Relocation flares. The heart around me bleeds away, and I find myself standing in an unfamiliar place. There’s salt everywhere–the ceiling, the floor, the walls–but it looks weird. Instead of the complex crystalline structure I know Fleur is capable of making, this is more like someone blew up a hundred boxes of table salt in a very small room. Fleur shifts slightly, making more space for me, and reaches out a hand.
In her palm are two coins. My two coins.
“The coins you asked for.”
I accept the pair with a nod. A quick glance at them confirms they’ve got the same cost as the other, and I stuff them away with the first. Pearl almost squeals in excitement, but catches herself just before a noise can come out.
“Thanks, Fleur. And, uh, where are we?”
Fleur slowly looks around. “This is where I first remember. A small room, piled high with salt, and straining with magic. There is absolutely nothing special about it. I was simply… lucky that I adapted to the apocalypse.”
“Hey, luck’s the best thing you can have on your side.” I offer her a smile and look past her to the small opening behind her. “You can train or learn pretty much everything else, but luck probably plays the biggest part in your life.”
I can feel Pearl starting to frown before I see it. And… it looks like Fleur’s frowning, too. Guess I’m the one that needs to clarify this time.
“I don’t mean the hokey version of ‘luck’ people parade around. Like… someone being guaranteed to win a contest or always have the best things possible happen to them.” I start to say, then realize how it must sound coming from a woman with a skill that kind of makes that happen. “What I really mean is… like… your circumstances. When you’re young, you don’t have any control over them. Then when you get older, you sort of start being able to make your own luck. See what I’m saying?”
“No.”
“Sort of, but you’re doing a pretty bad job explaining it.” March chimes in. “You’re also doing a bad job stalling since you’re obviously worried about whatever you’re about to do. We’re on a tight time limit, remember?”
…Is it really that obvious? Hell, I barely feel it myself, but if March could sense it through a botched explanation, then it’s probably pretty bad. And she’s right–we are on a relatively tight time limit. Especially if things go wrong.
“You're right.” I sigh, and though my voice doesn’t shake, I feel a chunk of anxiety begin to weigh down my stomach. “I’ll have to give Fleur a better explanation when she’s safe.”
“That’s not the important part.”
“Yeah, I know that, too.” I chuckle and brush past Fleur, bending down to fit through the hole. “Fleur, how far until we’re at the surface? If your salt messes with my skills, then the magical storm around this place definitely will too.”
“We are barely fifteen feet from the surface.” Fleur’s core brightens right over my shoulder as her body distorts to fit beside me in the small tunnel. “Though you may find it difficult to reach your true destination.”
Difficult to… what? If we’re almost at the surface, this should be easy as hell. I pack her strange warning away as I pull myself through the tunnel–definitely more than fifteen feet worth–and narrow my eyes as a bright light filters through dozens of increasingly complex salt formations. Until, finally, the tunnel opens up to the surface of the krarig.
On a support beam halfway between the main platform and the jagged waves of the ocean below. A startled grunt escapes my lips as I grab at a thick salt vine to steady myself, the thorns which would have hurt my hand retracting into the salt before they can prick my skin. The roar of the waves scrapes against my ears, and I can’t help but wonder how the hell didn’t hear it up until literally right now.
I didn’t hear March flinch away, but I have no doubt she’s turned me almost all the way down now.
“Did you soundproof the damn hole?!” I nearly scream to be heard over the crashing waves. “Why?!”
Fleur’s body extracts itself all around me, and she reforms herself clinging to the salt encrusting the side of the krarig. “I thought you would be asking me why I did not simply reach the platform and then contact you.”
“That too! Explain!”
“The explanation is simple. I… I…” Fleur pauses as her cores flicker. “This is strange. I know that I have an explanation, but I cannot seem to verbalize it. How peculiar. No matter–it is probably pointless sentimentalism.”
She seems… conflicted as she speaks. Not like she’s deciding whether to tell me her reasoning, but like she doesn’t quite understand her own reasoning. ‘Pointless sentimentalism’, she calls it. I’m pretty damn sure she just wanted to show me the first thing she remembers. Now that I think about it… she’s been getting a lot easier to talk to over the last few hours. Is that because she’s evolving, or just getting used to communicating with words?
I shake my head and smack my cheeks. No. I’m letting myself get sidetracked again. Gotta focus on the thing I’m terrified about doing. My hand grabs for a chunk of salt that looks like it’ll hold my weight, and an inner warmth that reminds me of Fleur improves that confidence a hundredfold. I test it one more time just in case, reach my foot for another hold, and start to climb.
Fleur slithers right up alongside me. “Can you not use a spell for this instead?”
“…Dammit, am I really this scared of relocating things so far?” I laugh and create a shield coin, then flick it under my feet. It explodes into motion, and I let it carry me upwards. “Fleur, if I fail at this, things get way more complicated. I don’t know if we’ve got the tech to keep you alive for a multiple hour long helicopter ride, especially not if the krarig and/or the Preservation decide they don’t want us flying free.”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
As the salt air stings my skin, I watch the krarig platform get ever closer. Elementals reach out and try to attack me every now and again, but Fleur takes care of them before I can even think of wasting some Worth. Makes me wonder why she didn’t just make me a platform to bring me up.
Less than two minutes pass. My eyes just barely reach over the edge of the platform, and I scan the area for some information. Preservation members and salt elementals are deadlocked in a constant battle for survival. The elementals seem to have an endless flow of bodies to throw at the superior skills and firepower of the Preservation, but even with my untrained eye, I can see that they’re starting to falter.
Medics pull people away and tend to them in shimmering circles of magic. Defensive spells keep the elemental horde from overwhelming the Preservation, but from how the spellcasters shake, they’re running low on… something. I don’t really know how mana works, so maybe using too much of it makes you weak and queasy. It’s consistent with what I’m watching, so I’ll go with that for now.
