Future Past Day - 2020 A.D. (0 A.R.) - February - Greenland
Getting my ducks in a row shouldn’t have been a problem EXCEPT for the fact that time travel absolutely screws with your biology. Jet lag got nothin’ on time lag. All of me wanted to sleep, most of me felt like hurling, and even my Flesh Sorcery was full of different opinions on what I should be doing. My body couldn’t decide if I needed to sleep like the dead or worship the porcelain throne. And I won’t bore you with those unsavory details.
The noonday sun shone on my fortification in a way I wasn’t used to. I stood at the top of the massively wide wall and took in the sights before me. The light was slanted, mocking me with scarce evening sunlight even though it was the middle of the damn day. In Virginia, at noon, the sun shines directly down on top of you. You can point up and probably be correct that you’re pointing in the general direction of the sun. This far north however, the sun is off to the side even though it’s noon and we should be getting full sunshine, it just doesn’t work like that. The amount of solar power my fortress can pull is negligible in these conditions. There’s no heat baking you dry even with my enchantments trying to pull in any available solar power.
I turned to look at the giant, glowing pylon that resonated with an incredible amount of stored mana. It didn’t fool me though, I could tell that it was only a third full. The elemental sergeant and my team must have been tapping into the mana reserves to stay fresh. I don’t blame them. To my right, the rest of the beach spoke to me of the battles that had taken place. Over half of the sand itself on the beach within sight had been turned into glass from intense heat or mana cannons and then obliterated into an uncountable number of jagged chunks. This beach was no longer family friendly.
Every tree bore at least a scar from the nightly incursions, this kind of scenic massacre was the result of more than one battle. But I only knew that for sure due to Merlin’s magic mirror showing me the weird timeline of what was, or maybe what was to come and had already come? It’s hard to tell what’s real after a conversation with that maddening person.
All I wanted was to rack out and reset my body, use my Flesh Sorcery and a good hour or two nap to get back to the baseline but no. I couldn’t. I had priorities and updates to get from people. Or so I thought.
Since my magic was warning me that any kind of serious usage without rest would put my powers on the fritz, I double checked to make sure that Gungnir was sitting in its sheath on my belt in knife form before I pulled out my trusty rifle. It was still a thing of beauty. For all of its firepower, it wasn’t bulky. The metal had smoothed edges and I could rotate from standard crystal rounds to other craziness. I’m glad I ran into the Dwarves and the Centauri, if nothing else than for the opportunity to blend their firearms together. This beauty was built with all the good stuff: flamethrower amplified by a small, runed ruby, the Centauri needle shard rounds, a kinetic blaster and can’t forget the beefed up taser cannon from the dwarves.
Rotating the barrels would allow me to easily change the type of ammunition I wanted to use and the mad scientist within me couldn’t wait for another chance to put it to good use. Although, exploring the living quarters built within the expanded walls of my beach fortress with a loaded gun may not be the smartest option here. I could feel Kraken rolling his eye at my train of thought. I could feel the timestream jet lag making me dumber than usual.
“Okay, this is stupid!” I said, putting my rifle away, trying to shake off the fatigue. “Kraken, you get and give updates from the team. I’m going to sleep for an hour. Maybe two. Wake me before dark or if we get attacked.”
Without waiting for my familiar to acknowledge my order, I walked down the steep stairs grown out of the backside of the wall facing the open ocean, finding a convenient door close to the ground. Placing my hand on it, the door melted away and the hallway brightened with mana lights embedded into the ceiling.
“Fuckin’ hell!” I said, looking around. It wasn’t much to look at but the simple fact that someone had built a small military barracks into the wall was enough for me to stop for a moment. Each doorway down the hall opened into a room with frames for bunks and chests at the foot of the bed frames. Every bathroom had toilets and sinks that didn’t actually drain anywhere nor did they have any kind of water hookup. It was like someone created a caricature of a living space and thought that was good enough. And my exhaustion sort of agreed. A small, quiet, secure room is good enough for now.
“This is so stupid!” I half-heartedly complained, bewildered at the strangeness. “Did the sergeant make this? Did my team have any input? KRAKEN!? I need some feedback here.”
Kraken shut me up with a small mental picture of my team sleeping in a room a few doors down from me. Spot was missing but Kraken didn’t seem worried. I got the feeling he was close. Acantha, Reeanth, and Versonae were knocked out, using their spare cloaks as pillows. Their forms were nestled separately in almost empty, long stone pods that resembled stretched out eggs. Each pod looked like they were built out of the wall, shaped by magic. In place of a mattress, the pods had a thick layer of clean sand in the bottom covered with many armfuls of spruce boughs for comfort.
