WSP 050
Ancestral Records
While the battle against the Rigid Plague was raging, nearly halfway around the planet two individuals were making use of a rare opportunity.
Riikaz and Envila had identified the leader of the nameless society leaving, which meant her recent movements could be tracked. Had they not been working on creating a network of contacts, this would have been a nigh impossible task, as no one would have told them anything. This was Vraskal, words were rare, and connections even rarer.
Yet, there was still an underworld, and the underworld knew full well how to keep track of people and gather information.
“That woman’s movements were… interessssting…” The cloaked figure before them said. A long, slimy tongue flicked out from the darkness that shrouded his face. “It’s not often I find something even I was unaware of. But you two foreignersssssss… have pointed me at a puzzle.”
Envila and Riikaz had their hoods off, sitting on stools set before an obsidian table. The only light in the room came from a lamp with orange, glowing moths in it. The light did not extend to the edges of the room, giving the illusion that they were sitting in an endless expanse of blackness.
Had Riikaz not been in several dwellings with this kind of lighting scheme, she would have thought their “ally” was trying to intimidate them. But it was just one of the ways of Vraskal—the acceptance of darkness. The other strategy was to keep the interiors of buildings as brightly lit as possible in defiance.
Riikaz tended to prefer the darker places. The bright ones made her eyes hurt.
“...So…” Envila said, tapping the table. “Did you actually find where she came from?”
“Oh, yessssss… it was, however, quite difficult… to think, I did not believe your claims at firssssst.” The tongue flicked out again. “Lost two people…”
Riikaz and Envila tensed.
“Do not worry, I do not seek revenge… your information was accurate.” He leaned forward. “The knowledge of their exissssstence is definitely worth far more than you have assssked.”
Envila let out a sigh of relief. “Good.”
“You are quite lucky it isssss… no, not lucky. You planned properly. Perhaps I should give foreignersssss more credit in the future.” He leaned back, flicking out his tongue once more. “I have the addressssss she came from. The route she took was exceedingly complex and designed to throw usssss off, and to catch those inquiring. But the dessssstination is simple. A sssstorage shed attached to no property in particular, off the main roads, unasssssuming. Yet, guarded, from a distance, with two watchers, each acting as fake farmhands for the adjacent propertiessssss.” With his long, green tail, he pulled out an envelope and gave it to the two of them.
Riikaz opened the envelope and examined the interior contents. “Are they aware you know their guard placement?”
“It seems not, as their posssssisssionssss have not changed.”
“The issue will be taking them both out at once without them raising any alarms…” Riikaz said.
“Ssssurely you have the sssstrength?”
Riikaz nodded. “Easily. But they could have tricks, or an alarm system set up.”
“True… but that I cannot help you with.”
“Right… thank you for your assistance.”
“Thank you for telling me of these… sssssecretive obstructions. I am ssssure I will be quite a thorn in their side for quite ssssssome time.” He started chuckling; every release of breath accompanied by a sharp hiss. “If you don’t die, perhaps we could work together again in the future?”
“Perhaps.”
With that, they got up and made their way to the door. Envila misjudged where it was and smacked her face into the wall.
Their informant laughed again. “Ssssilly foreignerssss…”
Riikaz and Envila put their hoods back on and exited into the dark, enshrouded lands of Vraskal.
“We won’t be working with him again, right?” Envila asked.
“Man’s a brutal killer, I won’t if we can help it,” Riikaz said. “But I can’t make promises. Besides…” She folded her arms. “We’re about to get our hands dirty.”
Envila took in a sharp breath. “I know.”
“Are you sure you’re on board?”
“You need two people to take them both out.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Envila looked down at the ground. “...Dia tells us many things we are and are not to do. We are not to kill; and yet, there are times when Dia Herself commanded such actions. There is a point where it is necessary. You are the queen of a country under attack by these people, it is your duty to protect your nation from the enemy.”
“You aren’t a Kroanite, though. This is not your duty.”
“True…” Envila sighed, shaking her head. “Am I justified in going along with this by choice? …It has been weighing on me. But… as I see it, I’ve been placed here for a reason. I’ve been connected to you for a reason. There is clear evil afoot, and situations have lined up perfectly such that I am in a position to do something about it.” Envila looked Riikaz in the eyes. “It seems that I am being led to this. So yes, I will assist you.”
“Then let’s go. We’ve got a raid to plan.”
~~~
The two guards were both humans working the fields at the very edge.* They both made sure to stay in sight range of the storage shed, but not in sight range of each other. The idea was that one or the other would remain to raise the alarm if attacked.
*Very few plants grow in the shrouded areas of Vraskal, and even fewer of those are actually edible. The majority of fields in Vraskal grow mushrooms or fruiting plasts. Most of the settled areas of Vraskal are devoted to these fields, since it takes a lot of land to grow enough to sustain people. The size is even larger than it otherwise would be, as there is no real way to guard the fields from thieves or roaming animals. Some other crops are grown on top of the great darkscraper trees, but only the rich can afford those plants. The fruits of the trees themselves are the second largest producer of food for Vraskal, after the fields, but the trees are localized and the fruit does not keep for long journeys. Farming the darkscraper trees is all but impossible as it takes centuries for one to grow to a proper size.
Were the guards aware that their positions were known, they would have changed things up and devised a new plan. Unfortunately for them, this was not to happen.
Riikaz walked through the darkness, crossbow at the ready, pointed right in front of her.
She saw the form of the guard hunched over, plowing a field.
She stopped moving, keeping him at the very edge of her vision. As she aimed, she counted down silently with her lips.
They had to time this perfectly.
She pulled the trigger. The bolt sailed true through the air, piercing the guard right through the back of the head. He slumped to the ground instantly.
Riikaz ran to him and immediately searched him. He had an arcane firearm that clearly wasn’t of Vraskalian make, and some kind of Purple-heavy arcane device. A communication device of some sort? Good thing he didn’t have an opportunity to use it.
Riikaz dragged the body to the unassuming shed, meeting up with Envila and the guard she had taken out.
“There was a Purple device,” Envila said.
“Did he have a chance to use it?”
Envila shook her head. “No.”
“Good.” Riikaz was not at all surprised to find that the door was locked. She stepped aside, allowing Envila to pick it. It only took a few seconds to pop the door open. They quickly went inside, dragging the bodies with them before they shut the door. The interior was entirely bare; just a single staircase descending into the ground below.
