Chương 81: Book 2: Chapter 16 - VORRIC-7

VORRIC I had to calibrate my vessel's olfactory receptors just to tolerate the disorienting smell of Kelna's grand cathedral. It was bad enough that their candles used tallow that must have been scent-infused by a noseless monk, but the sour stench of mortal perspiration was thicker even than the wet musk of the sheep that grazed outside the open windows along the eastern wall.

I'd have expected a visit from the Archprelate to have demanded a bit more pomp, but then this city had always been hopeless, barely devout enough to hit their monthly tithing quotas. At least the stained glass windows were artfully done, cleverly positioned to bathe my elevated throne in the swirling colors of the early summer sun.

Before me stretched a line of supplicants that was longer this year than most, the economic downturn in Eastwatch reaching this inland city that relied on its flow of goods from the coast. People filled the cathedral on both sides, the line stretching out through the heavy wooden doors and into the rain-slicked plaza beyond. They came seeking the grace of the First Magi, their tears and tithes and endless, exhausting miseries laid at my feet as if I owed them comfort they couldn't earn on their own.

Behind me, a choir sang softly, their chant low and persistent. The next in the line approached my raised dais, Telemacus eyeing her with a wary disdain I shared but couldn't show. She was a pathetic thing, hands dirty and knees bruised from her crawl across the plaza - a ridiculous show of devotion that these insects seemed to believe would earn them favor. I didn't discourage it, having always found it a rather amusing display. She held up an infant that slept cradled in a sling around her chest.

"Holy Father," she wept, her aura completely unconstrained, messy and jagged. She was afraid, I liked that.

"Please, it's about my son. The mages tell me there's a rot in his lungs, that it's beyond their ability to heal. I have given all I have to the tithe, please save him, I'll do anything." I softened my face, letting the muscles relax and my brow furrow.

"The First Magi see your devotion, my child," I intoned in the amplified baritone of the Archprelate, voice echoing off the walls and ceiling of the cavernous basilica.

"Suffering is the crucible of the soul, but you have earned your reprieve. Let the divine light ease your burden." I placed my fleshy palm against the child's feverish forehead, resisting the urge to recoil from the greasy oil of his skin. My administrative overlay activated, the connection to the System's planetary grid running a quick check that returned an approval ping as I reached for the energy from the local harvest surplus.

I adjusted the child's meager mana flow, clearing a blockage in its respiratory tract. Its breathing immediately cleared, the deep rasp now a clean exhale. The woman collapsed into hysterical sobbing, kissing the hem of my crimson robes.

"Go in peace," I said with a smile that hid my irritation. I signaled to a priest to have her escorted away, the grime on her hands leaving a mark that soiled the pristine pattern. I wiped the child's sweat on a silk cloth, my tolerance for this body growing perilously thin after nearly a century of suffering its indignities. A weeping merchant in dirty linen took the woman's place, beard and hair still slick with moisture. The way the strands clung to his face brought a surge of anger that I struggled to suppress.

Disgusting, filthy, diseased apes. I counted the days until the hand-over would be complete and I could return to Alpha-1, my toils on this backwater finally paid off in an assignment worthy of my place in the infinite ring, my consciousness given a body that didn't ooze from every orifice, that wasn't ruled by base urges and base needs. I glanced to my right where Mortimer stood recording every interaction. I needed the audit to go smoothly, failing that I needed a Chronicler I could intimidate into compliance.

The pup wore the grey robes of a Hestian acolyte, the leather-bound ledger that hid his data-compilation terminal held tight to his chest. It was almost comical seeing him struggle with the acclimation, his consciousness untethered from the Core for the first time, the adjustment period artificially prolonged to keep him pliable. If he failed to comply, there was always Telemacus - the man lived for violence.

The towering giant of a man stood at the base of the dais, eyes scanning, huge shoulders magnified by the plate armor pauldrons he wore under his robes. The warrior caste was an enigma to me and Telemacus more than most; I'd never heard him speak, though I could interpret his grunts like their own language. Every sector supervisor had to put up with these sentinels, but I'd be happy to be rid of him.

