Velik wouldn’t say he was happy that he was apparently nothing more than an arrow the gods had pointed at their target, but he wasn’t exactly surprised either. Gods used mortals, not the other way around. The fact that they’d lied and withheld information to get him to do what they wanted was pretty much what he’d expect from them.
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Aria found herself fantasizing about simply blasting the comms attendant with a spike of pure mana as she watched his jowls waggle. He was delivering a heated sermon about the filth monster hunters tracked into the buildings, blissfully unaware that the alternative was to let the monsters themselves in, and the really annoying thing about it was he wasn’t even the first one. She’d suffered through half a dozen similar lectures from other hubs in the past month.
Like I wouldn’t rather be soaking in a hot bath right now. Why don’t you go out and kill a couple thousand monsters, then see how clean you are when you get back?
The main door opened behind her to reveal a Blendstin messenger in black livery, accompanied by none other than Aria’s cousin, Giller. She paused in the open door and took one look at Aria and the attendant, then snarled and stalked forward.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.
“Excuse me?” the attendant asked. “Who do you—”
“Move, idiot!” she practically screamed at him. Turning to the messenger, she said, “Take the first room you find open and start working your way down the west coast. I’ll handle inland locations.”
“You can’t just barge in here,” the attendant said, hustling to plant himself in Giller’s way.
“We’re in a state of emergency. I can and will put your head through the gods damned wall if you don’t move.”
“Giller, what’s happening?” Aria asked. The monster hordes were bad, but that had been ongoing all day and the logistical challenges had been mostly worked out.
“New info came in. The gods themselves broke the silence on this. The system is going down for everyone, human and monster alike. We need bodies on walls and mages making new walls where there aren’t any, and portal specialists to help evacuate people from places we can’t defend. It’s a nightmare. We’re contacting all our trading partners and outposts to get people moving while we still have time.”
“System going down?” Aria repeated. “That’s… What?”
She’d been out in the field killing elites and dispersing hordes for the last ten hours, returning only to check in that the area she’d been assigned to was finally clear of threats. If what Giller was saying was true, though, she had no more time to waste humoring a self-important blowhard.
“No one knows how long it’ll be missing, or if it’s coming back,” Giller told her. “Thank the gods for the Black Rain.”
Black Rain?
Giller must have noticed the look on Aria’s face, because she said, “Started about six hours ago. Swept all up and down the country. It killed every monster it caught. Didn’t touch the people.”
“The gods did that?”
Giller shrugged. “Must have. Who else could?”
“They didn’t send anything but the normal rain to my corner of the world,” Aria grumbled. “Cold, wet, miserable rain.”
“Which is exactly why I can’t let you in,” the attendant said, butting back into the conversation. “You’re dripping all over the floor!”
Aria looked down at the slowly spreading puddle beneath her feet, then up at the fat man in front of her. With a thought, a telekinetic wave of force smacked the man aside. She strode past him without another word, while Giller chuckled quietly behind her.
“Always did have a temper, didn’t you?”
Ignoring that little quip, Aria took the first open communications room, where a different attendant goggled at her bedraggled appearance. “Ma’am,” she said, “You can’t be—”
“Shut up and get to work,” Aria snarled. “Or I’ll flatten you and do it myself.”
Kicking the door closed behind her, Aria approached the massive communications array. Fully twenty crystals sat in a large metal plate, indentations holding each one in place. There was room for ten more, but the network hadn’t extended that far yet. It might never reach that point if the system really was disappearing.
What would that kind of world look like? she wondered. Hopefully, this will just be a temporary issue. The gods wouldn’t just…
She knew she was lying to herself there. The gods could and would do whatever they wanted, with no explanation and no apology. That was why they were gods. If they decided to change a fundamental part of reality, it wouldn’t matter how much of a disaster it was for the mortals on the ground.
“Wh-where are you connecting?” the new attendant asked.
“Cravel Monster Hunter Guild,” Aria said shortly.
The magic fired up, and Aria had to wonder how long it would keep doing that. She wasn’t sure what exactly it meant to lose the system, but the communication crystals themselves were paired items purchased directly from the system store, so she had to assume they’d stop working.
Will I lose my spells? My stats will go, for sure. What happens when the system comes back? Are we all starting back over from level 1? Will magic items start working again, or will we have to replace them? What about the monsters? How will this change them?
There were so many questions, but Aria doubted she’d get any answers ahead of time. The most likely scenario was that they’d all be finding out together, and she hoped they’d live through the experience.