Chapter 27 - Overflow
So it takes a couple of weeks, months, whatever, and I finally get out of my room with a clear mind. I mean it's not the clearest since the Demonic Energy is still running through me chaotically, but it's a heck of a lot better than before. And so because of that, when a couple of monsters, pretty powerful ones at that I could tell, came up to me asking if I wanted to go and reclaim my old boyfriend to be my toy, I didn't accept as I would have if I had left when I was still delirious. Instead, I smashed the one who asked me through a wall. They got the message after that. Well okay, it took a couple more, but it eventually got pounded into their heads that I didn't want any of that. But yeah, I was a monster in the middle of monster territory and with only monsters around me. And also I was on land. As a water based monster. So you can probably understand why I was reluctant to actually try and start a big old fight. What? No, it's because I'd lose and really accomplish nothing. Huh? Oh yeah, there was one upside to the whole turning into a monster thing. I stayed young. Yeah, see humans don't just get wrinkly when they get older. They get weak too. And not even just "oh look at me I'm so frail and smell bad" but you start to lose the Spirit Energy reserves you used to have. Like, it starts to get smaller and smaller over time, starting when you're about forty or so. Not too dramatic, but you can't actually increase what you have from that point on either. It's why only the strongest humans have any amount of strength when they're old farts. Anyway it seems like staying in the Demon Realm really makes you lose track of time, because after I realized where I was, and headed to the Great Library it had already been a couple of years. My whole journey there while learning how my body worked and what its limits were I mean. Yeah, I had to cross a lot of terrain. Oh, and an entire ocean. So don't get snappy with me. What? The Library? You really don't know? It's a giant place where all of the Demon Lords put the information they recorded. Was built as an extremely powerful artifact by the Second Demon Lord who was some sort of super-Illithid or something. Anyway, they have a whole bunch of stuff in there. It's what helped me cook up this plan in the first place. Though to be honest I sort of lost track of time. I mean there was just so much stuff there, you know? And someone had to make some new entries on the best way to kill monsters, so why wouldn't I?
The Mayor walked quickly into the meeting room, the other members of the Council present, and with an angry look on his face didn't waste any time with formalities.
"Alright, everyone report what in God's name happened this morning. Six murders, in the streets, in broad daylight while people were in line to get their rations. What… What have we figured out." He started off with a furious voice, but by the end his face shifted to a more tired one and he collapsed onto his seat in defeat. He couldn't do anything to help those already dead.
The Quartermaster stood up while handing a small folder to The Mayor, who began flipping through it.
"I went to the storage rooms and looked up everyone, both those who were killed and the perpetrators themselves. Those are the files of everyone we had, if they had them. And as far as a criminal record goes, only one of them had any offences listed, but it was just for minor theft when he was a teenager. Not something as bad as this. Other than that, they were all regular citizens."
"Yeah, I took a look at the files too before you got here," the Accountant added with a confused face, "and what I saw was that there didn't seem to be any pattern between the victims and attackers. They all had different jobs, you know before the whole trapped here till we die thing, and none of the victims even acted provocatively. It's like they just attacked people out of nowhere."
The Mayor spent another twenty seconds flipping through each of the files, hoping he'd see something the others had missed, but failed and handed the file back.
"Hrm, how old are these records Quartermaster? Any chance that we simply hadn't updated them yet?"
"There might be but that still doesn't explain enough. I mean, well actually how about you report this bit Captain? You probably have more info than I do about this matter. It was your guards that stopped the situation after all." The Quartermaster passed off the attention to the man currently standing at attention almost motionlessly, even though the rest were sitting down. With a face and voice devoid of feeling, just as it had been ever since the invasion, the Captain nodded and began speaking, though not before loudly swallowing.
"Some new information has come to light. Initially we believed that there were six murders, with each victim having a single killer. However, it seems that there were in fact eight murders today." He paused for a moment as he waited for the mutters in the Council to subside. "The last two were both committed by the same person, and both victims were members of his family. A third member, who was a family friend, was able to give more information about what happened prior to the attack and it sheds new light on all of these cases."
"So we've figured out why they did it?" The Mayor asked with an excited tone in his voice with a similar feeling spreading through the rest of the Council.
