There was an odd rhythm to standing right back up after dying. It wasn’t something Elia particularly had to think about. Like getting out of bed after a nightmare, a brief moment of bottomless unease came and went, leaving space for a more calculating evaluation of last loop’s events.
The problems then persisted even now. She was not good enough, not strong enough, fast enough, clever enough. Sure, the odds were skewed. Sure, she was trying to prove to herself that she could, more than anyone else, try and succeed alone.
She did not succeed and regrettably, the only constant over innumerable lifetimes remained herself. People came and went but she and her demons remained. Despite practice, training, learning, she had to helplessly watch herself degrade, chipped away so slowly that when one day she couldn’t ascend a flight of stairs without taking a break, it didn’t even come as a surprise.
The transition from old life to the new one hadn’t changed much. It was only slowly, belayed by untold years that she realized she truly had let her second chance run through her hands. It was hard calling it a second life; there was hardly a single memory of the last decade she could actively summon instead of only seeing it in flashes of shock and nightmarish daydreams.
Even then she improved in parts, slowly but surely. Now she stood in the courtyard again, not even having bothered with the undead on the way. She didn’t even know why she was here. With no body armor, no coiled conches and being pretty much the same person as before, the sea of dead hulks stood as a monument to her own chances at overcoming this final obstacle.
It was better than the bird, but still fairly awful.
“Here I go dying again.”
As she walked past the portal and the iron grate closed behind her, there was nothing much she could do but sigh. The dog was weak to fire and blows driving the spear tips littering its side deeper into its hide. She caught and stowed two of the three incoming shells, adjusted her torn tunic and waited. And waited. And waited.
Is it being shy for a reason?
Elia grunted. No Vita the Fane-Eater showed itself, no eldritch road-bump out to bully a girl more on the underside of half-dead. In its place a puddle of black tar clung to the wall, evaporating before her eyes until not even a hint of residue remained among the pile of bleached bone. Her souls were there too, floating innocuously within the wall’s shadow.
Elia blinked, once, then twice. Nothing stepped from the distant dark gate, not when she walked halfway up to it, not when she was within arm’s reach of her souls. The bones really did belong to it, but the stewing joy only made her check her back twice as much.
You have regained: Soul x18180
You have regained: Bone shard [Common] x12
You have regained: Bone shard [Uncommon] x11
There was no catch. There was only relief and an upset stomach.
Elia, what’s going on?
Her hands searched for something shining in the mud. A small translucent pearl plucked from its bed among the remains of the dog, two interlinked yellow rings of a warm golden color caught within.
Essence of Loyalty
An essence of loyalty caught within a glossy shell of a pearl-like substance. Swallow to imbue a boon with essence.
Elia, talk to me. We lost, time turned backwards, but the dog’s dead. How? Why?
“I don’t think we lost.” It was a draw, one that they won by default of coming back. It had sour aftertaste. She pocketed the ball and eyed the gate that led back out, Dorothy leaning wide open just like she left it last loop.
And just like that, another eccentricity bored holes into every theory she had as to what was actually going on. Time loop? Selective amnesia? Multiverse jumping?
Maybe talking doors didn’t revert. Maybe they remembered, self-correcting after every failed loop. At least the bosses didn’t respawn. Once again Elia found herself describing the world with videogame jargon.
It had to be a videogame. No other way could Elia explain the incongruities, human error in its construction a likely cause for illogical twists and turns in the fabric of the world. The world had loot, had bosses to boot and either way, the irony of this divine joke was contorted to stretch towards some invisible goal rather than follow any line of apparent sense.
“I guess good things can happen to me.” But experiencing it herself filled her with a sense that she was trespassing. Good things didn’t just happen to her, they had to be earned.
… So, we won, right?
“Uh–huh. Not all skill, all me though.”
Ok… I am going to celebrate our victory now.
She sighed. A win was a win. She’d take it, and grump over it later. “Party hard, girl. Just remember: No alcohol, no boys and lights out at eleven.”
Wohoo! We won! We protected the castle from that filthy, filthy monster dog. Ten hips and one hooray! Wohoo!
