Rye went up. And up. And up.
As it turned out, all you needed to fly was a large enough wingspan, and screw-you levels of magical propulsion. The mountain winds delivered the rest of the necessary uplift, as warm air rose along its relief in a current flowing up the massive stone peaks. The stronghold had long since become a dot beneath her, and clouds pressed in on every side.
Is it getting warmer, or is it just me?
She burst through the sea of clouds, the pinkish-orange hues playing along them as they were illuminated by an orb of warm golden rays. Curious, Rye flew up to it. It was the sun, and the closer she got, the more it came into perspective.
It’s so… small.
When she was beating her stone wings above it, it felt as if she could have stretched her arms out and carried it away. It was no larger than a honey melon, or perhaps a large head. She landed on it, balancing irreverently on one foot. It felt so fragile.
“All the good souls in the world, right here,” she muttered. “Are there so few of them that they can fit? Or was the promise of a good place after death a lie too?”
It seemed like such a silly thing to believe in now, an afterlife. Here was what religion and dogma had told her was heaven, the end of good souls. Here was a land of no wants and needs, a safe haven above all strife and pleasure. But the sun was small and it didn’t feel as if it had close to even a tenth of the souls Rye did. She knew, after all, people with tens or hundreds of thousands of souls tended to have a presence that was larger than life, as if they mattered more than their surroundings.
If this was a receptacle for all good souls of the world, then that was truly a paltry sum.
And I can’t move it, she thought as she tried to pull it out of place. Something is telling it to stay in place.
Her gaze fell to the city atop the mountain, sitting like an island amidst a sea of color. Its foundations disappeared incomprehensibly far down below. The road was uncared for with so many bricks out of place. Everything looked dilapidated and had this tint of old gold to it.
The massive gates of the gatehouse were torn open, a metal face on its twin doors bisected in a rictus of terror. Beyond, the air smelled faintly of hot metal and burning coals. She set herself down in the yard behind it, where half of a massive legionnaire’s armor was poking out of a pile of ash and embers. There was no sign that pointed to Elia in specific having been here, though there were many signs (of violence) that Elia might have been here in general.
Amidst a pool of blood, Rye found a thick arm that must have belonged to Brod. It struck out to her as a dash of lively color, and because she didn’t think Brod would leave it here without purpose. As she inspected it, she noticed a strip of leather hidden in its balled fist. It was scribbled with what she could only hope were the best of intentions.
Am going home. Elia went further. Watch out for tar.
So, Elia really had been here. And of course she was going head first into trouble. He had probably left the message for Karla, assuming correctly that she would regret letting Elia go alone.
Sorry Karla. At the very least, I’ll make her apologize, and get her off this damned mountain.
Rye set off with a flap of massive wings. Her birds-eye view would have helped her avoid a lot of trouble if there had been any. But the realm of gods was as abandoned as it was overgrown. Bodies littered the ground in a path she loosely followed. Black shapes roiled on the stone like dried-out worms, and there was something darker in the water. Hopefully Elia hadn’t fallen inside.
A flap of wings caught her attention. A woman was being carried away on the wings of a small flock of assorted bird-things, the only thing protecting her nudity a pair of conveniently placed god rays.
Have I seen that face somewhere before? No, it couldn’t be.
“E-excuse me,” Rye said, trying and failing to keep up with them. “Have you seen someone who looks like me, except fleshy and a bit angrier?”
The woman turned, affronted. “Seen her? She burnt down our nest, ours, - ah!”
Her carrier birds dipped as she twisted and turned. Rye watched what was most definitely the unsleeping princess, goddess of beauty products, long nails and even longer naps, bob towards the horizon before deciding to delete this entire encounter from her memory, except for the important bits.
Focus. Where there is fire, there is Elia.
She found the fire. An entire three-story tower had caught alight, burning like the world's most ostentatious prayer candle.
And not a sign of Elia. The old Rye would have threatened to cry and give up right there. But her fears seemed so little compared to what other people were afraid of.
Now, where would I be if I were Elia?
She alighted a respectable distance away from the tower, shrinking the shape of her arms back to human-shaped, and looked around. The tower sat in the middle of a hedge maze. She followed the only way that led out from here, only to encounter a sizzling, human-shaped hole around the next corner.
