Chapter 60: Gathering Storm
Perspective: Shadow
Astro began with his eyes forced shut, as though by refusing to observe his statements he prevented them from being definitely real.
"Kay's not well. He's falling down exactly the same chute as last time. He needs to be removed from office," said Astro. He forced his eyes open. "I need your help."
Shadow had not been prepared for that line of thinking, much less in a manner this direct, even less coming from Astro directly. She took a few moments to get her thoughts in order, putting away all the ones about demons and godhood. A small part of her was tempted to gloat about Astro coming crawling to her and everything that went along with it, but the rest of her knew that now was not the time for that, now was the time for level-headed discussion.
She emphatically breathed in and out, then asked: "So, what's the situation? Did he cross a line? Or additional lines that is."
"Well, I'd like to say burning the warehouse full of civilians was a casus belli, but mostly it was the fact that the most cripplingly unstable man I know now can burn a warehouse full of civilians with a thought. Doesn't help that he's named himself king of a noun that indicates he fully intends to burn more things."
The snark had a forced quality, as though his throat were dry and hoarse, and he had to speak at a specific volume for it not to show in his voice
Shadow said: "Trust me when I say that I have contemplated a coup, or something similar to it. The reason I have not put any such plan into motion is because all it would do is fracture and destabilize our followers. My mages against his warriors with the civilians being caught in the middle." She paused briefly. "I currently see no way to go about this without at least some internal conflict."
That was the truth, every time she had thought about it, Shadow was faced with a lose-lose situation. Leave Kay in charge and potentially have him run the Shelter into the ground with his megalomania or take action and have the Shelter destroy itself in a civil war. Fire probably would have found a way out, but then again, if Fire were here the whole issue would be null.
Astro smeared his fingers across his face, winding up squeezing his upper lip to the point of strangulation. His skin shone an intense shade of white between the thicket of black hairs which made up his beard. His eyes scanned the floor as he paced to and fro.
"That's a risk we have to take. It should go better if you join forces with us. There's only so many people loyal to him. Rose, Raphoe, Warnado, and who else? I don't know about you, but I don't see Urist risking his neck for Kay. Steve certainly wouldn't and he's in the inner circle!"
Shadow began her own pacing. "You coming to me makes things a lot less muddy, that's another thing. But you are right, as far as the chain of command is concerned, he does not have many loyalties left. As you saw, Warnado and Amanda were here just earlier, I helped him find his demon ancestor and along the way we may have also discussed Shelter politics. Going by what he said, I wouldn't call Warnado loyal. Hopeful or optimistic would be a better way to put it. Like he's still slowly realizing that yes, it really is this bad."
Shadow thought more about the implications of a coup. "The issue is that a lot of the soldiers are loyal to him directly, even if they technically serve under Steve or Tyron. They're what make me worried, we need them on our side if we want any chance to win this, especially since it means not having them attack our other people."
Astro said: "I don't know, there's widespread discontent from what I can tell. Or at least, unease. People joined to fight the Tower, to get home, not to reshape Nexus in the name of Kay. Then again, I haven't been on the ground too much, he's got me busy with a lot of random bollockry. You'd have to ask-"
There was a knocking sound. Astro fell very quiet.
"If we're in luck," he continued slowly. "That's him... You're certain Kay can't hear us in here? I - I don't know what he's capable of these days."
Shadow briefly expanded her senses beyond the pocket dimension, just enough to be able to make out who was on the other side of the door. She immediately felt the Void return to her in full strength as she did, there was a reason why she avoided doing this.
She said: "It's not Kay, it's Tyron. Should I let him in?"
Astro swallowed and nodded. He turned away and began to wipe his forehead on the sleeve of his robe.
"If I didn't have him on board, we wouldn't be having this conversation. I would have had to be more discreet and… hands-on. We may still have to, but we have a chance of making this bloodless."
With a thought Shadow made the door swing open, Tyron coming into view on the other side. He appeared startled by the sudden movement but then quickly stepped through, casting a glance behind him before the door slammed shut again.
Shadow greeted him: "Hello Tyron, I see we have ourselves another co-conspirator."
