by R J Triveri
(SIFS Chat: River Hexi) River Hexi: What did I say about asking anything too personal?
But when did that ever work?
(SIFS Chat: River Hexi) Zeiav: It’s just a question. Your archives and SIFS page says you’ve been with him for quite a while, and that means there has to be something going on. What’s the deal?
As she hesitated, thinking of the best way to put things, a second attack came from another…
(SIFS Chat: River Hexi) Do_Or_Don’t: It’s not like we’re asking for specifics. We’re curious.
And another…
(SIFS Chat: River Hexi) Fictitious_Awesome: Why not just tell us, it’s not like we’ll stop asking.
Her face visibly fell with an equally audible sigh that got Dante’s attention as the pair stopped at an intersection. “You alright, River?”
She brushed the frustrations away with a hand as she straightened her hair back behind her ear. “Just a few too many questions at once.”
A thought seemed to play at his lips, but he said nothing else, gave her a slight grin, and nodded all the same. “Next time remember your filters.”
Was it a tease or an actual reminder on her behalf? Either way, she wasn’t in the mood.
(Party) River Hexi: I will slap you upside the head if you keep teasing me.
Dante let out a frustrated sigh but still managed to somehow warp his smile into a smirk. It wasn’t like she hadn’t made good on that threat before.
(Party) Dante Rior: When in doubt, just ignore ‘em.
Easy for him to say. River thought to herself, he wasn’t the one that engaged it already.
With a sigh, she just bit the bullet and ran with it.
(SIFS Chat: River Hexi) River Hexi: It’s not that special. We’ve known each other a long time. I wanted to date, I wasn’t his type, the world kept spinning, and we stayed friends. Happy?
Most of the chat answered with a resounding round of yeses and noes as the pair crossed the street and continued their journey towards the temple that was growing slowly in the distance. Even from blocks away, the white-gray walls and polished steel of the temple could easily be seen. Even without the details rendered, it was an astonishing place in the town as gray as the stone that built it. As the pair got closer, the easier it was to see why so many people just couldn’t ignore the mystery of what was within. It was like a piece of modernized Roman history sitting in a place it just didn’t belong.
Sticking out like a sore thumb, each of the four walls of the barn sized-building were polished marble, or a reasonable digital facsimile of the stuff, with veins of gold and gray throughout the stone. Stairs led up from ground level to over six feet high to even reach the entrance into the building. Holding the walls together were pillars at each corner made from the same cut stone. Topping everything off, all around the digitized temple at ground level were pillars standing like the hour marks on a clock with each pillar built of a different material. Between them, Dante, River, and their chats might have been able to tell what was what, but it really didn’t matter at the moment as the temple’s majesty continued to grow with each step. In a matter of moments, the temple would be a single stone’s throw away.
“Well,” River said out loud, “I guess this ends the Q and A portion of the trip. Looks like the action’s about to start.” With that, she turned to Dante as her window appeared, her finger tapped, and she smiled. “Time to close the chat and deal with the task at hand.”
“Yep. It was nice chatting with you all. Stick around to watch River get the mission and, most likely, to see me get turned away at the temple gates and tend to my familiar.” He mirrored her grin and gave her, and the chat, a big thumbs up. “It’ll be a great time.”
River groaned. “You always know how to ruin the mood.”
“It’s what I’m best at,” Dante quipped, still grinning at her progressively foul mood towards his condescending optimism.
She shrugged all the same and grumbled something under her breath. A moment later, the excitement in her voice returned. “Alright, Dante.” Her smile grew as her feet picked up the pace. “Get your ass in gear!”
“Right behind you,” came the call, and Dante began to follow closer as her blue hair waved like a windsock behind her.
With that, the pair began their mad dash to the end of one adventure and the start of another. Between them, River was determined to close the last few yards before another minute passed. As for Dante, he was just enjoying the thrill at the start of a new adventure.
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Temple Run
Just as she wanted, River crossed the threshold of the columns first with a radiant smile painting her face. Putting a hand against the large, quartz-like column, she leaned her weight against it and waited for her friend as patiently as she could.
“Come on, scrub! You can move faster than that.”
Dante smiled as he continued his slightly faster stroll down the block. Too much jostling would damage the egg, but he couldn’t let her lose the smile she’d already earned with her small victory. “I’m coming, I’m coming, keep your shirt on.”
“Trust me, it’s staying on,” she assured him as he slowly reached the border of the stone columns that made up the temple’s property. His slow pace was a source of dismay as River prodded him again. “Aren’t you excited?”
“Of course I am,” he called back, taking another few steps in the process. “I’m just not getting my hopes up. Only Unum’s seers have been in the temple, and I don’t think they’ll change that for a tag-along like me.”
She shrugged as she shifted her weight a bit and returned to both of her feet. “Well, it’d be my entire audience, so I think they'd make an exception for you.”
Always the logical one, Dante quipped back without missing a beat. “Unless it’s a SIFS blackout area.”
As he crossed the threshold, River’s fist was there to meet his shoulder in a dour, but friendly punch. She had considered it might be a blackout area, but she wasn’t going to kill her fame with hearsay. “Why do you have to be such a downer?”
