B 3 C 19: DREAM INTERLUDE, IT’S ABOUT THAT TIME

What is this!? I know I haven’t run down enough levels to be this deep underground. I drop my Active Camouflage and sink to my knees in agony. My AC took way too much out of me to be using it for that long. Every joint on my body is shaking from muscle tension and overexertion. I can’t even spend the time coming to terms with what I’m seeing as I’m on the way to passing out. Lil buddy, you got this handled for a second? I summon some stone from my inventory to key places to stop the wall from rotating, in case we were followed. My body sinks into slumber.

Why am I remembering this now? Even after dunking my head in cold water I find myself thinking of the times that Eights would be waiting for me at home when we were younger. It was before I could really handle myself. Back when we were scraping by on literal scrapings. Table scraps and the like. Old boy was good to me, friendly, loving, and eventually, a great partner in another kind of scrape, brawls and hunts. I’ve had to pick up some tricks with other animals since losing him. Some kind folks back in Vale, a bit on the retired side of the blade, keep some scraps out for him even still. It’s all he can do though, there’s no thoughts, no recognition, he stands in that spot, moves a few feet to do his business, then returns to stand there, awaiting more food. He doesn’t respond to anything, doesn’t even sleep! Somebody did something to my dog, someday I’ll find out who, and they’ll pay.

For now though, I’m on the toughest assignment yet. Everyone turned it down. I should have too, but I’ve got a soft spot for the downtrodden. Call me a sucker for someone that shares my sob story I guess.

Eights was a real good hunter, I was lucky to have him as long as I did, heck, he was my lucky charm. Times when I thought for sure my goose was cooked, Eights would notice a loose board or a handhold in parkour distance, any of the like, and more. Oddest, darndest little things that made all the difference between a successful job with flawless escape, and a grisly end. My luck has soured a bit without Eights, but thankfully the neighbors in the Hidden Heart taught me a few things. They claim what they taught me was magic, but it’s just whispers, kind words to animals, listening to the breeze, things like that. They say I should be able to understand what whispers back, but I never could. Somethin’ broken, buggy in me they say, but that I’ve got their magic nonetheless.

Gorramit boy, why’d you have to leave me? I don’t have time for these feelings. Just like I don’t have time to keep gazing back in this window at that pretty maiden who came-a-calling that seemed sweet on me. Distractions are death.

I wake myself up with a snort that has me coughing, choking, and sputtering as the air ripples down my esophagus. Did I dream about a hunter dog? Something about Lucky? I can’t remember. Thinking about Lucky is a rabbit hole I can’t go down right now. That wonderful creature’s whole existence is the craziest confluence of events I’ve ever imagined. Some of those events are emotionally scarring.

Speaking of emotionally scarring, the grandeur of this place is bewildering. Also, where is Lil? Lil, I’m thinking at you buddy, can you hear me? I gulp when there’s no response. I’d shout, but I think the telepathy has at least the same range as shouting, and I don’t want to draw attention to this place.

This place though, wow. Bottomless pits, and endless dark chasm above. There are floating hunks of stone just hanging out in midair, they’re small islands, yet they’re perpetually hovering in place. If I look closely, I think I can see the slightest bobbing motion as if they’re suspended on liquid. But they’re all at different levels, so it’s not like I’m standing on the other side of incredibly clean glass, with rocks floating on top of crystal clear water.

Picking up a pebble, I toss it to the nearest one, and the crystal outcropping on it begins to brighten, but nothing else happens. I didn’t even realize that there were glowing crystal outcroppings on the floating islands. Still, there’s an obvious stone bridge leading so far into the distance that I lose sight of it in the darkness beyond.

Approaching it however is disturbing. There appear to be humanoid statues. Their poses are all set as if they were fleeing in terror of something. Actually, as I approach, they’re all me. What? How? At least the ones I can see from this distance. They’re me at different stages in my journey. Early on when I’d just started wearing leaf leather, later when I was a toasty fried corpse, further on when I began wearing valkyrie gear, the first time I assumed the taller form, further still when I assumed that ridiculous shape with that stupidly dense greatsword in the cragbeast warren. On and on. I half expect at the end of it all to be either that fourth evolutionary stage, or this draconic form, or both.