Took a few steps, got impatient, then started playing her own game. Definitely Elia. I hope she hasn’t gotten into any trouble I can’t pull her out of.
The holes in the hedges were both straight-cut and confusing, taking her a few walls forward before turning sharply left or right.
What if she decided to fight a god while I wasn’t looking? What if she lost? What if she won? Could I really drag her away if it turned out she had found the tormentor responsible for her centuries of suffering?
She slapped her cheeks and cleared her mind. What-ifs could wait for what was.
The impromptu shortcuts through the maze terminated at the side of a parade road. Rye was suddenly thrust into feeling just a little small and insignificant as she hopped from one brick as large as a house to another. The statues of heroes and gods flanking each side seemed to be looking down on her, but the eyes were few, and more than a couple heads were missing entirely.
There’s not much left up here. The most important place in the world is a ghost town.
It didn’t feel right. It implied a genuine lack of control over the state of the world, even from those who swore to shepherd it. And as if to affirm the worries and doubts of thousands of people, the sole figure standing in the shadows of a palace at the end of the road was not a god.
“Elia!”
The figure turned. Karla had told her that Elia had changed, and if it weren’t for that she would have been unrecognizable. She looked like a dragon that had just snacked on a grug.
“Oh,” she said, sounding confused. “Hello?”
“You are Elia, right? What happened to your sword?” Rye’s eyes trailed down her body. “What happened to your arm?”
“I… don’t really remember. And my sword is on fire because, well, it’s cool, isn’t it?” She waved her burning moonsword around. For some reason, Rye didn’t think that a sword that was literally burning her hand was any cooler than a normal one. But seeing as Elia didn’t mind, she didn’t comment further. “Say, you look familiar. Do we know each other?”
Rye’s heart made a tiny crick sound.
“I am Rye. Your friend. We were brain buds, we fought Rhuna together–”
“Woah, back up there. My only friend is my pet frog, Quibbles. You want to see him?”
She rummaged in her pocket, producing a toad, but Rye focused on anything but him.
Oh gods, she doesn’t remember Rhuna.
But more than herself, Elia was hurting. In that moment the wounds and streaks cutting criss-cross shapes on her scales seemed a lot more pronounced and she was trying not to put pressure on her right foot. What in the world did she fight to end up like this?
She bit her lip, and after a moment's deliberation decided that she could worry about healing Elia later.
“Well, I declare myself your friend, now and forever. And as your friend, I have come to help you. We ought to not stand out in the open,” she said. “The disciples of tar could come out at any moment, and the legion is suspiciously quiet. Avon and Quintus are dangerous fellows.”
“Hm? Oh, right. Those two won’t be bothering anyone anymore.”
The way she said that so dismissively gave Rye a bad feeling. “Elia. What did you do?”
“Killed them.” She sighed and grinned, as if remembering something nice. “Say, do you know how to get inside this palace-place?”
Rye looked up at the positively massive twin bronze doors in front of her. They didn’t have a keyhole, nor was there a lever or other obvious mechanism nearby. They could maybe ring the ringer, but it was so far up that they’d have to stand on each other’s shoulders. That couldn’t be the intended way, could it?
She touched the door. With a sudden jolt, distant gears started turning. Slowly, the door groaned open and Rye could have sworn that as it did, it whispered a single word.
“Worthy.”
“Huh. Guess you have the magic touch,” Elia said before striding on in.
Rye blinked, then followed right after, overtaking her. “A-actually, I’m here to help you get back down the mountain. Going deeper inside feels kind of…” Like a bad idea, like walking straight towards the edge of a cliff?
“Sure, sure. It’s just – have you ever felt the need to do something? Like taking a fat dump–”
“Elia!”
“What? This place feels like that. It calls to me. Taking a dump here feels right. Metaphorically speaking.”
Rye wouldn’t have put it in those exact terms. The inside of the palace-temple was crafted to ridiculous proportions. Pillars thick as oaks reached to the ceiling high above in two rows. The carpet laid out for them was red and smelled only a little bit of age. The armors of knights and defenders were strewn about, some propped up against walls as if they were just taking a rest. They were filled with ash and blasted with soot until the steel was black.
