The Chase Is On Part III (2/2)

Conditions: Complete the Mission

Debuffs: Eidolon Conditioning

From what Chase had learned by using these skills, from what she'd seen on the targets prior to this man, Unswayable and Stiff Upper Lip looked to be buffs from skills. But Complete the Mission showed up both as an influence and a proper Condition. This was due to some overlap between the words that defined reality, where some things were conditions that weren't CONDITIONS, and it was all very confusing.

In addition, given that it was a debuff there was a likely chance that Eidolon Conditioning was a proper Condition as well, given that it even mentioned it in the title.

If that was so, then there might be something Chase could do with that. Maybe. In the split second before he killed her if she guessed wrong.

But then, every Oracle could live between the seconds, dance between the strands of time to some degree. Chase calmed herself with that notion, prepared her mind for what was to come.

And as she did, she decided that given the lies she had told, given the persona she was playing, she could risk a question or two.

“What are we trying to do? What am I supposed to do when we get in there?” Chase asked.

“Your best, of course,” Placeholder said, running a tuning fork over a rune and watching it pop and sizzle away to nothing. “Just assist me, and defend me to the best of your abilities. I believe you can heal, yes?”

The noise came again, and for a second she'd thought one of the runes was cooking off. But no, it was the cards riffling. This was the last one, if it held true to the pattern. This was the Midboss' greatest enemy.

Despite the tenseness of the situation, despite the highly magical and deadly door that could go off and blast the hallway clean of her if Placeholder slipped, despite the knowledge she was going to have to fight in a second, Chase closed her eyes and concentrated.

This one was harder to pull up. And it was difficult to keep reign on her imagination, keep from seeing the picture she wanted to see.

Two rogues were sacking a room, one stuffing coins into a bag, while the other stood watch on a light doorway, showing a grand party beyond. There were many more treasures to steal, but a door to the side was opening, and a mailed boot was stepping through.

The two of rogues, she thought. Too many options, problems prioritizing. Time works against you.

And this was the enemy. Time working against him. Was it a him? She thought so and couldn't say why.

Dice falling down stairs again, the sound echoing. Her brain felt scorched, hollow.

Why was she remembering a fortune she'd never cast? Why was this drifting back to her now?

Clink.

She thought the sound only in her mind, but Placeholder shot a look at her, then down to the floor.

Down where a single coin had slipped from her coinpouch. A seam had popped and was dangling, and the coin rattled and rolled.

“For the gods sakes woman, please don't fiddle with your wallet,” snapped Placeholder, the first sign of stress he'd exhibited thus far.

Chase scooped it up... and saw the winking visage of Hoon staring back at her.

Her god.

This was a portent, she realized. She was either seeing something in the future, or remembering a shard of something that could have been. But...

This was a hell of an intervention. This was big. And the fact that it was hitting now meant she had to solve it now.

“Ready,” Placeholder said, and the door fizzled. “We're breaching in three. Two. One!”

“Foresight,” Chase replied.

And the second the vision was done, she leaped for cover.

With a crackling sound, black bolts of energy bathed the hallway, flames roared to life, metal pinged off stone as bolts, arrows, and bullets ricocheted off the walls, floors, and ceilings, and in the half-second before Chase buried her face in her arms she saw a kitchen sink go flying past the whirling, dodging, slightly smoldering figure that was Mister Placeholder.

It was nice and dark in the crook of her elbows as she hugged the wall, hugged herself, and sat very small and very frightened in the only safe place her oracular skill had been able to find.

She relished every second of fear, because she knew it wouldn't take long to end. And just as she'd seen it, the storm of energy and projectiles ceased, leaving the really hard part ahead.

Choking down her fear, shuddering and shivering, Chase charged through the door.

There had been some concern about this part, but her Foresight had told her she'd live at least two more seconds.

So she used them to watch in amazement as one man fought the best arcane forces that Cylvania could bring to bear, and held his own.

The arcane workshop was filled with people, and at least a third of them were down and bleeding. As she watched Placeholder blurred, torso swaying so fast he left afterimages, as bolts of energy tore past him. He threw a knife, buried it in the skull of a mage, then flickered to the falling body and pulled it free of the man's forehead and swiped it across a man-sized wooden puppet's throat. The head came off the shoulders, and Placeholder whirled, used the momentum to throw the blade again, then was gone from Chase's sight.