I decided to not pursue comfort in my state, instead giving in to Kraken’s insistence that I get some real, restorative sleep. Dropping my own cloak in the corner of the room, I stretched out and used it as a pillow, nudging Kraken to keep an eye on me as well. Before I knew it, I was out.
*******
A gentle hand woke me up. It was a nice change of pace from Kraken doing it.
“My lord! Arise!” The gentleness quickly turned to a solid shake. “My LORD! Wake up! Something is wrong!”
My dreamless slumber pulled at me, attempting to force me back into the Stygian depths of peace. Water colder than ice hit my face a few moments later. I opened my eyes to see Reeanth tossing a bucket to the side and hauling my ass upright.
I didn’t even have time to shake the water from my air or wipe it out of my eyes before my vassal quickly hugged me with her oversized Centauri body. The height thing really made it awkward, she’s taller than me by a foot and a half and her musculature was overdeveloped due to being an alien. Her quick hug picked me up and slammed me down. My magic barely came to my call, just enough for the seawater to pull itself away from me and for me to end up dry.
“Hi!” I said, a bit dazed. “Hello, I mean, what’s wrong and we got a lot to catch up on.”
She didn’t even stop. Reeanth nodded, grabbed me by the arm, and hauled me outside, up the stairs and planted me at the top of the wall facing the devastated forest.
“They’re not here!”
“Huh?” Reeanth’s grip fell away from my shoulders. It took me a moment to put the pieces together. “OH! They! Wait, why?”
Hands bigger than plates whipped me around. Her steel gray eyes glared into my own blue ones. “You leave without a word and they’ve been here every night shrieking worse than banshees. But then you come back and they VANISH? Why?”
Greenland’s setting sun would have been beautiful to watch if it weren’t for the other two women who seemed to be struggling with their anger at this moment. Versonae was not happy to see me if her hands were any indicator. I cringed as she kept sheathing and unsheathing those long claws that extended from her fingers. Acantha looked at me like she couldn’t believe that I was here but that kept switching in and out for wanting to turn me to ash.
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I held a finger up. “We have a lot to talk about, and trust me. None of it’s my fault.”
Acantha grunted, extinguishing the rotating solar system of fireballs hovering above her. “At least you’re here now.” She pushed Versonae closer to me. “She needs healing and it’s getting worse.”
The female Lunek almost bowled me over, her clumsiness gave her a sense of dead weight that was hard to handle at first. I heard a chuff sound as her sternum felt like it folded over my shoulder. Reeanth glared at Acantha before helping me to prop Versonae up against the side of the wall.
Reeanth tucked her hair behind her ear, glaring at me the whole time. “Heal her and then we’ll talk. I’m not finished with you until I get some explanation, my lord.”
Acantha guided my hands towards her designated guardian. “Pay attention! She got caught by a sickly mauler. The wound has been getting worse!”
Versonae barely stifled a growl as I removed the shredded armor on her left side. “Oh Gawd!” I said, pulling back as the stench hit me. The Lunek’s fur was matted with blood, pus, and black fluid that worked like the slowest, most painful acid a nightmare could come up with. “Yeah, let’s get this taken care of!”
Everyone looked at me with hope and great expectations as I put one hand on Versonae’s side. I figured this would be easy. Flesh Sorcery is my jam. But as soon as I reached for my Sorcery, I came up short. I pulled back for a second. “What the?”
All three spoke at the same time but I waved them off, putting my hand back on the skin near the wound and reaching for my power. My Sorcery, my innate understanding and Chaotically imbued connection to a Primal Element was tamped down. I could feel it, just out of reach. Some invisible film separated me from an essential part of my makeup. My hand began to shake.
Then both of my hands began to shake. “No, no. Nooooo, what’s going on?” I questioned, slowly and carefully pulling at the threads of my other sorceries. Nothing happened. Water dripped through my fingers. Earth crumbled to fine dust in my hand. My hands refused to stop shaking. Even my Consciousness Sorcery felt like it labored behind a hidden wall, working but not for me. It wasn’t at my disposal.
Reeanth grabbed me by the shoulders. “Heal her! My lord! She needs your help!”
Sadly, Versonae spoke with a rough voice. “I’m going to die, aren’t I?” Weak coughs preceded wetter, more painful coughs accompanied with little flecks of blood.
Acantha reached forward and gave me a solid smack to the voice. “Wake up! Try again!” I nodded firmly, not trusting myself without my powers for the first time ever. I could, however, still feel a different connection, a tangible thread of power within my soul. Forcing myself to swallow, I pulled my Grimoire out of my Soul Realm. My Soul Tree did not budge as I did so, usually that part of me is quite attached to my Grimoire.
My large, soul-bound, leather bound book with a multicolored pentagram on the front opened of its own accord to the first page. “Strange,” I said, scanning the unfamiliar words before they morphed into standard English. “I didn’t write this.”
