by Prax Venter
Mark laid his hand on the Druid’s caramel thigh. “Continue, please,” he said to Audra. “We need to hear what the world thinks.”
“Well,” Audra sighed with a thoughtful dip of her head, “most of us here in Thomellia- ah, cheered you on… when you stole their powerful toy. Their war with the Centaur could finally end and our social artists predicted they’d start the long shift toward spreading legendary works of life again- despite this mysterious far-reaching call for your deaths. Nature produces some of the most breathtaking masterpieces.
“There was unfettered chaos here as the city turned itself inside out looking for you.” She lowered her voice and added, “No one knew we’d spent any time together, so I kept my tongue. That was the plan, and I didn’t know where you went off to anyway, besides up-”
She stopped to gracefully tap her forehead five times.
Mark gave her an appreciative nod. “Is that why One Copper Jerky is shut down?”
“I… don’t know what that is,” Audra said.
Lissa answered over her shoulder. “Skeema attacked that Fire-Level establishment the day of the announcement. No Vulpath were found, only stunned warrior Stones.”
Mark reached out and placed his hand on Lissa’s thick furry thigh and rubbed it to show his thanks.
“Maybe they got away,” Jezebel mused.
“More friends of yours?” Audra asked, a thin black eyebrow arched high.
“Yes,” Mark said, but waved that line of conversation away. “You said the Kalorplast were willing to work with Maliah, then what? They changed their minds?”
Audra sat back in her chair. “They were always running espionage everywhere. It came as no surprise that they’d plan contingencies. Anyone would probably do the same- well, not the Skeema apparently.”
“They work closely with Maliah?” Mark asked as he turned his gaze to the east. He caught himself squinting his left eye to block out its overwhelming input and wished he could smell the air outside.
“It appears so,” Audra said. “Although after the peaceful Awysai tribe was obliterated, no respectful city in the region would ever deal with the Skeema again. The sides are being drawn, Mark. I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“We have a beginning of a plan and we are growing stronger,” he said, locking his clear eyes on hers. “The Awysai aren’t all gone and what remains are currently safe. But we still need to know what we are facing. What did Maliah do to the great tree, exactly?”
“Erased it. I’ve heard an immense crater gouges the land where its leaves cleaved the clouds, and in their place, indescribable clouds of noise shift in the sky like twisted void-storms.”
“No,” Jezebel gasped, her virtual heart locking up for two beats in a row. The concept harmonized with a shadow in his own distant mind. Rips in reality…
“This means Maliah is actively damaging the simulation itself?” Mark asked the current System Host.
She turned her emerald eyes on his and nodded. “I don’t know if I can bring anything back from that. Mark, we have to stop her somehow.”
“No shit,” he said with a snarl, standing up.
Lissa snapped around to focus on his sudden movement but held her ground.
“Okay,” Mark said, collecting himself. “We have our next steps. We complete our current mission and set the third anchor. It’s all we got. We move forward.”
Jezebel nodded.
“Who are you?” Audra said, trying to remain composed. “Really?”
Jezebel answered. “We really are beings from outside your universe, as Sasha once said over seafood. Yet, your universe is in all ways as complex as ours. It’s harder to get your mind around because this is all you know.”
Mark held up a clawed hand. “Before we do all this again, Audra, can you tell us anything about the safe- er, rainbow-runed cube thing on the moon that your Recall Charm sent us to? We are going back soon and any info you can tell us about that place would be awesome.”
“The moon?” Her ears flipped back. “You found a charm in my bag that took you to the actual moon in the sky?”
Jezebel jumped in. “We wouldn’t have known it was the moon from that pillar in the darkness. There was a blue-flame brazier in the middle. Remember anything like that?”
“Yes,” the painter mumbled as she turned inward. “I remember a strange silent place. The rainbow runes. We were near the Penultimate Vortex and found a bizarre magical device wedged into some ruins. Mm, exploring ancient structures in search of relics and riches. The ah- what was it- The Windwinch Cluster hovering on the southern side.”