His lips had been moving the whole time, she realized. No wonder he'd been so distant and remote. He'd been saving all his Moxie for the fight, and countless Silent Activations.

But as he flickered away, she realized that there had been blood on his suit. And charred patches. He wasn't invincible.

Was he the Midboss?

And then she yelped as a lightning bolt crackled inches over her head, scorching her scarf. She did what any sane Halven would do and ran, diving under a table...

...and freezing, as a tiny bayonet stabbed toward her eye, halting an inch away.

“Stop right there and surrender!” A tiny voice chimed. “You're my prisoner!”

“Buttons, wait!”

Oh, that was a familiar voice. “Apollyon?” Chase asked, eyes focused on the small knife an inch away from making her a cyclops.

“She's good,” Apollyon said over the din, leaning in and peering under the table, shooting glances up toward the fight. “Shit! Control Earth!” he said, thrusting out a gauntleted hand, as stone cracked and crumbled.

The blade pulled back, and Chase saw a grinning wooden nutcracker, sans beard, and wearing a doll-sized uniform. The musket she was holding looked very deadly, for all it was small, and that bayonet had blood on it. “You here to help?” Buttons asked. “Then do something useful! I didn't spend all my guild credit and hazard pay to get this new body just to lose it like this!”

“I chipped in too!” Apollyon protested, then whipped a shield up as a knife clanged off it. “Oh shit he noticed me!”

As the words sunk in, Chase knew what she had to do.

“Foresight!” she said, and watched Placeholder punch a knife through Apollyon's breastplate and gut him like a fish.

“Shield right!” she yelled, and Apollyon barely got his arm over in time. Placeholder's blade slid off, and he stumbled back a half-step...

…and right into Buttons' bayonet as she jabbed forward. “Ha!”

It was a hell of a wound, and blood spurted. But Placeholder made no sound, just caught himself on the table, losing the knife as he did so. Chase saw charred holes in his waistcoat, saw wounds that went down to the bone in some places, bloody and raw, or seared by energy. How is he still alive? She wondered. How is he not screaming and writhing in agony?Is he the Midboss?

He might be, she realized as the man tore Apollyon's shield from his arm and beat him with it.

“Control Earth!” Apollyon shouted desperately as he got his arm up in time to keep his skull intact. Stone rippled up from the floor and surrounded him, but Placeholder's hands were a blur as the shield hammered him repeatedly, the sound blending together as Apollyon staggered, blood oozing out from the cracks in his shell as he fell to his knees, one arm buckling and crunching as it broke and bent the wrong way.

“Fuck that noise!” Buttons yelled, fiddling with her musket. “Fast Load! Dum Dums! Rapid Fire!”

And as she shot, as blood sprayed from Placeholder's thighs, crotch, and gut, he hurled the shield like a frisbee, narrowly missing Chase, catching Buttons full on, and carrying her off, screaming, a scream that ended with a very lethal-sounding wooden CRUNCH.

Placeholder paused, and Chase looked around, looking for help.

There weren't many options. Most of the people in this room were down, and the ones that weren't were hiding behind cover.

He didn't bother with the flicker flash again, as he walked toward Apollyon, bleeding and dragging slightly. With one hand he pulled a potion from his coat, and with the other he drew Apollyon's sword from its sheath.

With horror, she realized what he was about to do.

Then his eyes turned on her.

“Some healing if you please, Miss Berrymore.” He sounded as if he was asking the weather. Half his ribcage was exposed, his limbs were a sea of blood and gristle, and his face was covered with bright red burns, and he was as calm as he'd been not a minute ago in the hallway.

Something was keeping him up. Something let him work, despite this damage.

And with that, she realized what she could do.

It was a fifty percent shot. But she'd always been one to play the odds.

So she came out from under the table, ran to his side as he raised the sword, and she slapped him on the leg as she said “Absorb Condition, Eidolon Conditioning.”

LUCK+1

Placeholder's eyes went wide.

Then, with a scream, he fell down, gurgling and rolling on the floor, clutching himself.

And in the back of her mind, Chase knew that she should feel happy about that, satisfied or victorious. But she couldn't. She was numb, and cold, and it didn't matter.

