Chapter Eighteen
The sky bled into a bruise of deep violet and pink; it was the final warning that dusk was fast approaching.
Siurad and Yona crested the final hill, their new black armor absorbing the dying light rather than reflecting it. Below them sat the town.
“Is that it?” Siurad asked, wiping sweat from his brow. “Finally. I have never done this much walking in my entire life.”
“Aw, I'm sorry,” Yona cooed, her voice dripping with mock sympathy. “Are your poor wittle feetsies bothering you again, Big Guy? Should I get you a carriage?”
'...DO NOT BE SOFT,' Obi pulsed, his mental voice sharp and cold. '...BIPEDAL LOCOMOTION IS BASIC. YOUR FATIGUE IS EMBARRASSING.'
“Wow,” Siurad muttered, staring at the ring. “You know what? Fuck both of you.”
He shook his head and focused on the town below. It was eerily quiet. No smoke rose from the chimneys. No dogs barked. The layout looked strange, like it was too organized.
'...I DETECT A RESONANCE.'
A resonance? Siurad thought back.
'...SOMETHING FAMILIAR. IT IS OF THE VOID. BUT NOT. IT IS ATTUNED.'
"Speak English, man," Siurad muttered aloud.
"What's going on?" Yona asked, sensing the sudden change in his demeanor.
Obi’s presence expanded. The temperature dropped, and a strange sensation went through Siurad. It was like a slow drain.
What are you doing?
'...THE SIGNATURE IS FROM THE VAULT.'
"What vault? Getting an answer out of you is like pulling teeth," Siurad hissed.
"Let me know something, Big Guy," Yona said, her gaze falling upon the ring.
'...WHEN THE VAULT WAS BREACHED AND NETHYUA WAS FREED, HE SCATTERED THE COLLECTION. ARTIFACTS, MERE TRINKETS, AND HEDGE WIZARDS—THIS WORLD'S BOUND GODS.'
"So someone named Nethyua was freed, and a bunch of stuff got out with him?" Siurad asked.
Yona stopped smiling. "Nethyua?" she whispered.
'...I WAS RELEASED AS WELL, ALONG WITH THIS... MASK. IT IS THE MASK OF THE CHORUS. IT DOES NOT POSSESS ONE; IT CONNECTS MANY. IT ERASES INDIVIDUALITY. IT CRAFTS PERFECT, MINDLESS ORDER. IT IS A PERVERSION OF MY DESIGN. WE MUST CORRECT IT.'
"Do you know who Nethyua is?" Siurad asked.
The change was small, but Siurad caught it. Her ears went still. Her fingers rested lightly near the knife at her hip. For once, Yona did not immediately make a joke.
"The Great Calamity," she said quietly. "Started a whole continent’s worth of shit centuries ago, got sealed, and apparently didn’t stay sealed. If your charming jewelry thinks this is connected to him, that changes the math."
Siurad frowned. "Bad math?"
"The kind where everyone dies if somebody carries the one wrong."
'...NETHYUA IS A PETULANT CHILD. THE MASK IS ATTUNED TO THE VOID. THAT IS THE PRIZE.'
"He says Nethyua is just a kid, but we need to get the mask," Siurad relayed.
Yona blinked, then whistled. The fear slowly drained from her face, replaced by something almost gleeful. "Huh." She looked at the Ring with new respect. "Nethyua's been called a lot of things. Child isn't one of them." A grin crept back. "If the thing in your finger thinks the Great Calamity is a toddler, then maybe the math's on our side for once."
The ring pulsed with a greedy gravity.
'...IF WE CLAIM THE MASK, I CAN METABOLIZE IT.'
"Wait, you want to eat it?" Siurad asked, utterly baffled.
"Okay," Yona said. "Didn't have deity cannibals on the agenda today."
The ring pulsed harder. A chilling wave rolled through the area.
'...I AM NOT A TRINKET. BE SURE SHE DOES NOT MAKE THAT MISTAKE AGAIN.'
"Yona, chill out a bit. He definitely didn't like that. Says they are not the same," Siurad cautioned.
'...WITH THE MASK I CAN INCREASE YOUR CAPACITY.'
Siurad paused. Increase capacity.
He thought about the fight with the Grief-Mares. How he had run dry of mana and had to beat a monster to death with a rock. He thought about how helpless he felt when the tank ran empty. If this artifact could deepen his well... if it could make him a better Shepherd...
"Back with the Grief-Mares, I bottomed out," Siurad said. "I used a few spells, teleported a couple of times, and I was dry. If this town, Unity, is full of possessed villagers, I can't run out of gas halfway through. How do we fix the tank?"
