I’ve been sprinting with Teuila nuzzled up napping in my arms for a long while now, probably a few hours. My body is on automatic at this point, just springing whenever it lands, but my muscles are otherwise locked, deadened, spent. And just now I wasn’t looking where I was leaping. I catch my toes between mud-slick rocks and slam facefirst into the ground, barely rotating my shoulders aside to keep Teuila from suffering the same fate as I bear the brunt of the fall. I barely manage to set her softly to my side as I’m plowing into the ground.
Te slowly sits up, yawning and stretching, rubbing her eyes with her fists. She looks down at me and simply sweetly says, “Dink.” She leans down to scoop me up and take over sprinting.
We’re seeing so much of the flat expanse of these plains, the countryside, and the ocean’s shore, but I’m wondering what the destination is at this point. Ah, great, the gulf, or chasm. How are Meredith and the others already across it? Heavens, that has to be a hundred feet, maybe a hundred meters across, maybe more? The only thing keeping it from being a river is a scant inch or two of rock up against the sea itself. I’d fear that stepping on the rock wall’s top would cause it to cave in, and we’d get swept up as the sea floods up the channel.
If we were to try to stealthily rescue all the ancestors, how the hell would we get them over that without trying to fly them across one at a time? There is no way we’re going to succeed at getting a bunch of spaced-out undead back to Autumn Brook in one piece without completely ending this situation. Fudge. Hell, how are we even going to get across? Te, Te what are you doing!?
Teuila doesn’t change her course or velocity at all. Her strides have only been taking her a few dozen meters per leap, and that distance is going to put us squarely over the edge of the upcoming chasm. The winged cloak that’s attached to the Valkyrie armor, which we generally leave furled up, or set aside somewhere, suddenly unfurls from Teuila’s backside. She trusts me to wrap my arms around her neck as she takes both edges of the cloak in her hands and coaxes us into a long low gravity glide. I sort of forgot that I gave her a winged cloak long ago, and that she was used to doing this before she had ever even gotten her Valkyrie powers.
Teuila learns skills and ways to apply herself and her abilities easily at least as well as I learn uses for magic. She also remembers her abilities and conclusions far better than I do. I should remember that. Hah, try to remember that I have difficulty remembering things about having difficulty remembering things. Yeesh, this brain of mine. It’s like it was made from swiss cheese to begin with. There’s something. A word. Why was it capitalized? GALS. I thought it was a hint to look at my beloved gals. What does that have to do with memory? Maybe just because I’m remembering it at the moment. Or because it was recorded somewhere in the book that contained my mystical memory logs.
Gods, it was hard enough remembering things on Can’Z’aas, when I could literally look them up by scrolling through a digital journal. How the hell do people deal with not having one of those? Or is it just me that has so much problem with memory? It’s like, my brain’s allocated memory space has been full the entire time, like RAM, so it’s shunting out what hasn’t been recalled as recently, for new stuff, constantly. RAM? Computer terminology, digital things. It’s so weird. There’s no evidence anything like that exists in any reality. Yet here I am, thinking in terms of computers and digital age, instead of just Can’Z’aasian magic menus.
Some, some specific files. Why do I suddenly remember that there were some specific files that were vastly important? Ugh. It’s probably my brains way of telling me that memory is an important thing, and it sucks to lose it. Hm, oh well. We’ve been traveling for quite a while now, not sure if it has been an entire day yet, though perhaps it has. We should have stocked up on some kind of travel rations or something. We’re definitely in the Colossi plains now though. There are a number of the Colossi people out and about, and more in these weird hillocks.
Oh, they can make themselves a small earthen den in mere moments. They’re essentially bedding down beneath the dirt, though they leave a cavernous opening on the leeward side of things. Having access to earth-shaping magic would have been so useful back home. Oh well, at least it helps these people survive despite their massive size.
Teuila exclaims, “Woah, they’re all so much more monstrous than Meredith, Clint, and Dodge.”
Puzzled, I ask, “Do you mean taller? I mean, yeah they all look like taller humans to me, and they already said they were the smallest and weakest.”
Teuila starts laughing, and asks, “You can’t be serious, right? That one over there looks like a giant werewolf, that one has an extra head, that one looks like an ogre. Lu and I had always wondered about your logs. Like every other time you met a new critterkin, it was always, they’re the most human-looking so-and-so to you. You really are just that bad at recognizing humans then?”