“Hmm… this lock mechanism keeps a record of when it was opened,” Envila said. “Next person who checks this lock is going to know we were here.”
“Can you undo it?”
“No, I’m afraid, not without a replacement part. It snapped a brass plate.”
“Then we better get moving. Expect there to be more guards at the bottom of these stairs, be prepared to flee at any moment.”
They descended the stairs, coming to a stone hallway. There were no guards. There were no lights, Envila had to use Purple to illuminate their surroundings.
There were five offshoots from the hallway, each of which led to their own identical hallway.
“Ah… a maze.” Riikaz folded her arms. “Anyone who’s supposed to be here knows the right path, but anyone like us could be stuck wandering forever…”
“Then we just look for the places traveled the most. This place is very, very old, even if it’s rarely used, there should be signs…” She kneeled down, checking the areas nearest the floor. “Some of these corners are more scuffed than others. It’d be hard to fake this wear pattern, especially considering how old this place has to be.”
Riikaz agreed with the assessment, but as they progressed through the maze she became more and more impressed by Envila’s tracking abilities. This wasn’t a forest where tracks were left, this was a maze of bare rock with no defining features. And yet, Envila was able to track nicks in the corners, uneven wear patterns in the floor, and even identified a mark as fake.
“See this here? It’s too regular,” Envila said, running her fingers over a notch in the wall. “It’s sure trying to look like a worn corner, but it isn’t.”
“That means they realized someone could track them by the wear patterns…” Riikaz realized.
“Yes. The fact that this place is still active either means they can’t change locations, or they don’t think someone being able to navigate the maze like we are is a huge issue. Or they think no one could tell a mark like this was fake.” She tapped her fingers on her hip. “I bet they can’t change locations. You said you saw their leader in a massive device, right? If they spent so much effort constructing a maze around that… it likely can’t be duplicated.”
“Which means we are marked for death for being here.”
“Like we weren’t already.”
The two of them continued their journey, following the trails left by millennia of use. In time, they eventually arrived at a proper room. It was square, with four entrances. There was a large table in the center surrounded by chairs, and a cabinet off to one side.
“Ah, I think we found the meeting room,” Riikaz said.
“Hmm. This complicates things.” Envila crossed her arms. “If there’s multiple rooms in here… we’ll only be able to find those with the highest foot traffic. Meeting room obviously has the most, but the throne device… I bet that isn’t a common destination.”
Riikaz opened up the cupboard and found a set of simple dining dishes and a box full of hover clover cubes. “Ah. Food.”
“There’s probably food storage somewhere else.”
“Yes, this is just an emergency ration a—” Riikaz suddenly stopped short and put a finger in front of her mouth. She gestured at one of the doorways with her head. Envila nodded, and both of them stopped producing light with their crystals.
They could soon hear footsteps. Clearly, a lone humanoid of some kind or other, and not gari, unless the gari was wearing shoes for some unthinkable reason. Once the steps got close enough, they could see light from a lantern.
They jumped into action as soon as the interloper crossed the room’s boundary, both of them pressing their knives to the poor person’s neck. He was a wrinkled being, but it was hard to tell if that meant he was old or it was just the way his race was, as he was a short, green-skinned, pointy-eared individual of a sort that neither Riikaz nor Envila could identify. He froze the moment he noted the knives pressed to his neck.
“Well… can’t say I expected to be jumped here…” the man said in Vraskalian, his voice extremely dry and grating, but somehow chipper. He grinned, revealing a mouth filled with pointed teeth. “So, what do you fine ladies want?”
“How many people are currently in this installation?” Riikaz asked, also in Vraskalian.
“Don’t know.”
“Give me a guess.”
“Um… less than a dozen.”
“Why so few?”
“Got a high-profile mission to deal with at the moment.”
“...What’s your name?” Envila asked.
The man chuckled. “Ah, there’s a lot less hatred in that voice, interesting… I’m Henry. Yes, it’s a fake name, but it is the one I use here, so you decide if you want to be mad about it or not.”
“Why are you so calm?” Riikaz demanded.
“Simple, really, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been held at knifepoint. This is old news at this point.”
Riikaz narrowed her eyes. “Not even afraid I’ll throw you out once I’m done with you?”
“No one’s managed to yet!” He gave her a smug grin.
Riikaz’ grip on her knife tightened.
“Riikaz, no,” Envila said in Karli. “We do need him to find locations in this maze.”
Riikaz loosened her grip and sighed, continuing in Vraskalian. “Right. Where’s your leader’s throne?”
Shock crossed the man’s face. “How… not even all of us know about that.”
“I’m not telling you anything.”
“Unfortunately I can’t tell you where it is, I’m not important enough to know that. I’m barely important enough to know it exists.”
“Then maybe you can tell us what it does.”
“You know about it but don’t know what it does?” He appeared legitimately baffled.
“Are you going to talk or am I going to remove a finger or something here?”
He continued staring at her in disbelief, but he did talk. “It… keeps our leader alive indefinitely, ensuring our ideals don’t change with generational shifts.”
“And she’s currently out, yes?”
“Yes, I… how did you…? How can you know so much and so little at the same time?”
“Do I look like I’m going to answer questions?”
“I could stop talking, you know.”
“Right, finger chopping time…”
“Wait wait wait! Fine! I won’t ask questions, I’d like to keep my fingers!”
Riikaz nodded. “Good. Now… why are you here?“
“I was selected to stay behind while the others went on the mission.”
“What is that mission?”
“Rigid Plague.” Seeing recognition in Riikaz’ eyes, he smirked. “Heh, so you know what that is.”
“Is anyone expecting you anytime soon?”
“Not particularly.”
“Is anyone coming to this room?”
“Possibly, but we don’t expect the others to be back for the debrief for a while…”
“He’s being too cooperative,” Envila said in Karli.
“Yet he doesn’t seem to be lying,” Riikaz responded, in Karli as well. She turned back to Henry, returning to Vraskalian. “You don’t think we can do anything with this information.”
“Right on the money,” Henry said with a laugh. “Even if you can get out of the maze, you’re in our territory. We’ll know you were here very soon. Vraskal itself will digest you.”
“Overconfidence, I see.”
