[Player Log Start!]
[Log Holder: Asadullah Khan]
[Level: 1, Sub-Level: 4]
[! Log Translated From Urdu !]
[Realm: L-35 | Trackland]
[Objective: Douse the Richardson Furnace]
The Sub-Level was different from what he had expected. But also similar.
Asadullah had come prepared with the gas mask. It wouldn’t be worth it to fumble around in the smog, trying to get it on when he could go in already strapped into it. He landed onto hard ground, covered with an ankle-deep layer of windblown sand.
His senses were all plunged into panic and disgust. It flooded his lungs, clung to his skin and lingered in his nose. Was he imagining it, or was the carbon-heavy smoke in his ears so thick that he couldn't hear properly? No, that couldn’t be it. Sound didn’t work like that.
…Did it? He couldn't think properly, even with the oxygen giving him life.
Alright, Asadullah. Shallow, steady breaths. Take stock of the situation. Where was he? The world around him was exactly what he had expected. A featureless desert of fog and sand the same as Jared and Michael had described.
Except not entirely featureless. Not too far away, he could spot a dark mass. Well, a darker mass. A shadow being cast onto the permanent layer of smoke, in the shape of something… craggy.
He headed towards it. Against his better judgement, maybe, but what other option did he have? He finally reached the creature that was casting the shadow. A mountain, bare faced and sharp rock. Asadullah ran a nostalgic hand over the jagged edges of the boulders, looking up at where the mountain stretched up towards the heavens. Now this was something he could manage.
Claws extended out, and legs shifted into a more suitable form for climbing. A soft pat on the bangles, as if it was going to be any comfort to the djinn he was wringing power out of. Crouched down, flexed, and lunged upwards. Using the momentum he had, he jumped from foothold to foothold, until his hands finally grasped onto a ledge maybe ten feet over his head.
Once he had the grip, it was easy to pull the rest of his body onto the ledge and take a sharp breath. He’d forgotten what this was like. He wasn’t thinking to himself clearly when a prickling feeling traveled over his skin, squeezing him down. He shook his head in alarm, looking at his new form. A cat. He was a cat.
He hadn’t fully shapeshifted since the fight against the Harbinger. The bangles had straight up refused to do it, the few times he had gotten a private space to try and transform on his own. And this time he hadn’t even been asking.
“Is this… a peace offering?” He asked, for all the world sounding like a plaintive meow, looking at the slight ring on the fur of his front left paw that was meant to represent the bangles.
It did not respond. Because of course it didn’t. It had no ability to, after it had been trapped inside this prison of metal and glass, the outside world safe from its corrupting, storm-throwing influence.
“Thanks.” He purred nonetheless, hoping that the gratitude would flow through his blood and into the bangles and it would appreciate it. And then, he climbed.
Even in such a small form, where he couldn’t run and flick his hair and gain the speed that he felt like he so rightly deserved, he still made short work of the steep cliff. When you were tiny, it was easier to fit nimble paws into footholds that a person could never reach into. Easy to trust a withered root to support your weight as you used it as a climbing rope.
His whiskers twitched with every ten meters he elevated, feeling the quickly dropping pressure that consumed him. Soon, would he be breaking cloud cover? No… too soon for that. But with the way the pressure was lifting, at least he had to breach this infernal smog.
And once that was done… his mind drifted to Verity, taking the time to explain to them what else had happened in the Sub-Level, aside from the Harbingers. The wistful tone of voice she spoke in, and the subtitles in front of her still haunted him.
“It was the most magical thing I’d seen. Just… blue. Blue and big and there was a yellow sun and all the clouds looked like they were made of actual cotton and it was incredible. Never thought I’d get to see something like that again.”
He never thought he’d get the chance to see a sky like that again either. Sure, he’d held out hope when the skies first turned into that steely grey, but once he’d been transported, he’d simply accepted the fact that that would never be his reality. Until he finished this game, which might take months. Years. Who knew how long?
But he had the chance to finally see the sky in its natural blue. And that filled him with an excitement that was almost impossible to describe. So, he climbed, up and up and up, pressure lifting off him by the kilo with every jump he took.
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Until finally, the cliff stopped. He was at the top. The smog was lapping at the tip of his hind paws, but unable to rise further. He hopped delicately onto the very peak, turning around to take in the vast blue that was promised to him and-
Was met by unrelenting black from every direction.
He shifted back to human, still crouched defensively and feeling his hair all rise up as one. Why was it black? It wasn’t night. The sun was right there. The sky was meant to be blue. It wasn’t fair.
A droplet fell to the parched ground below him. A tear. He was crying. Why was he crying? This was… this was a stupid thing to cry about. He shouldn’t be feeling this way. But the tears came anyway, and all he could was wrap his tail around him and gasp out the one thing that had taken over his mind.
“It was supposed to be blue.”