Bewildered, I gaze about at what Teuila is pointing out. Hm, let’s cast the aura vision magic from the staff. Oh, there we go. With this on, and if I squint, I can start to see what she’s claiming. Is this why I never saw magical beings in Aces memories? Do I just have some sort of weird perception filter that humanizes or anthropomorphizes faces or something? Or does just everyone else in existence have this aura vision? I mean, on Can’Z’aas that was true enough already. Everyone could see aura except me.
Wait, there’s something sticking out of my chest! I couldn’t see it without the supernatural sight of the staff. Hm, as soon as I took note of it, it disappeared.
“Hmf. Shouldn’t be on Rayileklia.”
That voice! I scan about quickly, there’s no way there’s anyone keeping up with Teuila’s sprint who could talk to me, hiding anywhere around in these open plains. Though, the luma tulipa are sparse out here, making it darker than I’m used to. I’ve also adjusted my vision to pitch-black caves, so I should still be able to see a silhouette.
I whisper to Teuila, “Te, please tell me you saw that, or heard that, or sensed something, anything.”
Teuila’s confused gaze tells me that she didn’t. She asks, “Sensed what my huggable dink?”
Well crap. Either I’m hallucinating, or I’ve got another ride-along from maybe a future me or, or I don’t even know anymore. Hey, voice? Are you in here? Can you hear my thoughts? I pause for several beats. Bluh, no answer. Either it can’t hear me, can’t respond, or is a figment of my imagination to begin with. Well, there’s a last option that is it did hear me and doesn’t want to respond I suppose.
Meredith suddenly calls back to us, “We’ll take you to the edge of Karn the Dragonslayer’s camp where we’ll dump the gold. After that, you’re on your own. I’m not losing my head over your antics.”
I gaze at Meredith incredulously, “You, wait. You guys are named Clint, Dodge, and Meredith. But this leader of yours is named Karn the Dragonslayer?”
Confused, she answers, “Yes, he’s one of our lords, the two reside within the camp. What of it?”
I snort as I fight off my laughter. Seriously? In a group of friends with such average modern humans names as these three, if someone called themselves Karn the Dragonslayer, they’d be ridiculed as the geek of the group. Heck, I’d probably be close friends with someone that goofy. I accidentally loose a small chuckle. Teuila snickers quietly as well.
Meredith glances back at us with a slightly ‘your funeral’ expression upon her face. It may very well be. I’d better ask, “So, who’s the other lord?”
Meredith shudders as she answers, “Kozzurth the Nocturnal.”
She refuses to utter even a syllable more about Kozzurth the Nocturnal. Hah, wouldn’t that be lucky, if we only have to negotiate with one lord, because the other one is asleep? Somehow, I don’t think it’s going to be quite as simple as that.
I lose track of how much time passes, but thankfully Teuila has us covered. I’m still completely knackered. Here’s hoping that my tiredness doesn’t cause negotiations to break down. I wonder if Teuila should handle the, err, on second thought, maybe skip that thought. Teuila is itching for combat. Even if she didn’t mean to, she might subconsciously sabotage herself in order to force the battle outcome.
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Meredith slows to a snails pace, allowing us to easily keep up just by walking at this point. Hell, we could outpace her by walking. We spend hours following her as she creeps westward with trepidation. Each step she takes is trembling, vibrating her feet deeply into the mud. I think this is going far over the top to run a bit on us. Maybe she is honestly that frightened of the two lords.
Hours yet still and I’m famished. Ugh, I wish we had grabbed some of those hardtack biscuits on Keeley’s counter as we left. Or just, anything. Should I spend eight minutes conjuring some digital fish while we walk? I’m sure Teuila would appreciate it.
Finally we approach an encampment. It’s fairly crude, similar to a lean-to of stone I once made in the ruins of the cat tribe’s home after it had been decimated by Mataalii. Or similar ones I had made in Fire Biome. Still, it’s massive, and encircled by logs whittled to spiked tips that are jammed into the ground. An impressively large man and a woman stand at this near entrance, and likely the other entrances as well. I get the feeling that these are the lowest rung of guards for Karn and Kozzurth, not the two lords themselves. They are frighteningly massive however, easily twice Meredith’s size. They must be some sixty feet tall.