Rubbing the spot, Dante spoke bluntly. “Realism and being a downer kind of go hand in hand sometimes. Ya know?”
She shrugged. “Doesn’t mean you have to be a downer about this.” Taking a few more steps forward, she reached the first step of the temple. “Look, we can walk up these stairs, go under the roof, and meet the seers. If they say you can’t come, just sit on the steps and wait. Got it?”
Whether or not he wanted to wait wasn’t really in the cards, and River knew it. The last thing he wanted to do was leave her on her own in a potentially dangerous situation. Besides, the steps were wide enough that he could set the egg and its containment system out to work with. “Fine, but you better not take all day. The egg can only get a few hours of sunlight before it starts to mess with the coding I want.”
River’s sigh said it all, but in case he didn’t understand, she elaborated. “I’ll be as quick as I can, but we are not going to blow this, okay?”
“Okay.”
Each step brought the pair another few inches from the ground towards the divine. If that wasn’t enough, the chat grew with each step the pair took by leaps and bounds. A moment ago, River could have sworn she had only half the number of people. She shuddered to think what her inbox and notification chimes would be doing if she hadn’t disabled the real-time updates.
Dante simply continued his climb as he ran through the different variables for his familiar. Sure, he had worked out that he wanted a caster of the higher-intelligence variety, but there was still its coloring. Did he want something rare or leave it up to fate? A quick swipe of his inventory and a check of his bytes told him the answer to that. He didn’t have the bytes to go that far into his familiar’s customization. He was lucky that the rent was connected to River’s inventory.
“Dante, quit your daydreaming,” River demanded as she reached the top of the stairs and looked out over the city.
“No dreams here
,” Dante argued as the screens blipped out of existence. “I’m coming.”
River’s only answer was to stare out over the people below. It was strange to think that six feet made such a difference. People just seemed so much smaller as Dante walked towards the temple’s entrance.
“Ten… nine…”
The shock on his face registered almost as quickly as Dante picked up the pace. River was not one to be kept waiting.
“Eight… seven… six…”
His stride quickened as fast as he dared up the stairs before his voice ran out into her ears. “I’m here!” he called as he sprinted the last few steps.
A grin blossomed on her face as she held up a handful of fingers. “Five to go. Not bad,” she said and turned her back to the crowds below that had started to gather. Just like at the arena, people were starting to recognize her. A slight shiver ran down her spine as she realized that only by the grace of God did they get to the temple first. Shaking the feeling from her soul, she turned back to Dante. “Though if you were trying to be impressive, you should have waited a bit longer. The hero always gets it at one, right?”
Dante grumbled just a moment before reminding her of a simple truth. “I’m not a hero.”
Standing at the top of the temple, River could only smile as she listened for just a moment to the sounds of stone on stone as the door opened. “Everyone’s the hero of their own story, Dante. Let’s make sure that our story’s worth being the hero of.”
Surprisingly, the ping of a private message hit home as Dante teased the streamer in private.
(Party) Dante Rior: Speak for yourself, hero.
Oh, River thought with a smirk, I will.
(Party) River Hexi: Hey, everyone needs a hero sometimes. In the story they’re watching, it’s me.
Dante didn’t have the words it would take to answer her as a pair of… things walked past the threshold. Shimmering white armor made up of a breastplate, greaves, and gloves floated in the air held aloft by shimmering tendrils of wind and green energy. Whatever they were, the pair had never seen or heard of anything like them before. The pair had heard of Unum’s mysterious arbiters before. The strange, faceless Inciperians that wore full armor and had seemingly endless strength and integrity, but these things were something different entirely.
Their voices were soft, wispy, and dangerous as words began to drift from all around and into the ears of the pair. “River Hexi. Dante Rior. You are expected.”
His friend looked to him, flashed him a smile, and turned to the floating suits of armor. “Then he can come?”
They made no motions, and their voices didn’t ring as before. Their response was like an echo of her words, tone and all. “He can come?”
Despite the fact that it sounded like a question still, River didn’t give it another thought, walked back a few steps, put her arm around Dante’s shoulder, and pushed him forward with her. “You heard the golem, Dante. You may come.” As if remembering herself for a moment, she smiled again. “See, I told you things were going to be good today, didn’t I? Right, Chat?” The range of responses were a definite yes as she turned back to the guards. “Lead the way, tin man.”
The wind of their voice ran slightly warmer as they spoke again. “We are not tin men.”
“Oh.” She was taken aback by their response and shrugged. “Seers then?”
The air cooled, the pair seemingly satisfied with the change in name and turned away from them. “Follow us to the inner chamber.”
With a nod to each other, the pair walked past the threshold of the temple, and, not a moment later, their chats flooded with upset emojis, complaints that the feeds had gone dark, and that the sound had stopped working. The inner temples were indeed dark zones.
River only sighed while Dante simply continued as if nothing had happened. As the door began to close behind them, the room was hit with a tsunami of effects that culminated in all of the light and detail filling in the darkness. Just like the outside, the inside was crafted of grays and whites and golds. All around, pillars began to form and alcoves for more suits of armor, wispy and otherwise, sat like gargoyles before sunrise. River examined things as closely as she could in the short time, and one important detail was missing. Where was Unum? Before she could voice her concern and protest, their attention was drawn from the temple’s innards as the suits of armor began to speak again.
