Book 3 - Chapter 40 - Blinded (Patreon)

“You’re fifty years too young to be questioning me of all people, you goddess damned brat! I’m based on a goddess blessed crusader of the fifth oath. Got me a lifetime of intuition, and it’s all screaming at me that something’s completely wrong about all of this.”

Cathida being dramatic again. “You sure about this?” I asked, keeping the comms channel to myself to keep muted. Hecate remained to the side, hands folded while she sat. I’d asked for a moment of time while I spoke with my armor.

Cathida’s arguments quickly devolved into a string of curses, most of which I didn’t understand, and half of them involved gold in some way.

I sighed, wondering what sort of insanity I’d need to deal with this time. “I’ll step out for a bit,” I said, waving to Hecate and tapping my helmet with a finger. “Need to get some more roots to work with the armor. Some things are still loose up in here and need their screws tightened.”

She nodded, gave a smile and let me know she’d be here in the meantime. With that settled, I turned and took a stroll to clear my head and talk sense to the paranoid grandma stuck in my head who had every gray hair on her non-existent head sticking up. “What sort of evidence do you have, besides intuition?” I asked, taking steps outside the ruined church.

“We listened to intuition like scripture - or we died.” She said. “And I’m smelling a rat somewhere here.”

“You can’t smell anything. You’re a simulacrum living digitally inside the armor.”

“Fine, right on topic. Let’s start with armor. Whatever that Deathless is wearing - if she even is a Deathless at all - it’s not armor. It looks like armor, acts like armor, looks to move like armor and it’s not armor.”

“I’m hearing a lot of accusations here and still not a lot of evidence. You got something better or are you going to swear in gold again?” Around me, remains of hacked up roots littered the walls where I’d gone and pilfered previously. I took a few steps past those to find somewhere more quiet.

“Gold stuffed stubborn bastard. Fine, let’s go over the list. Beyond the very basic minimum of her armor being dead quiet with no response to any of Journey’s handshake requests - which should already be evidence enough that something’s off, the structural setup is also incorrect. Joints don’t connect correctly, plate density around vital areas isn’t increased, there’s no room for artificial fibers or propulsion abilities in a dozen places where there should be.”

”So…? Where are you going with this?”

”By all rights, that armor shouldn’t be able to move around at all! It’s all decoration - a fake. Gilded pyrite lit up to fool the faithless.”

I paused in my steps, not quite sure I was following on her logic. “You do realize that Hecate is paralyzed under her armor, right? She needs it to move.”

“And where’s your ‘evidence’ on that? You like to toss that word around all the time, so back up that foul mouth of yours, brat. Have you seen her outside her armor yet? Or are you only taking her word for it and nothing else?”

“And how exactly am I going to ask her for proof of that?”

“Take her armor off!”

I stopped to process what I’d heard for a moment. Cathida was being dead serious here.

“Did gods damned snow fill up your head or something? I’m not going to ask her to strip.” Another few paces down the tunnel and another idea popped into my head. “Besides, there’s plenty of people out there who forge fake armors either for ceremonies or as a bluff. It’s possible she’s doing something like that. What Deathless is unable to afford an armor? It could be a status symbol, she’s freshly minted out. Maybe this is the best she could do.”

“Journey wasn’t in a good position to have clean footage when Hecate took out the drake’s throat, but you were there. How fast did she move? Tell me that.”

“... very fast.”

“Exactly. Can someone move that fast without armor?”

I waved a hand in dismissal. “She’s Deathless. It’s possible this is a spell of hers. Some kind of passive, like her eyesight. Can’t rule that out.”

“Fine, double down there, why don’t you. How are you going to explain that she lied to you about the paralysis? She could have simply said it’s an ability of hers, but she didn’t. Why?”

“I am so shocked and saddened to find out someone has secrets they want to keep secret. Little bit on brush up on humanity, Cathida: Everyone’s got secrets, and whatever her secrets are, they aren’t deadly to me. Besides, it’s possible this is a different make of armor.”

Cathida outright groaned. If she could run her nails down her cheek, she’d be doing that right about now. “All armor follows the same protocols, the schematics were designed by the same forgemaster! There are no new models that wouldn’t use the base template and handshakes! Journey confirms that.”

“What if that armor’s made from a different direction by a different forgemaster, maybe halfway around the world? Could explain why you can’t talk to her armor and the wings she’s got. And talking about that, why haven’t we got wings either? Seems a little unfair. The armor competition here has an entire leg over us.”

“You keep weaseling away from the point! You made up your mind to trust her, and now you’re finding all kinds of ad hoc reasoning instead of remaining skeptical. From what I’ve heard, her profile makes no sense to any undersider or imperial order I can track!”

