Sanctuary Read online

  Sanctuary

  Magitech Legacy Book 4

  Chris Fox

  Chris Fox Writes LLC

  Copyright © 2020 by Chris Fox

  All rights reserved.

  For Lisa, my wife.

  You are more than amazing.

  Kaelen and I are so grateful for all you do.

  Contents

  The Magitech Chronicles

  Previously On

  Prologue

  Interlude I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Interlude II

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Interlude III

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Interlude IV

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Interlude V

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Interlude VI

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Interlude VII

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Interlude VIII

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Interlude IX

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Interlude X

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Interlude XI

  Chapter 24

  Interlude XII

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Interlude XIII

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  Note to the Reader

  The Void Wraith Saga

  Destroyer

  1. Debris

  2. You're in Charge

  3. Hannan

  4. Cat and Mouse

  5. Egg Breath

  The Magitech Chronicles

  Buckle up, because you’re about to enter The Magitech Chronicles. If you like Sanctuary, we have a complete seven-book prequel series with an ending already available.

  Our pen & paper RPG successfully Kickstarted and the game is live on DriveThruRPG. You can learn more by signing up to the mailing list, or visit magitechchronicles.com and our Magitech Chronicles World Anvil page.

  We’ve got maps, lore, character sheets, and a free set of rules you can use to generate your own character.

  I hope you enjoy!

  -Chris

  Previously On

  You know that annoying feeling when you pick up a sequel and have to make that monumental decision? How well do you remember the previous book in the series? Do you dive right in or do a reread?

  I always tell myself I’m going to do the reread, but I can never wait and so I jump right into the latest book. Sometimes I can’t remember what happened, so my solution for my own books is to write a Previously On, delivered just like the recap before most of our favorite TV shows.

  Here’s what happened in Necrotech, told from Jerek’s perspective.

  Last time on Magitech Legacy…

  Hey there, uh, random person. Don’t make it weird.

  So here’s the short version. I arrived on the Inuran trade moon to turn over command of the Word of Xal to my mother, and to escort the minister to our day in court, where we tried to get the Inurans to stop extorting us for trillions of credits.

  One of the Great Ships randomly activated, what we thought was the Inura’s Grace. Turns out a necromancer named—and I can’t make this stuff up—Necrotis had retrofitted it into the Maker’s Wrath, a necrotech vessel.

  She fired the cannon and filled the trade moon with hungry ghosts. My crew and I were trapped down there. We fought our way out with a reactor, which gave me life magic, and we survived because it turned out the judge was the god Inura, who protected us from the bad evil necromancer people.

  We got back to the Word, brawled with the Maker’s Wrath, and they ran away. The end.

  How about the long version?

  I arrived at the trade moon exhausted, and instead of being allowed to rest was immediately pressed into service again. This time that meant turning over command to my mother, and she became the new captain of the Word of Xal. That hurt, but it was the right decision.

  Mom asked me to escort the minister down to a third-rate courtroom, which is all our entire civilization apparently rates from the Inuran Consortium. Before we left, I had to use the bathroom, and of course the minister wouldn’t wait. She was gone by the time I got done, and I had to head down to the courtroom alone.

  Along the way I was met by a PSA, a public shopping assistant. They’re part merc, part guide, part fixer, and in Miri’s case absolutely gorgeous. She implied that the minister had sent her to lead me to the courtroom, and I bought it.

  I’m so glad I did.

  Miri turned out to be an absolute badass who saved my ass multiple times. After we reached the courtroom where Judge Aruni presided (remember that name), the Great Ship attacked the trade moon. The Maker’s Wrath fired its spirit cannon, which killed power to the moon, and unleashed millions of wights…and worse.

  Vee, Miri, myself, Seket, the minister, and Judge Aruni fled the courtroom, and fought our party deeper into the planet instead of back to the surface. The Remora was still docked out there, with Briff, Rava, and Kurz aboard, and we needed to find a way to reach them.

  We brawled with, like, six different kinds of unliving. I won’t bore you with details, but they were like, super powerful. We were totally outclassed, but won anyway, because we rock and you should send us credits #jereksbankaccount. Not long after, we ran afoul of a necromancer I later learned called himself Utred. He turned out to be an ancient god, though he didn’t appear all that different from the garden variety necromancers on their necrotech harnesses. They look like uppity spiders, who you can never kill, no matter how hard you step on them. More on him later. He mostly just said cryptic things.

  As we fought our way through the moon’s interior people grew increasingly suspicious and angry with each other. It turned out a spirit called a spite had latched onto our group, and performed a ritual to get us to attack each other. It worked, and many bystanders died, though thankfully my friends lived.

  We killed the spirit, and managed to lead the survivors back to the surface only to find ourselves surrounded by thousands of unliving. Wights were closing in on us, and there was no hope of survival.

