Despite Teuila’s herculean efforts, the metal sheets never broke all the way through. Cracks formed near the center of both metals, but she wasn’t able to finish snapping either sheet. She’s not willing to let me empower my frost rune again, and I’m honestly glad of that. It wiped me out something fierce. With our ghostly steeds back in place, I hop into the carriage’s cab, only to be assaulted by Tiktik. Well, perhaps assaulted is a strong word.
Tiktik conjured a packet of flour, and strung her bottle of everpure above the door to the cabin. I’m now wet, and sticky with flour. Tiktik and Teuila are giggling like madbeasts, at least they’re enjoying themselves. Oh, you think this is funny too Bud? Would you like me to use you to stir up this mess and clean it off of me? Hah. I didn’t think so. It’s alright anyway. Tiktik and I both have that cleaning cantrip.
After seeing me give her a half incredulous, half smiling glare, Tiktik hops over to me to clean me off with her magic. She gets extremely intimately close, sniffing me all the while. I raise an eyebrow curiously at her, but she doesn’t explain her actions or motivations. This isn’t the first time in my life someone has decided to take in my scent on multiple occasions. I shrug, and Teuila follows suit, shrugging as well. Time to get back to it. Same thing, day in and day out, travel and runecraft, travel and runecraft.
As we while away the days pleasantly enough, it gets harder to make my quota of six runes per day. Each time we stop to rest, I’m more fatigued than the previous day’s rest stop. At this point, I’ve awoken on what I think is our last day of travel before reaching Noirdivinhoz, but my limbs are leaden. I should only have three more runes to go for the spell, but I can’t move my biceps, and I can barely lift my arms at all by bending my elbows.
I can practice the runes without moving, but if I’ve been overexerting myself, pushing this hard, should I? I’m on this unknowable deadline as my doomsday clock continues to tick life away. So that’s one point for pushing through the strain. It might be putting strain on Kozzurth’s dragonforce protecting my Changeling inner-self against more mana use though. One point against pushing onward. Hm. Eh, I’m me, of course I’m going to do the stupid risky thing that risks my own life if there’s an opportunity I could save someone else’s. Like, I don’t know, if an acid spewing dragon shows up at Daffodil’s home, and I could either get out of the way, or cast Steely Body in time to stand in front of her, taking the blast to cover Daffodil who would be too slow to dodge it, well, massive point in favor of pushing through.
Yes Bud, I know the odds of that are astronomically low. I know, risking my own life now to be able to more safely risk my own life later doesn’t make a lot of sense, hah. This is me we’re talking about. How much sense have I made to you in our journey so far? Pft, exactly, hah. Yeah I’m going to finish up before we arrive. We should be there sometime around morning on the tenth of August. Hopefully she won’t mind us showing up, and hopefully she’ll be willing to both evacuate herself, and help spread word to evacuate others.
Anyway, runecrafting time. Yeah, I was probably going to no matter what, so puzzling it out was pretty pointless, sorry. Yep, let’s get to it. If you sense me like, really dying, tell me to stop or eat or something. No, I don’t know what that would sense like, but I figure since you can read the story written on my inner self, that you might see Kozzurth’s dragonforce poof or something. Yeah, that purple aura. Thanks Bud.
I practice and I practice and I practice for hours and hours yet as we slowly approach Noirdivinhoz. I’m in a feverish sweat at this point, but I’m nearly done mastering the thirty third rune. Moreover, several of the runes I’ve been mastering while learning this spell apply to a number of other spells in the books, a massive stroke of luck. Huff, huff. Phew. This, this is rough. Just, just a few more. I’m, I’m barely at my halfway point. It hadn’t been this bad previously.