Greetings descendant. Ware these words for they contain unfortunate truths about your temporary reality. As you know exist in a paradoxical state, your soul is greatly strained by the double existence. Only one of your facets is great enough to withstand the pressure and still be used. My advice always has more than one side. In your condition, your tools, your knowledge, your companions, and your wizardry are all you have available to you. Your Mana Sorcery, as rare and Primal as it is, is the MAIN reason this course of action was even available to you. And for that, be glad. Open, all out inter-multi-dimensional warfare is worth avoiding at all costs. Your state of being will be so until the deeds are done and the stream is whole once again. Be careful. I cannot save you again.
This motherfucker. THIS MOTHER FUCKER! He knew! He fucking KNEW! This didn’t help my hands to stop shaking. If anything, I would’ve dropped my Grimoire already if it didn’t possess the ability to hover as long as it maintained its connection to my stores of mana.
But Versonae’s life hung in the balance. I grabbed Acantha and pointed towards the pylon. “Bring me Gungnir!” I ordered, pushing her along. “Make sure Kraken’s in there!” Turning to Reeanth, I held out one hand. “Please tell me you still have that mini Flesh Golem, the portable one.”
I sighed in relief as Reeanth quickly placed the gray and red blob in my hand. “Good, thank you. This will help a lot.” Reeanth took a deep breath and I turned to rip more of Versonae’s armor off. “I also need as much bio-matter as you can scrounge up. Specifically, animals, deer, bison, birds, moose, a goddamn whale if you can find one. I don’t care. Find Spot and have him bring us something.”
Reeanth took off, hopping down off the wall on the opposite side of the ocean. Her long legs ate up the distance and I had complete faith in her. Acantha knelt next to me, scaring me half to death. “Here’s your weapon,” she said. “What are you going to do.”
I swallowed, hard. “Kraken, come on out.”
My spirit familiar floated out of Gungnir. With a thought, Gungnir molded itself into a small knife with an ungodly sharp edge. “Did you know about this?” I snarled, pointing the weapon at my chest. “Did you know that this whole fucking trip would leave me half-neutered?”
Kraken hovered directly in front of me. His form was a bit different, more stretched out than usual. His tentacles were longer, reminiscent of an octopus instead of their stubbier cousin the nautilus. Even his ghostlike texture was more translucent. He bubbled at me, his voice higher pitched than normal. “Not like this. I knew we’d have some difficulty but this is almost beyond the pale. You don’t know nearly enough wizardry for the tasks ahead.”
I reached forward and grabbed him by the front tentacles. My voice was real low. “Tell me you learned wizardry healing spells!” I growled, pushing him towards my Grimoire. “Tell me that you did and that you can put them in there!”
Acantha grabbed me. “We don’t have much time! What is going on and what are you going to do?”
Kraken turned and spoke aloud. “He’s going to attach the Flesh Golem to the Lunek’s chest. Once it’s there, it will be the nexus for the healing process, both to render her unconscious as well as speed up the healing. We’ll be lucky to keep her alive because we will cut out the infected flesh while you, Child of Flame, cauterize what we can’t remove.” I grimaced, glad for once that Kraken could speak for me. But my familiar wasn’t done. “And if we do not receive the necessary bio-material to regrow the missing part of the abdomen, your Master will use part of himself as fuel.”
Acantha gasped. “That’s madness! We need you in tip-top shape! There has to be another way.”
Versonae gathered herself, spitting out more blood before speaking. “Water elemental . . . still here. Use that to gather fish for Flesh Golem.”
Kraken and I communicated at the speed of thought through our bond. My familiar flew off towards the pylon as I got started on Versonae. “Now I really have to save you,” I said, putting one hand on the mini Flesh Golem and positioning my other hand with Gungnir towards her abdomen. “You’re too smart for me to let you die.”
At my mental command, the Flesh Golem rendered Versonae unconscious, her body relaxing under me. It was weird having to use a proxy in order to do what I would normally do through a simple touch. Flesh Sorcery made this process easy. But now I had hoops to jump through. Her body didn’t just do what I wanted it to do. The mana requirements jumped through the roof while forcing me to overcome a bunch of red tape. Her abdomen didn’t want to eject the infected flesh, thinking on an instinctive level that it would heal given enough time. Her kidney and large intestine didn’t want to sever the dead bits and push them out.
So I raced the clock, bargaining with Death for bits of time that Versonae didn’t really have. Bloodflow to the infected regions was greatly stifled and over the next ten minutes, I forced her body into a sort of suspended animation. The disease within, the insidious rot, while magical in nature, used the physical body as a vehicle. And slowing that down greatly hindered its forward progress.
Acantha’s grip on my shoulder tightened. “They’re here.”