I’m tempted to tie my blindfold around my eyes, to differentiate me from the statues, but that’s just silly. I know who I am. Still, hourglasses. If anywhere is the right place to begin practicing my time skill, this is it. I check my logs to be certain I haven’t already done so, and when I confirm there are no messages from a future me, I proceed with crossing the bridge.

I’m barely several steps across the bridge when the world shakes, and reality itself looks to be disintegrating into white-hot plasma in all directions. The stone of the bridge collapsing beneath me doesn’t fill me with as much terror as the presence of that light. A light that burns away everything, all of existence is burned away to nothingness, serving no purpose. It’s time.

Still, there’s an obvious stone bridge leading into the distance, its end escapes my range of vision from this far away. Approaching it however sickens me. There are humanoid statues in poses of utmost terror, with grimaces or visages of certain doom. Upon closer inspection, they’re all me. This one here is early on when I’d just started wearing leaf leather. That one is when I was a toasty fried corpse, that one over there is when I began wearing Valkyrie gear, that one ahead of it is the first time I assumed the taller form, but standing next to it is a statue of me in this draconic form. It looks like they had been appraising the statues further down as I’m doing now from back here. Then something gave them a terrible fright.

I wonder what it was. Perhaps if I get closer, I can see exactly where its gaze is going. As I approach the draconic statue version of me, reality itself begins to deteriorate. A white hot light floods existence itself, burning away everything to nothingness, not even ash. It’s a radiant consumption with a ceaseless hunger. It will take everything away, but I won’t let it, if any place could possibly be the right place to practice my skill, it has to be here. The hourglasses? Reality unmaking itself? Yeah. It’s time.

Huh, those floating outcroppings of stone all have glowing crystal outcroppings. How did I not notice that? Still, there’s an obvious path forward into the darkness, and for some reason, I’ve always been soothed by darkness. The stone bridge ahead is populated by statues wearing grotesque masks of terror. Viewed from up close however, they all appear to be… Me? That’s my leaf leather outfit on cherubic Reggie. That’s crispy fried Reggie from the Night of High Water. That’s Reggie wearing Valkyrie gear for the first time. There’s Reggie in the second evolutionary stage, the one that’s mostly just a taller version of me. Up beyond there seems to be the form from the cragbeast warren, but also two copies of draconic me. Those seem out of place if these were all chronological. Oh no! Chronological! I sprint past them, trying to take evasive flight by using JT to shunt myself forward at ridiculously high speeds. I break the sound barrier, and my legs, but an all-consuming light threatens to take all of existence. Looks like I failed again, whatever’s happening, but if any place and time is right to practice this skill, it’s here and now. It’s time.

I flick a stone to the nearest outcropping, and something I hadn’t noticed before catches my eye, all of the floating islands have little patches of glowing crystal on them. The one that my pebble hit glowed slightly brighter for a moment. Hm, no matter, I don’t even need light, between danger wraps, and all the time I spent blind or blindfolded. In fact, the path ahead has some pretty grotesque humanoid statues, I may as well blindfold myself along the path. I can always just JT myself back up if I fall off.

As I begin passing statues, my danger wraps parse them with my ranged tactile sense, and they feel like, like me. But how? The first one is cherubic Reggie in leaf leather from early on, then crispy Reggie from the Night of High Water, then Valkyrie geared Reggie. Panic grips at my heart as I begin sprinting forward, suddenly there are several copies of statues of draconic Reggie blocking my path, but, but I didn’t become draconic til recently. Those are out of chronological order. Oh no! Chronology! I open my mental logs, trying to quickly scan through, sure enough, world-ending terror should be approaching right about now.

As I feel the blazing radiance of the heat of a thousand suns, all I can think to say about the situation is, “Crap.” It’s time.

I pick up a pebble and I’m about to throw it when I have a flash of deja vu. I swear I’ve thrown this several times before. Why would I have bothered? Huh, ah well. I drop it back on the ground, ignoring it as I approach the only viable path forward. Somewhere far ahead the bridge before me disappears into a soothing darkness beyond the range of my sight.

It’s a good thing too, because the bridge is absolutely covered in draconic statues, and several humanoid ones that appear to, wait. That’s cherubic Reggie in leaf leather, that’s crispy Reggie from the Night of High Water, but why are there hundreds of statues of Draconic Reggie in various states of running, flight, fear, attacks, and more?

