Looking down at my severed left arm, I shake my head incredulously as I loose my grip on the non. I give in to stupefication while staring at it. It flops about like a fish out of water for a few moments, exceedingly disconcertingly. I picture it being about to start walking around on its fingers. Thank everything good in the world that it doesn’t do that. Reggie? Yeah? How do you plan to finish the war with one arm?
Somehow, I don’t think that that’s the big issue here, or that it’ll be that much of a problem. What? Why not? Check my stump. Gazing towards my shoulder, I virtually leap out of my own skin attempting to recoil in horror, incapable of escaping the visual since it follows me. What with being attached to me and all. Yeeeugughuughhh!! Why would you tell me to look at that! I’unno. I think Teuila thinks it’s pretty cool. You are out of your… my mind.
As if in rebuttal, Teuila giggles and responds, “Nah, other you is right. I was worried for all of like half a split second, before I saw your arm stump instantly close up and start growing weird veiny digital stuff. Looks like you’ll have a full new arm in a couple minutes at most. S’kinda cool. Almost like you’re immortal down he—oh.”
The horror sinks in slowly, begging us to give in to the realization that dawns on us. What would happen if trapped down here. Incapable of dying. It’s the sort of creeping dread that escalates the longer you think about it. The more you imagine an eternity devoid of meaningfulness, trapped with only whispered voices that beg you to give in to insanity.
Let’s not think about that! Shall we? What do you wanna think about? I dunno, me missing an arm is a pretty big deal. For a few more minutes anyway. Or that arm of mine, just sitting there.
I really, really don’t want Terrorzin to have an extra copy of one of my arms. I’d rather not know what kind of sick twisted rituals he might be able to do with it, with his necromancers or whatever. I don’t need to be facing a clone army of zombie mes. So… I… have to take my arm… with me… when I leave. That is the most effed up sentence I can imagine saying about traveling home from some place.
Nah, you can imagine way more effed up stuff than that. Shut it! I don’t want to! Oh come on Te. This butthead’s giving me a real hard time! Fine, fine, enjoy laughing. Ugh, it’s such a cute laugh. You’re ridiculous, and—.
Interrupting me, Teuila finishes, “And you love me for it. Right Air, babe?”
Sighing, I nod as I give in to Teuila’s silliness, wearing a soft smile as I gaze tenderly upon a floating facsimile of a lighting effect from a videogame. Somehow, even if my perceptions were stuck this way, for the rest of my life, or lives, I’d still remain just as in love with her. Trying to keep from waxing poetic, I add, the complete and utter goober with inappropriate timing that she is.
Pouting playfully, Teuila frumps, “Hmph! See if you get anymore midbattle snuggles.”
Neither of us can keep a straight face at her claim though. We begin a Shellcracker Family Slap Fight, an SFSF, by placing one of our hands in each other’s faces, which the other one chases away with their hands, repeat ad nauseum til we give in to a giggle fit, giggling like goons. It feels nice to genuinely have such laughter with Teuila. Despite being surrounded by vacating senses, and cosmic horror. We both know neither of us is going to stop with our ridiculously inappropriate timing of affection for each other.
Sighing, this realm is making it impossible for me to come up with solutions beyond my backup plan though. And my backup plan requires certain items, and that precipitates only me being here, because I’m the only one that could get back once I use them. I’m forced to give in and use my backup plan. Phooph. How do I even begin trying to explain this?
Taking a breath, I start, “Te, so, well, what I’m going to need, is going to need you to not be here to try. Which means Nyssa’Lina can’t be here either. Which means you’ve gotta get them home safely. While there, you’ve gotta talk to Nala and Littlebit.”
There’s dubiousness across our mental wavelength, as Teuila waits for me to explain. I don’t know how to describe using and breaking magic’s rules, to break the pan-dimensional effect, by warping a region in space across all universes, to another dimension entirely. Thankfully, Te trusts me well enough, that I don’t need to explain it.
There is one thing I need to explain though, I need Te to pass on a message back in Verdimenn. So I relay, “I’ll need Littlebit and Nala to be ready, signal-generating back in Verdimenn, clear out the ‘nasty weirdos warren’, demolishing the respawning resources, despite losing unique resources, because I needs a Can’Z’aasian digital shop aura to pull this off. Well, to pull off the final part of my plan. To get everyone who’s still in this room, in another dimension, home to Verdimenn.”
Gnawing my lip, I give in to worrying, because I’m going to be giving up one of the worst possible secrets, to someone that was Terrorzin’s high commander only hours ago. Maybe technically still is, if Terrorzin hasn’t found out about the defection yet. I gaze down at them as they sit with their forearms on their knees. They alternate between resting their head on their forearms, or leaning their head back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling unblinkingly.
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Gently moving near them to get their attention, I start, “Nyssa… you’re a Lightning, probably one of the eldest around, especially since the loss of the Onyx Dawn’s previous ‘The Blue’. You’re powerful, resilient. You’re going to—you might learn something, something earth-shattering, mindblowing, while traveling with Teuila. It’s only a recent development, but it’s a secret one, and must remain so. You accepted our mercy, so we’re bringing you into our home.”
Shaking my head momentarily, I add, “I don’t generally make demands of people who accept my mercy, but I promise you, I am going to do everything in my power, and beyond if I have to, to make this situation better. To fix what I can. All that I request is that you do not give up the info you learn, to anyone else, until the end of this war.”