I struggle to lift my arms, and I’m barely able to wipe my brow with the back of my right hand. As it drops back down into my lap, I notice my hand is streaked with red. What in the? I’m literally sweating blood. Teuila’s telepathic avatar pops into my thinkspace as she turns towards me in meatspace from having been zoned out in a tome of her own. The swiftness of her motion causes Teuila to drop the heavy tome to the floor. The tome’s sudden thud snaps Tiktik from whatever reverie she’d been busying herself with, and now all eyes are on me, in and out of my head.
In the instant that this is all happening, Teuila, in meatspace and thinkspace, as she’s turning towards me, gasps, “You’re what!?” in response to my thoughts about my sweat.
Teuila frowns as she condescends, “Air, just, what the hell. Oh my Airhead, I could just, ugh, I could just beat you up. You, you, you Airhead! Don’t kill yourself trying to learn a spell to help keep you from getting killed ya big jerk!”
I blush with chagrin, and I can’t even lift my arm to scratch the back of my head nervously. I’m so close though, between one and ten more attempts, I’m sure of it.
Teuila telepathically catches my line of thought and growls out loud in meatspace at me, “I swear to all the gravity I can muster, I will knock you senseless if you try to scribe one more rune right now Airhead. Just take a little nap or something for crying out loud. We’ve got at least a quarter of an hour to an hour or two before we should be in sight range of Daffy’s place. Just, ugh. Rest! Please?”
Tiktik hems and haws before adding, “Erm, yeah, I’m with Teuila on this one buddy. You two got a bit famous back in The Brook, but a bunch of that fame was sort of how Reggie seems to be kind of always almost dead or dying. Despite being weirdly magical and powerful. Things like bleeding everywhere, passing out in the street, passing out in taverns without getting drunk, y’know. Stuff that an urban bountyhunter would overhear when asking about suspicious characters. ‘Cause, uh, you two stand out, a lot. Though I heard Teuila was a lot fuzzier. I mean, not that that matters. It’s not like I’m unused to shape shifters, being from the Fae’s Wilds, so, whatevs, y’dig? Only--”
Tiktik catches herself before reusing the joke she’s used several times over our days of travel together. It’s almost a compulsion with her. I think she’s the most lawfully chaotic individual, or chaotically lawful individual that has ever existed, if there were any sort of faction breakdown of moral compass alignments anyway. I mean, I’m sure Tiktik is squarely in the good category along the axis of good versus evil, but it’s like she took a two dimensional graph, and decided to add her own Z axis to make law and chaos meet at her own point. Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me if she could actually tamper with reality and do something like that. She’s a rather powerful sorceress.
Teuila nudges me as our carriage begins to falter and its motion stutters. She prods, “Seems like our ghostie ghost horses are about to ghost us ‘cause they don’t want to stick around while you’re this tired anyway, they’ll probably poof when you fall asleep. It’s okay to take breaks. I know you’re scared what will happen to all of us if we don’t save you in time, but, but I can’t lose you before then. Okay? I won’t accept losing you when that dragonforce timer wears out, and I won’t accept losing you before then either.”
I flash a weak smile at Teuila. I’m about to cast the cleansing spell, when I realize how pissed Teuila would be at me for doing so right now. I plead, “Tiktik? I, uh, can’t really cast anything right now. Could you maybe help me get this blood off with your magic?”
Tiktik chuckles and hops to stand in the space between the seats. I think she might be even shorter than me in my current cherubic form. She makes a big show of it jokingly chanting, “Allakhazam kapoof, help clean off this bloody doof!”
Teuila snirks, as she tries to fight back laughter at Tiktik’s antics. Thankfully though, Tiktik’s spell works fine, and I’m able to rest my head towards Teuila’s lap without bloodying her dress. Teuila’s mental avatar rolls her eyes as if to say, “You’re bleeding, dying, and -that’s- what you worry about?”
Teuila telepathically sends, “That’s exactly right buster. Ya big goober. Go on, get to sleep, I’ll do some extra foraging with Bud’s help. Sound okay Bud? Thanks Lullaby.”