"No sir," the mood abruptly fell at that, "but the perpetrator was in fact acting quite erratically. Apparently he was complaining loudly about pain and the family suspected he was experiencing some minor hallucinations. Before he attacked his actions became more random and eventually he seemed to snap and tried to kill everyone in the household. The injuries on all of the bodies, including those outside, were consistent with those of human bites, scratching with nails, and others. Interestingly enough, none of the attacks were done with weapons, and those asked after the event s took place all described the attackers as being feral."
"Feral you say," The Mayor commented, "do you think it has any similarities to the actions of the citizens who seemed to go berserk during the invasion?"
"I wouldn't know sir."
"I was there though, while the good Captain was trying to get rid of the monsters that had snuck past us," the Headmaster said. "And from the short glimpse I saw, I can say that they were acting quite like how some of the more rabid citizens acted. I probably wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't pointed it out. Maybe I had tried to repress those memories. Anyway, there are two different causes as far as I can tell. Either there's some sort of sickness spreading around, one that's different than the one that people are catching already, or it's some sort of mass hysteria."
The Council fell silent before the Dockmaster spoke up.
"The Doctor would probably know."
"Yes, but he threw himself off the walls," the Botanist scowled, "and killed himself to get away from this place. He abandoned us."
"Oh don't get so worked up. It was just an observation. And a true one at that." the Botanist barely held herself back at the Accountant's words. Through force of will, however, and possibly remembering what happened last time she was able to restrain herself from repeating her assault.
"Right then. How do we stop it from spreading?" the Dockmaster asked, carefully facing away from the two bickering people near him.
The Headmaster could only throw up a hand in defeat. "I don't know. I looked through some of the books, but it wasn't anything I could find. Or at least nothing I could narrow down. You'd think that a sickness that made you try and kill those around you would be easy to find, but apparently it's harder than that. I looked around, but when I made a small list I tried to figure out how they were spread and none of them would have worked. I even thought of rabies, but that still doesn't fit. With how we've been handling the food it still wouldn't spread and it's been shown that monsters don't catch diseases that humans and normal animals can get, and that humans can't catch what Demons can get."
"Well then, what can we do?" The Mayor asked the Council. "We need to give people answers."
"But we don't have any."
"Then let's make some up!"
"Or we could just stall."
The group fell silent at the Quartermaster's suggestion.
"Stall? What on earth do you mean?" asked The Mayor with confused look on his face.
"Well frankly, both you and I know that we're not going to be figuring out what's going on any time soon. So let's just buy time until we do. Just tell the folks that we're looking into things and trying to find the cause of the problem. It's not a lie either. We're actually doing that. And if we don't, hopefully the knowledge that we're actually trying to do something at all will help out. Calm them all down a bit."
The Mayor thought about the suggestion carefully. It was… not a bad idea at all to be truthful. Would it actually work long term? No. But it wasn't meant to. And now that he thought about it, he felt a little bit ashamed of himself. His mind had instantly jumped to "how do I deceive the people I'm supposed to protect to keep them calm" instead of trying to find away to keep them calm while not letting himself lie to them. Instead of how he used to do things, back before the whole situation started.
"I think we're going to be doing that," he announced.
No one made any objections. Though if it was because they agreed, or simply couldn't come up with anything better was unknown.
"Sir, can you see it?"
"Yes I can soldier. And that does not bode well. Go get the Headmaster as soon as possible."
"Sir!"
It was only two days after they had released the news that they didn't understand what was happening and the populace was split. On one hand they were happy that their leaders were being honest. But on the other hand it was directly admitting that they had no idea what was happening. And things may have gotten worse if they hadn't been able to hush up the incidents that had occurred over the course of the last couple of days. Three more deaths from an attacker, who all had to be put down. Unlike before they weren't shocked out of their daze from a sharp blow or getting knocked out. While trying to break out, one of them dislocated their arm while trying to rip himself out of his bindings. It was a mercy kill more than anything.
But there were also the cases of paralysis that had been spreading around. People found in their beds unable to move. Some were able to blink, but even then it was rare. And so, knowing that they hadn't the resources to help them, knowing that the only fate they had was to die slow deaths of malnutrition or dehydration seeing as they had no way to feed the paralyzed citizens, they had to be euthanized.
The Mayor hated that he'd had to kill more than one of the people he had sworn to protect out of the idea of saving them from more pain. He did the deed himself. No reason to force the guards to have greater weights on their souls.
