Willow’s laptop glared accusingly at her with a half-finished paragraph. With zero shame, Willow ignored it to scroll through Twitter, because she needed a break before she busted her wrists again. The dark-skinned graduate student with curly hair sat back in an uncomfortable wooden chair, her pale pink cardigan pooling in her seat.
Looking through recent tweets, she marveled at the incredibly realistic CGI in a few videos. A gargantuan ferret-thing broke out of a rat’s body, cracking ribs along the way. Perhaps she could put this show on the list for her and Oliver to watch.
Her phone blared a shrill alarm, and she tried to silence it on instinct. However, Willow saw the emergency alert and froze. A lockdown?
Going back to Twitter, she read the caption again.
‘Please stay indoors. This is not a drill.’
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Elle takes slow, deep breaths. She has nothing besides the clothes on her back and her standard patrol kit in her inventory. If that isn’t bad enough already, she’s on a cliff with no settlement in sight. Next time Elle sees Equinox, she’s going to strongly suggest being more helpful when giving quests.
First priority: examine the area. Throwing on her hood, she’s glad that she wore her camo-jacket today which blends with her surroundings.
Across the wide valley in front of her, the young woman sees a dense forest which covers the horizon. Dark and filled with unfamiliar trees, the woods sit in perpetual shadow, not helped by the thick clouds concealing the sky. Considering the corruptive properties of monster blood, Elle needs to avoid that place.
Her dark brown eyes widen as she turns to the left. An expansive mountain range stands at a long distance from the cliff, stretching as far as she can see. Vegetation grows at its base and gradually becomes more sparse at higher elevation. Clouds obscure its peaks, but she can make out snow blanketing the area below them.
However, the most strange sight has to be the great waterfall cascading down the mountain to the left, sending sprays of foam visible even from this distance. Instead of being open to the air, the waterfall seems to run from the middle of the mountain whose top half appears to be a different shade of grey than the bottom. The hole appears to be formed at an awkward slant which doesn’t match the shape of the waterfall at all. It’s as though this mountain is actually two mountains stacked atop each other.
Separating her and the mountains, another forest dots the landscape but seems to contain an entirely different species of trees than the one across the valley. These deciduous trees vary in colour from a normal green to an outlandish purple. The rainbow of plants make her uneasy, likely hiding monstrous plants ready to ambush prey.
Turning left once more, Elle traces the waterfall’s flow downstream to a wide river which courses through another valley. The rapids reflect the grey skies, foaming at the edges from the great force. Across from her, mountains bare of greenery loom in the distance, once again completely different from the others around her. Those mountains are taller than her current cliff but shorter than the range with the waterfall.
Farther downstream the river and past the cordillera, she sees a massive glacier sloped downward towards the mountain but a blanket of fog covers its base from view. On her final turn counter-clockwise, Elle frowns in disappointment. Although her position appears to be the highest peak of another mountain range, the fog obscures the lands, thinning only a kilometre or two from her.
Crossing her arms, she fights a shiver from the cold. The winds at this elevation might not be the only thing responsible for the chilly air, given the glacier. She better not linger here for long, but where should she head next?
The forests are likely a death-sentence, and the mountains don’t show any signs of civilization like smoke or manmade structures. On Earth, settlements tend to be formed near rivers, so Elle might be able to find people by following this one downstream. However, she’ll have to enter the fog.
Besides her usual weapons, Elle has a machete, cellphone, first aid kit, bottled water, and 100 metres of rope. However, that won’t be enough help her climb to the mountain’s base, but she’s improved her athletic ability in the four months since unlocking her aura.
She sighs and looks around for a path down the mountain. The untamed rocky terrain shows no signs of human activity, but the young woman spots hoof prints embedded into a large boulder. A shiver runs down her spine, and she resolves to find shelter quickly.
Small white flowers on this peak poke out of cracks in the rocky ground, reminding Elle of weeds growing between sidewalk cracks. She can feel the plants emit some sort of energy that feels benign, so she uses her knife to gather some and store them in her inventory. After gathering the flowers, she continues searching her surroundings.
Unfortunately, the side of the mountain facing the river is somewhat steep, but there are plenty of ledges to climb. While she can’t find a clear path, at least she doesn’t have to jump off the cliff and hope to survive. From experience, she knows she can easily survive a five-story fall and walk away physically unscathed, but her aura would not be able to handle an impact of this elevation.
Tilting her javelin, Elle inserts Pointy into her inventory and begins to scale the mountainside with her hands and feet. Although she could’ve tried leaping down the ledges, she’s not confident that all the nooks and crannies are stable from sight alone. She’s never been rock climbing outside of gyms, but she has aura as backup to protect herself.
