B 2 C 20: CRAGBEAST QUEEN AND FAMILY

Every step is an agonizing, plodding torment. While Teuila may move about as if unfettered by gravity in this form, I find myself suffering the weight of a supermassive black hole dragging me downwards. However, it seems as if the Valkyrie form has mixed with my more adult form, and whatever umbral energy that Luni conjured. The equipment doesn’t contain a shield, bow, or spear, but it does contain a greatsword, and a double-tipped staff. Also, I’m fairly certain I have actual feathered wings, four of them, but if I’m supposed to have muscle control over them, I can’t exert any while suffering this weight.

Luni whispers into my mind, “Focus, remember your ice, keep it up, your reflexes will take care of the rest. Um, I think, hehe.” I feel her gaze upon me from the secret slot that’s carved into the wall that faces our little alcove, above its entrance. Her presence helps fill me with confidence, and makes the fiery warmth consuming me almost bearable.

Wait, you think? Lu replies to my nonverbal question, “Hehe, um, well, I’m not the hero, right? You got this!” I ellipse at you Lu. Ellipses, many of them, straight at you. Dot dot dot. I hear an almost cackling laughter from her through our telepathic bond.

Curiously, I poke myself hard in my chest near my heart with my index finger, and hear an “Ow!” Oh Lu, Lu, what have you done? Are you sure about this?

Lu cracks slightly, revealing how hard this is on her, “I, um, so, yeah, I didn’t want you to worry. It’s okay. It’s for you, and Te. I’ll do anything for you. If, y’know, if that’s okay.” I sigh. Not only is Luni suffering for us, but my injuries could injure or kill her. I carefully cradle the right side of my torso, gently massaging my busted ribs. Lu groans with pain across our wavelength.

“Sorry Lu. Some day, somehow, I’ll try to make this up to you. You’re the bravest, kindest soul. You don’t deserve to have to suffer this with me.” I only hear a shushing sound in response. Her gaze remains fixed on me however, unwavering.

I haven’t even been paying attention to my left hand cracking cragbeast craniums while thinking worriedly about Lu. Though every motion feels slow, as if fighting against the gravity of a neutron star, I feel incredibly dense. Luni chuckles into my mind. Not that kind of dense. Force is mass times acceleration. Even if my acceleration is ridiculously slow, it’s not zero. Somehow there’s so much weight behind my strikes that I can send these beasts flying. I end up derezzing many with single strikes if I uppercut inside their jaws.

Curious about my strength, I grip a claw as it comes towards me. I spin in the direction the attack was moving, rolling my shoulder, throwing the cragbeast into three that were approaching from behind. The four beasts collide so hard that they all derez. This form has a ridiculous force multiplier. Is that part of Valkyrie’s power? I mean, Teuila’s version is on the acceleration side of the equation. Mine appears to be on the density side. I’m tempted to satisfy my curiosity by letting one of these chew on me, but I’m terrified that it might hurt or injure Lu even if it doesn’t manage to tear into me.

I spin, low to the ground, raising slowly, producing layers of icy barrier around myself until I’m surrounded by a nearly solid cone of superchilled air. With the momentary breather, I draw the greatsword. Like everything else about this form, wielding the sword feels like I’m tearing my muscles fighting a gravity greater than any known celestial body to move. The boiling fire beneath my skin explodes constantly, fueling my movements. At average cragbeast skull level, I swing in a slow wide arc, and it seems to leave a cleave in the air.

Sure enough, cragbeasts that approach through where I’d just cleaved derez on contact. I have no idea how to rationalize that. Checking my energy display, it’s screwed up, glitchy, seeming to be covered in jpeg artifacts. But at least it seems to be at max mana. I take a few more wide arcing swings, surrounding myself in slashes that hang in midair for a moment. During that reprieve, I try to use energy to summon enough stone from my inventory to form a shield. The stone appears, but my energy doesn’t seem to move. Instead the fire beneath my skin boils harder. The explosions feel like they tackle my heart from all sides, mini popping booms in a chain reaction around my heart. The explosions even feel like they slam my busted ribs back into my lung and I cough, though no blood escapes my lips.

Luni cries out in pain, and a wet splatting sound escapes her lips. I gasp, saddened that Luni just suffered this horrid torture. Okay, so, Two days in a form that seems to have been bulking up over the last few minutes. I think I’m too big to retreat into the crevice now anyway. Two days, not using any energy unless I want to subject Luni to the agony that crawls beneath my skin. Worse than however much she’s already sharing.

