011 – New Gihn II: Kindling

011 – New Gihn II: Kindling

“It’s a common misconception that only mages—Players, in other words—have Semblances. All sapient characters do, whether Player or NPC. Of course, every Player-led hermetic tradition has its own conceptions… but since you’re asking for my opinion, imagine a celestial body traveling through the vacuum of space. It would have mass and that mass warps spacetime in what we observe as gravity. Your Semblance is the gravity of your mind, and the force that it exerts on metareality is magic. Modern neuro-mediated VR systems being what they are, as far as the gamemaster AI is concerned, Player consciousness is magic.”

-Excerpt from video “Dirge Magic Basics” by Player Blackbright of Karravar [kava], posted August 17, 2119.

The New Gihn revolutionaries moved as one, coordinated in their movements like a shoal of predatory fish.

But three of them broke from the pack, sprinting up the sheer rock walls of the terrain around them, only to launch themselves down at Benessel from three different angles.

Benessel could probably handle it. But battles were often decided by initiative and momentum.

Ai tilted her hand, forming a simple circle with her thumb and forefinger—her sigil. Her Semblance reached out, grasping the concepts of [Precision] and [Force] in a variation of the kinetic spell she’d used on Balala days before.

[Focused-Force]-[Rapid-Repetition]-[Precision].

She flicked her finger three times.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.

Invisible hammers of force slammed into the foreheads of the diving mages. Their momentum was instantly halted as their eyes rolled back in their heads and they went limp in mid-air.

Ai wove a quick secondary net of [Air]-[Cushion] beneath them before they could fall to their deaths. She wasn’t heartless.

They hit the sand with soft thumps, unconscious but alive.

Benessel blinked, looking up at the empty air where his attackers had been a second ago. He caught sight of Ai high above, and raised his fist in a quick salute.

Ai returned it.

The remaining revolutionaries faltered, confused by the sudden neutralization of their vanguard. The flow of their [River] stuttered.

Benessel seized the moment.

“Baior! Now! Full charge!”

Baior and the other Domga riders roared and kicked their mounts into a frenzy. The golden light of [United-Charge] flared to life again as Benessel’s Semblance pressed down onto reality, brighter and more violent than before.

This time, there was no kinetic barrier in their way. The revolutionaries scattered, realizing too late that a river couldn’t stop a stampede. Heavy cavalry slammed into the wyrmbone gate.

Iron screamed in protest and hardened bone shattered as the gates of New Gihn flew inward, torn from their hinges and crushing the barricades behind them. The Avnan soldiers poured into the courtyard, Benessel and Baior at their head.

“Breach!” Baior screamed, his voice thick with battle-lust. “For Iorec!”

Ai didn’t wait to watch the melee. She dropped from the sky, her robes snapping in the wind as she dove toward the fortress. She pulled out of the dive just above the heads of the combatants, blurring past the chaotic melee in the courtyard.

She saw Sari and Balala surging through the ruined gate in the rear, the Orgawyr roaring as it tossed a brave but foolish defender aside with a sweep of its tail.

She saw Benessel dueling with a pair of New Gihn karra as they danced fluidly around him.

She saw Baior dismount his Domga to engage in melee combat with a muscle-bound rebel.

She saw Avnan soldiers maintain the [United-Charge] as they barreled through barricades and knocked over anything that stood in their way.

Ai ignored all of it as she flew past, and landed lightly on the packed earth in front of the cave entrance, dust swirling around her sandals.

The entrance was a gaping maw in the red rock, ten meters wide and pitch black. Dark as it was, Ai could feel the ancient Ve’un that protected the settlement, likely extending deep underground. It had probably been here for centuries, perhaps even millennia, used by the ancient Gihn for protection against the Veh.

“I know you’re there.” she called out into the darkness.

Movement stirred in the shadows.

Five figures emerged from the gloom, stepping into the sunlight to block the cave mouth.

They weren’t the scimitar-wielding skirmishers who had fought outside. These men wore armor-cloaks of heavy, reinforced wyrmleather, their faces obscured by cowls.

“You will go no further, oppressor,” the figure in the middle hissed. He threw back his hood, revealing a young face barely in his twenties, if that, marred by a jagged, blackened scar on his cheek.

Behind him, the others did the same. They were all young. Too young.

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“I’m not here for you,” Ai said, her voice calm. “Step aside. I’m here to retrieve Captain Iorec. Where’s Inneol?”

There was murmuring at the mention of both names.

“Brother Inneol is extracting the oppressor captain’s final secrets as we speak,” the scarred youth spat. “He is not to be disturbed by the likes of you.”

“Look, I don’t want to hurt you,” Ai sighed, “And your friends out there are getting trampled by my friends. It’s over. Just walk away.”

The youth smiled with one too many teeth.

“Over?” he laughed, a brittle, cracking sound. “We are but [Kindling]. Gihn’s [Liberation] has only just begun.”

He raised his hands, and the four behind him mirrored the gesture. Ai felt the shift in reality instantly.

[Soul]-[Sacrifice]-[Ignition].