The humor was forced but she felt like at least some amount of it was necessary.
Tyron grimaced and looked very coldly at Shadow.
"I'm just trying to keep everyone safe. I'm not some plotter, and this isn't an endorsement of your behavior. That chanting back at the raid-"
"-Was an unintended consequence of newfound power, I'm sure," interjected Astro with policy and a pained smile.
"Something I nonetheless should have prevented in some way, but back then I frankly had very little control over the actions of my followers, something I have at least partially rectified by now." Shadow conceded. "But nevermind all that. I already spent too much time making excuses about that whole mess to Astro previously."
Astro looked at the ground with a mixture of shame and suppressed venom, but in an instant raised his eyes again, face purged of emotion. Tyron waited for someone else to speak for some time, then sighed and walked towards the summoning. He dragged a finger across the chalk circle and began rubbing his fingers together.
"Step one: win conditions," he grunted. "We want Kay not to be Commander anymore. What does that mean? Is he in a cell or still part of the officer's class? Can he move freely through the shelter? Does he still have his powers? How is the shelter run from that point on?"
"One thing is for certain, while Kay may get a second chance if he cooperates, the same cannot be said for the Book. It seems to have forgotten that we made a deal, it and I. And I am fully intent on fulfilling my end of the bargain, I will destroy the Book because it has proven that it cannot be trusted." Shadow said with conviction.
She thought back to when she had first communicated with the Book, in its cute little infinite hyperplane of endless shelves and paper. She had put too much faith in the damn thing, especially after what it had done to Fristad, had done to Amanda. No, it was yet another entry on her rapidly growing list of "Things I could have handled better and got people hurt because I didn't".
"Yes, he'll still be a problem without the Book, but he'll be back to his normal level of dangerous," agreed Astro with a furious vigor. "We're destroying that bloody thing."
He sniffed and turned his head upwards to look into the gaping black void.
Tyron held up a finger.
"So, he doesn't have his powers. Good, we'll work on how later. Now, is Kay part of the command structure after this all goes down or is a prisoner? Shadow seems to be leaning towards a 'wait and see' approach, what do you say Astro?"
"He'll be angry. By the mods he'll be angry. And he'll blame you," he pointed at Shadow, "So we either lock him in a cell now or lock him away after he's done something stupid and probably killed someone."
Shadow sighed. "You know him better than I do, Astro. If you think he can't be trusted afterwards then we'll have to lock him up. The spell I used on Silver will contain him too, even if he somehow keeps some residual magic from the Book."
"Of course," Astro continued as though Shadow had said nothing. "Unless the takeover goes well and truly sideways, I'd recommend confining him to his chambers. We'll have to be subtle about it. We'll not condemn him before the public or act as though he's a political prisoner. He's a friend, our friend, and he's not very well. Let me handle that, our friendship is common knowledge, especially since the Prophet's Hill."
"All good stuff," Tyron said delicately, coming over and rubbing Astro on the shoulder. "And of course, how are we running things from now on?"
He turned his gaze on Shadow, as though he'd thrown a gauntlet directly into her face. This was obviously what he considered the real test of the strength of their alliance.
Shadow replied bitterly: "Believe me, I'm the wrong person to look to for leadership of the entire Shelter. I'm barely keeping this impromptu cult my mages have formed around me in check. Granted, if Kay is out of the Commander's chair, they'll probably become a lot more manageable. My vote would be to not elect a dedicated leader and form a council from our familiar core group. We have… what? Two, three weeks at most until the Entity completes its plan, too little time for anything else."
Tyron betrayed no emotion. Astro spoke up.
"We were anticipating that the title of Commander would naturally fall to Tyron, though we also intended to run things as a triumvirate behind the scenes - myself, yourself, and Tyron - not too different to how we ran things back before the leadership elections, minus Fire. Everyone important would be invited to meetings to say their piece, though bearing in mind the potential fallout from the takeover, gathering the entire original group into a council could do more harm than good. Either someone within the group starts causing trouble and holding up decision-making or people on the outside start questioning why the leadership is such a closed shop even though the Commander's office is apparently a revolving door. Democracy's great, but people need to know who's in charge in a situation like this."