  Except Aruni.

  See, the whole time Aruni had been doing suspicious things. Seket’s spellcannon fired with too much magnitude, and he had no idea how. My gun fired an enhanced spell that tore apart a bone thief that was climbing up the lift cables after us. Little things. Yet despite having my enhanced sight from the Web of Divinity I wasn’t able to detect anything magical about him.

  Finally I just begged for his help, and he gave it. Aruni was in fact Inura, and apparently there’s some sort of mystical power in reversed names. Fun fact. He’s also the deity that Vee prays to, the Maker. There’s no way that will come back to haunt me.

  Inura consecrated our landing zone, and my sister Rava zoomed in to pick us up. We thought we were in the clear, but that would have been a really short story, so of course we found out that the Word of Xal needed a source of magic, or it would lose the battle with the Maker’s Wrath.

  See where this is going?

  We had to go back to the moon, all the way to the very center, and grab one of the life cores. Basically a man-made Catalyst with enough power to jump-start the Word, and maybe win the fight in orbit.

  The Wrath fired on the Word, and a lot of good mages, kids mostly, gave their lives or had their magical ability burnt out of them. You can see why we were motivated to get the core back to the ship. I’m glad my mother had to run that combat, as I don’t think I could have handled seeing those kids go dow
n.

  Our team brawled with a crazy powerful mech, but we took it down and grabbed the core. Things seemed to be going well, but pulling the core cut power to that part of the moon, and drew attention to us. The necromancers were closing in, and I had to make a decision.

  I ordered Vee to breach the reactor in the hope that it would take out all the other reactors. My goal was denying the moon to the necromancers. Otherwise they could pilot it into the depths and take it wherever they wanted. I accepted that we were all dead no matter what we did.

  My plan kind of worked. We cut power to the whole moon, and took out all the reactors. We’d have died in the explosion, but Inura intervened and protected us. Because we lived we soaked up the life magic, and all gained a Catalyzation. I can heal people!

  I no longer fear STDs. I can even cure headaches. I haven’t used that to score points with my new girlfriend yet, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

  We made it off the moon and Utred was there to wave goodbye. He’s the most polite necromancer I’ve ever met, and obviously crazed. We made it back to the Word just in time to power the reactor.

  The Wrath fired again, but our newly empowered wards stopped the shot. We couldn’t return fire because, predictably, our cannon had been damaged. Vee and I teleported inside the barrel, and I heroically held off some wights by standing safely behind a line of salt and shooting them like fish in a barrel.

  Another necromancer approached, though she didn’t give her name. I do know she’s Utred’s sister and that she makes him look sane. Anyway, she asked me some questions, and let me finish my repairs unimpeded.

  Vee did most of the work, can’t lie. We fixed the cannon, and it fired on the Maker’s Wrath. Their wards overloaded, and they took serious damage. Enough that Necrotis fled into the spirit realm, which worked out fine for us.

  Remember that girlfriend thing? I started to get a little alone time with Vee, on our first, ahh, intimate date, when Utred appeared in my quarters and told me that if I didn’t come to the Catalyst known as Sanctuary he’d turn my father’s shade into an assassin and send it after my mother. Real mood killer.

  I’ve already foiled one assassin, and don’t want to lose my mother to another. Especially not if the assassin is my dad. How did they get his soul, smart readers are asking? He was stuck almost a hundred thousand years in the past.

  Apparently Utred is that old, and grabbed my father back then. He’s had his soul on ice this whole time, all waiting for me to appear and be blackmailed into helping him into some sort of divine facility.

  So what am I going to do about it?

  Let’s find out….

  Prologue

  Virkonna translocated to the remote system where venerable Hotep and his brother Ptah held sway. It had been possibly the first settled after the exodus, if her youngest brother’s claims were true.

  She didn’t care. She’d never much cared for history beyond tactical value, nor did she care about the gods who ruled this system. The divine city they’d inherited from better deities shone in the unbroken black, a beacon where they claimed all would receive succor, and that no violence could be done.

  She’d seen the golden city before, glittering amidst a deadly sea of asteroids, moons, and planets. They spun quietly in the eternal darkness left by the death of the star that had once presided here, occasionally colliding in spectacular, if silent, explosions. Some of those moons were probably occupied by the lawless filth denied entry to Hotep’s city. Proof that his inclusivity had bounds. He was no better than she.

  Virkonna unfurled her wings and raised her tail into a striking position. She could not assault the city. Doing so would accomplish nothing, as the wards would repel even her attacks. Even her mother’s. So far as they knew, all magic simply strengthened the wards, and no form of teleportation nor translocation could breach the city.

  You could see the corridors, and libraries, and promenades, and data stores, but never get inside. Not on your own.