Regretfully I apologize to Luni, “Lu. I adore you intensely, I’m sorry about that. I won’t do it again, I’ll stop experimenting unless absolutely necessary. Just one more test, I’m going to shut my brain off for a bit, when I check back in, let me know how much you felt, please? No lying.”

She replies, “C,c,cool. All, all good, yeah, heh, um, go team.”

Taking a deep breath, I wrap some of my padded clothing around my eyes, and slowly focus on the monotony of just reacting to each leap or swipe by a cragbeast. I keep my entire body coated in a layer of frigid air passively, but eventually the swings of my sword fall into a rhythm. As they do, I let myself lose myself in the rhythm, ignoring the pain and weight pushing down on me, and the gravity wrenching every one of my movements.

Several hours have to have passed, I regret letting a test go on that long, as I mentally frantically feel across our wavelengths for Lu. Telepathically I think towards Luni over and over.

Lu finally calls back, “Um, all good, yeah, all good, no worse feedback while you’re on autopilot. Maybe even a bit less feedback. Um, maybe. Don’t feel like you need to do that, if you don’t want to, probably.”

Luni’s hiding something. My right temple aches and my vision, though blindfolded, doubles and crosses. Luni, there’s something you’re not telling me, it’s pretty significant. What is it?

Luni frets, “I’m, I’m so sorry! Te, she, she got up somehow, she shouldn’t be moving for two days, I swore I would anchor you, and wouldn’t leave, I’m so sorry, please forgive me! I put her back to sleep with Lil, she was super out of it, I came right back. I’m so sorry I left you hanging here at all.”

Lu telepathically sends me images of her own face, bawling her eyes out, holding two pieces of a broken heart, one in each of her hands in front of her quivering lips. I try not to laugh at the over dramatic nature, because her sentiment is endearing and heartfelt. I reach out in return, “I know I’m a bit dramatic with my overreactions, but Te was right, you’re the queen of it my dear. I cherish you Luni. We’re okay. I may not know exactly what your anchoring does, or how necessary it is to be linked visually for it the entire time, but I trust you. You took care of Teuila, I couldn’t ask for more than that.”

Lu clarifies, “Well, well, um, I was still your anchor, you won’t lose yourself, just, I need to keep an eye on you in case you need more music.”

At least I think that was clarification. If anything I’m more confused. I finish absolving Luni, “Thank you Lu, my beloved sweet Luni, we’re good. Do what you need to do, I trust you. I’m going to check out again. The pain is intense, it feels like wielding the greatsword is shearing my right wrist, or fracturing it. I’ll try switching to the staff for a bit. Either way I can barely handle this, but we’ll get through it.”

Over a day and a half passes monotonously standing in the center of a massive room, taking on all-comers. Occasionally I can handle joking around with Lu. About the only thing on my mind other than the pain though is our recent entanglement.

I needle Luni, “Lu, how much do you know about my memories? I know they aren’t in my logs, my logs just show my inner narration since you know when.”

Lu sends an image of her tapping her index finger tips together and avoiding eye contact. I continue needling and eventually she relents slightly, mysteriously. Lu answers, “Secrets, um, not your memories. But yeah. So, uh, sorry. But yes. Like, fiscal responsibility, and uh, macroeconomics.”

Fiscal responsibility and macroeconomics? What? I. I don’t know what to do with that information, or that non-answer. Or, is that a non secret way to intimate that Luni also has glitchy memories? Lu?

Luni refuses to respond any more on the topic. Instead Lu orders, “Focus up, things are going to start soon. It’s going to start getting hard, then get more difficult from there on out.”

The stuff so far wasn’t enough of a challenge already!? Oy vey. I nearly vomit with how hard my stomach flip flops over the new information. I hear an urp sound from Luni, and a small splash from the shelf. Oof, sorry Lu, didn’t mean to share that with you.

Luni sends an image of her face looking droopy, sick, and exhausted. However there’s also a weak thumbs up alongside it. I call back, “Alright then, just like, hit me with a rock when I need to start paying attention or something. I’ll check out for a bit longer. I treasure you, my anchor. Thank you.” Lu sends another thumbs up telepathically, and I can feel both of our stomachs doing acrobatics routines.

