Chapter 803 – An Army In Her Pocket

There is a grand magnanimity in the universe. Life is seeded by a predecessor, and it grows and spirals into its own creation, until that life is ready to spread and go forth to illuminate dead worlds that could never create their own soul. Yet sometimes, a world is perfect, yet it remains dead nonetheless. These are always the saddest cases in the universe.

When all the conditions align, when all is made is certain, and yet when the certainty fails nonetheless. There is a general list for these things, the possession of water and seasons, a stable tilt combined with landmasses that do not rupture every few days. A moon to illuminate the world at night, and a sun that is neither too close to burn, yet not so far that its heat fails against the freeze. These cursed places deserve their own chance, for they are too rare to waste.

And thus, the nursery world is created. A soul of the stars descends to serve as the spigot of life and thus another noble race is created. As rare as these places are, they always become grand capitals of their own region. Harbingers of peace and cooperation, untainted by the chaos of nature’s random chance, for them to excel is all but certain.

Nevertheless, the power needs guidance, and guidance needs an administrator, and thus, such worlds need to be maintained until they are ready to be left alone. Honesty is always the best policy when it comes to dealing with these independent worlds.

Arda, however, is by no means a nursery world.

It did possess life when administration came to guide it. The sick planet did not see guidance, nor did it take anything out of the lessons that were bestowed to it. The barbarous wilderness never forgot its barbarity. By the time we realised what was happening, the locals were already grasping for space. They could not be allowed to spread, not out of hatred for them but out of love for the rest of the universe.

A decision was called.

Arda, no matter what life it possessed, had to be sent back to the nursery. The planet had to be walled. There is a sickness there, and we are not certain whether it is contagious. Let the locals reside in their ignorance, and let them never look outside the walls, and let it all be so.

- Text by Mary. Not currently on Arda.

Neneria kept on her slow walk as she kept up the uncomfortable pace that the other Divines set. Malam was bad, but Fortia was far worse with her military march. They had not gone long since the pillar room. A day’s march, maybe, although it was hard to keep track of time down here. Fer raised her hand again, then pointed forwards. “Do you see that?”

“I see it.” Fortia said. “The tunnel opens up.” Of Peace led them towards that entrance opening. Maisara and Fer on her left and right, Iniri and Malam and Neneria in the rear. It did not take long to reach the end. The city spread out before them. A teeming, endless mass of monsters. It was exactly as Paida had described it, endless columns inscribed with runes that reached from the floor to the ceiling. Not built to support anything, but rather they looked as if they have been stabbed into the world and then excavated by these creatures.

But the masonry on the floor and the ceiling was wrong. Even if the monsters were learning to build barriers, then there was no chance they were the creators of such fine stone-work which lay across the ground. It was scratched and shattered, but the massive tiles had obviously been carefully installed into their positions. “That’s a city alright.” Malam said and flashed the light down. The creatures spotted the disturbance immediately and turned to look at the newcomers that had come to disturb their…

Whatever they had been doing. Neneria did not know herself. The great God that had she been given visions of was one thing, but the monsters themselves were not. Those creatures, Malam was the expert on. They had not existed back during the Age of Gaia. “That’s a city.” Fer said. “Proper and old and not a nest or den.” Of Beasthood flashed her own flashlight down. “They’re looking at us.”

“I can see that.” Malam said. “I can’t fight that many.”

“I don’t think any of us can.” Iniri said dryly. “Not if they’re all like that Divine-God-Monster thing.”

“They’re not.” Malam said. “I see species I know.” Neneria herself looked down past the edge. A few of the creatures were already starting to crawl up to them. That was odd though, those species were the ones that had simply given up and died in the tunnels. Here…? What exactly where they doing? Maybe this was a point of no retreat for them? A mother-nest that could not be given up? Where they laid their young?

“I see a few of them.” Fer clicked a button on her flashlight and the beam focused into a sharper, a tighter cone. She picked out a few of the creatures that hulked over the rest of their kin. They were easily as tall as Divines. That many would be enough for most of them. Neneria released a deep breath. She knew what was coming at this point. She began tapping her thumbs on the edges of her fingers.

“That’s a fair few.” Iniri said. “I can close this entrance if we’re going to retreat. Fortia?” Of Peace had said nothing, she was just staring at those massive, twisting, curling pillars which reached up to the ceiling as if they were supporting the entire hole here.

“We can’t retreat.” Fer said. “Not after this far.”

“We can.” Maisara said. “What? Do you want to fight all that?”

“Well…” Fer said, her eyes going towards Neneria. “Not me, obviously.” Neneria didn’t respond to the eyes. Either she was told to act, or she was not, and she did not care either way. And it would be no difference to her. Fer, Maisara, Malam, Fortia all operated in a league below. Only Iniri could come close, and that had been in the past. Not now.

