novelraw Chapter 120: The Backdoor
Chapter 120: The Backdoor
The skies buzzed with activity.
“Mistress, mistress, more bugs!” Soumis called out upon spotting them. Victoire looked to her left and quickly noticed a group of Brood-type wasps the size of eagles flying in a small squadron. The creature charged towards the heart of the jungle in a V-formation faster than the wind.
“Fire in the hole,” Victoire ordered, her dragon mount roaring and unleashing a torrent of fire in their direction.
The Brood wasps quickly retaliated by firing poisonous stingers aimed straight at Victoire in an attempt to dismount her. Flames consumed them long before they reached her, then incinerated one of the wasps. The rest quickly retreated back towards the horizon upon realizing they were outmatched.
In fact, they ran far too easily…
“Victory!” Soumis boasted as he prepared to give chase, only for Victoire to reel him in. “Mistress?”
“They’re baiting us,” Victoire said. “They’re trying to lure us away from the perimeter.”
“Agreed,” her god replied through telepathy. “Do not give pursuit. Fire from afar.”
Victoire had Soumis unleash fireballs at long range without following the swarm. They quickly dispersed rather than return upon realizing their ruse had fallen through, though she knew they would in time, and in greater numbers.
Victoire had been keeping watch over the area around Thoon’s ship for hours, during which she and Soumis had to fend off six Brood groups, not counting this one. That was twice yesterday’s number, and she suspected more attacks would follow in the coming night. Thankfully, she saw Jarlack and his wyvern crew approaching from the east to take up the watch.
“We’ll take over from here, Lass,” the giant said when his mount crossed paths with Soumis. “You may rest easy!”
“You’re here early, Jarlack,” Victoire mused. “Doing some overtime?”
“Well, got a third mouth to feed and a fourth on the way!” Jarlack gave her a crooked smile. “Still up to be the new pup’s godmother?”
“Always.” Of course, Victoire knew that Jarlack had picked her up for the task because she wouldn’t ask for a fee like giants usually did for the ‘honor,’ but she didn’t mind. Jarlack had already chosen Lord Wepwawet as the first child’s godfather since the title was rather appropriate.
“And I intend to set the girl straight so she grows into a responsible young woman!” Lord Wepwawet commented through telepathy. “Spoiling a giant never ends well, especially these ones.”
“C-can Soumis become a Dragonfather too?” her mount eagerly asked. “A spoiled newborn minion is like having the most demanding of mistresses…”
“Sure, I can put you on the waiting list for the third, since I still have a freebie to try to get a boy!” Jarlack replied eagerly. “Anyway, gotta earn my keep! See you on the next shift!”
Victoire wished Jarlack luck and had Soumis fly back to Thoon’s lair. The newly awakened lunarians—a small commune of roughly two dozen members—had already unearthed most of their ship. The pyramidal-shaped machine pointed to the sky and the moon from which it came, ready to take off once ready. A few select Champions, like Jasper, carried the blackstone chunks required for the repairs from other settlements nearby without using the same route twice in order to avoid discovery.
The newly awakened lunarians were quite the respectful, ascetic lot, alternating between repairing their ship, meditation, playing strategy games, and reading what literature the Champions brought to them. Thoon had explained that lunarians had a physical need for constant intellectual stimulation when not in hibernation, especially without slaves to mentally dominate. They were obsessively clean on top of that, as if they had a subconscious desire to organize their environment. It made them quite the efficient workers, if stressful to deal with sometimes.
Victoire quickly spotted Thoon near the entrance threshold in the company of Zhang, the ‘naga sifu’ who had fought by her side during the Hastur Incursion, and a blue spider the size of a dog. The creature had eight red eyes, two on each side and four at the center in a lozenge formation, its legs holding a tea cup while it sipped the liquid with its mandibles. It was quite the surreal sight.
“Young Victoire, young Soumis,” Zhang greeted her once she stepped down from her mount. “Come join us. We were about to begin a round of guided meditation before young Crafty’s mission.”
“Maybe another time,” Victoire replied, not being too much into meditation. “I would love a cup of tea, though.”
“You seem concerned,” Thoon said. Even with the crown shielding Victoire’s mind, the lunarian seemed almost supernaturally aware of others’ emotions.
“The nearby Brood hive is sending more and more scouts our way,” Victoire warned the lunarian. “They know we’re trying to keep this area off limits, which increases their curiosity. They’ll keep sending more creatures to investigate.”