I check my log, and I’ve tried to cross this bridge hundreds of times. How crazy can I be? I’ll just fly around it. I fly out towards the outcroppings but hover above them without touching them as I JT my way forward into the darkness. Soon I’m met by the world diminishing into unending brightness from all directions. Crap. It’s time. Hey Past Reggie, hopefully a scratch on the chest will get you to check your logs.

I bend over to pick up a pebble when I suddenly have a sharp pain in my chest. Oof, the micro musculature used for my chromatophores and iridophores must have really taken a toll out of me. Maybe I should sit down for a second. As I sit down, I realize I’m staring right into a brightly glowing outcropping of crystal on the islands floating nearby, and it hurts my eyes. Meh, I don’t need light, I’m used to being blind, and my darkvision is ridiculously good. I shatter the outcropping with a Jettison-Thrust of sharp stone. The light flickers and fades. There, now I can take a breather and rest my eyes, without having to move or turn. Wow, how ultra lazy am I? I shot out a light rather than turning a little. Haha.

Oh Reggie, sometimes you Shellcrack me up. Eh, eh? Agwai would laugh. But no, really, I think you’re losing it since Lil isn’t responding. Did Lil tell me anything before I went to sleep, or maybe while I was asleep that might be in my logs, that might let me know what happened?

Oh, no, no they didn’t, but something else definitely happened. So the world keeps ending consumed in a brilliant light, the flame of a thousand suns, huh? Well screw you light. I leap into the air and begin blasting out crystal outcroppings as I fly forward parallel to the bridge. I’m not quick enough, the light arrives to consume me, maybe past Reggie will figure out a way to be quicker. Good luck, me.

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I bend to pick up a pebble, but for some reason, I’m ridiculously angry all of a sudden. The only thing I see to vent my frustration on is a weird glowing outcropping of crystals. In fact, there’s a lot of them. I don’t need light, I might as well zip around knocking them out to let off some steam. Faster, faster. For some reason I’m so pissed that I need to do it faster than this! Wait, why is the world disintegrating into brilliant white light? My logs, oh no. Good luck, past me.

I bend to pick up a pebble, but images of a thousand possible futures flash in my mind, each one culminating in the same ending. The world ends, erased in radiant flame, an unending, ceaselessly hungry brilliance that consumes all. What kind of freaky hallucination is this now? I remember long ago, when I thought I was dying on the Night of High Water, everything in my nightmares was awash in light, and I thought I would end up fearing the light. Is that finally coming to pass? Grr, no thank you. I can face the light, or I can fight it. I’m perfectly happy to operate in darkness. Why are all these stupid crystals glowing? I begin rapidly firing at them, flitting around with JT motion. I’m furious at the light, it wants to take over everything, to take everything away, leave everything as nothing but a spent husk. A partially, no, fully, but it was malformed. What am I remembering? A candle, but it was enormous, like a spire to the gods. But it wasn’t wax. It was, it was souls? The light comes to claim my world and everything in it, but I won’t stand for it. Hey past me, be better than me.

As I think about bending to pick up a pebble, I hear “Hey past me, be better than me.” Glancing around, I don’t see anyone, so I figure I’m being visited by the voice again. I wait for it to explain, but it doesn’t offer anything else. I wonder if I ever spoke to Lil about the future voice? Or well, my belief that I heard my future voice. I can check my logs. Oh. Oh no. How many thousands of times have I tried this? Okay, fine, maybe if we destroy this entire place before the light gets here, that will do something. I conjure the largest Umbral Shot copy of Gae Buidhe that I can muster, as many copies of it that will fill the air, and then I adhere more material to it in my inventory. The result is a whirling trident of death, several dozen of them, that sail forward, destroying all the statues and islands that I can see from this distance, as well as the bridge itself.

The light still comes, its endless hunger driving it to consume everything. Past me, a massive multi Umbral Shot with extra inventory shenanigans won’t work, try something else.

As I approach the way forward, I hear “Hey past me, be better than me.” I then hear “Past me, a massive multi Umbral Shot with extra inventory shenanigans won’t work, try something else.”

Glancing around, I pause, waiting for more instructions, when none come, I check my logs to make sure I got them correct. Oh, oh wow, there’s an entire sub log for this event that contains thousands of recurring attempts to move forward. What if I move backward? I head towards the hourglass statues, claim the stone blocking the spinning mechanism, and begin to pull the tail on the right serpent, but the world begins ending around me, awash in an endless hungering radiance. Alright past me, you can’t go back, keep focusing on getting faster and stronger.

