Path of Transcendence 1: Ultimatum of the Nameless God (13 page)

Hearing what Wendell said, Urehara-sensei seems to lose something. For the first time ever, he has the air of a man who has lost. Closing his eyes, he draws in huge breath and holds it for several moments, before releasing it slowly. When he opens his eyes, they are harder and colder than Wendell's.

“I would not have been able to protect my descendants from their own stupidity after death, and since I am leaving this world, I will not be able to protect them now. They can live with the consequences of their idiocy.”

Wendell's smile disappears, but the malice remains in his eyes. “Considering that neither of you are known to be insane, I really am curious, what are you doing on government land, dressed in medieval armor and weapons?”

My smile is as malicious as Wendell's eyes. “Considering you aren't known to be a retard, how can you see those iron wolves and not question what the really are? Have you ever seen a drone built like that?”

A shadow of something flickers in Wendell's eyes, and he looks over his shoulder. “Special Agent Jones, examines those drones, please.”

Clarence's eyes widen. “What the fuck are you listening to that punk for? Give him to me for a few days, and he'll stop with this bullshit and tell you everything.”

“Just do it.”

Clarence glares at me, before moving to investigate the constructs. As he passes through the line of fire of two of the other agents, they point their guns at the sky and return their am to us, after Clarence passes.

Clarence squats next to one of the drones for a minute, scratching his head. His face has a lost and confused expression, when he walks over to Wendell and whispers in his ears. Wendell's eyes narrow, as he turns and rapidly stalks over to investigate the constructs. Going from one to the next, he looks inside their torn open chests, before returning to glare at me.

“What are those things?”

I shrug. “You sure you're not retarded? I already told you they're iron wolves.”

Wendell's face starts to darken. He has run into something that is outside of his realm of understanding, and it seems to have shaken his self-control. “I do not care what name you call them. I want to know what they are.”

I put on my best mocking grin. “Haven't you ever seen a construct before? They're all over the place in Taereun: Battleground of the Damned. You want to know what happened two years ago, then come with us. The answers are in The Nameless, Inc.'s facility in this complex.”

Wendell flicks his hand in our direction. “Cuff them. You two drop all those knives.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

The semicircle of FBI agent is barely more than eight yards from me. Before the Jones dickheads can react, I am already in the middle of them. Two agents go flying in different directions from their guns, by the time Clarence has his monster gun pointed in my direction.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

I use an arm lock to force one of the FBI agents into Clarence's line of fire. He takes the shots meant for me, with blood spraying from his chest and face. After I release his arm, his body falls to the ground.

“CLARENCE!” Wendell is standing on his toes, with the point of Urehara-sensei's katana under his chin.

Clarence violent spins in Wendell's direction. “DON'T FUCKING CALL ME CLARENCE! Well, fuck me.”

Clarence's gun barrel drops slightly, so it points more at the ground than Urehara-sensei.

One of the FBI agents holds his hands up slightly, looking at me. “I'm going to try to stabilize Agent Parker. Alright, sir?”

I wave my hand in the directions of the fallen agent, while moving back a few steps.

“You can't stop us, Wendell. We're going into that facility, with your help or over your dead bodies. I don't give a fuck, which it is.”

Both of the Jones assholes glare at me silently. Clarence looks like he wants to kill me, but Wendell seems to be weighing the situation.

Urehara-sensei's voice is calm. “Wendell, this is probably a military black operation, most likely with congressional level backing or oversight.”

Wendell's eyes narrow. “Special Agent Jones, we are going to enter this complex, with the assistance of Mr. Urehara and Mr. McGuinness. Anyone who resists will be terminated with extreme prejudice, and anyone who surrenders will taken for questioning.”

“Does this mean I'm going to get to kill some politicians, Special Agent Jones?” Clarence has a light in his eyes, that reminds me of a mad dog.

“This will probably result in the sanctioning of politicians.”

Clarence glares at us. “You two amateurs had better stay out of my way, if you know what's good for you.”

Wendell looks in my direction and shrugs slightly. I cannot keep the shock off my face and almost burst out laughing.

