Twist paused. After describing the fateful day of the Master Circle, he had to stop. Tenacia and Delphine stayed quiet, giving him time to regain his composure. Finally, Twist let out a long breath and resumed his story.
I uncovered my eyes and looked upon the circle. Where there had been lines of chalk and drawn runes were now black lines of ash. Where the time rune had been was now a massive burnt star, as If an explosion had gone off there. I groaned deeply.
“Okay… That could have gone a lot worse, but Mother, what under the earth were…” I paused in my scolding when I realized Ostinatia wasn’t there.
I was the only one in this room, everyone else was gone.
I quickly looked around the room in rising alarm. I ran to the fire in the fireplace and fully realized something: Everything here was perfectly still. From the fire on the candles to the clock on the wall, nothing was moving. It was like everything was frozen with no ice.
I ran out of the room and pushed on the front door of the mansion; it opened without any sort of resistance as friction held no sway on it. I looked up at our great Lunar Clock and saw it was just as motionless as the clock in my home.
Panic began to overtake me as I ran through the streets desperate to find either one of my family members or someone who was not affected by the botched ritual. I ran past noctav who had been going about their business from strolling, talking with each other, eating food, and doing work now completely petrified in time.
“Hello!” I yelled desperately “Is anyone okay? Anyone not frozen in time?! Hello? There must be someone else who is still moving! Largo! Piana! Bariton! Duolo! Vivace! Are you there?!”
I ran through each area of each district of Minvaco, I am pretty sure I ran through all of city’s streets twice in my search, but it was fruitless. There was no wing nor head of any of my family members. Every noctav was frozen in time and reacted to nothing I said. The city was now home to statues, with only one person still moving... Myself.
Completely out of breath, I returned home to the House of Fate. I looked in the meeting room, a part of me hoping someone would be there. No one was there.
I couldn’t think of anything else to do, so I did the only thing my tired body and frazzled mind was asking me to do: go to sleep. I trudged up to my room and lied on my bed. For a long while I just started up at the ceiling, tears dripping from my eyes. Eventually tiredness won and I fell asleep.
“Twist, there is much to be done, but rest now. The weight of what has happened will only increase, be ready and know that I am with you”
A voice woke me up from my sleep, for a second I was overjoyed, thinking one of my family members was fine and had woken me up. Then I realized I was still alone in my room, though the words that had awoken me echoed 1in my mind and helped me accomplish a deeper and calmer sleep.
“Who do you think it was?” Tenacia asked, on the edge of her seat and eyes beginning to become misty again.
Twist shrugged “I still have no idea sadly, though the voice was extremely comforting.”
“No doubt a spirit” Delphine observed “Whether it is god, supernal, or infernal is another matter”
Twist nodded, he gathered his thoughts and he continued.
Despair lingered in my head, but I pushed it aside with determination and no small amount of curiosity. I was in an entire city that was frozen in time, there was a lot to examine. I quickly went to the door of Ostintatia’s study, then picked the lock of her door ( skill I learned to utilize in my shows I can assure you). Inside was a room with a desk, multiple shelves with both books and magical items, and a big chest. I looked around for the supposed letter from Allegro she had received, I went to the matriarch’s writing desk and looked through the drawers. There was an envelope which I quickly opened, inside was a letter that read:
Dear Mother,
I visited the Library of the Book Wyrm and found something incredible! It is the Master Magic Circle! With this we can open a portal to Ayvum, I made sure to write each required rune as exactly as possible…
And so on, with an exact replica of the Master Circle Ostintatia had made. It was indeed Allegro’s writing and it felt like something he wrote in style. I was not familiar with the library of the Book Wyrm, but this otherwise seemed sincerely legit. I then began to wonder how this circle went so wrong, did Allegro write the rune wrong? Or was the information he had gotten wrong?
“If he got it from the Book Wyrm, it could not have been wrong” Delphine interrupted, “The Book Wyrm is a exacting dragon who is a stickler for accuracy, he never carries any tome, scroll, or tablet that has wrong information in it.”
“A dragon with a hoard of books?” Twist asked in wonder “Wow! So it isn’t just a name, it is an actual library ran by a dragon! Incredible! I hope I see this great library, plus it could be a great benefit to Minvaco’s research… I am surprised no one who had been to the surface had reported it back before”
“The Book Wyrm opened up this library only about a year ago” Delphine explained.