He sighed.
"So, are you up for an unofficial triumvirate under the official leadership of Tyron? Yes or no."
"You are more familiar with the situation and how people react than I am. My own position wouldn't change much, being in charge of the mages. So, yes, we can do it that way." Shadow agreed.
If they made it out of this intact Shadow vowed to put in some dedicated effort into learning how to properly work with people. Five thousand years and she had never been in a situation like now, if she ever was in one in the future, she needed to be better. The server would not last forever and eventually she would have to deal with people as they were without a safety net.
"Okay - Kay is to lose his powers, be locked up in his bedroom, and I'm going to pretend to be the undisputed leader, so no one senses there's a power vacuum and tries to fill it. Burning Nether if that isn't a perfect storm, I don't know what is…" grumbled Tyron. "This is so messed up."
It was Astro's turn to rub Tyron on the shoulder in a reassuring manner. They both kept swallowing as though they hadn't drunk in days. He folded his mouth down and prepared to speak when suddenly there was once again a knocking sound.
Shadow once again took a quick look. It was the Brines, very concerned looks on their faces. This was getting surreal, a very refreshingly mundane kind of surreal. She unlocked the door and the two of them quickly came through, casting gazes behind them just like Tyron had done.
"Shadow, we need to talk to you-" Steve began, stopping abruptly when he saw Astro and Tyron. "Or we could come back later. Or if you had a moment in private, not that it's of political importance, it's purely personal butnotbecausewe'recloseoranything-"
The blood had drained from his face, and he was obviously babbling so Jennifer put a hand over Steve's mouth.
"Sweetie, they're here for the same reason we are. And if they're not, I'm here to convince them: Kay's gone off the deep end. He shouldn't be Commander. Now, are we going to discuss how we take him down, or are you going to call the guards on us?"
Astro, glaring instinctively at Jennifer, marched forward. After coming near enough nose-to-nose with her, he said in a low, frosty monotone:
"We're going to discuss how to stop a deeply unwell man from hurting himself or others. If you're here to 'take him down', you have come to the wrong place, Jen."
Without hesitation, Jennifer snapped back: "All well and good for you to say, you're not the ones he just sent half a battalion to check up on. Or the warehouse workers he fried. Or the people he told would be completely safe and died thanks to his stupid formation-"
Before Jennifer could list any more examples or Astro could get turned back around into supporting Kay, Tyron intervened.
"Listen, we're Kay's friends, you guys aren't close. We'll split the difference. What's this about half a battalion?"
"He sent Raphoe and some of his scarf-guys to check on us carrying out a pretty mundane task," answered Steve. "It was weird. Full armored squad. He's either getting paranoid or he senses that the 'King in Ashes' shtick freaks me the heck out and that's making him paranoid."
"By the bloody mods," groaned Astro. "It's worse than I thought. We need to stop him, do you have a plan or just a list of reasons Kay's a terrible person? I've known the man for over a decade, believe me, you're not giving me any new inform- Okay, sorry, I'm lashing out, Jennifer, but seriously, do you two have a plan or should we start brainstorming?"
"We were… we were kind of hoping to hash it out with Shadow."
"And that Shadow had most of a plan together already," added Steve, scratching his neck and screwing up his features. Jennifer slumped in concession.
"Fine. That's fine," said Tyron. "As I see it, our top priority is getting the Book out of his hands. It's the reason he's dangerous. If he didn't have it, we could probably just send Steve to kick the crap out of him, tell him to wise up, and be mostly done with it. Besides, once he can't summon voidfire and teleport away, he'll realize his position is untenable. Even the King in Ash gimmick won't make sense. He'll surrender pretty quickly. How do we think we should go about it?"
Shadow again thought back to the tavern room in the village where she had first spoken to the Book. "Back when I made that deal with the Book, it acted like it valued its own survival above everything else, even if it worded it in an esoteric way. By now even it will have realized that it can't stick with Kay forever, with his tendencies to drive himself to ruin to prove a point. It's got to be looking for a new host. Currently my money is on Rose since she's both close to Kay and very suitable with her occult magic, plus I'm sure the Book would be intrigued by the possibility of immortality that her world apparently has."