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Oh, and the room was filled with corpses. Burnt, emaciated things of broken bones and twisted metal. no two looked alike and they mostly gummed up the sides and corners, where it looked as if a giant child had roughly shoved them into piles.
“My gods.”
“Ugh. Smells rank.”
Amidst the sea of ascender’s corpses, there was a bowl of respite, the first she had seen since the halfway stronghold. But it was barely a bowl, so cracked and shattered was it. Elia lapped at its meager waters, giving her confidence some weight.
*Gong*
Her arm didn’t grow back. Elia grinned and Rye realized she'd been caught staring. They both had been staring at each other and as if to congratulate her, Elia lifted her sword in a salute.
“Well met, sister.”
“If that’s a reference, I don’t get it.”
“That’s fine, you’ll understand once I get close enough to hit them with my sword.”
“Which is your solution to every problem. Not that it’s any scales off my back when you throw your hissy fits.”
Elia grinned. “Puns? Were you a punny person?”
“The straight girl to your chaotic wiles. I see that noodle got bent quickly though.” Rye smiled as Elia coughed and looked away. “Starting to remember something?”
“Bits and pieces.” Maybe there was hope for Elia’s memory. Maybe she just had to push some more. “Now, it’s time. I’m going forward, you coming with?”
Rye nodded stoically. Even without a focus she was ‘ready to rock’.
“Then gear up.” Elia made a wide gesture. “There’s enough to go around. You’d look good in a cape.”
She turned away and if that wasn’t a sign that Elia had learned some politeness, then nothing was. There were a lot to choose from, mostly golden and red. Rye took one of the less crumbling capes – an orange triangle that complimented her eyes – and picked up a heater shield and the first weapon that looked like it wouldn’t fall apart.
I’m not gonna fall apart this time.
“A flanged mace?” Elia asked. “I dig. But I like my weapons with more reach.”
She hefted the glaive onto her shoulder.
“Range is a Queen,” Rye recited.
“Really? I always thought it was King.”
“King is initiative. Your skill or choice of weapon doesn’t matter when you get stabbed in the back.”
Elia laughed. “I think I see how we could have been good friends.”
She swaggered forth and with a swish of her cloak, Rye followed.
The throne room was a large space intended for gathering, prostration, and all manners of subservience. An altar detailing the genesis of civilization by the hands of the gods – only mildly embellished – covered the entirety of the far wall. In front of it twelve thrones stood in a semicircle atop a handful of steps, the largest two thrones sitting right in the middle.
The seats of Worga and Ruthe – empty like the rest.
The emptiness and quietness of it all made their footfalls feel all the more out of place. Rye remembered having the same feeling once, when a priest of Uovis allowed her to take a peek into the holiest of holies, a room inside the resident temple where it was said the gods reside.
Where have they all gone? Nobody could have killed every single god, right?
A rivulet of dust trickled from the ceiling. Elia stopped, cocking her head. “Why do I hear music?”
“Oh. Um.” Rye would have commented on how her [Threat music] couldn’t be turned off, how it was awkward and always came when the threat was a tad too close.
But there was a dragon peeking in from the gaping hole in the ceiling above. It was red and large and so utterly terrifying even from this far away. Its mane of fur and feathers swayed as it set down with a massive flap of wings. There was more than enough space for it to stretch as far as it liked, and not a lot for them to hide.
You have been challenged by: Wanderer’s Ruin
“Oh. It’s just a dragon,” Elia commented.
Rye turned to her in horror. She was smiling.
“How is that a good thing?”
“I’ve seen a bunch of dead dragons, but not a lot of live ones. Who's to say this one can’t end the same?” She hefted her glaive. “Watch.”
And then she was off. The dragon grumbled as it noticed what to it must have been a tiny mouse approaching at a leisurely pace. Elia proved that mice had claws as she jumped under a lazily aimed wing-cut, disappearing under the dragon’s underside. The scales looked smaller there, and the fur looked thinner. It twitched and bellowed angrily as it tried to turn and get the annoying interloper off itself. But it couldn’t catch her. Here and there her weapons flashed, leaving spouts of dark red blood.