As much as I’d been hoping my nap would be on Teuila’s comfortable lap, it looks like I’ll be curled up on the firm seat cushion itself instead. Tiktik apparently sees my dilemma, and pats her own lap before throwing her arms wide in an offered hug. If I could move, I’d be moved. I flash Tiktik a weak smile at her offer, and she seems to realize my state is a bit more severe than it had appeared.
Tiktik hops over to the seat I’m on, chiding, “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were pranking me just to get some cuddles buster. Hehe, kidding. You look rough Reggie. Rest up friendo. I bet you’ll be glad when we get back to The Brook, so you can sleep in a bed, instead of curled up in a carriage cabin. Oh, uh oh. I didn’t finish my job. I won’t have any pay waiting for me at The Brook. Fuzzbuckets. Looks like I’ll have to sleep in the carriage since I’m broke.”
I roll my eyes at Tiktik’s lamentation, offering, “Tiktik, Teuila and I are cuddlesome as hell. Back home, on our world? Every night, we’d end our days cuddled up amongst a whole slew of family and friends. Later on, when we could finally develop a nice big home, and big beds, we still had, what, four or five people in it on the regular? I mean, that is to say, if you’re amenable, you could just share our bed. If not, we can cover you. Heck, I hereby officially offer you a position as a bounty-hunting bodyguard or something. What’s your going rate, and per diem? It’s yours.”
Tiktik avoids my gaze and scratches the back of her head as she blushes. She mutters, “Just a, uh, a few coppers per day, but I’d feel bad taking your money. I wasn’t joining you for that. It sounds like you guys really need the help, and I love helping friends, especially helping them smile or laugh. It’s probably my favorite thing to do.”
If I could move my hands I’d take hers in an effort to focus and calm Tiktik. Instead, I simply state, “Don’t worry about money. Ms. Clocktok, you’re offering your aid to people who barely understand the value of economic wealth on this world. Have you seen how much gem dust we’re accumulating as we grind the gems up for reagents? We won’t need to worry about monetary wealth for a long time to come.”
Tiktik gnaws her lip as her face contorts before asking, “Um, about that? That’s got to be from your guys’ world, right? Or some place like the ‘Twixt. As far as I know, these mountains are bare of almost anything valuable, since like ancient times, back when dragons would make their lairs in them. At least in the circle around Vale Valley. I don’t know about further out.”
I nod my head, which squishes her thighs pleasantly against the back of my skull as I respond, “Aye, yeah. Just a bunch of Can’Z’aasian stuff, as if every day was the deepest area of the ‘Twixt, constantly spewing out rewarding encounters and stuff like that. Only, every creature to combat was dropping, err, leaving behind as they derezzed, at least wealth, or materials, or both. I’m not sure if it’s like that in the ‘Twixt.”
Tiktik approximates the so-so gesture, meaning more or less as she comments, “Eh, not quite like that, but random treasure chests, at least the ones that don’t turn out to be some ooze creature mimicking a chest in disguise, well, those would show up in all kinds of dead ends in buildings that were created by the ‘Twixt for adventuring types. I left all that wealthy stuff for my family, ‘cause I felt so guilty. I hated how they looked at me the last time I saw them.” Tiktik sniffles while avoiding my gaze for a moment, but when she turns her eyes towards me again, she comments, “Your eyes look real heavy buddy, like you’re going to fall asleep any mo—“
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I pass out in the comfort and relative safely of a powerful sorceress’s lap.
From within this jar of souls, now that I know where we are, I can spy the fiery beast that rends and eats. It’s a fierce glow, a constantly lapping flame with nearly no form, yet it will extend its tongues of flame as humanoid limbs in order to snatch soul after soul for devouring. It speaks aloud to no one near, yet it gives commands and orders as if it expects them to be followed out by someone distant, capable of acting on its orders.