As she climbs for the next thirty minutes, Elle keeps an eye out for any monsters. She doesn’t need to use her hands for her space-warping attack, but she still feels uncomfortable with her back exposed to the air. With aura permeating her body, she doesn’t feel much of the strain, so she focuses on finding the most stable footholds.
Extending her senses, Elle can feel the stone in front of her stretch for about 96m before opening to empty space. Her range only reaches 100m however, so she can’t discern anything beyond the stillness of the air.
With the wind roaring in her ears, she senses danger before she hears it. Elle leaps off her current ledge to the one below and to the right. Right as her fingers leave the rock, hooves crush it to bits.
An antelope with forward-facing eyes huffs at her, powerful muscles rippling at it prepares to jump again. Its fur matches the surrounding rocks, making it difficult to distinguish except for its amber eyes.
Her space-warp attack uses too much aura when she needs to save every bit to get down the mountain. Elle vaults upwards and opens her inventory in the air behind her. Anne Bowlin’ smashes into the beast as it lands on her previous position.
The monster’s head crunches from the blow, revealing black goop inside the skull. It loses grip on the rocks and tumbles down about fifteen metres.
Elle lets Anne Bowlin’ fall into her inventory and continues leaping down to the right. On her third jump, her feet catch loose rocks. She dangles in the air with just her arms for a moment.
The creature lunges for her. Shaken by its head wound however, it misses and hits the wall on her left. It leaves a small crater.
She jumps down diagonally again. Elle sees she’s more than halfway down the mountain thanks to her aura-enhanced speed but pushes herself to move faster.
Before she lands on a wider ledge, Elle senses something occupying the dark crevice in the wall, but there’s no other path. She drops onto it and leaps to the left as vines lash out at her.
Now reoriented, the antelope springs towards her. She jumps backwards to the left into air. Its hooves stomp that part of the ledge into pieces.
Now in free fall, she swipes wildly in front of her until she manages to grab hold of a jutted rock. Elle slams into the wall and feels the air rush out of her lungs. Her aura takes most of the force behind the impact, but the remainder leaves her knees smarting from pain.
It’ll cost more aura to directly attack the beast.
She kicks off the wall and swings to another ledge. In that same instant, Elle uses her power to rip at the space just below where the plant appeared. The supporting ledge collapses.
As the monster lands on her previous position, rocks rush down and sweep it off its feet. The bundle of fur tumbles with the stone chunks and dismembered vines. Rocks continue falling.
She feels a small amount of aura return to her and knows its dead.
Elle springs down the mountainside in 15 metre jumps, channelling more aura through her arms and legs. The world blurs as she seems to make farther jumps each time. When she reaches about 40 metres off the ground, she leaps the rest of the distance as a landslide roars behind her.
She winces as her aura drains away the shock of the fall. The entire fight and escape left her with less than half her aura, and her skin still prickles with paranoia. Running off the momentum, she pants for breath as her feet skitter across stones.
Elle continues to run toward the fog, listening for noises besides the rushing river. The mountains looming on both sides leave her feeling trapped.
A faint scratching sound reaches her ears. Elle whips her head around in search of it.
A chinchilla scurries towards the riverbank, coming from one of many small holes on the mountainside. Or rather, it’s similar to a chinchilla but has abnormally sharp claws. Elle thinks it’s still rather cute.
From another hole, another chinchilla appears. Then another appears. And another. They all start scampering in her direction.
Elle picks up the pace, using more aura to revitalise her tired legs. She needs to run about a kilometre to reach the fog and hopefully find a place to hide.
She can sense that the small holes lead into deep tunnels which slope down into the mountain. More small creatures continue scurrying through the tunnels.
The sound of scattering rocks gets louder, and she looks over a shoulder. A swarm of chinchilla monsters cover the riverbank behind her with more still pouring out from the mountain.
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Elle decides that they are not cute anymore. But luckily, she has the dubious honour of being faster than a chinchilla.
Maybe they’ll go after the antelope corpse? While monsters prefer to eat humans, they will eat other beings if humans give them too much trouble.
Her legs and lungs burn, reminding her of her ever-decreasing aura level. She wishes that she has some sort of method to give an accurate measurement, but Earth doesn’t have anything like that yet.
As a habitual runner before the Hunger surfaced, Elle finds that outpacing the chinchillas to be easy considering her physical stamina. However, she’s more concerned with the possible danger within the fog and her low aura.
The chinchillas continue to chase her. Their claws toss dirt and rocks in the air. If she stops, Elle is certain that they will surround and eat her.
She reaches the fog in two minutes. When her entire body enters it, something curious happens. The chinchillas all turn and leave.
Sensing no imminent danger at the moment, Elle puts her hands on her knees and pants. Her aura has to be sitting about 33% now.
The young woman scans her surroundings, but she can only see about fifty metres ahead of her. With the mountain on her left and the empty, pebbly trail stretching into the fog, the lack of movement in the area feels stifling. Even the rushing river to her right sounds muffled.