'...THE PROBLEM IS NOT THE TANK. YOU ARE A LEAKY, UNREFINED BUCKET. I AM CONFINED TO THE RING. MY REACH IS REDUCED. YOUR REACH IS NEGLIGIBLE.'
"Thanks, Obi," Siurad sighed.
'...THE MASK WILL NOT FIX YOUR PROBLEM, BUT IT WILL ASSIST IN YOUR INEPTITUDE.'
Siurad nodded slowly. An extra mana bar. An external hard drive for violence.
"So we eat the Mask," Siurad said. "We upgrade the battery. I can live with that."
“So what's the plan?” Siurad asked, his voice dropping to a whisper. “It's a hive mind. One set of eyes sees us; they all see us. If we get spotted, we get swarmed. I suggest we wait. We go in at the dead of night.”
Yona adjusted her daggers, her eyes scanning the perimeter like a hawk.
“Maybe, Shepherd,” she said, dropping into a crouch. “But we're walking in blind. I think I should scope out the town first alone. I'm quieter than you. We gotta know what we're dealing with before we start kicking down doors.”
“Yona, I know you mean well,” Siurad said, crossing his massive arms over his chest plate. “But that is incredibly stupid.”
He gestured to the silent, creepy town below.
“When we split up, you know what’s going to happen. One of us will die. Or get brainwashed. Or eaten. It makes no sense to split the party in a horror movie. That’s how the guy in the varsity jacket always gets it.”
Yona rolled her eyes, sheathing her dagger with a sharp click. She stepped up to him, poking a gloved finger against his heavy black pauldron.
“You are as subtle as an explosion, Shepherd,” she countered, her voice hushed but sharp.
“Look at you. You’re a six-foot-four wall of black steel and angst. We’ll be caught immediately, and we’ll never get to the bottom of this if we just walk right into the middle of town holding hands.”
Siurad opened his mouth to argue, but a cold vibration buzzed against his knuckle.
'...TOO MUCH' TIME IS WASTED,' Obi interrupted, the mental voice vibrating with impatience.
'...THE FOX-WITCH HAS A POINT. YOUR STEALTH CAPABILITY IS NEGLIGIBLE. SHE IS A SCALPEL. YOU ARE A BRICK.'
Siurad rubbed his temples for a moment, savoring the headache. She had a point, but so did he. He had seen enough movies to know how this would end up. The scout goes in, the comms go dead, and then he has to go in anyway to find a body.
But he also knew he clanked when he walked.
“Fine,” Siurad groaned, dropping his hand. “Okay. You go in scouting.”
He leaned in, his expression deadly serious.
“But if anyone sees you, or if they even seem like they might know you're there… you abort. You shoot a massive fireball in the sky.”
"And then," Siurad added, his face completely deadpan. "You do the Emphysema Chicken."
Yona blinked. The confidence vanished, replaced by genuine confusion. “The Emphe-what?”
Then, the memory of the Kel's Camp raid hit her. She scowled.
“Oh, my god. You mean the Owl? It was a Tactical Nightbird Call, Siurad. It was cold out!”
“It sounded like a dying rooster, Yona. Just do it.”
“I hate you,” she muttered, pulling her cowl up. “Don’t worry, Big Guy. I’ll be a ghost. You stay here and try not to look so… heavy.”
She turned and melted into the tree line. One second she was there, the next she was just a shadow among shadows.
Siurad stood alone on the ridge.
'...THE SIGNAL WAS POULTRY?' Obi asked, his mental tone rippling with confusion.
“Don't ask, Obi. Just watch the perimeter.”
Yona moved through the tree line like a tiger, low and stalking. She didn't just walk; she flowed, testing every patch of moss for crunch before committing her weight.
The town below was quiet, but not silent. It was the wrong kind of quiet. There was no laughter, no arguments, no tavern music. Just the rhythmic, muffled thud of work.
Yona reached the edge of the tree line and spotted a small brick structure, it was an old tannery, by the smell of it. It looked vacant. She scaled the ladder to the balcony with practiced ease, the leather of her boots making less noise than the wind.
The sun was setting fast. The bruised pink of the horizon was giving way to a suffocating black.
Now… where are you hiding the good stuff? she thought, scanning the streets.
She pirouetted from the balcony to the adjacent roof, landing in a crouch. She was about to move again when a sound stopped her.
Clomp. Clomp. Clomp.
It was the sound of footsteps, but they were perfectly synchronized.
If I were a creep, where would I… Ooh, that’s interesting.
Fifteen people rounded the corner below. They looked like townsfolk, but they moved like soldiers on a parade ground. They were carrying massive blocks of stone, their breathing regulated in a terrifying unison.
