The cold hard ground of Realmspace greeted the pair, no different than Addie remembered. However, it was slightly jarring, in a strange way. Now that Addie knew the floor sparkled like the stars in the night, the ground teetered between solid and dreamlike. Addie put the thought out of mind. It didn’t matter right now anyway. The darkness of Realmspace obscured all. She closed her eyes and focused on her spatial sense, confirming nothing was nearby.
It hadn’t helped her last time, Addie remembered. The pigling somehow never appeared in her spatial sense. Maybe she should have brought a lantern.
Addie shook her head, it was too late for that. She and Squishy had already expended a significant amount of magic, if they turned back now, they wouldn’t be able to try again anytime soon. Nettal needed help right now— not later.
“Squishy?” Addie called out.
“Yes, my lady?”
“Let’s go.” Addie took off at a run, Squishy right beside her.
As she absently observed the passing surroundings, Addie was simultaneously feeling around her soul shell and prodding at the string of fate.
It seemed to poke her from the outside, a tiny string coming from who knows where— barely touching the outside surface of her soul shell.
But it wasn’t just attached to her soul shell, the string was pointing her in a direction.
As she ran forward, the string would subtly shift direction, telling Addie which way to continue running. It acted as a compass, but instead of pointing north, it was pointing her towards a person. Or at least, that’s the feeling she seemed to get from it.
By her side, Squishy was panting. His legs were a lot shorter than Addie’s so he had to run twice as hard to keep up with Addie’s full-on sprint.
“So you have decided, then?” Squishy asked as they ran, “To pursue this fate?”
“I want to help Nettal,” Addie huffed out between breaths.
“And if this fate leads you to a soul bond? If it leads you to a creature beyond yourself, as it did me?”
“What... about it?” Running and talking was harder than Addie would have thought.
“Will you have no regrets, if the bond turns you into something you are not?”
This time, Addie responded to Squishy over the soul link, without speaking aloud, “I am scared,” Addie admitted, “But I am more scared that Nettal will be hurt forever.” Speaking over the soul bond was so much easier than trying to huff out her words in between breaths.
“Then let us find the source of your string of fate.”
They ran hard after that. Everything was sweating. Even her lungs were sweating, so much so that she tasted blood at the back of her throat. They had to make it to their destination before their magic ran out.
Based on past experience, Addie suspected she had no more than an hour to traverse Realmspace. Anything more than that and Realmspace was likely to discover them and kick them out.
So, they ran hard. At some point, Squishy couldn’t continue. He was never built for long-distance running. In his own words, Squishy was more of a sneak-up-behind-something-and-pounce predator than a chase-after-something predator.
At that point, Addie had to pick the silly cat up and carry him, making it even harder to run.
Addie never knew her body could sweat so much. Her hair was sweating, her hands were sweating, and even her sweat was sweating. Her heart beat up against her ribcage, ready to get out. And the bones in her feet were creaking.
Regardless, she kept running. With Squishy in her arms, she ran. With Squishy balanced on her shoulders, she ran. Eventually, she ran so much that Squishy was done taking a break, and went back on the ground to continue running himself.
Then, they kept running.
If Addie appeared back in reality now, she was quite certain she would have run past the swamp, past the forest, and way out into the fabled desert in the north. Maybe even past the desert.
“Heh,” Addie thought aloud to Squishy, “Maybe I just figured out a way to get across the desert without any of the heat. Plus, I hate sand. It gets everywhere.”
Squishy said Addie was ‘delirious’ but that didn’t matter since Addie didn’t know what that meant.
After what must have been thirty hours but felt like thirty minutes—Addie shook her head, or was it supposed to be the other way around?
After what must have been thirty minutes but felt like thirty hours, the fated compass needle poking into her soul began to angle itself subtly shifting down. It wasn’t pointed down enough that Addie needed to stop running forward and start digging, but it was pointing down enough that Addie worried she should have brought a shovel.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
As they kept running, the angle of the needle continued to droop down, slowly but surely. Luckily, her fears about needing a shovel were unnecessary.
Soon enough, Addie and Squishy reached a giant ominous pit in the ground, and luckily for them, the needle pointed directly into the spiky circular crevasse.
Addie recognized it. And now, she was pretty sure where the needle pointed to.
The pair stopped at the edge of the pit and stared down into it. Not that it helped much. Realmspace was still just as dark as ever, and her spatial sense barely reached a few meters around herself.
For a while, they just sat at the lip and caught their breath.
She hadn’t brought a watch or anything (something to fix next time), but Addie guessed they had maybe ten minutes before their magic ran out and Realmspace pushed them back into reality.
With only ten minutes, Addie and Squishy had to safely climb down the pit, explore the tunnels, and bargain with a Dragon.
“Squishy, you go first.”
“Your wish is my command.” Squishy didn’t even hesitate at Addie’s joking tone.
“Wait, that’s not really..”
