Explosion Day
After the slaughter at RHC Headquarters, no one wanted to sleep. Summer asked the stars some questions and went to meditate. IronPeak’s Martial Science sense was telling her that the constables were not gaining enough power (or “levels,” to use the Battalion nomenclature) in relation to their experiences. She took a trip to The Battalion to see if anyone would know why. James took the time to study the schematics for the eschatologist bomb, as the potential bombing was only six hours away.
Summer’s three questions were only vaguely answered by the stars. When she asked who had informed Kell about the ambush, she was confronted with thousands of faces: everyone she knew, in addition to many she did not. Clearly, her divination was being blocked. When she meditated on where to find the bomb, she saw it sitting on a moving train. James informed her that the bomb had an anti-divinatory component, so the group did not trust that answer. Lastly, she tried to find a way to enter the Bleak Gate without Kell’s help. She had a vision of a man stabbing a table with a knife, like the man Quentin Augst had been meeting with at the Rock Rackus show. That man would have to be tracked down. Ekossigan’s orphan-sacrificing ritual was happening at midnight tonight if they didn’t provide him with an alternative.
IronPeak went to see her instructors at The Battalion School of Martial Science, and she found a professor who told her that most people never reached the power of IronPeak and the other constables, so most never noticed a feature of Risur that he called “the level cap.” The land of Risur was giving tiny pieces of its own power to its citizens and residents, but it was technically an extension of the Rites of Rulership that made the king have nearly godlike power. The ancient pact between Risur’s first king, Kelland, and the spirits of the land not only gave the king an immense amount of power, but it also extended to his subjects. However, subjects of the king could not gain power beyond a certain level without the king’s express permission. Usually, this would be accompanied be the granting of a title of some kind.
Upon returning to Headquarters and sharing this news with the group, some wild speculations began. Malkie pointed out that Lorcan Kell clearly was more powerful than any of the constables, and went by the self-appointed title “His Grace, the Duke of Slaughter.” Was he actually a noble of some kind, with commensurate power rewards? Why would the king appoint a Duke of Slaughter? Delft pointed out that he had given Kell that title on his security report to the king, along with naming Gale “Her Majesty, Princess Fairy Dust.” The group had encountered her this week as well, and she had clearly gained huge amounts of power. Had he unwittingly granted these two extra power by giving them formal titles in a report to the king, thereby planting in his head the idea that these two were nobles, and causing a subconscious granting of power? Cazara suggested that Kell and Gale had not gained their power from the land, but had probably tapped into the Bleak Gate and Dreaming, respectively, especially since the constables knew they were working for the Obscurati and Ekossigan, who had access to those two realms.
James’s study of the bomb was complete, or at least as complete as it could become before seeing it in person. The bomb was constructed of a large armored barrel divided into eight chambers, with wires magically transferring the eight separate components from one chamber to the next until an explosive reaction would take place. The bomb could be deactivated by cutting all the wires, but two of the 28 wires would carry a current every 3.13 seconds. If he accidentally cut a wire in the midst of a transfer, it would prematurely set off the bomb. If it hadn’t finished mixing, the explosion would not be as catastrophic as planned, but it would be enough to kill the bomb team at the least.
The eight components of the bomb were:
⁃ Fire Humor: the triggering agent
⁃ Aether: that which fills vacuum, to increase the blast radius
⁃ Phlogiston: liquid elemental fire, the actual explosive element
⁃ Frayed Chronosomia: threads of fluid time, to deter divination
⁃ Witchoil: the captured souls of the dead, an accelerant.
⁃ Blood infused with Ambergris: a calming agent, to prevent early detonation
⁃ Serpent’s Loop: scales of a snake that ate itself, makes fire consume any substance
⁃ Frostburn: transmuted phlogiston that freezes, to cover everything in ice.
A last wire, the “Black,” worked as a magical ground wire to prevent early triggering as long as it was in contact with the ground. If the Black were severed (or lit by an electrical charge), the bomb would begin its activation. James calculated that full activation would take 26 minutes and 18 seconds.
