This is starting to sound really familiar. A group of people who mostly left their neighbors alone, but suddenly started using threat of violence to coerce and extort the other? Friggin’ heck Reggie Shellcracker, your life is a gorram meme. It’s not even just one location anymore. The MCF beavers were going to extort us for more Valkyrie armor to lord it over the Sane Faction. The Colossi with Autumn Brook, and now the Dwarves with the Kobolds in The Gap? Friggin’ heck. Seriously, buddy, what the hell kind of deity did we piss off for this kind of karma? I have to chuckle at myself, talking to myself again. Plus, it’s not like the world revolves around us. They’re just situations that happen around the world. Yeah? But we keep stumbling into them! Hm, true. You make a salient point. Duh, I’m you, me. Doofus. Haha. Hah. Oh wow, yeah, I’ve definitely suffered cranial bludgeoning and intracranial hemorrhaging. I wonder. Hm. If I develop a split personality, will both of us have the headaches, or will one of us take on the pain of bearing those millions of years of logs? I don’t think that’s how dissociative identity disorder or borderline personality disorder works though anyway. What do I know? I’m a cryptozoologist, not a psychologist.

I wonder if, well, whatever, I should pay attention to Elder. I raise my eyebrows as I query, “What’s this region like? Is it just the barren rock of the gap, your kobold clan, and the dwarves in their own settlement?”

Elder nods in response, “It is quite like as you guess. Though we prefer not to venture outside, much too bright, on occasion we’ll seek new natural tunnels to see if we can sense any ore veins or gems within them, without having to excavate for ages. Scrap and the bravest amongst us, Dippy, are the most likely to know our local region the best, and, they both worked together to develop goggles, instead of lenses, they have thin dark cloth. Ingenious.”

Huh, Dippy and Scrap independently invented sunglasses, without outside influence, neato. I wonder what else they’ve invented. My eyelids begin to droop heavily once more, and I groan aloud at myself in exasperation. Thankfully Elder realizes just what I’m suffering.

Elder starts, “You have some time yet before you’re recovered. Remarkably fast healing, but worry not, Timbik won’t be allowed anywhere near this room again. I will ask and answer some questions for you. You’re likely wondering why my speech is different than the rest of my clan. When young, I was captured by humans, I spent years among them. While my clan’s native tongue is Draconic, mine is far closer to human.”

Elder pats my forehead as he continues, “I was Cain back then. I worked for thieves, gamblers, cards mostly. Much of my time was spent as a decker, shuffler, dealer. Decker Cain is long gone now. I’m content simply being known as Elder. I hope you’ll respect that I don’t want to speak more on the topic, as well as my choice of name.”

I nod affirmatively. Of course. Names, genders, identities, I’ve got plenty of experience being out of the norm from human society in those regards. Phew, good thing I don’t, and didn’t live in a human society. I raise an eyebrow as Elder squats near me, resting on his tail. He seems to be settling in to speak more.

Elder nods in response, and does continue, “You’re likely curious about the stone elementals. From firma to firmament, elementals occupy the space all around us, adjacent. Near yet far. Like the other side of a looking glass, or being separated by a veil. Some objects can draw them to our side of the glass. For those beings of stone, one such item is a certain gem, malachite-encrusted emerald, naturally formed in a certain way. Shattering one spreads the veil, allowing nearby elementals through to our side. They answer to no one, and exist only as their nature dictates, but they are fiercely territorial. Thankfully, stone elementals can not simply swim through stone and soil, like certain other elementals.”

Elder raises an eyebrow as I gaze up-leftward in thought. If they had a method of quickly erecting stone walls, unleashing the rock elementals in an area, and trapping their foes in it is deadly. I mean, I’m living proof. Hah! I barely restrain myself from laughing at the revelation, and oxymoron. My being alive proves how deadly they are? Sometimes I’m astounded that my brain functions at all, with how weird it gets.

Elder, still hidden by their gray cloak, says, “Perhaps you’ve guessed. We hoped to ensnare the next Dwarves sent to hurt us, sent to demand our hard-labored food. Our Miza has, hm, what’s the word, it’s not one I’d be familiar with from back then. I think you might call it geomancy. Her sorcery specializes in stone, though she has more than just earthmoving magic. Minor healing and the like. She had only enough power left after erecting our trap to do very little for you. Not that healing magics are powerful enough to do much more even when a sorceress is fully rested.”

