Vol.4 Ch.58 – Truth
Chapter 58: Truth
Esther Silverspark wanted nothing more than to ask who these people were. They had two extremely high-ranking angels along but the rest of them were humans. Probably. Two of them hummed with power and the others didn't seem as weak and fragile as the people she'd met in the resistance here. But at the same time, she could guess. The brunette held herself like a soldier and the US Army logo on their armor spoke to that as well. She had just never seen humans wearing angel armor, nor seen them work with angels. Was Up-Above helping the mortals? Hopefully not, because apparently Esther knew more about what was going on than they did. Speaking of...
“Who is this Prince Dexter?” the brunette, Elaine, asked, falling into step beside her. “And what's a Lloigor?”
She fucking hated that term. “Lloigor is the old word for Atlanteans.”
“Atlantis is real?” the blonde with glasses asked behind her.
In response Esther looked at the angel. Not the Acheron Vector, who was very pointedly bringing up the rear, but the Radiant Prism walking right behind her. Esther was under no illusion that the Radiant Prism was less dangerous or less wary of her than her partner, but at least she was being civil. And a lot cuter, too. “Did none of you tell them?”
“It never came up,” the angel said. “In hindsight we should have suspected this but... Honestly, we thought the Atlanteans had gone extinct years ago.”
Esther huffed. “Well, that explains a lot. And it makes it even sadder that you tried to kill the one person who knows what's going on here.”
The Acheron Vector didn't dignify that with a response but his partner winced.
Esther sighed and began to explain. “Atlantis was an island located about halfway between Africa and South America. Its civilization was far more advanced than any other. If you've ever heard of the Antikythera mechanism, that was a crude imitation of something Greek scholars saw in Atlantis.”
“Whoa,” the cute blonde with glasses whispered. Esther got the impression she was their tech guy.
“The what?” the redhead asked.
“A very crude computer, dated back to over a century BC,” the blonde explained. “And your people had tech that surpassed that?”
“Yes,” Esther said. “Some called Atlantis the pinnacle of civilization. A city state ruled by the Titan Atlas. At least nominally. In truth the day-to-day ruling was left to the High Priest of Atlantis, a position so powerful that the High Priest was referred to as the Uncrowned King, and his firstborn son as Prince. The de facto ruler of the most advanced civilization on the planet, ruler of a city state of demigods.”
“That sounds a bit arrogant,” Elaine said.
“I'm not bragging,” Esther said, feeling faintly embarrassed. “Divine blood flows in our veins. Atlanteans are far, far stronger than humans, physically and magically. I suppose for many it has diluted over the centuries but back then they were obscenely powerful. And yet, even with all this power at his fingertips, the High Priest wanted more. And so he sought for ways to grow his power. Conquering other nations was too easy. It was child's play. If he had wanted to subjugate the world, he would have. But he wanted more. He wanted to be more powerful than the god he served. And so he had to find power elsewhere.”
“Outside,” the Radiant Prism whispered.
“Oui,” Esther said. “He communed with the Crawling Chaos, with Nyarlathotep himself. He would offer this entire world, summon an entire Outer God into Creation, and receive godhood in exchange.”
“But he failed?” Elaine asked.
“He would have succeeded and destroyed the entire world,” Esther said, “but all the god alive at the time came together to stop him, smiting Atlantis from the heavens, causing it to sink below the waves. All of those who stayed on Atlantis died.”
“But some survived,” Elaine said.
“Many survived,” Esther said. “In the hierarchy of Atlantis three clans were above the rest. The first was the High Priest's clan. Then there was the clan of the head of the Palace Guard, tasked with protecting the High Priest. Of the Guard Captain's line, most died defending the High Priest to the last. The High Priest, unfortunately, sent his family away in case something went wrong, so they survived. And then there was the third clan. The traitor clan.”
“Traitors? Traitors to who?”
“To the High Priest and his insane plan,” Esther said. “The third clan was the General's clan, the one in charge of the military. He led a rescue effort, evacuating the island once he found out what the High Priest had planned.” She stared right at the Radiant Prism. “Most of the Atlanteans who survived the Fall of Atlantis were innocent bystanders who had nothing to do with the mad plans of the High Priest, and yet they were hunted down wherever they were found. Hunted by Heaven and Hell for being part of the cursed Lloigor, who almost destroyed the world, and hunted by the offspring of those loyal to the High Priest's ambition for betraying them.”
“So how many Atlanteans are left?” the Radiant Prism asked.
“Up until a couple weeks ago I would have said somewhere in the triple digits,” Esther said. “But I heard that Prince Dexter has amassed an army a thousand strong.”
The two angels sucked in a breath.
“Who is this Prince Dexter?” Elaine asked. “I'm guessing he's the descendant of this High Priest?”
“Yes,” Esther said. “Crown Prince of Atlantis, descendant of High Priest Aeolus. And the one who thrust open the Outer Gates.”
“The one we have to kill to fix this mess,” Elaine muttered.
“It's not quite that easy, unfortunately,” Esther said. “Dexter must die for this to end, yes, but he has also chosen seven Vassals, people he gave the power to summon and control Outsiders. Only when both Dexter and those Vassals are dead will things be truly over.”
“And the guy we're after, Caulder, is one of these Vassals?”
“Oui.”
“How do you know so much?” Elaine asked. “We've been stumbling in the dark and you've already figured it all out.”