“But even then, our surface explorers should have found it! They report back so regularly… Or they did”
Twist furrowed his brow; he realized that Allegro was not the only surface noctav not to report back after a long time. And when they did, it was letters of “Have not found much, will report again later”.
With his magic training and all the stress going on in the House of Fate, he never really dedicated thinking to this. The fact such a colossally major event like the Divine Conflict was unknown to Minvaco really demonstrates something was going on, most likely foul play. Could the messengers have been captured? Was something intercepting information?
“Who is behind this?” Twist said out loud “Someone is keeping Minvaco in the dark regarding the surface, but who? And why? What benefit do they have making Minvaco ignorant of surface happenings?”
“The ignorant are easier to manipulate” Delphine said grimly.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Twist nodded, fully agreeing.
“Could it be someone else sent that letter?” Tenacia suggested “It was the Time rune specifically that failed. I may just be bein’ paranoid and leaping on something, but could it be someone wanted the city to be frozen in time?”
Twist felt his heart sink. That made a disturbing amount of sense. The letter arrived at just the right time when the House of Fate was in its darkest hour and its members most desperate. But why? Why on Fiahn would anyone Minvaco frozen in time? What dark ends were they pursuing that they wanted a whole city at their mercy?
“Errr or… Could just be a coincidence” Tenacia awkwardly said, seeing Twist’s discomfort.
Twist looked up immediately at Tenacia. He had to admit, he felt annoyed she came to this conclusion before him. Then he smiled, trying to push away his vanity. Twist knew multiple heads are better than one, and Tenacia was sharp.
“No Tenacia, thank you” he said warmly “This is something I really should have considered, and I will definitely dedicate more time to thinking about it”
“For now, get your story done” Delphine said “I suspect we are reaching its end.”
“Oh yes, we are!” Twist said.
After reading the letter, I left the mansion my mind abuzz with questions about this huge temporal pause. For example, how far did the temporal pause reach? I made my way out of the city, being sure to grab a pebble from the ground along my trek. With the guards also frozen, it was easy for me to just climb over the walls of the city and get past the gates.
I got to the Mushroom Forest and noticed it was even quieter than usual, sure enough the flora and fauna were completely still. It was surreal yet oddly beautiful, it was like looking at an artist’s portrait of nature. Glowing spores stood still like stars with scenes of animals eating, hunting, and wandering scattered about. I continued my trek, feeling uncomfortable around the drekavacs even when they could not harm me, and I kept going farther. My little trek turned into more of a hike, and I went past through the other end of Mushroom Forest, where I came across what we call the Great Stairway.
The Great Stairway was in an utterly colossal cavern that could probably hold multiple noctav cities if most of the cavern wasn’t submerged in water. The Great Stairway itself was a mountainous series of stalagmites that went right up to the roof and was the perfect entrance to the rest of the Underworld above. I walked out on the road my people had made to lead to the Great Stairway, a straight brick road enchanted so that none of the monsters in the water could attack anyone on the bridge. As I walked across the bridge, I noticed that a bit of the water near the exit from the Mushrom Forest was perfectly motionless, not at all rippling and with a rather lovely scene of a fish breaching the water to get at a crab on the shore, droplets of water scattered and still.
After about seven feet of walking, the water was suddenly perfectly normal. It was still, but in a natural manner. It was not frozen in time, and below I could see eyeless fish swimming. I had reached the outermost limit of the big bubble of time magic that was keeping everything inside of it frozen. I grabbed a pebble from the bridge and did my experiment: I held the pebble from my city in one hand and the pebble from the bridge in the other. I let go of them at once, the pebble I had just got fell and made a small clatter as it hit the floor, the pebble from my city did not move an inch from where I had released it.
I took both pebbles and put them into my cloak. I was not sure why, most likely because of some fool’s hope that the pause was wear off on its own, so the moment the frozen pebble fell normally I could just return home to see if it too was normal.
I sat down and thought, the sound of the cave waters moving helping relax me, though then something occurred to me: I was now the only noctav in Minvaco not trapped in time, I was the only one who could find a solution. All of my traveling materials were already ready in my hat. With the city and nearly 50 feet of cave around it stuck in time, there was nothing to threaten my people.
It was as if Chaelum Himself was holding up a sign that said “Get going”.
