Chapter 24: The Biomancer’s Creations

Note: Thanks to WRC 264 for beta reading this!

Prince Meinard

The Hunter thrashed as duelist surged around him. Acrobats flowed in too, men and women trained by the College of Az to gain complete mastery over the movements of their bodies, bending and swaying them in ways impossible for others. It gave them such dexterous precision with the knives they threw. Blades glanced off the thrashing Hunger’s chitinous hide.

The bards music grew louder, the monsters quivering. Duelist and fencers, holding their rapiers and epees, their narrow swords gleaming in the dying sun, swarmed at the thrashing Hunter. It snarled, clawed paws covering ears as it collapsed on its back. The Bards of Az knew how to use music to bewilder, enchant, daze, stupefy, or lull into peace. They were taught the perfection of music, how to turn it into a true magic.

They would kill the Paragon’s followers. He would lose his chance for allies. His armies would retreat back. He would be lucky to hold onto his original princedom, let alone the half-dozen he conquered over the last five years.

“No!” I snarled and charged at the bards. I had to kill them. “You won’t—”

A complex melody arouse out of the cacophony. The sound resonated with my metallic body. A quartet of bards stared at me, a windy-haired sylph leading them, her fingers dancing on the flute she held to her lips, her eyes hard on me.

My metallic body shook with the music. It vibrated my soul controlling my proxy. I growled, stumbling to my knees. My body grew stiffer, harder to move. It resisted me as the music reached my soul, quivering me and—

My conscious was thrown out of my proxy.

I screamed out in the wordless void between bodies. I hung there, reaching for my proxy, fighting the music hurtling me back to my body and ... The music vanished. I was in the void. I was beyond the mortal world. Their song didn’t wrap around my soul, didn’t chain it with precise musical notes, pitched to perfection.

I struggled, still reaching out to my metal body and...

I could touch it. It still vibrated from the song, the buzzing keeping my soul from inhabiting it right now. But that didn’t stop me from grabbing the limbs. From making it rise again. If I had flesh, I’d furrow my brow in shock.

I was ... puppeteering it. I was controlling it without inhabiting it. I could see it standing in a shadowy world, witness the fencers attacking the monsters. Helpless, they would finish off my allies. I couldn’t let that happen.

I marched my proxy forward. I controlled its every step. I couldn’t see through its eyes. I couldn’t move it with skill, but it still responded. It still gripped its iron sword, ready to swing it, to cut down my enemies.

To kill the bards.

No sound reached me as my sword scythed through the air. The bards died, hacked down by my brutal strikes. From all directions, the fencers came. They stabbed and swung their blades, They struck my solid, iron puppet. Their attacks rebounded leaving only small nicks and mars. A sword snapped against my proxy.

I swept the proxy’s blade before it, killing more as I controlled the puppet towards the bards. If I could smile, I would. I was untouchable. Their musical magic couldn’t harm me. I was beyond them. I charged at another group. They scattered, their music faltering, their symphony ended. The iron puppet crushed any defenders in my proxy’s path.

The resonating stopped attacking my body. I flowed into it once more.

Sounds burst into my ears. Men groaned and screamed around me. The bards fled, leaving behind their dead or dying companions. Broken instruments lay in spreading pools of blood. Now my smile came. They thought to stop me.

I was their prince. I ruled this city. They sought to defy me!

I cut down an acrobat, his body collapsing into two pieces of meat. I opened my mouth to shout and gather the monsters around me when the light burst up into the sky.

I gaped at the brilliance as it shone, a beam blazing into the darkening sky. It drove back impending night for a moment as the ground shook. I shifted my body as buildings quivered around me. Then the beam of light snuffed out like it never existed.

An owl hooted.

“They’re at the temple,” buzzed the Colony as it loped past, once again in the strange shape of the spindly hound. “We must hurry. They can unmake it!”

Sven Falk

I ripped off my leather jerkin. I had to don the armor. With Ava holding the hammer, I could feel it beckoning me. It was mine, made for me by a god a thousand or more years ago. I shook my head at that thought.

I grabbed the cuirass, touching the light-drinking leather. I felt it quiver beneath my touch and whisper a name. I repeated it, “Frozenshadows.”

Carsina gasped. “Are these the lost armors?” Her head cast around as I pulled the boiled cuirass over my head, the stiff leather sliding over my torso like a shirt open at the sides. “Yes, yes, that must be Silence and Sunburst. Rubyforged and Tidewalker. Why are they here? Why did my god make them?”

“I don’t know,” I said as I found the buckles of the cuirass. They were on both sides near my hip. I pulled them tight, the armor fitting around my chest, back, and shoulders with such perfection. It fit the shape of my torso and the contours of my muscles.

Nathalie, naked, pulled on the half-breastplate of her armor. It cupped her small breasts, lifting them into a nice bit of cleavage. The red metal hugged about her torso with the fit only found in tailored cloth. It left her lower stomach bare. Her fingers buckled the straps with a skill that she shouldn’t possess. The girl had never worn armor in her life, but she looked so comfortable in it.

“Wow, Greta,” Ava said. “You look delicious in Tidewalker.”

“Thank you, Mistress,” the busty blonde said as she adjusted the banded skirt of wave-like metal that hugged her upper thighs, descending from her waist. The half-breastplate cupped her breasts into a generous cleavage and also left her belly bare.

“You should see Zanyia,” Kora said. “Hers hardly covers anything.”

“I know,” my lamia said as she wore the leather harness. It was just bands of narrow leather that wrapped about her body, one strip across her breasts, just hiding her nipples. “It even fits around my tail and—” She thrust her arms forward. From the bands of leather wrapped around her wrists came a pair of triangular punching blades that filled her hands.

“What are those?” Kora asked.

“Katars,” I said, buckling on the leather greaves over my boots and black trousers. “They like them to the east in the naga lands.”

“Yes,” Zanyia said, rising up on her two legs to stand like the rest of us. She thrust her hands forward. I didn’t hear a sound. Not a rush of air, not her bare feet shifting on the ground, not even the grunt of exertion.