Whatever the case, all the bodies were incinerated, and despite the trying times the people's spirits had risen with the Heat Crystals now working full time. It was strange really, how much of a difference having some heat in your life had on your overall happiness. But as they say, you never really know what you had until you lost it. But those happy feelings weren't present as he stood on the walls, staring out at the horizon.
Staring at the goddam tornado that was heading towards the city from far in the east, and what looked to be like floating platforms that held catapults from the west. Still though, there was something strange about this attack. And not just the fact that the tornado was obviously created and being directed by magic.
The monsters, what few faces he could see from the distance behind their hair which was flapping in the wind, didn't look happy. Or even excited. They all looked… grave. Like what was happening wasn't something they either approved of, or wanted to do. A couple had slightly hopeful looks, but the majority seemed sad. Of course, he distinctly noticed that this sadness only appeared when they were looking at the readily approaching tornado, and their mouths quirked up when looking at the catapults. Which annoyed him greatly. What was so great about catapults anyway? A trebuchet would be far superior for besieging a city!
Before his mind could continue to wander, the Headmaster came up the stairs, breathing slightly heavily.
"Sorry about taking so long Blade," he panted out, "my limbs have felt all weird and weak lately. Honestly I'm worried I'm coming down with something. Whatever it is, I… I don't really know to be honest. I'm just hoping my body can fight it off as I am. They say that high Spirit Energy makes you nearly immune to normal diseases right?" He finished what he was saying with a slight joking tone.
The Mayor didn't answer however, and let the man catch his breath. He knew staying on that line of dialogue wouldn't lead to good things. And there were more important subjects that needed to be addressed anyway.
"Well now that you're here, I'm sure you understand the situation, right?"
The Headmaster stayed silent for a few seconds, before sighing sadly. "Yes, I think I do. But if I'm going to be trying to stop those catapults from firing, I'm going to have a hard time stopping that tornado."
"Yes, I had guessed as much," The Mayor grunted, "but how about just redirecting them? Maybe having their payloads land on the outskirts of town?"
"That might work. And if they're biological? Or are meant to break on impact?"
"...You'll need to stop them completely. Or blow them up in the sky. As long as they don't land in populated areas, then I'm satisfied. But what about the tornado? I know you have trouble with wind magic sometimes, and you were only able to do that, what, twice? Ever?"
The Headmaster shrugged. "Honestly, I'm not too worried. I think I know a way to stop it. Of course there's still the problem around if I'll have enough Magic to disperse it after stopping whatever the catapults are firing. The faster they're moving and what they're made of, the harder it will be to stop them from entering the city limits or redirecting them at all. And even-"
"No, I get it. You don't need to tell me. I think we've actually had this conversation in the past." The Mayor said.
Both paused before small smiles grew on their faces and the Headmaster snorted in amusement.
"Well, I'll head up to the tower now to wait for-"
"THEY'RE FIRING!" a guard screamed, and the two retired adventurers spun towards the giant rafts in alarm. And to their dawning horror the lookout's words were true. But it wasn't just one or two catapults that were firing. It was all of them, simultaneously. Even as they took in the scene all of the monsters on the rafts were already jumping off, leaving the small staging area abandoned as they fled from the Tornado that was steadily approaching the city. Not so close that the monsters were being sucked in, but close enough that the water around the rafts were already becoming more and more chaotic.
"Guess I'm starting now then!" the Headmaster babbled out as magic began flowing into his staff while he brought it up in front of him.
The Mayor could feel the swirls of power building up inside his old adventuring companion. But despite the implicit trust he had in the man, that didn't mean he still trusted that he could do it himself. Back when he was young the mage was powerful enough to handle this sort of thing, but now in his old age? He knew that he himself was greatly weakened to such a degree that it was pitiful, but he didn't know just how much it had affected the Headmaster. Whatever the case, he was weaker, and because of this fact, it might not be enough. And they both knew it.
The Headmaster's eyes closed, and his hands started emitting a strange aura that was suddenly sucked inwards as he stopped the leakage of Magical Energy and put everything he had into concentrating on the incoming projectiles.
"Caster, they seem to be stone. Strange outcroppings all over them with holes on the end of each, but none have any sort of biological matter on them. If they have anything inside then we should probably be able to plug the holes. And if not, we can either kill whatever is inside or just move everyone away."
