[Crystal One: Dust]
Arthen's Perspective
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We’d finally gotten our eyes on Gaia, the Earthquake rune.
And it was gargantuan.
The average memory crystal was only about the length of one’s hand, and runes were consequently similarly sized. Gaia, however, was man-sized; it must have been made from dozens of crystals. A rune this large, forged from memories of destruction on the scale of an earthquake, was likely in a seismological class of its own.
And judging from the assorted battering-ram components surrounding it, Gaia was a machine meant to turn defensive walls into finely sifted powder.
“Wait,” I interrupted Ragnor as he approached the rune and lifted his hammer to destroy it. “Let’s think about this for a second.”
“What is there to think about?” he countered. “This is the objective.”
“If you strike this rune, it will shatter, yes, but you’ll be triggering an earthquake while we’re underground. Do you see how that might not be congruent with our survival?”
“I see your point,” Thorne said, “but we’re pretty much as good as dead anyway.”
“Not true,” the Sandman disagreed. “We’re surrounded on all sides, sure. But if we cast this rune, it might create an opening.”
“What are you suggesting?” Ragnor asked.
“He’s suggesting we cast the rune on purpose,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “Bring the whole Citadel down as a diversion. We can’t be surrounded and killed if their entire army is buried under rubble.”
“Well, that’s existential,” Ragnor breathed.
“Perhaps there’s a less destructive path…” I murmured.
The Sandman gritted his teeth.
“You think we should go out there and be picked off one by one after this botched mission? If I’m going to die, I’m taking the whole Citadel with me.”
And just like that, it was unanimous.
Of course, their fates were sealed regardless of what they chose to do with Gaia—but I’d still needed to apply a bit of reverse psychology. From their perspective, Hillcrest had to crumble. The Citadel had to be destroyed. It wasn’t about ‘the mission’ anymore.
Ragnor lifted his hammers above the rune and—
DOOOOOOOOOON!
KRAASSH!!!!
Rmblrmblrmblrmbl.
Gaia’s toll was far louder, and far longer than that of a standard rune. The shower of shrapnel was so intense it dented our armor. Almost immediately, the ground and walls began cracking, buckling, and violently rumbling.
Mission objective completed.
Now came the real question:
Was Reminisce’s Vanguard Legion stronger than an earthquake?
We bolted through the doorway, toward the passage Ragnor had smashed open earlier. I heard screams and frantic footsteps as the enemy fled. They knew exactly what we had done, and their morale shattered instantly.
Cracks spiderwebbed across the floor and ceiling, threatening to swallow us whole as Ragnor battered the exit further open. Fortunately for us, we were faster than the Citadel’s collapsing infrastructure.
We sprinted down the hall until we reached the corridor where we’d begun. The enemy forces were clawing over one another, all trying to force themselves through the narrow exit at once.
There were too many of them.
If ‘we’ tried to fight, ‘we’ would be cut down immediately.
'We' were too fast. Too early.
And if ‘we’ waited, the Citadel would bury us alive.
Ragnor cursed under his breath.
“Stuck?” a voice taunted.
It was the Tiger’s Fang, strolling out from a nearby hallway, casually twirling his hooked blades. As if the collapsing bunker weren’t enough, ‘we’ now had another complication.
“Just as stuck as you,” the Sandman growled, tightening his grip on his spear.
The Tiger’s Fang was a mercenary who had single-handedly devastated minor faction battlefronts on multiple occasions. Some factions had gone so far as to issue flee-on-sight orders against him.
Unlike other battlefield brutes like Ragnor, the Tiger’s Fang never raged or lost composure; he fought with eerie intentionality, precision in every movement.
‘The Tiger’s Fang’ was already an emblem, but the minor factions had deemed it necessary to give him another moniker:
The Tranquil Berserker.
The Sandman knew he’d killed the Nemonik, but nothing of his true proficiency. Among our squad, only I understood the depth of his menace.
But of course, I wasn’t going to tell them that.
Though I was unarmed, I wasn’t about to stand aside and ‘allow’ the Vanguard to die at his hands. That would raise questions.
“You have some fun toys,” the mercenary remarked in his thick Cosmaran accent as we slowly encircled him. “Pointy sticks? And hammers? My, my… desperation. You should take better care of your squadmates; the scrawny one might hurt himself.”
“Your squad of cowards locked you down here with us,” Thorne shot back. “It’s four of us and one of you.”
“But who’s stuck with who?” the mercenary sneered.
He dropped his swords to the floor and raised his hands in mock surrender, his grin stretching wide.
“Squad, ko,” he said. “I mean, can you kill… a Dream-Eater?”
Ragnor and Thorne hesitated.
I didn’t.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
I met their eyes and urged them forward.