“Anything that you wish to share that the Unum deems classified shall be blocked,” the voices added, “and a penalty will be extracted from the one who attempts to share it.”
Though Dante thought it first, River let the words fly. “Penalty?”
As the last syllable left her lips, every single nerve came alive. As if a salt-laced alcohol coated each wound and lightning was set to play in the chaos, she could do nothing else but scream and fall against the cold marble floor. Her body convulsed as her muscles fired at odd, uneven angles that could only have been done in their world. The pain seemed to last forever, but only a moment later, her final word was repeated by the suits of armor in tandem.
“Penalty.”
As fast as Dante could kneel to assist her, the thousand knives across her skin ceased. With her friend at her back, she was left shaking and gasping for breath. “What the hell was that for?” her friend raged as he tried to help her to her feet. “River, are you okay?”
River nodded as she tried to regain her composure, but her legs refused to cooperate. Her integrity had not budged an inch, but it felt as though her body had been set on fire and needed Dante just to stay upright. Just the memory of how she felt made her skin crawl. Finally, River answered her friend. “I’m okay.” Her eyes set themselves against the suits of armor and narrowed dangerously. “You could have just explained.”
“Experience teaches quicker than words.”
Their answer was as efficient as their lesson had been, and it was one River hoped she wouldn’t have to repeat anytime soon. Dante could feel the rage burning within River’s soul without looking at the way daggers flew from her eyes. He let his hand rest on her shoulder for assurance as she finally got back to her feet properly. Before she could speak, he put a finger to her lips. The last thing they needed was another lesson, or her temper, to set them off again. The pair of armor ghosts seemed satisfied a few moments later as they spoke again.
“Follow now, and don’t speak unless spoken to.”
The pair said nothing to the seers but nodded. In the center of the temple’s air, a hallway formed, leading into a shadowed passage. The seers entered first, and paid them no more mind as they floated deeper into the gullet of the temple’s shadows. Dante watched curiously. River was more taken to a scowl as her hand flexed as if she was holding her blade, her Aquamarine.
(Party) River Hexi: I really want to kill them.
The words seemed to come without prompting, and Dante’s eyebrow cocked at her words. He wasn’t so easily prodded though. The slight grin he shot her back did enough to soothe her fire just a bit.
(Party) Dante Rior: Please do not attack the god’s seers in its temple. I know there wasn’t a sign when we walked in, but we really don’t need to die here.
Her scowl turned into a smirk as she replied.
(Party) River Hexi: Would it help if I said they really pissed me off?
(Party) Dante Rior: No, River.
(Party) River Hexi: Like, really, really pissed me off.
(Party) Dante Rior: No, River.
She eyed her friend, then the pair of walking suits of energy as they moved to either side of a large hole in the center of the room. There were no walls here, just a floor, a hole, and the pair of floating seers. Once they reached their positions, the pair turned to face the Inciperians and spoke again in their monotone, wispy wind voices. “Approach, and prove your worth for the Unum’s time.”
Prove our worth? River scoffed. Like I need to prove myself to a pair of ass-hat suits of armor. He summoned us.
(Party) River Hexi: I really,
really want to do it.
Dante smiled and took the first step of the pair towards the hole.
(Party) Dante Rior: Let’s finish this first, then maybe Unum will let you as your reward.
A stifled laugh almost escaped from River as her hand gave her sword a confident pat.
(Party) River Hexi: It might be worth it.
Her smile mirrored his as she followed suit towards the center of the too-big-for-the-inside room of the temple.
Getting their focus back, the pair finally had a chance to look around the inside of the temple’s room. All around them, the room extended as far as the pair could see until the render distance turned to white light. Identical everywhere, mirrored on every side with the same slab-door equidistant from the pit, the armors stood in sync, and the mirrored ceiling showed everything once again. The only things that broke the symmetry were the pair of adventurers.
“And how are we supposed to do that?” River asked as the pair approached the edge of the pit and looked down into the gaping maw of nothingness. In a shock of recognition that would have made Dante proud, she regretted her question as soon as she realized where they were going.
“Another lesson.”
In a millisecond, the hole expanded in all directions to swallow the rest of the room, including the pair, while the armors continued to float above the sudden void. A curse didn’t even have enough time to escape either of their lips before they fell, and the hole closed behind them, leaving a flawless, endless void of marble, void, data, and the two lone soldier-seers of Unum.
Chapter Twenty-Three: Divine Mandate
Falling sucked.
River paused her thoughts as the same piece of cracked marble passed her again.
No, falling sucks, she corrected herself as their ‘fall’ continued further and further into Incipere.
The best she could figure, for the last twenty minutes, the pair had been falling into the ‘hole’ that had opened in Unum’s temple. For the first five minutes or so, the pair had screamed in alarm as simulated gravity did its thing and pulled them towards… something. River quickly went on the defense as her mind fell back to the training she had back before her arrival. Had it all been a trap?