How much can I give away? Should I have Teuila blindfold Nyssa? Should I have Teuila blindfold herself? Rattling my skull, I request, “Te? I need your hyperdimensional pack, or whichever interdimensional pouch you’re carrying. Make sure it’s empty. I’ll need the pocket hole to stay too. I’m sorry babe. They probably won’t be coming back.”
Pouting, Te eyes me suspiciously, but her brain catches on quickly enough. Her pout turns to a frown when she realizes what I might be intending to do. The dubious incredulity awash upon the face of her mental avatar speaks the volumes that her silence doesn’t. I mouth that I promise to try to make it up to her.
For a start, I offer up, “Te, remember how you’d use my TK squares to reorient your leaps midair? Have you tried leaving your Honoris Causa intangible, except for one part to place your feet against and bounce or jump off of?”
My smile feels derpily wide when I can tell that Teuila is beaming with joy at the realization that she’s her own double-jump, triple-jump, xyz forever jump. Her leaps are so powerful, that being able to redirect them midair gives her her maximum velocity back, at all points in her arc of travel. We hold each other and kiss softly, for the briefest eternity.
It feels like no time at all, yet also an eon passes. During that time, Teuila gently coaches Nyssa’Lina into coming along as Te plans to ascend past the Worldstorm, and head back to Solace. As she does that, I coach Te into how to navigate the Worldstorm with her Latent and Honoris Causa.
Unlike my trip, which took a massive amount of dragonforce, hers will take two tiny blips of dragonforce. One at the bottom of the hollowed out storm, one at the top. Though I don’t reveal the secret. I just tell her about the two blips, and that anything she learns while in the storm has to remain secret.
This leaves me needing to survive and stay sane for fifteen minutes. Or more. Our goggles haven’t been working in here. Which makes sense, because we’re partially in another realm. The only reason Teuila’s worked is because she stealthed out intending to come call me down to the vault.
I’m unlikely to be able to stealth anywhere with no one else distracting Terrorzin’s horde, since FFS is dissipated by now. So I can’t contact Littlebit or Nala to let them know the plan. I have to wait for Te to get home and do it. I also can’t be within range of the effect that’s going to happen. I do my best to cluster the conjoined broodmother, and their projection, into the smallest area around the tear, and deploy the portable hole symmetrically between them.
Counting down the seconds is barely keeping me tethered to reality. But eight hundred seconds, plus a few more minutes to make sure Teuila got home and talked to Littlebit, is agony here. Swallowing, I grimace, because it invites another flavor passenger down my throat. The thing wriggles about happily, and at least it’s a simple flavor, disgusting though it is. It tastes like snot.
Of course, the flavor passengers aren’t the only torment here. There’s my very skin being able to taste my clothing and surroundings. Then most of all, absolutely most of all, there’s the insistent voices. The endless whisper. The pareidolic faces ramming and wiggling themselves into my ears to deliver more whispers.
Snarling at the constant whispering voices, the same thought over and over and over, about the way being shut, and kept by the dead, I virtually vibrate in frustration. They persist, and persist, and persist. My face contorts, my eye twitching, as I’m trying to focus on letting the pieces come together, on waiting for Teuila to certainly be home. Anything I try to do to block them out backfires.
Giving in to the rage that’s been building in me about this whole situation, I—with my Honoris Causa activated, gripping the edges of Nothing—shout, “The way is open! We are alive, and we’re gonna stay that way! And if it isn’t open, I’ll blow it open! Tear it open! It will be open!”
For a moment, all is silent. My eyes roll in my head in a near-euphoric bliss at the temporary reprieve. Huff. I can breathe more deeply. I didn’t realize how suffocating and claustrophobic it was to feel like voices were coming in from all sides at all times.
This is going to be rough, moving everything, the ‘Twixt tear included, within the room, to that sea of stars, that realm I saw amidst chaos magic, everything except of course me, Reggie.
I can’t go with, not this way, because I’ve got all kinds of interdimensional type stuff on and about me. Between that, and not having any way to carry the stuff in my pack home, I have to find another way. As letting my magic items and enchantments mingle with a forced gate to a realm might cause an actual nuke, and end up killing me, and the broodmothers. And leaving them all here for Terrorzin to find and possibly use against us would be a nightmare.
As is, I had FFS stash Frostburn, Riptide, and their magic equipment when they felt like they were going to dissipate. I might not get them back til the end of the war. Well, I can summon Frostburn, because of that once-per-day ability that lets me bind an item that way, or summon it that way.
Okay, it’s been about maybe twenty minutes or so. I hope that’s enough time for Teuila to explain the situation, and for Nala and Littlebit to get started. Argh. What if it isn’t? I’ll be blowing my one shot. It’s safer to wait longer. My eyes roll as my head lolls in exasperation. Of course the voices return. Of course they do. Nothing for it but to deal I suppose.
I can’t tell how long I’ve waited. It feels like years have passed. I think I’m growing a beard, which should be biodigitally impossible without intentionally shapeshifting one. Also, I’ve been identifying—nevermind. Here goes, well, somethin’. I chuck an empty hyperdimensional sack, lobbing it towards the portable hole. Leaping out the room, I aim to gain all the distance I can and duck far out along the hallway for cover.