It spewed fire, which fell onto the stone floor like oil. But while that limited Elia’s mobility, the sprays of hot liquid didn’t seem to stop her. If anything, she was keeping to the pace she had set, slowly and steadily hacking at the dragon’s flanks.
Rye could swear the sounds the dragon was making were starting to turn panicked. She was starting to understand where Elia’s confidence was coming from.
The dragon was old. Cracks ran through its body front and back. Its skin was marred with scars that never had scales regrow over them, leaving a lot of openings on its large body for Elia. Its eyes were drawn deep into its skull and for some reason she was sure that had it not happened upon Elia today, it wouldn’t have had many years left to live anyways.
Age. Starvation. How much food did a dragon that size need to live? How much was left when nobody tilled the fields and undead roamed the land in greater numbers than the living?
How long until there’s nothing left to eat for anyone? Until there are only undead?
Undead grew stronger the more death there was. Perhaps it was fate that it would one day encounter a person so much smaller in body, yet so much stronger. If it were smart and cautious, it would have doused them all in flame from above and only landed when it was sure its prey was dead. It either didn’t see them as prey, or there was some other reason why it would choose to expose itself.
Pride, perhaps.
The dragon was slowing down now. Its belly fur was damp with red so dark it was approaching black. That was when Rye noticed there was a figure riding on its titanic back, holding a set of reins tight in one hand. It had been biding its time for a while, as before Rye could finish casting a hailstone javelin, it thrust with its weapon almost too fast to see. That, finally, got Elia.
She bounced back, like a cricket that had suddenly noticed something far larger than itself stepping nearby, and skidded to a halt meters away from Rye. She coughed, once, blood pouring from her lips as much as from the gaping stab wound in her torso.
Rye didn’t hesitate, taking her only water bottle and shoving it roughly down Elia’s throat.
“See, this is why you can’t just jump into things.”
“Thanks,” she gurgled.
“That’s the last of our water. Did you at least get a good look at who that was? I couldn’t make them out with all the dragon’s fur.”
“Red lady with a sword spear. I think she really doesn’t want to let us pass.”
Red lady? That description only fit two gods she knew of. Worga, the great goddess of conquest, and–
You have challenged: Wroti, the Red Sun
–Wroti, first daughter of the divine pair, and greatest warrior known to man and godkind. Even Worga was said to live in fear of what she had birthed. There was a famous story where Worga had declared she must prove herself by living in hell for one year and one day. Wroti had obeyed, and when she returned, she only had one thing to say:
“Where would you have me next, mother?”
A shiver ran up and down her skin. Here was that legend, willingly sacrificing her dragon just to get a good shot on Elia. Yes, Elia was likely a great threat to her, and just being here was an affront, but still. It was a brutal calculus.
The dragon fell, heaving, and a lone figure emerged from its body. Her red hair fell over her androgynous body in a mane, wild strands playing over brutal muscles. Her armor, which covered every part except for her head, looked like it had been cast directly onto her skin, then scorched, then forged, then scorched again. Here stood a god that knew how to kill. Here stood the embodiment of judgment and death.
With a single raised hand a ball of fire coalesced in the air, growing and growing. Rye gulped, her throat feeling oddly dry. She could feel the heat, feel it sucking the moisture out of the air, feel it even though her skin was made from stone.
“Shit,” she heard Elia mutter. “Things just got complicated.”
“You don’t say!? That is Wroti, first daughter of Worga and Ruthe, chief executioner of the gods.”
Instead of inspiring fear, Elia only furrowed her brows. “Wasn’t she here to burn the grail? Why is she defending it?”
Brass horns trumpeted in a terrible dissonance. The ball of fire that was more like an angry sun accelerated towards them with ponderous speed. Rye pulled Elia to the side, taking cover behind the massive pillars and enveloping them in as many layers of ice as she could reasonably conjure.
The world turned orange, then red, then white as everything sizzled and popped around them. The ice cracked, melting before her eyes. White scales took to her left leg and began questing along her hip. She felt a hand pat her back.
“On the count of three, open a hole in the ceiling. One. Two. Three.”
