The Invasion (Tower of Power Book 6), page 15
And out of sight of anyone watching the city. Were they just so paranoid, that even with the mist, they wanted to hide their presence from prying eyes? Or there was just something that he wasn’t seeing?
It wasn’t important, not now.
“Get back here,” Ta’elara said.
He headed back immediately, not willing to waste another moment.
He found his group in the same place he left them. As soon as he came back he started to say what he saw, but Ragnor stopped him, and asked him to wait until Lucius arrived so that they could hear his report, too.
Half an hour later, Lucius was back too.
“Morgan, you can start,” Ragnor said.
“Well, it is an army. They have ships on the coast, and thousands of people on the beach. They’ve build a large camp along the beach all the way to the city’s walls. I saw more ships coming in from the west, across the ocean.”
Everyone around him absorbed his words. “So,” Ragnor started. “We have accomplished one part of our mission. We know what happened, and that there is a threat here. Now, for the second part—Lucius?”
Lucius took a deep breath and then started to speak. “I watched the caravans. They are bringing food, as we suspected, and now we know that it is to feed the army. The people are doing it willingly as far as I can tell—the invaders don’t seem to have actually hurt anyone, so I don’t know what is happening. They just might understand that they have no choice. Regardless, I heard no talk about the Guild; there were a few mentions of the Dominion, but I was too far away to actually hear anything specific. The gates are open, and I overheard someone say that they are closed at night. From what I saw, the gates are guarded by the enemy’s guards, though I didn’t see them check the people coming in too much. There were others on foot going in without the caravans so I think that we can sneak in with them.”
Ragnor nodded his head, then turned to Ta’elara. “Can you detect the source of the mist from here?”
“Already did that,” Ta’elara said. “It is in the Guild Hold, or what used to be the Guild Hold, at least.”
Morgan grimaced. The Guild Hold was the center of the city, the fort on a small hill. If whatever was creating that was there, it was definitely guarded.
Ragnor looked everyone over, then spoke again. “Do we all agree that we need to take down the mist?”
“It’s not like we have another choice,” Hexna said.
Ves shrugged. “We could wait it out,” she said, and everyone looked at her. “Think about it. They will need to leave with their army eventually, so they have to take it down. Or… someone outside will notice it eventually. They might break in.”
Ta’elara snorted. “Good luck to them. I couldn’t detect it when I was right in front of it. Those bastards have no chance.”
Morgan agreed. They were the only hope that this continent had.
“We go in,” Morgan said. “Stay low, figure out what’s happening in the city, what the situation at the Guild Hold is, and then we plan our next move from there.”
Everyone nodded in agreement.
“Agreed,” Ragnor said. “We should go back and join the procession tomorrow from another road to prevent too much suspicion.”
“Right,” Ves said.
“We need to be careful,” Ragnor said. “Be vigilant, but try not to draw attention on ourselves. So, try not to talk with anyone, but listen to everyone.”
They made their plan for getting into the city quickly, and then they were off. They made a camp away from the city, though with no fire this time so as to prevent notice. In the morning they headed back the way they came and stepped on the road when it was empty. From there they made their way to the main road, and then joined the caravans and people just heading to the city.
Morgan shifted just his ears beneath his hood, listening in to the conversations. Most of it was just the usual nonsense that the people talked about, but a few conversations were interesting. The Dominion, as these invaders were called, had been paying people to farm and to hunt monsters. Most of the people who weren’t part of the caravans were adventurers. From their tales, all were low in level, with none above level 30 as far as he could hear. Their job was to hunt smaller animals that they could use for food, which was probably why Morgan and his team hadn’t encountered that many monsters on their trip through the valley, at least not this close to the coast.
The other part of their job was to notify the Dominion forces if they encountered more powerful monsters, and then the Dominion would then send a team to take care of them. Apparently, most of the Dominion soldiers were on average higher in level than the Guild people who had lived here. That was…a problem, but there wasn’t much that they could do about that.
It took them several hours, but finally, just before nightfall, they reached the city.
INTERLUDE III
He tried to fight back. Every time sleep took him, he pushed, trying to defend his mind, his soul.
This time, for the first time, he did something.
The torment of fire and death disappeared. Instead, he moved through the images, more memories. These were not…pleasant for the one that who was invading his mind.
He saw a dragon, standing tall amid a shattered temple. A person was standing on his head, a woman with silver lines covering her entire face. He—the invader—was on his knees, and the rift in space pulsed angrily. It wanted out, it wanted to break and shatter. Even though it was a memory, he could tell that was true.
A man walked up to the rift, wearing tight-fitting clothes with a robe over them. He paused, the likeness of him familiar. This man spoke, the rift pulsed, black and white as it responded, and then the memory was torn away from him.
“YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE SEEN THAT,” the voice boomed. “YOU FIGHT, YOUR SOUL DEFENDS ITSELF, BUT ONLY BECAUSE I AM WEAKENED. BUT WITH EVERY MOMENT THAT PASSES, I GROW STRONGER. SOON YOU WILL SURRENDER.”