The constables headed to the Subrail opening that the dwarves had threatened. Governor Stanfield had been adamant that the ribbon-cutting ceremony should go on as planned, but be transformed into a trap for the doomsday cult. If they just canceled it, the bomb would go somewhere else, but if they turned it into a trap, then the RHC could seize and deactivate the bomb. The VIPs at the event had been replaced with undercover police, except for Stanfield himself, who had been through many deaths already and clearly had no fear of another. A police officer working the crowd proudly told IronPeak that his men had already arrested every dwarf they had seen.
The constables and Stanfield went down into the station, leaving Flint PD to their racial profiling. Stanfield had set up two unfueled trains as decoys, in case the dwarves wanted to put their bomb on a train and bomb somewhere else. These trains each had a small detachment of police officers to protect it. As the constables were scouting the station, a police officer came running down to tell them that five dwarves had just rushed the police line and had been subdued. IronPeak, Malkie, and James went to question these dwarves. Just as they left, the sounds of gunfire erupted from one of the tunnels. An army of eschatological dwarves had arrived and engaged the police in battle.
The constables ducked into cover as the dwarves shot their way into the train station. Alienor fired off some magical explosive bullets that should have taken down large groups of dwarves, but in their furor, the dwarves seemed to ignore their impending deaths. At the back, two dwarves stood out amongst the crowd: one with an icy pipe in his mouth who matched the description of Grundun Zubov, and another with a patch over one eye, who was preaching a prophecy of doom while pulling a small cart loaded down by a large barrel with a protruding wire that dragged along the ground.
James, IronPeak, and Malkie heard the gunfire and returned as quickly as they could, but the sight of nearly twenty dwarves with guns deterred most of them from proceeding past the stairs where Governor Stanfield had been preparing his speech. Cazara and Alienor huddled behind the cover of pillars. Summer teleported to the stairs with the others, while Malkie turned to mist and slipped through the ventilation system to outflank the dwarves.
Governor Stanfield was fearless, advancing straight toward Zubov and telling him that his cause was hopeless and his philosophy misguided. “I stand before you as living proof that death is not the end, and everything you work toward is wrong.” Zubov ordered his dwarves to ignore the talkative Deva and focus on the actual threats to their mission.
The battle raged around the subrail station. The prophet threw out a darkness spell, which blinded many of the constables. Zubov’s hammer spawned an underground blizzard, making it hard to see even where there was light. Zubov kept casting a spell that drained the lives of those around him, and seemed particularly focused on taking down Cazara, who was suffering the most form his magic and his hammer. Zubov’s minions kept up their exchange of gunfire with Alienor and James as long as they could, but eventually the constables won out and all that was left were Zubov and his prophet. Malkie appeared behind the prophet and reached into his mind, winning his loyalty with her vampiric charms. Zubov fell to one knee and saw that the end was nigh. He ordered the prophet to light the bomb, but the prophet refused. With a scoff, Zubov ordered the dwarf to die. The prophet complied with this order and then Zubov pulled out a magic wand and shot an electrical spark at the bomb, igniting its fuse before he was shot to death by James, delivering a critical trick shot that deflected off of IronPeak’s shield before striking home.
The combat was over and the most dangerous portion of the morning was about to begin. James and Summer moved in to defuse the bomb. Stanfield and the others gathered close to watch, except for Malkie, who became a bat and flew as far as her wings could take her.
James took his time to study the bomb’s pattern of activations, with Summer helping to see the magical auras. He meticulously clipped wire after wire, narrowly avoiding disaster when Summer touched a wire connecting Phlogiston to Witchoil to indicate it was safe. Just before James was going to cut, Summer was burned by the charge going through the line. Had James made that cut, it would have been the end. They took more time on future wires and made the final wire cut with a minute to spare.
The apocalypse cult had been stopped (with the exception of that mimic, which was still out in the city, somewhere). However, there was little time to rest. Ekossigan’s orphan-sacrificing ritual was only 13 hours away, and they still had to track down the man with the knives.