"Archprelate." The whisper cut through the drone of the merchant who was relaying some tedious tale of lost goods and banditry as if mistaking me for his local magistrate. I held up a hand to the hairy man, requesting silence.

"Patience, Sister Lilith, our brother is speaking," I said aloud, projecting gentle chastisement for the benefit of the audience. My assistant had placed a hand on my shoulder in a way I knew suggested urgency. Through our encrypted System link, I snapped off a message: < What is it? You're breaking protocol. > Lilith had been with me almost as long as I'd been on this gods-forsaken planet, she was perhaps the only person on it I trusted.

< My apologies, Supervisor > came the response, the unusually fast cadence indicated something serious. < I have just received an automated priority report, you're going to want to see it. >"One moment my children," I said, bowing my head as if taken by a sudden need to pray. < Log it and tell me after, we are in the middle of a public blessing. > < It's a category one containment breach, you instructed me to always alert you immediately. > The gilded wood of the throne groaned under my grip. < Location?

> I demanded, feeling the blood pressure surge in my human vessel. < Deeprock Hub. > Lilith relayed, the blood rushing to my face. < Lantoch quarantine zone. Guardian protocol was triggered but the site has gone dark on my grid. > Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. This was the absolute last thing I needed. Deeprock had been sealed for almost three decades, meticulously scrubbed from all records and concealed with a class-one matrix.

I was the only person alive with the credentials to deactivate it; the mortals of Caldera couldn't have breached it even given a hundred lifetimes of trying. < A dungeon mutation malfunction? > I asked, hoping for some explanation that wouldn't imply the worst possible scenario. < Negative. > Came the quick reply, Lilith swallowing hard, the throat of her mortal vessel bobbing in that way I'd always found repugnant.

< The breach wasn't of the facility itself, someone accessed it with proper credentials, the alert triggered in the subbasement. > < SAMARA-7 > Lilith looked away, afraid to meet my eyes. < Yes, sir. > The echoing chants of the choir stopped and my vision narrowed to a pulsing blur, head feeling like it was squeezed in a vice. My aura flared and the assembled crowd gasped, the entire room dropping at once to their knees, cowering at the invisible weight of my rage. I stood up, ignoring them.

She was dead, I'd seen the body. If her identification glyphs had survived, then I'd been betrayed - there was only one creature alive insane enough.

"The blessing is concluded for the day," I announced, but already the room had begun to clear, the people fleeing from my presence instinctively. Samara. Even as I approached the city where it had all happened, the name haunted me still. Perhaps I would never be rid of her, some jape of the Supreme Will, punishing me for my ambition. I walked calmly to the office in the back, collecting myself on the way.

The local Bishop had been thrilled to lend it to me, 'the honor of my life to host the Archprelate' he'd insisted - it was a bit sad even to me that he was probably right. I pushed through the door, Telemacus and Lilith close behind me. I did not sit, pacing as Lilith closed the door behind us, Telemacus taking up his place beside it where he stood watch like a gods-damned gargoyle.

"Reconstruct it," I said aloud, my temper back under control as I gamed out the possibilities of what came next.

"I want to know everything from the moment the perimeter fell to right this second." Lilith held her ledger open in front of her, a mortal affectation she'd started performing almost ninety years ago and had simply never stopped.

"The facility's final transmission was never completed, the site went dark before it had finished."

"Tell me what you do know," I said, irritation creeping back in.

"Of course, sir," she said apologetically, clearing her throat.

"The perimeter shield was lowered using the confirmed credentials of SAMARA-7. The same credentials accessed numerous archives within the subbasement facil-""Which archives?"

"Everything related to project HEX, sir." That defective, treacherous, arrogant scum of a bastard, it had to be him. What could he possibly hope to achieve by stealing those archives - he was as compromised in all this as I was.