“That doesn’t seem like them…” Envila said in Karli. “They’ve always been extremely paranoid about information getting out.”
Riikaz nodded, responding in Karli. “It is odd. Perhaps their attitude is different in Vraskal since they have greater control, or this man is just not one sent out on distant missions.” She frowned. “Still, we cannot afford to waste time.” She turned back to Henry, speaking in Vraskalian. “So, what places in this maze can you take us to?”
“Food storage, the dormitories, crystal storage, the armory, and the ancestry records.”
“Ancestry records…”
“Figured that one would stand out. I’m aware that there’s the throne room, cube storage, and the deep records, but I don’t know where those are.”
“So, how do we get to ancestry records, then?”
“I can just take you there…”
“Oh, you could, but you could also change your path in the middle of it to lead us into a trap of some kind. So tell us the path ahead of time, we’ll write it down. And, naturally, be careful to make sure the room we’re about to enter is actually the right one.”
“Hmm, and I thought the others were paranoid…”
~~~
In the skies above the Wild Kingdoms, the great airship Seeker flew Westward. It was no longer trying to hide itself, and so the people of the Kingdoms would look up and point in shock at the airship. They were used to seeing dragons, small rigids, and the occasional balloon whale in the sky, but not a clearly artificial wooden construction flying overhead.
The ship itself was currently the site of a lot of tension, for there were several distinct groups present. Naturally, there was the ship’s crew, most of whom spoke a language no one but Sandy knew. There were Sandy’s people, who were calling the shots, but had everyone but the ship’s crew on edge. The Shimmers were trying to keep to themselves, Kayz in particular, but Via kept trying to talk to them in some attempt at smoothing relations between their peoples. Both Via and the Shimmers were extremely worried about Sandy’s people, but so far they had taken no action against the others… but there was no confirmation of what was going to be done with them.
Meanwhile, Blue and Jeh were having a far better time examining the airship’s inner mechanisms.
“This is incredible…” Blue said, running her hoof over a bamboo rod embedded with Blue and Orange throughout it. “I… would never have thought you could use the two in tandem like this…”
“You always said Blue was a pain to work with,” Jeh said.
“Well, it is, but…” Blue followed the trail of Orange and Blue to a wooden barrel-shaped section of the ship which housed one of the many rapidly rotating propellers. “The most impressive part is not that it’s spinning, but that it’s stable. Clearly, propellers can move air, we’ve done some tests with them, but maintaining a surface level enough to walk on, that’s…” Blue glanced behind herself at the ship’s young blonde captain. “This is amazing!”
The captain understood not a word of what Blue said but grinned with pride nonetheless. She said something in her language and winked.
“Too bad this can’t be used in space,” Jeh said. “No air.”
“The propeller, probably not… but…” Blue blinked. “Whatever’s keeping this stable and level… this ship is far too large for a single person to manage, like you do in a Moonshot. Let’s see… uh… time to play charades…” Blue gestured for the captain to listen.
The captain sensed that Blue was going to try to communicate something and put on a serious face, pulling her goggles over her eyes and squinting.
Like that’s going to help… Blue held up her hoof, making it flat, like part of the ground. Then she tilted it side to side and pointed at the propeller.
The captain stared at her blankly.
Blue sighed. “Jeh, you try.”
“Sandy took all my crystals and I don’t think magic punches will help here.”
“But you have hands.”
“Right, fine. Uh…” Jeh held her hand out flat and used her other hand to represent a person. She walked on her flat hand back and forth while it was level, but then once she shifted her hand side to side, she had her walking hand fall off of it. She pointed at the ship in general and scratched her head, trying to move her body in a way similar to the first hand.
The captain processed this for a few moments, but then she slammed her fist into her palm, exclaiming something excitedly. She grabbed Jeh by the hand and ran to the center of the ship. Blue followed along.
The ship had very few interior spaces, and the two of them had not been allowed into any yet, but evidently the captain was making an exception. They entered the central hub from which all the other segments emerged in spokes. The vast majority of the rest of the ship was made of ultra-lightweight materials: wood, bamboo, cloth, Colored crystals, and the mysterious white material the propellers were made of. Inside the center, however, there were two gigantic metallic discs spinning at obscene speeds. An extremely large amount of Magenta crystals surrounded these discs, continually flashing with signals. There were three members of the crew in here with their hands on handholds for the devices, but they weren’t very focused on their task—they were talking and chatting with each other leisurely, even after the captain came in.
The captain opened her mouth and started talking, but then seemed to remember she couldn’t actually explain anything. She started moving her hand around in a circle in an attempt to explain the mechanism, but her face kept getting more and more confused as she tried to.
Blue shook her head. “I understand already, it’s fine.” She tapped her head and winked.
“Um… gyroscope, right?” Jeh asked.
Blue nodded. “Yep! Remember all of Vaughan’s spinning experiments? We were trying to keep things stable or find a way to navigate or something, but we kept relying on manual correction instead of pursuing it further. It was proving difficult to get things to spin in a reliable way. Just from looking at this, I think they solved the biggest problem by using two discs that turn in opposite directions. That’ll keep them from rotating the ship itself, I think. There’s clearly a lot more going on here with all the Magenta, probably something about detecting and responding to the discs. But it appears to be automatic, these three people aren’t so much piloting as just providing will so the ship can keep itself level. Takes a lot of power to rotate those discs that fast and to communicate with the propellers…”
“Huh. Neat.” Jeh blinked. “Think we could use this?”
“I’m not sure it’s necessary in space, we don’t have to remain level with anything… but it might still help for navigation, and the technology here would be very beneficial for larger craft. The space station probably doesn’t need one of these, but I bet the interplanetary ship will want one since it’ll have to do a lot of maneuvers. The way they communicate through the bamboo… I’m already getting lots of ideas.” She turned to the captain and gave her a big smile. “Thanks! Wish we could talk more details about this, but that’ll have to wait, I guess.”
The captain didn’t understand a thing but winked at them nonetheless.
“Looks like you two are having fun.”
Blue and Jeh whipped around to see Sandy standing tall over them. Her expression wasn’t one of malice or anything negative, in fact, she was rather bright and cheerful, but her presence nonetheless made Blue and Jeh take a few steps back.
“Getting ideas for your Space Program, I take it?” Sandy asked.
Jeh locked her hands behind her back. “Uh. Yes.”