“These bugs are awful,” Soumis complained. “Soumis can’t eat them without having indigestion, they don’t make good minions, and they keep trying to steal his lunch!”
“They are most troubling creatures, I will agree,” Zhang said. “I used to believe all beasts had a place in the natural order, but I cannot see this Brood as anything else but evil incarnate. These creatures are smarter than most monsters, but driven entirely by the instinct to spread and reproduce with no forethought.”
“They will likely drive themselves to extinction should they run out of hosts to parasitize,” Thoon noted. “My own brainjackers cannot penetrate their outer shells either, and telepathic attacks are ineffective. We would be hard-pressed to repel a head-on attack.”
“True… the Brood would be highly effective at wiping out lunarians too…” Victoire stroked her chin. “This feels intentional.”
“If what you said is true, then these ‘Titans’ seek the extermination of all life. I would assume this includes my brethren.” Thoon’s only eye blinked a few times. Victoire had gathered that it was body language that showed confusion. “I find it hard to fathom that the Overmind would let itself be so easily deceived by this Beelzebub, no matter what gifts he may have given in return for this alliance.”
“We should be able to learn more soon, should our current infiltration plan succeed, but I fear we won’t be able to keep this place’s existence a secret for much longer,” Victoire warned. “If the Brood and lunarians can coordinate, as we suspect them to be able to, it’s only a matter of time before the enemy learns of this place. It’ll only take one undetected hive drone to report its existence.”
Thoon pondered her words before answering. “Our ship possesses defensive weapons that can repel creatures like the Brood, but the Overmind will likely send warships should it learn of our existence. Our Kinhood’s knowledge and technology is too great a danger to them.”
“We’ll prepare for a siege should it come to it,” Lord Wepwawet whispered in Victoire’s mind, with Thoon raising his head upon eavesdropping. “In the meantime, discretion is key.”
Victoire nodded and then turned to the spider, who would have the most difficult task ahead. “Crafty, is it? I don’t think I’ve ever heard your name before today.”
“I wouldn’t be doing my job well if you did, ma’am,” the spider replied in an articulated variant of the Shadazar language. A blackstone ring glittered on one of his many legs. “I used dark elf catspaws back when I worked as a spy for hire for Shadazar’s noble houses. I was so good at pitting them against each other that Mr. Anansi gave me the title of Crafty, the Craftier Spider, when we signed that exclusive Champion employment contract.”
“He’s some sort of Spider-Jarlack,” Lord Wepwawet said, “but cheaper and poisonous.”
“And… how did a sentient, talking spider end up becoming a spy for hire?” Victoire raised an eyebrow. “Actually, how can you talk at all?”
“Can’t say, ma’am. My mysterious backstory is part of my professional mystique.”
“Fair enough. Are you ready?”
“Always.” Crafty scratched his left mandible. “I’m so very nervous, though. I’ve never traveled so far away on a mission.”
“Empty your mind, young spider,” Zhang suggested. “Remember our breathing exercises.”
“I have not been able to sense your mental presence, so the ring should protect you from telepathic detection,” Thoon reassured the spider. “My kind relies too much on its telepathy, and I do not think the Overmind will expect an infiltration of Lune. Surprise will be on your side.”
“Only our god’s Panopticon could pierce through your invisibility effect too, or so I’m told,” Victoire added. “I doubt Beelzebub will have a copy of it, so you should be fine so long as you stick to observation.”
“If this ‘Citystep’ ability of yours works, I could lead an assault on the Gravitational Engine the Overmind uses to bring down the blackstone bombardments,” Thoon said. “At least the one on Lune.”
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That was the part that bothered Victoire the most. “So it is confirmed? There’s another such device on the other moon?”
“The calculations your astronomers shared with us would point that way. The moons are moving too fast towards each other.” Thoon slurped the tea through his own mandibles. “Destroying one of the generators will weaken the blackstone bombardments, but won’t stop them, and the smaller moon has neither a lighthouse to access it, nor a city you could teleport to.”
“So we’ll need ships.” Victoire sighed. “Quite the difficult proposition.”
“Soumis could fly there,” Soumis said. “Mistress Victoire would have to hold her breath, though.”
“Soumis, don’t be ridic–” Victoire held her breath. “On second thought, I’m not going to question that.”
She had seen dragons do too many stupid things to tempt fate again.
