《Hero, of the Locus (dead, might rewrite)》 1 - Anomalies; or, On the Flaws of Locus Dependent Implementation of Gamified Status Systems; In Which Our Hero Loses Hope; a Lover Avenged, and Man¡¯s Empire Crippled; Our Hero¡¯s Too Solid Flesh Melts; On theFirmament Efficacy of Place; The Empire Cannot Hear the Emperor; In the secret caverns beneath Lerma, capital city of the Empire of Man, in the deepest chamber of the palace dungeon, Ilina of Lisba stood alone, exhausted but victorious. The Locus¡¯ last guardian, a hulking rat-wolf-man-thing, lay on the floor, dead. The same went for the rest of the dungeon¡¯s inhabitants. Every creature that could fight and die, had fought and summarily died trying to halt her progress, all to protect the Locus¡¯ and their own continued existence. Outside and aboveground, beyond the Emperor¡¯s Palace, the few other people who knew of the Locus have all expired of natural causes over the past month. Three weeks ago, the Imperial Mage Primate swallowed his staff whole by accident as he entered his office. A week later, the entire mage personnel behind the Status-Skill Index System (SSIS) vanished in a Necrotic Void Cloud accident and the subsequent cave-in. That same week, the Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Kindness slipped on wet garden pavement and fell onto his own shears. The Emperor himself and the Grand Vizier are to perish tomorrow due to an equipment malfunction at the annual assassination ceremony. The Director of the Non-Existent Bureau and all heirs Princeps are expected (obligated, really) to die in the power struggle to follow. So it goes. So when Ilina finally began her infiltration, she was alone in her effort and in the knowledge that such a place even existed. Alone, except for the Locus itself. Now, Ilina stood victorious. Exhausted and heavily wounded, but victorious. The cadaver of the wolf-rat-man-beast thing dissolved into the pureousiathat had made up its being. Shadows shrank away from the chamber¡¯s walls, and the seams in the marble panel glowed bright octarine as fluid mana¡ªpure and rarifiedpotency¡ª seeped through, strong enough to give off visible light, though maddeningly incomprehensible to mundane eyes. The air itself shone octarine, which quickly decayed into blue and infrared. The air¡¯s motions, with all its swirling eddies and turbulent vortices, became visible, coloured by a slick oily sheen of bubbly reddish green and ripples of bluish gold, tinted here and there by the dying screams of innocent hues caught in the clash of unnatural lumens. Purple was trampled under the panicked stampede, its remains mangled beyond recognition, while Yellow and Brown shook in their hose and leggings. The shining, whirling, and whistling whorls of power coalesced into a single maelstrom in front of Ilina, until its movements died down, and the light condensed and resolved into the image and form of a woman, the person of the thousand year old locus. Its name was also Lerma, originally, a name later inherited by the city founded above her domain, though she¡¯d taken to using other names since. ¡°Ilina,¡± the woman said, testily, ¡°you didn¡¯t have to fight them all.¡± ¡°Charlotte,¡± Ilina sighed, then rushed forward, breaking into tears as she wrapped her arms around the Locus¡¯ avatar. ¡°Oh, Charlotte, I¡¯m so sorry.¡± Charlotte¡¯s expression softened, and she laid one hand on Ilina¡¯s back, and the other on her head. The girl¡¯s knees gave, and Charlotte caught her and set her down gently on the floor, placing a chaste kiss on her forehead and stroking her disheveled hair. ¡°Hush, baby,¡± She murmured, ¡°It¡¯s all good now.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I had to, I had to give them a chance, I¡ª¡± ¡°I know, darling, I know.¡± ¡°They killed Emma,¡± Ilina said, then stopped to wait for Charlotte¡¯s response. ¡°Who.¡± ¡°Gamby and his men. The Bureau found out. They took Harrod first, and he told them, and they killed Emma.¡± ¡°Ilina . . .¡± ¡°I couldn¡¯t save her. I¡¯m so sorry.¡± ¡°Oh, Ilina . . .¡± ¡°I couldn¡¯t save her,¡± the girl spoke again, ¡°so I killed them.¡± Charlotte frowned. ¡°Gamby?¡± ¡°All of them.¡± Ilina¡¯s voice cracked, and her breath grew so ragged that she had to pause until she¡¯d calmed down enough to speak again. Meanwhile, Charlotte rocked her back and forth, and let air flow through the passages to cool the cramped chamber. ¡°I,¡± Ilina faltered, and let out a small giggle, ¡°I bribed the officials and killed all the judges.¡± She pulled her head up to look Charlotte in the eyes. ¡±It¡¯s going to take the Empire years to recover from all of the damage.¡± ¡°You¡¯ve come to free me,¡± Charlotte said in realization. ¡°I have.¡± Charlotte stirred, as if to stand, but Ilina held on tighter. ¡°Sleep with me,¡± she said. ¡°Perhaps later.¡± ¡°Charlotte, please. I need it. I need you.¡± ¡°And you do have me,¡± Charlotte decided to change the subject. ¡°How do you plan to do it?¡± ¡°Do what?¡± ¡°Free me from my bonds.¡± ¡°I brought this.¡± Ilina let go of Charlotte and produced a dirk. It was made entirely of white brass, and had their names engraved on either side of the handle. More importantly, it was an object born of the Locus¡¯ own essence, a gift given to Ilina years ago. ¡°You, you still had that? You said you¡¯d lost it.¡± ¡°I hid it in my father¡¯s garden before he died. My brother had sold the house since, so I had to break in, but the blade was still there.¡± ¡°There¡¯s a certain poetry in your using that blade.¡± ¡°You trust me, right?¡± ¡°Always. You need not even ask.¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to stab your core.¡± ¡°I see,¡± Charlotte said, ¡°That won¡¯t work at all.¡± ¡°What do you mean it won¡¯t work?¡± Ilina tilted her head, confused. ¡°I have enough essence that if my core shattered, it would only reform. It wouldn¡¯t even affect me.¡± ¡°I thought the blade drains mana?¡± ¡°By essence, I meantousia,¡± Charlotte clarified, ¡°not mana.¡± ¡°Oh. Then I don¡¯t know what else to do.¡± Charlotte stood up and lightly tugged at Ilina¡¯s arms. ¡°Come,¡± she said, ¡°there¡¯s something I wanted to show you.¡± Hero didn¡¯t bother counting the pills in her hand. She downed it all with a mouthful of water. March was late. She was always late, and that has always been a bad habit of hers, but now, she was especially late. It¡¯s been two hours since she said she¡¯d be here, and as far as Hero could tell, March had already been on her way over from her classes when she¡¯d called and promised to visit Hero in hospital, and bring the violon-guitar. She¡¯ll be the one to take care of it from now on, since Karen was never really one for the fine finger work. Hero had really needed to see March today. Today was important. Not to mention someone had to tell Karen afterwards. Karen couldn¡¯t come, what with the dark spectre of her exams looming over the horizon; this was Karen¡¯s future at stake, which at the moment carried more weight than whatever future Hero had left. March must¡¯ve gotten stuck in traffic. It was definitely the right time of day for it. Still, it would¡¯ve been nice to have her here for this. Would¡¯ve been even better if things hadn¡¯t gotten to this point in the first place, but there was never any changing that. Hero¡¯s condition had always been terminal, and it was only ever a question of living the best life she can in the time had left. But Hero¡¯s family would never let her. They were against any thought or mention of Hero¡¯s mortality. Never mind what the long line of doctors had to say, the doctors could be wrong; never mind the cancer, nor her weak heart, nor her brittle bones, nor that one incident with the used needle; never mind the fact that no one else has had the consumption since Edwardian England; and most definitely never mind anything else she¡¯d much rather be doing instead. Hero¡¯s family was of the firm belief that one should never say die; that one must rage against the dying of the light, even if you had to throw the whole house into the fire to keep it going. ¡®Tis nobler in the mind to have suffer¡¯d and lost, than to have never suffer¡¯d at all. Given the choice between pain and no pain, choose pain. You only die once. Money was no object, after all, and technically, neither was time (time is a concept). So long as they could pay people to keep Hero in bed, they need only stop by for an hour weekly to get rid of those pesky guilt feelings, then they can go back to their parties and pub crawls and the sympathy of their buddies from work. Because life must go on; if not for Hero, then at least for the living. So it goes.