They had heard the legends. Everyone had. They’d seen the purple splotches staining the mercenary’s otherwise pristine garments. Any man who could kill a Nemonik alone was no ordinary opponent.
And the environment did nothing to calm us.
The room still quaked. The air was thick with dread.
When will we be crushed? We all seemed to wonder.
Rocks fell from the ceiling, one… two at a time. A doomsday clock where no one knew when midnight would strike.
Thorne and Sandman stood shoulder to shoulder now, inching forward, weapons poised.
The mercenary’s smirk widened, purple eyes gleaming with anticipation as he stared down their formation.
FWSH!
In a sudden burst of athleticism, the Tiger’s Fang tore off his robes and ensnared both Sandman and Thorne within them.
DOOON!
“RAGH!” Ragnor charged, but the mercenary effortlessly weaved between his reckless hammer swings. He kicked the inside of Ragnor’s foot and shoulder-bashed him into the ground.
The Tiger’s Fang swept up his swords and turned toward me. For a brief instant, recognition flickered across his face before—
FWMP!
In one fluid motion, he snagged my ankle with a hooked blade, spun, and kicked me to the ground. Rune-casting mechanisms were mounted on both of his heels—similar to those on runebolts and spearheads.
He stood over me and raised his foot for an axe-kick finisher, the blue rune above his heel glinting just before---
DOOON!
The Sandman and Thorne broke free at the same moment the Tiger’s Fang brought the guillotine down. His rune flooded my psyche with world-shattering despair.
I felt… stagnation. As though I had been reduced to an inanimate object.
My comrades were being slaughtered while I curled into myself, helpless. I could barely force my eyes open.
Sandman wasn’t a spearman. He got in Thorne’s way more than anything, and the Tiger’s Fang danced between their mismatched techniques.
They were dead already.
“RAGH!” Ragnor crashed back into the fray, furious. He swung again, but the mercenary caught his hammer with the hook of a blade and violently disarmed him. The Tiger’s Fang spun and heel-kicked Ragnor’s temple.
It was his red rune.
The one he'd been shattering doors with.
DOOON!
SPLURCH!
Ragnor’s head detonated as if his tongue were an explosive. Bits of skull and brain matter splattered across the collapsing bunker. There was nothing left of him above the shoulders.
Thorne staggered, blinded by gore.
Shs.
The Tiger’s Fang carelessly allowed the Sandman to cut his bicep with the runesteel spear. As predicted, the wound erupted into a blistering rash, and the Sandman hesitated.
They both did.
But the Tiger’s Fang recovered first.
DOOON!
He axe-kicked the spear with his Shatter rune, reducing it to splinters. The recoil sent Sandman stumbling forward---
CRK!
The Tiger’s Fang spun and side-kicked him in the forehead, concussing him and sending him sprawling.
It was futile. They were all dead already.
DOOON!
Thorne recovered just long enough to drive his spear through the mercenary’s abdomen, flooding his body with venom. He pinned him to the wall, keeping his distance.
“Quickly, Arthen!” Thorne shouted over the crumbling debris. “Grab anything! Just finish him!”
I stared at him.
“You’re dead already.”
The betrayal in Thorne’s eyes burned itself permanently into my memory.
CRNCH!
The Tiger’s Fang snapped the spear with his hooked swords. He knocked the broken shaft aside and caught Thorne’s neck---
SPSH!
He slammed Thorne’s face into the stone floor. Thorne twitched once, then stilled. Runemagic is bound to memory; when the caster dies, the magic ends. The Tiger’s Fang would be the first to survive Thorne’s venom.
The mercenary winced as he removed the spearhead, careful not to re-cast the rune. He dropped his swords and limped toward the exit stairs.
He’d done what I hired him to do.
Now he was heading to the mountain to be with his little sister.
Then the Citadel collapsed.
***
I awoke buried beneath the ruins. Dust filled my lungs as I searched desperately for an escape.
There was none.
Moonlight filtered through cracks in the rubble. I hadn’t been unconscious long. I tried shifting the debris
CRSH!
A massive slab descended onto my left leg. Crushed. There was barely anything left of it.
I screamed until my voice failed and darkness took me again.
***
DOOON!
My body surged with energy and I jolted awake. It was midday. I was sitting in a cage.
My leg was still pulverized, but I felt nothing.
To my left, in a separate cage, sat the Sandman. Alive. Nearly unscathed. Staring into nothing.
Damn it.
The Hillcrest Faction had approached the Northstar Syndicate, offering premium rates for mercenary protection. I’d assigned the Tiger’s Fang myself. Once they gave me their intelligence, I passed it directly to the Vanguard.
“They’re constructing a superweapon,” I’d said.