And isn't that concerning?, Esther didn't say and felt very diplomatic for it. “When I heard tell of Outsiders appearing around the globe I was already pretty sure that Dexter was behind it.”
She very carefully didn't tell them why she'd been so certain. It would mean admitting that she'd known Dexter years ago, back before he had gone off the deep end, back when he'd still considered all of his father's ideas as genocidal insanity. What happened to you, Dex?
She shook it off and continued: “And so I went digging and found out more. Back in Quebec I found my first lead, one of his Zodiac Knights.”
“Zodiac Knights?” the Acheron Vector asked and Esther's jaw just about hit pavement.
“How do you of all people not know who the Zodiac Knights are?” she asked, then caught herself. It wouldn't do for her to get angry. But it was hard not to. These were the people who thought they would save the world and they knew nothing about what was actually going on. “The twelve most trusted knights serving the Uncrowned King, each wearing armor styled after one of the zodiacs.” She paused, then added: “The last remnants of the Orichalcum Legion.”
The angels both sucked in sharp breaths. Okay, so they knew at least that much. But now the mortals were giving her looks.
“The Orichalcum Legion was the elite of the elite of the Atlantean military and the only arm of the military under the direct control of the High Priest rather than the General. They kept most of their divine blood through generations of inbreeding and so they are still nearly as strong as the Lloigor of old.”
“So they're a bunch of inbred cripples?” the redhead asked.
“Unfortunately, non,” Esther said. “Our Olympian blood prevents all the negative consequences of inbreeding. Of course, the idea is still distasteful but when your only concern is keeping your bloodline pure then I suppose it makes sense. But the main problem is that they wear Orichalcum armor.”
“And that's bad?” Elaine asked.
“Melting point of ten thousand degrees, practically unbreakable and resistant to magic,” the Acheron Vector muttered.
“Precisely,” Esther said. “Used to be that you could only kill the wearers by cooking them inside their armor or hitting them with enough force to kill them inside it.”
“So which one did you use?” Elaine asked. “I doubt your meeting with this Knight was peaceful.”
“It wasn't,” Esther confirmed. “The problem is that those methods I mentioned no longer work. Technology marches on, even for the Atlanteans. What used to be unbreakable but otherwise mundane suits of armor were upgraded to something like yours. So they're heat-resistant and have shock-absorbers and life support systems built in that insulate the wearer from what little used to hurt them.”
“So how did you do it?” Elaine asked again.
“She has Erebos Crystals,” the Acheron Vector said.
“Just one,” Esther corrected and held up her arm, showing the little crystal pendulum dangling out of her Snatchweaver bracelet.
“What's this thing?” the blonde with glasses asked. “Some kind of grappling hook?”
“Grappling hook,” Esther said, “garrote wire, trip wire and a dozen other things.”
“A genuine Snatchweaver,” the Radiant Prism whispered in awe. “I've only ever heard of them.”
“How does it work?” the blonde asked. Elaine didn't ask but looked just as curious.
Esther smiled at their excitement and explained. “Inside this bracelet is a spool of arachne silk, tougher than steel and sharper than a razor if you want it to be.”
“If you want it to be?” Elaine asked.
In response Esther pulled on the pendulum, unwinding a little of the silk, and wrapped it around her finger. She pulled with a bit of force and nothing happened. Then she loosened the wrap, applied a bit of will into the silk and then tapped a finger against the silk. It came away bloody. “An effort of will turns it from a thread into a sharp wire and back again. As a kid I had to use it as a skipping rope. You learn pretty quick when a single mistake can cost you your foot.”
She saw them wince and while she could sympathize, she didn't share the sentiment. Her family had been under threat from both the other Lloigor and angels like these two their whole lives. For her it was simply do or die. Always had been. She didn't resent her father for making sure she was tough enough for this life.
“And what's with the gem?”
“Erebos Crystal, as he said,” she said. “The unstoppable force to the immovable object that is Orichalcum. No armor protects against Erebos Crystal, its edge never dulls or splinters.”
“So what?” Elaine asked. “You used that tiny pendulum to carve his armor off?”
“Thankfully not,” Esther said. “See, when Erebos Crystal strikes Orichalcum, a reaction occurs. A somewhat... explosive reaction. Strong enough to melt Orichalcum and blast it off the wearer. If he hadn't been supernaturally tough he would have died before I had a chance to question him.”
The blonde with the glasses leaned over to look at the bracelet more closely, so close that Esther smelled her shampoo. Gods above, she missed good shampoo. She missed long showers. It had been all recycled water and dry shampoo for her for months.
“How does this work? If you throw it, it uncoils, right? But how do you roll it back up?”
Esther smiled, then let the pendulum dangle from her wrist. “It only uncoils exactly as far as I let it. And then, with another effort of will...” she willed the spool to pull the wire back in and it did so in a flash.
“Amazing,” the girl said. “Where can I get one of these?”
Esther chuckled. “This is the only one I have ever seen and it was passed down to me from my father. The Zodiac Knights don't carry them either, I'm afraid.” And thank god for that, because those bastards would be a nightmare to fight if they did.
Before the girl could ask any more questions Esther turned around to face the entire group, looking up at the sky to make sure none of these fucking Nightgaunts were circling. She didn't quite know how they communicated but she did know that Caulder's troops saw what they saw. When she was sure they were in the clear she said:
“Now, before I bring you in, I need to ask. Who exactly are you?”