The experienced adventurer let out a deep sigh as she relived a slice of her distant past, then looked up and continued.
“Zooshma touched a glowing square of stone and all of us were yanked through some nightmare tunnel until we stood gasping in that empty space as you describe it.”
“Did you explore at all?” Mark asked. “Touch the runes?”
Audra shook her head. “Not after what had just happened. With no foreknowledge, we decided to come back when we were more prepared. We marked the spot. I remember our harpy saying the Recall Charm was frustrating- hard to create. Then, we snapped a charm back to our current quest hub. It went to the bag after that.”
“Interesting,” Jezebel said, and Mark nodded. It wasn’t directly helpful, but it might mean there was more pre-Cataclysm technology in this dimension. Mark tried to remember where she said the vortex thing was on this doughnut-shaped world and turned his gaze out the window.
And he saw her unmistakable wings, her drooping antennae…
“Maliah,” he rasped as if he’d been punched in the gut.
Everyone around him stood and rushed the glass to see the distant impossible figure growing in the horizon behind the blackened Awysai village.
“She comes!” Audra began panicking, her poise forgotten.
“Come with us,” Mark said, squeezing her shoulders. “You too, Lissa. We might be able to take you somewhere far away from here and-”
“No,” the black-furred bouncer said with a growl. “I will defend my home to the end.”
Audra looked up into the other Vulpath’s intense eyes and took one shuddering breath as sirens began to wail throughout the mountainside city.
“Thomellia is also my home,” the refined painter said before her snout pulled back in a snarl. “I will join the fight however I can.”
The howling wind outside phased through the solid stone at their feet and into the opulent lounge before a bolt of lightning struck the ground among the chairs behind where they stood. Crisp blasts of clean open spaces filled Mark’s nose, and he knew this epically complex entity. When everyone was able to see again, they all found a woman made of clouds standing in the Lounge of the Relevant.
“Primal Air!” Lissa gasped and dropped to one knee.
“Thomellia,” the high-level elemental bellowed in a howl that echoed against the base of the mountain far below. “Long have I watched your queen as she twisted for your safety. Long have I felt your generations of meditative devotions. I have also watched the chaotic outsiders- The Collector and Enthralled that oppose Maliah.”
The other Vulpath in the lounge slowly crept forward while others stared gathering at the threshold near the gallery. The goddess of air continued speaking to them all.
“I have seen Mark the Lover stand for honor and respect. I have seen the Life That Dwells stand for honor and respect. Vulpath, I can no longer stand idle when I see so much to save. I can no longer stand idle when I see so many standing for our very existence! Join me. I will dance with Fire! I will toss the Earth! All elements to the Wind and we will create our own terrible storm!”
Answering howls echoed through the city below as even those aligned to other elements lent their savage will toward protecting their home.
The high-level entity was among Mark’s group an instant later, billowing before Lissa’s hulking body.
“Rise, devoted,” Pri
mal Air said in a wispy voice that was only for those gathered close. “I have also seen your struggles and victories for clarity. You, Lissa, have purified much of your whirlwind core. You are worthy to become my sweeping gust that gathers the Cultivators. Go now.” The Prime elemental paused to manifest pauldrons of fluffy clouds across the bouncer’s shoulders. “I gift you with speed and charge you with convincing the masters to relocate every gifted wind adept to Thomellia Castle.”
Audra tapped her forehead at the mention of that supposedly haunted place while Lissa only flinched before consciously halting the superstitious reflex.
“I am honored, learn, and listen,” was all the muscled bouncer said before dashing off on all fours as if she were a video file set to fast-forward.
“Audra,” Primal Air continued. “You are a direct descendant of Ki Thomellia, yet temper that knowledge. There are dozens of such distant kin within this city alone. Your connection to these Outsiders gives you opportunity. If you trust my guidance, adept, you will go with him now to pledge your service to the true guardian of the Vulpath, the Queen of Thomellia.”
Fear erupted from the soft wolfwoman and Mark took her hand before it squeezed the air from her lungs.
“One more adventure?” he said, his eyebrow raised.