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Hero had hoped that when she got to the end, she¡¯d have something to show for it. That, if she were an artist, for instance (and she was), she¡¯d have made a lot of art. Or, if she were a musician (and she was), she¡¯d have made a lot music. If she were a writer (which, spoiler alert, she kind of was)¡ªyou get the point. And she did do those things. Not a lot, but some. She did paint some, and draw some, sing some, write some, back when she was still living with March and Karen. She¡¯d made videos as well, videos of a particular nature the two would surely enjoy, if they don¡¯t find it too disturbing that she¡¯d left those behind. But it wasn¡¯t enough. All of it wasn¡¯t enough, not by far. Hero wished she wasn¡¯t dying, that she hadn¡¯t gotten sick, that she hadn¡¯t lost her whole life before she could live it, like really live it. She wished she had more time, a whole life to record in bright paints and pixels, instead of disappearing ink. But she was dying. Knowing that, Hero wished she could¡¯ve gone out with something big. A magnum opus, like in that one book with the pig and the spider. Maybe a one hit wonder with March. Record a song, maybe even a whole album, and they could paint the cover art themselves, and shoot the video with just Karen looking pretty for all of five minutes. Easier said than done, and like as not the results could turn out crap, but it could have been nice in the doing. But they never had the chance. In truth, Hero hadn¡¯t seen the two in person for nearly half a year now. They kept touch over the internet, until her laptop and her phone were confiscated because, put together, those were very nearly as radioactive as an unpeeled banana. They never let Hero too close to bananas, either, so there¡¯s that. She had tried to content herself with reading her old books, until they took even those away as well. A girl came¡ªHero knew not whether the girl was a hospital nurse or an attendant privately hired by the family¡ªand carried off the encyclopedias and the art texts and the novels and the manga and the magazines. For surely, reading would be too taxing on poor sensitive Hero, with her fragile maiden¡¯s constitution; why, she¡¯d drop dead tomorrow rather than next week! Hopefully, the girl kept the stuff for herself, at least. Much of the material had been in rather good taste, and might offend the family¡¯s tacky sensibilities. Better that the books end up in the hands of a pretty young thing to enjoy instead. And the videos too, hah. Perhaps if some other person suffered the same illnesses as Hero, they¡¯d feel betrayed by their own body, disgusted. But not Hero. Hero loved her own body and knew exactly how beautiful it was before the sickness. She used to look at herself in the mirror often, keeping track of every new development that her body went through. And, lovingly, Hero had etched every detail, every contour, curve, and dimple into her memories and her soul.Thiswas her body. It was healthy, it was whole, and it was beautiful, and not even the ravages of disease will fully ruin that. So, before first inevitable changes came for her to see, Hero had covered up the mirror in her room and put it away. It mattered none, in the end, but Hero didn¡¯t care. It mattered to her, and that was the end of it. ¡°This is my womb,¡± Charlotte announced as they entered a small chamber of dull, dark, and murky red crystal. The walls were chipped and flaked like sea ripples, the floor smooth, and the ceiling high and domed, glowing softly at its peak. ¡°Really,¡± said Ilina, ¡°So this is where you birth your monsters.¡± ¡°Creatures. And no, those I can form anywhere in my domain,¡± Charlotte said, ¡°This chamber has a specific purpose.¡± She motioned to the center of the room, where four crystal spheres hovered on pedestals. One sphere seemed rather smaller than the rest. ¡°There are Workings in the walls, in the floor, and the ceiling,¡± Charlotte continued. ¡°And Makings around the pedestals, wards in the doorway. All of it is ousia.¡± ¡°I understood none of that,¡± Ilina said, ¡°so why are you explaining all that so suddenly?¡± ¡°. . .¡± Charlotte opened her mouth to speak, but found no answer. ¡°I¡¯m sorry. Emma would . . . no, never mind.¡± ¡°Emma would¡¯ve loved it,¡± Ilina said it for her. ¡°Iamsorry.¡± ¡°You have to stop apologising.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡±¡ªIlina caught a tiny glare from Charlotte¡ª¡°It¡¯s just, I should be feeling worse for what happened, and yet . . .¡± ¡°Don¡¯t blame yourself for what you feel or don¡¯t feel, you hear?¡± the Locus said, and then, more softly, ¡°How did it happen?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know. I came too late, she was already gone.¡± ¡°And when was this?¡± ¡°Around two months ago. I think.¡± Not knowing what else to say, Charlotte pulled Ilina into another embrace. ¡°I¡¯m glad you¡¯re here at least,¡± she said, ¡°You were gone for so long, I¡¯d assumed you¡¯ve both died. I¡¯ve done my grieving. So when you stepped inside, alive, I was relieved.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve been so busy fighting and killing,¡± Ilina sobbed, ¡°I felt so angry and desperate, but I kept myself from crying this whole time, and now . . .¡± Ilina trailed off. Charlotte said nothing and gave Ilina all her attention. ¡°Now I just feel tired.¡± Ilina said weakly. ¡°And empty, and numb, and not much else.¡± ¡°And love?¡± ¡°I . . . I don¡¯t know.¡± ¡°You¡¯ll feel better when you¡¯ve had time to rest and get your feelings in order.¡± ¡°I hope so,¡± Ilina said. She wiped at her tears, or tried to, but only managed to smear blood and grime on her face, so Charlotte did it instead, materialising a handkerchief from thin air. ¡°Why did you bring me here, anyway? I doubt we walked all the way here for sex.¡± ¡°We didn¡¯t,¡± Charlotte raised an eyebrow as she said that. ¡°You sound so eager, for someone claiming to feel so empty, numb, and tired.¡± ¡°I want to feel something, anything. And I can wait, just you watch.¡± Charlotte let go of Ilina and turned away to look at the softly glowing crystal spheres. ¡°What are they?¡± Ilina asked. ¡°They¡¯re yours.¡± Mine?Ilina puzzled. Then she realized. ¡°Baby cores?¡± ¡°No,¡± the Locus spoke with conviction. ¡°They aren¡¯t dungeons. These aren¡¯t cores, and they need not have cores at all unless they choose to. Dungeons are lifeless mockeries, an insult I¡¯ve suffered for far too long. No more.¡± ¡°Charlotte . . .¡± ¡°My children will be alive, and they will be able to useousia. They will be loci, or if not that, then some form of sprite, at least.¡± ¡°Charlotte.¡± ¡°But not yet.¡± The Locus turned to look at Ilina. ¡°These are . . . They¡¯re like seeds, or eggs. Embryos, but not quite.¡± This time it was Ilina who embraced Charlotte. ¡°So they¡¯re mine?¡± ¡°Yours and Emma¡¯s. From your essence, and hers, and mine.¡± ¡°Why¡¯s this one smaller than the rest?¡± ¡°I ran out of material.¡± ¡°Oh. And Emma¡ª¡± Ilina did not continue. Perhaps someday she¡¯ll be able to say the words without feeling something break inside of her, but right now she felt she won¡¯t recover, if she broke any more. ¡°It matters little,¡± Charlotte said, ¡°These are but shells right now, without the spark of life. Even after they¡¯re given life, it will take them years to develop consciousness.¡± ¡°So how will you spark them?¡± ¡°With much difficulty. Or, much loss of essence, at least. This is where you come in. I want you to go to my core. Do what you were planning to do, and do it before I can recover ousia. Or else it will just feed again.¡± Ilina looked thoughtful. ¡°He¡¯ll blame me for this, you know. And he¡¯ll blame me for what happened to Emma. He¡¯ll blame himself first, of course, but he¡¯ll still blame me.¡± ¡°Let him. I don¡¯t care what he thinks.¡± ¡°He¡¯ll blame me for you too. He¡¯ll think I killed you.¡± ¡°You will have.¡± Charlotte said, with a slight edge to her voice that made Ilina go stiff. She continued, more gently, ¡°This place isn¡¯t just my domain. It is my body, and my very being. The Empire made it into my cage. We¡¯re killing most of me, to save whatever¡¯s left. End my interminable suffering, one way or another.¡± ¡°I could lose you too.¡± Ilina murmured, ¡°I don¡¯t want to risk it.¡± ¡°Ilina, please. I need you to do it.¡± Charlotte was almost begging, now, taking on a vulnerability that, to the girl, seemed to come out of nowhere. ¡°Okay.¡± Ilina said. ¡°For you, and for Emma.¡± ¡°Go.¡± ¡°I love you. Really, I do.¡± ¡°I know,¡± Charlotte said, ¡°I¡¯ll find you when it¡¯s over.¡± Hero felt the pills trying to fight their way back up her throat. She fought them back down. Better not to choke on her own vomit, she thought, that wouldn¡¯t be dignified. Wouldn¡¯t want to stain the sheets, either. Just as the edges of Hero¡¯s vision began to go dark, she caught a glimpse of movement through glass panel on the door. The door opened, and in walked two familiar figures wearing sweet, cheeky smiles. Hero felt her eyes well up with tears, and she broke into a grin, and then there were hands on her cheeks, and two sets of lips kissing her own, and hands placed lightly upon her chest. There was much laughing and crying, and questions of ¡®how?¡¯ and ¡®why?¡¯ that were left mostly unanswered amidst all the laughing and crying. And then March sat down to the side to play a little song. ¡°You should hear it,¡± she said, ¡°It¡¯s not much, but it took all year.¡± Karen talked about this and that, and Hero listened, and then there was a stretch of companionable silence as the two took turns holding her, and kept her warm, all of them basking in each other¡¯s company. ¡°I¡¯m so happy you came,¡± Hero said, finally, ¡°I love you both to death.¡± ¡°You too, dummy,¡± Karen said. ¡°Are you guys gonna be alright without me?¡± ¡°Of course we are.¡± ¡°We¡¯ll be fine,¡± March said, ¡°You should get some rest.