Chapter 85

The Yr’ch civilisation on Draenoric was growing again. Thousands of the women were pregnant as basic nature moved to restore the population. Moves were underway to restore contact with all of the more peaceful groups as well as extirpate the various groups who’d resorted to banditry. In this, the Shayetet Kheshig under Birry were taking a major role in running down any group of bandits who came out into the open, leaving any siege work to the blesséd of Athena who were being equipped from Earth with heavy weapons adapted for their use. The settlement around Crnnch’s family home continued to grow and Athena herself continued to bless the crops as well as the fertility of the Yr’ch women.

Missions to Vultoq were going extremely cautiously as the adelshaut were very good at detecting intrusions into their world and would move in strength via a portal against any detected. We now though had established another forward base there in the equivalent of the South East Asia jungles. It was well defended as it housed at least two Seers at any one time as well as a full company of Loegrian Special Forces, fully shielded, to defend them. It was this site from which that the four Drow scout teams, led by Ilzik, Lenna, Valon and Trius, were based. They observed at close hand what the Vultoqi were up to, as well as trying to infiltrate the shielded area that the patripure were based in, which was slightly easier now as it had been expanded to cover almost a hundred square kilometres.

For all the Seers could scan through the Drow, I’d gathered that what they were getting made little sense to them as they couldn’t understand just what it was they were scanning. It was in essence a primeval wonderland full of strange creatures who, it was assumed, had been kept in storage by the patripures and used, along with dense vegetation, to populate it. The question bugging the Seers was how did the patripures do it so quickly, and, how did they repopulate it after the devastation wrought by my destruction of their initial superweapon.

Hence the Seers were agitating Arch, and now Roxanne after our return, to get one of them inside this screen. This was something that was being strongly opposed by the leadership as our Drow scouts had a hard enough time getting inside and the Seers frankly were not very good at sneaking around, Abi and Adsila being about the best at it. Even they had to admit that they slowed down any group taking them as they really didn’t get a lot of practice at it.

Still, pressure was building to take the fight to the Vultoqi in a series of diversions by the army of the Alliance. The Seers were using this as a pretext to get one of them inside the shield.

“Question is, will we gain anything?” Roxanne asked during a morning meeting of all the leaders.

“Well, they’re definitely building something that uses a lot of energy,” Jemima answered. “We suspect they are trying to make some form of power pack for a portal system capable of reaching between universes.”

“Why not do it under their shielded area?” I asked.

“We don’t know. They’ve portalled from there before when they were able to use a locking beacon, but suspect now that they don’t want any high powered emanations from the equipment build to interfere with whatever the hell that thing really is. But, that’s just a guess,” Jemima replied.

“They built and used that superweapon from there,” Roxanne noted.

“Yes, but we think they were going from existing plans, not inventing something.”

“Ah, right. That makes sense.”

“Thing is, we really need to know what the hell they are doing under that shield as well as what the hell it is. We can’t scan it from outside and internal scans via the Drow are just confusing as we’re limited as to what we can do through them.”

“So, you want to use this attack as a diversion to get one of you under that shield ... and out again?” Roxanne sighed.

“Yes, we really do need to know, Mage Roxanne,” Jemima confirmed formally.

“I’m willing to take one with my team to get us in,” I offered. “We at least know what we’re doing with regards to approaching it.”

“It’s just too dangerous, John. The Vultoqi spot the Drow at least half the time,” Arch countered.

“I’m sure the Seers can pull us out if that happens.”

“We can, as we do with the Drow,” Jemima added.

“Come up with a clear plan and I’ll consider it. But it needs a good escape route built in, otherwise the answer will remain, no,” Roxanne replied, before the meeting moved on to other things.

It was almost a week later that my team, along with Ilzik’s and Lenna’s teams, were escorting Seer Adsila. Adok, as well as Elpida, was moving silently with us towards the boundary of the Vultoqi shield. On the other side of the planet, the Alliance was making a raid on what appeared to be a Vultoqi site designed for energy research. This, we hoped, would keep their visual apparatus focussed elsewhere. Not that we were finding it easy. We were having to avoid ghosin guardians as well as several patrolling adelshaut. In this though we were trying out the new modified armour, specifically designed to be transparent to all known Vultoqi scans as well as utterly sound deadening with regards to the vibrations caused by our footfalls. We’d tested this out on Adok and he’d given it the nod as he could not detect an approach at all. He was, however, somewhat disappointed that he couldn’t come with us in wolf form, though was currently keeping up well and would transform once we got beyond the shield boundary.

“Boundary reached,” came a message from Ilzik over the subliminal radios we were using to avoid any telepathic traces, as we knew the Vultoqi were capable of detecting them.

