Magical Engineering

Chapter 292: A Jester Tower

Maud“Is everyone inside?” Mel yelled through the din of battle. The moose had already charged further down the hall, knocking two more jesters to the ground.

Maud looked around her, and as far as she could tell, everyone had passed into the tower. For better or worse, they had all made it into this house of horrors. She was just glad for whatever Yorela had done out there. It was the first time someone had managed to really suppress the whispers after they had grown even louder.

“Everyone's here,” Maud called back to Mel. “But we're going to need to get this door back up somehow if we want to stop those jesters from chasing us inside, and I kind of assume we do.”

At least she hoped that was the plan. There were a ton of them out there, and she guessed that they had been planning to ambush them somehow, but that moose had put an end to that. It was going to be quite the story to tell everyone when they got back. She couldn't wait to hear Alpha's reaction.

Even more impressive was that Hecate and Big immediately went to flank the moose. They hadn't planned that at all. Maud was proud of both of them. They deserved a lot of treats when this was over.

The fact that she was pretty sure she had seen Hecate in two places out there at the same time, briefly, she decided, would be best addressed later. If her cat had decided to learn a unique fighting style of her own, who was she to argue with the results? She was only curious where they had learned it.

“Come on, get the other door back in place. I got this one,” Yorela ordered.

John jumped towards the other door, hefting it back into place. Considering the size of that door, Maud was impressed. She hadn't realized John had gotten that strong.

But that wasn't what you needed to focus on. No, they needed a way to block the door behind them. She had probably the right spell for it. Focusing down inside of herself, she reached into her elemental mana orb and pulled out an earth spell.

The ground below them rumbled as the rock floor rose, holding the doors into place. Maud tried to push it even further, but she had used a lot of her mana already in the fight outside. The cost to completely seal it wouldn't be worth her uselessness in the next fight.

“Good job. Now let's…” Mel started to say.

His words were cut off by what felt like an explosion inside of Maud's head. The world danced in front of her eyes. Everything grew hazy for a moment, and then the world came back into focus.

She was alone.

No, that wasn't right. John was there, except he was on the ground, bleeding from his ears. He was moaning in pain. Whatever had happened to her head had destroyed something inside of him.

“John, what happened? Can you hear me? John…” Her last utterance of his name trailed off into silence as his body stopped moving.

He had just died in front of her. And now she was totally alone. The jesters had won. She sank to her knees, depression and rage fighting for their place in her brain.

John

He had seen it, even if he deeply wished he hadn't. That explosion from the jester that had fired down the hallway, somehow, he had managed to live through it, blown to the side. But he was the only one.

He had seen both his wife and his sister utterly obliterated in a single attack. And he realized they had never had a single chance. The Jesters had won.

Mel

He didn't know what that damn effect had been. But it had transported him somewhere else in the tower, away from everyone else. And it felt like something exploding inside his brain. And he always hated magic that did that.

The worst part was that, considering this was a jester's tower, he couldn't trust any of his senses. Yorela's abilities had been the only thing keeping him sure of everything around him, and with her gone, that meant he couldn't trust his own eyes. But he was a Cloudform that didn't only rely on his eyes.

And he was even more powerful than the last time they had fought these jesters on Earth. Between his training of the others, he had been pushing himself further than ever. Focusing on his core, dozens of drones appeared around him.

There was more than one way to map a tower.

Alex

The voices in my head had suddenly grown louder than ever before. For the first time, I couldn't ignore them. They were overwhelming me, my fear, my anger, everything inside of me.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

I watched in horror as my friends and allies vanished in front of me. Only Maud and John were left, both of them muttering incoherently on the ground. Were they both crying?

I couldn't focus long enough to be sure of it. The damn voices had gotten a hold of me. Whatever the tower had done, it had broken us. It had split us up, and now William would be lost forever.

Images played through my mind of the tortures my poor son would experience. The voices whispered louder, each new, horrible thing they would do to him as he grew. Slowly, they would mold him into one of their new jesters. And if I were lucky, they would do the same to me.

