Arascus was once one of the greatest of us. The idea of the Pantheon which would not result in new mascot deities which represented Divines were his idea. The notion that Divinity must be limited to ensure its own existence was still maintained, yet it was obvious that Arascus was suddenly trying to work under our noses. There had been a time when the only time he would approach another was to offer assistance in the case of an existential threat.
Now, he leads an Empire that discards every rule and every notion he has ever written down. Everything that has been said, everything that has been decided, all the rules and guidelines and safety-barriers which exist to safeguard our world have been snapped or abandoned by him. Even the God of Weapons has been killed to create a whole host of minor deities. It is obvious that their purpose is to serve as Divine auxiliaries.
I don’t know whether he learned something, or whether he snapped or what happened, but something has changed within the God of Pride.
- Excerpt from Goddess Allasaria’s, of Light’s, private diary.
Rudolf opened his eyes to the colour red and to the blaring screams of sirens trying to burst his eardrums with their high-pitched whines. Before his body could even think about the tiredness of just awaking, he shot up into a sitting posture and threw his legs off the bed. All the fatigue of disturbed sleep was ripped away as the cold air of his cabin hit him. Through the window on the side of the ship, he glanced at crashing waves under a thoroughly morose sky, all a cornucopia of cloudy grey shades. The few spots of pale blue were quickly being closed up by the cloud cover.
Rudolf did not bother enjoying the view. He immediately through on his green shirt and his black trousers as he stabbed his feet into his tall black boots. Boots that had seen Epa, that had seen Arika, Epa again, and now saw the north Alanktydan Ocean. One of the Butterflies’ Wing crewmembers slammed open the door to his cabin, dressed in the standard grey-blue uniform that was issued to crewmen. “WAKE UP-Good.” The man said as the Cleric tightened the shoelaces on one boot. Another crewmember slammed open the door to the cabin next to Rudolf’s, which was Otto’s. Another Cleric, Kavaa’s blessed did not operate alone on the off-chance one was hurt and needed healing.
“Alarm. Helicopter.” The other man said.
“Who is it?” Rudolf tightened his other boot and straightened. Now the belt, complete with sheathed sword and pistol already holstered, around his waist, and he coat off its hook. Behind that grey-blue all-weather coat, lined with edges of fluorescent orange to be visible in case anyone fell into the water was Rudolf’s mirror. The Cleric caught a glance of himself and the rest of the cabin as he put one arm through the other.
Tall, with a rugged face, Kavaa’s blessing should have kept his body young, but out in this weather, were he was constantly dragging men out of rubble, where some car wreck from the magnet suddenly turned out to be leaking some toxic fluid or where an electric battery suddenly set itself alight or where a steel beam crushed some fellow’s stomach, then even now, creases were beginning to form on the forehead above his eyes, as pale blue as the sky outside. Behind him was the single bed of his cabin, Clerics as members of Holy Orders were lucky enough to get there own room. There was just enough space on the floor to take a step. The wardrobe was open, the unmade bunk bed was barely wide enough for his shoulders and his coat was dirty from where oil had stained it. “Not us.” The crewmember replied hurriedly. “Come on, no time.” He to the right. Not to the cargo-hold then, to the deck above.
If it wasn’t a crewmember of the Butterflies’ Wing, then really, there were only two things it could be. Another ship or the UNN workers who worked the ruins. And Rudolf was friendly enough with Captain Arrick to have been informed about whether they were getting reinforcements. “How bad?” Rudolf asked as the crewmember before him burst out in a run and Rudolf followed. Deep, drumming footsteps from behind said that Otto began to sprint to catch up.
“No clue.” The crewmember answered as the team took jumped two steps at a time as they raced up the steel staircase. The door was already open, it always was. Captain Arrick had a man patrol this area specifically to make sure that heavy steel doors, tightened and opened with a huge wheel in their centre, were open for when the Clerics were needed. And to look for fires or anything in the middle of the ship’s scrap bay.
Rudolf overtook the crewmember, who jumped, breathing heavily, to the side, unable to keep up with the endlessly energetic sprint of the two Clerics. Rudolf glanced around by instinct, the red crane topped off with a magnet instead of a hook was lifting a huge steel beam that would have been used to reinforce some bridge most likely. Seawater was splashing off the machine, fish jumped about on the magnet’s top, Rudolf looked over the ship’s inside, where a salad of steel scrap made a huge metal porcupine, all spikes and sharp edges. A team of men were working with crowbars on the wreckage of a large truck to try and remove its battery. Rudolf skipped running up the ladder leading to the landing pad and just jumped straight onto the green-textured metal that held the SeaSparrow helicopter.
The machine was already turned on, its blades spinning, its doors swung open, its single pilot strapped in and quickly pressing what looked like every button in his control panel. Two more men, more crew of the Butterflies’ Wing, were waiting in the machine. Both holding onto bags and strapped in. Rudolf turned around as he made another jump inside the cabin, grabbed Otto’s arm and pulled him in. “Go! We’re in!”
