Chapter 2 -
The day was cool, the sun hidden behind clouds. A small suburban neighborhood spread out on the edge of a metropolis in the American Midwest. It was wearing on towards evening, and daylight was fading. The ancient trees of the majestic forest bordering the suburb blocked out the sun and cast long shadows across the houses and yards alike which put their backs to the woods. One house in particular, two stories tall of blue painted wood and vinyl siding, was letting in the late afternoon breeze. Above the open door was a plaque which read “Home of the Zekes.” Someone had drawn a symbol in gold, like a winged arrow passing down across a ring.
“Homework?” asked the figure leaning against the open door. A caucasian male, just under six feet, his eyes were locked firmly on the young woman standing before him. Her much darker skin stood in such stark contrast to him it regularly drew comments from new neighbors, about which both of them regularly laughed.
“Finished,” breezily answered the young woman, checking her appearance in the small hand mirror. She wore black and white clothing in the gothic lolita style, with long black lashes and white lipstick. “Yes, even the essay outline.”
The man nodded. “You will be back by 2130 hours?”
“Yes. I promise,” the girl replied, snapping into a sarcastic military salute. This earned her a chuckle from her father. “Even if I have to call for a ride because Becca isn’t ready to leave.”
“So, should I consider this a date, or a date-date?” he asked, desiring to clarify after the implication of his daughter’s driver being unwilling to bring her home on time.
“Nope, at least, I mean…” the girl began to hedge, shifting a little nervously.
“Laila. Which is it?” His voice was calm, but his tone was firm.
Laila swallowed and took a breath before she answered. Her nervous energy bled into excitement as she explained. “Becca… I asked her if she’d like to be my girlfriend last week, and she said she really wasn’t looking for one right now, so technically it’s just a friend date, but, well, she did seem super amped about being asked out by me on monday, so… I’m not completely sure it won’t become a date-date?” she finished with a bright smile, the hope clear on her face.
Her father took a deep breath of his own. “I see. Alright. You know the rules, so I’m trusting you to follow them. As long as you’re back on time, or you call for a ride, we’re square.”
“Thank you daddy!” Laila cheered and jumped, enclosing her father in a huge hug.
He let out an “Oomph!” as he caught her, then laughed as he shared the hug and set her back down. “Alright, she’s here. Go have fun, enjoy the movie.”
Laila kissed him on the cheek and hopped down the steps, dashing down to the street where a car was pulling up, driven by her “Might-become-a-girlfriend-someday” Becca. “I love you daddy!” she called as she got to the car.
“I love you too honey!” he called back, smiling broadly. He remained at the door, watching, as the car pulled around the circle drive of the cul-de-sac and back out, heading towards the local movie theater. Only once it was out of sight beyond a bend in the road did he step inside, pulling the door shut behind himself.
He pulled out his phone to check his messages, typed a few lines, grabbed a beer from the fridge, and stepped out into the house’s backyard porch. He sat down in a recliner and flipped through his phone. It was a beautiful friday night, and he had a few hours to kill pretending not to be nervous as all hell while Laila was about a fifteen minute drive away at the theater.
“Well, the big session is tomorrow…” he muttered as he spotted his character sheet app while he scrolled through his phone for ideas to pass the time. He opened it up to check his character, Coal Glittersgold. The big iruxi’s character picture, drawn by his own self, looked ferociously up at him from inside the app as he swiped through it, checking to see everything was in order.
“Oh right, level up time,” he muttered. The DM had informed the five of them it was time to level up after the prior game session. Tomorrow night, he and Laila would roll dice together as they tried to defeat the final boss of the campaign. He didn’t actually know what the creature would be, as the DM had hinted that the evil wizard behind the plot might have some even more horrifying creature than himself waiting in the wings. It would have to be something insane to challenge a party of level twenty characters, however.
Most of the level-up was easy, the only remotely complicated part, for him, was the feats. He picked the skill feat quickly, but stopped to consider his final choice carefully. The capstone feat, according to Laila, was the most important final choice he would make in any build. He’d waited to do this until she was out of the house precisely because of how much she had stressed the importance. He’d let Laila help him make many choices for Coal, since this game was the first time he’d ever touched a table-top roleplaying game. Oh, he’d known of them for most of his life, but until his daughter got into them he’d never once considered playing one.
