“A magical orb in the shape of a monster ate the mountain,” Trenton clarified.
“...what?”
“Something ate the mountain. It’s gone. Avar’s gone. I’m looking down right now, and it’s just a hole straight down. I really don’t know how to make this any clearer,” Karfice said, comically staring down into the gaping hole below them.
“Mountains gone…Terraphage?” Raligoth asked, furrowing his brow.
Trenton shook his head, “No, he’s a ways out east.”
“How do you know that?” Sodrue asked, head whipping to stare at him wide eyed.
“Huh?”
“How do you know where Terraphage is?”
“I…don’t know. Intuition? It just feels like he’s out east. I’m not really sure how to explain it,” Trenton shrugged.
“You can feel him?” Karfice asked. “Didn’t he try to eat you guys?”
“Kind of and yes, but that was a while ago,” Trenton said.
“Could you tell me his exact position?”
Trenton shook his head, “No. He’s moving though. Not sure to where.”
“Eh, it’ll do,” Sodrue said, pulling out a very familiar pyramidal device with a circular, concave slot in the top–an emergency communicator. Except, this one had a different sigil engraved into the bottom, the likeness of a man splitting in two. For a couple minutes, Sodrue fiddled with the indent, shifting around different mechanisms before slotting in a small, carved purple gem into the top. Instantly, a small purple portal about the size of Trenton’s face appeared, although it was completely black on both sides.
“Now’s not a great time! Are you in danger?” a muffled voice Trenton didn’t recognize called out. It sounded like they were far from their own version of the device, making it difficult to understand them. The voice did sound pretty young though, from what Trenton could tell.
“No. What’s going on? Are you alright?” Sodrue asked, face twisting with concern.
“Couple of my guys are tied down-Get back in the castle. If they find you snuck out-don’t approach. Keep your head low and observe from-gone? Fan the perimeter. We can’t lose eyes on him-okay, 10 seconds. What do you need?”
“Terraphage, where is he right now?”
“Why-nevermind. The group I had on him was wiped out last week. He was down in central Elteran-disengage! We can’t show our hand-did anyone spot-”
“Thank you and good luck,” Sodrue said, pressing down on the little gem, which popped out and dissolved before it even had the chance to fall. Immediately, the portal disappeared, severing the connection between him and whoever it was that he’d just contacted. “Well, there goes that,” Sodrue stowed the device away again. “Looks like you were dead on, which means it was more than a fluke. Connection with an elder beast…interesting,” Sodure considered Trenton again, looking him carefully up and down.
“Who was that?” Wimbleton said, suddenly popping his head into their little circle.
“Can’t say.”
“Boring. Anyway, I got the device working. For some reason I made the mechanism to move incredibly complex. I’ll have to write myself instructions for next time. But enough of that. Let’s go!”
Wimbleton flexed his finger in the strange contraption, and they slowly accelerated to a jaunt, breezing through the cold air without much restraint. They were lucky it was as nice as it was. Even a little more wind and they’d have to worry about frostbite. Since Avar was closed off, heat hadn’t been a big concern, allowing them to haphazardly toss aside their coats and winter clothes. Now, though, they were in danger again. Hopefully they had some extras on hand.
“Hey, Sodrue,” Karfice called out as they moved, eyes lolling up towards the sky.
“Hmm?”
“What was the deal with that spell you cast? Never seen anything like it.”
“I’m assuming you mean the one that saved us from being devoured. It’s a part of my aspect–false time. It’s a little complicated, so I’ll try to simplify. False time is pretty much the inverse to time, and my ability grants me access to its source. You can think of it like a separate dimension identical to ours except time is replaced with false time. False time has a lot of different properties associated with it, but chief among them is that its completely stagnant, as if time were stopped completely. That’s why it felt like we were in there for so long when I pulled us all into it. In truth, only a day passed in the real world while we were in there.”
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“Like stasis,” Trenton noted.
“Stasis is one application of false time, a spell any chronurgist could use with enough skill, but it's weak. Without access to the Blackout, you’re effectively pulling at scraps, whereas I’ve the whole construction. The only problem is that false time is extremely volatile, hard to control, so I do still have some limitations on what I can do.”
“So you can use it to stop time,” Karfice said.
“You can use it to stop many things. Aging, for example. I’m much older than I look, many centuries so, but it’d be impossible to tell just from looking at me.”
After a couple minutes, they’d finally made it to the edge of the hole in the earth, hovering over the great rocky terrain of the Thalian once more. Wimbleton shifted the device awkwardly in his hands, managing to change their course to set them down mostly gently. Trenton landed hard on his feet on the icy ground, barely keeping his footing as he moved to scoop up Millie into his arms. He wasn’t sure which direction they were meant to head, but Wimbleton seemed confident, taking the lead with neither compass nor map in hand.