Elder surmises, “To be truly attuned to healing magics, I don’t think such a being exists on our world. They would need to, I’m not certain, be able to rewind a person’s injuries to before they occurred, or skip forward to the time when they were fully healed. Perhaps. I only conjecture, as such a being doesn’t exist. They’d likely rule this world if they did. I mean, can you imagine? Someone with control over the flow of time?”

Hah, hahahaha. Hahaha. I’m biting my lips so hard, holding back laughter with such intensity that I’m crying. It’s exhausting, and I feel myself passing out once more due to the effort. Crap, I’d like to get to know more about Elder and these lands, and Dippy and Scrap. Guess I’ll have t-.

I swirl in a maelstrom of white, it takes a moment to orient before I realize that it’s not a solid white. It’s simply such a condensed mass of souls that we have nearly no room. From outside it must look like the wax of a candle. Now that I’ve made it to the edge of our cylindrical, transparent prison, I spy a brilliant, hostile glow below. Its intensity is heat and hatred, like the fiery depths of some hell. It’s speaking in languages I don’t understand, yet I comprehend them.

“My fragment has not yet returned with the prime soul, fine, let us see if we can reach elsewhere. Each of you is a universe waiting to happen. Which of you has a wealth on your other side?”

It’s ages, yet also only an instant, but this hatred, this malevolent force somehow thins out the number of souls in our prison. Each one pulled from within is ignited in a silent scream, a last, tortured gasp of pained breath within the wraith of the entity. Forever. Eternity. Denied to each of us that is taken and spent. The evil of the force knows no limits, soul after soul. Bumping into one, I recollect a shared memory. We’d known each other in life. They’re being taken next, but in this tortured existence, they’re all I know of happiness or friendship. They scream and cry in fear. I latch-on to their ethereal essence, struggling in vain to at least keep them within our prison. Instead I’m drawn along.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

The entity almost seems curious that the soul it is spending, igniting, burning away to unseen ashes, has a passenger. I’m not noticed until too late in the process, somehow I’ve bought my freedom. It’s not a life, hell, not even an existence. I’m merely a short observation. The entity peers into the other side of the soul of my friend. A vast reality occurs, its own eternity spent in an instant. For the shortest moment, I see through the eyes of one of its denizens. My mind is its mind, I am no longer capable of conscious thought.

Whew, glad that I was talked into these armored motorcycle leathers. Even with my new strength, I’ve taken a few short tumbles already. I’m getting better at climbing by the moment though. Hm, oddly it feels like I’m being watched. It can’t be her though, since the GPS signal is still so far away, and moving still. Oddly, she seems to be coming back towards this direction. I’m tempted to try texting my old number, but the screen on that phone is broken, I’m not sure what good it would do.

The scenery out here is breathtaking. I can’t believe I never even thought to go out for a hike, a climb, or anything. The inspiration for my artwork and scenery sketches is almost palpable. I mean, it’s about noon at the moment, so the sun’s rays are cascading off the snowy cliffs, lighting the peaks of the mountain range far into the distance. It’s just gorgeous. As each moment passes, the twinkling dances along the snowy slopes, light glinting in a new way in minuscule adjustments second by second, mirroring the rotation of the planet.

I’m tempted to see just how good the sketch function is on this new phone, but I don’t know how long I can stay safely out on this climb. I want to get to her before it gets dark, if there is any chance she really exists. I just want to thank her for saving my life. That’s, that’s all I need. Then I’ll go back to my apartment, I’ll run Pflopsie for more info and analysis. I’ll let her go on with her life. She doesn’t owe me anything. She did call me her best friend though, her partner. Why would you do that, save someone’s life, then disappear? I just hope she’ll hear me out, if she’s real, if I find her.

I’m still uncertain though. I mean, almost super strength? Bleeding weirdly? Healing within days, recovering in a week instead of weeks to months? Winning a sweepstakes that I don’t remember entering, and it being directly deposited? Gladys having my wallet and keys ready for me, as if they’d simply been dropped in a lost and found box while I was in the hospital? I might still be in the hospital bed, having a fever dream. She just, she has to be real though. Right?

Ugh, what am I even doing out here? Chasing the GPS signal of a broken phone that can’t possibly have remained charged for this long. I sit in the snow atop a small boulder, rest my elbows on my knees and drop my face into my hands. I feel tears streaming down my cheeks. It’s so far from my normal, I don’t know how to parse reality right now. Even since the attack. I mean, me, charging at a colossal bug to try to save some shaggy stray labrador? It swatted me like, well like a bug, hah. Founder’s Rock remains uncracked, so there’s very little evidence the whole thing happened. I mean, none. No real evidence at all.