He smiled at the memory. Despite his inexperience, he’d had a lot of fun with Misha, Casey, Greg, and Laila and the DM. He’d been as surprised as anyone when Laila suggested a game involving just them and a few neighbors, but had not hesitated. What father would reject an invitation to play with their own daughter?
He read the names of the various feats, looking at the effects of each. One made a single attack while using flurry more accurate. Another was almost the same idea, only the early strikes were at his highest accuracy, but he lost actions on later turns. The two he liked the most were the free movement and tracking feats. “To the Ends of the Earth?” His mind immediately pictured Aragorn, Son of Arathorn, leading Gimli and Legolas on a hunt across the open plains of Rohan to rescue two hobbits. He hit accept and closed the app.
Music started to play as he took another sip of his beer. He picked his phone back up and glanced at the caller ID. Work, of course. He hit answer. “August speaking.”
He nodded in response to the question asked, despite no one being there to see it. “I can, but only until noon. No, I have plans all afternoon. No, I’m not canceling them. Right… so when you can’t find another engineer on zero notice, you’ll tell your boss what, exactly? Yeah, thought so. I’ll be there.”
He closed the phone and took another sip of his beer, settling back in the lawnchair and watching the forest. He blinked. He now stood in an empty space. Ahead of him was pure black void, utterly empty. He spun around once, disoriented. He couldn’t remember standing up, much less being where he was. He squeezed his eyes shut and slapped his cheeks. He opened his eyes and looked again. A massive glowing ball of light was far below him. The light was almost blinding in its brightness. In fact, as he turned away from it and blinked the spots out of his eyes, he realized he himself glowed with the same pure white light. He held his glowing hands up in front of him.
He heard a sound erupt into what had been complete silence. It sounded like many dice of all kinds, metal, wood, stone, glass, maybe even a few other materials, all rolling and rattling and slamming into each other across a glass surface. In the same moment, a pinprick of purple light appeared ahead of him as he put his back to the blinding white mass and tried to find the source of the sound.
He took a half step back from this new concern, and finally noticed there was seemingly nothing beneath his feet. The nothingness felt like solid ground, but he couldn't see anything. Not even the slight distortion of extremely clear glass. The purple glow was now larger and distinct. It was growing closer.
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Even as he registered the approach, a disc of glowing blue material spread out beneath his feet. It was mirror-like, except for the soft blue light emanating from whatever it was. It expanded to be twice as wide as he was tall, a perfectly round disc. His own image was reflected in it.
As he looked down at himself, the image beneath his feet began to warp, though he himself was entirely fine. The form below his feet began to grow long claws on its feet, the shape of its knees changed, it grew in height. Black scales began to spread over it as the jaw lengthened and spikes grew out of it along its spine and all around its head. He knew the visage now staring back at him. Even his clothing changed to match the new appearance. Coal stared back as if the character were his own reflection.
In his moment of recognition, he heard the sound of rolling dice intensify. There was another sudden sound, like an arc of electricity, and he felt his mind- he couldn’t describe it. He was looking at his own proper reflection again, yet he was also looking at the perfect mirror reflection of Coal, both at once, still in sync despite the bodies no longer matching, like one mind looking through two sets of eyes. A sound like a second arc of lightning sounded through his head. Coal was gone, and he could only see his reflection as August. He breathed a momentary sigh of relief.
The blue disc beneath him shattered apart, and he floated in the empty void between the white light at his back and the advancing purple glow, suspended by nothing. He thrust his hand in front of him in a panic and saw it was covered in black scales, ending in clawed hands. His hand caught on something, like a string or a piece of thread or wire.
The bouncing clink of dice on glass continued. They seemed to keep rolling endlessly as the purple light ahead surged towards him. It grew so large it covered all his vision, spreading around him like an oncoming tidal wave. It enveloped him in something solid, binding him. His body jerked and he felt… he couldn’t find a description right away, but he was moving. He was being dragged away!
He shoved with clawed hands, kicked with clawed feet, bit with sharp teeth, lashed with a tail he had not even realized he possessed, and it meant nothing. “No!” he screamed into the void, but nothing escaped his throat. There wasn’t sound in this emptiness, there wasn’t air. There was him, the enveloping light dragging him away, and a void.