The two guarding the entrance glare daggers at Meredith and the others. She balks, scoops some stone and soil into the shape of an offering bowl, and ditches the gold in it quickly. She turns to flee, leaving Dodge and Clint to do much the same. Well, I’m not going to just let these two guards take this pile of gold in and ignore us. Hup, here we go. You too Teuila, up here, thanks. As we stand on the lip of this stone bowl, the guards glower at us dubiously.
I shout up to them, “I’m here to speak with Karn and Kozzurth. If they want this wealth, they’ll have to meet with us, or I’ll un-conjure it!”
I’ll do no such thing. I couldn’t give a rat’s rear end about this gold, and I don’t want to have to connect to Can’Z’aasian energy any more than absolutely necessary. The two guards scowl at me, and reach for the offering bowl anyway while trying to shoo the two of us off of it with their weapons. Nope, not gonna happen pals.
I growl, “Teuila, take a finger, just one.”
As a sneer spreads across her face, her responding growl is, “My pleasure.”
In an instant she has leapt from the edge of the bowl, up along the offending weapon held by the man, and severed his index finger. The poor fool doesn’t even realize it’s gone at first until there’s a thud as it lands nearby.
I shout, demanding attention, “As I said, Karn. And Kozzurth. We’re here to bargain. Now.” I let vitriol drip from my final word as I unholster the staff and aim it towards the two.
As I’m preparing to slay at least one of these two to make a point, a much larger, far more commanding presence demands, “What is going on out here!? Kozzurth wants her spices, says the meat is too bland without it. Have those three idiots returned yet? What in the.”
Spices? The only three idiots I know of sent out for something were sent out to retrieve wealth. If wealth is spices to someone’s meat, then. Hoo boy. I hope I’m wrong about this. I mean, what else can you think of that might eat metal along with meat Reggie? Yeah, yeah. Frick. I guess we’ll know in a moment.
I summon a gale from the staff that knocks the two guards on their arses and shout towards the new figure, “If you’re Karn, I’ve brought Kozzurth’s spices, conjured by my own magic, and I can just as easily return it to the void. We’re here to bargain on behalf of the people of Autumn Brook.”
Teuila grumbles that we should just kick their butts until they submit. The large giant doesn’t address me at first, or admit to anything. It seems the giant I assume to be Karn more or less agrees with Teuila as he orders the two guards, “Kill them and be done with it you idiots. If you’ve not finished them off by the time I fetch some meat from the pens, I’ll kill you myself. You little ones, if you think I’ll buy any random story about magic, you’ve got another think coming. If you somehow manage to slay my subordinates, I’ll humor you for a few minutes, you’ll get your conversation.”
He walks away, completely ignoring us as he heads towards an outcropping that might serve as a cattle-pen. Gorram motherfriggin’ stupid jerkwad dimwit buggersucker. Of course murder would be the condition for a conversation. Oo I should really just let Teuila go nuts right now. Grr. Breathe Reggie, breathe air, breathe. Hm. Why does that suddenly feel so familiar? Breathe air, breathe. That, that seems important somehow. I rattle my brain, shaking loose the ache that comes with yet another new mysterious memory.
I snarl, “Teuila, you want to take the one you’ve already started on, finish up the job, and me take the other?”
Teuila jokes, “Nah, I’ll let you take my scraps, I want the fresh one.”
I’m a little sickened by our play of brutality, and not sure how much of it Teuila really means. It’s a tad frightening to be honest. Still, she’s mostly probably continuing to be over-protective of me here on Rayileklia. I honestly appreciate it more than I let on. As weakened as I am, any bit of help I can get is massively appreciated. Still, I’m not going to risk being injured in a drawn-out fight when we still have to deal with the lords. I nod to Teuila and aim my staff once more, this time directly at the man’s chest, through his heart.
Teuila leaps towards the woman, snarling pure fury, and I unleash about a tenth of the magic in the staff as a lightning bolt. Maybe a bit more. The man drops to his knees, his heart stopped in an instant, quite possibly even burst from the massive charge that tore through it. The woman looks shocked, and Teuila capitalizes on the distraction to drive her spear home into the Colossi woman’s jugular.