The voice of damnation itself commands a follower, “Tell the scaled nuisance that if he wants to continue enjoying his final twilight year, to send some capable underling to southeastern Aasimovia. Have them destroy that wretched temple which attempts to hide souls from me.”
Thinking on something as a realization occurs, the hellish voice adds, “Let Terrorzin know that though he knows his number is up, he doesn’t know who will punch his clock. Put the fear of Bright Lord into him. Remind him that until my plans are complete, he and his underlings are to remain in his gilded cage along the Spine of the World unless I so command otherwise!”
The faceless lapping flames turn their attention back to us in this jar of souls. Its stark, red, pupil-less eyes are its only distinguishable feature unless it purposely manifests a limb with which to pull yet another soul from the jar.
The being behind the eyes gazes greedily down upon its prize, and asks with no hint of humor, “Have you finished pickling yet? No, still not afraid enough. Not sad enough. Perhaps not smart enough to realize the horror you find yourself in. Fine, let’s see where you lead.”
The faceless flames extend a lapping tongue of flame that takes shape into a humanoid arm and hand. It plucks yet another of us, a soul, from the jar. It forms another arm and hand, this one formed with long, jagged claws with which to rend. The beast slashes into the soul in its grip, somehow managing to tear it asunder over a massive, steaming, screaming cauldron. The shreds of ghostly white, pure energy fall like feathers floating down to rest upon the cauldron’s boiling surface. Once there, they’re sucked down into whatever ghastly cocktail is being cooked up, and a vortex once more forms above the cauldron.
I’ve seen it many times now, and still it baffles me. Its as if storm clouds form a cyclone that tears a hole in the space above. It appears that through that hole is some illusion of life, some fantasy, some other world. After this, the forty second soul boiled away, the cauldron will empty once more, and the beast will begin the process anew. For now, it observes the scene through the portal above it, waiting for its chance once more.
An opportunity arises, and the beast extends a limb through this tear in space. It grunts, and hisses as if in pain or under strain as it grips and pulls souls as if from nowhere. Most times, it only manages to snag a single soul, vexing the beast. This time, the vision was centered amidst the chaos of a grand battlefield. Hundreds, perhaps thousands were dying. The beast manages to ensnare dozens upon dozens of souls, making up for its recent losses as it siphons them into our jar of pickling souls.
It wishes for us to become sad and afraid, it wants us to steep in negative emotions. It prevents one final soul from joining us in the jar, and instead draws the soul hungrily to an approximation of an open maw within its own eternal flames. As with so many others, whoever that soul used to be now ceases to exist.
I awaken to being in a bit of a triangular pile with Tiktik and Teuila. The two giggle at some shared joke as I’m slowly rousing to stretch. I yawn, and accidentally end up stretching my arm and hand into awkward locations before I blush and withdraw by recoiling. The two just laugh at my overreaction, and Tiktik playfully shoves me out of the pile so that I’m able to sit up, and we can all disentangle ourselves.
Teuila teases, “So, I heard you already offered Tiktik our bed, huh Airhead? Already that anxious to get into bed with another Fae? Am I going to have to start sending invites to every Fae cutie we run across, just so that I can beat you to it to flirt with some of them?”
I wear a face of discomfort and embarrassment to high heaven, my lips drawn tightly in mortification. They form a wide straight line while my eyes are wide. I gulp, and blush as I steam red all the way to my ear tips. I cough and leave the cabin without engaging in Teuila’s tease, so that I don’t pass out from embarrassment, and so that I can re-summon our horses. There’s the slightest tremor that I’m able to perceive with my enhanced senses. The ground vibrates as if there’s an earthquake occurring within a few dozen miles. How odd. I didn’t know Rayileklia even had tectonic movement, or earthquakes.
We’re on the road again in moments, and I feel refreshed enough to practice this final rune a few more times. Huffing with exhaustion, I finally finish mastering it as Teuila bounces excitedly. She knows that both we’re drawing near to the last bend before we should spot Daffodil’s dwelling, and that I’ve finished learning a spell that will likely save my life. If I’ve got the S P to cast it in its quickened form when I’m in need of it at least.
