The Restored: Chapter Twenty-Eight

I erupted out onto the street, then continued floating upwards in the air, but something was wrong. Very, very wrong. 

I had three recharges, one from touching metal, the one granted to me from my familiar bond with Odril, and my third arch-star. It was difficult to intentionally trigger the bond with Odril’s recharge – it wasn’t exactly convenient – but my metallic recharge drew on ambient aura and was easy to trigger. 

Thanks to the iron ring on my finger, I was constantly drawing a small amount of ambient aura into my own, keeping my aura close to full. When I needed a lot of power at once, I could increase the amount of metal I had on, or else I could take power from my first arch-star, the storage star.

Sure, the ambient aura levels of Elderglass were quite low, essentially at the minimum possible baseline. And sure, sometimes while I was in the proximity of someone else draining the ambient aura, it would drop even further, as our auras warred with one another. 

But right now? 

All of the ambient aura that my recharge could strain to touch was being drained away. It was like being surrounded by a hundred people all sucking it dry with witchcraft or ambient-draining auras, all at once, and I couldn’t get a hold on any of the power. 

Worse than that, the spell that the Arenamaster had wrought was somehow ripping and tearing at my aura, draining it at a rate comparable to levitating an industrial metal beam. I didn’t know if it was a result of the world being so sharply drained of aura, or if she had someone implemented a forcible draining array into the spell, but my power was being siphoned away.

Not just my power, either: airships all around me were beginning to tank and fall from the sky as their aura generators were drained of power, falling and crashing into buildings. The buildings, whose structural enchantments had failed, weren’t able to hold up against the weight of an airship crashing into them, and began to collapse. 

There were only two reasons that I wasn’t also falling from the sky alongside the ships: 

My third arch-star, which didn’t draw on ambient aura, but rather on principles that I didn’t fully understand, was still providing me with power. There wasn’t much, given that I had trained with the star to help fuel spells I infused it into, rather than training it to increase the base amount of Auric Units per second it restored, but every little bit helped. 

The second was that the strange hole that had been punched in my aura was still drawing power from me, but providing power back at a slightly higher rate than it drained, which helped to also keep my aura relatively full. 

Together, they were enough to let me stave off the Arenamaster’s draining magic, though I was still having to dip into my aura to power my flight spell. 

I flared said spell and shot higher into the sky, building a metal shoving spell as I did. I made it as large as possible, then infused my arch-star into it for power, pushing one of the falling airships. 

It wasn’t much, but it was enough to shift the course, and it crashed into a city park, rather than a building full of people. 

I skyrocketed higher, throwing out spells, but magic on this scale was draining, and there was little I could do. 

Then the spell draining this section of the city snapped, Jessica’s work finishing. Power returned to the streets, airships began to rise up into the air, and even a few of the streetlamps turned on. Not all of them, we’d been forced to only rely on the emergency systems, but some of them. 

I continued to float upwards, and now that I wasn’t distracted by the collapse of the city all around me, I saw it. 

A tiny figure was on a floating current of red aura, drawing power from the ritual all around her. I’d have bet my left foot that it was either Alyphize or the Arenamaster, riding and harnessing the power. 

The flows of red soul magic were impressive, but I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that something was missing somehow. The spell was flowing red light, and nothing more, no massive pillars of light like I’d heard some reports speak of forming when great magic was done. 

I shook off the thought. Two thirds of the city were more or less normal, but that still left most of the city being drained. There were still plumes of smoke rising as fires started all across the city. People needed help, and the plan needed to be stopped. 

Frankly, stopping the drain was the best thing I could do right now. The building support enchantments were draining, and while they were still metal and compacted volcanic ash, they couldn’t hold forever without them. I could already see some of the shoddier buildings falling apart. 

Then the figure in the distance made a gesture, and a Throne manifested behind her. I wasn’t sure what Throne it was, but its sheer size and power put any other Throne I’d seen to shame.

It towered the size of an entire wartime airship, and was perfectly smooth. If every other Throne I had seen was ornately decorated, this one was made of a perfectly smooth, clean red material. 

It took me a moment to realize that the entire thing was made of blood. 

The blood seemed to begin as a liquid pool at the feet of the Throne, slowly turning into a solidified crystal as it neared the top, and at the zenith of the chair, a smooth red jewel made of condensed blood and magic sat, perfect in a way that I didn’t entirely understand. 

Alyphize’s voice rang out like the crackle of thunder, and I was sure that everyone in the entire city had heard it. 

“I am Alyphize, Throne of Sacrifice!”