“Adsila,” I stated quietly, giving her the go-ahead to merge us into and through the screen.

“On it ... and let’s go.”

Again I passed into the weird wonderland of the Vultoqi screen, where, for all it was dusk outside, inside it was a bright, beautiful summer’s day. Lush semi-tropical jungle covered us and in the distance were the various sounds of animal life.

“No Vultoqi in the immediate vicinity,” Adsila murmured.

“Good,” I nodded. “Ilzik, Lenna, set up a perimeter; Adok, feel free to scout; the rest of you form an inner perimeter and let Adsila get to work,” I finished with a flurry of orders.

The team spread out swiftly as Adsila simply sat and began her scans, aided by the Seer gestalt as they attempted to find out just what it was we were dealing with.

“It’s called the echtra by the patripures and it basically translates as memory made real,” Adsila informed us during a quieter (for her) period.

“You can read a patripure?” I asked.

“No, but I can tap into their group mind that they use to maintain this.”

“Is it real?” Róisín asked.

“Yes. The patripures can somehow do as the Higher Powers do in creating actual life. This is a representation or memory of their time with their god in ... call it paradise, before what they consider the fall and God’s introduction of intelligent life throughout the multiverse.”

“And we can’t kill them, just possibly send them to sleep,” I sighed.

“Apparently we’ve managed to kill one. It happened when you destroyed that superweapon, they call it a wrath-bringer. The explosion wounded it badly and it could not re-generate. It’s why there was a delay in their attack on you when you were isolated in the ruins,” Adsila expanded.

“Ye gods, if that explosion only wounded one badly enough to kill it, we have got a serious problem if we cannot send them off to sleep,” I sighed.

“Yes, John. Now excuse me, I have to get back to work.”

It was seven hours later that Adsila gave us the nod that she was finished and that it was safe enough to attempt to leave. Several times we’d detected adelshaut simply wandering, though none approached too closely.

Whatever it was the Seers had discovered, they were currently keeping it to themselves as we silently moved to the shield boundary after Adok had re-transformed and ate a massive amount of energy bars washed down with energy drinks.

“No predators at all, except for the Vultoqi,” he confirmed.

“Almost a stereotype of what we’d consider a paradise,” I chuckled.

“Well, you might,” Adok replied with a grin.

“True, I doubt the people would see it as one,” I laughed.

“Too boring,” he confirmed.

Once at the boundary we waited for Adsila to mesh into it before slipping outside into the afternoon sunshine. It was then the reverse of our approach as we cautiously moved away to where the Seers could collect us. The only incident we had was when we stumbled onto an incredibly well concealed ghosin and were lucky that Elpida could tap into the power of Athena, despite the goddess not being on Vultoq, and turned it to stone. In a sense this showed how much more powerful Athena had become, not that you’d know from talking to her as Gregorius used various methods to keep her well-grounded.

“Did it get out a message?” I asked Adsila.

“No, but sooner or later they’ll expect it to report in,” she replied.

“Yes, let’s pick up the pace,” I nodded as we moved swiftly towards the pick-up point.

“So, what have you discovered?” Roxanne asked Melanie who was representing the Seers during the following day’s morning meeting.

“The shield is polyphasic in that it’s constantly flickering between several different types at incredible speed. It’s possible for Seers and Mages to match with it and pass through, but Null will not work as it isn’t quantum driven and uses a similar methodology to Yr’ch shields, only with greater power and variance,” Melanie explained. “However, no material or energy based weapon that we could put together will penetrate it from the outside, although they are able to fire weapons from the inside against anyone attacking it.”

“Like Nhuvla’s book described,” Roxanne nodded.

“Yes, Mage Roxanne. Nor could we easily overcome a patripure should we get inside and attack them as they are incredibly resilient to physical, mental or energy damage. Only a massive close-up energy blast could take one out and we are in no position to do so, though those troichin eggs can be destabilised to do it.”

“I doubt we’d be lucky enough to find them standing over enough of them,” I chuckled.

“Most likely, John,” Melanie replied with a grin.

“Looks like we need to find out just what this deceitful weapon is exactly,” Roxanne sighed. “Even then, there’s still the risk they’ll awaken again at some future date and go after us.”

“Yes, Mage Roxanne,” Melanie nodded.

“Kordanta, how are the troops after the attack?”

“Morale is still high, though we received a bit of a mauling when the Vultoqi turned our flank. If it hadn’t been for Tenklar and the Yr’ch, it could have been a lot worse, as they gave the adelshaut a mauling of their own in return. Still, we know better what they can do in a mobile warfare situation and we won’t be caught like that again,” he replied at length.

“Target successfully destroyed?”