“Even though we might not get to use it because of you,” Blue said with a lot more venom than Jeh.
Sandy sighed, her smile vanishing and a slight slouch developing in her figure. “The fact that that is entirely true is unfortunate.”
“You’re the one in charge of a secret society of genocidal maniacs.”
“Please, genocide implies we wish to eradicate a specific kind of person.”
“If you want to eliminate knowledge that’s going to lead to genocide since groups of people gain knowledge. Genocide isn’t your goal, it’s a side effect. Which might make it worse now that I’m actually thinking about it instead of trying to distract myself with spinning wheels of metal.”
“...You, Blue, are a supergenius the likes of which is seen once a human generation or less,” Sandy said.
“I… what?”
Sandy looked right into her eyes with a strange, somber fury. “I find it hard to believe you haven’t figured out not only our primary goal, but also our motives and reasonings based on what you’ve seen. You know what we’re trying to stop, don’t try to deny it just because it will increase your chances of survival.”
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“What does that have to do with the current conversation?”
“Can you think of another solution?”
Blue blinked.
“What?”
The desperate look was back in Sandy’s eyes. “Can you think of another solution?”
“I… I… erm…” Blue took a step back.
“I’m confused,” Jeh said.
“That is preferable,” Sandy said. “You don’t need the full burden.”
“Shut up,” Blue said, slamming her hoof on the ground. “Knowledge is not evil. Confusion and willful ignorance are.”
“Obviously, I disagree, and would very much rather you not place the weight of the finer details on poor Jeh here, she’s been through enough.”
Blue twitched. “Don’t talk like you know her.”
For a split second, Sandy’s face twisted into anger. A personal fury directed at Blue specifically, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, her face slowly softened as she turned her gaze to Jeh. “I… suppose you are right, aren’t you?”
“I’m still confused,” Jeh said.
Blue sighed. “To put it simply… Sandy’s society here was clearly created for the express purpose of preventing people from destroying themselves with the great secrets of magic, whatever those are. There’s clearly multiple things they’re guarding against, since it’s not only the black cubes and their use they’re concerned with, there’s also some knowledge they’re afraid of. Things that can cause Cataclysms in the hands of single individuals.” Blue pointed a hoof at Sandy. “You’re one of them, of course.”
Sandy smirked. “I was wondering if you had enough to piece that together.”
“You are the cause of the Second Cataclysm.”
“Guilty as charged,” she said rather nonchalantly.
Blue gawked. “Okay, that’s just… I understand your society’s purpose and drive pretty well at this point, what I don’t understand is you. What is your deal? Your emotional responses make no sense, you haven’t killed us, you seem to care and yet have obvious struggles, but a willingness to destroy it all… nothing about you adds up.”
“You’re just missing information about me. Information that I choose not to share because it’s personal, not because it threatens anything.” Sandy’s perfectly innocent smile sent chills up Blue’s spine. “I have no intention of ever telling you.”
Blue twitched. “Well, that’s annoying, since you appear to be the primary party who decides whether we live or die, and I have no clue which one you’re going to choose!”
“At least you figured out that I haven’t decided yet.” Sandy turned her back to them and looked out one of the windows at the sky outside. “That’s worth something.”
“I feel like you’re trying to patronize me.”
“I assure you, I’m not. You truly are brilliant and are leading a technological revolution. As important as Vaughan and Jeh are, they could be replaced if something were to happen to them. There are other wizards. There are other pilots, too. But there is not another genius. Granted, at this point, there’s probably enough momentum to carry the world forward for a few decades from your mathematical ‘discoveries’ alone, and that’s just something I can predict because I’ve seen results of it before. I have no idea where this space travel leads.” She looked down at her hands, pausing for a moment. “Which is part of the problem, isn’t it? Society is developing past the point where I can predict what advances will bring. As disturbing as the completely magicless origin of the Rigid Plague was, I find your weapon far more disturbing, for it is a new thing. No deep magic knowledge or power necessary.”
“When the avenues of destruction come from everywhere, your plan doesn’t make any sense,” Blue said. “But you already know this, it’s why you’re having such a problem.” Blue paused. “You really did hope I had a solution, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Because as it is now, the solutions I can come up with are worse than what we’re already doing. And yet… when the goal is to save us from destroying ourselves, if it must be done…”
“Who put you in charge of keeping us from destroying ourselves?”
“I did, because no one else would do it.”
“Isn’t that Dia’s job!?”
Sandy whirled around and looked down at Blue. “How narrow minded… there are many belief systems on Ikyu, Blue. Not all of them have guiding forces above, so I must live admitting the possibility that none exist… or that those that do exist have a potential desire to see us destroy ourselves. I cannot find proof of Dia’s existence, but Eyda’s is hard to deny.”
Blue didn’t back off. “And yet things just keep working out, do they not? Do you have any idea how many events have had to work perfectly and in such improbable ways for things to end up here, for the Wizard Space Program to be where it is, for Jeh to be here, for the whole Rigid Plague things to have worked out, for… heck just look at the Tempest, that entire place is full of it!”
“It’s all sunshine and rainbows when it’s working out for you isn’t it? I assure you, it has not always worked out on my end.”
Jeh spoke up for the first time in a while. “Maybe that’s because you’re the bad guy?”
Sandy stared at her, blankly.
“Well… it’s like… in all the stories and legends and scriptures and things I’ve read… um…” Jeh fidgeted with her fingers. “It’s not always this way, but… the bad guys get punished, the good guys get rewarded.”
Sandy kneeled down, a warm smile on her face. “History is not always like that, Jeh. Brutal dictators rise and are never punished for their actions. The greatest and kindest people are executed because they threaten the status quo. Just look at what we did to King Redmind. He was a truly great leader, and we had him removed. His goodness didn’t stop us.”
Jeh flinched back. “I’d… forgotten about that… how… how could you even do that?”
“He’d gotten too close.” Sandy’s expression became dark. “Though it looks like that entire operation may have been pointless from the start…” She stood up and put an arm to her face, sighing. “I am sorry, Blue, but I can’t just have faith that there’s someone watching over us that will keep us from utter destruction. I must take matters into my own hands.”
Blue clenched her jaw. “Then what’s the plan, judge, jury, and executioner?”