Priority status followed instantly.
I wasn’t a sadist. But Sandman’s survival was a hindrance. He and Thorne were senior officers; their deaths would have bought months, maybe years of preparation time.
But I knew the consequences if I tried to kill him myself.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” a familiar voice said.
It was Farrell, commander of Hillcrest’s army, an older man with brown skin and a severe burn along his left hand. Two soldiers trailed him, trying in vain to get his attention.
“Commander, the casualty count—”
“Why, if it isn’t Arthen,” Farrell interrupted, savoring my name.
My jaw tightened. I remained silent.
He crouched before my cage, his expression curling with disgust.
“A good thing we found you and your friend alive,” he said. “I just wanted to see the intruders—and how fortunate I am that it’s you.”
He stood.
“My hands are rather full at the moment,” he added casually. “But we’ll have a… lengthy discussion soon.”
And with that, he turned on his heel and followed his subordinates.
“Lengthy discussion.” Meaning extraction. He would forcibly remove mine and Sandman’s memories, recovering the research lost in the collapse. And then… dispose of us.
As inhumane as torture could get. A fitting punishment for saboteurs like us.
Like me.
“Arthen,” Sandman hissed.
I couldn’t look him in the eye. Not with what I would have to do to him if we somehow escaped.
I couldn’t be labeled a traitor. Not yet.
“Arthen,” he repeated. “I have a plan to get us out of here. But it relies heavily on you.”
He wanted to trust me?
“Do tell.”
“Your leg is ruined, and the cages are runeiron. I can rip my tunic and make a sling. I should have just enough room to use it.”
“So you want me to extract a trauma crystal from myself and give it to you?”
“Precisely,” He nodded.
Random variables made improvisation difficult for me. But if Sandman’s plan worked the way I thought it would…
“Are you sure we’ll have time?”
“You heard that soldier talking about the casualty count. They can’t spare eyes for us.”
I saw his logic. Truly.
But how could I know he wouldn’t just free himself and leave me here?
I’d deserve it.
No if his plan succeeded, I would be freed first. Farrell had threatened me specifically.
“Alright.”
I pressed my forehead against the runeiron bars and closed my eyes.
I remembered the rubble shifting. The weight. My leg collapsing into a useless sleeve of meat. Bones crunching, triturating like grain under a mortar and pestle.
A white glow bloomed, so bright I could see it through my eyelids.
I pulled away from the bars, reliving every quantifiable iota of pain.
The crystal fell. I caught it—and nearly dropped it. It felt like agony distilled.
Using my shirt to dull the sensation, I snapped the crystal in half and slid one piece between the bars.
Sandman took it. He tore fabric from his shirt, fashioned a sling, and carefully grated the crystal into sediment. A bit of saliva bound it into a compact ball. He concealed it beneath his body.
I pocketed my half.
Hours passed. Midday bled into evening.
No one came.
I inventoried what I had: half a trauma crystal, a chunk of runeiron from the forge, and a long piece of wooden debris I could use as a crutch. My leg would still need amputation.
Eventually, a lone soldier approached. Keys, chains, and handcuffs jangling.
I screeched, begged, scrambled to the back of my cage.
He grinned.
He thought I was afraid.
In truth, I was moving out of the Sandman’s range.
Boof!
The projectile struck the soldier’s cheek just as he inserted the key. It detonated into agony, cascading him into a screaming frenzy. He clawed at his face. Every grain of dust felt like collapsing stone.
He would probably die.
We wouldn’t be here to see it.
I dragged myself forward, balanced on my good leg, and freed myself.
Sandman sat silently in his cage.
I considered leaving him.
Farrell would finish the job for me.
But the guilt would haunt me regardless.
Leaning on the bars, I hobbled to his cage and fumbled through the keys.
clk.
“AAGH!”
The moment it opened, Sandman lunged. He tackled me, punches crashing through my guard.
SPCH!
SPCH!
SPCH!
He said nothing.
This was justice.
He stood at last, knuckles soaked in blood. His or mine, I couldn’t tell.
Then—
Sqrch.
“AAAGH!!!!”
He stomped my ruined leg, grinding it into the turf.
In desperation, I kicked his knee backward. He fell. I crawled forward, tore the half-crystal and runeiron from my pockets, seized his wrists, and—
DOOON!
I slammed the crystal onto his forehead.
He collapsed, dreaming my pain.
DOOON!
I lifted it.
DOOON!
Cast it again.
DOOON!
Again.
He spasmed, froth bubbling at his lips.
I didn’t know if he would live.
If he wasn’t dead, I couldn’t bring myself to finish him.
I took the wooden debris, made sure the evening sun warmed my left side, and headed north.
Toward Snowcrest Mountain.
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