¡± The girls kissed her cheeks. And then she lost consciousness, feeling all warm and fluffy inside. The ground shook, and the tremor was felt across the entire capital. Within the locus caverns, the very air shook with a rumble and a thrum, and the occasional flash or flicker of ousia and light. Unstable power welled up within the Locus; the center couldn¡¯t hold, and something had to give. Chambers collapsed, rocks fell, and things died. In the more intact areas, dust and minute bits of stone rained down. Every crystal tablet, line, and anchor that powered the web-like matrices of the Skill and Status System broke, and shattered. The System itself did not cease to be, strangely enough. Which wasn¡¯t in keeping with how this sort of thing usually goes. Removal of the cause is generally expected to likewise remove the symptom, and undo all its prior effects. General expectation was, you kill the dark lord, and the blight would disappear. Your skin would clear, the crops would get watered, and a rainbow would paint the words ¡®Never Again¡¯ in big letters across the skies. And yet the System remained, despite its base being reduced to ruins. Out in the farther reaches of the Empire, Status interfaces glitched, flickered, bugged out and buggered up for a second, and Skills failed to activate, yet the System held, sustained by its own existential inertia. The System was no mere spell, no simple Working that broke with its anchor artifact, no mere Shaping that lost cohesion when no longer held together by an outside force. It was a Making of unbelievable weight and complexity, though bloated and dysfunctional. It was monstrous amalgam of mana thrown together by human hands, one that fed off the energy of those who used it, siphoning mana from client-side. But that didn¡¯t mean maintenance wasn¡¯t necessarily. It was very much necessary. And now, all those responsible for said maintenance, as well as anyone otherwise aware of the System¡¯s inner workings, were gone, their natural lifespans cut short by likewise natural accidents. The System that had long been the center of all things within the imperial gyre was left sagging, yet suspended through the ether by its own weight of being. Silent, subtle, and unnoticed, things began to fall apart. Wish we could¡¯ve had more, Hero thought.So that¡¯s what took March so long. Karen . . . I¡¯ll miss them . . . but then there wouldn¡¯t be a ¡®me¡¯ to miss them anymore, would there? Hero let herself trail off there, waiting for the embrace of oblivion. I¡¯d be real pissed off if there was an afterlife after all . . . Hero waited. And waited, and waited. Oblivion didn¡¯t come. At least, not any oblivion she knew of, not if she could still question whether this was oblivion or not. I¡¯m still thinking, so I still exist . . . there¡¯s something deeply wrong with that. Hero bated her nonexistent breath. This is taking too long. Shit, did I only blind myself? Or is this what Hell is like? Though I¡¯ve never heard of any hell like this . . . Ah, but this is actually clever, isn¡¯t it? Continued consciousness in utter black silence. It¡¯s not even black, it¡¯s just nothingness . . . Shit. ¡°Um, sorry about that,¡± Hero heard a voice say. So I survived, huh. Well that¡¯s just embarrassing. ¡°Karen? March?¡± Hero mumbled. How could she mumble? How could she speak? ¡°And here I thought I¡¯d died . . .¡± ¡°You did,¡± said that same low and feminine voice. ¡°Sorry about the dark, let me fix that . . .¡± And then there was light. A Goddess? Oh Goddess, please tell me I won¡¯t be seeing game text and status screens. I might just kill myself again. The voice chuckled. ¡°I see we are kindred souls in more ways than I thought.¡± The light¡ªit was red, mostly¡ªresolved and focused, parted into separate shades and shapes. A ruby red tint painted her entire vision, which, curiously, Hero found to cover a full three-sixty by three-sixty. She was in a small chamber made of something stone-ish¡ªhard to tell through her red vision¡ªand there were two women, one standing before her, the other sitting down a ways behind. They both looked like they¡¯ve been through a lot. ¡°Hello. Hero, was it?¡± the voice came from the woman closer to Hero. ¡°Hi . . . ?¡± Hero would have bit her lip, if she had lips. The woman smiled. ¡°I fished your soul out of your body just before you died, before it could break apart.¡± ¡°Oh. Thanks.¡± ¡°I¡¯m Charlotte,¡± the woman said, then, gesturing towards the other woman, ¡°She is Ilina. We are your mothers in this life. There was another, Emma. She was from your world, I think.¡± Hero was silent. Then Charlotte smiled more brightly. ¡°Oh, how lovely,¡± she said. ¡°I wasn¡¯t expecting twins.¡± 2 - The First Ever Male Characters Out of This Story Were A Coupla Guys Whove A Fair Queen¡¯s Court; In Which A Girl Needs Her Sleep; In Which There Is No Light; The Snap; On the Subject of Twinsies; In Which Hero Snaps; Twice; Two messengers arrived at around dawn, seeking audience with the Fair Queen Jadis. One of the larger pixies, a girl with the damselfly wings, ran into them an hour away, and subsequently escorted them in. They were an odd sort, the messengers. A blend of fox, hare, and raccoon, with short, doglike snouts, they possessed a touch of sprite as well, though too little for them to freely change form. One had a russet coat with deer spots, and stood about four feet tall, and the other stood a head taller and the slightest bit wider, and his fur was silver and grey with mottled spots of black. They seemed to be made of animal flesh, mostly, and wore actual, dusty fabric for clothes, with no glamours to speak of. But the two were upright standing, at least, and so, after being made to wait until evening, they were allowed a quick audience. The Fair Queen was sat on a silk cushion over the grass and herbs at the center of a ring of mushrooms twenty feet wide. She had a certain unnatural beauty. Her skin was fair to the point of paleness, almost white except where it was stained dark green or lavender instead, and was wholly without either wrinkle or blemish, and her face held a surreal agelessness. Wavy flaxen hair flowed down to the small of her back, tied loosely by silver threads. Her gown looked weightless and translucent, woven from morning mist and greenish plant fibers, its long train adorned with various ferns and leaves of yellow, red, green, blue, and silver, made to look as if they¡¯d clung to it off of the forest floor. ¡°Why are you in my domain?¡± the Fair Queen demanded, when the two messengers were announced. The pair kneeled. One spoke. ¡°Your majesty,¡± it said, ¡°We have been sent by our patron Lady Surina of the Muncani Wood.¡± Saying this, the muncan produced a slip of fine spidersilk lace, which it then handed to one of the Fair Queen¡¯s attendants, who in turn, placed it in the Fair Queen¡¯s hand. She turned the silk over once, twice, and set it aside, easily forgotten. ¡°After twenty years, she remembers I exist,¡± Queen Jadis said, ¡°Very well, what does my wayward daughter want?¡± ¡°The malformed gnolls and goblins in the lands around our Lady¡¯s domain have been growing in number these past few months. Our scouts suspect more are coming in from farther north and east.¡± ¡°Yes, yes,¡± the Fair Queen interrupted, wearily. ¡°What does thy Lady want?¡± The messenger who had been silent so far, fidgeted, and as he fidgeted, decided to remain silent. And then he fidgeted a bit more. The other hesitated, but continued. ¡°Our people fear an impending attack, and our Fair Lady Surina worries that should the goblins and gnolls mount an offensive, they will head here as well, endangering¡ª¡± ¡°So she wants I should send aid to this distant domain of hers.¡± ¡°Yes, your majesty.¡± ¡°Unfortunately,¡± Queen Jadis drew the word out ponderously, ¡°We have our hands full trying to deal with the shadows of Grimdark. What was it again, Celia? Grues and darklings?¡± ¡°And not just, my Queen,¡± a prickly green cat-otter-plant-girl piped up from beside the Queen. ¡°Grues and darklings and shades, oh my. Oodles and oodles and oodles of them, bajillions even!¡± ¡°Hm, I see,¡± the Queen nodded sagely, ¡°nothing so serious as an Edgelord, though, I hope?¡± ¡°Oh, but there are, my Queen, and not just the one! Edgelords and edge-ladies and lasses and edge-princes, too! All of them tall, dark, and wanksome. Each one taller, darker, and more wanksome than the others. Even the girls! One of them stuck a finger in my¡ª¡± ¡°As you can see,¡± the Queen turned to the messengers, ¡°our circumstances are no less dire. Sending away much needed forces to her aid might prove, shall-we-say, difficult.¡± ¡°¡ªand that was my favourite one too,¡± Celia chattered on, ¡°Why, I¡ª¡± ¡°Yes, that¡¯s quite enough, my pretty.¡± The green girl squeaked and bit her tongue, and, blushing profusely, she shrank back and was quiet. The Queen turned her attention back to her visitors. ¡°Although . . .¡± She turned back to Celia, ¡°How fares Oleander?¡± ¡°Still in his cruddy dirt mound, my Queen.¡± ¡°It should be appropriate to send him, don¡¯t you think? He will want to make up for his embarassment, I¡¯m sure. Go fetch Hodge.¡± ¡°I am here, my queen.¡± Queen Jadis had barely spoken the order, before a squat brown shape materialized from the tree line, and Hodge the gardener kneeled before her. ¡°How fares your lord, Hodge?¡± ¡°He works to pay his debts, my Queen.¡± ¡°Twenty years are plenty, don¡¯t you think?¡± Hodge said nothing, only bowed his head even lower. ¡°Another twenty won¡¯t restore his dignity,¡± the Queen said, ¡°but opportunity presents itself for him to make amends. A chance to see Surina as well, as I¡¯m sure will interest him. Go and tell your lord, the Queen sends him to Muncani wood. He may take with him seven of his people. Our guests will accompany him.¡± ¡°As you command, my Queen.¡± ¡°Yes, that should be enough.¡± The Fair Queen turned to the two messengers. ¡°Your Highness, we are forever¡ª¡± ¡°Take them them away, please,¡± Queen Jadis said, and the two were escorted away. ¡°Well,¡± Celia said, deflating, ¡°that was tiring as fuck.