I’m brought to my senses by the world feeling as if it’s crumbling around me. Lu calls into my mind immediately, “Keep your blindfold on, whatever you do! You’ll be okay, stall for a couple more hours. Conditions aren’t right yet. Leave mama alone, and take out all the little ones except the last one.”

I’m exceedingly confused, but I reach out my senses, trying to figure out what changed. My back is near a stone surface, something like a rounded obelisk, oh. It’s the menhir from the lava circle room. Other rock formations begin to appear within my senses, stalactites are beginning to rain down. Some of them are doing my job for me, taking out cragbeasts.

Why does the menhir feel like a giant egg with a timer? Lu said to keep my blindfold on, but I can virtually feel a giant timer at my back quickly ticking away towards zero. I’ll rely on Luni’s foresight though.

Wait, what did Luni say about mama? As if on cue, the menhir at my back explodes. Between the force of the explosion, and being displaced by a massive creature spawning into existence, I’m thrown all the way from the center of this massive room to its farthest edge. Of course I slam into the wall with the right side of my torso. I gasp and cough blood, and Luni must be doing the same, based on the spattering sound I can barely make out from all the way over here.

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I cry with fury at these beasts for forcing Luni to feel that particular pain of mine yet again. As much as I want to imagine the fury speeds me up and helps me plow through their ranks, it doesn’t. Instead the pain just wells up, boiling up as if it’s ready to melt upwards through my flesh. Its intensity and fierceness leave me gasping for breath, nauseated. My head lolls and it feels as if my eyes are swimming in their sockets.

It’s, it’s a transformation. I’m, I won’t be the same if I transform. Something’s coming. The pressure that my insides exert outward grows to nearly unbearable levels. I swear I’m an instant from my skin tearing or disintegrating so whatever’s inside can burst out. Suddenly I hear a soft rock riff from the shelf, and the bubbling under my skin slowly recedes. I whisper thank you Luni. She saved me from whatever that was. That’s why she’s my anchor for this.

The bad news is, that if I could hear Luni’s music, it seems as if the cragbeasts could too, including mama. I feel every creature turning away from me towards the far side of the room, where the shelf is located, where Luni is playing from. Mama is some sort of cragbeast queen, a creature who fills around eighty percent of this enormous cavern. If she claws at the shelf, Lu might, Lu might. I gulp. I’m unable to finish the thought of what might happen to Luni.

Collecting the loot, I do everything in my power to skip the step where it enters my inventory. I know that if I try to use my inventory magic that it will hurt me and Luni. The hunks of meat of course don’t care what my desire is. The meat goes straight to my inventory, as does all the other loot.

Sighing, I lean my face down and try to tear into one of the hunks of meat as it floats near me, instead of claiming it. Finally, some success. Everything in the room at least senses my intent, and turns towards me.

I cry out my challenge, “That’s right! I eat your kin for breakfast! Also, for the past few days, for lunch, dinner, and dessert as well! And since I know you can’t understand me, I’ll go with an old standby. I bet you’re wondering why I’ve gathered you all here today!”

Luni bursts into laughter across our telepathic bond, our wavelength is filled with giddiness that overrides our shared pain momentarily. I chuckle as my face adopts a sneer at the beasts closing in on me.

The greatsword is easier to wield due to the slowness of my attacks, and its ability to leave the attack hanging in the air. My right wrist is killing me though. It feels sprained from the weight. If my right wrist is killing me, Lu’s is probably aching too. If I break my wrist, would she be able to play her harp? That might doom our anchor plan. I’ll have to use the staff. I can’t figure out any special properties of it, so I’m basically just using it as a double ended club. I whack with one side, then the other, bludgeoning skulls in as I fight my way around to be near Luni.

It feels like it takes hours of plodding through the beasts, especially because occasionally the queen will swipe an entire quarter of the room. When she does, Luni directs me to dodge into a hallway. Sometimes I have to wait in a hall for several minutes for the queen to calm down. She seems to go docile for several minutes at a time as I slay the regular cragbeasts.

I’m still about a third of the way around the cavern from Luni, Lil, and Teuila when Lu calls out, “Right there! Ummm, I think, maybe, I think like, seven or so paces to your left, stand over that egg, protect it. I think it’s the one with the longest timer. Oh no, it’s about to get rough. You stupid things, why won’t you leave Reggie alone!?”