What the Preservation’s lacking, however, is offense. Even with shakiness their defences are holding, but all their attackers seem to be… how do I put this kindly… sucky? One guy throws fireballs that barely melt the elemental’s surface, another channels some kind of power through the ground that might be annoying the elementals, and more than a few brandish traditional weapons. There’s even some guns among the group, but the bullets there barely scratch the elementals.
Makes me appreciate Ursula’s firepower even more. But what it confirms for me is the validity of the documents from the desk room–that the Preservation actually stopped sending in low-level recruits because they couldn’t do anything. Yet these… these are people with classes. With stats better than mine. Their spells should hit harder, their stamina should be greater, and… hell, they’ve actually got mana to work with. Not the Worth I’m stuck using.
Watching them fight and struggle against things I so easily blew away… I’ve got to admit, it’s a little cathartic. But before I can get too invested, Fleur gently taps me on the shoulder. I breathe out a sigh and pull myself the rest of the way up, then lock onto the helicopter.
“I know, I know, can’t get sidetracked. Architect, can you put me through to Mercenary?”
“Can do. Connection in three, two, one.”
Heavy breaths invade my ears the moment she finishes her countdown. “Gambler! You all good? I’m good here!”
“Good to know. Weird question, but if I take the helicopter, do you have any way out of here?”
Ursula’s breaths come a little heavier. What the hell’s making her exert like this? She swallows dryly, then sucks air through her teeth as something explodes in the background.
“M…Mercenary? What the hell are you fighting?”
“Well, we’ve got two enemies here, so even if you flip a coin you’ve got a fifty percent chance of being right.” She sarcastically quips. “If you’ve gotta know, I went straight from nuking a dinosaur dump truck to trying to stall the Preservation that ain’t here yet. I… wait, I’ve got an idea. You got Fleur with you?”
I glance over at the eager elemental. “Yeah.”
“You got a plan to bring her with us?”
“Mmhm.”
“Perfect. Go destroy the basecamp, then Architect’ll give you directions so you can fly out and pick me up. It’s gonna be a bumpy-ass ride, so tell Fleur to sit tight for… say… an hour. Then you can do whatever it is you’re gonna do.”
Destroy the basecamp? I glance up at the place we’ve been calling home for almost a week now, but my awareness doesn’t reach it from where I’m standing. All the research salt’s still in there–including the vendigator–and it just seems like such a waste.
“I’m not destroying everything. Can you hold out for five minutes?”
Another ringing explosion nearly deafens me. But.. it doesn’t just come from my earpieces. It also comes from somewhere off over the waters. Beyond the magical storm, but if I had to guess, that won’t be the case for long.
“Five minutes! Go!”
With Ursula’s hollered confirmation ringing in my ears, I sprint towards the basecamp. With shields and Fleur helping me out it only takes two minutes to get up there and gather everything Fleur couldn’t replicate if we gave her enough salt, encase all of it in a salt bubble of Fleur’s making, and slide back down the ramp. The Preservation people must’ve noticed me by now, but honestly, I don’t give a shit.
I sprint through a group of elementals, tossing a few projectile-infused coins into particularly dangerous points as Fleur demolishes the ones who get too close to me. Gasps and screams of fear rise in the Preservation’s ranks, and I have to put up more than a few shields to stop weak-ass attacks they fling at me. Even my brain creaks as some of them try to cast spells on me, but it feels like my awareness chews them up and spits them out before they can take hold.
“Make room!” I order as I break through the line, Fleur at my heels, and barrel through some very confused and scared Preservationists. “This elemental’s on your side, and she’s going to help keep you safe until your speaker comes back to get you all out of here! Make damn sure he doesn’t try to attack her!”
They all stare blankly at me. They recognize me from earlier, but they obviously don’t understand how I’m here. And… as I slowly take in all the looks, I realize that they’re scared of me. It feels… weird.
But I can make use of it.
“Did even one of you goddamn idiots hear me!?”
Suddenly, everyone who can stand comes up with a bad case of spine straightening. They all turn to look at me as if I was a drill sergeant that just screamed at them, which… yeah, that was the plan, but I didn’t expect it to work so well.
“Yes ma’am!” They all say in differing tones, cadences, and levels of exhaustion. But it looks so ingrained in them that I must’ve triggered some kind of trauma response. I’ll have to remember this.
“Good!” I shout and motion at the helicopter. “I’m leaving this hellhole, and I suggest you take that boat of yours and do the exact same thing when Call gets back! The krarig’s about an hour away from being the world’s problem, and your organization just sent in a damned huge solution! Now clear a path!”
The Preservationists all step aside, even though most of them aren’t actually in my way. Fleur accompanies me all the way to the helicopter, then waits patiently as I fish around in my pockets for the keys.
“The hell are… did Mercenary have them…?”
Jangling keys descend into my field of view, extended on a thorn of salt. I snatch them out of the air with a nod of thanks, press the button on the fob to open the helicopter’s hatch, and jump in before it can hit the ground. Fleur packs in everything behind me as I make my way to the pilot’s seat, then goes back to help the Preservation fend off the elementals.
I grab a pair of headphones, stick the key in the ignition, and close the hatch. The rotors slowly shear through the salt that encrusted them, and after a few worrying seconds, start to chop through the air in earnest. My awareness floods over the controls as I stare at them, the blankness of my mask completely cutting me off from the outside world as the chopper becomes airtight.
Before I can even say anything, my awareness latches onto a button labeled ‘tint windows’. I sigh in relief and press it, and once the windows have taken on a golden-brown hue, I peel my mask off my face and tuck it into the side of my seat. Because I have a feeling I’m going to need it again really soon.