Sunday, February 9, 2014

Page 562 -- LXV.

--donation bonus (day #31, post 3/5)--
Karkash was busy trying to kill Roman while Hector stood in the way again, and the Queen was still trying to occupy Conall’s attention. That only left Desmond and Andres for Harper to deal with on his way to Conall.

Wait. No, it didn’t. That other woman was still missing.

This is--no, behind you!’ said Darsihm.

Nola Pauls was there, crouched and reaching for him. A beam of light would have taken her head off if not for the aluminum faceguard. Instead, she was merely flung back, but not before she succeeded in melting Harper’s right leg into the rock below.

He was suddenly immobile, stuck fast above the knee while his left leg could achieve no leverage to pull himself free. He struggled as aluminum walls shot up around him, encasing him completely. From the sound of it, Andres was adding an outer layer of sulfur crystals, too.

His mind raced. Even with all his years in the service, here and now, he still had to fight the urge to panic. If he didn’t break out right now, Abolish would certainly overwhelm the others. And then they would gang up on him.

There was no other choice now. He’d fallen for the enemy’s feint. And hell, even breaking free of this cage wouldn’t be enough. More Abolishers were en route, and there was no telling what fresh problems they could present.

Harper’s jaw muscles tensed in the darkness. He closed his eyes and concentrated. He could already feel the first stage of the transformation taking place. ‘Warn the others,’ he told Darsihm.

The reaper didn’t require an explanation. ‘You know I can’t do that without also alerting the enemy.

If we accidentally kill one of them--

We’ve committed our allies to memory. Trust in our instincts, Harper. It’s all we can do now.


Chapter Sixty-Five: ‘Come, ye devils, and perish...!’

Click to display entire chapter at once -- (mobile link)

Rain fell in sheets now, slickening the earth, evaporating against each flashing bolt. Hector saw the tower go up around Harper and would’ve liked to help, but he was rather occupied at the moment with a storm of lightning.

7 comments:

  1. How does emergence effect transfiguration mutation and integration cause I can't figure it out

    ReplyDelete
  2. Heh. Well, concerning transfiguration, you may recall that Stoker actually achieved emergence shortly after Karkash did.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It seems to make hard stuff easier. Things that would have taken time and concentration can now be done in combat. Stoker was suddenly good enough to use his hydrogen-based jet propulsion. Hector can make his gauntlets quickly, instead of taking forever concentrating on them to be sure they're made correctly.

    As far as I can tell, emergence is basically just a shortcut for a whole lot of practice.

    ReplyDelete
  4. It also increases range and other fun stuff too which aren't practice domains.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Well, sure, for a materialization user it'll improve how much mass you can create and how far away, but that's not really relevant for transfiguration, mutation and integration, which is what the OP was asking about.

    ReplyDelete
  6. ...I don't think this is emergence...

    ReplyDelete
  7. If this dude goes Super Saiyan, I'm gonna go nuts!

    ReplyDelete