“Agent Carstein, what is Agent Parker's condition?”

The agent tending Agent Parker drops a wind breaker over his face, before standing up, while shaking his head.

“I hate filling out accidental death paperwork.”

Wendell sticks his head in the open window of his all-terrain vehicle and says something to the drone operator that I cannot understand. If I still had my Half-Dvergar body, it would be easy to hear him.

“Are you ready?”

“Lead on, Mr. McGuinness.”

As I start walking, I catch Urehara-sensei's eye, and he nods slightly, letting the FBI agents move out in front of him. Advancing at a steady jog, the wintry plains roll out behind us. The FBI agents are all in good condition and make no complaints over the pace I set.

Constructs, like the iron wolves, are not constantly controlled by their creator, and the creator or master should be totally unaware of their condition. If we reach the facility before the wolves loss can be noticed, we should have a chance to surprise them.

After nearly two hours, I crest a ridge and see the facility below me. Motioning at the the people behind me, I crouch down, to avoid being silhouetted against the skyline.

There are only five buildings, the largest being a square concrete building, that might be a total of 20,000 square feet. Three of the other building are small apartment buildings, that appear to have ten units each. The last one is a rather lavish house, that has to be over 10,000 square feet. A parking lot is next to the concrete building, that is large enough to hold 400 or more cars. It only has twenty-seven cars parked in it.

Three packs of nine iron wolves each are patrolling the area surrounding the facility. These iron wolves have a different appearance from the ones we destroyed. They are more heavily constructed, with thick armor plating and spikes around their shoulders and chests.

One of the FBI agents gives Wendell a pair of binoculars, and he scans the compound for several minutes. While he is doing that, I watch the iron wolf patrols. With only the three groups, there should be gaps we can sneak though, but that depends on what kinds of senses the wolves were built with.

“That building looks far too small to contain the data facilities to run a game like Taereun: Battleground of the Damned.” Urehara-sensei is frowning, as he strokes his short beard.

“You're assuming that they require servers for something other than account management. An artifact or magic construct could be virtually any size at all. With the sizes of most magic patterns or formations I've seen, you could fit a dozen to a couple hundred in that building.”

Wendell looks at me as though trying to decide whether or not I am sane. “Do you really believe what you are saying?”

I hold up my hand and channel ki into it. A miniature whirlwind spirals up from my middle finger, before it bursts into flame and disappears. “Can you explain that as anything other than magic?”

Wendell frowns, with a shadow of something I cannot figure out in his eyes. “What kinds of weapons will the people down there be using?”

I shrug. “Hard to say. They might use melee weapons, or the might use guns. There will definitely be at least one caster, and his spells will make my parlor tricks look lie the jokes that they are. I'm not sure how strong he'll be, but he won't be weak.

“I'm going down. Follow me, if you want to. If not, you can just cower here.”

Crouching low so the dead grass can conceal me somewhat, I move down the slope. Urehara-sensei is paralleling me about twenty feet to my left, and the FBI team is following behind. The wind will cover most of the noise we make, but the wolves may have vision that extends into the infrared or ultraviolet ranges. The closest cover to the buildings is a depression about a hundred-fifty feet or so form them, but the iron wolf patrols are passing within thirty feet of it. Still, that is where I am headed.

I pause, as one of the patrols turns to face directly toward the hill, and lay flat on my belly. Two long minutes drag out, until the wolves turn to move parallel to the base of the slope. I start moving again and reach the depression, before the next patrol turns toward us. Urehara-sensei and the FBI agents follow, all of us laying on our bellies.

The iron wolves close the distance at a steady pace, showing no signs of seeing us, and then turn to parallel the  ridge, like the last patrol.

I wait half a minute, before rising to my feet. Using a shuffling run that I mastered while in my Half-Dvergar body, I rapidly and silently cross the open ground and hide in the shadows next to one of the apartment buildings.

Wendell gathers his team around him and points to two of them. “Get your stun guns ready. A three man team will enter the apartments one at a time. Special Agent Jones will be the point man. Subdue and secure everyone inside the building.”