“Wohoo indeed, my fellow simlish speaker.” Now, where was the next checkpoint? Was it under an ogre corpse? No, the gate the dog came from was more likely, obvious, even. What else would it have been guarding?
Don’t take this the wrong way but I am glad I don’t ever have to watch you fight that thing again. The way it moved, its arms – ugh. Now that it’s done, I want to scrub myself down for days.
Elia scrunched her nose. “Didn’t smell great either. Like thousand-year-old sweat paved over by fresh roadwork.”
Ew. Seriously, EW. I don’t even want to know more about it.
“Well, besides the tang, it had bite that really got up in the sinuses. Reminds me of dead rat–“
LALALA, I’M NOT LISTENING!
The rusted metal gate greeted them with much the same energy as a rock by the wayside, which is to say it didn’t say much at all, or even seem alive. The space behind this lesser cousin of Dorothy yawned with an endless darkness, shapes within growing more defined as her eyes adjusted to the low level of light.
What started as a thoroughfare for the road to Loften flowed directly through a room for prayer and mass. Much more than a room, it was an entire cathedral built with thick walls, elaborate stone columns and high gothic windows, the colored glass allowing a modicum of light to creep inside in rays of yellows, oranges, and blues. A statue of two women in armor and robes so lifelike they would have made Michelangelo green with envy flanked an altar overgrown with candle stubs. The walls were plastered with a mosaic depicting scenes of unclothed individuals in battle with beasts and monsters, one weirder than the next. Some were odd fusions of two or more animals she might have recognized, others had an odd number of legs and too many or too few faces. Most of the threat remained as ominous eyes glowing from beneath a forests canopy that crawled across the sides like a carpet of moss.
Among the skies, Elia recognized dragons, both Asian and European types sowing havoc among all that lived below.
Wow.
The ceiling was too high to make out the full scenery as it lost itself in darker shades, but what she did see was enough for her to stop a moment and stare in mild appreciation. Not too much of course, she wouldn’t want to make it seem like she respected the gods. Or architects.
All that suffering was worth it just to behold this momentous vista. What glory. What artistic beauty.
Yes, ‘beauty’. That was a word. “I see naked men and women.”
Hm? What was that?
“Nothing. I sneezed.”
Suuure. Oh look, it’s one of the checkpoint bowls!
It sure was, though Elia had to climb over a nest of shredded pews that probably once belonged to Vita given the amount of sludge and tufts of fur. Another set of knightly armor lay half-eaten beside it, yet as she got close Elia spotted a white feather clasped within its twiggy fingers.
Nuptial Offering
A gift of curved feather is a rarity in the civilized lands and said to form an eternal bond. Place in a bowl of respite to connect its waters with one you have previously traveled to.
“A feather?” Were birds real or not?
Wow. I never thought I’d get to see a real one. Most of those used for arrows are just made of thin metal, transmuted copies, fakes, and replacements. This is a real feather, grown on a back or a tail. Those are quite ludicrously rare, you know?
“Whack.” She held it up against the faint light. “Not made of rocks. I assume this isn’t a roc-feather then?”
No, I’d think that would be a bit… unusual. It’s probably from a mountain lion, or an ichty-fish. See, there’s one on the mural. No, not there, to the right. Other right!
There was, indeed, a small fish with wings like a dragonfly and violent, sharp teeth. It was in the process of being stabbed with a lance, though the stabber in question was unaware of the lion shape prowling at its back. The lion too had feathers instead of a mane of fur.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Not a single bird was to be found anywhere on the entire canvas aside a few white shapes depicting the marble rocs.
“Huh. I guess birds really don’t exist in your world.”
That’s what I’ve been saying! They’re just part of myth and story, bound to books and fairytales.
“But dragons are totally real, yeah?”
Yes? At least, I think so. They’re so big, I can hardly imagine how much it must cost to feed them. I never saw one myself of course, it would have been quite an ominous omen if I did. The gods don’t let them loose lightly.