Beyond her sight, Elle can feel the trail gently slope downward with no obstacles as far as she can tell. When she recovers her breath, she draws her javelin from the inventory and continues walking. She’s still in the open.
Directing her attention below her, she can sense the solid rock extend for 84m before clearing into thin air. A tunnel seems to run diagonally under her and crosses the river.
Amidst the fog, the cold soaks through her jacket, impossible to ignore. She’s used to Vancouver seaside weather, so she just grits her teeth. She keeps her footsteps quiet and ears perked.
As she moves deeper into the fog, the visibility continues to decrease. The upper parts of the mountains on her left disappear from view, and she can’t see anything across the river.
Elle walks for another twenty minutes and then she hears someone yell, “Shit!” Breaking into a sprint, she dashes toward the source, using her spatial sense to discern the situation.
A man struggles to throw off an antelope biting into his arm which glows faintly. His aura prevents the monster from drawing blood, but the emitted light indicates the worrying force behind the bite. Another antelope prepares to leap off a boulder.
Elle warps space and decapitates the head of the monster attacking the man. A little aura returns to her. She chucks the javelin at the other beast, but it goes wide of the mark and lands closer to the man.
The man dives to the ground and rolls as the antelope smashes into his previous spot. A crater forms below its hooves.
Tossing aside the monster’s head, the man picks up Pointy and thwacks the antelope’s flank with surprising force. The creatures growls and spring back from him, facing away from Elle.
She draws a knife and races forward, slashing wildly at the monster’s rump. The knife bounces off its hide, and her wrist bends back too far from the force.
It kicks and manages to land a glancing blow on her right side, dropping her aura levels to just above ten percent. Her wrist aches as she diverts aura from healing it.
Taking advantage of its distraction, the man lunges and cracks the javelin across the monster’s face. She can hear its bones breaking from the impact.
Without means to damage it, Elle runs to its left side and tackles it. She sends the antelope stumbling towards the river.
Before it can attack them, the man kicks the beast into the waters. It falls for about fifteen metres before its body hits the waters. She can feel her aura level rise, confirming its death.
“Thanks for the save.” the good-looking man gives her a sheepish grin. He speaks an unfamiliar language, but she can somehow understand him perfectly. His sandy-blond hair appears mussed by the fight, and his face is rosy. He holds out the javelin for her to take.
Trying not to stare, Elle retrieves Pointy. The man reminds her of an old crush back in her high school days. “No problem. Are you okay?” As soon as she finishes speaking, she realises that he probably doesn’t know English.
However, his green eyes widen. “I’m fine. My name’s Mikell Drukinn, by the way. Pardon me, but are you a rift-diver?”
“A rift-diver?” she asks with a careful voice.
He raises his hands in a soothing gesture. “Someone who went through a rift to get to this world. That’s how I got here, so I was just curious.”
“...Yeah, I am. How did you know?”
“Well, for starters, these are the Outlands. Most rift-divers land in the middle of nowhere, lucky us. And also, you speak Universal.”
She blinks, “Oh, is that why we can understand each other?”
“Yeah, something about the rifts gives us that power. Ah,” he looks around suspiciously. “Do you mind if we talk somewhere else? I know a safe place.”
Equinox did mention she brought others here as well. Plus, Elle’s very lost and running on ten percent aura, so an angry squirrel might be able to kill her at this point. She will take the chance that Mikell is secretly an axe murderer.
“Where are we going?”
“There’s a fort called Kernstone up ahead in about half an hour. They’re used to rift-divers appearing out of nowhere, so they won’t get up in your business.”
She nods, “Sounds good then. Let’s go.”
Mikell glances at the decapitated monster corpse smoking on the ground. “Yeah, guess we shouldn’t wait around when it’s just the two of us.”
“Wait around? Do you want to take the bones?” Her eyebrows rise.
“Oh, we can make stuff out of the bones but it has to purified first. I think we should leave it for now.”
She shrugs. “Sounds good to me.” They begin to head down the trail. “Sorry, I don’t think I told you my name. It’s Elle Kuang.”
“Nice to meet you. Have you seen anyone else since you got here?”
“No, I haven’t. Are you looking for someone?”
His brow creases. “Yeah, my sister Nola. She has long hair and green eyes like mine. I’ve been looking for her since I got to Sinkpoint.”
Elle frowns, remembering the disappearances of people back on Earth. Either the monsters ate them, or maybe they went through rifts? “Ah, sorry to hear that. I’ll keep an eye out for her.”
“Thank you, I’ll show you a picture when we get back to the fort. Whereabouts did you land?”
“On top of the mountain back there.” Elle jabs a thumb behind her. “You?”
Mikell points left over the mountains, “Way up north in a forest close to Basinoon Harbour.”
