"Nobody knocks here, and the unexpected sounds ominous."
― D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover
“Still nothing…” Ven sighed, aura expanded beyond the scope of reason. His Giant grew restless, eager to be loosed upon fresh foraging grounds. “How about you?”
“Just the same empty skies…” Indra’s eyes twitched behind closed lids, mind connected to a fine web of lightning that travelled beside Ven’s shadowed clouds. “Are you certain there’s another gate… perhaps this is the final floor?”
“Not likely,” Ven shook his head. His instincts told him that there was danger to be found in this laybarinth’s depths, and nothing he’d encountered had impressed him. “Retract your lightning, I’m going to try a different approach…”
Indra grunted and let his electricity return under his skin. The crystalline master of lightning claimed no ownership over this realm, so there must be someone else, hidden in its depths. If they didn’t want to come out to play, he would feed the Giant their home.
A shift in his aura changed the clouds, from passive fog to a hungry maw in an instant. Space creaked, bowed until the pressure overcame its resistance. Infinite windows shattered, reality broken to fragments that his aura consumed.
Shadowed teeth swelled, larger after their first bite, to seize upon untouched space. Again and again, Ven expanded his aura and ripped great swaths from this empty realm. The silence that filled the realm seemed to swell, an absence that the ear translated to a dreadful hum.
“Stop!” Indra covered his ears, as if he too heard the soundless ring. A small line of luminous blood trickled from the corner of his nose as he staggered toward Ven. “Something’s happening!”
Ven wrapped his newest companion in a layer of protective shadow, enough to mute the effect to a tolerable level. Even his Giant complained, its body discomforted by the silent tone. He let his aura return, a shield between them and the world, while the space began a slow recovery around them.
The silence built, the single clash of a bell that refused to end, hidden behind a stillness that infested the world. Ven blinked, runes half-lit on his Giant’s skin. Whatever this was, it introduced an instability in his connection to the Giant that shouldn’t exist. Ven smiled, an honest grin that brightened his midnight eyes.
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“Interesting!” Faith - channelled from countless avatars and into the Giant’s body - reinforced his connection and added a second layer of runes to the giant's skin. Ven focused the majority of his power, and fused it to the Giant’s frame. “Why don’t you come out and we can all say hello like civilised adults?”
More silence answered his call, no response from the oppressive empty beyond the rise of the unheard bell. It hammered at the depths of Ven’s mind, a drill that hunted for a place to bore.
“Fine then, but don’t say I didn’t warn you…”
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“What do you think happens to the stuff that gets close to the tree?” Rafe reclined against the side of a building, to the side of the entombed vanishing tree. Min floated in the air above him, half asleep as she watched over the Halfling.
“Nothing good, now why don’t we return to the city proper and get something to eat?” She performed an idle spin, arms extended in a mighty stretch. “I won’t let you get any closer to the tree, so why bother skulking around like this?”
Rafe shrugged and closed his eyes. The urge to throw himself at the half-dead plant ran deep, an instinct that echoed from his bones and refused to be ignored. It seemed natural, something that should have terrified him. Instead, he was filled with a deep ocean of calm. It was unlike anything he’d ever experienced.
“When do you think Ven is going to show up?” Rafe crossed his arms behind his head and settled in for a nap. Perhaps Min would grow lax enough that he could make a break for the tree.
“The number of believers grows every day, we’re well over a hundred-million by now,” the former Minder tilted her head and frowned. “I recommended he wait until at least a trillion believers are in place, but…”
“Ven never seems to listen to anyone,” Rafe laughed. “You know, I knew him when he was still weaker than most of the citizens of this new Empire… he was supposed to save our world, that’s what Master Ooulin said.”
“I know, your Ooulin’s soul-child is one of my greatest friends,” Min’s smile filled her voice as she reminisced about her longtime companion. “He still plans to… he’s invested a lot of effort to return, now that his power has grown to relevance.”
“I think it’s too late…” Rafe’s words barely reached Min’s ears, a whisper in the wind as he slipped into the depths of sleep. “You can’t save what doesn’t exist…”
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“Brull!” Lyra bounded up to the exhausted cat-kin, face a mask of bruises. Lucifer had healed most of her wounds, enough for her to awaken from her coma. “Are you alright… you didn’t burn yourself out, did you?”
“No… Ven’s mask saved me from any real damage,” Brull leaned on his sword as his golden armour flaked away, rusted dust on the wind. “I’ve sealed it as best I can, but we need to stay away from this doorway.”
“Agreed…” Lyra’s face flickered, a mask of wrath that reflected Fenrir’s presence behind her eyes. “But one day we’re coming back to pay that thing another visit…”
“You’ve constructed an impressive barrier!” Lucifer floated over, eyes focused on the wall of solid gold. Excalibur’s attacks would echo here for millenia, sword-light that left no room for passage. “It should hold for long enough… hopefully Ven’s avatar will be able to see through all this energy.”
“We’ll see,” Cain tapped his dagger against the sword-light and generated the sound of a bell. “Spacetime has been sheared, it’s possible even his eyes won’t get much deeper than the first layer…”
“Hey, I barely managed to seal this thing,” Brull rolled his eyes and turned his back on the buried gate. “Let’s get out of here and take a break… I could use a good ale!”