I can barely comprehend it, future me is really chatty, with dozens of tips, and my logs are filled with thousands upon thousands of attempts to prevent this catastrophe. Is my world doomed? Is now when I’m supposed to send the tips back to Luni and myself, to at least get us this far? To at least have had this much life?

Lu, Lil, Te, I love you all so much. I want you to have every second possible. I’ll do this forever if I have to, just to give you these last few seconds, I hope you’re enjoying whatever you’re doing as our world ends. You mean everything to me, the world to me. Hah, yeah, the world.

Alright future me, any other tips? None at the moment? Alright, fine, let’s give this a go. How about I use my space skill directly on myself, instead of using Jettison Thrust? Hm, I can move about an inch for a hundred mana. It’s something I couldn’t do before. It’s almost instantaneous too. I can burn through a full pool of mana to move a foot almost instantly.

It feels like the light is taking its sweet time this time around, so I’ll keep futzing around with my skills.

Okay, so, it has been several months, with no signs of Lil, or the light, maybe the logs are some weird bug in the world, some kind of prank. Would Lil have gone back out? No, the stone is still in place. Lil must be bored out of their mind deeper inside. Just in case, let’s see how fast we can make it across.

I’m about halfway across as far as I can estimate, since I can’t see the end of the bridge as I fly above it. However, the edges of my vision in all directions are awash in blinding radiance, an ever consumptive light. Fudge. Hey past me, the Light is patient, but it will take everything. Learn every skill you possibly can, try something new.

I wake up with a snort that causes me to cough and choke as the air ripples down my throat. I hear “Hey past me, the Light is patient, but it will take everything. Learn every skill you possibly can, try something new.”

Glancing around, I don’t see any light, or anyone else, but as I shuffle into a standing position, I’m flooded with more tips from what must be future me. Checking my logs, there are thousands of attempts, including several attempts that went on for months.

I try again, and again, and again, spending several months learning skills and trying to reset. I think my time skill is enough to send messages back years at this point. Let’s see how this attempt goes. I’m at attempt something like fourteen million at this point.

Nope, the ceaseless hungering light consumes all once again. “Past me, use the time skill every second for decades, learn every skill you can in that time.”

I awaken with a snort, the air rippling down my esophagus causes me to choke and sputter. I hear “Past me, use the time skill every second for decades, learn every skill you can in that time.”

I check my logs and I’m horrified. As I read them, I’m treated to dozens and dozens of tips from various versions of future me from dead timelines. Still, they have a point.

I don’t have the comm stone on me for some reason, so this is going to be a lonely attempt. I hope you have a happy life, even though I’m not there, my beautiful, wonderful family. I hope the Nagas don’t attack.

Alright, I don’t think I can die of old age, or age at all. I’m out of water and food though, if I’m ever going to stop the light from destroying the world, hopefully it’s now. I’ve missed out on so many years with my winsome coterie, my SAP. I hope they’ll forgive me when they realize what I’ve been training to do. Well, I know they will. I guess I hope they even remember me is all.

I can virtually instantly teleport myself, I can fire forth arcing lasers of fire and ice, I can fire homing Umbral Shots by the thousands, I probably have the firepower and mana to level a small continent, like the one we’re on. I can place myself in my inventory and create umbral duplicates of myself, then claim those, I’ve got dozens of me in my inventory. I can summon them, or summon Umbral Shot copies of them, and have them act either semi autonomously or under my direct command. I can multitask about a dozen of them at once, and I’ve upgraded them to be able to copy all of my attacks without using any of my mana to do so. I can create highly potent acid from a drop of saliva with alchemy, it somehow fills entire vials or flasks, I’ve a host of other abilities, but those are the most offensive. I can actually layer myself in ice armor that’s harder than diamond, simultaneously coating that ice armor in flame armor that’s in the thousands of degrees kelvin.

As my stomach rumbles harder than it ever has before, I feel like it’s now or never. Or, wait. What if I don’t move? What if I let myself go? The light doesn’t seem to attack until I move. Would my family be safe if I made this last sacrifice? Hm, I can’t risk it. What if my presence is also holding it back somehow. There’s no reason to throw my life away. It has been a lonely one, but still, I had my logs of the wonderful times I’d spent with my beloved SAP.