"Got it Blade. I'll redirect their landing zones to unoccupied areas." The Headmaster's staff didn't move, but the slight shift in the winds around him told even those not experienced in magic that something had changed. And as the giant misshapen stones flew through the air, the soldiers watched in awe as they seemed to change their paths in mid-flight. Nearly all of them entered the city, but one fell short into the water, and another smashed into the wall where it bounced off, small bits of stone falling but the whole thing staying remarkably intact. The wall, to the surprise of the guards, looked completely untouched, the inherent magical enchantments doing their work perfectly.
However, the two men on the walls still had to try and ignore the shouts of surprise and fear, and block out the sounds of houses being smashed into pieces. Better those than people however.
But as the Headmaster lowered his arms, The Mayor was alarmed to see the man was visibly panting.
"What the… What on earth is wrong? I know you have more power than this."
"I-I do too! I can't figure it out! I shouldn't be this weak. And god, why does my body suddenly hurt so much?" The Headmaster began clenching his sides in pain while leaning heavily on the parapets. However his clothing began flapping in the wind and The Mayor could feel the air whipping at his face.
"Caster. Caster, the tornado is speeding up."
"What?"
To both the men's dismay, The Mayor's words were true. The tornado seemed to be accelerating towards the city, and the two realized the monster's plan. They must have somehow known that the tornado would be extinguished at some point, and so were hoping to overwhelm the defenders against it by just throwing it against the fortress before it could happen. It would cost them a lot of power, but it would be enough.
"Caster. Do you think you can do this?"
The Headmaster smirked, but it was clear to both that it was false bravado. Or at least it was until the man got a strange look on his face.
"You know Blade, I always wanted to go out in style."
"Caster, no."
"Hah, too bad. Your objection is overruled."
"This is no time for jokes! You'll d-"
"Die. Yes. And it will hurt like a bitch. But we both know that if we want this city to survive, then that thing is gonna have to be stopped. Our walls may be tall, but they don't reach the goddam clouds themselves. You know, the worst thing is that this feels so sudden. I kinda expected my end to be in a giant battle, but it just-"
"Please, just stop you moron," The Mayor faux complained. "But you better accept that I'm not leaving you here alone."
"Ha, fine."
With that, the Headmaster began channeling magic, pushing himself back up into a standing position despite the clear pain he was in. As he stood there his clothing slowed its movement, the wind around him seeming to stop entirely. But his staff began to glow a bright orange, a mixture of high heat and the sheer amount of Magical Energy flowing through it. But it didn't stop there. The man's staff continued to glow brighter and brighter, and sweat began beading on the man's forehead while his breathing became heavy.
Only five seconds later, he was practically wheezing in exhaustion. But he didn't stop, because the Tornado didn't either.
His body didn't fall though, almost like it was being held up not by his own will alone but by the magic he was channeling. And then he seemed to hit a limit.
"Well, it looks like this is as far as my body can go," he smirked, and though the tornado was approaching quickly and the wind was picking up all around them his voice carried easily to The Mayor's ears. "God, this hurts. But you know what? There's one upside to all this."
The Mayor didn't move or speak, but he did quirk an eyebrow at the man in askance.
"After I'm done, I can take a nice long break up in heaven with my wife and kid. Hope I don't see you there for quite a while."
The Mayor stayed quiet before choking out a quiet "Thank you."
The Headmaster just laughed in response. "Thought I told you not to thank me. God, you never learn you moron."
And after he said this, his body began glowing orange as well, his mouth opening up in a soundless scream as he started pulling out Magical Energy away from his body and into the spell, his intentions taking control of his body and actions and stopping himself from ending the magic he had put into motion. And just like the staff he was holding, his body didn't lessen in its glow, instead getting brighter and brighter as time went on, but The Mayor didn't pull away or avert his eyes. He knew this would be the last time he'd see his friend, and he was determined to make it count.
The man continued to glow, but steam was visibly coming off of him and a small crack appeared on the end of his staff, which quickly began to spread down it until the whole thing looked like it was ready to shatter at any moment, and The Mayor knew that something similar would probably be happening to his friend, but the glow had overcome the man's skin to such a degree that he couldn't see his bare flesh anymore.
And then, in a single instant, the tornado stopped. And in the next, it seemed to simply fade away, the winds dispersing into their usual calmness.
But where the Headmaster had been standing there was now only a cracked through staff, useless to anyone in the state it was in.
But the city was safe. And… everything would be okay now, right?