A yearning, a tug at my very soul pleads with me, begs me to believe it. It’s certain she is out there. Somewhere. Somewhere in this mountain range. Maybe she’s some sort of snow fox? What are they called, fennec foxes? No, I think it’s just Arctic foxes.

Alright, enough self-doubt and self-pity already, yeesh. If nothing else, we’re just exercising our new stupidly-strong super-muscles. I mean, we have a standing leap that’s Olympic levels, pull-ups and free-climbing are almost effortless. We lifted that freaking sofa over our head, spooking our neighbors. Ugh, I keep slipping into the plural. Bad habit I’ve had since I was a kid. Don’t you mean since we were a kid? Heh. No, I’m joking. The only me in my mind is me.

Alright, alright already. Let’s get climbing. I think a ridge bridges the gap between this mountain and the next at the next rise. Hopefully it’s crestable. I don’t want to have to walk all the way down to the base of the far side of this mountain then climb back up the next, and repeat that over and over. Let’s pick up the pace some, we should probably turn around at around two or three in the afternoon to get back before it gets dark, and too cold. We didn’t buy camping equipment, just this climber’s axe pick thing, this belt harness with hammer and pitons and rope. I bought extra rope that I’ve got coiled up like some sort of boxer’s wraps on each arm, under the jacket, just in case.

Whew, okay, thankfully the ridge did lead between the mountains, I didn’t have to scale one mountain and the next over and over, returning to the base each time. Even still, I’ve covered a couple of miles only, and it seems like her GPS location is finally relatively stable. She’s maybe traveling back and forth between two points that are relatively close to each other. It’s almost like she’s, huh. Patrolling? That’s a weird assumption though, right? I mean, my supposed partner, my protector and savior, patrolling between two spots on a mountain, miles away from the city? I’m not even sure what’s weird versus normal anymore though.

Brr, you ever get the feeling you’re being watched? I’m not all that cold, despite climbing snowy mountains. Yet I shuddered as if someone had just walked over my grave. It’s not her though, she’s still a ways off to the northeast. I accidentally went too far west. Well, not accidentally. I was heading towards where I guessed her GPS location might pop up next, before I realized or found out that the GPS kept popping up between these two points. Huffing a sigh, I struggle to find a way to course-correct. Suddenly I’m blinking rapidly in confusion.

Did, did I just see a, a black dragon? I mean, it almost looked like, I mean, no way, right? It sort of seemed like it was stitched together like some sort of Frankenstein’s monster. Or maybe it was wearing pleather, and the pleather was stitched? Why would a dragon wear pleather? Why would a dragon wear anything? Hey, goober, more pertinent question. Hm? Why would a dragon exist!? Wow, right, yeah. I’m so far from normal. I must be hallucinating again. It was probably just a trick of the light. Besides, it’s like it was moving too fast to really get a decent look at, so it was probably a cloud shadow or some..thing. The sky is entirely, totally, one hundred percent clear. I gnaw on my lip nervously while glancing around.

Okay, it has been like an hour or so since I saw that black dragon, or, well, thought I saw something anyway. I’m finally making progress towards her GPS location again. Or well, the southwestern location that she seems to stop at. W,w,what is, is that? Is that an avalanche!? Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap. Why didn’t I think about just, just normal mundane disasters!? I’m going to die from snow, after living through all that nonsense! No no no no! Dashing for the nearest tree, I leap towards it as the snow plows towards me.

Thankfully I’m light, so I don’t just plow the tree over, but over the roar of the falling snow is the audible creak, groan, and cracking of the trunk. I keep scrabbling up and down, trying to find the safest position in the tree. Near the top, I’d hasten it being toppled by the avalanche, too low, and I could be swept away by the tide of snow. Two massive shadows passing across me swiftly in the early evening sun send a new wave of concern and fear through me.

There’s no way. Right? I, I think I just saw a werewolf fighting a dragon in the sky, leaping after and tearing into each other. I, I think I’m going to faint. This whole thing must have been a nightmare. The adrenaline is bringing me towards the edge of passing out. If there’s any chance that this is real though, I need to hang in here. Fight. Fight it. Just, just a bit longer, the snow is almost settling, though the trunk is snapped halfway through. Oh no. There is definitely a werewolf fighting a dragon, and they’ve spotted me.