I’m not quite sure exactly when, but at some point between the end of Suamalie telling me about what was happening to the Wall and me throwing balls of Divine energy out of windows, we ended up in front of a large set of doors. This stood out for a few reasons, first among them being that there hasn’t been a single spot so far that had a single door, let alone a section large enough to allow for doors of this size to exist to begin with. Secondly, having briefly stuck my head out a window just before we got the door after throwing some Divinity out the window and scaring away the Abyss, there was no door on the outside of the wall. And where here is? I haven’t the slightest idea. We traveled so far down more flights of stairs than we went up, that simply considering the few we walked up initially, I started to get a headache which just made me feel a lot worse. Round abouts the fifteenth floor down, I started dripping blood from my nose. Something was wrong, but everything looked right, and the more I tried to think about it, the worse I felt.
Note to self, don’t get on the bad side of the Colony Leader, if he can do this in a fit of protection, I’d hate to see what they could do in a fit of rage.
Time to shelve those mind breaking thoughts for the moment, the really big door in front of us started to creak and groan as it opened outward. Expecting to be attacked from the outset, I prepared my polearm to attack whatever lunged in at us. When the doors full opened and the shadows didn’t rush us, I released the breathe that I didn’t know that I was holding in anticipation. Hands shaking as I lessened my grip, and several shaky exhales later, I looked out through the now open doors in awe of the destruction that lay before me. Wherever the Abyss touched, the plant life withered to nothingness, the bodies of anything that died in its grasp was unrecognizable from what it was prior to their deaths. And the most surprising thing I saw? Well, that would be the fac that the Abyss was, while not quite out of sight, it was far enough away that Suamalie and myself could comfortably step outside without having to immediately fight for our lives.
“But… what… how… where…” already being mentally exhausted, I couldn’t find the right words in the proper order to convey the amount of confusion I was feeling at that point in time.
Suamalie, without skipping much of a step while she heard me stammering, spoke up. “Remember how we went down more floors than what we went up? Very, very, VERY long story short, that is the handy work of the Colony Leader. Up is down, left is right, and straight lines are circles. I don’t quite understand it myself, but the harder I try not to understand it, the less it hurts my head. In other words, try not to think too hard about it and you’ll feel better. We should get going here shortly. The, you called it ‘Abyss’ right? The Abyss seems to have it out for you for some reason, and the further away we are by the time that it figures out where you are the better I’ll feel. Hope you’re up for another jog, at least this time we’ll have a changing scenery rather than long wooden hallways and corpses. This time it’ll be a battlefield filled with corpses. Yay.” As she finished speaking, she began walking forward through the open doors. Not looking to be left behind, I fell in step behind her quickly.
“I’m glad you followed my plan up to this point with minimal fussing, it made everything go a lot smoother than it otherwise could have gone. But that was only the first step of my not quite so elaborate plan. Call it more of a frame that we’re filling in as we go, but the general idea is there. First was getting out of the wall while dragging the ‘Abyss’ away. Now that we have done that and are outside of the wall, our next two steps are as follows: step two, cross this field to the forest, step three being that when we get to the forest, you use your Divine sight to, and I can’t stress this enough, somehow find whatever is causing this. Everything else detail wise can be figured out as we go along. The only thing I want to add at this point is, don’t die. I have no problem telling your friends that you died, but telling my mom that you died under my watch is simply suicide with extra steps attached.”
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“So, the plan is that there really isn’t a plan… not the first time I’ve done something like that. I mean, I left my home with barley an inkling of an idea of what to even do and basically started walking. Luna gave me an idea as to where to start, that being the domain of Gaia, but everything else that happened was basically luck. Running into Joshua, coming to Gai’faitotoa, and meeting you.”
Nodding in acknowledgement, we continued on our way across the scarred land. The once lively and green field that covered the distance between the wall and the forest now reminded me of the farm I grew up on during the dry season. As much as Sol made life comfortable for us in the Conclave, he didn’t want to coddle us, so he did give some variation of difficulty. This usually came in the form of the dry seasons that took up a majority of the year. The heat would be so intense when it arrived that the only source of water was Sol’s Eye, the Oasis near the Center. The water everywhere else would dry up from the ground so quickly that it would crack and split and turn to dust. Only that happened over the course of a day or two when it happened. What I was currently walking on happened in a fraction of that time. The ground was devoid of any of the life that had been present mere hours earlier, and in its place was barren wasteland.
The ground cracked and crunched as Suamalie and myself trudged onward. After some time had passed, Suamalie turned her head around to glance at the wall. “Good, it looks like were about half way there. Do me a favor and get that things attention, would you?”
“There it is… I knew we weren’t finished seeing that thing, yet. Though I was kind of hoping that we would be by the tree’s before you decided to have me wave to our potential death bringer. Anyway, no use complaining to you. I’ve been inside your head more times than I would like to admit, and I know that you don’t back down once you’ve set your mind to something… oh well, here goes nothing.” Gathering the divine energy in my hand had become much easier given how much I had done just that in the past few hours alone. This time’s release was slightly different, in that I didn’t turn to keep forward momentum; rather I took a much larger step than usual on my next step forward, threw my right shoulder back and extended my arm, planted my left foot about as far as I could stretch on my next step, and threw my right arm forward as hard as I could. All in all, the action took a fraction of a second, and the force I exerted in the ending motion started to throw me off balance as I tried to carry myself forward.
The ball of divinity left my hand in more of a straight line than in a curve like all of the previous throws. It kept climbing higher and higher, and then seemingly paused once it got to a certain point. I don’t know why, but it certainly felt right to wrap the thin line of divinity from my hand to the ball around my hand multiple times, and then gave it one great big pull as we ran past where it hung in the sky.
Once more a blinding light surrounded us, lengthening our shadows, and most importantly grabbing the attention of the Abyss from wherever it was and dragging it back towards us. I just can’t seem to catch a break for very long around here, but at least it’s not boring.
The sound of the Abyss screaming, and amalgamation of everything within it shouting out in rage, echoed over the desert-esque landscape as the light from my Divinity started to dim. In and amongst the sounds of monstrous screaming and the dimming of the bright light, I could have sworn I saw a face in my shadow smiling up at me. A few steps later, and whatever I thought I saw, was gone.