40. The Orange Line is Old

In the days that followed Fable’s unwelcome surprise visit, Isaac decorated the rest of his cake orders at about twice the speed he usually did. Normally he spread them out, but that week he was done with everything by Wednesday.

On one hand, this was partially to prepare for the inevitable work that would come in. Fable and Lilith could say they had everything taken care of, but he knew for a fact that they’d forget something and have him deal with whatever they’d messed up. It was a tale as old as time at this point.

And on the other hand, cake decorating provided a welcome distraction. It was easy to turn his brain off and let his hand smooth over buttercream and fondant on pure instinct.

Isaac’s prediction turned out even more accurate than he’d thought, and a mere hour after he was done setting the final completed cake into the fridge, Lilith called and asked (ordered) him to go and double check that the tournament venue was set.

“Oh, it’s not that I don’t trust Fable! But you can never be too sure, hm?” she had said. Isaac couldn’t really blame her for questioning the validity of Fable’s supposed “called favors.” Isaac himself had taken great pains to make sure he never owed the other Traveler anything, but even if he did, he probably wouldn’t respect the debt very well.

Isaac gave his apartment a final scan as he put on his jacket, double checking he hadn’t left anything out and staunchly skipping over the calendar plastered onto the face of the refrigerator. Once he was satisfied, he grabbed the tablet, shoved his keys into his pocket, and slammed the door shut.

—

The venue Fable had “acquired” was apparently located inside the Old Lands, the realm lying at the end of the orange line. Isaac had always thought the name was thoroughly uncreative, albeit accurate considering the place was indeed old as shit (which was saying something when the average lifespan for a human in the Underside was at least a couple of centuries).

Internally Isaac always thought of the place as the “Extreme Lands,” mainly because everything there seemed to be either massive (the titans, giants, plenty of dragons) or the size of a firefly (elemental wisps and other stuff he couldn’t see). This tendency towards extremes applied to the terrain and weather, too.

The subway train pulled up to the station in short, jerky motions before it settled into stillness and the doors slid open. [CURRENT LOCATION: THE OLD LANDS] flashed across the tablet screen as Isaac stepped outside.

If there was anything that made Isaac feel existential dread like no other, it was the Old Lands. Everything about the place was overwhelming, and it had a knack for making any observer feel insignificant by comparison.

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The moment he exited the station, he was greeted by a vast, boundless sky separated into distinct fragments that held the upper parts of the realm. In one section, swirling ocean waves undulated in a perpetual storm, each wave easily rising far beyond the height of a skyscraper and soaring over the earth.

In another section, a thick forest sprouted from the sky itself. Twisted trunks as large as buildings layered and crowded around each other, making it impossible to see deeply within the area. Long, thick roots snaked down to the earth, where they formed a pseudo staircase leading to the upper half of the Old Lands.

Behind Isaac, one section of the sky was entirely set aflame. Where clouds would normally be, roaring fires crackled and waved, shedding orange glowing light brighter than the rays of the sun. In yet another section, an eternal tornado spiraled endlessly high up within the clouds.

This mishmash of ancient and vast planes was occupied by equally old creatures, half of whom were just as massive. From where he stood, a mere speck on the ground surrounded by the contained mayhem, Isaac could see shifting shadows where distant dragons and wild beasts roamed through the sections of the sky.

The Old Lands were probably the most suitable venue for a tournament-slash-sports-festival purely based on sheer scale alone. Isaac didn’t think any other realm was as capable of holding so many things within it, excluding the Abyss, which was out for obvious reasons.

(If the tournament had been in the Abyss, it wouldn’t have mattered what Lilith tried to say, he would’ve hunkered down in his apartment and stayed the fuck away until it was over.)

Glancing down at his tablet to double check the direction he was going, Isaac proceeded to step into the realm proper. While the sky was a kaleidoscope of equally dangerous and extreme environments, the ground itself was rather tame, thankfully. A vast rolling plain stretched underneath the shifting skies, expanding out until it met the beginning of distant mountains that rose upwards in sharp peaks and ridges. There weren’t many living creatures here, either, as most lived in the upper parts of the realm.

A sharp, cold wind blew past Isaac as he walked, and he tugged his jacket closer, thankful that he’d brought it with him. It turned out that combining a bunch of different climates and habitats resulted in a whole lot of strong winds. It probably had something to do with cold fronts and all that, but Isaac was certainly no expert on the matter. Any and all knowledge he had was from elementary or middle school science class.

The person Isaac was tasked with speaking to wasn’t in one of the sky areas, thankfully, seeing as Isaac himself had no idea how to get to them without flight. Climbing the roots into the forest region seemed like a possibility, but it was a rather sharp incline, a very long distance to travel, and dangerous enough that he hadn’t attempted it and probably never would unless he had no other choice.

A second gust nearly knocked him off his feet, but Isaac grit his teeth, hunched his shoulders forward, and continued towards the mountains, eyes keeping a close eye on the tablet, where the live map of the Old Lands was displayed next to a stat sheet.

NAME: MINERVA

SPECIES: TITAN

LOCATION: THE OLD LANDS, ORANGE LINE

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ATTACK: 44

SPEED: 19

SKILL: 41

DEFENSE: 49

INSTINCT: 41

INTELLIGENCE: 40

STAMINA: 46

CALCULATED LEVEL: 98