The helicopter started to move before the doors even slid shut. Its metal stabilizers, rusty were the paint chipped and allowed seawater to start eating the metal, touched off the ground as Otto took his seat and Rudolf his, opposite the man. “I ‘ave you.” Finally the pilot spoke when the Butterflies’ Wing became small enough that Rudolf could see all of it in one glance. The Rancais accent said it was Jean, there were only two pilots on the ship. Not a pair but rather a replacement for the other. “We got a wound-ed.” The man phonetically pronounced every single syllable as he spoke. “UNN. Open frequency but to us. Captain said it was urgent.”
“What a job.” Otto said quietly as he looked to the two crewmembers. Fenix and Ellis, Rudolf had healed the former just last week when he had been struck in the shoulder by magnetized scrap being moved the crane.
“What a job.” Rudolf replied and leaned back.
“Heal-ers.” Jean’s voice came over the speaker. “No land-ing site.” The man paused for a few moments, Rudolf took the chance to turn around and shout into the cabin.
“Hot drop us! Get close enough, do you have a place?”
“Flare.” Jean replied. “Aye Aye Heal-er.” Otto grabbed onto the steel post that went from the ceiling to the floor of the helicopter’s crew compartment. “You are get-ting hot-drop-ped.” He opened the window on the side of the door and leaned out as the screaming wind of the helicopter blades filled the cabin. Rudolf felt his back take more of his weight as the machine tilted forward and Jean accelerated. They left a trail of waves from the downdraft that broke apart waves, and then sent wreckage and dust and mud flying into the air as the grey-dark blue ocean became a beach strewn with rubble and muddle. Streams that were brown because of how mud and dirt and soil made thin trenches in the soil.
Rudolf looked down at the city of Rockport. Or what was left of it anyway. They were not high off the ground, and only getting lower as Jean pulled the SeaSparrow into a tight turn. “Door open-ing.” He said over the speakers and Otto pulled his head out of the wind just moments before the door began to open. The two crewmembers by their side already knew what to do. Fenix finished tying the end of his bag onto a rope fastened to the post Otto had been hanging onto, and then threw it out door.
“Can-not get close-er.” Jean said over the speaker once again. “Too close to building.” Rudolf held onto that post and leaned out himself. They were hovering above a set of four apartment blocks, the red smoke of a flare was rising from in between them.
“GET US CLOSE TO THE ROOF!” Otto shouted as Rudolf left his seat. He grabbed the rope, quickly calculated the distance, and let himself slide down. Half-way down, he swung towards the roof and let go of the rope. It was the sort of drop that one would have to train for. It was the sort of drop that a human could theoretically survive. And it was the sort of drop that was nothing when it tried to slow down one of Kavaa’s chosen. Rudolf had fallen further in full-plate before. He stood up, walked to the edge of the building and saw a ring of men in red uniforms stood around a flare and a woman who had been impaled in the gut by rebar.
Immediately, Rudolf’s training and instincts kicked in. He stopped seeing the distance and just saw a way forward. Dropping from the roof, hanging off the edge, and then allowing himself to fall the rest of the distance. A cloud of smoke went up around him as he quickly closed the distance, a thud meant that Otto had dropped. He was the second one down, the equipment bag was his responsibility. Several of the UNN troops looked in awe at the pair of men who had just fallen three floors. Several others ran up. One even began to try and explain what had happened.
“Her name’s Sarah and she’s-“ Rudolf had been through this exact same scenario far too many times to bother repeating it. He just walked past the tearful man and dropped to his knees next to the woman. She was gurgling, still alive and still awake. She had red hair. She had a face. That was all Rudolf saw of her as he forced the collar of her shirt to the side in order to get grip on her shoulder. Rudolf put her to sleep as his blessing channelled a tiny hint of Kavaa’s strength. Her spine was damaged at the bottom, and the rebar had dashed itself through her intestines. Terrible damage, but her breathing became lighter and deeper as Rudolf’s energy raced through her body. He ran the usual checklist, in the usual order. First the heart, it beat rapidly and quickly, running practically on adrenaline and nothing else. Then her to brain. Still alive but starved. Lungs, clear. Stomach. Intact. That was the life-threatening ones done. Blood-loss was the issue. She was past state of saving for science and technology, even a blood transfusion now would be too late to avert brain damage.
But that sort of wound was still a wound physical and not damage of the soul. Enough time with a Cleric would fix it. Rudolf kept the woman alive before her heart gave up. He forced her bone marrow to start moving and replicating. He forced cells into action, they split and split and split, powered not by their own fuel but by the power of Rudolf’s blessing. And blood, produced in her own body, started to rapidly flow out of her wound as her body started to replenish itself. That spilled crimson did not matter though, for every drop that was lost, Rudolf forced two more into creation.