“Is anything supposed to be a specific thing?” The foreign words and the translations that accompanied them were such a shock, he nearly threw himself off the cliffside in his panic. Managed to stop himself in time, but it was a close one.
He turned carefully to look at the speaker, a woman, sitting with her legs dangling off the side without a care in the world, a mechanical chair sitting beside her, with wings attached to the back for flight.
“Did you fly up here?” He asked, before fully comprehending that this woman was Lucky Paine. The very helpful person that had aided them in their journey.
Her eyes bugged out, too, before she threw her head back and laughed, “Well, bugger me, that boy was telling the truth. You really do speak with a translator.”
Exactly how much had Michael shared with this woman? Asadullah didn’t know whether to be upset or flattered that she seemed to think that he was impossible. He wore the hat of resident enigma with pride, thank you very much.
Even if it got a little weary at times. He liked to console himself with the fact that Terry was just as odd as him, but that wasn’t exactly true. So, this was what he had to live with.
“Well, I’m sorry for not being to speak a language whose name I don’t even know.” He replied stiffly, “Mind telling me why the sky is… like that?”
She shook her head, a look in her eyes that Asadullah recognized as despair. He’d seen it many times before, reflected in his own face.
“The world really ended, I think.” She whispered, taking a stab in the dark, “I thought I could work against it. Try to solve it. But the sky turned black permanently and… I don’t even know what caused it.”
“There’s gotta be a reason.” Asadullah insisted, “Some great disaster must have happened, even worse than what is going on here. Think carefully, do you have any information about this?”
“I don’t.” She snapped, no patience for this, “And I especially do not have any patience to humor annoying little children who think that they have some God-given ability to save every world they come across. Like a farce for a savior.”
She was angry. Immensely so. Both Verity and Michael had described a much more agreeable person. Even Jared had cited a practical and shrewd woman, but who was compassionate anyways. That Lucky… was nothing like this.
Jared sat down next to her, feeling his head spin as his feet left the safe comfort of solid ground. He instead shifted to sit cross-legged, so he didn’t have to risk falling into the abyss so easily. He wracked his brains, trying to think of some way to help her, to console her, and most importantly, to get her to help him finish his mission.
But instead of all that, what came out next was: “I don’t think I have the God-given ability to save the worlds.”
She snorted, “Yeah, I know, you guys do not believe in that sort of thing. Most people that powerful don’t, so it was expected.”
“No!” He refused, shaking his head hurriedly, “What I meant was… I’m religious, too. Monotheist. Kinda different to yours, I think? Verity and Michael filled me in on your faith a little bit, but it’s not like mine. What I meant was… I don’t think it’s simply going to happen just because God has given me the Ability to do it.”
It was hard to explain it to her, through a wall of translation where things could get lost so easily, and an entirely different practice, culture, and religious discourse. And he hadn’t had time to truly sort out all his thoughts on this without a sounding board who even barely agreed with what he believed. But he gave it his best shot.
“It’s like, we were able to find these tools, you know? And I know these tools are capable of getting us where we need, but they aren’t exactly going to get up and do the work themselves. That’s what people are for. We don’t need walking, talking tools. We need the human collective to apply themselves to this. To fix things that… are broken.”
They stewed in this declaration for a little while.
“That’s a good way to live.” Lucky finally agreed, a miniscule smile stretched across her face. It might as well have been a full hug for how appreciated Asadullah felt in that moment. He didn’t do theological debate much, even though Tahira had always told him he had the philosophical mind for it. It’s just what it was like when you were queer and religious. You thought about your place in the world.
She pulled herself up to her feet, and Asadullah made to help her, but she brushed him off, limping the short distance to where her chair was and sitting down. One brush of the knobs and an arm was already stretching a map in front of her face.
“Okie dokie. You hit me with a bucket of excitement, so you better strap in.” She announced, wheeling herself around to show the little ledge built into the back of the chair for someone to stand on, “Before I saw the sky, and lost all my drive, I was going on a spree through all Gunnerson properties. Raiding, destroying, using it to charge up my greener form of energy capsules. You up for that?”
“Definitely.” He agreed, perhaps a smidge too excited for all the violence, but sue him, she was the coolest person he’d met. You expected him not to be along for the ride?
“But you got your own Objective, right?” She added, “What did you get saddled with?”
“Uh…” He frowned, trying to recall, “I was told to stop the fire in the Richardson Furnace? I don’t know what that is.”
But he guessed that she did, judging by the way that she froze.
“Does that have any significance to you…?” He asked, feeling skittish all of a sudden.
“It’s my boss’s personal blacksmith’s place.” Lucky explained. And, oh boy did everything fall into place then. But, surprisingly, she didn’t look too disturbed at the idea of destroying it. She simply shrugged, that undying spark in her eyes at full blaze, “We’re going to do that last. But only because that’s where security is highest. And also I want to have the last laugh against the Harbingers.”
Wait. The Harbingers were… here?
[Player Log End!]