Spear of Destiny by James Baldwin (room on the broom read aloud txt) 📗

“Ugh. It’s so weird.” Rin rubbed her face with both hands. “I mean, I know the artists who designed the Drachan. We had little plastic figurines and stuff in our pod. One of them was named Terminus the Deadline Drachan, for crying out loud. We were contracted with a big toy company. They were going to make pencil cases, and t-shirts...”

“Hang on a second. I got a quest to deal with this before we went hunting Withering Rose. Matir said something about the Drachan in it.” I pulled up the menu in my HUD. “Here we go, ‘The Second Drachan War’.”

Rin, Suri, and Istvan leaned in.

“Okay, this is what Matir said. ‘When the Architects created this world, the Drachan were always instead... intended to be a fear... fearsome opponent’.” I read haltingly, struggling with the written words. “But something is not right with the order of things. A voice whispers to me that they are no longer of this paracosm. I do not know what this means. Been... Being Starborn, you are not a child of this world. Perhaps this expression has greater sig... significance to you.“

“Beyond operational parameters?” Rin repeated. She scrubbed at the side of her head with the heel of her hand, screwing her eyes closed in thought. “Urgh. I don’t know enough about the SysAdmin side of things to make sense of that.”

“There’s someone who might,” Suri said heavily.

I looked at her. “Jacob?”

She nodded.

“I assure you that two weeks alone in a cell has softened his outlook somewhat,” Vash remarked. “And he is coming to trust me. I will speak with him about it, if you like.”

“No. It’s not your job,” Suri said. “Of all of us, he’s most likely to talk to me.”

“Suri, no. You don’t have to do that,” Rin urged. “Let V-Vash do it. Or even me. He might listen to me. I was one of his co-workers.”

“It’s my gig, and that’s the end of it.” Suri lifted her chin. “For one thing, I’m the best procedural interrogator you’ve got. For another, I don’t have any good reason to be afraid of him anymore. He’s rotting in our dungeon now, and if he doesn’t change his fuckin’ tune, he’ll stay there.”

“She’s right. It’s her choice to make,” I said. “Suri is good at grilling people. She’ll get the information we need. “

Rin pressed her lips together, eyes shining with emotion, and gave her a nod. “Okay. Just know I’ll be here for you if you need to decompress afterward, alright?”

“As will I,” Vash said. “You can sit on Uncle Vash’s knee and cuss out the little dickstain for an hour or two. Istvan can vouch that I am an exceptional agony aunt.”

“I said you are agony,” Istvan muttered. “Just agony.”

“You’re so full of shit.” Suri grinned. “But thanks, all of you.”

“I’m glad.” Istvan sighed, and shook his head. “I hate to always be the pessimistic one, but I struggle to imagine how this information will help us in the coming weeks and months. Even with information on how Ororgael managed to wreck the Warsinger, what can we do against such a man? What is the point of having a Warsinger, if Ororgael can pierce it in a single strike? What you described is something I believed only the gods could do.”

Vash grunted. “There is that.”

Suri shrugged, and looked down. So did Rin.

“We do everything against it,” I said firmly. “Because sure, he’s powerful. He’s probably cheated himself and his dragon to max level and thrown in some other exploits for good measure. But the fact of it is, there will always be some asshole who wants to take away your freedom and subjugate you to his selfish, ass-backwards agenda. In this time, in this world, Ororgael is that asshole. But you know what? The only reason he and his lieutenants felt the need to cheat was because they weren’t strong enough to exercise real power, real strength. We ARE strong enough. We can fix the Warsingers. We can free Ilia’s dragons. We CAN pull this world together, starting with Myszno, then Vlachia, then all of Artana. And if we can’t stop him here, we’ll go to Daun, and we’ll work with the Lys and the Tuun and defeat him there. Believe me when I say we WILL win. I will NOT let this motherfucker do to Archemi what the Total Wars did to my planet!”

I’d gotten to my feet as I spoke, standing with my hands flat on the table. The others looked at me strangely.

“Sorry,” I said, sheepishly. “Didn’t mean to get shouty.”

“No, your Grace. Don’t apologize.” Istvan drew a deep breath. “While you were speaking, I felt my heart swell. That is a good feeling, Hector. The feeling of determination replacing fear.”

“Same,” Rin said, softly. “I believe you. I believe we can find out why Michael is doing what he is, and that we can beat him.”

Suri nodded. “If anyone can, it’s us. We have two parts of the Triad together already. Hector and Karalti are the Paragons of this age. Me and Withering Rose are the Warsinger. All we need is the second Artist.”

All eyes turned to Rin, who blushed bright blue. She held up her hands. “Wait! Whoever the Artists are, I’m not one of them! I’m nowhere near good enough. They’re probably on, umm, Zaunt or something...”

“Ahem.” Vash wiggled his aurum metal fingers. “Lady Palmer and her five daughters would beg to differ. If you can design a metal arm with enough control that a man doesn’t rip his own cock off, I’d call that talent.”

Rin put her hands over her face. Istvan sunk down into his chair. Suri laughed, covering her mouth when it turned into a snort.

“I mean... he’s got a point?” I shrugged.

Vash nodded. “A massive