“NO!” he screamed again, and he kicked again. He tried to grab at the light, focusing his mind upon it. I am not prey! His fingers seized on the light around him, sinking into it like soft clay, but finding purchase all the same. Yes!
August scooped, he kicked, he lashed and he thrashed. Suddenly, he felt his fingers find something again. The sound of dice, dozens at least, rattled through his mind. Dice making every sound he had ever heard as they rolled. He felt some kind of string. He pulled his hands along it and it led back to his body, straight to his head. He didn’t know what it was, but he could guess. He’d felt it just before the light reached him too. A guidewire!
He glanced at his claws. Coal’s claws. The sharp claws the wyrmblood lizard had used again and again in emergencies. He slashed at the wire and felt a cut open on his scaly skin. He tried again anyway as the sound of rolling dice slowed and he heard one of them crash to a stop. For a single moment, he felt his heart freeze, and then the wire snapped! In his mind, for a single instant, he saw a tableau of dozens of twenty-sided dice of wood, metal, plastic, stone, even glass. One die, with a dragon’s head glowing in its center, had stopped. This die had rolled a twenty.
The grip on him suddenly slackened, as if it had lost some key animating force. He was still surrounded by clay, but his grip now felt like it had more purchase, allowing him to begin digging himself out of the force dragging him away. He dug and clawed, kicked and smacked with his tail once more. Now he made progress, breaking loose and slowly dragging himself free.
In the moment his head broke free of the entrapping clay, he heard a sound, a scream, perhaps even a cry of desperation. It was the first sound he’d heard besides the clatter of dice. He shoved himself around to face towards his direction of travel and saw what he couldn’t before. There was a massive pillar or central tendril of glowing purple, which seemed to extend towards a cube shaped object far in the distance. Three moons and a sun traveled strange orbits around the cube shape.
The tendril was retracting, and smaller branches held five objects behind it as it went. One of these objects was him, but the purple glow was fading from the clay-like substance which no longer held him fast. His eyes widened when he saw what was contained in the nearest object. The source of the unexpected scream in an almost soundless void… he knew her.
His mind superimposed the image of his daughter on the young woman struggling within the translucent glowing mass, clearly visible to him. It was his daughter’s face almost perfectly, yet it couldn’t be. The face was too pale, the hair white as snow, eyes red as rubies. She wore robes and furs of a seemingly rough crafted sort, yet each piece was expertly stitched. He knew all this in an instant, just as he knew the girl's name. Cumuloregalis, Laila’s character. He’d drawn the character himself, as a small gift to Laila, including every detail either father or daughter could conceive of, right down to Laila’s face. If he was now Coal, then-
“Laila!” he shouted. Not a sound escaped his mouth, and just the same his daughter’s face jerked around towards him as if she heard him. He resumed his struggles, desperate to reach her. His massive frame heaved itself out of the entrapping substance, which was now crumbling apart around him. With a final flex and shove, it broke apart and left him spinning in the void. Wings! He thought desperately, and his cloak became great wings. Though he had no air against which to flap, he flew just the same. The cloak might take the appearance of wings, but it was still magic which gave flight. Its magic worked as well in the void as the air, it seemed.
August surged towards his captive daughter, colliding with the great tendril and smashing his way through it, or trying. Just as the first had held him like wet clay, barely able to gain purchase, the same was true of Laila’s prison. This time, however, August had some idea of what to do. He climbed across the surface, calling to his daughter. “SNAP THE WIRE!” he yelled. “THE GUIDEWIRE TO YOUR MIND!” He was aiming for the thinnest point of the tendril, drawing a sawtoothed saber from his hip as he did so. He’d reached for it on instinct, wanting something sharper still and more sure than his claws.
Laila latched onto the idea in an instant, hands frantically trying to locate the wire and snap it. Distantly August still heard the sound of rolling dice, many dozens of different dice. He also heard the singular clatter of one dice, metal on glass, in his own head perhaps, as he reached the front end. He felt he knew it, now that it had stopped. The dragon’s head die had begun to roll again.
August raised his blade and swept it down in a single savage stroke. He did not know what number was rolled this time, but the tendril was severed regardless. Turning, he began shoving aside the dead clay, reaching within to drag his daughter free. “Laila!” he shouted.