Sandy laughed bitterly. “Oh, if only… if only…” She turned back and gave Jeh a pat on the head. “This was a good talk, thank you. Jeh, no matter what happens, I hope you do get to explore the stars one day.”
Jeh smiled awkwardly back. “...I hope all of us get to explore the stars one day. …You too, Sandy.”
“...That would be nice,” she said in a hollow, hopeless tone. She turned and left.
“...That woman is horrifying, Jeh,” Blue said.
“Yes. And yet… she was Jenny’s friend.” Jeh put her hands on her hips. “And they weren’t evil, they were trying to be heroes.”
“Clearly, that didn’t work out.”
“No…” Jeh frowned.
“You sure you don’t remember anything? You seem to… ‘get’ her, somehow.”
“Not a thing. But maybe connections between people are stronger than memories or something.” She paused. “I’ve been feeling sadder and sadder the more I’ve talked to her. I don’t know why.”
“Well, she’s not going to tell us, and I’m willing to bet she’s wiped all records of whatever happened off the face of Ikyu, so…”
“I don’t need to know, Blue, it’s fine. Still…” She looked at the door wistfully. “I do really hope she can go to space and see it all. See…” Jeh held her hand out in front of her and froze.
“What is it, Jeh?”
“One time, when I was up there, I was struck by how small and… fragile Ikyu was. Like I could just… crush it in my hand. Maybe… maybe I could have, once.” A small smile crawled up Jeh’s face. “But there’s more out there than just Ikyu. The universe is so much vaster than we could have ever imagined. Maybe one day we will blow Ikyu up. But Wanderlust and the archive will still be here, huh? And who knows what else out there…”
“That… is a very strange thought, Jeh.”
Hanging around just outside the door, Sandy put a hand to her chest. She walked away silently.
~~~
“What did I tell ya?” Henry said. He still had a stupid grin on his face despite Riikaz still holding a knife to his neck, which was a little awkward considering how short he was, but she wasn’t about to let him just walk around free.
They had just arrived in a somewhat small rectangular room with two entrances. The only features in the room were four bookshelves that were sparsely populated with books.
“There’s not much here…” Envila observed, picking up a book off a nearby shelf.
“There’s no way this is all you have,” Riikaz said, pressing the knife into Henry’s neck.
“I did say there were deep records, right? But even then, there aren’t many. We write down things out of necessity, not because we want to.”
“Hmmm…” Riikaz turned to Envila, switching to Karli. “He led us right here without any incidents, are we sure this is legitimate?”
“It looks like it,” Envila said as she flipped through the book. “This one is a record of personnel. Some of the information is redacted, but it’s still here and it seems legitimate. Itlea’s even recorded here at the end, evidentially their most recent recruit.”
“A traitor to the Crown…”
“She may not have known that when signing up.” Envila put the book back and started looking through others. “Let’s see… we have records of specific operations… the apparently true history of Vraskal… some other history books… hmm.” She pulled one off a shelf. “This one’s almost entirely redacted, but its topic appears to be history before the Second Cataclysm.”
“Extremely valuable.”
“Indeed.”
Henry let out a big yawn. “Man, you two sure know how to yap.”
“Quiet,” Riikaz said in Vraskalian. He didn’t need to be distracting them from their research, nor did he need to understand any of what they were doing. “We should grab as many of these as we can carry.”
“There’s not too many, if I ignore the duplicates… yeah we could fit all of them in a bag.”
“Which one’s the most important, you think?”
“Either the personnel list or… this one, which I think you’ll find more interesting.” Envila pulled out a book entitled The Ancestral Cubes. “And more relevant to our current situation.”
“Yes…” Riikaz switched into Vraskalian, directing her attention to Henry again. “You don’t even have an ancestry you could use, right?”
“Not a one! Squeaky clean here!”
“Good.” Riikaz switched back to Karli. “I’m keeping him alive all the way to the door in case we need a hostage.”
“Not past that?”
“He’d be too hard to move with in Vraskal, the records should give us all we need. I’ll read while we move.”
Envila nodded. “Right. Though you should probably just tie him up instead of trying to hold a knife to his throat and read a book.”
“...True, we won’t need him to feel threatened anymore.”
“I’m not sure he felt threatened in the first place.”
“Which still really bugs me…”
“It may not be overconfidence, we are in their territory, us getting out of here alive may really be extremely unlikely.”
Why don’t I believe that for a moment…? Riikaz wondered. She quickly tied up Henry’s wrists.
Henry snickered. “Aww, losing your bloodlust, ice queen?”
Riikaz didn’t respond to him, she just dragged him along as she followed Envila out, reading all the while.
~~~
There were only eight ancestral cubes at first. There are more now. The first eight arrived shortly after the First Cataclysm with [REDACTED]. The origin of the rest are unknown, though are theorized to [REDACTED].
The cubes were split up shortly after their arrival, and many became lost. We believe that one of the original eight was only recovered recently in Willow Hollow, but as we cannot trace its history this is uncertain. History of all but one of the original cubes is incomplete as well. The exception is [REDACTED]. This cube has been reprogrammed multiple times. It is known that it has been set so many times that we do not know all the ancestries it once bestowed. Currently, it contains the ability of creating sandwiches out of thin air of a seemingly endless variety. The story why this ancestry was chosen is unknown, but considering how this was [REDACTED] the odd nature of the ability is to be expected.
Historically, this cube was [REDACTED].
The Cataclysm Cube is our most prized possession, and only Sandy knows its current location, as it is stored separately from all the others. Sandy is the only one to currently have this ancestry. The ancestry in question grants one control over Colored crystals. The full extent of the power is unknown to all but Sandy, and she has specifically not told us all of them. However, we are aware that the black dust left behind lingers and poisons the land. This darkness has dissipated from everywhere except Vraskal, and the rate of its dissipation has slowed. As Vraskal was the site of the most dense conglomeration of Crystalline Ones prior to the Second Cataclysm, this is not entirely unexpected.
Sandy herself is responsible for this ancestry, intended from the beginning as a tool for our great mission. [REDACTED]. Shortly thereafter our society was founded and we have sought to lay claim to all of the cubes and potential magical dangers since.