Desperately, I tried to push the images away. I tried to grasp back into my deep hatred for the jesters. He needed to let that rage out. It was the only way I knew to fight back.

Quickly losing that battle, I dropped to my knees as the voices grew even louder. “Someone, please help me.” The words barely came out as a whisper.

Despite that, somewhere, something had heard my plea. In the back of my mind, a quiet, singing song voice joined the chorus of horrible whispers. Unlike the monstrous words they spewed, it instead had a message of hope.

I couldn't fully make out the words it said, but every time it spoke, another of the whispers stopped, and it grew a little louder. I had felt this before. It was that warm voice calling to me.

“Alex, let go of your fear and your hatred. It won't help us here. The jesters are using it against you. Cling to the eternal hope. Let the bird song out.” Its words had finally come into focus.

It was that same call that had led me to the tropical rainforest mana orb in the first place. I did my best to push away that rage as it asked. I even tried to clamp down on my fears. But how could I release the bird song? I wasn't strong enough for that.

The horrible, all-encompassing, crushing intensity continued to push down relentlessly on me. But I managed to force out a single word. “How?”

“Embrace hope,” came the voice again, quieter than it had been before. It was slipping away. I couldn't let that happen. It was the only thing keeping me fighting.

What did that even mean? How could I hope in the face of this? John and Maud were screaming in some terror of their own. Everyone else was gone. They were going to escape with William. How could I possibly find anything hopeful?

No, those weren't my thoughts. That was the whispers working on the foothold they had already grabbed in my brain. The one I hadn't fully realized they were making. I had made a mistake in thinking I was immune. That was obvious now. They had played on my desperation.

I pushed against the voices in my head. They would not drive me any further. Digging deeply into my memories, images of William's smile and laugh came to the forefront. And with those happy thoughts, the earlier voice grew louder.

“Our connection is growing clearer and stronger, Alex. Fight harder. Remember the beauty of the world and what you truly came for. Not the fear. Not the desperation. The unbridled hope that we will win against all odds.”

Quest Evolution-\Quest\Jester’s Nightmare {1/1}Quest CompleteReward: 10 Skill Points

Forcing myself to stand up, I read through the changed quest. The hope I was feeling now had been enough to complete it already. And those ten new skill points went directly into unlocking Birdsong.

There were enough to put six full ranks into it. With every one that was invested, I felt the song inside myself resonate all the stronger. Each time the rank rose, it became that much easier to ignore the horrible noises in my skull.

I had no idea how the mana orb had reached out to me like that, but I knew what I had to do now. First, I triggered Radiance, causing a burst of mana to explode from my body. The room changed around me. The strange and terrifying visions I had seen since entering the tower were replaced by rainbow shapes and small forms pushing against the intruding malevolence.

Following that up, I activated Birdsong as the voice had told me. That caused an even greater change in everything. Not just the room, everything, my entire being screamed with a song begging to come out. I could feel William somewhere in the tower. He wasn't scared anymore. He knew we were coming for him.

On either side of me, John and Maud stopped their panics. Both of them stood up, looking around in confusion. Maud was the first to speak.

“Was that all just a nightmare then?” Her voice cracked slightly with the question.

“Yes, the jesters apparently had another trap prepared for us once we were inside. But I think I've counteracted it for now. We need to find the others, and we need to rescue William,” I said, the monotone depression gone from my words. They came out wrapped in that same bird song that encompassed us all and pushed the voices out.

“Not that I blame you, Alex, but it's nice hearing you back to your old self. And holy shit, do I never want to experience a nightmare like that again,” John said, still shuddering at the memory.

“I let my grief get the better of me, and I think that was a mistake. But it's one I intend to rectify,” I said confidently. I wasn't sure if that confidence truly permeated all of me yet, but there was something to be said for faking it until you made it.

At the very least, I now understood Dad on a much deeper level. And when I got back to Earth, he and I were going to have a deep heart-to-heart. No matter how much he might try to avoid it.

Somewhere in the distance, the moose bellowed. Without a word, we chased after it, the oppressive fear gone from our stride.

Entry from Thykle’s Personal Diaries