Name
Thoon, Enlightened Lunarian
Type
Bug/Alien
Rank
Commander 11
Class
Lunarian 1 (Monster), Agastya 10 (Spellcaster)
Faction
Sun Wukong
Movement
Walk/Swim/Burrow
Strength
Agility
Vitality
Skill
43
41
45
21
Magic
Intelligence
Charisma
Luck
43
64
53
46
Accuracy
+33+11
Evasion
+43+11
Innate Perk: Lunarian Omnipath
Immune to Frost and Darkness, Resists Mind and mental ailments. Can mentally Charm or Confuse anyone within a ten-meter radius (this is a Mind effect). Gains a bonus to Accuracy and Evasion equal to their character Rank.
Parasite Factory I
Thought Barrage IV
You can produce a set of brainjacking parasites equal to your character rank each day. These parasites are under your telepathic control and can communicate with you regardless of distance. You can have a maximum number of parasites under your control equal to your Intelligence score.
Can target any individual within a hundred-meter line with a barrage of psychic energy, inflicting massive Mind damage; targets with a lesser CHA than you are immediately inflicted with a Madness effect, otherwise they have a 30% chance of being Stunned. Cooldown: one minute.
Enlightened Leadership IV
The Spirit of All Things III
Grants a +8 Damage bonus to all allies within range and reduces damage taken by 8. Additionally, allies within a ten-meter radius are immune to Mind-affecting Ailments
You can grant Haste, Damage Reduction, Regen, and Auto-Life to all allies within ten meters for ten minutes. Cooldown: one minute.
“Jealous?” Sun Wukong commented as he, Wepwawet, and Anansi met in a shared realm of Influence.
“A bit,” Wepwawet admitted. He had tried to convince the lunarian to join his Champions, but he had selected Sun Wukong due to their shared philosophies. “Thoon is a massive force multiplier between the buffs and attack power.”
“Meh, it only takes a single blackstone ring to neuter those critters,” Anansi mocked. “A troop armed with them would make mincemeat out of these lunarians.”
“You’re fond of tempting fate, aren’t you?” Sun Wukong crossed his arms. “Neutralizing their telepathy is only half the battle. The bugbrains also pack a wallop when it comes to tech.”
While Wepwawet agreed with Sun Wukong’s warning about not underestimating their enemies, Anansi had a point. The fact that their blackstone rings blocked lunarian telepathy would provide a keen edge in the battle to come.
“I’ve taught your Crafty Champion the Citystep Perk,” Wepwawet said as he expelled the spider from his Champions and let Anansi recover him. The spider had walked back to a small scalefolk settlement under Artemis’ purview, since Citystep required a, well, city to work in. “Are you sure your False Flag Miracle will keep Beelzecuck from noticing him?”
Thankfully the System hadn’t penalized temporary Champion transfers for the purpose of teaching them Revelation Perks. Wepwawet had the feeling it would be different should they try to game Quests with it, but for now, they were happy to take what they could without tempting fate.
“Well, you haven’t found the ones I planted in your capital, have you?” Wepwawet glared at his ‘ally.’ “I’m kidding! I tell you, it’s foolproof! It lets me register a given Champion as belonging to another faction when it comes to the System, so Crafty won’t trigger a warning when entering the bug’s Influence. He can’t even be targeted by Miracles that would compel him to obey.”
“My Snake Talisman will grant the spiderling constant invisibility on top of enhanced stealth,” Sun Wukong added. “He’s as prepared as he will ever be.”
“Crafty is my best spy, and he’s a professional,” Anansi insisted. “He has 4 Ninja Ranks on top of his native spiderling abilities. He’s undetectable. Un-de-te-cta-ble.”
“I’m still sore you got ninjas before I did,” Sun Wukong complained. “I feel like my civ should have been the first to unlock that Class.”
“Guys, let’s focus,” Wepwawet reminded them. “We’ve confirmed that the lighthouse in Narc still works, and since Artemis’ Altar is there, this should create an ‘indirect connection’ between Crafty’s current location and Lune. Thoon also provided the address of the Overmind’s reliquary, so that covers the other requirement. All it’ll take is for your Champion to focus on it, Anansi, and he’ll teleport directly at the enemy’s front door.”
“Relax, I’ll take care of everything.” Anansi waved his hand and manifested a screen showing the world through his Champion’s eyes. The spiderling had already activated his snake talisman to turn invisible. “One, two–”
The screen quickly changed from a view of Artemis’ Altar to an alien landscape.