Let’s do this thing. Summoning several dozen Umbral Shot copies of myself, I draw the kinetic energy out of the air to top my mana back off, the return rate is ridiculously good these days. We all begin summoning thousands of homing umbral shots, and preparing our teleports to not overlap, and to not strike one another with our attacks. Even still, our defenses are ridiculous. Umbral Copies don’t need to worry anyway, but I actually have difficulty penetrating my own SAZA, Sub Absolute Zero Armor. Still, hopefully our coordination wins out in the end.

I call out into the past, in case I mistime something, “Past me, if you get this, it means throwing everything we had at it after decades of training didn’t work, the only other thing to try is self sacrifice. Just sit in place and starve. I know you’re willing. We’ve been through millions of attempts and hundreds of years at this point. Thanks for the wonderful life Reggie. You weren’t such a monster after all.”

I picture the paths, utilizing my time skill to pause time and look into possible futures. I plot every single projectile’s path, every teleportation step of every single Umbral Clone. We begin our assault, destroying everything in the cavern, likely even the ceiling we’ve never seen, no matter how high we flew, and the floor in the bottomless pit. Our barrage is a massacre of multitudinal missiles that sweeps through every possible millimeter ahead of us. We then atomize the rubble as it’s falling. We’ve made it farther than any log has made it before, the estimates that they were halfway were ridiculously hopeful, even at teleportation speeds, there seems to be no end in sight. We continue our assault, we’ve only spent a fraction of a millisecond, but we’ve moved kilometers into the darkness. Further and further still, destroying all floating islands and every last remnant of the bridge as we push forward. We’re actually pushing our mana consumption such that we’re not able to regenerate as much as we’re using, even with endless Flash Freeze Storms sucking up the atomic kinetic energy.

Thousands of kilometers, dozens of thousands of kilometers, we’ve destroyed everything and there’s no end in sight. No, I was wrong. There’s one kind of end in sight. The all consumptive light approaches once again. My umbral duplicates actually manage to fend off the light itself for mere fractions of a moment. I rail against light itself, summoning an endless well of shadows to push back, having my clones copy me, but I’m still just one being, with a pool of mana that, however ridiculous, is still limited by the rules of our world. I can’t keep this up perpetually. More and more of my duplicates are taken as we close in against one another. I engage a limit break and try to multiply my clones and my unending shadow well. It buys us several more moments, but now the limit break and my energy debt is eating away at me at ridiculous speeds with such powerful expenditures. Parts of my own body begin spewing light as my skin cracks revealing empty radiance beneath. I engage a limit break climax with only one wish, “Save my family.” The light inches closer through my clones, and as I’m about to pass out, I follow my message to my past self back in time, one last time. Past me will accept the sacrifice.

I awaken with a snort, the air rippling down my throat causes me to cough, huff, sputter, and choke. I hear, “Past me, if you get this, it means throwing everything we had at it after decades of training didn’t work, the only other thing to try is self sacrifice. Just sit in place and starve. I know you’re willing. We’ve been through millions of attempts and hundreds of years at this point. Thanks for the wonderful life Reggie. You weren’t such a monster after all.”

My jaw drops as my eyes well with tears. I check the logs as more and more tips from dead versions of future me from broken timelines call back.

Anything, anything for my family. I love you Shellcrackers, one and all. Goodbye everyone.

My hunger grows by the day, as does my thirst, but I resist summoning anything from my inventory. I’m lasting far longer than I should based on my broken memories of another world, but I suppose that’s to be expected.

I believe it’s my final day. Every bit of my skin clings tightly to bone, my eyes are so dry that I can’t blink, yet they still swim loosely in their sockets and cross on occasion. My lips and tongue are so dry and cracked that I can hardly breathe with how swollen they’ve gotten. I believe I’m having hunger delirium hallucinations. I’d swear that a humanoid individual in a martial arts gi is wearing a large straw or wicker, slightly rounded hat. It appears that they’re approaching me from thin air. The latest version of me flew to both sides for miles, as well as vertically for miles up and down. The world begins to dissolve around me as the individual approaches me, slowly clapping.

I swear in a soothing voice they say, “Let’s just hide a few of those painful memories until you should need them, hm?”

As they reach two fingers to my forehead, I begin to mutter, “What, what the everliving,” before passing out.