Rye obeyed and within a split second, she felt the world accelerate, heat up, then cool down just as suddenly. They soared through the air, courtesy of Elia’s [Frog leap], landing far away, but closer to the executioner than either would have liked. Trails of steam were running off of Elia, who blinked as if she hadn’t expected her idea to work. Who would willingly jump into and through a giant ball of fire? She even had to leave her glaive behind, and by the looks of it, it had turned into a two-dimensional piece of slag.
“Hah. Hahah!” Elia pulled her shortsword – brimming with sunlight as much as fire – and pointed it at Wroti. “I’m coming for you next, girl. Watch out, ’cause this music ain’t playing for you, it’s playing for me!”
There was no reaction on Wroti’s face, just the same sunken-eyed expression as she lifted her hand to conjure the same spell again.
Rye was faster this time, sending a hail of javelins her way to cover for Elia , who approached from the side. Together, while the javelins mostly deflected off her armor, Elia had enough of an opening to dare a strong lunge. Light and fire exploded, cutting clean across the goddess’ abdomen.
Not a lot of blood. Do her wounds cauterize that quickly?
The goddess seemed to barely mind, as she pivoted and kicked Elia in the side, then jumped after her in a stone-shattering display of might. Elia rebounded as quickly as ever and soon enough, they were locked in a flurry of blows.
Rye wanted to help, but she wouldn’t last a second in melee, and it was hard to hit them with magic when they were moving so gosh darn much.
Maybe we should retreat and come back after we’ve regrouped.
Rye was prepared to help Elia out. She was even prepared to throw hands for her, the way she had always done. But as she saw the exchange become more frantic, throwing up more and more dust and shrapnel, she knew that for all her experience in fighting for two hundred years, Elia couldn’t beat someone with at least ten times as much.
In a moment of clarity, she caught Elia’s eyes. Therein was that need, that desperate need to live and to overcome, to prove that she could win. And besides, who said the tar would stay as it was while they were off healing what wounds could be healed?
“Dammit, I didn’t come here to fight another day,” she said, then yelled over the din of the battle. “When I give the signal, dodge!”
Rye pooled the lion’s share of her reservoir into a single cast. It was less of a spell and more of a redirection of energy, an epiphany she had stumbled on after waking up from the world’s nightmares. A spell wanted to do work because it was being held contained. With a reservoir and casting ability as strong as hers, what happened if you gave that boundless energy from above a narrow funnel, a direction, and simply let it flow?
It was like pushing a rock over the edge of a hill, and watching it tumble down. All she needed was this single push, then the rest would follow.
She aimed.
Elia missed a parry and got stabbed through the thigh.
She breathed in.
“Jump!”
Elia jumped and just as her feet cleared Wroti’s head, the goddess was lost in a torrent of blue frost. The temperature dropped as a meter-wide beam exploded across where she was standing.
Above, Elia rammed her sword into a pillar, then landed on the hilt while barely making it wobble. What she saw from up there gave her cause to whoop. “That was awesome! Your magic is so friggin cool!”
Rye smiled, even as she felt herself paying the price. The scales fully took her leg, now covering half her body like a waning moon. It was worth it though. The goddess of murder slain – blasphemy never felt better.
But as the cool steam cleared, there was a figure that was still standing. Her armor was cracked, revealing rivers of red and golden blood. She staggered back as fat globules of her burning blood fell to the floor, sizzling on the stone.
Wroti was still alive, even though half her face was blasted down to the bone. What no one could have expected was that she was not alone. A golden visage like a ghost was peeking out from under the skin. Compared to Wroti, she had a fair and soft face, sharp only at the chin where the golden shimmer didn’t overlap perfectly with her host.
The woman drew back, and out of the body, which slumped in death-like exhaustion. She was connected to her by thin strands of golden light, a puppet master hiding in the body of its own puppet. Her eyes were colored with deep fury, and an indignant arrogance that could only ever belong to a god.
“Worthless wretch. The gods hath no need for thy service. And yet thou’rt standing true. Thy blasphemy knows no restraint.” The flowing robes and scarves of silk flowing behind her drew back, mimicking snakes ready to bite. “Let it be curbed by the true Queen of Nos Deindolen.”
You have challenged: Aurana, Radiance of Gold
Those were the last words Rye saw as the goddess conjured a river of gold and blasted her straight through the chest.