Getting up and determinedly adjusting my hat, I had my mission: go to Fatana, the closest noctav city, and find out how to unfreeze my city and people from their temporal prison. And if that did not work, the surface was the best choice. I marched across the bridge and climbed the Great Stairway… It was not the most graceful of starts since the stairway itself was not protected by magic and some beasts from the water quickly tried to catch me, but I evaded their grasp and made my way upwards.
“I traveled for a day or two through another Mushroom Forest, not long after I arrived at the Gray Vale and met you Tenacia” Twist finished, smiling at Tenacia.
Tenacia smiled back “Well I’m glad I now know what you are doin’ here and why you are tryin’ to reach the surface”
“It is good to know, but I still have questions” Delphine interjected “Why is going for the surface your priority after Fatana? Why not contact another one of your cities? Why try to contact them in your city with magic mirrors?”
“All of the magic mirrors in Minvaco were also frozen in time, and even then I don’t know how to work them. I don’t think I could tune in to another magic mirror” Twist explained as he finally put on the his clothes, surprisingly neatly cleaned by the slimes” Regarding other cities past Fatana, they are already on the surface”
“Wait really?” Tenacia asked.
“Yes, some noctav moved back to the surface years ago. I don’t know if they were successful in establishing cities above, but if they did I have no idea where they could be”
“What about cities below Minvaco?” Delphine asked.
“The closest city below Minvaco is Retrypa whom we have gotten along with even less than Fatana. I did still heavily considerer it, Minvaco is closer to Retrypa than it is to Fatana, but I’d have to trek down into the flaming realms of Phlegeon”
“Hmmm Phlegeon is extremely risky” Delphine agreed “Probably for the best.”
“And the city beyond Retrypa” Twist continued “Is Dorcha, not only do they live in Eretarus, the most terrible layer of the Underworld, I think I have made rather clear they are no friends of ours. Even ignoring the dark experiments they do; it seems clear at least one house, or even their Wise One, is in league with the Grand Faloon”
“And that cult has gotta be behind all this!” Tenacia growled suddenly, “We know they’ve been down in the Underworld before, they gotta be the jerks keeping info from getting to Minvaco and sending that fake letter!”
“It is an increasingly plausible theory” Twist said, getting a bit hot under the collar regarding the cult. There was no physical proof yet, though the proximity and deplorability of the Grand Faloon made it all the more likely.
Delphine nodded, or nodded as much as a hat could “From what you’ve told me, there is more going on behind the scenes than we know…”
“So can you actually help us now, Miss Oracle?” Tenacia said, giving Delphine a fierce look.
“Indeed Delphine, could you please give us some oracle information?” Twist asked, giving Delphine a pleading look “Not only do I have my mission, but Tenacia still needs to save her brother on the behemoth!”
Delphine scowled at them, then sighed.
“Frankly, I don’t know what to say. You can’t take on a bunch of undead and a powerful necromancer with just the two of you. Plus, you are being chased by two knights who could join in too. You’d be better off sneaking in, but that can also go horribly wrong. Only real advice I can give is get some help, possibly from Fatana. Pray they can lend an army or something.”
Tenacia groaned, “THIS is the wisdom of an oracle?”
“As for your city Twist” Delphine snapped, ignoring Tenacia and turning to the noctav “Unfreezing such a large area in time is incredibly difficult. There are artifacts I know that can help, but I have no idea where any are if any are still functional. Seeking out Fatana really is your best bet right now, failing that, get to the surface.”
Twist nodded, also disappointed, though not upset.
“Well, looks like we were going to Fatana either way” Tenacia said, crossing her arms and giving Delphine a fierce glare, “Some oracle you are.”
Delphine simply scowled at her.
“Either way, thank you both for listening” Twist said, giving a smile to both “Letting that all out not only has helped me think about what to do for my mission, but get a load off of my mind.”
Tenacia smiled and gave him a thumbs up “Happy to be here for you.”
"I haven't felt this comfortable in a while" Twist admitted, his eyelids beginning to get heavy, "I don't even have that awful feeling that someone is watching..."
"Me neither" Delphine admitted.
"Heh well that's good" Tenacia remarked.
Twist then tried to get up, but his achy joints stopped him.
“Well then, I guess I need to rest more” he admitted.
“Get to sleep, you big dope” Delphine snapped sourly “Or you’ll never heal”
“She is right for once Twist” Tenacia said, getting up “I’ll keep an eye out, you get your sleep.”
Twist gratefully nodded, then closed his eyes. Thoughts regarding his city, his past, and the future were aflutter in his head, though it wasn’t long until he fell asleep.