We acquired the invisibility cube from a nameless tribe of occulari. They did not put up much of a fight. We ensure there are always a few in our ranks who are masters at the ability, though never too many, for we cannot have the ancestry accidentally escaping. This was one of the standard ancestries in use by [REDACTED] prior to the Second Cataclysm and so there were a large number of descendants that carried it, though in modern times it has completely died out except for those under our care. It is believed to have been created and maintained for so long simply because [REDACTED] was bad at sneaking.
Use of these abilities should be done sparingly. The moment any enemy is aware we have this ability, we lose a massive edge.
Over the centuries we obtained a handful of cubes in nearby territories and have completely sealed them away…
…after we had fully entrenched ourselves in Vraskal, we set our sights to distant lands country by country; focusing our efforts on larger political entities as they were likely to form around ancestries, even hidden ones.
Our longest campaign for a single cube was for the Cube of Power. The history of this one is well known. Prior to the Second Cataclysm, [REDACTED] faced a monstrosity that emerged from the depths of Ikyu and laid waste to the surface. Power was needed to combat this threat, and thus the Cube of Power was created. It was lost in the Second Cataclysm, and picked up by many different tribal leaders, warlords, and eventually kings before we finally caught wind of it. We engaged in multiple operations to take control of the cube, but it was unfortunately not very well hidden considering how obvious and simple its power was: a beam of brilliant destruction emanating from the user. Users often killed themselves from being unable to control the power. Whenever we would be about to steal the cube, another faction would take it by force, or steal it before we did, until at last it seemed that no one had it.
This turned out to not be true, as it fell into the hands of the great black dragon Shadow. He was far cleverer than the other warmongers that held the cube, not letting anyone know it was the source of his power, and only rarely using the power in the first place. He sought to conquer the world, and the only reason we suspected him was because he had a quasi-religious reverence for cubes as mathematical objects and used a black square as his symbol of conquest. We had to work together with the old Lineage of Kroan to dethrone him. We took the cube in the aftermath without our allies knowing who we even were.
The cube’s power is far too dangerous to use in the field, being a force of nothing but pure destruction on a massive scale that often backfires. It is also unsuitable for our preferred stealthy methods.
The campaign for the Cube of Power led us to the northern territories, where we found a tribe that could cast seemingly endless magic by playing instruments. It was remarkable that news of their ability had not spread, and we were able to steal the cube without anyone noticing. Unlike most ancestries, however, this one did not decay as quickly with the generations, likely due to the complexity of its ability. We can confirm that the potency of the spells has weakened over time, and that the variety of known patterns has fallen off as well.
It is believed that Benefactor learned of our existence during our activities in this time. Our complete unawareness of her existence is perhaps our largest embarrassment.
The ancestry of musical magic has a known origin. It was created prior to the Second Cataclysm as an experiment to see if a single ancestry could be as versatile as normal Colored magic itself. The success of the experiment cannot be overstated, it not only matches the versatility of normal Colored magic, it exceeds it, with a far larger variety of effects. Every single Colored spell can be mimicked and most other ancestries can as well. The reason the ability is not all that useful or all that terrifying to us is because each spell has highly specific musical requirements that must be met to actually cast the spell. The exact syntax required to execute these spells has been lost to all but a scant few in the northern tribes of Shimvale, and even they only know a handful of songs that have been passed down, none of which have been deemed an existential threat.
There are two classes of spells in this ancestry. One and done spells require the song to be played and then the effect takes place. The cyclic spells require constant music to maintain. One curious quirk is that if a target of a spell is spirited, they must be able to hear the song to be directly affected by it. Indirect influence does not require this.
The primary threat of this ancestry is that secrets of our order can be forced out of our agents. As there is currently no evidence of Shimvale having any cubes or other secrets, this risk is believed to be minimal, but all agents working in the area must be made aware of the danger and have earplugs on hand.
A cube that has no ancestry we can discern but is not blank was recovered from the Wild Continent.
It is known that the Holy Flame has three cubes in her possession, but as they are considered sacrilegious heresy we do not believe obtaining them to be important at this time. The situation is nonetheless being closely monitored. The cubes themselves are unknown, as the ancestries they provided died out when the Holy Flame sealed them away.
The southern continents lacked major civilizations when we began our infiltrations, so work was slow, but a handful of cubes were obtained…
…infiltrating the Tempest was nigh impossible until official contact with the outside world was established. The existence of the Guardian Spirit complicated matters significantly, but through a successful operation we managed to use the cover of war to obtain the cube of prophecy. The ability is very simple, those with this ancestry dream of future events, though often in cryptic ways. The origin of this ability is known; a meteorological disaster once scourged the previous world after great terraforming had occurred, and so [REDACTED] wished to know when these were coming so casualties could be prevented. The prophecies are not completely accurate, but they can predict natural disasters with remarkable precision, and even political movements. The ancestry is dying out in the Tempest, but we make sure to keep a few on our staff.
There is a second cube on the Tempest. We do not know what it is, and we failed to obtain it on our latest operation. We have reason to believe that the Guardian Spirit doesn’t have it either and it was lost in the volcanic eruption, though. What ancestry it has is completely unknown. Perhaps it is tied to the Tempest itself, but it is also possible that the Tempest is maintained by the Guardian Spirit with no need for a cube.
Most recently we have been made aware of a cube in the possession of the Kingdom of Kroan, a cube that makes those with its power inherently trustworthy to all who witness them. An extremely dangerous ability we would normally not permit to run free, but the Wizard Space Program has expressed intentions to launch it into the sun, which is far better than anything we can accomplish so we have decided to let them try it. The situation is being monitored closely, of course, and a demon almost made us interfere, but it turned out to be unnecessary. Sandy has left special orders to leave the Space Program to their experiments unless they seek to use the cube.
The cube appears to have been a blank cube that the previous mayor of Willow Hollow wished upon, thereby setting its ability to make people trust him. He learned to hate this ability and sought to have the source of it destroyed, even after his death. This cannot be confirmed as the previous mayor left no records and was extremely secretive, and we did not have him under observation.
The construction cube was set by [REDACTED] in order to create the Shinelands and give the rigids a biome to themselves. This is by far the cube with the most far-reaching consequences of all the others, and we currently do not know its location. We have searched for it since our very beginnings and have found no sign of it. This is deeply concerning, as it is the one that currently has the greatest hold on the planet, having changed the weather patterns and biomes drastically. In modern times the ecosystem has stabilized, but this was not true prior to the Second Cataclysm. There is no evidence of this ancestry still being used. Its vast ecological terror could not be hidden from our careful eyes.