  Only an invitation from Hotep could do that. Or from Ptah, were the artificer god anywhere near the city. She doubted it. Ptah spent his eons plying the stars in search of new materials and magics to craft his wonders. He’d even bragged that he’d found a way to swiftly traverse between galaxies, and perhaps had departed theirs for another. Something about the core of one galaxy tying all galaxies together.

  She cared nothing for other galaxies. She cared nothing for the lingering wars, which were now about pacification instead of defense, or even conquest. The accolades had long since been tainted by ashen cities on trampled worlds, and she needed no further reminders. They were impossible to escape. Even now prayer flooded in, adulation from so many mortals, in so many systems. Many lauded her for wiping out worlds.

  She cared for none of this, yet here she was.

  Why had this stirred her to action when so many recent events had failed to pique her interest? Because of the risk. She’d believed Hotep nothing but a servant of his convictions, a misguided fool given too much power who’d somehow held onto this place.

  Fortunately, Nefarious had pierced the seemingly benign god’s inscrutable schemes. Hotep conspired to murder their little brother, Inura, barely a Wyrm, though already so favored by mother. Brilliant beyond reason, she’d said. Even Xal had taken notice of the hatchling, now full Wyrm.

  The wonders Inura could one day produce made him of incalculable worth. And Hotep sought to enslave him. To use his mastery of spirit to wrest Inura’s will from him, and to turn all he produced to the ancient god’s ends.

  She would not allow it. No one enslaved a dragon. No one.

  Hotep might be a strong god. He might be ancient beyond knowing. But he had never faced a goddess like Virkonna. Twenty millennia of warfare had hardened her into the fiercest general ever to put demon or unliving to torch. But her study had not been merely tactical nor strategic.

  Not a day had passed where she’d neglected to train with her blade. Virkonna extended a moon-sized hand and opened a void pocket, where Nefu lay. Wind swirled around the falchion as she drew the weapon reverently. Reevanthara had forged this blade, though not for her specifically. She’d claimed it from the rightful owner’s corpse, before devouring him and all memory of his name, even her own.

  He must have done something terrible to upset her, though she couldn’t remember what, of course. Worship came from reverence, and reverence required knowledge. She’d erased that knowledge, and thereby ensured that whoever that god or goddess was who had originally held Nefu…they could never return.

  “Why have you come?” Hotep’s shimmering blue form arrived a moment after the words, an impossibility in the void, but one easily circumvented by the strength of the god’s will. “You are armed for battle, despite our having no quarrel. The flames echo the strong possibility of my death here if I do not flee into Sanctuary.”

  Virkonna craned her long draconic neck, and studied the god. Why come if he knew his death likely? Was his curiosity really so much greater than his self-preservation?

  He wore his finest raiment, all whites and golds, but there was no sign of his spear, or his tome, or any of the other famous artifacts. He’d divested himself of all of them, no doubt to prevent their theft. She’d wager anything they lay inside the city, reachable only by those already within, or by Ptah when he returned.

  Out of her reach.

  Fury boiled to overflowing, and lighting crackled from her eyes as she glared at the ancient god.

  “Yes.” Hotep folded watery arms, the frost reforming the instant they settled into a new position. “You grasp the truth now. The cost. You will succeed in your misguided assassination, but killing me will require a sacrifice that will one day result in you choosing to face your sister in single combat deprived of your weapon. It will cost your life, though not your legacy.”

  The fury grew. Lightning played down Nefu’s planet-slaying blade, eager to claim the divinity of this horrible predator, this enslaver of newly minted gods. Which
sister did he mean? Neither Nefarius nor the Earthmother made sense. Nor did Neith. A sister unborn?

  “I will pay the price, and gladly, if it ends you.” She glided through space, wind billowing through the black as her blade unleashed a storm of unrivaled ferocity, a storm that whipped planets, and moons, and asteroids into a fury to bludgeon her foe.

  The winds buffeted Hotep’s face, slowing the god even as she accelerated toward him. Virkonna burned a quantity of primal air that would beggar most gods, and used it all to move more quickly.

  Her titanic blade swept around, and met Hotep’s armored chest in a scream of sparks, shards of armor, and watery flesh. The weapon slid through the golden breastplate and into the god’s heart as the blow wrenched a cry from the dying god, his limbs splayed akimbo as Nefu broke his power.

  Spirit surged around the wound, and something—something massive—slipped from Hotep into the spirit realm. His essence, and a portion of his power. His soul, and so much more. She’d done it. She’d slain an elder god, with a single blow.

  The void’s chill deepened. Why had it been so simple? Where had been the epic battle? Hotep loved peace, but the tales said he loved peace because once he had been the avatar of war. Once he’d borne another name. Zaro, bringer of chaos, a name from the ancient Cycle.