“STABILIZED!” Rudolf shouted, eyes entirely on the woman in his eyes. Otto dropped to his knees and tested the rusty rebar sticking out of the woman’s gut. He tried it pulling it, the metal did not move, then he rocked it side to side. Sarah moved with it. The UNN… what were they even? The UNN troops in their bright-red combat fatigues encircled the two Clerics, but still kept enough of a distance to give the men space to work. That was good, Rudolf knew people were always naturally curious about getting the chance to see blessings in action, but he hated when they tried to help too much.
“It’s probably part of the foundations.” Otto said. “I can’t pull it out.” He put both hands on the rebar and tensed. “And it’s too strong to cut.”
“We’re going to have to pull her off.” Rudolf said as he channelled his blessing into the woman. “I can’t close it with her still on it. It’s gone through her spine by the way.”
“Fucking Hell.” Otto said as he stood up, snapped his fingers several times and pointed to several of the men in red uniforms around them. “You two. Come here.” He picked out two older men that looked well built. Lean and muscled, not like bears but rather like wolves. One with green eyes, the other with deep, dark grey ones that were almost like steel. “Grab her legs.” The men came over. The older fellow, with greyness in his hair that tried to match his eyes, leaned down with question. The other followed him. “We’re going to pull her up on three. Cleric Rudolf will keep her stable. We pull up, move her to the side, and then put her. Understand?”
One person from the crowd began to speak. “Shouldn’t you-“
Otto interrupted them with all the rage of a man who had seen three separate wars. “UNDERSTAND?!”
“Understood!” The two men replied immediately and awoke into action.
“Three. Two. One.” Sarah groaned as the three pulled her off the rebar. Rudolf kept his hands tight on her shoulder, making sure not to break the physical contact that made sure she stayed alive. He felt her bones slide on the ridges of the rebar, he felt intestine rip and tear again. And he kept on channelling Kavaa’s magic. The damage to the spine came first, and then, it came quickly. A full-heal wound of that bone could take hours, Rudolf was just closing the holes to her nerves. Next came the wound in her gut. He closed it. He felt sweat burst out over his face.
“You’re gassing out.” Otto said and Rudolf shook his head as he stitched the woman veins together. He found them all as if he was a plumber inspecting a houses’ pipes, and he forced them to mold back together. “Rudolf.”
“One minute.” Rudolf said as he held his breath, closed his eyes and groaned as he kept channelling magic to the woman. As much as… as much as possible. And Rudolf finally let go when the immediate injuries to her life had passed. She was still paralyzed from the waist down, but she wasn’t bleeding anymore, and she could breath freely. One final check said her heartbeat was returning back to a normal pace.
Rudolf fell backwards onto his rear as the woman took her first breath. The two men who had grabbed Sarah’s legs looked at her, then at the Cleric, then back at her. “She’s alive.” Rudolf said. “She’ll stay alive, but it’s not a full heal yet, leave her be.”
Immediately. The atmosphere throughout the crowd changed. The small team of onlookers, only nineteen in total, raised their hands and made a joyous sound. Rudolf dropped onto his back, still breathing heavily, as his chest made large rises and falls. His lungs felt as if they were devouring the air. As if Rudolf could force an ocean of oxygen into them and still not have enough. Otto stepped into his field of view as the UNN people kept on cheering and laughing. “What’s the state?”
“She’s fine.” Rudolf said. He patted his own stomach. “You got the bag?” Rudolf lifted his arm and showed off the bag Fenix had tied onto the rope. “Cut her open and clean her out first. She’ll get sepsis.” Otto stared down at this Rudolf for a few moments, unmoving. He sighed and shook his head.
“Now I see why you gassed yourself out.” He said and Rudolf chuckled. Gut-cleaning was the worst job they had but they could only heal. They couldn’t remove the foreign objects and matter that had spilled from the intestines with their magic. “She’s stable though?”
“She’s stable.” Rudolf said in between deep breathes. Now the chills were starting. They always did. He zipped himself up. Otto took a deep breath and placed the bag on the ground. He opened it and began to take out tools. Scalpels and sanitized wipe along with treated water and wipes. The usual for gut gleaning. The blue latex gloves were the most important. Rudolf stared into that ugly sky above him, all grey and dark, as he prepared to listen to the usual protests and explanations that always came with this part of the healing process.
A man in bright-red fatigues made of some protective material entered Rudolf’s field of few. Not old but not young, with a weathered face that looked as if it was stress rather than age that had finally gotten it go crack. The green eyes were strong enough though, not the strongest Rudolf had ever seen, there was still a hint of anticipation and nervousness in them, but they were decent enough.
“My name is Noel Hunter, I am the Commander of the Rescuer platoon assigned to Rockport.” He actually fell to his knee before continuing. “Imperial Cleric, I thank you.”