Chapter 27: The Pillow is the Trigger
Garfield felt a bit guilty that he was eating a nice dinner back in his mansion while Thoron was digging his way out of a mountain of furry corpses in the middle of a desolate wasteland, so he flicked his wrist, changing the settings on the furry familiars. Now, when they died, their bodies would disappear.
Garfield look back and forth at the empty table. “I’m surprised they didn’t at least stay for dinner. I was planning to send them away prior to the bath…”
As he had done before to the battle with Pandora, Garfield spent the night and following morning alone. For the first time, he fully unlocked his mapping spell.
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“You two are?”
“Solana.”
“Hannah. We live with Duke Garfield.”
“Oh, you’re connected to Garfield? Welcome! I’m Lilah. What brings you here?” Lilah looked down at the two girls, both perhaps 17 years old in appearance.
“Can you teach us stuff?”
“Stuff? Like how to work here at the café? We do provide all employees some special training…”
“Yes. That, and everything else.” Solana nodded in response to Hannah’s request.
“Everything else? Oh? Did Garfield tell you about my prior job?”
“Somewhat.”
“If it’s okay with Garfield then I don’t mind but, you can’t learn everything overnight, you know? How much time do you have?”
“We can come back here whenever we want!” Hannah teleported to Lilah’s other side as a demonstration.
“Woah! You’re just like Garfield, aren’t you? Okay. Stop by whenever you have time and I’ll teach you everything I know.”
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The girls returned to Garfield’s estate in the afternoon. “Is Garfield still busy?” Hannah asked the butler.
“The Master just sat down for his first meal since yesterday.”
“Oh!” The two girls teleported to the dining room and sat down next to Garfield.
“Garfield, are you finished?”
“Yes. We should discuss the plan.” Garfield failed to ask the girls what they had been doing for the last day. “First, let’s test your telepathy ability…”
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The flying wing returned south of the Dragon Mountains. Thoron came into view looking the same as he had last time. The trio dismounted and approached him on foot.
“Back so soon?”
“Should we have stayed away?” Garfield responded. “I’d love for you to send an underling to help me with another problem or two.”
“Why don’t you face my champion again?” The demon swordsman rose back out of the ground.
“Can’t I just summon a furry familiar again?”
“Face him yourself.”
“Oh, now I need to duel the dude myself? Well, fine.” In a rare display, Garfield silently chanted multiple spells. First, he summoned a sword optimized for draw-and-slash techniques and placed it on his hip. The other spells were focused on himself.
“Uh, Garfield, why are you going along with this?”
“That’s simple, Solana. After I overcome this challenge, I’ll propose a new one to Thoron.” Garfield’s explanation didn’t seem to satisfy Solana but she didn’t say anything else.
Garfield and the demon stepped away from the group and faced off, perhaps 5 meters apart. Shortly before the battle began, Thoron spoke.
“I neglected to mention this before, but the earlier battle didn’t reveal my champion’s true strength. His sword strike is rather fast. I hope you’re prepared.”
“How fast are we talking?” Garfield probed.
“I’ll put it in terms you can understand, interloper: 90 percent the speed of light.”
“Uh, won’t the shockwave destroy the Badlands?”
“No. My magic reigns supreme. Go!”
The demon disappeared from everyone’s view, including even the vampires. Garfield disappeared at the same time. The demon reappeared about 5 meters past where Garfield had been standing, facing away. Garfield reappeared about 10 meters past where the demon had been standing, also facing away.
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“Garfield!”
Hannah and Solana looked back and forth between Garfield and the demon, trying to figure out what happened. Then, after a dramatic pause, the demon fell down to the ground in pieces.
“What!? My champion was traveling at nearly the speed of light! How could you have possibly won!?”
“I’d say you were correct. 0.9 c or so. 90 percent the speed of light. To me, he was practically standing still, though. Without magic to suppress the effects, that would have been a really bad day for all involved. Heck, forget the shockwave, time dilation would have messed up everything for me.”
“You were traveling even closer to the speed of light than my champion?”
“Nope.”
“Then how!? HOW DID YOU DO IT!?” Thoron demanded.
“Simple. I moved at ten times the speed of light.”
“Ten? What!? Impossible. Even with magic.”
“Do you not know how my magic works?”
“You brought those nasty spells with you from your other world. I’ve also seen you create magic based on your understanding of the world around you. Neither of those explain what you just did.”
“Sure it does. I can cast any spell I can conceive of so long as I understand the mechanism behind it.”
“What mechanism allows you to attack my champion at ten times the speed of light? Nothing can move that fast. No mechanism exists. You’d be better off teleporting behind and then pretending you moved fast.”
“I never said the mechanism had to be accurate.”
“…What?”
“As long as the mechanism I envision is internally consistent, it doesn’t need to be consistent with the underlying rules of the universe. This is the first time I tested that, though.”