Speaking of being in need of it. We are indeed within sight of Daffodil’s dwellings. We’re all aghast at the sight. Where there should stand the reed, straw, and thatch hale is a instead a smoking puddle of viscous ichor. What might have been most of an adobe home is slag and rubble. In fact, it’s still steaming. The small canyon towards the entrance to Noirdivinhoz looks like it was caved in by a landslide. This happened within the last few hours. But judging by the chemical burns and smoke wafting from the rocks, it wasn’t a natural earthquake. Plus, it wouldn’t explain Daffodil’s home way over here being a melted puddle.
Teuila cries out, “Daffy! Oh no!” We’re both worried the kind lady who tended to the secret temple of Noirdivinhoz is dead. Never mind curious as to what could have done this, I just want to know if we can find Daffodil, if maybe she wasn’t home when this occurred.
We stop the cart, and the three of us exit it to approach the massive puddle that we knew to be Daffodil’s home. Well, Teuila and I knew, Tiktik probably never met her. The chemical stench wafting off of the steaming liquid assails even my nostrils which mostly lack a sense of smell. The odor stings and clings to the inside of my nasal membranes, eating away at them, causing my eyes to water. Once it’s identified as dangerous, my neckchain of the ever-breathing kicks in and prevents any more from entering my mouth, nose, or eyes.
Teuila reaches down to touch the puddle with curiosity and I’m forced to yell out, “Wait, Te, don’t! It’s really, really strong acid. It turned her home into mush. Even her newer, adobe home is basically completely ruined.”
I walk over to the pile of rubble that must have been where Daffodil was finally piecing together all the adobe she had been curing as bricks over the years, in order to build herself a warmer home. I try to indicate the chemical burns, and the puddling liquid, when suddenly there’s coughing, groaning, and shifting from beneath the rubble.
The three of us rush to the side of the rubble the noises are coming from. We dig and scrabble at the brick, occasionally scraping or melting bits of our fingers as we work frantically, somewhat carelessly, seeking the source of the sounds. Daffodil’s in there! She’s, oh hellspit. She’s missing her entire right arm, and her right leg is dreadfully wounded. We need to get her to Tiago and George right away. It’s still three days ride though to The Brook.
I can sense that Teuila’s worried that I’ll blame her for arriving late to this scene. Of course I don’t blame Teuila. I blame myself for being so weak and tired that I needed the rest. The earthquake after I woke up must have been whatever caused the rockslide that buried Noirdivinhoz.
Weakly, after coughing, while still struggling to blink vision back into her eyes, Daffodil asks, “Is that beastly lady gone? Oh heavens. It’s my young malihini friends, returning ma uka from ma kai? It’s good you weren’t here a scant few minutes or hour or so earlier. Unless I was unconscious beneath that lot for longer than it felt. I don’t think I’d be alive if it were much longer though, there was very little air. I'm in your debt for your timely arrival.”
The three of us ask in unison, “Beastly lady?”
We carefully lift Daffodil with us towards the cart as she explains, “Dreadful woman in all black, thin, wispy gossamer clothing, more like veils than travel-wear. Everything about her seemed to shimmer slightly too, like polished metal, or scales. She carried herself with all the air of a predator, like every last thing around her was prey she could destroy at any moment, like everything was beneath her. I could swear she belched acid over my hale. By the state of it, maybe she did after all. I wanted to defend myself, but couldn’t bring myself to move towards her, I felt frozen in fear.”
Daffodil pauses, caught in a coughing fit before she continues her explanation, “The best I could do was crawl into my imu, I made this one bigger this time, in case I should ever need to entertain more malihini guests popping out of Noirdivinhoz. Seems that’s unlikely to happen for a very long time now.” She grunts in pain as she struggles with each breath. Daffodil mutters a conclusion to her hypothesis, “Will take me years to clear the rock from the pass, maybe decades. Not sure I’m up to it with only one arm.”