He positioned himself perfectly to leap down into the pit below, but just before he did, Addie yanked on their soul bond with a strong, ‘stop!’
But it was too late, Squishy had already launched himself off the edge.
Addie rushed to the edge of the pit and focused her spatial sense. She narrowed down its effect, condensing the normal spherical sense down until it was just a wide cone out in front of her. The attempt at magic was instinctual, done out of a need to find out what happened to Squishy. She noticed, though, that by narrowing down her spatial sense into a cone in front of her, she had far more range than normal. It was like all of the area she could usually see had all been shoved forward and elongated. Overall, the total volume of space she could ‘see’ was unchanged, the focus was just different.
By stretching her spatial sense in this way, Addie was surprised to find out she could see all the way to the bottom of the pit. It wasn’t as far down as she thought, maybe just four or five meters. Squishy was at the bottom of the pit, already walking around and sniffing at the ground.
Addie let out a sigh of relief. He looked fine.
“Are you ok?” Addie asked telepathically, just to make sure.
“Perhaps some minor bruising on my paw pads. Nothing major.” He replied.
Addie let out another sigh. He was fine. She would have to be a lot more careful with the commands she gave him. He really didn’t seem to understand teasing. This was way worse than the ‘would you jump off a bridge if your friends did it’ thing her mom sometimes scolded her about.
Four or five meters was still a longer distance than Addie wanted to jump down, herself. She could easily twist and break an ankle, and her normal trick of dampening her momentum wouldn’t work in this instance. If she left Realmspace right now it would undo all the magic they spent earlier.
Or maybe, that actually was a better plan. She and Squishy could go back into reality, charge up their magic a second time, and then have more time to explore the pit without having to worry about getting kicked out of Realmspace before they were finished.
Addie sat down in thought at the idea. She was silly, she realized. Why did she run so hard all that entire way if she could have just gone back to reality to recharge for a little while?
Whatever, Addie scrunched her face. It’s fine. She tried to brush off the embarrassment. At least Squishy wouldn’t make fun of her. He’d only laugh at her. Maybe that was worse.
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
It was weird, when they reappeared in reality. Even though Squishy was down in the ground, he appeared on the surface just the same as Addie did. From one perspective, he was just as far away as he had been before they came back to reality. He was a number of paces forward and left of Addie. On the other hand, he stood on the same level of dirt as Addie, such that she could easily just walk over to him without needing to jump into a pit or anything.
She had a brief moment of panic when the magic ran out in Realmspace that Squishy would be buried alive when they came back to reality, but nope. Here he was, on top of the same dirt as Addie. Maybe it was similar to how she had never reappeared inside of an object. Never once did she reappear inside of a tree while she was in the forest. Maybe something about Realmspace prevented her from teleporting inside of other things? Something to ask Christena about later, maybe.
And Addie had also been wrong about making it to the desert. They were still in the swamp, though this particular area was a bit more dry with less mud. The swamp must have been a lot bigger than she thought.
The two of them sat in the surprisingly dry patch of swamp dirt and simply rested. While they caught their breath, the two of them mostly stayed silent. They both knew what to do. After a few minutes, Addie felt their souls were sufficiently rested.
They began cycling their magic again. It rushed into Addie’s soul, then she cycled the current back over to Squishy’s side. Soon enough, Squishy finished processing the magic, and sent it back to Addie’s side of the soul bond. Back and forth the magic cycled, each time gaining in strength.
Eventually, they unleashed the magic, and reality distorted sharply, until both of them were back in Realmspace. Oh, and they were falling.
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
The sudden drop pushed Addie’s stomach into her brains, making her feel like the whole world was upside down for just a moment, then Addie remembered the giant pit. In a split second, she turned her spatial sense back into a cone and saw the ground rushing up to meet her.
If Addie went back into reality right now, all the hard work of cycling their magic would go to waste. That thought flashed through Addie’s mind at the speed of thought. She had no more time to think though.
Together, Addie and Squishy pulled on their magic, just barely dipping their toes into its power. Not enough to send them back into reality and waste their earlier hard work, but enough that they could trick Realmspace for a moment into getting ready to push them back out into reality.
Somehow, it worked. Realmspace pushed the two up into the air just before they hit the ground, letting them take a soft landing.
Addie couldn’t help herself. She started laughing. “That fall really surprised me!” Addie kept laughing, the adrenaline getting to her.
Despite being safe on the ground, Addie’s heart ran around inside her chest, throwing dancing nerves throughout her body. She really thought they were about to splat on the ground.
After a few moments, Addie got her breathing back under control. She still felt a bit of the adrenaline, though. It seemed to make everything so much sharper.
Once she sufficiently got her bearings, Addie and Squishy started investigating around the pit. She recognized it, but only in that half-remembered way after waking up from a dream.
They couldn’t just retrace the path she used to find the dragon from her dream. They would have to explore the area and figure it out the hard way. Well, maybe not too hard. She did still have the string of fate guiding her along, afterall.