“You can… write the rules which attempt to bind us all?”
“Hardly.”
“Hm…” Thoron, deep in thought, seemed to be thinking through the ramifications of what he just learned.
“Isn’t it my turn?”
“Your turn?”
“Indeed! I want to challenge you now.” Thoron waited for Garfield to elaborate. “Look here.”
A fancy bed appeared in the space between Garfield and Thoron.
“I challenge you to lie down on this bed and not fall asleep for 1 minute. If you can, you win.”
“What?”
“You accept, right?” Garfield gestured to the bed.
“Very well. I will absorb you immediately upon completion of this challenge.” Thoron stepped over to the bed and awkwardly lied down. Just as his head was about to hit the pillow, Garfield placed a hand on each of Hannah’s and Solana’s shoulders and teleported away.
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The short delay between when the three disappeared and when they reappeared on the Heavenly Wall was enough to prevent them from seeing the bright flash. They turned in the direction of the Heavenly Mountains and waited.
“Hannah, return your focus to weather manipulation. Keep the prevailing winds blowing just like I explained before.”
“Okay.”
“Solana, don your armor and stay here. If my prediction is correct, you’re in for one hell of a turkey shoot.”
“Got it.”
The ground started rumbling slightly and the very top of a mushroom cloud came into view. Guards along the wall were panicking as they struggled to make sense of what was happening. After a few minutes of watching, Queen Rosa, attendants in tow, came jogging out on to the wall from the nearby buildings.
“Duke Garfield, what is happening!?”
“I gave the big baddie down south a love tap.”
“That’s a love tap? Perhaps marrying you isn’t the brightest idea…”
“Queen Rosa, please go inside. Things are going to get messy here soon.”
“Because of the earthquakes and that cloud?”
“No. Because of the army of monsters that burrowed their way under the mountains and Heavenly Wall.”
“What!?”
“I don’t know how long they’ve been lying in wait. I suspect the second wave will start now.”
“Will you defeat them!?”
“No, I have other business to attend to.”
“But!”
Before Rosa could finish her objection, Garfield patted Solana’s head. “She’ll take care of it.”
“Duke, what business could you possibly—“
“«Teleport».” Garfield and Hannah were gone.
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While Garfield’s party was monitoring the south from atop the Heavenly Wall, Thoron was reassembling his body from within a scorched crater laced with all manner of contamination.
“That human. He will regret doing this to me. It’s time he learned what I did with his excess divinity.” For the first time in many centuries, Thoron severed his connection to the land, freeing his body to travel wherever it wished. He still couldn’t ascend, but at least he wasn’t bound in place.
Thoron closed his eyes to prepare the jump. He’d never teleported himself before, but for someone of his abilities it was surely a trifling matter. “Here I come, humans.”
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The ground started rumbling again, although less deeply this time. Solana equipped her plasma launcher and waited for enemies to emerge from below. “I’ll need to be careful not to hit anything with missed shots…”
A few moments later, a sinkhole opened north of the wall in a courtyard. Various monsters began clawing their way out. Solana appeared next to the threshold and dropped a grenade she pulled out of somewhere into the hole. As it exploded, she unloaded on the remaining monsters, blasting each one with plasma bullets before they could make it to ground level.
Solana suspected she’d be repeating this same basic process many times today.
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The door to Garfield’s mansion folded inward and fell off its hinges. Thoron strolled into the entryway, greeted by nobody. “Is this what passes for hospitality now? Pathetic.” His footsteps echoed down the halls and he proceeded to the stairs.
When no ambush came, he ascended. “Come. Face me.” His taunt was ignored so he marched to Garfield’s bedroom. Once again, he didn’t use the door properly.
Thoron glanced into the bedroom and noticed two small bears lying on the bed. “Perhaps that bed won’t detonate.” He gestured towards the bears and released a small ball of energy which launched at the bed. Upon contact, it exploded, eliminating the bears and most of the room’s furniture. “Not enough. This is not enough.”
Thoron wandered the mansion for a few more minutes but didn’t encounter Garfield or any employees. “Where are they?” He lost patience and teleported outside. “Die.” Thoron launched balls of energy, each slightly larger than the first, at the house. Over the next minute, the house became a pile of rubble.
“If Garfield won’t face me then I’ll cut off the humans’ heads right at the neck.” Thoron teleported to a space right in front of the royal palace. Several armed guards watched Thoron silently as he approached the entrance. “I’m here to depose your King and desecrate his body.” Surprisingly, the guards did not react. “Strange.”
Thoron gestured, and small balls of energy flew at each guard, easily destroying them. “Humans are too overwhelmed to react in fear when they see me.” He forced his way through the entrance and started navigating the palace.
“I can sense it, the throne room is here.” Thoron taught the double-doors who was boss and then entered the room. The throne room was nearly empty. A man sat on the throne and a woman stood next to him. “You?”
“Welcome to New Bretten.”