“She could be part of some Undersider separatist tribe or something. People forging off the land and living outside cities. It’d be a brutal way of life that would fit. The lack of outgoing signals could be that the armor’s trying to be stealthy, could be their default way of life.”

“Then how in the goddess’s name does she know so much about everything? Think I didn’t overhear your discussions? She knows more information than Journey has in its memory banks!”

The bickering between us did not stop, nor slow down. Until I had to put my foot down. “Look.” I said, finding a place to sit down and clear the air. “She saved my life. I was at my weakest for hours. If she wanted me dead, she had hundreds of chances. Instead, I’m back to full strength. Even if she’s got some oddities, she’s not my enemy. You can be skeptical of her if you want, but I choose to trust her. The only link between us so far is To’Aacar. If there’s anything she might use me for, it’ll be to piss him off. Which I’m fully behind.”

Cathida stopped, likely about to go right back into another tangent before abruptly halting mid-word. “Fine! I can see there’s no point trying to convince you. I’ll keep my guard up for the moment instead and yell at you when it happens.”

“Agree to disagree. Are we done?”

A pause. “We’re done. I said my peace. If youth these days act all reckless like this, then be it on your own head.”

She did have a point. No matter what kind of background I could think of for Hecate, there was always one piece that didn’t fit. Whoever Hecate was, she didn’t want to tell me the full truth for her own personal reasons. Maybe it wasn’t my business at all.

But there was something that was my business and that I needed to prepare for so that I wouldn’t get caught by surprise again. “That fight against To’Aacar. How did he take control of Journey?” I asked.

Cathida gave a sheepish tut. “Remember that string of verbal reminders all armors do? ‘Releasing security locks’ is a part of that, and it means something you dolt. What prevents cyber attacks like those is that if Journey can’t connect to the subsystems that move your arm, same goes for anything that’s attacking through Journey. Until you gave the master keys to Journey. Now, they only need to have a stronger cyber suite than this bucket of metal and they've got the same exact keys you tossed over.”

“And To’Aacar can do that?”

“Oh, him? A Feather? One of the most powerful enemies among the machine arsenal?” She scoffed, “Not a chance. Just a complete fluke of nature that he overrode Journey in seconds and tried to strangle you with it. Couldn’t possibly happen a second time, deary. I’m sure you can bet your life on that without any problem at all.”

“All right, point taken. So what do we do for the future? Just completely give up on one of the best offensive and defensive weapons in my arsenal?”

“Journey’s turned off the override with the reboot. Once we’re back to the surface, drills, training, and getting back into shape. Recommend you leave the override for really critical situations when nothing could get worse. Everything else, you’re going to need to figure it out on your own.”

I swore under my breath. “Was afraid you’d say that.”

“Bet you were.” She cackled.

---------------------------

On the return back to the campsite inside the ruined cathedral, we got another surprise.

Hecate was gone. No message left behind, nothing.

My head raced, thinking through the past few moments. Hecate’s actions, the abrupt departure. “Did she… overhear us?”

“Comms channel was set to private.” Cathida said. “She must have gone for that drake. Or maybe this is her polite way of bowing out before it gets awkward.”

“That metal scrapshit that put a hole in my gut could overhear us under the helmet. Feathers were supposed to be mirrors to the Deathless if I remember, right?”

Cathida scoffed. “A mirror is one to one. Feathers are on a different league. If they can hear three miles away, the best a Deathless could do is hear half of a mile.”

If she’d heard us talking about doubting her story and digging into her past, maybe she really did decide now was the best time to split up. I hadn’t been around her for long, but I got a general sense of her personality. “She’s gone after the drake." I said, convinced. "She knows it’s out there looking to pick a fight, and she’s never seen me in a fight before. So she’ll think to do me one last favor and make sure Fido isn’t there to bog me down.”

I had a sinking feeling in my gut that she’d left for good. We both had our goals completed. There’s no reason to keep going together after all.

I turned and sprinted for the exit.

“Where in the goddess’s name are you even going?” Cathida yelled over my footsteps.

“We might be able to catch her, it’s only been a few minutes! Fido probably took his sweet time making sure every exit he knew about was broken down and sealed, so the only way out of here back into the plains is the same way we came in.”

Ground blurred under me as I raced through the caverns, jumping over obstacles and rocks, free again to expand as much energy as I needed.

“What would you even say to her anyhow, chasing after her like some lost puppy? Better to let her go on her own way and keep to ourselves.”

“I get you’re a suspicious paranoid old bat who thinks the world’s after me - and usually you’re right, but in this one case I’ve got my set of intuition, and it’s screaming at me to make things right. So shut it, and pull up the map.”