This is not to be confused with the structure cube, which allows the users to transform into buildings. [REDACTED] did not create this one, but it is a wish from before the Second Cataclysm made by an architect who just wanted to be like his creations. [REDACTED]
We did not investigate Descent closely as it was not a major nation, just a city, but recent information indicates that the equivalent to “ancestry” is a known word in their language, indicating that they know of the effects of cubes, despite none of the known cubes being found in nearby areas. This is somewhat concerning, and we lack the information at this time to make any definite conclusions.
The Rigid Plague is clear evidence of an unknown ancestry that can control rigids over long distances. The source has been traced to the Shinelands. Developments are actively ongoing, expect this section to be updated.
The potions of power occasionally found throughout Ikyu are a clear indication of yet another unknown ancestry, but their existence is far more concerning. There appears to be no limit or reason to the effects obtained by drinking them, and some take effect without even being drunk but simply being thrown on the ground. However, we have never observed a single entity creating a potion and have never been able to study a potion prior to its use. Potions exist in history back to long before the Second Cataclysm. [REDACTED] was never known to have created such an ancestry, and given its similar complexity to the music ancestry, it is highly unlikely to have been a wish made upon a blank cube.
It is suspected that the Angler Hegemony has a cube of navigation of some kind, but information is limited. There should also be far more cubes on the bottom of the ocean than there seem to be. Perhaps the leviathans have something to do with this?
It has been deemed that the power of demons and the Guardian Spirit are not due to cubes, but they are under our consideration as potentially connected to [REDACTED]. The giant crystalline ones Holy Flame, Benefactor, and Wanderlust are considered similarly, and as of this moment they are not suspected to be hiding cubes that we are unaware of.
No [REDACTED] her Playground [REDACTED] is known to [REDACTED] since [REDACTED].
~~~
“This entire thing was ominous…” Riikaz muttered in Karli. “Very good information, but a lot of it is censored…”
“Hey, at least we know a lot about what kinds of things they can do,” Envila said. “I’m glad we checked for invisible people, that could have been disastrous if we never picked up on that.”
“They have so many tricks they could use… they do seem to want to avoid it though. They really do think these cubes are evil, they want us to launch them into the sun.”
Envila nodded. “I tend to agree with them on that sentiment, actually, just not the lengths they’re willing to go through to get them.”
“They talk about their activities so clinically. Using wars as fronts. Taking them by force…” Riikaz shook her head. “There have to be better ways.”
“Aren’t we basically doing the same thing right now?”
“We’re trying to stop ourselves from being wiped out from their plans.”
“True…” Envila clicked her tongue. “But from their perspective, this is probably also self-defense. Just more… proactive.”
“...I don’t like any of this.”
“I don’t like any of it either. For the record, I believe they have forced our hand. By choosing the violent and brutal route, they force it to be used in return to stand any chance of resisting them. If only they had chosen a more peaceful route, things could have been different.”
“Woooow, sounds like you two are having quite the conversation without me!” Henry said. “C’mon, clue me in, what’s so fascinating? Terrified of the cubes?”
Riikaz smacked him in the head. “Shut up,” she said in Vraskalian.
“You don’t have to be so cruel to him,” Envila said in Karli. “You’re going to kill him anyway and he’s being dragged through a maze against his will. I understand he’s annoying you, but…”
“There are sometimes it’s not right to show kindness,” Riikaz growled.
Envila frowned. “I’m not sure that’s true.”
“I think it is, so that’s that.”
“Hmmmm…”
The two of them fell silent.
Riikaz turned to her inner thoughts. There’s something else that’s bugging me. Those potions… when I had my knowledge of this place after finding the Tower, I also had a potion on me, hidden in my cloak. I still have it with me. I’d forgotten about it. She clenched her jaw. They haven’t been able to figure these potions out… they think it’s an ancestry.
Why do I think they’re wrong…?
Envila stopped short.
“What is it?”
“This wall wasn’t here when we came in.” She whirled around to Henry, shifting to Vraskalian, all hint of her kindness toward him gone. “How did the walls move?”
Henry snorted. “Oh come on, you’ve just made a mistake, walls can’t move!”
“That is the first time you’ve lied to us.”
Henry blinked. “Wow, I knew you were going to be good, but that good? Crazy, good thing it was me you were dealing with this entire time.” He laughed. “Looks like the jig’s up!”
Suddenly they were surrounded on all four sides by stone walls.
“Didn’t you read about the ancestry where the guy became a house?” Henry chuckled.
“That… that can’t be,” Riikaz said, eyes wide. “This place is too old, showing signs of use from you!”
“Duh, that’s because she’s been this place for thousands of years!”
Riikaz decided she’d had enough. She pulled out her knife and lunged for him—but a stone pillar shot out of the ground, throwing the knife out of her hand.
Henry cackled. “You never could have done anything to me in here. Sure, Vraskal itself could digest you, even if you had some secret way to get out I still think you’d have been eaten. Didn’t lie, after all. But as for me? I was always protected by the very maze we were walking in! The only reason she didn’t move things around was because we like extracting information out of people like you; you don’t come around very often, and you tend to resist torture. And guess what? I don’t know Karli, but she does.”
Riikaz paled. “This entire time…”
“By the way, your first mistake was taking out the guards. The moment their devices stopped transmitting, we were onto you. It’s hard for the maze to be aware of everything going on inside her, but at that point, we were laser-focused onto you. You’ve been playing our game this entire time!”
Envila nodded and held out her hands in surrender. “What happens to us then?”
“Riikaz here’s getting executed, simple as that, though we’ll at least make a go of getting more information out of her. You on the other hand…” Henry’s grin widened. “I think the boss might want to talk with you, you’re exactly the sort she likes.”
“I will have no part in this.”
“No part? You sure? We don’t have to be the warmongers all the time. In fact, right now we’re off saving the world by ending the Rigid Plague! I’m sure she can find some heroic work for you. There’s some nasty things out there.”
“Your words and your ideals are tempting, and the truth of reality is harsh, but there is a very simple reason I will not join you. It is against Dia’s teaching.”
“You killed people to get in here.”
“I… am aware. I have had to wrestle with my faith to do even this much. But going further is unthinkable.”