Steel whispered and there was pressure on her leg, and she saw that Placeholder had managed to flail and rip her ankle open. She fell back, crawled away, operating purely on reaction, and said “Lesser Healing,” until the wound was shut.

A part of her knew she should be panicking, but she wasn't. She couldn't. It was as if she were watching herself from a very long distance away.

She didn't know if she liked it.

But it was useful, she admitted, as she stood on her newly healed foot.

“Chase Berrymore?” another familiar voice asked, and she glanced over to see Mister Graves stepping out from behind an overturned table, keeping a pair of wands trained on the now-still form of Mister Placeholder. “What are you doing here?”

And when she saw the shadow coalesce behind him, the darkness growing eyes and reaching out for him, she reacted without hesitation. This thing looked deadly, so she used the most lethal combination she had.

“Cardsharp, Double Down, Rapid Fire, Flame Cards, Unerring Strike”

In a heartbeat, the silvered cards were in her hand, the ones as sharp as razors. In the space between heartbeats the one she threw turned into three, then burst into flame as they spiraled out to the creature that was wrapping itself around Mister Graves.

The creature screamed as the cards struck home... but it screamed with Graves' voice.

She blinked.

The creature was gone, and Graves collapsed to the ground, scorched holes in him from where her cards had caught him.

Illusion, she realized. And just as she thought that, a bare patch of the wall shimmered, and a figure stepped out from behind another illusion, adjusting his shirt over his wooden chest.

Daffodil Copperfield.

She had been tricked.

But in her numbness, in the cold clarity that her world had shrunk down to, she knew what to do.

And rather than waste precious seconds, rather than stand there and wail or stare cluelessly, she spoke the words that activated the most powerful Oracle skill she had.

“Rewind Time.”

Copperfield stepped back, and the wall shimmered, hiding him once more. Graves made an awful noise and stood, the shadow monster illusion reappearing as the cards shot back to her hand, extinguishing their flames as they went, and forming back into a single card—

—which Chase put into her pocket, as Graves continued speaking. “Berrymore, I need you to talk to me.”

Instead, she said “Truesight.”

Copperfield stared at her, and now that she had time to study him she realized he was wearing the same clothes as Graves. Had he been planning to duplicate the man and walk out of here? To replace him?

“This changes nothing,” he said, and Graves stopped cold, looking around. “I hope you realize that.” But she had spent a long time reading people, listening to the slightest differences in tone and pitch, and she thought she detected annoyance in there. Annoyance and more. Just the slightest hint of fear.”

“What is this?” Graves said, looking around to the dead and dying. “Well, whatever it is some reinforcements won't go amiss. Create—“

He never finished the sentence. “Suggestion!” Copperfield snapped. “Have a nap, you're tired and it's safe.”

And just like that, Graves fell over, snoring as he hit the ground, wands clattering to either side.

“You need me to kill him,” Chase said, stepping toward Copperfield.

The man nodded. “Yes. And you can do it of your own volition, or I can tell you to, and alter your memory to make it think it was your own idea. So which will it be?”

He folded his arms, and clattered his fingertips against his biceps...

...and it sounded just like wooden dice falling down the stairs.

With that, realization crashed down.

It had been for him. She had told his fortune, and he had wiped it from her mind.

Except he hadn't counted on her god.

“No you can't,” she said, her voice even and steady. “Midboss.”

He froze, jaw open, showing his white wooden teeth.

“You're trying to do too much at once. Time's against you. Run now if you want to cut your losses. The prize here is hollow, you know that because I told you that already.”

CHA+1

“You think this matters? Belltollia will have its day! We will rule...” Copperfield caught himself, and took a step to the side, sliding along the wall as she pulled out a different set of cards.

Her fortuna deck. Now glowing slightly.

“If you stay, I'm going to draw.” she said. “And you know what these can do. You know what I am...”

He ran.

She let him go, watching the door for a moment, to make sure he wouldn't come back.

Then she bent down, and began healing the wounded, saving who she could.

At some point Graves woke up and started asking her questions, but she shook her head. She knew that her undercover time was done, and there would be a lot of questions asked of her ahead.

But now she felt a little more confident about the answers.

She had done her part, she thought.

And if there was no joy at that thought, what of it? This condition muted her emotions, but it also controlled her fear.

Why shouldn't she keep it around? It was only logical, really...