One of the agents takes out a toolkit and overrides the electronic lock on the first apartment, then moves to the side. At Clarence's signal, he flings open the door, and Clarence charges in followed by the two Wendell pointed out. Less than a minute later, they come out of the apartment, and Clarence shakes his head.

They repeat the procedure with all ten apartments, but there is no one in any of them. After searching all three apartment building, no one has been found, and we move to the mansion.

There is no sign of activity through the downstairs windows. To not risk being targeted by the iron wolf patrols, we go in through one of the back doors of the mansion. At this point, no one seems to have any expectations of finding anyone inside, but the FBI agents still spread out to search the building.

Urehara-sensei and I look around on the first floor, and after finding a study, we begin to search it. Most of the papers in the desk appear to be marketing data and network usage reports.

“Mark.” Urehara-sensei hands me a leather-bound book.

“The characters are similar to the ones used for the Slave Tongue, but I can't make sense out of it.” I stuff the book into my backpack.

A few minutes later, all the FBI agent have regrouped with Urehara-sensei and myself. Staying inside the mansion, we are observing the concrete building.

“Unless there's a door on the north side of the building, the only entry seems to be the security door in the east wall. Urehara-sensei and I are going in. Are you going to follow us?”

Wendell continues to stare at the concrete building. “Of course. You do understand, this feels like a trap.”

My laugh has not hint of humor in it. “What else could it be? We probably tripped over some kind of magic wards a long time ago. None of us are casters, so how the fuck would we have spotted them? We should have Clarence take point.”

“Don't call me Clarence, you little bitch.” The hatred in his eyes is mixed with something else, as he glares at me. It might be fear, but I cannot be sure.

“Whatever. Since I can't trust you behind me with that cannon, you can lead. If you see anyone with glowing lines in front of them, shoot. If they are alive later, you can ask questions.”

“Just don't get in my way, if you want to live.”

With Clarence in the lead, we move to the east side of the concrete building.

The door has a keypad lock with a slot for a magnetic card reader as well. The agent who opened the apartment locks examines the door, while the rest of us keep watch for any threats. The flicker of the blue fire from the Predator's jet engines can periodically be seen in the sky.

“No sign of any alarms. I've released the locks.”

Clarence stands facing the door and nods, and the agent that jimmied the lock pushes the door open. Clarence rushes in, after quickly scanning the interior. The two agents who entered the apartments with him follow on his heals, with the rest of the normal FBI agents behind them, and Wendell going last.

Moving in behind the FBI, I look around. The inside of the building is open from wall to wall. The walls have all been painted black, and then, had magic patterns draw upon the black paint. Since they do not seem to be active, they are more likely formations than sigils. A complex web of steel girders supports the roof, and the appearance of the web seems to be another magic formation. Since, I cannot directly see or sense mana, I cannot be certain of my conclusions.

At ground level, the floor only extends twenty-five or so feet from the walls. The entire center of of the room is a giant square pit. There is a stairway leading down at each of the back corners. I have to move close to the edge of the pit to see its bottom, which is close to one hundred fifty feet below, but that is not what draws my attention. In the center of the pit is a giant cube. Its surface is covered with something that appears to be a linked array of spell patterns. I do not know if it is possible to link so many spell patterns, but if it is not an array of pattern, it must be the most complex spell pattern ever made.

“Mark, what is that thing?” Urehara-sensei's voice is very quiet, but the sound of sheer dread fills it.

“I don't know for sure, but I think its a magic artifact. The complexity of the spell patterns covering its surface is like nothing I've ever seen.”

“So my little toad, you have chosen to cast aside my most benevolent offer. Not only do you dare to spurn me, but you ally yourself with more of your worlds little toads and come to attack me.”

The speaker is a large man in a brown hooded robe, standing behind a block of obsidian. In his hand is a staff taller than himself, with a blood red crystal mounted on top. His heavy build and oiled beard are easily recognizable, even with the robe. Behind him are thirty others, dressed in the same brown robes, with staves in their hands that have smaller red crystals. All of them are standing on spell patterns, almost certainly more formations. They seem more like priests than mages, so they are possibly mediums instead of casters, but it is always hard to be certain, and in the end, they all cast spells.

