Chapter 58: The Last Straw

Perspective: Steve


Fire's private chambers had been left in the exact state like when they had awaited his notes. It was a highly organized mess that only Fire himself had been able to fully overlook. Miniature redstone circuits of staggering complexity were laid out on stone slabs the back portions of the floor and an incomplete piston-and-slime-block contraption filled a significant part of the room. On Fire's desk still stood the twelve claws that had held the ender pearls that brought the notes to them, beside them was a tall, almost towering stack of blueprints.

The only free floor space was the path that went from the entrance to the desk and to their former commander's large bed. The sheets were still ruffled from the various people who had used it as a seat after Fire's departure.

However, that evening, the ruffled sheets were covered with the former commander's old blueprints, initially stacked in neat piles which quickly deteriorated as they were used. Soon enough, there was a thick layer of scattered paper over nearly every inch of the bed's surface - and bearing in mind how big Fire had been, that was saying a lot.

"It has to be in here somewhere," mumbled Steve as he sorted through. "Any luck on your end?"

"Lot of potion recipes, armour designs, the airship blueprints we already showed him, but nope, haven't found the artillery platform designs yet," said Jennifer from the other side of the bed.

"Nuts. He's going to give me some big sermon about the new world he's going to build and how I'm holding that up - I should be briefing Wolfric and Ozen about their responsibilities, or you know just talking to my brother who I haven't seen in months. It's bad enough when he asks Astro to do stupid stuff like this, we have Lucy and the admin crew for a reason!"

He glanced at Jennifer, brow dark with annoyance. She smiled back sympathetically, and this seemed to lift his spirits a bit.

"I meant to ask, I thought you said he was bringing Lucy 'back into the fold' or something? Why isn't he trusting her with this?"

"It's more like he's taken her out of quarantine. He interacts directly with her now and invites her to meetings, but the Inner Circle still meets and it's still the same six people with the same level of secrecy. Why is the construction of an obviously visible artillery platform being treated with this much secrecy you may ask?"

"I do," giggled Jennifer.

"No one knows, and it's kind of stupid to ask at this point. If I had to guess, he doesn't want to look like he's run out of ideas and is now scraping around Fire's old plans. Or, maybe he just doesn't want anyone to know the King in Ash is not a lone visionary guiding us toward salvation."

"He's really doubling down on that title, isn't he?"

"Unfortunately, yes. He is very serious about all that," Steve sighed.

He didn't say anything for a while, and then lifted a sheet, scrutinised it for a moment and then put it down with a grunt.

"The environment in the Inner Circle is just not good at the moment. The arrival of the new allies is helping a little, it's certainly cheered me up, but it also makes it pretty clear how miserable things have gotten."

"How so?"

Jennifer came around and put an arm around his waist.

"You'd have to be there to understand. We're not fighting or anything, but we're all just letting Kay do as he pleases. He's worn us down. Tyron's got this thousand-yard stare he keeps putting on, it's like he's sent a training dummy to meetings in his place. Destiny's almost as bad as she was back when David died - flipping between morose and quiet and just so angry. Astro's rushed off his feet and has stopped snarking at Kay like he used to. And you know me, I'm not a professional at this, Kay starts throwing around phrases like quid pro quo or telling me to 'reflect on the optics' and I lose any idea of how to challenge him. Only Rose seems fine with things as they are, and Rose is kind of scary. Honestly, the meetings are kind of scary."

"Well, if you're not fighting, what's got you on edge?"

Steve put a finger to his lips as the door opened. In walked a soldier in a red scarf.

"General Steve, sir!"

It was the villager, Raphoe, having undergone yet another weird transfer and promotion into Steve's own unit. He was now a lieutenant.

"Yes, Raph?"

"His Ashen Highness wishes to inquire about the blueprints-"

"-We're struggling but we'll have them for tomorrow morning. Fire has a lot of material."