Elle glances at him, now impressed. “And you’re still alive?” Once corrupted blood has tainted fauna, it’s a nightmare to fight all the carnivorous plants and animals at the same time.
Embarrassment turns his face red. “Well, I had to throw myself into the ocean to escape. Really bad idea unless you’re getting chased by flesh-eating grass, by the way. It’s cold, and I nearly drowned before someone from the harbour found me.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. What’s Basinoon Harbour like? Are there any towns or cities nearby here?”
“Let’s talk about that when we’re comfortable in the fort. There’s a lot to catch you up on, and we might get attacked any second now.”
“Right.” At this point, she can only see around twenty metres ahead of them, but she can’t sense anything moving. “What kind of monsters are out here?”
“The biggest threats aboveground are ones we just fought: the iron-jacks. Their hides can’t be cut, so we usually have to brute-force things.” Mikell pauses for a moment as if wanting to ask about her earlier power, but he moves on without touching upon it. “Sometimes, we run into icikoons which are these big cats with ice magic, but those tend to stay on the mountain.”
“What about those…” She bites the inside of her cheek, thinking of an apt description. “Swarms of red rodents that run away from the fog? They look like chinchillas if you know what those are?”
He scowls, “Milichilis? Those will surround or chase you until you collapse. Before the Ice Shield was made, we couldn’t set up the fort because of those damned things.”
“You mean the glacier over there?” Elle points to the general one o’clock direction, unable to see or sense it from this distance.
“Yeah, it makes the fog around here that keeps away some of the monsters.” As if expecting her a follow-up question, Mikell adds, “Not all of them though, and we don’t know why.”
Elle saves her question about the Ice Shield’s construction for later and hesitantly picks a different one. “...Excuse me, may I ask something before we reach the fort? It’s not something I want… non-rifter-divers to overhear.”
Turning his head towards her, he looks curious, “Sure, what’s up?”
Holding out her wrist, she uses aura to make the number ‘36.1’ glow. “Do you know what this number means?”
He peers at her wrist, “Sorry, but I haven’t see anything like this. Where did you get it?”
Elle frowns, “I got it from Equinox. Did she not give you this?”
His broad shoulders stiffen. “Equinox? Can you describe her?”
She tells him about the goddess which appeared to help her and could control the rifts. With every detail, Mikell’s face pales.
When Elle finishes her description, he scratches his head and takes a deep breath. “Elle, I think that lady is bad news. My friend Van’s the only rift-diver I know who saw her, and he didn’t like what he got.”
A chill unrelated to the environment settles in her chest. “What do you mean by ‘bad news’?”
“She offered Van a choice to come here, but when he refused, she got real nasty. She sent him flying into the rift.” Mikell runs his hand through his hair. “The fall knocked him unconscious, and the people at Vinayre had to fish him out of the river.”
She stares at him wide-eyed. “That’s ...not good. What the fuck?”
“Yeah, so maybe only tell people that you trust and go look for Van. He’s researching her. Maybe you two can trade notes.”
“You think I’ll be in danger if I say something?”
“I’m not sure, but better safe than sorry. There are all kinds of people in Sinkpoint. Not saying everyone here is out to get you, but gods and goddesses tend to be a touchy subject.”
With that ominous note, she falls quiet. Regardless of Equinox’s integrity, Elle’s goals remain the same. She needs to find the reason for Sinkpoint’s current state and a method to prevent Earth from integrating with this place. However, Equinox’s interest in her spatial manipulation powers seem far more suspicious now.
The pressure builds slowly, squeezing her heart. She has made a rash decision coming here, but it still seems like there isn’t another option besides waiting for Earth to fall.
What’s her plan? Elle’s a university sophomore with shaky social skills and no connections to anyone here. There’s only so much ground she can cover on her own, considering her fighting ability.
They walk in silence for the next fifteen minutes, staying alert and ready for danger. By this point, she can’t see more than twelve metres in front of her. Elle can’t even see the mountain or the river. They encounter another iron-jack and kill it before continuing.
“Stick close to me.” Veering off to the left, Mikell takes a brass disk embedded with a red crystal out of his pocket. A patch of fog vanishes, and Elle can see that the mountain actually curves in a convex fashion away from the river. About a kilometre away, she can make out a small settlement and smoke rising from one of the buildings.
Walking faster beside him, she whispers, “What does that disk do?”
He whispers back, “It keeps us free of the illusion spell’s effects. If you don’t have one of these, you’ll walk in circles on the field until one of us comes to get you. It can also keep people and monsters separate..”
“That seems like a very powerful spell.”
Mikell grins, and his eyes brighten. The tired edge to his attractive features lift, and Elle feels her ears heat slightly. “Welcome to Sinkpoint. You’ve seen nothing yet.”