The massive woman slaps at the dashing form of Teuila along her throat, but mostly tries to clasp her neck to staunch the torrent of blood raining from her gullet. Teuila meets my gaze apologetically. Okay, good. She’s just playing her part. She’s not really this bloodthirsty. Whew. I mean, I knew that. I’ve known her for a couple of centuries. I just, I worried that maybe Rayileklia had changed her somehow. Teuila manages a flip kick to the giant’s temple, rocking her head sideways so hard that she stumbles over. The woman is now far more preoccupied trying to survive the loss of blood to bother keeping track of Teuila anymore. In a moment, it’s over. The two Colossi guards lay dead as we stand in their midst.
I shed several tears for them. This didn’t need to happen. I’m angry with myself, but it’s not like I have many abilities that aren’t fatal. I couldn’t really control the outcome. Maybe if I had my Can’Z’aasian magic, I could have frozen them until the big one returned. Then perhaps forced a conversation.
I sit on the corpse of this giant, meditating, trying to alleviate the guilt I feel over his death. Hours go by, even Teuila gets twitchy. There’s no way that a giant lord ran away from the two of us and threw their underlings at us as fodder to escape, is there? Nah, that can’t be what’s happening.
It’s far too long waiting for the massive male giant I assume to be Karn returns, and the meat he’s holding as cattle sickens me to my core. He’s holding humans. Specifically Aasimovian ancestors. Their vacant glassy-eyed stares and lack of any sort of response to their situation defines their undeath. He reaches for the gold, perhaps not noticing us at first. I cough as politely as I can while trying to be loud enough to draw attention.
He stops momentarily as he claims, “Well I’ll be.” He points to the woman who bled out, “Her, I’d give you that one, a fluke of getting close enough to stab her neck perhaps. What about him though? He just looks dead, no more than a tiny mark of char on his chest. I guess you must have magic after all. Alright, I’ll humor you. Follow me inside.”
The one I take to be Karn finishes scooping the offering-bowl. Teuila joins me in scowling at the enormous man. I see other pairs peppered about his camp, always a man and a woman as guards. I wonder if it’s symbolic. He called Kozzurth her when he spoke of her. Maybe it’s to denote that the two lords are of different sexes? Hell, they’re of different species if my guess is correct.
As Karn shoos aside a pair of guards, we follow him inwards down a massive divot in the soil. The scene before me is bewildering. A Colossi man and woman are kneeling with two barrels outstretched before a dragon whose purple scales and slightly corpulent form don’t match any sort of dragon from my memories. My memories tend to hold knowledge of monsters, and shoddy though they may be, I’d still have expected to have some guess as to her nature. I jokingly call myself a crypto-zoologist, remember?
More fascinating, Kozzurth is digging aside one of her scales, and softly pricking the flesh beneath. She spills only two drops of blood, one in each small barrel sitting in front of the Colossi. Are they going to? Ugh. They offer her some sort of prayer of gratitude, and gulp down the blood, leaving the barrels likely for the next pair of Colossi that I feel following us inwards.
I’m going to lose a big bargaining chip if this giant, Karn I assume, just hands the offering bowl and the ancestors over to Kozzurth to eat while we talk, but I can’t think of any way to stop him without killing him. I suppose killing one lord might make the other easier to deal with.
I shout, “Drop the gold until we have our conversation, or die.”
All eyes are on me momentarily, and the one I assume is Karn simply laughs uproariously. He ignores me and brings the ancestors, along with the offering bowl full of gold, closer to Kozzurth’s face. I’m not letting them get away with killing and eating ancestors, let alone ignoring us as we come to bargain for peace. I glance at Teuila. She meets my gaze and nods, ready to take action if this becomes an all out slaughter.
As another lightning bolt, I unleash another tenth or so of the magic normally held within the staff, perhaps a seventh. I feel like there’s about five, no, perhaps four more blasts left within it at the moment. Though I aim it directly through his chest, this giant drops to one knee, not dead, before he spins around in anger. He drops the ancestors and the bowl of gold, which is good. Teuila leaps at his jugular, striking a vicious but non-lethal blow along his neck and shoulder, which is also good. However, there’s a clapping coming from behind the dragon. A clapping from an even larger Colossi man who rises up around Kozzurth, and punts the injured giant to the side, likely actually slaying him as he impacts the rock surface with a sickening crunch.
Well hell. I guess maybe that one is Karn. Hopefully we don’t have a series of bigger and bigger giants to go through before finally meeting him. This is embarrassing.