"He also wants you to see if Fire has anything on the possibility of enhancing magical abilities, particularly for combat purposes."

"Sure thing. Tell him I say hi," he smiled.

Raphoe nodded and left. Steve followed him to the door. There was a squad of six men with Raphoe. Steve kept up his smile and watched them until they turned the corner, then he shut the door carefully and released his breath.

"That's why I'm on edge. He's all smiles and new lounges one minute, and then he sends an armed battalion to check up on you the next. Add to that he can now incinerate an entire building and you guess why no one wants to argue with him."

Jennifer grimaced as she remembered the attack on the portal facility, and how Kay had burned the warehouse full of civilian workers. She wasn't sure how many had died, and Kay hadn't necessarily known they were there, but that was messed up. She remembered Xylo screaming at her as the voidfire climbed his back, and her insides felt like poison.

"I understand," she said minimalistically.

She didn't want Steve to feel as though she were trying to influence him, but she just didn't know if she could trust the guy capable of that sort of destruction.

She set about filtering through documents again. The next in the pile chilled her blood.

"Well… I think I found what Kay had in mind," she said with a nervous laugh.

Steve rushed over and peered over her shoulder with uncharacteristically steely eyes.

The document below contained a series of sketches and instructions outlining the process necessary to carry out an "Ascension Ritual", the same ceremony which had granted Shadow her reality-bending abilities.

At the very beginning of the sketches was a note that the instructions were not complete and that Fire or Shadow for that matter could complete them "should times become dire". What was described of the ritual was gruesome. The subject of the ritual first had to drink a potion which would keep them alive during the procedure, then some kind of knife would be used to carve a very specific set of runes into their skin. This would completely drain the subject of blood.

Steve had to look away for a few seconds as he felt his stomach turn. Jennifer, however, kept reading aloud.

"In the absence of blood, the potion shall be the subject's only tether to the living world, preventing their death. After this, the rune-shaped cuts-"

"-Jennifer, can we take a minute, this is pretty heavy," interrupted Steve.

"Steve, this is important."

The force and gravity she said this with was unlike anything Steve had heard her say before. It wasn't angry or joyous, she was just absolutely convinced of what she had said. The weight of it struck him in the gut and knocked the nausea out of him. They returned to reading.

After this, the rune-shaped cuts would be enchanted with actual magical runes. The final step was not illustrated and only described as "magic infusion". There was also a warning that there was no guarantee that the ritual would ever work again.

"Well, that's gruesome," said Steve weakly.

"You can't tell him about this. We can't have him putting peoples' lives at risk like this."

"Jen, Kay's a jerk but he's not going to mutilate people with this little chance of success."

"Won't he?"

"No, he's just on a bit of a power trip-"

"-He's always just on something. He's always just a little stressed about Shadow being weird. Or he's just a little sore about losing the election to Fire. Or he's just trying to minimise casualties. Or just burning a warehouse full of civilians-"

"Jen, we don't know he knew about them."

"'Just King Kay' didn't care about knowing!"

She grabbed the document with one hand and Steve's shoulder with the other.

"Steve," she continued. "If you give him these plans his thinking is going to follow exactly this trajectory." She put on her best approximation of Kay's posh affectations. "'Wait a second, this is the ritual that created Shadow. That means it's possible to make more people as powerful as her. That means she might be creating them to plot against me as we speak! I must create ascended mages of my own to rival her, or stupider still, I must undergo this ritual myself. Quick, Warnado, hold my sleeve up while Raphoe and Rose mutilate my arm! My beloved Book will keep me safe! What are you gawking at Astro, I'm only leading from the front?'"

She thumped Steve on his pauldron for emphasis. As it rang out, Steve processed.

"Holy crap," he concluded. "Jennifer, I'm not sure Kay should be leader anymore."

"Shall we go see how Shadow's doing?"

"Yeah."

And they left, the seed of revolution firmly planted in their minds.