¡± ¡°You did well,¡± Jadis said, ¡°Now come. Lap. Sit.¡± ¡°I¡¯m prickly all over.¡± ¡°I think it looks pretty on you.¡± ¡°Pretty and prickly and pointy and painful. Probably poisonous too.¡± ¡°Exactly. Come sit.¡± Hero slept. She didn¡¯t know for how long she slept, it could¡¯ve been a few hours, or a few days, or a few centuries. Time did not seem to flow evenly, in her slumber. Two or three times, she felt herself drift close to consciousness, only to fall into deeper sleep. So Hero slept, oblivious to the outside world and the passage of time, until finally she awoke. Kind of. She awoke to nothing but darkness and silence, and only then realized that she had lost consciousness in the first place. But was she truly awake then? Is one truly aware if all one is aware of is her own unawareness? Whatever, Hero decided. She knew, when she awoke, that she had awoke, thus she is awake. Blind, deaf, and insensate, but awake. Absent senses aside, Hero could feel a sensation she couldn¡¯t easily define, if indeed it counted as sensation at all. It took a moment before Hero realized that this was the feeling of being in her body. Of being aware of it, even if she felt no actual physical sensation. It was there, and yet it wasn¡¯t. It didn¡¯t physically exist¡ªshe felt no weight, be that weight of mass, or mere weight of being¡ªyet she felt a proprioceptive awareness of that which was hers, was her. Hero knew it was there, so she felt it was there, and so it was there. The feeling would have gone unnoticed, had Hero not felt its absence prior, back when she first awoke in this world, when that mysterious woman, Charlotte, first spoke to her. And even before that, in her life before rebirth, Hero would sometimes fall asleep and feel her body fall away, though back then that was usually accompanied by delirium and loss of self. Still, she had felt liberated, and found solace in those unencumbered moments. Now, Hero¡¯s sense of body felt different. She felt normal. This was her body. Not the limp and wilted vegetable that became her prison towards the end, but her body at its best, healthy and whole, from when she was alive, from when she lived. And then Hero woke up for real, and the nothingness around her senses fell away. The first stimulus that came to her was sound. A soft dripping echoed incessantly in the darkness, along with a weak, persistent trickle, which irked and relieved her. Water. Where there is water there must be life, she thought. And the water seemed to be flowing in from outside. She could already imagine the birdsong that must await her. The first visible hint of light was where it glistened on wet stone. Hero followed that light to a crack of sunlight, an opening in the jagged stone. There it is again, she noted. That reddish tint on her vision, just like when she¡¯d spoken with Charlotte. Mother. Back then, Hero¡¯s vision had slowly adjusted to the red tint, but other colors were dulled somewhat, which she definitely didn¡¯t like. It was like looking through a filter. It was exactly that, come to think of it. Looking closer, or rather, wanting to look closer, Hero strained . . . something. She had no actual eyes to squint with, but she wished to see, and clearly. More importantly, she wanted to be rid of that bothersome red tint, to be able to see past it. A feeling welled up within her, an intent reminiscent of leaning forward without the actual action of leaning forward, or even a body to lean forward with. Tension built up, but Hero didn¡¯t notice until all of it suddenly released. Her entire being spasmed, came loose and spilt forth. And a flare of light that lit up her surroundings for all of a split second before receding, leaving her in near total darkness once again. As the light receded Hero saw the source now directly behind her¡ªher field of vision covered all angles completely.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. During that brief flash of light, Hero had seen the cave that she was currently in. Not that she needed the light to know that this was a cave. She¡¯d already surmised so just from the way the sound of water bounced off of hard surfaces, and what little light reached the cave was enough to recognize that those hard surfaces were indeed stone. The source of the light appeared to be a sphere of red crystal the size of a human fist. It also seemed to be where Hero had emerged from just a few seconds ago. Even now, she felt an invisible, metaphysical tether connecting her to the crystal sphere. Mother Charlotte had said something about loci being tied to their domains. This might have something to do with that. She¡¯d also mentioned something about being able to shape and create within the domain . . . No, no way, that is not a dungeon core, not a dungeon core, not a dungeon core. Say it three times, and it comes true. Just a crystal, just a crystal, just a crystal . . . The cave had gone completely dark now. Having seen how the crystal sphere had lit it up, Hero wondered if she could replicate it. Here goes nothing. ¡°Let there be light!¡± she called out while wishing really, really hard. Light, light, her voice echoed across the cave walls. And then there wasn¡¯t light. There was only Hero¡¯s voice, which in itself was strange since she wasn¡¯t supposed to have a mouth, or vocal chords. ¡°Lumos!¡± Hero¡¯s voice sounded again. Lumos! Lumos! Lumos! Again, nothing happened. This time Hero tried to visualize a single point of light, glowing brighter and expanding. ¡°Lumos Maxima!¡± she called out again, to no effect. ¡°Ah, maybe not then.¡± She didn¡¯t need light to see, anyway. It was the strangest thing, to be able to see perfectly without light. Hero had expected something like looking through night vision goggles, magnified contrast in low light. It was nothing like that at all. Instead it was comparable to looking at a black shape against a black background without a visible outline. It was visually indistinguishable, yet Hero could distinguish perfectly which was which. That is to say, Hero couldn¡¯t see shit. Her vision was a uniform pitch black, and yet she could discern which black belonged to the stone of the cave floor, which black belonged to the walls, and which black belonged to a loose rock nearby. She could ¡®see¡¯ the shape of the rock, and looking closer, the most minute dents and scratches on its surface, clearer than if she looked at it in proper lighting with a magnifying glass. It was as if her sight did not rely on the image formed by light bouncing off an object. Rather, she seemed to be directly perceiving the object itself. Well, Monsieur Magritte, Hero mused, it seems c¡¯est vraiment une pipe after all. Not just a shadow of a statue of a pipe. This was the true essence of seeing in its most direct, without intermediate. Plato would be fucking ecstatic. Hero had left the cave and ventured forth into the ideal world, and found Sight in its purest, truest form. Speaking of leaving caves . . . With her light-based sight, Hero found the cave entrance a few dozen yards away and above, at the end of a corridor. The water seemed to be coming in from that direction as well, forming a stream that dwindled as it progressed further down. She could hardly recall the last time she had been outdoors, Hero realized. Right. Time to face the birdsong. Hero would¡¯ve made towards the light, but then in a blink of her mind¡¯s eye¡ªshe didn¡¯t actually have eyes to blink with, but her vision winked out nonetheless¡ªshe found herself standing above a small, rocky stream just outside the cavern¡¯s mouth, having manifested a physical body of flesh and blood. It was healthy, just as she had felt it a while ago. ¡°Oh hello,¡± she said, looking down. ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s me.¡± She looked up again, to see her surroundings. And she was deeply disappointed. There was no birdsong. No sound of trees swaying in the breeze. Not even crickets. Indeed, there seemed to be no life of any form nearby. The cavern¡¯s mouth was located at the base of large but low mound of soil and rock, where it completely blocked off and swallowed the water flowing in from upslope. On either side of the stream and the mound, the ground rose gently, forming a wide valley, also rocky. Beyond the high ground on either side, Hero could see tall and steep mountains in the distance, and on the other side of the mound were mountains as well, only not quite as tall. They seemed to be lower than where Hero was standing. The place was absolutely, positively lifeless, more than it had any right to be. There was no sound, no movement by any insect or animal. There wasn¡¯t even the smallest spot of green anywhere, bar the distant mountains; there was no grass, no moss, no yeast or mold, despite the relative abundance of water. The ground was rocky, yes, but there was plenty of soil as well, and even the most barren soils would have at least some hardy weeds. The very air itself felt stagnant and sterile. Hero was reminded of the days when she was ill. She¡¯d lived months on end in a sort of dissociative, haze, a dull and fuzzy numbness, and the world around her didn¡¯t feel at all real. Here, there was a similar numbness coming off of the air and the ground around her. It had caught her off guard, assaulted her from nearly every direction, such that Hero almost cowered. But Hero fought the feeling. Rejected it. Back in her ill girl days, she had come to know and hate that feeling so much that when she found a rare moment of clarity, she¡¯d made it so she wouldn¡¯t