I can only imagine what Lu is referring to. It’s probably the reason I need to keep the blindfold on. The queen begins to go berserk. I’ve still got something like fifty cragbeasts to deal with. If I could just use my mana based powers, I could maybe deal with them, or even the queen.

I won’t risk subjecting Luni to that pain though. I tenderly grasp my right ribs as I feel a sharp pain. There’s some kind of toothy tendril trying to burrow into my right side. I think it’s coming from the queen’s mouth.

“Hurk.” Another of the queen’s tendrils wraps around my neck and head. The tendril shoves my blindfold and helmet off. The helmet clatters to the ground. I pinch my eyes closed tightly as I struggle against the tendril gripping my throat. At this point, all fifty cragbeasts are pretty much surrounding me, emptying their flames at me.

My skin begins to bubble and boil again, the fury wells up within me. I feel like I’m giving birth to some kind of literal rage beast. Lu is arguing something. Luni angrily pleads, “You, you can’t do that, it’s not fair, stop it! Let Reggie go! It can’t go this way! It can’t happen this way! This one, I’m, I can’t do this one, I’m, I’m not brave enough.” By the end, Luni’s voice trails off to a saddened whimper. Lu begins to cough, sputter, and choke as well.

My eyes bulge, and I can tell my vision is blurring and doubling, even with my eyes closed. I struggle to breathe, but my neck is pinched tighter in return. A familiar red cloud poofs over my eyes as some blood vessel or something bursts as it usually does when I’m low on oxygen.

I guess Lu had a few possible futures, and whatever force took over the queen picked the worst one for her. I’m sorry for putting you in this position Luni. I find myself pondering if I should give in to the rage boiling up within. I don’t know who will emerge, I’m fairly certain I won’t be me anymore though. But maybe, just maybe they’ll know to save my family.

Luni meekly, weakly calls out telepathically, “No, no don’t. I’ll go, I’ll do it. Please don’t go. Don’t go. Please don’t go.. You can’t, please, please don’t go. Te will never forgive me. I’ll never forgive me. I, I, I’ll never forgive you, but mostly me.” Lu’s answer to my pondering fades to a whimpering plea by the end. Tears flood the mental wavelength from both of us.

Suddenly I sense Luni jogging around below me at wicked speeds. Right, her seven leagues song. She seems to be kickboxing cragbeast craniums, derezzing one or two every other kick. I’m pretty impressed.

I’m a brick in a family of speedsters. Well, no, I’m a blapper, I’m a brick right now is all. Wait. I’m a friggin’ brick right now. Teuila has a bond with gravity, it basically does whatever she wants it to in coefficients from zero to about two and a half. Mine seems to start at two and a half and goes up from there.

“Thank you Lu, I know what to do now. Now get out of here. You are fluffin’ amazing.”

Luni doesn’t run back to the ledge, I can hear her music as she runs circles along the walls. Yup, family of speedsters.

Gripping the tendril that’s wrapped about my throat, and the one digging into my right side, I imagine setting the gravity of just the flesh grasped in my hands as high as possible. I imagine a coefficient of a million, though I’m not sure what I actually reach. Instantly I drop free from the tendril, as it tears loose right where I’ve gripped it. I unwrap this ropey flesh as I cough, choke, and gasp for breath. About half of my vision is clouded with blood, but I haven’t lost my eyesight yet.

“Lu, is your wrist going to be okay if I break mine?”

Luni whimpers into our mental wavelength in response, but there’s a meek thumbs up.

I grip the greatsword and surround myself with slashes just before new tendrils try to reclaim me for the queen. The tendrils shred themselves on what I can only call sharp air. Several more cragbeasts are caught mid-lunge as well, dying to the lingering cuts. As I continue to rend pure space, I wonder if I can mess with the gravity of the slashes. I gingerly poke one lightly from behind. It agonizingly slowly floats forward before dissipating.

Curious, I try slashing, then slamming the gash in space with my left palm immediately. The result is a wave of sharp air that travels at about walking speed before it dissipates at the usual duration. Trying to do this though feels like my right wrist is going to break sooner, since I basically have to one-hand a greatsword that is made out of some ridiculously heavy material. Seriously, it’s so dense that I can lift a cragbeast by the face more easily than hold the flippin’ sword.