“So you’re like a fossil then?” Millie asked, swinging her arms and legs as Trenton carried her along the thin, cliffside path Wimbleton had set them down on. They’d need to find a clearing if they were to rest in any semblance of safety.
“You could say that, although fossils decay a lot faster than I do,” Sodrue smiled.
“Wowwwww!” Millie said, eyes sparkling with childlike wonder.
“If false time is like stopped time, then how were we able to use it to avoid something in real time? Shouldn’t the beast have still been there when we returned?” Trenton asked Sodrue, shifting Millie onto his shoulder to release his burden slightly.
“Good question. False time isn’t stopped time itself, but it’s similar to it. Like I said, false time is time’s inverse. They cancel eachother out completely if allowed to interact completely, but if woven together properly, they can both affect the same creature at the same time which can have a whole host of different effects. Specifically, the one I used was infusing time into your brain to keep you all from going brain dead. That’s why I recommended you to keep thinking while you waited. If you had stopped thinking for long enough, the false time would’ve seeped into your brain and effectively killed you, not ideal. However, that dimension of false time was connected to the material world by 3 small strands, the same clock hands that spin in my eyes. In so doing, I was able to freeze your physical bodies, which stopped you from being taken by the beast, while still chaining you indirectly to real time and space. And since your brain was also given time, you could perceive time loosely even while within the Blackout, which is how I knew when to pull us back out. It’s a little tedious, but I’ve a solid internal clock, so it was just a matter of counting the seconds until a day had passed.”
“You counted the seconds to a day? Impressive,” Wimbleton chipped in, effortlessly sliding down a steep ledge to a small open space in between two crags.
The area was spacious and comfortable, the two crags leaning closer together the further up into the sky they crept. It was a pretty decent spot, shielding them from the snow, the wind which was slowly picking up, and any potential outside dangers. Trenton picked his way down the slant, gently setting Millie and Evai down to help pitch tents for everyone. Once they were all set up, one tent for each person except Millie, who stayed with Trenton, and the wounded, who were all together for the sake of protection.
“By the way. Starting tomorrow, I’ll be seeing to your training, but for now, get some rest. I’ll take the night’s shifts,” Wimbleton said, pulling an entire wooden desk from his deep pocket and a simple wooden chair to sit on.
“Sure,” Trenton replied, suddenly noticing just how exhausted he was. He’d gotten a small nap as they left the cave, but for the most part he’d been awake the last 48 or so hours. And after everything they’d gone through, he could really use the break. “Raligoth doesn’t need to sleep. He’ll keep you company,” Trenton said, tossing the only slightly complaining head over to Wimbleton, who caught it easily, and set it down next to some stacks of paper he’d pulled from his deep pocket.
Trenton turned to leave, but just at that moment, he felt something–footsteps–bold and heavy. Something large was approaching. He whipped around to face Wimbleton, but he was already standing, sword in hand, looking vaguely up and to the right where the creature was approaching from.
“What is it?” Sodrue said, drawing the steel longsword held at his waist.
“A giant, ice giant. Looks terrified,” Wimbleton said.
“Do you think-” Karfice started.
“No, not often,” Wimbleton interrupted. “Be quiet, I’m curious what it’ll do.”
For a time, no one moved, holding completely still as the footsteps grew closer, and closer, and closer, practically shaking the ground until it suddenly stopped just above them. Then, without warning, it pulled at the stone crags on either side of them, prying them ever so slightly apart and cramming it’s colossal body down into the hole until it was able to somewhat comfortably crouch just outside of their camp, knees pulled close to its chest, eyes full of fear staring straight up into the sky.
Trenton tensed, expecting a fight, but it didn’t even look like it noticed them. Something else clearly had its attention at the moment. Trenton lowered his hammer slightly, stepping towards the cowering, shivering giant. It had two eyes of the deepest blue, a beard and hair made of pure snow, and two horns poking out on either side of its head made of pure ice. It was a strange sight to see, the hulking mass of a man made many sizes too large, easily 60 or so feet tall, now cramped between two stone walls which pressed into him on either side, pushing against the bulging triceps in either one of his arms.
“Whatcha runnin’ from?” Wimbleton asked, stowing his blade back into its sheath.
The giant's head snapped down to look at them, scraping against the walls as it went. It tried to recoil from them, kicking at the ground to get away, but it only succeeded in getting itself stuck further in the wall, limbs contorted at awkward angles.
“Please don’t kill me. If it hears us, we’re all dead,” the giant whispered, a hushed sense of urgency lining his voice.
“If what-” Sodrue started.
“SHHHHHH,” the giant pleaded, eyes turning to the sky once more.
At first, it was hard to hear, the faint sound of beating wings almost lost to the roar of the wind. But then, it was unmistakable. Something else was approaching, this time, from above. A gargantuan shadow slowly blotted out the light from above, leaving them in pure darkness for several seconds as something passed overhead, the wind around them picking up to a wild tempo.