“Eh, I’m not the most persuasive, the boss will still want a talk with you. Now…” He let out a long, satisfied breath. “I sure hope I’m the one chosen to put you through the wringer, Riikaz, there’s quite a bit of anger I’ve been building up today, and you’re the primary target…”
“I don’t think so,” Riikaz said.
Henry groaned. “Oh come on, what are you going to do? You can’t fight a building!”
“Right. I can’t.”
“And you’re trapped!”
“Right.”
“So admit that you’ve lost!”
“I have.”
Henry blinked. “Then what…?”
“Just like you had a secret plan… there’s another secret plan. One not even I knew about. But I think I know now, after reading your book.” She smirked. “I think you have an enemy who’s kept herself even from you.”
“Eh…?”
Riikaz uncorked the potion while it was still in her furs. In one quick swig, she threw it down the back of her throat. A stone pillar shot out of the wall and shattered the potion, breaking her hand in the process, but it was too late, the fluid was already racing down her throat.
She started glowing a bright white color.
The bright glow reached Envila, and she started shining as well.
Then Henry.
Then the entire maze.
The maze let out a shocked cry.
When was the last time she’d been able to cry out?
Then, all of a sudden, the light was gone.
Riikaz stood, breathing heavily, blood pouring down her broken hand.
Envila stood at her side, a bewildered look on her face.
Henry’s eyes darted left and right, sweat pouring down his face.
There was a human girl, no older than six, completely naked and staring straight ahead like her eyes were foreign to her.
They were standing on top of a very ornate tile floor that was very familiar to Riikaz.
There was a sound of several dozen guards all drawing their swords at once. “Freeze!”
Riikaz looked upward and, sure enough, there it was. The throne of Kroan, upon which her son Wyett was seated, his wife and his sister at his sides, all of them staring at her dumbfounded.
“Oh, it was a return home potion…” Riikaz nodded. “That… okay I was expecting… I don’t know what I was expecting honestly, but, well…” She grinned. “Mission accomplished!”
“Mom!” Tenrayce shouted. “What is going on!?”
“I’ll explain it all in a minute, right now we might want to put the girl to sleep before she tries to transform into a house.”
“What!?”
~~~
Seskii stood at the edge of a massive sinkhole that had just formed in Vraskal, intersecting with the land of several different farmers.
She let out a low whistle. “Okay, that wasn’t part of the plan at all. I just wanted them out, for the record, not… the entire building.” She threw her hands to the side. “Seriously, how was I supposed to know that the building was a person when I made the potion, huh?” She crossed her arms and frowned. “Geez, I legitimately have no idea if this is a good or bad result. Uh. This is awkward.” Suddenly, her frown vanished and she burst into laughter. “Of course, it wouldn’t really be fair if I wasn’t a victim of my own jokes every now and then, now would it? Whew!”
Her smile slowly started to dissipate, replaced with a rather flat expression.
“Of course, things have already changed on the other end too… Sandy, if you play your cards right and prove I misjudged you… maybe…” Seskii shook her head. “Unfortunately, I don’t get to know about that, so you all don’t either!” She winked at seemingly no one. “But rest easy, even if I can’t know what the resolution to this mess is going to be, I do know one thing. There’s a Wizard Space Program, and they need to go where no man has gone before. Rest assured, that’s where we’ll be going, and no amount of political kerfuffles can stop that anymore.”
She brushed off her gauntlets and turned her back to the massive sinkhole. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some secretary work to do. Which is perhaps more important than all of this.”
She stepped behind a warehouse.
No one knew she had even been there.
~~~
Sandy looked down over the mountains the airship Seeker was passing over. It was night.
They were through the Wild Kingdoms. They were entering Kroan.
“It’s time to decide,” one of her aides said, a green occulari with a particularly thin pupil. “We either need to hide ourselves now or not.”
“I know,” Sandy said, crossing her arms behind her back.
“What’s the call?”
“We have a few options. Fly to Benefactor and use her to cause a Third Cataclysm and increase our more brutal activities markedly in the aftermath. Which will be unpopular. Or…” She glanced back at the central part of the airship. “We ditch the secrecy.”
“Which will also be unpopular.”
Sandy sighed. “Sometimes I wish we were a Democracy…”
“You’ve gone to such lengths to ensure you stay with us to avoid the pitfalls in the drift of such a system.”
“Yes. Logically this is still the best option. But I really don’t want to decide.”
“You could try one and then default to the other.”
“I… have my doubts that will be allowed, considering how I expect negotiations to go…” She tapped her foot. “We’re being forced to put all our eggs in one basket here, and I don’t like it.”
“The decision is up to you. It always has been.”
Sandy sighed. She looked up. The stars twinkled.
“...One of the things Jeh said to Blue has been ringing through my head.”
“Calling her Jeh even in private, now?”
Sandy nodded. “Who knows what else is out there? Even the greatest ancestry… they can’t touch the other worlds.”
“True enough.”
She folded her hands together. “But we are far from being out there. If we take this risk now, everything might be destroyed before anything happens.”
“And to trust space would be trusting Jenny again, wouldn’t it?”
“...No. No, I don’t think it would. This… is just what Jeh loves. It wasn’t her idea.”
“So you’ll have to trust a genius unicorn.”
“Not that either. I’d have to trust… that we can keep everything from falling apart long enough that we can no longer destroy ourselves. That space and science offer a salvation beyond magic.” She shook her head. “To think, when I first visited them, I just thought it was a cute curiosity and I was glad she was finding a way to apply herself for good. Now it’s the very cornerstone of my decision.”
“Well…?”
Sandy drummed her fingers on the railing. “...Triset, she wants me to be able to go to space.”
“Eh…?”
“I think I owe her for… all I did, to at least try.” She pulled out her Purple communicator. “Hey, Benefactor, yep, me again. We’re currently crossing over the mountains into Kroan, on a course to Axiom. Let them know that we’re bringing Princess Via back safe and sound with Blue and Jeh and, heck, even Kayz if they care about that. Let the Crown know… that Sandy Whiskers Gallon, leader of the great mysterious nameless society, would like to talk peace.”
~~~
SCIENCE SEGMENT
We’ll talk about reaction wheels eventually when it’s actually used in something besides mysterious foreign airship, right now let’s just let this be one of those special chapters and move on. We’re fifty chapters in, celebrate!