Her small hand met his large one, and he heaved, pulling her into his embrace. “Daddy!” she shouted. He knew now it wasn’t air conveying her voice, but something else. He couldn’t begin to guess what, but certainly not air. He did not stop to ponder further, nor acknowledge how he breathed without air, but just held his daughter tight against him for long moments.
“What’s happening?” she finally asked, still clutching him.
“I don’t know,” he replied honestly, gazing about. His eyes found a third branch. This one held another person. A cat? A woman? Dark brown fur and hair covered her face. Large crooked ears were perched atop her head. She had feline eyes, golden and blue intertwined. A white brush-like tail extended out above the back of her wide hips. She wore fine leathers and carried a shortsword and a massive bow strapped to her back. His eyes widened as he realized he knew this one too, another drawing come to life. “I found Kallista!” he called to Laila, and she turned, following his gaze to see the struggling cat.
“CASEY!” Laila called out, making the same instinctual connection he had about her and Cumuloregalis.
The cat’s head turned and her feline eyes widened. “COAL? CUMULO?” Her voice had a rumbling timber to it completely unlike Casey’s normal voice, no surprise. “Help me!” she called out.
“Coming!” August called back. “Laila, hold tight!” he told his daughter, and felt her grip around his waist with all her now considerable strength. He launched off the crumbling foothold of her once-prison and flew directly towards Casey. “CASEY! Cut the guidewire! Around your head! It will break the prison!” he shouted as he flew over, trying to aim for the front part and the easy to cut thin tendril there.
“Right!” she called back, pulling a knife out of somewhere and beginning to slash about. Kallista carried a great many knives, and Casey had always had a knife handy in reality as well. August heard the distant sounds of dice yet again, probably deciding Casey’s fate. His gaze narrowed and he sped as fast as he could to the front end of the prison holding the cat woman. Just as he reached it, he heard something snap behind him. The prison’s glow began to fade and his claws sank more solidly into the mass.
He spun about and began slashing at the prison itself, seeking to dig Casey free. As he did, he felt something suddenly buffet him. He turned in momentary surprise. They had entered the atmosphere surrounding the cube. Far below he could see continents and islands, forests, mountains, and rivers. They should have begun heating up as they passed through the air, the resistance of friction frying them to a crisp.
August couldn’t feel any heat, just a chill wind as they descended through the outer edges of the atmosphere. He turned back to his task. “Laila, keep holding on!” he commanded as he set to work. He wanted Casey free, but he wasn’t about to lose Laila to do it. It was the work of less than a minute to get Casey free, but in that minute he could now clearly see the continent towards which they were descending. He thought he could even make out cities.
To either side of them now, he could still see two intact branches. The nearer of the two held an elf, blond hair cut short, elegant clothing, a sword at his waist and a lute at his back. In his hand he held a wand. “AUGUST! GET MISHA! I’LL GET MYSELF OUT!” the elf shouted. August knew this blue eyed elf as well. Pelasis, Gregory’s character. Which made the last branch Misha.
She was the furthest from them, and he couldn’t make out many details. She was struggling hard, but couldn’t seem to find the guidewire. The glow died around Pelasis even as August zeroed in on his next rescue. “Casey! Grab hold tightly!”
“MISHA!” Casey screamed, grabbing on tightly. At least, he thought it was Misha. The sound came out as much the yowl of a cat as a coherent word, if not moreso. Just the same, he felt the weight as both women clutched tightly to him. His wings still spread wide, he took off, flying towards Misha, trying to get to her and free her before they landed. The sound of dice rattled away in his head, but this time he felt like he heard many hundreds.
“The Guidewire, cut the wire!” he and Laila shouted. They flashed past Pelasis on the outside.
With a sudden dread so bone chilling he thought he had frozen, August heard every single die come to a halt in the same instance. “SONOROUS!” Pelasis had spoken a single word, the sound of it slamming into them like a wrecking ball. It was a wave of sound so powerful even August couldn’t fight it. He felt both Casey and Laila torn off him by the sheer sonic force, all three of them sent spinning away, Misha still trapped in her prison of faux-light.
He caught a glimpse of his daughter blown free, surrounded by fire as she flew like an arrow towards a distant peninsula. He caught no glimpse of Kallista, but he saw Pelasis broken free of his cage tumbling off towards a vast gap between two mountain ranges, one upon the edge of the sea. He was given no sight of Misha, only a scream of despair, before the ground rushed up to meet him. He knew no more.