He pushed the voice and the torment that returned aside. His soul rallied, and he had hope again. He remembered who the person in the temple was—it was the Great Lord himself. He knew, too, that this invader was his enemy, and that he had been bested by the Great Lord.
He would do the same.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
They stood in line, waiting for their turn to enter the city. They tried to make themselves look inconspicuous, wearing clothes that matched the people around them. The biggest issues were Clara and Ragnor, as they stood out more than the rest of them—so they both had their hoods up, and the rest of them were trying to shield them from view. The line was moving slowly, which left them with some time to kill.
Morgan glanced around and saw Lucius nearby, looking out at the city with a hard expression on his face as they waited for their turn. Morgan took a few steps to get closer to him and then whispered.
“Hey,” he said. “You good?”
Lucius glanced at him, then shrugged. “Yes,” he said, but then shook his head and spoke again. “No.”
“What is it?” Morgan asked.
“I’m worried about home, about my family,” Lucius answered. “And…I haven’t been sleeping well. I still have bad dreams.”
It was understandable; an invasion could mean a lot of danger even for their valley far away from here. They had a coast, too. Morgan had already started thinking about all the things they would need to do once they got away from here—build forts along the coast, at the very least.
“Yeah,” Morgan said slowly. He glanced to the side at Ves. His family was here; he didn’t have the same fears as Lucius did. “Anything new?”
Sometimes, dreams could be insights into our own minds.
Lucius sighed, then closed his eyes. “I still dream of fire, the… I can’t remember clearly, but I know that it involves fire and heat. Death. That final battle, where Vall burned to ash.”
Morgan grimaced—even he had those kinds of dreams from time to time. Ves had nightmares after they left the Tower. They had all watched Vallsorim die in front of them to the fire of the Herald of Chaos. Others from their team had died, too. It was only natural that it affected them so.
Lucius had spent years in peace, making a family—and now they were back in action, surrounded by danger.
He shook his head, then put his hand on Lucius’s shoulder. “We’ll get through this.”
Lucius nodded, then gave him a weak smile. “Yeah…yeah.”
A few hours later, they reached the gate. By now they had seen enough interactions with the guards to know that they allowed anyone in. The caravans bringing food were checked, but the rest—the adventurers—were not. They only had to show badges that identified them as adventurers. Morgan and the rest all had their badges, though theirs were scarletite badges, higher in rank than all people in this valley. Thankfully, Morgan could get around that. He simply consumed one and recreated it with gold.
As they reached the gates and the two guards standing there, obviously bored, Morgan flashed his badge—still connected to his flesh, but hidden so that they wouldn’t notice. The man glanced at it, then gestured and let them through without a word.
The first step was easy enough, but now came the hard part: stay hidden inside the city, gather information, and plan an attack on the Guild Hold. They began looking for a tavern or an inn, as those were usually the best places to gather information.
As they walked the streets, Morgan got the sense that everything was almost normal. People didn’t seem to be worried about their safety; they walked the streets as if nothing was wrong. However, the more Morgan looked, the more he saw that there was something strange about everything. They moved freely, true, but it was…as if there was an uncertainty to their actions. He couldn’t quite explain it.
There were patrols from the invaders, but only two or three people strong, walking around the city without too much of a bother either. It was all very strange.
Finally, they found an inn—a big two-story building with the mark of the Adventurer’s Guild on its storefront, indicating that it was an establishment that had special service for adventurers. It was made mostly out of dark green wood, but like everything else in the city of Fi’ra, it was droll and without any of the real artistry that most buildings in larger Guilds were made with. As they entered, Lucius took the initiative, asking for a table and inquiring about a room that could hold them all—most establishments catering to adventurers had rooms like that.
They were seated in the corner of the room, and they ordered drinks and food simply to avoid looking even more suspicious than they already were. The room was filled with other adventurers, though the atmosphere was somewhat subdued. People kept to themselves, talking quietly with people sitting at their tables. Morgan’s ears could pick up a lot of the chatter, and most of it concerned fighting monsters and getting rewards for them from the quartermaster—whoever that was. It seemed that the invaders were giving people something in return for all they did. Morgan didn’t know if that made things better or worse, but he heard not a whisper about people fighting back. It had been months since this happened; a lot of things could happen in that time.
For now, their table just focused on listening, and eating.
Then Morgan noticed someone in a corner, an elf, looking in their direction. He tried not to look at him directly, but even in his Base Form he had enhanced senses that let him tell that he was staring at them. Morgan glanced around, his Energy Sense sharp enough that he could tell roughly how much energy the people around him had. He doubted that any of them were over level 25, or perhaps 30 at best. The only one stronger was the elf in the corner—he still was nowhere near to the levels of Morgan and his team, but he was certainly stronger than the rest.
Morgan had hoped that they would be able to learn more, but as the night fell, the people slowly left the common room and shuffled either out of the inn or to their rooms, which meant that they too needed to do the same or risk rising more suspicion. They walked up stairs and entered a big adventuring-team room. Like those he had seen before, it had several rooms, one big common area, and a bathing room.