“Sure am glad my shit-talk doesn’t warrant that level of reaction yet.” She scanned the mosaic for any other useful information, but eventually turned her mind to the bowl. “If the inside of the castle is as dark as the outside, we’ll have to come back with a torch.”
The checkpoint, which now went by the official and much fancier name of ‘bowl of respite’, was the same as every other one, water completely clear despite the oily residue sticking to every surface inside the cathedral. That was only one of the reasons she didn’t feel welcome here, and the other was that she once borrowed a bible and never gave it back even after years had passed.
It would have been too awkward after so much time.
*Gong*
She touched the bowl, it gonged in that distant way and once again, all progress was saved. Hooray for checkpoints. Now, if she didn’t misread this, the feather would allow her to quickly travel back to Crossroad Temple if she placed it in the–
W–wait! Before you use it can I… see what it feels like?
“What, never touched a feather before?”
No.
She was about to open her mouth when a second, more distant gong sounded out. The water in the bowl rippled and Rye nearly dropped the feather as first a gauntlet, then a winged helmet emerged from the mirrorlike surface.
The person it was attached to stopped halfway through, golden dagger eyes catching Elia’s own through an open-faced helmet shaped like a lion’s head and about as large, too. Its feathered plume and faux stare exuded a primal aura and for a moment, they just stared at each other. The armored individual broke the staring contest only to quickly glance at Elia’s raised morningstar.
“So that’s what the feathers do.” Elia chuckled, nervously. “Hello there.”
“General Kenobi,” the woman answered. “may the force be with you, and the sun and all that other jazz.”
Elia gaped. “You’re from earth.”
“No shit I am – wait, you’re from earth, too!” She slapped the bowl’s rim, laughing in a way Elia could feel in her chest. “You shouldn’t be here, but after all this time? What’re the odds? I’m Rhuna the great, knight of Loften et cetera.”
“Elia.” Elia numbly shook Rhuna’s hand, a hand that could have closed around her head with ease. The rest of her on the other side of the water portal must have been very large as well.
Oh great, now there are two of them.
“You from the east coast?”
“West, actually. Moved a lot though, Portland to Portland.”
Are those two different places with the same names? That’s so dumb! It sounds made up. Elia, tell me this is another one of your elaborate jokes.
But it wasn’t and Elia nearly felt her vision grow blurry. “Fuck. I just – I never expected to talk to anyone about movies ever again. Fuck, this is huge.”
“Hah, yeah, you kinda miss that once everyone’s gone.” Rhuna wiggled a bit, her pauldrons having some trouble fitting through the bowl. “One sec, lemme just adjust my fit a little.”
The bowl of respite wasn’t even that small, two Elia’s side by side could comfortably jump through. The woman was just that big. Elia watched in stunned silence as her size seemed to lengthen, then twist and contract like she was made of clay.
“Do you, uh, need any help?” Elia asked, as the woman didn’t appear to be making any progress.
“No, nonono, I am quite independent… and… emancipated.” With a crack and a pop, she grew twiceover and the bowl broke in half. “Ah, there we go. Stupid new boons, you know how they are.”
Elia just stared at the broken stone bowl, crystal clear water flowing down into an endless waterfall that didn’t seem to create any puddles, but simply flowed through the ground. She never broke a bowl before. She had never seen anything even scratch one. Rhuna’s proportions shrunk down to normal, before settling on a height that let her able to stand face to face with Elia. She measured once, then added exactly one extra inch.
“Perfect.” She grinned with all the satisfaction of a shapeshifter having found just the right fit.
Elia couldn’t help but feel that before her shapechange, a comparison to the giant would have been an insult, if only because her armor was that much nicer than his rags. It was a kind of late medieval plate that eschewed hard armor around the leg and arm joints in favor of thin silvery chainmail for mobility. It was a work of art, the kind that belonged into the ‘impossibly embellished yet practical’ category rather than the ‘belongs in a museum’ one. The edges all had a precious finish and Elia was fairly certain that golden rays of the blazing sun on her chest were actual gold. They even looked polished. Nothing ever looked polished in this world.
