Discordant Note | TBATE

Chapter 127: Scars

Toren Daen

I squinted at the base of Mount Coreshen, not far off in the distance. "You said Mardeth's base was along the base of that mountain," I said to Mawar, who was crouched at my side. "Is it veiled somehow? Covered in an illusion we can't sense?"

Even as the churning flow of the Redwater coursed along our side, I was unable to spot anything remotely resembling a base along the edge.

Mawar tapped her foot, then looked down. "In the canyons ahead," she said. "From what my reports told me, there's an entire network of bases down below. All dedicated to the vicar's research."

I furrowed my brow, looking up at the avian construct circling above. Sensing my unspoken request, Aurora directed her puppet through the setting sky.

The steampunk sparrow wheeled high above, the wings level with Mount Coreshen itself. I see what the retainer speaks of, Aurora transmitted over our bond. An interlocking web of scurrying rats far below. Come and see.

I reached my hand out, brushing my hand against the veins. As I did so, I thought of the experiments Sevren and I had done with such similar cords of condensed energy. I wasn't able to influence those tethers much at all, and I got the sense that was due to the Relictombs themselves rejecting my touch. But these?

Before I could contemplate the possibilities further, images of what Aurora's puppet was perceiving streamed into my head. An eagle-eyed view from the sky slowly overlapped my own sight.

I didn't grow nauseous as I once had. Instead, I focused my perception on the construct. The shattered earth opened up before my eyes, revealing the land in its splendor.

From on high, I truly understood this place as a massive battlefield. On the ground, the canyons looked like naturally-weathered divots snaking their way through the earth at random. The Redwater was simply another river, even if it was toxic and crimson.

Yet from this new perspective, a pattern emerged. Canyons and chasms became straight cuts of spellfire arcing into the land. A hundred and one cuts gouged the miles of earth all around, an age-old battle presenting itself to my eyes. The land looked like a body that had been whipped relentlessly; scars stretching across a sedimentary back. Only one wound still bled red lifeblood: the Redwater, stretching far off into the northwest from whence we came.

This land was a barren corpse.

An asura died here, I thought headily. And these are the signs of their final struggle.

Indeed, Aurora's stern mind said, brushing my own. But that is inconsequential now. Look near the river. See into the chasms.

My vision sharpened under Aurora's touch. My eyes pierced the gloom with lazer-point precision, cutting straight into the deep scars through the rock. And I saw it there.

Along many of the canyon walls, metal platforms were bolted to the walls. Dark, indistinct forms darted all along their lengths like scurrying ants carrying out a mission for their queen. A sense of stale death emanated from the depths.

Found you, I thought, grinning maliciously.

I withdrew my hands from the incorporeal veins, my hands tingling where my lifeforce intermingled with that highway of energy.

"They're up that way in the canyons," I said quietly, pointing a bit to the south. "We need to be careful as we approach."

Sevren nodded, then clicked a button on his little cube. I felt something in the ambient mana shift, then his mana presence vanished like a puff of wind. "I'm ready when you are."