Cathida audibly growled, but the map popped up in more detail on my heads up display, along with arrow directions to backtrack my steps and highlighted footprints showing what path she took.

In minutes we’d passed by the abandoned sled, still hovering where we left it. Another quarter hour and I was sprinting down the perfectly cut cube corridor to the outside plains.

Empty in every direction. “Fuck, where’s the footprints Cathida?” They had just vanished after taking a few steps into the outdoors. I spun my view around, but all around me was the empty plains of flowers and the occasional black glass pillar in the distance. I started shouting out her name, wildly.

“She has wings, remember?” Cathida scoffed. “I assume they aren’t for show.”

My yells turned to curses and an empty feeling crept into me. There was something about that meeting with Hecate that felt like fate, and I’d let it slip right through my hands.

Sound caught my attention above me. I twisted my head, hoping I’d been wrong, that I’d find her standing at the top of the mountainside, doing something pensive. Or sulking with a pout.

Instead, I found a heavily camouflage Fido, leaping straight down at me, violet eyes filled with glee. The gods damned machine must have been waiting at the entrance here for hours, and let Hecate pass by while staying hidden. Vines and leaves he had wrapped around his body snapped away as his clawed hands expanded out.

The surprise at a massive several ton machine falling on top of my head was just enough time for the scrapshit to lash out with both its massive paws, catching my fumbling attempt to jump out of the way. Two massive claws wrapped around the armor and clenched tightly.

Shit. Shit. Rat fucking shit. I started to struggle, but each of the thing’s paws was as large as my torso. Its forearms were already my full size. There was no wiggling out of this thing’s grasp.

“Ssssss…. I knew you’d come out. All in due time.” Fido hissed with content. “Vermin that you are. Hiding, creeping, crawling through the mud and your tunnels. Filth.”

“Fido, my good old buddy, am I happy to see you.” I growled back, struggling to get out of his grip and failing completely. I stopped and went limp, glaring right back at the creature’s skeletal fangs. “You know, you came at the perfect fucking time. I could use a little stress toy.”

The machine laughed, violet eyes glowing with malice. “Temper, little child. I’ll bring you silence soon.” There was a groaning sound around the armor. "Such weakness of flesh and bone. I’ll crush it from you. ” I couldn’t feel Fido actually squeezing down on me with Journey counteracting the force, but I could certainly feel my hands and arms held firmly together. It stared down into me, fascinated with the same gaze that all machines had when strangling their prey.

I could see parts of the tubes under Fido’s throat still dangling from where Hecate had sliced it, leaving the drake only his claws and mouth to do any damage with. I should have guessed he’d do something like this with what he had to work with.

“Journey’s giving me all kinds of numbers on hull integrity here,” Cathida said. “You got about five minutes to figure something out before your friend here actually squishes us.”

“I don’t need five minutes,” I snarled back, diving into the soul fractal and feeling the full suite of the occult at my palms again. “You think he’s got me pinned? It’s the other way around, I have this scrapshit right where I want him. He’s done me a favor, saving me from having to track him down all over again.”

Clan lord Atius had shown me the true power of the mirror fractal. He’d used it as a Deathless would, at first. Once he knew the truth behind the Occult, his style had changed.

The true strength behind that spell was that it duplicated fractals. Any fractal. Like the ones inside the knightbreakers. Cathida had said it before: A mirror is one to one.

The universe recognized fractals wherever they appeared as patterns. Microscopic or macroscopic. On metal or dust. Surrounded by air or solid. Didn’t matter to reality. Ghost images were still part of existence, all the fractals mirrored in those were just as real as reality.

The occult pulsed around me, and even Fido paused for a moment, those violet eyes narrowing in suspicion.

“Sss…. what are—”

Fractals inscribed on the surface of Journey all lit up, being powered. Not a moment later, two pale blue occult arms lifted from my trapped position and drew right into the creature’s wrists, passing through as if there was nothing but air. Those ghostly arms, covered in fractals, all still powered up.

“Your master should have warned you.” I said. “I never play fair.”

Occult triggered and the shield fractal flared. Two nearly invisible domes ripped into existence. They manifested exactly where I’d predicted - right inside Fido’s wrists. There was a momentary tug of willpower as the dome shields cut through everything that had been in the way.

Fido’s clawed arms grew instantly slack, all the power and direction severed. I’d made the domes large enough to cut through the creature’s thick wrists completely.

I wasn’t finished yet.

The fractal of heat flared to life in both my palms. Six mirror arms stretched out, superimposed until they split.

All six arms lunged directly at Fido’s head. From each palm, a torrent of super-heated fire burst out, destruction incarnate.