After a while on the run, they took advantage of everything the suite had to offer, and then they met in the common room afterward.
“Ta’elara, if you could.” Ragnor twirled two of his fingers in the air.
She nodded and Morgan saw her eyes focus. She drew something in the air, and then poured energy into it. “There. No one should be able to listen in now.”
The rooms all had privacy enchantments, Morgan could see them on the walls, but none of them trusted those here.
“So,” Ves started. “Anyone else weirded out by what we saw outside?”
Morgan nodded. “Yup. This doesn’t look like a conquered Guild, or at least not one that had been conquered violently.”
“We still don’t know what’s happening, not really,” Ta’elara interjected. “We assume because of the quests, but for all we know these people came here and made an agreement with the Storming Sea Guild.”
“We don’t know enough,” Ragnor agreed. “Tomorrow, we should head out in smaller groups to try and figure out what happened.”
“We should still try and keep a low profile,” Ta’elara cautioned.
Morgan doubted that anyone disagreed with that. They finished their meeting, and then retreated to their rooms for some privacy. Morgan and Ves lay in their bed, embracing each other. Both were aware that, soon, they might be going into danger again. Not might—we definitely will be.
As relaxed as he could be in the situation, Morgan still couldn’t help his thoughts wandering to his power—to the meeting that he’d had with Moirai, and what her words meant. He hadn’t yet told Ves, and if he was being honest he didn’t even know where to start. With his achieving the seventh step, he had gained something that others didn’t have. He could converse with his soul-implant whenever he wanted, could tinker with his system in ways that others couldn’t. His soul had received added protection, in that no one would ever be able to take control of his soul. He didn’t quite know what that meant, of course, but…he didn’t really feel more powerful than the others. The way Sabila and the Tower Guardian spoke about the seventh step, he had expected more. He did feel different, and there was always a sense of something just at the edge of his grasp, but he had no idea what that was or how to reach it. He knew that the seventh step wasn’t necessarily about power, but more of a…state of being.
His soul space was another thing that had changed. He could feel it now, could feel Sabila much more intimately, and that connection had only grown over the years. She was a part of him, residing inside of himself. The fact that his soul space had changed into a star-field landscape made him wonder what it all meant. Sabila had some idea, obviously based on their conversations over the years, but as long as he was in this world, she couldn’t reveal everything.
Sometimes that frustrated him. He wished that Oxylus didn’t have so many stupid rules—but on the other hand, he did understand why he had imposed limits. They needed certain conditions for their experiments.
“What are you thinking about?” Ves asked, snapping him out of his thoughts.
“What I always think about: my power, and how to gain more of it,” Morgan said.
Ves looked away from him. “I wish sometimes we could live quiet lives,” she said slowly. “But then I remember my parents, my brother. They died so that we could live. I can’t dishonor their sacrifice by hiding away somewhere. Living my life in peace.”
“Those obligations we put on ourselves are always the harshest ones, aren’t they?” Morgan said, thinking about how he did the same thing. He felt that obligation, too. Just knowing who was his father made him desire to fulfill what this world was meant for, but after the Tower, after seeing the people whom Oxylus was at war with… It all added more and more pressure.
“Yes,” Ves said with a sigh. “But, doesn’t this all seem so…pointless? What are we even doing here? What are these invaders—or visitors, even—doing here? Why? Why all this pointless violence, and… I don’t know. We already have so many monsters to fight. Fighting against other ascended shouldn’t even be possible. Why would the Guiding Force suspend that rule now?”
Morgan didn’t know, though he did have some suspicions. Morgan had failed to teach even one of his teammates how to reach the seventh step, and the Tower had been designed to push people until they did that. The life in the World outside of the Tower had become far too safe; and if the Guiding Force now had the data to be able to recreate what Morgan had done, then…perhaps she wanted violence and hardship, anything that could push people to their limits. Guild wars were not enough, and the monsters in the World were not enough, not even with them now roaming the land. But a war with a force that they knew little about? Other ascended? That could do the trick.
“Probably for the same reason that she has changed other things in the World,” Morgan said at last.
Ves didn’t say anything. They had talked about this before—all of them had noticed how the monsters acted strangely ever since they’d left the Tower.
“I guess we don’t have any other choice but to survive until more of us accomplish what they need of us,” Ves said.
Their plan, or at least Morgan’s, had always been to return to the Tower, to leave this world. His team had all wanted the same—three years ago, at least. Now…life had made their commitment to that plan drift, though a few still wanted that. Ves and Ta’elara were among them for sure.
Morgan sighed. “Yeah, I hope we do get to leave. There are things that I need to know, to see, outside of this world, and I still intend to find them.”
Starting with having a long talk with his father about so many things—his sister included.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Morgan wasn’t able to sleep. It was a side effect of his body that he rarely grew tired; with a slight cost of matter and energy, he could always just refresh his form and restore his body to its base state. He lay in bed until Ves fell asleep, as he did most nights. After, he slowly pulled himself away and got out of the bed. He didn’t go far—just a few steps to the foot of the bed, where he knelt in a meditative pose.