Wendell looks downward, his empty mask leaving no expression on his face. “We are the FBI. All of you put your hands behind you heads and assume the kneeling position.”

“Why don't you and The Nameless go fuck each other up the ass.”

“YOU DARE! Activate the formations!” Spittle flies from beard's mouth as he screams. It seems like he is easy to provoke.

The crystal on top of the robed figures' staves glow, and one group after another the patterns they are standing on light up. Columns of blue light, with multiple rings of intense violet light moving up and down, surround the ten in the back row. The other two rows are surrounded with columns of light in a variety of colors: red, green, blue, white, violet, orange.

The blue light around the ten in the back flares brightly for a few seconds, and blue energy starts to flow out from the web of steel supporting the walls and roof. In barely more than a couple of seconds, the light covers the ceiling and walls, and then, floods across the floor we are standing on and the empty space in the middle of the building.

The blue energy is slightly slick underfoot, almost like standing on ice. Looking around, I cannot see any break in its coverage. I stab it with the point of my sword,  but it just slides off at an angle, without even raising any sparks from friction. This could be a problem.

“In your crude tongue, these are what you call security measures. I hope you enjoy suffering.” Beard turns to the priests behind him. “Do not kill them, just make them wish they were dead.” The words are hard to distinguish, the barrier seems to be blocking sound to some degree.

Several spell formations on the walls begin to light up, rapidly building into strong lights of varying colors.

“Sensei, get ready to dodge.”

As small holes rapidly open and close over three glowing patterns, small balls of acid, fire and electricity are launched towards us. Clarence and two ordinary FBI agents are the targets. Clarence and one of the agents smoothly step to the side, barely clearing the attacks, but the second agent is hit in the chest by a ball of green acid.

“Fuck! That hurts!” His shout echoes weirdly in the room, probably because of the energy barriers. Quickly wiping off the acid that spattered on his face, the agent tears off his armor vest and gloves, dropping them to the floor.

“Shoot those fucking things!” Clarence's bellow galvanize the FBI agents into action, and they start shoot at the spell formations launching the spells.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Brrraaappp!

Brrraaappp!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Brrraaappp!

Bullets strike sparks off the walls, while the spells are fired, but there is no visible damage. Less than a minute has passed, before two of the spell formations that were hit begin to glow again.

“Aaaaahhhhh!” Another  of the FBI agents screams, as he is hit by a ball of electricity and falls to the ground twitching. A few seconds later, he rolls to his stomach and rises unsteadily to his feet.

A malicious laugh is faintly audible from below. “You are already having so much trouble, and those spells were not even a tenth of the power or size that can be created by those formations. What will you do, if I decide to kill you?”

“Sensei.” I gesture towards the nearest stairs, and he nods.

The spell formations are only shooting three or four spells at a time, and we easily avoid the attacks targeting us, as we move to the stairs.

Holding my sword, with both hands wrapped around the hilt, I fill it with ki. Unlike Urehara-sensei, I have an aversion to fire. A colorless shimmer of pure kinetic force wraps my sword, and I drive it into the blue energy. The point does not slide like last time, and silvery sparks fountain upward. Ripples spread outward from the point of impact, before reversing. The surface of the blue energy is smooth and serene, like it was before I struck it.

Below, most of the priests, including Beard, are staring up at me, with shocked expressions.

Channeling as much ki as my body can withstand, I drive my blade into the barrier again, with a similar result, covering a larger area.

If anything, the eyes of the priests are even wider. Beard turns to the priests behind him and says something I cannot hear. Immediately, the columns of light around them flare brighter.

“Mark!”

I spin around, when Urehara-sensei calls my name. There are twenty spell formations on the wall flaring brightly. I wait for the spells to be launched, before diving to the side. The spells are several time larger, and violent explosions of energy and acid spray in all directions from the point of impact.