Finally it seems like all the little ones are dead, and the queen isn’t willing to rend her own hands or tendrils to bits trying to get at me. Luni seems to be about to say something about the last egg, when another wave of eggs spawn.

Luni does call out though, “I knew that was the wrong one! This egg, this one over here, get here, quick.”

I try to follow Luni’s voice, but she’s traveling around quickly. I don’t have my helmet or blindfold, so I’m squeezing my eyes shut as best I can. I feel her grab my hand to try to drag me to the spot quickly during her magical music-forced march. I try to warn her all too late.

Luni screams in pain as I hear a sickening pop, it’s followed by a tearing sound, but Luni stops before anything worse can happen. Luni’s scream is cut short by an urp sound. I try to convince myself that it’s just dislocated, that that’s recoverable, that it wasn’t my fault, but I still vomit as I’m flooded with guilt and pain and other emotions.

Luni is whimpering, sobbing, cradling her right arm with her left, her music has stopped. I’m crying so hard I can’t even catch my breath enough to apologize.

Luni connects to me telepathically and draws me to accelerated thinkspace. She absolves me, “I knew you were going to be heavy, I thought my travel music would transfer to you, I didn’t realize you were literally dealing with the weight of all three worlds. I’m so sorry Reggie, I don’t know what to do. You have to get to that egg in about the next ten seconds or so, and I have to be able to play while you’re there.”

I can’t spare the time to ask what Luni means by all three worlds, as our thinkspace is barely faster than one to one time right now with meatspace. I carefully scoop Luni into my right arm. She looks so small now against my forearm. Just how much have I grown while in this form?

A whimper from Lu tells me that my growth is a side effect of containing whatever is trying to burst free. I need to remain calm so that I don’t have to rely on Luni hurting herself to keep the beast at bay with music. As much as I want to freak out or give in to fury, I simply plod slowly towards the egg that Luni directs me to.

I break into as much of a sprint as I can in this form, and just destroy beast after beast that comes near. I exterminate them by gripping their skulls, and introducing hundreds of times normal gravity to their brainpans. I keep a frosty barrier around Lu just in case any of the new ones think to use fire breath.

Picking up a cragbeast, I attempt to use it as a cannonball, or mortar shell. I toss it and increase its gravity as it’s leaving my grasp. It has the desired effect, cratering the ground and finishing off most of the cragbeasts. The last few cragbeasts I just soccer punt during my sprint.

I risk opening my eyes to make sure I’m still going to get to the egg in time.

As the last egg hatches, I swear I see Lu whisper something into her harp, something powerful, the strings vibrate and glow in response. Particles of ethereal light appear in the air around Luni and her harp. The particles expand to small spheres, then are absorbed in waves. In a mere instant, this light cascades across the cavern to collide with the last egg while it’s still hatching. The light bounces towards the wall, ricochets up to the ceiling, down to the floor, over and over until it reaches the side of the cavern with our alcove. It passes through our secret mail slot, and I can only guess it eventually connects to Lil and Teuila.

The queen is truly enraged, and she literally blows her top. The top of the foothill explodes outwards, as does most of the cavern structure. The light seems to play out its rebounding in reverse, dragging Lil and Teuila backwards until they connect with the glowing form of the hatching creature, then all three are pulled towards Lu, her harp, and my arms.

The queen continues to pound, throwing a catastrophe level tantrum, veritably disintegrating the ground beneath us. We tumble into empty space, chased by millions of tons of stone. It’s at this time that there’s a glow from one of Luni’s accessories with a hidden pocket, her wristband that she kept wearing through the entire encounter. Lu unfolds the flap carefully, and the egg hidden within begins to hatch, glowing as it transforms into a creature.

We’re plummeting, but I’m awestruck as tenebral energy is siphoned from me, darkening the glow that’s coating Lil, Te, and the two creatures that haven’t quite hatched yet. This umbral presence is somehow soothing, comforting. There’s a kindness in the darkness. The light is fury, power, vengeance, self-righteousness even when it’s wrong. The darkness is the quiet moments of forgiveness.

As we’re crashing through the sky, each of us is greeted by a strange message in our mind’s eye interfaces, “Olioli has joined the Shellcracker Party.” Laomati begins excitedly chattering through the comm stone in Teuila’s possession.