have to bear that numbness again. She refused to be weighed down by it in this life as well. There was a dull snap in the air, followed by an outward unravelling of something invisible, and the bad feeling vanished. Hero sagged. H-how . . . Hero . . . what. Hero looked up and saw no one, but felt a presence. It felt oddly familiar, warm, inviting, and . . . fragrant? Whatever it was, it swirled in the air, only the air was quite still, so it had nothing to do with the air, and instead seemed to completely ignore the air, moving through it unaffected. Essence like a mist of lavender, blue, and pink, thicker yet so much more fluid than air. . . it began to draw together, and condensing into the figure of a girl. The girl looked almost exactly like Hero, only completely different in every way. For starters, she had fair, creamy skin, with freckles, where Hero¡¯s skin was brown. Her hair was a touch wavy, dark brown and reached her waist compared to Hero¡¯s straight black hair, which was cut in a pseudo-short Lulu bob comme Am¨¦lie Poulain. The girl¡¯s figure was similar to Hero¡¯s, if maybe slightly less developed by like, a month or two; the girl stood maybe an inch or two shorter, maybe an inch thinner, chest and shoulders thinner broader than her hips more than Hero¡¯s were to hers, and so on ad nauseam. As for her face, that is, the eyes, brows, mouth, nose, cheeks¡ªevery single feature was fundamentally unlike its counterpart on Hero¡¯s face, and yet when put together, had this uncanny resemblance. At a glance, as a whole, it was like Hero was looking in a mirror. Or another her, in another body, with a mind of her own. ¡°Echo?¡± Hero said, ¡°You¡¯re Echo, right? Mother mentioned I had a twin.¡± The girl gave a small nod. Glomp. Hero found herself wrapped in her twin¡¯s embrace. From the contact, Hero realized she¡¯ll have to figure out how to make clothes. ¡°Um, Echo?¡± ¡°I watched you sleep.¡± Hero faltered. ¡°Sorry?¡± ¡°I mean, when you were dormant. I was aware, and paid attention. In my head. Sometimes.¡± ¡°. . . Okay.¡± ¡°You were asleep for so long. Mother said to take care of you.¡± ¡°She said the same to me. Where are they, by the way?¡± ¡°They are no longer in this world,¡± Echo said matter-of-factly. A drop fell on Hero¡¯s chest just as a cold wind began to blow. ¡°What?¡± ¡°They left. After Mama Charlotte placed us here, ¡®to make amends¡¯ she said. We were the last, after the others. And then she and Mama Ilina walked through a seam into the In-Between. They¡¯ve probably hopped a few worlds by now.¡± ¡°I see . . .¡± Hero said. ¡°She must have felt guilty over those dungeon things. At least they can be happy now, I guess.¡± The rain began to fall more heavily, and the wind began to howl. ¡°Let¡¯s go inside,¡± said Echo. ¡°Alright.¡± And then they were gone. The two had a lot to talk about. Echo was especially talkative, excited to finally have someone to talk to. She also seemed to have a good idea of where she came from, when Hero, half-dazed, asked why they looked so much alike. ¡°Oh, I know this one,¡± she said, ¡°Mama Charlotte told me how she made us. She had a mix of essence from her, Mama Ilina, and Mama Emma, that was supposed to form us. But since your soul was also providing its own essence, there was so much ousia that some of it split off.¡± At that point they had both reentered the crystal ball, into some sort of pocket plane of pure formless essence. Hero felt like she was constantly falling. Their physical bodies had unraveled outside, and did not reconstitute when their minds transferred. Here, all of space was a single, dimensionless point yet was also infinite, and everything was the same nebulous, gaseous stuff, mixing, intermingling, and swirling around dizzyingly in turbulent vortices. As such, Hero found it odd that they were talking orally, with actual spoken words and everything. ¡°Well, yeah,¡± she said, ¡°that¡¯s how twins work, even for humans. Kinda. Not really, but yeah.¡± ¡°Yeah, anyway, the essence that didn¡¯t split off turned into your essence too. And the parts that made me had been molded by your being, Mama Charlotte said. So I¡¯m just like you, only different, and made purely of her and our other mothers¡¯ essence.¡± ¡°I see.¡± Hero said, and was quiet. Echo exuded a happy, satisfied glow. That is, everything and everywhere glowed, and sighed, except for Hero, who was also everywhere and everything did not glow. Big difference. ¡°Cigarette?¡± Hero offered. ¡°What?¡± ¡°You fancy a smoke?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t understand.¡± ¡°Nothing,¡± said Hero. ¡°It¡¯s a joke,¡± she added lamely. Then she muttered, ¡°Charlotte could¡¯ve told me everything herself.¡± ¡°You were kinda unconscious, though. You know, with the sleeping, and everything.¡± ¡°Well, she made me sleep! And she could have been here when I woke up, at least.¡± ¡°You slept for a pretty long time.¡± ¡°She could¡¯ve woken me up. You could¡¯ve woken me up.¡± ¡°I was shy.¡± The maelstrom looked sheepish. How it managed that, Hero had given up on even thinking about. She¡¯d given up trying to think, period. ¡°Well this is great. ¡®We¡¯ll be your parents¡¯, she says, and then they take off to a different reality. ¡®Oh, by the way, you have to fix my mistakes for me.¡¯ I mean, that¡¯s better than my parents from my past life, but that¡¯s a pretty low bar.¡± ¡°They¡¯ll be back.¡± ¡°When.¡± Hero had meant to ask honestly, but instead her frustration came out. ¡°Um. Sorry. I didn¡¯t mean to yell.¡± ¡°They¡¯ll be back,¡± Echo spoke again, ¡°Someday, Mama Ilina would be a sprite too by then, when they find Mama Emma. That¡¯s why they left, to go look for her. When they have found her, they¡¯ll come by and visit.¡± ¡°But, she¡¯s dead?¡± ¡°Is she?¡± ¡°Yeah, she is.¡± Echo shrugged. (Don¡¯t say it.) ¡°Anyway,¡± she said, ¡°Mama Charlotte did leave us something.¡± An image formed in the center of all unformed things. Hero couldn¡¯t quite make it out. Her mind had grown accustomed to the formlessness, and needed time to readjust. Her stomach turned. ¡°Well?¡± Echo said, ¡°Come on.¡± The ousia began to drain out into the aperture. Hero followed. And promptly toppled onto the floor, her body having stumbled out as though it had always been there. She tried to stand, and failed, still somewhat unable to comprehend three dimensional geometry. ¡°Uhh, fuuck. Echo! You¡¯ve got to stop doing that!¡± ¡°Doing what?¡± Echo asked innocently, tilting her head in confusion. Hero raised a single unsteady, wavering finger unwaveringly, towards where Echo had materialized a body as well. She stood more gracefully than Hero, by virtue of being vertical. Hero looked up, finally having regained her senses. They were standing right next to a dome of pitch blackness. Looking through it, Hero could see, through the same lightless sight as earlier, the cave she first woke up in, where Charlotte had planted her and Echo. Around them were hundreds of crystal orbs of different colours and sizes levitating in a ring formation. The smallest were the size of a marble, some of the bigger ones were thrice that, but none were quite as large her own (Echo¡¯s as well) red crystal. Beyond that ring of crystal orbs were countless others, forming domes upon domes of regular, counter-revolving rings. The ground seemed stretch out unto infinity in all directions, there being no discrete horizon line, instead fading into distant mists, and solid ground and boundless sky (expanse?) blended together somewhere. ¡°Where are we now?¡± Hero said. Echo tilted her head again. ¡°We didn¡¯t go anywhere though?¡± ¡°You¡¯re doing it again,¡± Hero groaned. ¡°Doing what?¡± ¡°Just tell me where we are, okay?¡± ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± ¡°Echo, please.¡± ¡°Please what, I don¡¯t under¡ª¡± ¡°You¡¯re gaslighting me! You keep doing that! I¡¯m confused, and dizzy and disoriented and please stop!¡± ¡°Hero, please calm down, you¡¯re scaring me.¡± ¡°DON¡¯T FUCKING TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!¡± Hero broke down. She curled up on the ground, and held her head in her hands. ¡°Too much . . .¡± she cried, ¡°It¡¯s too much, too, too much . . .¡± Echo kneeled next to her, hesitantly, placed a hand on her shoulder, and when Hero didn¡¯t recoil, Echo lay down next to her, and hugged her. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± Echo said, ¡°I got carried away. I forgot that all this can be a lot to take in. It was hard for me to deal with it, too.¡± ¡°What the hell do you know,¡± Hero whimpered. ¡°Trust me, I know. And I¡¯m sorry I forgot.¡± ¡°Fuck your sorry. I died today,¡± Hero said, ¡°I killed myself. I pretended to be calm about the whole thing even though I¡¯ve broken a long time before that, and now I¡¯m never going to see March or Karen, ever again. ¡°And they¡¯re probably crying too, because of me. I hurt them a lot, and we still pretended to be happy like the fucked up people that we are . . . and they had to watch me die! And now this . . . and everything with Charlotte and¡ªit¡¯s too much, right now, all of it, it¡¯s too much. I only just started to feel again this morning.¡± ¡°It¡¯s alright, Hero, you¡¯re doing fine. You¡¯re going to be okay.¡± ¡°Yeah right.¡± Echo froze. ¡°Did you feel that?¡± ¡°Feel what?¡± Hero sniffed. ¡°It¡¯s . . . a spark. It¡¯s hard to explain. For now . . . you can stay here.