"Fine." You state. "I'll do it."
"Excellent..." the man responds, seeming satisfied. "Now, you already know the heir and the Aarkiel, and my good friend will reveal herself in time. Go, good luck, Julia…”
***
You awaken to rumbling. You are in some sort of house, surrounded by wooden walls and a roof made of leaves.
Your body aches, but it is bearable.
There is a door opposite where you woke, which is open.
The rumbling permeates your body as you shakily rise from the cot. You stumble to the door where you fall against the frame. After regaining your bearings, you push yourself off the wall. You stumble out of the tiny shack and into the moons-lit darkness.
The vast expanse of clouds lay in front of you, and the gargantuan trunk of a Titan Tree rises from behind you, up into the heavens. You feel a rush of vertigo as your gaze follows the massive tree upwards until it blooms outward, casting its canopy across the night sky like an explosion of leaves and wood.
You stand on a pavilion of sorts, a platform with the shack near the back and a decrepit "handrail", if you could even call it that, on the edge. 5 figures bar your way to the night sky.
"She's awake!" you hear L'Neeri tell the others as you unsteadily make your way over to them.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
The rumbling intensifies. It rattles your bones as if trying to shake something out of you.
"What is going on?!" you yell over the rattling of the platform underfoot.
"We don't know!" Sel'Ozsia responds, attempting to steady herself on the "handrail". "I have never heard of anything like this before! And why is it so loud?!"
You glance at Dah'Grahs, who seems like a giant bastion against the quaking. "We can only hope this rumbling ends soon. I highly doubt the infrastructure can handle this much longer."
The rumbling intensifies once again, threatening to tear you asunder.
But suddenly, the vibrations halt, followed by a blinding cyan flash that illuminates the night sky.
***
"He has breached the seal." The two beings speak in unison, knowing fully well the destruction they must create to stop this interloper.
L'Oos looks upon her world with a pang of guilt before a cyan flash accompanies the halt in the vibrations.
"We cannot let this intruder reach us," L'Oos says.
The All-Mother is here.
***
An ear-shattering roar follows the flash, and the night is blockaded by an absolutely massive object.
A titanic creature erupts from the cloud layer below. Spiraling up out of nothingness and into the night sky. Its size dwarfs the Titan Trees around it as it swings its league-long arms in a circle. Its, no her, face is terrible. A stark grey amalgamation of flesh, teeth, eyes, and tusks that jut out from seemingly random places along her head. Even with her lower half under the cloud layer, she stands well above the Titan Tree and beyond. She roars again, and the ground begins to shake more violently than it ever had. Her voice echoes throughout Xulaa, drowning out everything else.
Suddenly, the creature stops her cacophony and turns her attention to the cloud layer below. She begins frantically swiping her enormous hands at something down underneath her.
A bright cyan streak of light appears in the clouds below in response to the new action. It appears to hop around, creating long, arching trails as it moves. Every second it gains a little ground on its titanic pursuer, somehow leading it away from you and the rest of the Ben'Marmenent.