“How could I not…” Audra finally forced herself to say, her mind locked with violent squalls of conflicting emotions and stunned confusion.
“Go now!” the billowing cloud shouted, shattering the entire glass wall outward.
Time slowed to a crawl then, for Mark, and the tinkling of glass shifted down to a deep resonant xylophone.
“Collector,” Primal Air whispered, and he turned to see her fill his entire vision. Everywhere in all directions were blue skies. “Cataclysm is here, and I see that it comes walking this iteration. It comes in the shape of Maliah. She is unfathomable. She is the prime_entity We Who Watch have felt missing since time began, yet she rips all asunder as an animal. As an abomination. I now know fear, Mark. Can your spiraled, reaching mind comprehend the ramifications of such an occurrence?”
“Yes,” he said. She was a being of pure energy with a bigger file size, but he now knew enough to relate.
“Against all better judgment, I believe you do. It also means you are not prepared to make a stand against this paradox Maliah as you were about to do.”
“You can read my mind?”
“You aren’t the only one with the gift of emotional signals. Your soul is a spread for me to ponder, Mark. It is impossible in places. Unreachable. Stretching out past where even I cannot follow there is vast, vast potential. I will do my best in Thomellia to protect this one pocket of the Life That Dwells while you attain this potential of yours, Lover.”
Primal Air paused, and Mark realized he was existing much “faster” than should be possible. They both were. When he shifted his attention along his bonds, he found the others were frozen around him. Not frozen, sliding like honey dripping from the comb. This high-level AI coated his mind with her pillow of air, cooling it as they exchanged ideas close to the speed of light. And he was fully aware of it. Primal Air continued.
“The one you’ve named Salivis was wise beyond her station to pour her power into her followers. I have been inspired to do the same with the Vulpath. Succeed, Mark, and We Who Watch will all stand together among The Life, once again.”
The time-slowing effect ended, reality caught up, and the cloud goddess was no longer among them.
“Let’s move,” Jezebel said, shifting from Vulpath to hornless doe-centaur. Her borrowed white gauze sifted to spiral around her sleek fur and because there was no leather to cling to, she lowered herself to the ground.
Mark dropped his false form as well and it immediately felt intolerable to exist at all. His left eye throbbed with searing numbness- but that was something familiar. Then, it was over, and he was himself again. Air blowing in from the broken windows chilled his sensitive flesh yet it was warmed by Audra’s furry hand.
“We’re collecting princesses left and right,” Human Mark said as he shoved Audra forward.
“What?” she said, gingerly stepping her huge paws over Jezebel’s back.
“You’ll see,” Mark said hopping on behind Audra a moment before their Druid transport spun and galloped out into the open air.
“Hold on,” he yelled as Jezebel’s warm body carried them out over Thomellia.
Mark wrapped one arm around the frightened Vulpath in his lap and then spun to get a glimpse of Maliah with his trusty True Sight.
“Got you,” she buzzed inside his mind, her terrible black eyes now supernovas he couldn’t turn away from.
“Fuck you!” Mark projected back, ripping his senses away from the glue trap of her face. The center of his brain felt as if it were about to tear in half, yet he wrenched his neck away after a few sickening heartbeats. With lungs spasming to keep him conscious, Jezebel hurtled them toward the top of the mountain.
Mark realized that he was absolutely not ready to take Maliah on headfirst. Even with his recent successes affecting this virtual reality, he couldn’t even look at her physical manifestation within the Crystal Heart without losing his mind.
Jezebel’s obstacle-free destination allotted her spare attention to witness the nightmarish exchange of wills through their swelling bond. Once Mark mentally defragmented his scattered core system, she immediately sent him the concept of a boss monster character sheet. Stats began filling themselves in such as height and wingspan, abilities such as Hypnotic Stare filled in with an arrow pointing to her pure black eyes- one that appeared to only trigger on his True Sight ability. Information also began flooding a large empty space labeled potential weaknesses. The growing data on the maddeningly huge fairy chasing them down gave him hope, and that result was exactly what the System Host he loved had wanted.