Daffodil coughs once more as tears of pain stream from her eyes. Despite all this, she jokes, “Guess I should have gotten married, had a child after all. No one left to tend Noirdivinhoz when I’m gone, and I’ve got one foot in the grave, while the other one is half melted. Looks like my departure isn’t long off. I suppose that might be the task my body chooses after I die. I’m sure it would continue to steward Noirdivinhoz, and perhaps work tirelessly to clear it. Well, if that lady doesn’t return to simply boil my body to nothing. Worse, I’m not sure I’d even be able to join the ancestors in shambling around, something’s wrong with Aasimovian magic. It’s like they all vanished, no one in The Brook had any explanation on my recent visit.”
Oh no. Of course Daffodil doesn’t know. No one knows why the ancestors’ vanished. It was because their bodies were wrought to dust, and now any magic that attempts to create a new one, will likely result in little more than a pile of dust or ash. No one knows save me, and Teuila. Well, perhaps my mentor, Jarrah Bettergrove, and his aids Alanea Whifflewillow and Flint Darklace might know. Possibly even Percival the Potted Plant, since he adventured with us long enough to overhear us talking about Dawn’s curse.
I fight through a wave of sadness to beg Daffodil, “Daffodil, come with us, you need treatment. San Tiago might be able to help you. We were headed to The Brook, and wanted to stop by to ask you to come with us regardless. There’s a lot we need to catch you up on.”
Daffodil, despite the pain causing her to grit her teeth, jokes in the face of the agony, “You don’t have to twist my arm, not that you could, since it’s a melted pile somewhere back in there. I’m either the luckiest, or unluckiest old lady on Rayileklia that you two should return, and with a carriage no less. I doubt I’d survive mudcamping to The Brook. The pretty young Fae wahini someone you picked up on your travels ma kai? No sign of the rest of your six?”
I gulp back sadness as I nod to Daffodil’s first question, and shake my head at her second. Luni, Lil, and Lucky, the triple L squad went to the Hidden Heart ahead of us, apparently had some short adventure there, then saw the Sisters hidden in the mist ahead of us, and then were pointed in the direction of the Spine of the World. At least, that’s what I gathered from what the Sisters told us.
Daffodil’s eyes begin to roll back in her head, and she starts to convulse. I struggle not to panic as we set her gently in the cabin, propped up across the seats and across our belongings to give her the most comfortable journey. It leaves little room for the three of us save the one cushion nearest the door on the rear side of the carriage, but she has to survive for us to worry about travel arrangements.
I offer, “Daffodil, I have a potion, they’re incredibly rare. We’ve only ever encountered maybe four or five across two worlds, and these are the only two in our possession. Teuila has one, and I’ve got a smaller one. Either one should be able to save your life, but it will be excruciating feeling your flesh knit itself in rapid order. Do you consent? Daffodil? Please, please try to focus.”
I glance at Teuila in fear as Daffodil continues to be unresponsive. The shock of her injuries catches up with her and is beginning to take her life. Teuila nods resolutely at my unspoken question. No questions asked. We’re saving Daffodil’s life, with one of the rarest potions in existence.
I apologize, “I’m not sure if you can hear me right now Daffodil, this is going to hurt, but you have to keep the fluid down. Don’t throw it up. We’ve only got the two bottles. Please, please try to hear me, please try to keep it down, no matter how agonizing it is.”
Tiktik helps me administer the potion with her magical floating hand, while Teuila helps hold Daffodil’s body steady against its convulsions. As we finish getting the fluid into Daffodil’s throat, Tiktik’s magic hand massages her esophagus, guiding the potion down to be swallowed so that it takes effect. All we can do now is wait, and hope that she can bear with the pain long enough for the potion to close her wounds at the very least.