The weight of the voice sent me staggering back, disrupting my flight magic and nearly knocking me from the sky. I recovered at the last moment, just in time to watch as demons exploded from the Throne. 

Dozens of figures, vaguely humanoid, but with wrong parts, flowed from the Throne. Within mere moments there were a hundred of them, two, then three. 

I had never seen a demon being spawned before. Intellectually, I knew that they were formed of soulstuff, directed by the power of a Throne, but seeing it was entirely different from reading about it in a textbook, or hearing about it from Odril. 

As the shapes appeared, it became increasingly obvious that she was forming two sorts – humanoids with huge wings, and mole-like creatures. 

It was a good choice. So much of Elderglass was perched in high floors or underground that flight and digging were the easiest ways to get to people and collect their aura sparks, which I had no doubt was the intent of her conjured demonic army. 

I hated when enemies were smart. 

Worse, in the three sections of the city where her light was still glowing and active, red light began to coalesce, and three more Thrones appeared. Each of them was far closer to what I expected out of a Throne, intricately ornamented. I was rushing too fast to stop and really examine them in detail, but I caught flickering flames and screaming faces on the first, swirling water and inky black tentacles on the second, and elaborate ritual circles and massive depictions of the anatomy of assorted demons on the third. 

Firefright, Deepwater, and Soulwitch. 

Three of her five demonic lieutenants, or enforcers, or whatever term those papers had used. If I’d actually gone to the ritual site, or if I’d maintained my connection to my simulacrum, would that have been me? 

I didn’t have much time to think, as those three Thrones also began to spawn demons en masse. They couldn’t match the dozen or so per second that the Throne of Sacrafice was creating, but they were still creating at least one or two each second, spreading out across the skies. 

I shot across the city as fast as I could, but demons were beginning to attack people and airships that had been flying. I cursed and dropped my flight, aiming for the low end of the street, where I’d be less likely to attract attention. 

A demon, eight feet tall, with bat wings, horns, a tail, and two sets of arms, but otherwise completely human looking, flapped in front of me. Its face twisted in joy, and it opened its mouth. Doubtless it was preparing to shout something, but I drew my revolver and shot it in the head. 

The bullet rippled through the demon’s form as if it were water, and the demon laughed, spitting something at me in a language I didn’t recognize. It flowed toward me, tendrils of slimy red light reaching out, and I took a page from Jin’s book. 

I whipped a blade out, increasing its mass, and swung it like a club, ripping through the tendrils. The strange liquid form of this demon acted like ooze, and it exploded, splattering over the building, but the body shot more tendrils at me. I pulled myself back by my coat with a metal spell, used one leg to push off the building, and swung my blade at the thing’s head. 

The demon detached its own head, letting my sword cut through the empty air, then reattached it. As it did, I felt a force slam into my back. I shifted the plates in my back, connecting them so the oozing tendrils couldn’t touch my flesh, spun, and blew them apart with a rapid mass enhanced flat blade strike. I really wished I had a club.

Before the demon could attack my back again, I spun back around, swinging at where I judged it would be.

Sure enough, the demon had closed in and extended its claws with magic, prepared to cut my neck off. It would have worked, if it weren't for the fact that I’d completely expected it.

My sword ripped through the arms of the creature, and I made it massless, whipped it back at the thing’s head, then rapidly increased its mass again. The bat ripped the head off of the thing, and having not detached its head intentionally, it seemed to actually do something. 

The demon staggered and slammed into the wall of the building.

That was unfortunate for it, because every building in Elderglass was made of metal. This would have been more effective with silver, as it was anathema to demons, but copper and brass should do just fine. 

I made a quick gesture with one hand, and spikes of metal exploded from the wall. I returned the stolen metal to where it belonged a moment later, but it had done the necessary damage. The demon was dead.

I turned and started to fly right towards the center of the city.

Around me, the sounds of battle started picking up. There was the loud popping of distant gunfire inside of buildings, the crackling rush of siege enchantments firing from warships overhead, and the shouted words of battle sorcery from those who weren’t skilled enough to maintain the verbal components with nothing but their rune bond, or who didn’t have a rune bond to begin with. 

Elderglass was the city of metal and magic. Even if it was partially propaganda, we prided ourselves on having the most advanced weapons technology in the world, enough to have matched the northern archmages or the southern powers. We had more mages per capita than anywhere else in the world.

There was no way anyone, be they a poor addict living undercity’s slums, a member of the airship dwelling elite, or any of the thousand shades of person that existed between the two extremes, was going to lay down and die without a fight.