“So, now that we see eye-to-eye, I have but one question to ask: Prequels or o-gee trilogy?”
She has quite… well defined thighs and arms. I’d let a knight like her hold me anytime. Sigh. Elia, stop staring like some dumbstruck fool, she seems friendly. Talk to her and make friends.
And follow Rye’s ulterior motive of being bedded by pretty women? No thanks, after the encounter with the legionnaires, she knew what she had been missing: a friend she could relate to. It wasn’t easy, shaking off the wave of emotion pulling her back and forth. On the one hand, she left that part of her life behind, mostly losing it to the fog of time. She was a different person now, in a different body and she had lived in this world for longer than in her old one.
On the other hand, the simple mention of experiences she could relate to brought tears to her eyes. Nearly. She squeezed the life out of them before her tear ducts could betray her. “I’m a sucker for the prequel clone design, the politics too.”
The woman laughed again, giggling in a way that shook the surrounding architecture. “Le-mao! I thought only kids liked those.”
Elia shrugged, finding a bit of her old groove. It helped that Quibbles was there, and Rye to an extent. “Hey, eight-year-old me loved watching clones and droids dunking on each other. We had a DVD player, and–“
“Wait, wait, DVD?” She laughed again in that gruff and snooty way. “How old are you, like a bajiliion?”
Honestly, listening to the both of you is giving me a headache.
Elia chuckled. “Honestly, who knows?”
“Mood.”
“Yeah, uh, big mood.” So she was also older than she looked, older than say thirty, twenty nine. She had the same thing that concealed the attendant’s undeath going for her, which made gauging her age extra hard, especially considering she still talked like a highschooler. “Say, uh, do you by any chance know how you got here?”
“Walking.” She held up her hands placatingly. “Chill, grandma, I don’t know either. One day I was in my bed, on my phone, then I get all dizzy and wham! Instant reincarnation.”
She’s lying. People aren’t reincarnated that fast. They have to go through an audit and live a life in either hell or the sun. More importantly, they have to die first.
However, the woman wasn’t lying. It happened much the same for Elia, at least she thought it did. That part of her memory was long gone, but the memory of memory remained like a poor copy.
“So, you’re new here,” Rhuna said while she gave Elia a cursory inspection, no doubt finding her wanting. “Nice souls, newbie. I prefer the rarer ones myself. Ever wrestled a scale-feathered serpent before?”
“Uh, can’t say I have.” Did that imply that the serpent had scales and feathers, that its scales were feathered, or its feathers were scaled? “I wandered around in the maze forever, got stuck there. My second life kinda sucked.” Wasn’t that the understatement of the decade.
After this much time, Elia would have loved nothing more than movie gossip, but she had just as much relevant info to soak up. Like a sponge out of water, she was ready to take whatever the giant reincarnator would give her, be that tips on how to progress, routes and maps or simply news from wherever she was from. Information was still her greatest weapon, but she wouldn’t mind wielding the kinds of guns that Rhuna was, or having shapeshifting powers. Currently, all Rhuna was giving were arched eyebrows and a slightly diminished, although still very easy-going smile.
“The maze. Huh. Neato,” Rhuna said while pretending to take in the mural on the church’s walls. Elia gathered that her recollection wasn’t neato at all. Rhuna at least didn’t sound all that enthused. “I gee-tee-eff-o’d outta there first thing I got here. Can’t imagine you’d find anything besides dreg trash and common shards in there.”
“Yeah, that and spiders, bugs, a few crazy people and, uh, yeah.” She managed half a smile. “That’s what my life was like up until recently.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatevs.” The woman stretched, in a way that her muscles played underneath parts of her armor. Elia could feel Rye’s gaze intensify again. “I’m gonna be completely honest with you: I’ve been looking for someone out there. Big villain energy, a real mucho evil person, escaped convict with superpowers kind of style. Did you happen to come across someone like me, except smaller, weaker, and waaay uncooler? Oh, and before you get all preachy with me, they’re officially a traitor to the gods. I’ve got a warrant.”
Traitor? No traitors here, haha. Elia, please tell me you’re not a traitor.
