This would be the first time Addie attempted one of the ruin sites without Squishy by her side. That thought made her feel nervous but also strangely safe— knowing he was protecting her body. She’d leave that up to him while she focused on completing the ruin site.
Together, Addie and Nettal held hands, staring up at the mountain in front of them. They couldn’t talk to each other in ethereal form, so they’d decided beforehand to stay in physical contact as much as they could. Her hand felt strangely cool where it should have been warm, and it also felt more gooey than a real-life hand should feel. Holding Nettal’s hand gave her a degree of comfort regardless.
The pair nodded at each other, ready to move through the torii gate. As they floated closer, Addie felt a surge of determination pulse up and through her chest. This would be the last ruin site, and after that, they’d figure out how to get home. The weird, pointy-eared man would give them answers... or else Addie would!!! She’d... well, she’d ask him a whole bunch until he told her, she guessed.
They floated up to the torii gate, just about to pass through. But instead of going through it, Addie felt like she bounced up against an invisible wall. She recoiled in reaction, like she’d stubbed her toe, except it was her entire ethereal form. Maybe like she’d stubbed her soul? The comparison sort of sounded silly, but it really hurt!
Nettal lightly yanked on her arm, drawing her attention. Her cousin floated down until her feet touched the ground, and then she waved an arm through the torii gate. It went through easily, but then just to finish her demonstration, Nettal floated back up and pressed her arm against the threshold of the torii gate again. This time, her arm bounced off an invisible barrier. So, Addie realized they had to walk through the gate on foot. Floating wouldn’t work.
Stepping on the ground felt sort of weird: for one, she felt much lighter than she’d expected to— like after taking off a heavy backpack. For another, she found it difficult to gain traction with her feet, they wanted to pass through the earth or even just float back upward. She had to pay a lot of special attention to make sure her feet stayed right on top of the ground.
Though it was difficult, she figured it out eventually. The trick was to do something in between floating and walking, which sounded harder than it was. It sort of worked for her intuitively, her magic helping her along.
Past the torii gate, Addie stared upon the workings of a massive staircase. Each stair had been carved from ethereal stone directly in the mountainside, each stone flat and polished to perfect detail. Trees surrounded the path on either side, and the canopy managed to completely block off the binary above. They didn’t see any fog or mist yet, but the stairs went so high up that she couldn’t see the top to confirm if it would stay that way.
The only way out was up, so together, Nettal and Addie put their feet upon the first stair. At first, it was difficult to time her steps with Nettal perfectly as they held hands, her feet moving awkwardly as she concentrated. But, after a little bit of practice, the girls fell into a natural rhythm moving together.
She was kind of tempted to see what might happen if she tried floating up off the ground, but each time she tried to actually do it, Nettal yanked on her hand to force her back on the ground. She’d shake her head at Addie with wide eyes, ‘No.’ Addie didn’t see what the big deal was; if they could float up the stairs, that’d be way faster! It’s not like there were invisible torii gate walls up here, anyway.
Forced to take the steps one excruciatingly boring step at a time, Addie’s mind drifted all around. She thought about what Christena, Dad, and even Auntie might be doing back home. She thought about Sen and if he’d realize something was wrong after Addie hadn’t talked to him in so long. They were friends, after all, so of course it’d be strange if she didn’t visit him!
Her thoughts drifted to Squishy, too. Since she couldn’t talk to Nettal, she found Squishy’s absence especially difficult. She always had at least someone to talk to, but now she didn’t. Or maybe she could talk to him? His soul bond was still there with her, and that meant they were never truly apart.
Even now, despite being so far away, and even though she was ethereal, she could still ‘see’ where he was with her spatial sense. She could always see him with her spatial sense, no matter how distant he was from her— the one exception to her spatial sense’s distance limit.
“Squishy?” she tentatively called out to him with her thoughts pulsing through their bond. Right now, he was vaguely behind her and really far away.
“My lady?” Despite what she’d expected, his voice didn’t sound distant in the slightest! It was like he was right here next to her, talking with her as always.
“Squishy!” she exclaimed, glad that they were never truly apart.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Is everything alright? Do you require my assistance?”
“I’m fine, just bored,” she replied, injecting the feeling into her shared thoughts with Squishy. “How is Lotty doing?”
“He eagerly awaits his lady’s return, as do I.” Their conversation paused for a moment before Squishy suggested, “I see, well, if you are bored, perhaps a word game to kill the time?” His words had a hint of mischievousness to them— he always won word games, even if he wouldn’t brag about it; he knew that’d make Addie frustrated when she lost.
“No,” she would have rolled her eyes at him if she could have, “I better watch the stairs in case the fog comes back.”
“Astutely cautious of you, my lady.”