¡± And then she was gone. 3 - The Chase Chapter 3 ¨C The Chase; In Which The One Formerly Known As Prince Is Not An Artist; In Which a Forward Curving Blade Makes an Appearance; Our Hero Reflects; Tranquil Beauty and Invigorating Breeze; The Virtues of Hare as Hair Tonic; The deerhound bucked and galloped through an uneven wood. Its rider, the being formerly known as Elil Hrair Rah, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, held on for dear life. Formerly known, because ever since he was found out to have stolen someone else¡¯s name, he¡¯d taken the name Ajax instead. It was an unremarkable name, and completely unglamorous, being the name of a thousand other men, beings, and things, but it helped ease four and a half decades¡¯ worth of infamy off of his back. Besides, it was a name with potential, one he might yet make his own. But first he had to survive this. At first glance, Ajax looked hare-ish. Only, he stood more upright, taller, and thinner, with omnivore teeth, and he had well-defined, elongated digits, as well as opposable thumbs that let him grab and grasp things, which he thought was quite nice. Ajax was proud of his general purpose grabbers (they were quite nifty, like pockets on a dress kilt). Not least of all, he had a pair of stubby black antlers that he did his best to keep as prettified as possible. He was no mere hare, obviously, but a sprite. A hare-ish sprite with a gash in his side, pursued by a pack of wolves and presently being rough-handled by his trusty deer mount that he¡¯d only met half an hour ago. They had matching antlers, and that meant they have to be best friends. Though, the buck¡¯s antlers were bigger, if one were to compare. Ajax was above such crude things, however. He knew that size doesn¡¯t matter, even if the buck knew better how to use them. The deerhound was obviously male, and very noticeably male, not to mention it was very male indeed. It was the middle of mating season, too, as evidenced by the state of its antlers. It seemed a bit upset about being kept from activities it had rather been looking forward to so, understandably, Ajax¡¯s comfort was the least of its worries at the moment. The hare sprite¡¯s loins had gotten quite sore. His scabbard, which he had slung across his back top end down, clattered and rattled and occasionally knocked the wind out of him when he failed to predict its temper. He absentmindedly touched the hilt of the forward curving short saber (people keep calling it a knife, but it¡¯s a short saber, designed for normal-sized beings like Ajax), just to make sure it was still there. Ajax looked back at his pursuers. They were catching up, especially since the deerhound was slowing down, finally stopping just short of the border to the Dead Place, where the grass stopped growing and gave way to bare grey rock and barren soil. It seems even an animal as painfully male as an alpha buck was at least smart enough not to walk into the near tangible wall of deadness. It wasn¡¯t even a wall, strictly speaking. It was deadness all the way down. Ajax drew his shortsaber (not a knife). It curved forward towards the end, like a narrow falcata, its weight distribution quite like an axe. As such, it was impossible to make a bad strike with it, and when it struck, it struck heavily. Ajax rattled the saber and made silly faces, trying to stare the wolves down. The wolves stopped a few yards away. ¡°Stay back! I¡¯m warning you, I¡¯ll cut you!¡± He made himself look as big and intimidating as he could with his cutesy bunny body. The deerhound stirred, but Ajax kept his balance. The wolves tensed up. From behind them, two fully black gnolls walked up. Ajax recognized the pair. They were always just walking up, these two, and never hurried themselves above a brisk jaunty pace. Hraka, it¡¯s whatshisface. Croup and Not-Croup. ¡°Hyeh hyeh hyahyah-haah!¡± The melanistic pair laughed. It was not the yipping laugh one would expect from gnolls, if one associated them with hyenas. This laugh was a rough, guttural yap. Hyenas laugh when they are anxious, usually, but there was no hint of that between these two. They looked rather eager, raring to go. Ajax could feel the tension in the air almost solidify, mingling with the thick dullness of the Dead Place behind him. The wolves bared their teeth, ready to pounce, and so did Ajax as he twirled his short, forward curving saber which was not a knife. The gnolls puffed air through their snouts amusedly. Just as Ajax was about to go nuts on the buggers, there was a dull snap, and suddenly, the Dead Place stopped being dead. The deerhound felt it too, and so did the gnolls, apparently. They snarled, sensing their prey about to get away. The deerhound bolted, jumping down onto rougher and more uneven terrain of the dry riverbed. ¡°SILFLAY HRAKA YOU EMBLEER FUCKS!¡± With one finger, Ajax made a rather crass sign of the cross towards his pursuers. He wanted to look very cross indeed. Better than admitting just how terrified he was. The deerhound¡¯s hooves clattered on the rock, splashing water from the stream and slipping once in a while. Blood rushing in his ears, Ajax turned forward. This was an even rougher spot he¡¯d found himself in. Should be fine, Ajax told himself. Goats climb mountains all the time, so a small ravine should be no problem for a deer, right? ¡°Alright buddy, fair¡¯s fair. If we live through this, I¡¯m gonna have you spayed!¡± Celia sniffed at the air and scowled at the ground. When did it get so hard for a pretty girl to catch wolves¡¯ attentions? I even wore a red cape. The cape flowed over her brown leathers and her lean, wiry frame, stopping just above the small of her back. The glossy red silk didn¡¯t go well with her wood green complexion. It had been a good hour and a half since the wolves stopped following her, and she¡¯d had to retrace her steps to where their tracks split off. This was the third time she¡¯d lost and found the trail. She had to hurry. Any longer and the tracks would be lost in this rain. Killing things shouldn¡¯t take so much work. It seemed the pack had caught the little jackrabbits scent once again after they gave up on chasing Celia. She sneered and huffed as she sped into a light run, gliding over dirt and shrubbery. The tracks led her to a clearing beside where the old river used to be. It had dried up half a century ago, when Men diverted its source to water their fields. The idea was to leave dry the lands they couldn¡¯t assimilate, but the land was stubborn, and Men were generally ignorant of its ways, even as they tried to tame it all willy-nilly. Now, trees and brush grew in the shallow depression through which only a small stream flowed, fed solely by the watershed of the naught but the nearest mountains around. Celia¡¯s jog ground to a halt as she reached the place where things stopped growing. The dirt here was just a little bit more disturbed, not enough to suggest a scuffle so much as a brief standoff. The trail of red alongside the tracks became a red patch of ground a few inches across. Ajax was bleeding. Since he was a sprite, it shouldn¡¯t bother him as much as it would some of the more fragile mortal species, but it would add up over time. The tracks continued into the Dead Place, up and over the little dirt wall. Celia felt at the air and found that the taint of Grimdark was gone. Just gone. How odd, she mused. She couldn¡¯t help but think back to the war. They had beaten the Edgelords back, in the end, and their link to this world was cut off, but not without cost. The Curse of Grimdark had left the lands permanently damaged, or it would have, if not for the sacrifice of many dryads, nymphs, and fairies. Even the Fair Queen was severely weakened after, if only Men knew.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. But at least the land was rid of the curse. All that remained of it was reduced to a small area rendered dull and drained of all Wonder. And now, even that was gone. Celia looked at the tracks again. From this point in, the pack had settled into a more leisurely, or rather, cautious pace. She might yet catch up in time. If not, then oh well. ¡°Come on, Mayhew,¡± Ajax tried to coax his mount, ¡°just a little further.¡± He¡¯d decided to give it a name, just for the heck of it. Mayhew sounded like as good a name as any. The deerhound was exhausted; it was not meant for prolonged gallop. All the same, it tried to go on, weakly. In one hand, Ajax held a small branch, which he¡¯d taken off of some bush, and that he had intended to use as a switch. He didn¡¯t have to do so, however, at least not at first. The buck had been more than willing to cooperate after catching sight of the wolves. A ways into the formerly Dead place, however, its pace had slackened. The place was no longer as dead and draining, and the miasma was gone, but there was still very little life in the thin air. Ajax had given the buck a tap two or three times thus far. He tried not to do so too often. A few more minutes of this and it would be on its last breaths. ¡°Alright, you can let up,¡± Ajax said, ¡°We¡¯ll rest a little.¡± When the buck slowed down, Ajax let it. It came to a halt and laid itself down beside a large, water worn boulder. Ajax dismounted. ¡°This is tougher on me, you know,¡± he chided, ¡°I¡¯m bleeding, and the blasted thing just won¡¯t close up, no matter how much I tell it to.¡± The buck looked at him sullenly. He ignored it, and instead surveyed the surrounding rocky bed. ¡°We¡¯ll go left,¡± he said, and continued to look around, muttering, ¡°Wolves. Why did it have to be wolves? Why couldn¡¯t it have been snakes instead, or a bear. Pursued by a bear. If it had been a big bad brownie we could¡¯ve just sat down to have some tea and a chat.