect a new CEO or whatever other member of the c-suite is a member of Nexus, and the others will get positions. It’s a great chance to re-shuffle, and to try and push legislation that could get us a direct democracy, or something of the sort.” 

“I think you’re being too optimistic,” Kelly said, shaking his head. 

“And I think that if we don’t do something to shake up the current system, then nothing will ever change, and we’re going to die a slow death as Nexus keeps consolidating its power.” 

For the first time in a while, Jin spoke up. 

“Nexus has ties to the White Rooms, to the Arena that raised Axel and myself, and to plenty of the major drug runners in the undercity. In a world where the system properly worked, all of them would be in prison, with maybe one or two exceptions. But we don’t live in that world. We live in a world where one – just one – of them getting caught so red handed that they can’t make the problem just vanish results in their name being dragged through the mud, and some fines. A normal person being caught doing half of what they have would be thrown away forever.” 

Kelly paused, not really having a response to that. He agreed, at least partly. Things did need to change, and Nexus’ power needed to be broken. It was just the method of straight up killing the lot of them that he had issues with. 

But he knew Axel was going to have to kill Abraham Tahmid, at the very least, executed by Nexus for causing issues within the organization. Kelly had made peace with that because he’d been responsible for funding this scheme of the Arenamaster’s, or Alyphize’s, or whichever one of them was really the mastermind. Was this really so different? 

He opened his eyes, not having realized that he’d closed them, but he must have at some point in his thought processes. He met Devi and Jin’s eyes and slowly nodded. 

“Okay. I’ll join you. I don’t think this is the right way to do things, and I’m not convinced that this will actually help. But it might, and that’s worth trying. Probably. But if any of them surrender, then we have to actually accept it. That’s the only condition I’m giving.”

Devi and Jin both clearly relaxed as he gave his consent to work with them. 

“If they are willing to surrender and step away from their office, in order to face a real trial, then I’m willing to not kill them,” Devi said. Kelly’s eye twitched at her phrasing, and even Devi had to admit that framing not killing someone as a mercy didn’t exactly sound good. 

“Fine,” Kelly said. “I can accept that. It isn’t great, but it’s a step better than just a straight up execution.” 

“Alright, then we need a plan,” Jin said, as Devi withdrew the sheet of cloth she’d copied from Axel’s locker of weapons. The powerful druid began to inject speckles of her aura in the copy of the magic, then looked up and pointed. 

“That way – we can talk while we’re on the way to raid Axel’s weapon stock.” 

They started talking, working out different layers of the plans as they walked through the endless landscape of gray that seemed to only make sense to Devi. 

Devi’s original plan – if it could be called that – had been to wait for her right moment, slowly saving up single use explosive boons from an assortment of different connections she’d made in secret over the past few years, then use them all on the Chairman when it couldn’t be traced back to her. If she could blow up the entire Malapert, that would be even better, but she wasn’t sure she’d have been able to, or that she’d have the power to punch through the defenses fast enough that Nexus’ security couldn’t respond. 

When she’d met Jin and got to talking with her, she’d expanded her plans to include Jin. Jin’s ability to shoot through wards should help stop her from being discovered. Now that Jin had mostly lost that ability, thanks to the loss of her flickering boon, she wasn’t quite as much of an ace in the hole, but she’d still be able to get through a couple of the wards, even if not just for attacks. 

With Kelly there, asking to stop people from dying, and also providing his mind magic as an assistance, it created both complications and added some benefits. 

“Unfortunately, most of them have abjuration enchantments that stop mind bridges or other connections from reaching them, and also alert them that someone’s tried to,” Devi said, shaking her head. “You’re surprisingly strong, and make good use of your second harvest boon, but you can’t punch through twenty high-powered defensive artifacts at once.” 

“A what?” Kelly asked, frowning. “I’ve never heard of a mind bridge.” 

Devi’s step halted for a second as she tripped over her own feet and nearly fell over, and the turned to look at him. 

“Mind link? Mind bridge? Thought tether? Mental connection spell array? There are a bunch of names for it, but they’re all the same.” 

“Oh, mind sense? I have an arch-star for that, I don’t need to cast it anymore, but if they’ve got a way to shie–” 

“No, not mind sense. Mind connection, the thing that creates a channel between your mind and another person’s for you to send spells through! It’s like… Mind magic one-oh-one!”

“I’ve never heard of it! It wasn’t in the book of spells my dad’s friend gave me, and it wasn’t anything Axel or Rhys ever brought up. I just… Send the spell at people when I sense their mind.” 

Devi stared at him, then she frowned and shook her head, clearly not believing him in 

“I don’t believe you. I’ve got considerable mental defenses – the first being the standard protection against a bridge, and the second is a bit more complex, a complete mind bubble that self-repairs, the kind of thing that you basically only see up north. I know that one of Nexus’ members has one, but they’re pretty rare – the spells don’t work in the common spell languages down here. So if you can actually get an illusion in my head when I’m powering it, I’ll believe you can cast without a mind bridge, and that opens some interesting options up…” 

Kelly raised an eyebrow, but then reached out and created a quick mental illusion of a burst of song. He felt the magic repulsed by the mind bubble, as did Jin, whose eyes widened. He could have punched through the bubble, but felt that would be rude. 

“Now this is something we can work with. Alright, change of plans…” 

They continued to discuss, until a small bubble appeared from nowhere before them. Kelly watched in fascination as Devi started waving her hands, and runes floated from around her, spinning into a circular opening that tore a hole in the side to reveal Axel’s vault on the other side. 

Kelly shook his head and sighed at the massive size of the vault. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen it, but it was still shockingly impressive each time. The man had to have at least six figures worth of excess military equipment, some of which he was pretty sure he’d taken from his time fighting in the wars in Saxum. 

Jin buzzed into the space as if she owned it and started reaching for boxes of explosives – disintegration charges, alchemical bombs, and runed spheres designed to compress massive pressure waves in a tiny area. 

But that wasn’t all – Devi made her way to some of the swords, picking up a couple of enchanted ones that she claimed had explosive effects inbuilt into them. 

“Why don’t you use a sword like that?” Kelly asked Jin curiously as he sorted through the larger guns. 

“An enchanted blade you mean? Well, a lot of mages do, but for a metal mage, it’s a lot more risky. I’m constantly altering the shape, internal structure, and even composition of different parts of the blade. I can handle keeping a basic anti-interference enchantment, but there quickly reaches a point where trying to manage the keep the framework of a hundred different interconnected runes while also whipping the blade around and transforming it constantly just isn’t worth it.” 

She gestured to the collection of enchanted swords. 

“These are basically one use tricks. You use them, then break them. That has some value, but Axel’s more of a gun person, so he’s more likely to use alchemical bullets, which are also inherently one use. I’d bet a lot of these came from killed air pirates who weren’t metal mages, and so weren’t able to make much use of their swords.” 

“Huh, I guess that makes sense. It explains why he uses enchantments for defense and misdirection, but not offense,” Kelly said, picking up the massive anti-airship gun and slotting the ammunition – which was larger than his fist – into it. 

They spent a few minutes longer arming themselves, but Devi quickly started tapping her foot. 

“We need to go. It’s time for us to actually put our plan into action.”