“Uhhh,” Elia uhhed, not exactly clearing suspicion from her person. “Not really much to go on. I’m… pretty close to a dreg myself, as you can see.”
“Ah, yeah, the memory.” Rhuna nodded with much understanding. “Hate it when people die so much they can’t even be used to guard the dungeon, or remember my name. Glad you can remember yours though. Great job. Pat pat.”
The woman’s pats were uncomfortable, not just because she made her arm large enough to squeeze her like a grapefruit, but also because she didn’t seem to realize how flimsy Elia was when standing beside her. In her larger form – assuming that was her standard one - a single thigh had the same diameter as her torso.
Elia was absolutely buying the strength increase next.
“Ow, ow, Ow.” She wasn’t stopping and so Elia just let her be, the uncomfortableness not enough to warrant invoking her ire. A weird person was fine. She could deal with weird.
It sounds like she’s seen a lot of people die, well, a lot. Since you seem so chum with her, would you mind asking how we can solve, well, us? I want to go home and I’d rather not be an undead or stuck with you inside my body for any longer than necessary.
Elia nodded. “Alright, if that’s all I’d like to continue on. Maybe we can talk some more next time. Does this world have cellphones?”
She tried extricating herself from her grasp, but Rhuna’s hand was like a vice.
“I think I might not have asked nicely enough, so let be clear: Have you seen the backstabbing, shard stealing, whore?” Her voice boomed like thunder that subsided just as quickly, making Elia almost think she had imagined it. The hand on her shoulder was very real. “C’mon, you should really tell me now ‘cause believe you me, if there is one thing I can’t stand more than a thief, it’s an NPC that lies.”
Um, Elia? Please don’t lie.
“Can’t say I’ve had the pleasure.” She blinked, twice. “The maze is a pretty big place.”
“Hm, true. But you should not be here,” Rhuna said and Elia’s saw the world sideways.
You have died
----------------------------------------
She woke up next to the bowl, still gushing water in an endless stream clipping through the ground. She rubbed her neck, finding it uncomfortably whole. “That… wasn’t very nice.”
Wasn’t nice? Wasn’t NICE!? SHE KILLED YOU! I KNEW you come from a land of uncivilized brutes. Oh woe is I, she killed you and you don’t even bat an eye.
“Yeah,” Elia cracked her neck until it popped, eliciting another gag from her cranial companion. It was probably an accident. It had to be. “But I killed myself plenty too. Maybe I’m not too mad, since we basically restarted right next to where we died. See? Our souls are right there.”
You have regained–
That’s… entirely horrible, and also not the point! We found a vicious murderer, someone who LIES about being a knight of our great capital and apparently isn’t beneath turning our insides into outsides to get whatever it is she thinks we know!
“Pshh, please, she was a poor interrogator. How was she expecting to get any information out of me when I’m dead?” She pulled out a feather, seventeen thousand emotions conflicting for attention with the simple question of where she was supposed to put it now that the bowl was totaled. “Let’s scoot before she comes back–“
The image of her reflection turned into one of gothic halls and spires. A familiar face rose from the depths.
“…shit.”
“–always happens at the most annoying times. Ah, there you are.” The woman clambered through the portal with ease this time, hitting the ground with much less restraint as she peered down to Elia who was shaken off her feet. “You might not remember me, but we were in the middle of talking about a traitor I believe? Sorry ‘bout killing you by the by, but you understand, I’m sure you do. Now, for the sake of the empire and the sun as much as our continuing friendship: Where is the traitor knight?”
Elia had a feeling. A feeling like being caught out naked on the freeway. Like looking at the sky and seeing it stare back. Like finding out you had cancer at the age of five. The dread crept outward, slowly spiraling from her chest until it muted every other thought in her head.
SHE REMEMBERS!
There was one person who might fit the bill of a thief and a traitor, only one. Right then and there, she vowed to herself not to ever utter a word in front of the knight known as the great Rhuna. More than anything before, this woman reminded her of the time when she first arrived I this world, when she was filled with nothing but a deep seated dread.