¡± Ajax let his blood drip onto some rocks. With every drop of blood, he lost a drop of essence. If the wound wasn¡¯t going to close up, he might as well make it useful. With his digits, he marked the rocks with the blood, pushing more essence onto them. ¡°There¡¯d be poison involved, of course,¡± he continued, ¡°in the tea, and in the words, like as not. Hopefully by the time the jinx drove him mad, he¡¯d be too weakened to cause any trouble. Be a good drink of essence too. Not to mention the hide, oh the hide. I could get me a big strong stick, for a good bear hide.¡± Ajax finished up. He was no artist, but this would do. ¡°There, that should obfuscate them well and good.¡± He wiped his trusty grabbers on the fur of his haunches, and walked back to the deerhound. It wasn¡¯t often that he made so many Workings, or any at all. He didn¡¯t have enough essence to use it all careless like. ¡°You know, I could¡¯ve left you behind. The pack would¡¯ve probably gone after you and forgotten about me, what with how strong and mighty you smell. I could still leave you here.¡± A tip had broken off of one of the buck¡¯s antlers at some point during the chase. Ajax raised his paws to his own stubby black ones to check on their condition, and sighed in relief. He made a note to himself: if one of the deerhound¡¯s antlers broke off, it could make for a fine wand. That would more than make up for the bear hide. ¡°Even if they got me in the end, I¡¯d just re-form. Might take a while, and I¡¯d rather not risk botching it, ¡®cos I like my current body, thank you very much. At this point I¡¯m only in this for your sake, so be a good mount. Then at least I¡¯d get something out of this sorry mess.¡± Ajax left more Workings on the stones a little way further, some to befuddle minds, since the wolves shouldn¡¯t have any defense against such things, and a few illusions to confuse them on the way out. Walking back, he decided he could spare some essence for a quick glamour, so he formed a saddle onto the deerhound¡¯s back. The buck made quite a fuss when Ajax put reigns on, shaking its head from side to side so that Ajax had to duck and grasp it by the antlers. Finally he climbed onto the saddle. ¡°Right then,¡± he said, ¡°off we go,¡± and broke the tether. He led the buck down towards the mound and the cave. Did you feel that? Echo had vanished, after she said those words. Hero didn¡¯t bother to follow her. Instead, she wanted outside again, just to be alone, just to clear her head. Next thing she realised she was atop the mound, breathing in cool, damp air laden with the smell of petrichor and sun-kissed pine. It had been ages since she last smelled anything like it. There must be a forest further upslope, from where a gentle land breeze was blowing out towards the sea. And it must be pretty late in the afternoon already. Hero couldn¡¯t tell based on the sun, as the sky was completely covered in clouds. She turned to look at the mountains further out towards the sea, to the . . . west? This must be the tropics, judging from the color of the mountain forests and the valleys between. And Hero had a good eye for color. Yes, this must be the tropics, but it was quite cold, and there were pine trees. It all felt very familiar, and weirdly comforting. Even the naked rock and soil around her¡ªthe white and pale brown cliffs of limestone skarn, the orange brown sandy clay, and the occasional spots and patches of black quartz or grey granite¡ªHero felt like she¡¯d seen it before somewhere. Tranquil beauty and invigorating breeze . . . fragments of a half-forgotten song played in her mind. Your verdant hills oft kissed by clouds of pearl . . . It was definitely less stuffy out here. Hero felt like she was out here out here, rather than just suspended within herself in isolation. It may have something to do with the place not being completely soaked in her essence. On the other hand, it had been warm inside, where the essence insulated her, protected her. Out here, she felt cold and exposed, and felt the low distant rumble of high winds¡ªnot thunder¡ªin her bones. She could feel her tether urging her back inside. Was it possible for her to catch hypothermia? She decided she won¡¯t to stay long enough to find out. ¡°This place would do well with sunflowers,¡± she said to herself. ¡°Wonder if the stars will be out tonight.¡± Hero let her thoughts wander. Whatever happened to Lucille Camaro? Hero had been friends with the girl once, and they had both liked a guy named Roland. Neither had really made a move, and the three of them ended up being friends for all of a year before they grew apart. Four months in, Hero had developed feelings for the girl, too. She never told her, and it was probably for the best because Lulu was straight, as far as Hero knew. Still she often wondered about what could¡¯ve been, after they had stopped talking. A crush was all it amounted to, in the end, and she¡¯d completely forgotten about it by the time she met March and Karen. How odd that she was remembering now. Was it the view? But no, it actually reminded her even more of March and Karen, since she met them around the same place, with happier results. It was the two girls that picked her up after she, Roland, and Lulu grew apart. The three had gone their separate ways: Hero had taken the semester off, and Roland had started hanging out with March and Karen, who¡¯d only been friends at that point. As for Lulu, Hero had no idea what she had been up to. If she even went by that same name these days. She had introduced herself as Cams, though Hero only ever called her that once out loud. Everyone called her Lulu or Lucille, since it sounded more ¡®unique¡¯ and ¡®original¡¯, and everyone knew at least a dozen different girls and even guys who all went by ¡®Cams¡¯ or ¡®Camille¡¯ or ¡®Cameron¡¯. Roland started out calling her ¡®Ann¡¯ at first, which earned him some weird looks. It wouldn¡¯t be strange if she did change her name. Even Karen did it, changing her name from ¡®Kitty¡¯ just because March made her listen to that song she liked. It retrospect, that may have been an early hint that the two were meant for each other. And just like that, Hero was thinking about them again. Despite all her efforts to think about literally anything and anyone else. Almost as if every fond memory was connected to them in some way. Well, shit. Hero had been exaggerating, when she exploded earlier. It wasn¡¯t fair to call them ¡®fucked up¡¯. Hero herself, sure, probably, but if there were only two people in the world who can be considered healthy of mind and well-adjusted, it would be March and Karen, who¡¯d been Hero¡¯s emotional support to the point that prolonged separation completely wrecked her. Even now, she missed the strength the two provided. There had been times during her confinement when she almost hated them for not being there. It wasn¡¯t fair, Hero knew. They¡¯d desperately wanted to be with her too, and were kept away through no fault of their own. She couldn¡¯t bring herself to actually hate them in the end. After all, if it was that easy, then she wouldn¡¯t have dependency problems in the first place. At least they pulled through in the end, even willingly sneaking in and risking getting caught. But even then, they only had a few brief moments, nowhere near long enough to make up for the past half a year. And they all spent those moments being too cowardly to admit anything was wrong. There was much pain left unaddressed. They had to see her die, after all, it had been rather cruel of Hero to make them watch. Perhaps if they¡¯d cried more thoroughly, could Hero have entered this new life, this new world in better emotional state than she did? No, that doesn¡¯t sound quite right. Still, at least she wouldn¡¯t have been crying alone. If only there was a way for Hero to reach them now, to let them know she was okay, even if she died. What the hell is this, anyway? Why was Hero mourning them, when she was the one who died? How¡¯s that fair? In any case, if she must mourn, it would take far more than a brief cry on a mound, serene scenery notwithstanding. Hero had things to do. Thus she got up, decided to go find Echo, and blinked out. Just as she was leaving, she felt a hint of some strange new presence, but she was already gone. Celia came within sight of the mound seconds later, gliding over rock and boulder, barely touching the surface of the small stream before she was aloft again. She came to a halt a dozen yards away, herself sensing a new, unfamiliar aura emanating from the cave¡¯s mouth. It felt . . . it wasn¡¯t the same deadness as before, that¡¯s for sure. It felt foreign, otherworldly, and it was tinged with more than just a little darkness. Celia had come across a trail of Workings on the way here, some of them sprung, the rest she left untouched, assuming the little jackrabbit put them there. He seemed to have a plan in mind. Good luck to him, then. She decided to wait here and let it play out; no need to complicate things. Worse comes to worst, he¡¯d give the wolves¡¯ hides a nice, glossy sheen, the better for Celia to harvest. Rabbit essence made for good conditioner. 