2485 Family Legacy (Part 1)
“Do you realize that those very monsters you want to save have killed many innocents already? That they are probably going to try and kill you on sight?” Fyrwal asked.
“I know that, Mom, but put yourself in their shoes.” Faluel replied. “Those people have been lied to, experimented upon, and indoctrinated their entire lives. Who knows what lies Glemos told them about the Council and even if after his death they discovered the truth, they have every right to be terrified.
ραпdα nᴏνa| сom “They know that no race wastes time to parlay with the members of a fallen species. We just kill them like pests, no question asked.”
“Can you blame us?” Fyrwal tilted her heads. “Monsters are a living plague. They devour everything and everyone until they turn even the most fertile ground into a barren land and then they move on to the next area.
“They multiply so fast that a few days of hesitation may give them the opportunity to double their numbers.”
“No, but I can’t blame them either.” Faluel sighed. “Becoming a fallen race means becoming a slave to your base urges and suffering from an eternal hunger and a short life. Monsters do what they need to survive.
“Their malice and cruelty aren’t innate but the result of their harsh existences. In the case of Glemos’ children, the situation is even worse. They have regained their sanity and have hope for the future which makes them even more desperate.
“They know that without the Harmonizer they’ll go back to their wretched state and they have no reason to expect others to show them mercy or understanding. Everyone considers their lives expendable and much less valuable than the magical resources the reverted monsters consume to survive.
“Even if the Council lets them live but exiles them from the mana geyser, they’d lose every chance they have for at normal life. Everything they have suffered and all of their research would be for nothing.
“Unless we offer them a glimmer of hope to cling to, I expect them to fight to the death. I’ve already failed a poor girl called Echidna because of my greed.” Faluel shared with her mother the wonders of the Awakened Fomor’s abilities.
The Elder Hydra was amazed by the prowess of Echidna’s eyes, wondering if the heads of a Hydra could hold the same potential.
It would explain why we have lost our wings. She pondered.
Faluel also showed Fyrwal how desperate Echidna had been and how she had chosen to end her life the moment she had mistaken the enthusiasm of her captors for the Harmonizers for cruel indifference to her situation.
“Poor kid.” The Elder Hydra said. “A nice word and a bit of empathy would have saved her life.”
“Indeed.” Faluel nodded. “Her death still haunts me to this day and I don’t want to kill anyone else unless I have to. If we crack the secret of the Harmonizers, I can offer to everyone who surrenders to live above my geysers.
“I’ll take responsibility for their actions and livelihood and with the Harmonizers returning their life cycles to normal, the Council will have no reason to oppose my request. Especially if I share the Harmonizers with them.”
“Sounds like a plan, but one that will cost you dearly. Are a bunch of strangers really worth losing your exclusive over the Harmonizers?” Fyrwal asked.
“Usually, I’d say no. Yet if we are not prepared, we might end up just like Jiera. The Harmonizer can give the fallen races a new life and Jiera a way to repopulate its lands.” The news of the monster tides had reached Garlen and the local Awakened Council was working on countermeasures.
They wanted to prevent their land from suffering the same fate and also to take part in Jiera’s colonization. Yet unless they found a way to deal with the monster tides, they would simply join their fellow Council in a desperate struggle.
“It makes sense. I’m proud of you, Fanny” The Elder Hydra rubbed her heads along the necks of her daughter in the equivalent of a caress.
“Thanks, Mom. Ready? On my mark. Go!” Faluel activated the Forgemastering circles surrounding the Stasis Field array. This way, the mystical energies came as close as possible to the Harmonizer before they were frozen on the spot just like the artifact’s enchantments. When she turned the Stasis Field array off, the two Hydras combined their Domination to disrupt the self-destruction spell. Clean Slate was the first to strike, jamming all the enchantments.
The overloaded runes stopped drawing in the world. energy but at the same time, the self-repair spell also ceased working, making the cracks on the Harmonizer spread further.
Faluel and Fyrwal used their bloodline ability to dispel excess energy while shielding the self-repair spell from the following Clean Slates.
The Forgemastering circle, Unravel, split the power core of the Harmonizer into pseudo cores and then the pseudo cores into one different string of runes for each spell the pseudo cores were comprised of.
The second Forgemastering circle, Cypher, isolated the cloaking runes that shrouded the meaning of the rest of the enchantments and cut them off from mana crystals. Identifying them wasn’t an easy task since the runes cloaked themselves as well.
Cypher couldn’t brute force its way without triggering more safety measures. The spell worked by focusing on the blur rather than trying to dispel it and then following the mana to its source.
Without power, the cloaking runes became vulnerable to the third Forgemastering circle, Rewrite. Disabling even a single spell meant disrupting the balance of the power core and making it fall apart.
If that happened, even with the self-destruct spell jammed the Harmonizer would crumble anyway, and not even Clean Slate could stop the unbalanced energy from going haywire.
Rewrite scanned the power core as the cloaking spell faded, replacing it with the simplest and most suitable set of meaningless runes. This way, the energy flow inside the Harmonizer wasn’t affected by the loss of the cloaking runes, and now the Hydras could take their time studying the various layers of enchantments.
On paper, it was a simple process but it would have already failed if not for the exceptional conditions of the experiment. The Domination of the two Hydras stacked, each one supported by seven streams of willpower.
The Hands of Menadion filled the Forgemastering circles to the brim while also leaving a near vacuum of world energy near the Harmonizer to weaken its spells. Last, but not least, the Life Maelstrom from Fyrwal’s Royal Fortress armor boosted the prowess of all of the Hydras spells and abilities by tenfold.
“Damn Clean Slate. It stops the explosion but it also keeps blurring the runes.” The Elder Hydra’s eyes were teary from the sheer focus of using Life Vision on top of the rest.
“Indeed, but unless we find a way to disarm the self-destruct spell what choice do we have?” Faluel was in no better condition.
Deciphering the enchantments under the effects of Clean Slate was akin to a short-sighted person trying to read a book written with small characters during a bumpy ride.
Spotting the self-destructing runes was easy since they were already overloaded. The hard part was to isolate them from the rest of the artifact and dissipate the excess energy.