“Now, now… not so fast,” Yona whispered, her eyes tracking them.
She dropped from the roof, sticking to the shadowy throughways between homes. As she shadowed the group closer to the center of town, the rhythmic thudding grew louder.
It was a worksite.
There was a massive contraption, equal parts altar and machine, was being erected in the town square. Yona peered around a chimney, her eyes widening. There were roughly two hundred people in the congregation.
It wasn’t just farmers. She saw mages, soldiers, and adventurers, all wearing the same vacant, slack-jawed expression.
A fire mage held a metal beam, his hands glowing white-hot as he bent the steel with his bare hands, serving as a human forge. Nearby, soldiers were using their fine steel swords and battleaxes as pickaxes, hacking into the cobblestones. Some of them were bleeding; one man was limping on a broken ankle. But none of them slowed down.
“Pretty potent mind control,” Yona muttered, a mercenary spark lighting up her eyes. “I’m going to get a lot of loot out of this.”
A sly grin crept over her face like a storm on the horizon. Just when she thought she’d seen enough, the doors to the Town Hall burst open.
Two figures emerged.
One was a man clad in blue robes, a glowing ivory mask fixed to his face. The other was a mountainous Orc, his chest heaving. A massive gauntlet was fused to the Orc’s right arm, glowing a deep, resonant cerulean.
Yona squinted, trying to make sense of the limb. From her vantage point, it looked like thick tubing connected the gauntlet to the Orc’s bicep.The way the tubes seemed to throb with the Orc’s heartbeat made her skin crawl.
They stopped near the construction site, their voices carrying in the eerie silence.
“Chorus, my Lord,” the Orc rasped, clutching his arm as if it were burning him. “You promised me power. This gauntlet… it is cursed. It eats at me.”
The masked figure didn't look at him. He looked at the construction.
“Mao, my child,” Chorus said, his voice smooth and terrible. “Power always has a price. You are simply paying the deposit.”
“But my Lord,” Mao pleaded, his voice cracking. “I found you. Without me, you would still be rotting in the dirt.”
Chorus turned his masked face slowly toward the Orc.
“And for your good deeds, you have not been made part of the brood,” Chorus said, his voice dropping an octave. “DO NOT MAKE ME RECONSIDER.”
The conversation ended swiftly. The Orc grabbed his arm, his fingers digging into the flesh as he looked down at the gauntlet. The blue pulsing beneath the skin seemed to quicken, matching his panic.
“Yes, my Lord,” Mao whispered. “A few more days. When we finish construction, you will have enough souls to complete the soul siphon.”
Okay, Yona thought, shrinking back into the shadows. That’s the cue.
She had enough intel. There was a soul siphon, a mind-controlled army, and two bosses who clearly had workplace morale issues. The plan was simple: rob them blind, rendezvous with Siurad, and then come back to take care of this masked bastard.
But the sheer density of the crowd meant this had to remain a stealth mission.
Slow and steady, she told herself. Don't wake the hive.
She retraced her steps, moving backward along the alleyway, her eyes locked on Chorus and Mao to ensure they didn't spot her. She was so focused on the threat in front of her that she didn't hear the threat behind her.
She stepped out of the alley and backed right into a solid wall of bodies.
Yona froze. She didn't turn around immediately. She felt the air shift.
The construction noise stopped. Instantly.
Yona turned slowly.
Another group of townsfolk had just rounded the corner, carrying heavy stone blocks. They had stopped in perfect harmony. Thirty sets of eyes landed on her at the exact same moment.
Then, silence.
The clinking of hammers, the sizzling of the fire mage, the digging, it all ceased. The only sound left in the square was the perfect, synchronized inhale of two hundred people breathing as one organism.
“A visitor,” the crowd spoke.
The sound didn't come from one person; it came from everywhere. It vibrated in the cobblestones.
“Oh, shit…” Yona breathed.
She spun on her heel to bolt.
Mao, despite his massive size, moved with terrifying speed. There was a boom of displaced air, and suddenly, the Orc was blocking her exit, towering over her.
Up close, the horror of the gauntlet was undeniable. It wasn't connected by glass tubes or machinery. It was biological. A bulbous, throbbing mass of translucent blue veins had grown out of the metal, burrowing deep into the Orc's bicep like parasitic worms.
Mao raised the fist, the veins glowing bright.
“Well, I tried,” Yona quipped.
She snapped her fingers. A jagged spike of glacial ice erupted from the ground, aiming for Mao’s face. At the same instant, she slammed her palms together, blasting a gust of wind downward to launch herself backward onto the roof.