Shadow took a few moments to contemplate how to best word what she was about to say.
"If we, in theory, had someone Kay trusts walk up to him and ask for the Book- Who am I kidding? Warnado is the only one who could pull it off without getting incinerated the moment he suggests it. It's a terrible thing to suggest but it might be a way to get Kay to relinquish the Book so we can bring him in. Or he realizes that the Book is disloyal to him and submits to us. Both very optimistic possibilities, sadly."
"I'm reluctant to put the kid in harm's way, but this is a bad situation and if we can avoid bloodshed, it might be worth it," said Tyron. "Do you think it would work, Astro?"
"Shadow's right," Astro said. "At the very least we're giving him an opportunity to step aside peacefully. And Warnado's pretty much the only one who could ask for the Book to be given to him without Kay immediately branding them a traitor. I'm his friend, but if I asked, he'd consider it a huge betrayal. Same with Tyron. Even before he got the Book, he thought of us as his equals, so he'll view it as an attempt to get ahead of him. He thinks of Warnado as some sort of lost puppy he needs to bring home and feed warm milk. In short, he might think it's the stupidest thing he's ever heard, but he won't chalk it up to malice.
"Besides, from the Book's perspective, Warnado's a pretty believable option. He has to kill Herobrine or something like that and he's already consorted with the demonic powers who killed his dad to rise to that occasion. Why draw the line at the Book? Rose would probably be a more powerful host, but we can't guarantee she would agree with us, and Kay would not allow it - something about undermining the chain of command by ceding his powers to somehow who is so clearly an underling. Warnado he could at least spin as a personal protege or Ashen Prince of some sort."
He sighed and cradled his head in his hands. Jennifer rubbed him on the back, natural sympathy overpowering the hostility that had existed only a few minutes prior.
"As an added plus," Steve said enthusiastically. "We only need the ruse to last long enough for one of us to clock Kay in the head. Then we can just destroy the stupid thing."
After a few seconds' deliberation, Tyron spoke.
"It's not awful," he nodded. "There's a lot of room for error, but if we can get the kid to do it, it's worth a shot. Only other things I can think of are ambushing Kay somehow, and his teleporting ability makes that really hard to pull off reliably. Could easily turn into a bloodbath. Confronting him wouldn't go much more smoothly, even if we got the entire council-to-be on side he'd probably rather run off and rally his troops than give up quietly."
Shadow looked at Tyron. "So, should we go find Warnado?"
"Sure, it's probably best if it comes from us. We have the closest connection. Astro, would you mind not coming?"
"No, I understand. He and I and… we don't click."
Tyron nodded somberly.
"Just us two then, if anyone asks, we're going to check on the portal." Shadow realized what she just said. "Whoops. Sorry about that, you didn't say that to me. You did think it rather loudly though. Hard to keep the accidental mind-reading suppressed. Another reason to get this whole thing done fast."
"Hey," said Jennifer. "This is kind of nostalgic, you know. If you get Warnado on board, it's almost the same team that took down the Dreamweaver. Just substitute Fire for Tyron and… Fristad and the Book for Kay and the Book…" Her face fell. "...This sucks. I'm sorry I said anything."
Shadow walked towards the door, which swung open ahead of her. "Let's get to it then. The rest of you may want to wait behind a bit, it might be a bit suspicious if five people suddenly come out of my room."
Tyron nodded and followed closely behind. Shadow focused up, it was time to face the noise.
The moment she stepped out into Nexus, Shadow was acutely aware of everything and everyone around her. Just so many different thoughts and feelings everywhere. She was not overwhelmed but she certainly was not comfortable knowing what everyone around her thought at the moment. She looked around, searching for Warnado and soon found her apprentice in one of her coven's otherwise empty training rooms, currently munching on an unusually large taco.
"He's in 'my' section of the Shelter, should make it easier to not attract attention." She noted.
Shadow and Tyron split up soon after leaving her room to avoid suspicion. A quick walk and a short-distance teleport to avoid Raphoe's squad later, Shadow stood at the door to the training room, waiting for Tyron.