“Fortia?” Malam asked. Ever since that fight with the creature that needed to be killed, Fortia had become the leader of the operation. Malam was just the guide, but this was no longer a monster hunt, it was a military campaign.

“I’m thinking.” Fortia said. “Don’t annoy me.”

“Look at that. We have another Kassie.” Malam said and Fer laughed to herself. She turned flashlight down, the monsters had reached a third of the wall. Those that were using the stairs and the ramps up were half-way up. They were running, with their claws and hands pointed forwards. The miasmic darkness that swallowed the light poured out of some, swallowing the light of the torches and making huge craters of black pitch that covered their kin from the Divine’s inspection. “Are we pulling back then?”

“I would not.” Fer said, again looking to Neneria. “Fortia, we can fight them.”

“Well I can’t.” Malam said dryly. “And I’m not even ashamed to say it.” Now that Neneria thought about it, then Malam was the weakest of the Divines here. That was almost odd to consider. Malam was still the sort of Divine that made national deities gawk and shiver and want to run. “That’s too many. More than I’ve ever seen.”

Fortia let out a deep breath as she shook her head. “Do you think they have magic or no?”

Neneria already knew what was being considered. The question was obviously for her. “In this chamber, it doesn’t matter. It’s not a field where they can fly away from me.”

“I would still vote on the retreat option.” Malam said, she took a step back from the charging monsters they had begun to scream now. Hisses that could curdle blood into sour milk worked their way up to the party. Fortia’s spear materialized in the air and she planted it into the ground.

“We can’t.” Maisara said. “They’ll charge out and undo all the progress we made down here. There’s Paladins behind us.”

“This will need a bigger gun.” Malam said. “Kassandora should send the army.” Neneria saw Fortia staring right at her, Of Peace had already made the decision. That was obvious from the total lack of hesitation in Fortia’s posture. Kassandora carried herself in the same way when she was advancing in a campaign. Unsurety had its own tells, and Fortia carried none of them.

“We have an army though.” Fortia said and stepped to the side. All the other faces turned to the Goddess of Death. Neneria released a deep breath of exhaustion.

“You want me to clear it out.” Neneria said.

“I know you can.” Fortia said, she extended an arm to the monsters before them. Neneria took a step towards the edge, those creatures were starting to move now, rushing up the narrow routes that wound up to this entrance. “Like the old times.”

Neneria sniffed in humour. “I’m sure you mean something else by that than what you are thinking.”

“I mean like in the Great War, when the sight of you would make an entire army rout.” Fortia said. “Go on, I know what you can do.” Neneria raised her hands, Pegaz rose out of the ground as the Goddess of Death sat down, and the ghastly winged horse stepped into the air.

“Very well.” The Goddess of Death spread her arms out to either side as her eyes began to blaze with soulfire. She opened her black heart to the Dead Legion and all the souls within it. Thirty-three million tiny drops of essence that coalesced into a flood. “Millions within me, souls lost and ancient, souls still known and mourned for, come forth. Your Goddess commands you.”

The five other Divines took a step back from the entrance as a knight appeared besides Neneria. One of her ancient Dead Legion, fallen in by his own hand and sworn to serve Neneria in death, a single wound across his heart, piercing through the leather armour. The man sat upon a wingless horse that trotted in the air and lowered his lance.

Another knight forth, already racing to keep pace with the first. A third and fourth. Then ten and twenty. A line of them. And more ghosts, broken bodies of souls scrounged from battlefields or the great wave that drown the UNN. Neneria arched one forward and pulled it down. The ceiling around her began to glow with a faint grey-green light which crept forwards. Snaking vines formed out of hands and bodies, twisting mouths that tried to scream and produced no sound when they talked.

Spear and shield and sword and scythe fell from the sky, locked in grips that could not let her the arms they had died with go. More ghosts marched from the wall, others reached from the ground. An endless horde of monsters that should no longer be around fell to a horde even more endless and one with even less reason to stay on Arda.

Neneria gazed down upon the creatures as the first of them began to fall. Stabbed through with weaponry that pierced the spirit and left the body intact. Edge that shattered life and yet spilled no blood. The monsters fell to hammers, their life shattered out of them even though the most their bodies suffered was the impact of falling against the hard stone surface of their lair. “Fucking hell.” Fortia mumbled from behind as the ceiling of grey-green bodies that screamed soundlessly became a flooding monsoon.

“Never gets any less impressive.” Maisara said coldly. Neneria smiled to herself when she heard the praise. Rare was it that she was actually allowed, or even that someone wanted her to, unleash all she had. And even rarer when the environment favoured her so much. The Pocket-Army was incredible enough in a city, in a cave though? Where it could spill from the walls? It was unstoppable.

Countless beasts, but not countless enough.

Not against millions in one.