Mao smashed the ice spike with a backhand, but Yona was already airborne.
She landed on the slate tiles, stumbling but upright. She looked at Mao before she raised both palms toward the fading sky, her mana flaring hot and bright.
“Hellfire,” she whispered.
BOOM.
A spiraling column of emerald flame erupted from her hands. It screamed into the night sky, tearing through the clouds and detonating with a thunderous force that shook the entire valley.
Yona grinned, her daggers flashing as she looked down at the army turning to face her.
“Alright, Brick,” she shouted over the roar of the flames. “Let’s get this show on the road!”
The caustic green afterglow of the Hellfire signal was still fading from the sky when Mao moved.
The Orc lowered his shoulder and charged through the front facade of the bakery Yona was standing on.
The building groaned, then buckled.
Timber snapped like dry kindling. The roof tilted violently beneath Yona’s feet. A lesser rogue would have fallen, but Yona treated gravity as a suggestion rather than a law. As the slate tiles slid away into the dust cloud below, she sprinted up the collapsing angle.
She launched herself off the crumbling chimney, flipping through the air.
“You’re loud!” Yona shouted, spinning mid-air. “Has anyone ever told you you’re loud?”
She landed light as a feather on the cobblestones behind Mao, who was shaking brick dust off his massive shoulders.
Mao roared, spinning with a backhand swing that would have decapitated a horse. The vein-covered gauntlet trailed blue light, humming with kinetic energy.
Yona ducked.
The fist passed inches over her head, the wind pressure snapping her cowl back. In that split second, she saw the opening. The gauntlet was powerful, but the connection point:where the blue veins burrowed into the Orc’s flesh, was raw and inflamed.
There.
She lunged. Dual daggers flashed in the twilight.
Snick. Snick.
She slashed in an ‘X’ pattern across the Orc’s bicep, aiming for the transition between metal and meat.
Mao howled in pain. He stumbled back, clutching the arm. The blue veins pulsed erratically, leaking glowing fluid onto the street.
“Does that hurt?” Yona taunted, dancing back out of reach. She twirled a dagger, ice crystals forming on the blade. “That looks like it hurts. You should really see a healer.”
Mao’s eyes went red. He slammed the gauntlet into the ground.
THOOM.
A shockwave of blue force ripped through the pavement. This time, Yona was ready. She slammed her hand down, creating a ramp of ice. She slid up it like a skater, launching herself over the shockwave and driving a boot straight into Mao’s face.
The Orc staggered.
For a moment, it was a stalemate. Yona was faster, sharper, and hitting harder. Mao however was a tank.
From the steps of the Town Hall, the floating figure of Chorus tilted his head. The porcelain mask caught the light of the burning bakery.
“Disappointing,” Chorus whispered.
He twitched a finger, like a conductor cueing the brass section.
“Integration,” the Hive Mind spoke.
Yona felt the hair on her arms stand up, there was a sudden shift in atmospheric pressure.
To her left, the fire mage who had been welding steel turned. He extended a hand. A stream of white-hot flame erupted toward her.
Yona cursed, abandoning her attack on Mao to roll sideways. The fire scorched the cobblestones where she had been standing a second ago.
“Cheap shot!” she yelled.
She scrambled to her feet, but the rhythm of the fight had broken.
Three adventurers, one a ranger and two heavily armored knights, stepped out of the circle. They moved with the same terrifying synchronization. The ranger drew a bow, nocking three arrows at once. The knights leveled their lances.
Yona deflected the first arrow with a dagger, but the second grazed her shoulder, tearing through her cloak.
“Okay,” she hissed, wincing. “That’s cheating.”
She looked for an exit, but the circle had tightened. Two hundred villagers had taken a step forward, closing the net.
Mao, recovering his balance, grinned. The blue light in his gauntlet flared brighter as the pain faded, suppressed by the Hive Mind’s dulling influence.
“Nowhere to run, little one,” Mao rasped.
He charged again.
Yona jumped, preparing to use wind magic to vault over him, but a sudden heaviness slammed into her chest. A gravity spell. She looked up to see a mage in the crowd.
Her jump failed. She dropped like a stone.
She hit the ground hard, rolling just in time to avoid Mao’s boot stomping on her ribs. She scrambled back, but her back hit the stone rim of the fountain.
She was cornered.
Mao loomed over her, raising the gauntlet high. The mages charged their spells. The archers drew back their strings.
“Brood,” Chorus commanded. “Crush her.”
Yona gripped her daggers, her breath coming in ragged gasps. She looked at the descending fist of the Orc and the wall of magic aimed at her face.
Well, she thought, a grim smile touching her lips. At least it’ll be spectacular.