3.2 - Action Ajax left a few more nasty surprises along the way to the mound. He¡¯d never made so many Workings before in his life, now having used all three Workings he was proficient with, and about half a dozen more he¡¯d not quite mastered. For years, he¡¯d used essence as sparingly as he can get away with, used none at all unless necessary, but now seemed as good a time as any. Still, Ajax tried to save enough for a quick cantrip or two. Luckily, the Workings all took without a hitch. Upon reaching the cave, he dismounted and ventured in to scout the location. That done, he went back to the opening, hopped back onto the deerhound, and placed one last Working on the arch of the opening. This one took less essence than the others, but the results should be devastating. It came in two parts, the first, smaller part was meant to break apart a few rocks to fall onto the pack as they entered, and hopefully Croup and Not Croup as well. The second part would be triggered after Ajax and Mayhew run out, to collapse the whole arch and bury their pursuers in rubble, or at least trap them. Just as he finished, he heard distant whines and growls echoing softly from upslope, barely audible above the whistling wind. The buck gave a start, head turning towards the sounds, ears twitching. ¡°Easy now,¡± Ajax said, ¡°Let them see us go in.¡± And then the wolves came within sight a few hundred yards away, visible as obvious black spots moving across the off white limestone, lime, pale silt, and clay. One walked with a slight limp and lagged ever so further behind by the minute. The rest appeared largely unscathed, more intact than Ajax would have liked. Ajax searched the glen for the two black gnolls, who should be easy to see, but couldn¡¯t find them anywhere. Then he heard a shrill, sonorous whistle. Five quick notes, down and up and down. A gnoll¡ªeither Croup or Not Croup, Ajax couldn¡¯t tell¡ªwalked up along one side of the dry river. Another whistle sounded in answer. Three longer notes, descending. The other gnoll walked up along the other side. They were walking above the riverbanks, where the ground ran smoother, and where Ajax had not thought to place Workings. It hadn¡¯t even occurred to him to walk there. Bastards. One of the gnolls grinned viciously, sharp teeth on display and eyes wide open. ¡°It¡¯s over, Lappikins,¡± Croup said, huffing amusedly. Ajax had no idea they could speak. ¡°We seem to have the high ground.¡± Carrion birds began cawing heavyhandedly. The wind howled ever louder, and so did the wolves. ¡°That¡¯s our cue, Mayhew.¡± Ajax said, ¡°Yip-yip!¡± The deerhound snorted derisively, before Ajax tapped its flank with the mulberry branch. It began moving, but was reluctant to enter the cavern, with looked quite dark and cramped. Ajax had to force the way with the reigns. With a signal from Croup, the wolves charged, snarling. Ajax whipped the buck into a gallop. Without bothering to look back, he set off the first part of the Working. There was a loud blast, and several yelps and whimpers, then howling and barking. The deerhound suddenly came to a halt and reared back, braying and shaking Ajax violently in the saddle. ¡°What now, you insufferable beast! What is it?!¡± But the buck would go no further, as though there were something in its way, spooking it. ¡°Hraka.¡± Ajax looked around the poorly-lit corridor. Definitely not a good idea to get lost in here. The corridor inclined downwards from the entrance. The pack really had the high ground, and they were rushing in teeth bared, still snarling and growling.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. There were elevated ledges on either side, but the whole corridor narrowed down into the single opening. So nothing there. No real avenues for evasion. ¡°Right, no choice then.¡± Ajax turned the deerhound around. It was more than happy to cooperate. Hopefully they can just rush past and out the exit. Ajax drew his short saber, and held it in his right hand. With the last of his available essence, he formed a lance in his left, and then touched the deerhound¡¯s panicking mind, placing a mental yoke, with only a slight fumble. Should¡¯ve done that ages ago. ¡°Hyah!¡± As the buck charged forward, Ajax lowered the lance across the reigns, supported by the shortsaber, and extending forward to the right. He made the buck lower its head, antlers forward, to protect him as much as to gore anything standing in the way. Seven wolves stood between Ajax and the exit. And as Ajax neared them, he screamed. One wolf pounced forward. It was caught by the antlers, crushed and thrown aside, dead, as the lance struck another wolf¡¯s flank, and that wolf yelped. The lance¡¯s haft strained. Another wolf leapt straight for Ajax, and he struck it down, burying the saber¡¯s end in its skull, and in doing so pulled himself slightly off balance. The short saber was stuck. Ajax tightened his grip, determined to hang on to it. The lance snapped in twain, and unraveled, a flaw in its form undid the yoke on the deerhound¡¯s mind as well. The newly awoken deerhound panicked, brayed so loud the wolves flinched, and kicked out with its hind legs. A wolf slammed against the cave wall, and fell limp. Then the deerhound reared up, nearly dislodging its rider. A wolf chose that moment to pounce. Finally the short saber came loose, and Ajax raised it. He realized he¡¯d brought it back too far, when the wolf slammed right into him. Ajax caught hold of the reigns, but the buck, still unbalanced on its hind legs, toppled over onto both Ajax and the wolf. Three bodies tumbled down the corridor¡¯s incline. There was a crunch and a yelp, a thump, and another crunch, and Ajax felt something plunge into his side, and then there was a snap. Three bodies landed on the cave floor. There goes my other kidney, Ajax thought. He regained consciousness five seconds later, in time to feel the spark of life within the deerhound extinguish. Great, just great. Hraka. The wolves growled apprehensively, and started creeping down cautiously. Six more entered the cave, accompanied by Croup and Not Croup, both of whom now looked serious. It was at this point that, unknown to Ajax and the others, Echo manifested at the far end of the corridor. Ajax looked down at his side, and saw an antler embedded there, broken off at the stem. He looked at the dead deerhound. It was its right antler that broke off. Slowly, Ajax raised a paw on his own ones. Then he laughed. It was a laugh reminiscent of the gnolls from earlier. Then it grew into a full on hyena laugh. And then it took on a mirthless edge, and Ajax¡¯s eyes bulged out slightly. At last, the laughter died down. Hero materialized beside Echo, likewise unnoticed. ¡°Where did you get the spear?¡± she said. ¡°I made it,¡± Echo answered. ¡°With what wood? I saw no trees anywhere near here. Or was it from storage? That¡¯s what the place before was, right?¡± ¡°I made it with my essence.¡± ¡°Oh. Show me how?¡± Echo open her mouth to protest, she can show her later, but decided otherwise. She let her spear unravel, and reformed it. Hero did the same, forming and unforming her own. ¡°Oh, wow. So what can I do?¡± ¡°For now, we do nothing. Just watch.¡± Meanwhile, Ajax pulled the antler out. Three prongs had pierced him, essence-rich blood flowing from three punctures. The wolves, smelling the blood, grew frenzied, but stayed put. ¡°I don¡¯t know what you wounded me with,¡± Ajax called out to, ¡°but it¡¯s nasty. What is that, elephant bone? Whatever it is, it won¡¯t help you now.¡± He raised the antler towards his enemies, ready to speak a final malediction. Then his arm flagged, and his being came undone at the edges. Ah, I see. The antler fell on the floor. Instead of diffusing and flowing back to his homeland, Ajax felt his essence being sucked away by something. What in the dry shit of . . . Ajax noticed too late, and was subsumed, and vanished. The wolves and the two gnolls looked puzzled. Hero now understood what Echo meant, when she said ¡®a spark¡¯. She felt it herself, when the rabbit thing with antlers disappeared. There was the slightest increase in the locus¡¯ energies. This energy felt different, foreign in the midst of her own essence, even as it was slowly assimilated. Echo spoke. ¡°Don¡¯t let them get to the crystal,¡± she told Hero. A flash of light illuminated Echo, and duplicate images appeared in front of every wolf and gnoll. The images moved in unison, and when Echo struck out with her spear, so too did the others, and some sank into flesh. Then the light was gone. Echo flew towards the intruders, spear out. They fled. Two wolves fled in the wrong direction, and ran deeper into the cave. Hero had figured out how to form two pieces of ribbed horn joined together into a recurve bow. She let loose arrows from up close, at half-draw. The wolves whined and were thrown back slightly as the arrows hit. Meanwhile, Echo pulled her spear free of Not Croup, where it had pierced his back and out his chest. The rest escaped. Echo looked back at Hero. Both let their weapons unravel. Around them, bodies began decomposing. Every spark of life extinguished within the cavern released energy, and the energy thrown into the maelstrom to be digested. And then they were gone. Croup had barely gone twenty yards away from the mound when a javelin hit him square in the chest. He was dead before he hit the ground. Three wolves ran out after him, in various states of injury. Two had been ones who had been injured and healed by Croup before entering the cave. Three javelins flew out. One landed between eyes, another found a throat, and the third, a heart. The thrown javelins broke into mist and drifted back to Celia. ¡°Ah crud,¡± she said. ¡°The fur¡¯s all ruined.¡± She looked back towards the mound. The presence felt just the slightest bit stronger, now. Curiouser and curiouser. Celia¡¯s form dissipated, and she flew like the wind, out past the mountains.