"Go on," I managed.

"The final report was fragmentary, but it was clear from what did make it through that the guardian protocol was triggered." She sounded apologetic.

"The guardian did engage but appears to have been... terminated, sir."

"Terminated," I repeated, barely able to believe what I was hearing. The damn thing had been specifically designed to stop him by Samara herself, if he had managed to take the weapon and defeat its guardian, he was likely coming for me next. Surely he didn't plan to attack Alpha-1 directly, that would be suicide, even for him...

"Did the transmission break through planetary confinement?"

"It doesn't appear so, sir." Alpha-1 wouldn't have been alerted then, small mercies.

"But, the hand-over inspection... it will be difficult to keep this out of the official logs. All sector assets will be queried, even sealed records."

"Let me worry about that," I said, regaining my composure. I had three months to devise a solution before my replacement arrived on planet. It wasn't much time, but it would have to be enough. The door opened without a knock, the Chronicler stumbling in behind it.

"Archprelate, forgive me." Mortimer took three clumsy steps and then stopped, his ledger still tight in his grip.

"Protocols require I record all relevant conversations for the hand-over. You ended the blessing without reason... the aetheric disruption in the central chamber must be properly logged, the final inspection is a complete record, sir, we cannot-""Chronicler," I said, cutting him off with a raised hand.

"Please, come in and close the door. You are quite right, you should record everything we say here." He nodded, moving to the opposite side of the room.

"I concluded the blessing early because we have received reports of an aetheric event in the Lantoch quarantine zone," I offered casually.

"A dungeon has been developing there for most of the last three decades. There are indications that this event has destabilized a Pre-Cataclysm legacy structure of ours that was dormant in the region. There was an automatic trigger that alerted us of the disruption, nothing to be worried about, but it bears further investigation."

"I see," he said, hands moving over his tablet at a speed that caused them to blur and warp.

"A great deal of the Pre-Cataclysm infrastructure hasn't been revisited since its creation over 9, 000 years ago - these things happen from time to time, something wakes up and must be put back to sleep," I said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Telemacus, you will depart tonight for the Lantoch zone and find out if there's any need for intervention. Carry your findings back to me in person so Chronicler Mortimer can be present to hear them as well." Mortimer continued to write even as he spoke.

"Should a martial asset not travel with a proper fourth-rung escort in case something were to-""Chronicler," I said warmly, leading a toddler by the hand.

"You will find that action on the ground is not always exactly to the ideal specifications of the Supreme Will. As a supervisor, I am given certain latitude to make decisions that color outside the lines. Please record that operative designation T-3 was sent to investigate the disturbance at my behest."

"Of course, sir," he agreed, writing it down.

"Our timeline has been moved up," I said, the conversation at an end.

"We leave for Eastwatch tomorrow, the blessing will have to be postponed for our return trip. Lilith, please inform the Bishop. We will not be stopping in Moresson or Vostic as planned, but going straight through. Please mark the survey of region K-17 concluded, Chronicler." Mortimer's hands paused, hesitating for half a second before resuming.

"Now, I would like to be alone with my thoughts. Thank you all." They left me and I fell into the fine leather chair, putting my feet up on the dark mahogany desk. He'd stood in the ashes of that ruined estate, hovering over the blackened remains of the only woman I'd ever felt my equal, and he'd lied right to my face. My fucking signature was on the Operative After Action report, he'd made me complicit and I'd let him because I feared him, feared to challenge his account, feared to confirm it...

there it was, the truth at last. I grabbed the glass globe from the Bishop's desk and flung it against the wall, watching it shatter into a million tiny pieces. Why should I have felt any guilt at all? She'd married an animal, bred with it, created an abomination. It was a betrayal of our entire race, a degradation of our superiority - she deserved to die, honor demanded it. I slid back down in the chair, trying to imagine a way out of this. Zachias had kept her glyphs, and now he would be coming for mine.