The only reason she didn’t ask what ‘astute’ meant was because she could ‘feel’ the meaning of the word through the thoughts he shared with her.
Though, after quite a bit of time passed going up the stairs, with nothing else happening, she agreed to play some word games with him.
***
They’d been climbing the mountain for what felt like hours now, but according to Squishy, the binary hadn’t moved enough for even an hour to have passed. They’d even run out of word games to play! Addie hadn’t lost all of them. She would have complained about her boredom to Nettal, if she could have.
At least her legs didn’t ache. She did feel tired in a sort of... ethereal way. Well, Squishy thought the wordplay had been funny. In all seriousness, her whole ‘body’ was a bit tired from all the floating and walking up the stairs. She pushed past it, though, which was a lot easier to do when she didn’t have any muscles that could get sore.
The entire time, she often tried to glance up the stairs. Every time she did so, she could only see even more stairs. Mostly, she wanted to make sure that if the fog reappeared, she’d see it before they bumbled into it. Trying to pay attention to that constantly was boring, thus the word games. However, that didn’t mean she was slacking.
It’s a good thing she’d been checking, too, since – just as she’d suspected – the fog did make a reappearance. After what Squishy informed her had been exactly one hour of stair climbing, they discovered a ceiling layer of fog covered the pathway up the mountain. It seemed to loop all the way around, such that even if they didn’t take the stairs, they’d be forced to go through it. Of course, both girls stopped before the fog rather than just rushing into it.
Slightly into the fog, though not so far into it as to be invisible, Addie could see another torii gate. It reminded her exactly of the book she’d ‘read’ from the Furrians. In that ‘daydream’ the book had shown her, the leader of the city had gone through this second torii gate all by himself, and after that, he’d walked through the fog for eternity. In the end, he’d gotten what he wanted— immortality. But, it came at the cost of insanity. Addie knew Area Lords could become immortal through binding themselves to the land, and it made her wonder why this leader hadn’t just done the same thing for himself. Could he be walking through the fog at the top of this mountain even now, she wondered?
She glanced at Nettal’s face, seeing the nervousness and trepidation crossing her cousin’s face. Nettal must have had a similar thought as Addie had.
But, she’d already known this could happen when they’d started climbing. And, as they both knew, the only way to get home was to finish the ruin site— the only way out was up through the fog.
Addie pulled Nettal in for a squishy hug, pulling her into a tight squeeze. It didn’t quite feel right without a body; Nettal’s body felt far too squishy-y. As in, she could squish Nettal’s back more than natural, without hurting her. Regardless, the hug with her taller cousin made Addie feel better.
When the girls pulled away, Addie sent Squishy one more message before going through the second torii gate. “We’re going through now.” With her words, Addie also sent along a mental image of the torii gate. “Don’t let us walk around up there forever if we get stuck or something.”
“Worry not. I shall pester you with questions to keep your mind occupied should I believe you are suffering from undue mental influence. But, Addie, my lady, activate your layers of transcendent loop now just for extra protection.”
“Don’t worry,” she replied, “I’m always using transcendent loop nowadays.” She did prod at her soul construct quickly— to make sure the double layer was still strong. It held easily, and recently, she really didn’t even need to pay attention to it with how second nature it had become to keep it active.
Holding hands, as always, and with a last nod to one another, Addie and Nettal took their first few steps up the stair past the second torii gate. The fog blanketed them immediately, and Addie had expected it to feel cold or perhaps make it harder to breathe. Then she quickly realized how silly that would be— she didn’t feel temperature or have to breathe in ethereal form. Maybe this form would protect them somewhat from the fog?
Just to make sure the fog wasn’t playing with her mind, Addie came to a stop, also dragging Nettal to a stop. She didn’t feel like she needed to keep walking forward against her will, but she did want to keep going. But, was that because she wanted to clear the ruin site or because the fog was trying to trap her here forever? She couldn’t tell, and that worry kept her legs locked as her mind folded with indecision. She prodded at her transcendent layers again, poking them like a nervous tick, but they still felt perfectly stable.
“Two new pre~y, is there?” A voice sounded through the fog, the first time she’d ever heard ‘speech’ in ethereal form that wasn’t telepathy.
Addie pulled on her soul magic with Ember, getting ready to make a flame shield— she should have done that before they’d gone through the fog!
“I wouldn’t d~o that if I were you!” The voice made the word ‘do’ extra-long, which Addie would have thought was silly if she weren’t already halfway into battle mode. “I suspect you are curious why I brought you here, no? If you shoot those flames at me, perhaps I will never tell you how to get ho~me! Perhaps, we ought to partake in a riddle, wouldn’t you sa~y?”
A pair of eyes appeared through the fog, the large circles nearly pitch black except for golden slit pupils. The fog covered the rest of the head, though, and only the eyes could be seen.