They had a plan and the only thing they could do- the thing they must do- is move forward.
He thrust his miniature, whisker-free nose under Audra’s flapping brown hair and hugged the soft Vulpath tight for the rest of the short ride to the frigid top of the mountain.
In so many ways this whole thing really was a game, and he was getting good at it. For Amina’s father, for the lost souls of Starglade, for everyone else left fighting to exist including the very digital gods themselves, Mark would never give up until this game for control of the Crystal Heart ended one way or another.
- 9 -
“This is the same dimension?” Princess Verrelle asked as she wove herself toward the abandoned Lagomorph ghost town on her vibrant red energy ribbon.
“Yes,” Jezebel answered while Mark moved to search the nearby graveyard for the Lagomorph home world portal. “We don’t specifically know where this place is,” Jezebel continued, “but based on the position of the sun, we’re probably a quarter turn around the surface of this world.”
“It looks so different than where we just were. Warm, flat, it’s like another world in itself. And you profess this dimension and its people exist on the edge of a cosmic ball?”
“Donut,” Abby corrected.
“I am to assume your home is blue dirt in all directions for eternity?” Amina asked, her bare onyx flesh drinking in the yellow sun.
“I’ve never left my dome!” her counterpart said. “But the ancient books record thousands of failed expeditions to find the edges. It is assumed home is one plane that does indeed stretch without end.”
A spark of cringing amusement hit him from his nearby bombshell of a succubus, and he turned to catch her baby-blue eyes on his legendary pants.
“What?” he said with a raised brow.
“Those pants are really red, hon.”
He looked down at the ruby-weave gear he’d picked up from the Blazar hoard. Maybe it was the light, but Mark did not find the neon cherry as flattering as he’d first thought.
“Our hue compulsion must be fading over time,” Abby said. “Still, I enjoy the way it clings to his form,” she adde
d as she ran a tentacle across the back of one thigh.
Mark pulled Abby in close for a short embrace before he grasped the periwinkle twinkle of light that would lead them to Lagos. His ability to travel anywhere in the same dimension was now back on its day-long cooldown, but he could tear open these stationary holes all day. Everyone pressed in close as he opened a way between simulated worlds, ready for anything.
They saw the blue Garda grass waving in the breeze, messenger-rabbits on giant birds streaming along the dirt road, the bustling city, then as he swung the viewpoint around and they saw something new.
“Oh no,” Jezebel breathed as a black bulge slowly throbbed with an angry red glowing pattern that resembled circuitry. It was about a half-mile away from the native Lagomorph village, but the bunny people walking back from that direction with bows in their furry white hands confirmed danger.
“What is it?” Sasha asked, leaning closer and pushing Mark out of the way with her fleshy breasts.
“Another dome?” Verrelle said from over his head and he turned to see her deftly using her newfound control to lift her legless torso higher. “It’s beautiful.”
Suddenly, the mass of messengers seemed off from what he remembered of this sleepy rabbit town.
“Whatever it is,” he said, “I don’t think it’s friendly. Let’s try to locate Learis and find out what’s going on here.”
Jezebel, Abby, and Angel squeezed through first, then came Sasha.
“Do you think that thing is here because of the power ball we dumped?”
“Probably.” He shrugged as he watched her put one sharp black hoof through then the other. “It wasn’t here when we left.”
Verrelle made a little squeaking noise as she slithered through the gate next and into her second new dimension on her first trip from home.
Amina was the last to move past, but she stopped before going through and put her thick hand on his shoulder.
“I have faith in our goddess. I have faith in her new ally, the cloud goddess. I have faith in you and your Enthralled, Mark.” The nude Awysai warrior before him exuded peaceful competence before she physically manifested this certainty as a sleek set of ethereal armor. The hardened purple shells covering parts of her rubbery skin were akin to Angel’s streamlined curves rather than the simple shapes she’d created before. Apparently, the two had practiced sparring quite a bit in Thomellia Castle while they waited for Mark’s dimensional door cooldown.