Crafty’s multiple eyes provided him with an all-around sense of sight covering multiple angles, so the gods were soon greeted with a very accurate view of a massive city under a black starry sky dominated by Elphion. The city of Lune was unlike any other on the surface, with colossal blackstone walls and columns supporting breathing mushroom towers, bridges of pulsating nerve-flesh, and mechanical factories unlike anything Elphion’s people had ever built. Wepwawet would estimate its size as the same as Lavaland’s capital, Salamandra, when it came to diameters, with the settlement’s limit being the edge of the crater within which it was housed.
However, Crafty’s eyes also spotted dark depths below his current position. Layers upon layers of constructions stretched below in a dense web of roads and mines stretching deep inside the moon’s outer shell. It seemed the lunarians elected to dig their way down to gain more space rather than expand beyond the crater.
“Success!” Anansi boasted.
“I can’t believe it worked!” Sun Wukong whistled before transferring some mana he had bet to Wepwawet. “You earned that fair and square.”
“Thank you,” Wepwawet replied. “It doesn’t sound like your Champion triggered an alarm either.”
“I told you, undetectable!” Anansi grinned mischievously. “Now we can send an army inside the walls.”
“Only Champions, and only to known addresses,” Wepwawet countered while stroking his chin. “We’ll still need spaceships to access the other moon, but now we could have Epona summon her teleporting sword inside the city if we play our cards right… maybe my Castle Neigebleue too.”
“Doesn’t Ganesha have a colosseum Wonder too?” Sun Wulong asked. “I think he has one. We could stuff the arena with soldiers and have Ganesha summon it on top of a Champion inside Lune. Sure, it’ll kill him, but it would both damage the city and let us transport troops.”
Wepwawet nodded sharply. Citystep was truly a game-changer for their strategy.
They would have a few limits to work around, however. First of all, Anansi’s False Flag Doctrine only applied to his Champions, so any other god’s troops would be immediately noticed; second, Citystep required an indirect connection between cities to work, in this case, the Lighthouse teleportation network. The Perk would stop working should the lunarian Overmind decide to shut it down, which it would immediately do once it noticed an intrusion.
In short, the initial force they sent would be stranded on Lune with no way out and limited options for reinforcements, and they could only pull off such an assault once.
“Is your Champion alright?” Sun Wukong asked Anansi.
“He tells me he feels a bit winded from the thin air, but he has survived worse,” Anansi replied. “He owes me a big favor after I helped him take down that rival raccoon crime boss that kept interfering with his spy network, so he’ll behave.”
Sun Wukong turned his head at the spider, blinking a few times. “You can’t drop something like that without elaborating. I feel cheated.”
“Guys, focus!” Wepwawet set them straight. “Anansi, tell your Champion to go on a mapping recon. We need to update our city plan intel.”
The trio of gods continued to observe the world through Crafty’s eyes as he climbed down the smooth blackstone surface of a massive spire that fit Thoon’s description of the Overmind’s reliquary. The city’s landmarks hadn’t changed much over the centuries since the Winter Age, though it had grown in size and depth.
The place was positively crawling with lunarians and their parasites, who occupied most of the city’s upper levels. Spaceships filled with docked flying saucers like the one Wepwawet destroyed in Promesse took up most of Lune’s elevated points.
The city’s depths, however, were the realm of brainwashed slaves under the command of parasites taking over their minds. Humans, werelings, elves, demons… all of Elphion’s ethnicities save the magmorians were represented there, digging pits to extract blackstone, transporting machinery into factories, and carrying lunarian overlords too good to walk on their backs. Some of these servants had undergone physical mutations, like werelions with four arms or scalelings with exoskeletons meshed to their flesh. Highly advanced blackstone golems with cannons for arms oversaw the slaves like cruel living taskmasters.
“That’s a lot of slaves,” Sun Wukong commented.
“Some look equipped for battle, and they have golems too,” Wepwawet noted grimly. Thoon estimated lunarians each kept ten to twenty slaves each, but Lune had clearly increased the number of workers to fuel its war effort. “Beelzebub will likely repurpose them into cannon fodder should Lune fall under attack.”
“Speaking of the fly, look.” Anansi pointed at a point on the left of the screen. “Do you see that?”
Wepwawet’s eyes widened with excitement when he noticed it too: a colossal statue of a flylike monster atop a spire in the city center, overlooking all of Lune and Elphion above. The flow of mana swirling around it left no place for interpretation.
They had finally found Beelzecuck’s Idol.
“Boys…” Wepwawet cracked his knuckles. “Time to bring out the flyswatter.”
He could smell that sweet revenge in the air already.