by Pirateaba
“This Skinner. How do you know his name?”
This time Olesm explained. He pointed at the writing on the wall Ceria had translated and everyone looked up. Pisces frowned and cast the same spell Ceria had, while Ryoka stared at the engraved symbols.
“Now how’d we miss that?”
Erin asked indignantly, and Ryoka echoed the question in her head, only with more self-rebuke. They’d completely missed that detail. And it was a damn important one, if this Skinner had had siblings.
“Huh.”
It was completely incomprehensible to Ryoka, but the writings reminded her of Arabic or another Central Semitic language. It was flowing and elongated, which put her in mind of Drakes. That was jumping the gun of any hypothesis though.
Ryoak hesitated and looked the others. Should she…? But Pisces had already heard too much and Ceria had seem it already. She took out her iPhone and switched it on.
The screen glowed to life. Ryoka looked at the battery level. 24%. Surprisingly high, given how long she’d been using it, but Sostrom’s [Repair] spell must have restored the failing battery as well.
Sostrom. Ryoka’s heart hurt, but she pushed the feeling aside. She raised the iPhone as she switched to camera mode.
Ryoka’s iPhone lit up the inscriptions for a moment and emitted the classical shutter closing sound. Rags stared at Ryoka’s iPhone as if dumbstruck. Pisces blinked and frowned and Olesm gaped.
“What was that? Is that some kind of magical object?”
“Something like that.”
Ryoka put her iPhone back in its holster as Pisces stared at it covetously. She noticed Rags staring at the device as well and resolved never to drop it or leave it unattended.
“I’ve never seen anything like that. Is that steel and glass?”
Olesm paused. His eyes widened and he turned to Ceria.
“Oh. She’s the crazy violent Runner girl you told me about? The one with no levels?”
Ceria laughed and coughed at the same time. Olesm blinked, and then realized what he’d said. His tail lashed the ground nervously as he held up his hands.
“I didn’t mean—what I meant by that was—”
It wasn’t how a rescue was supposed to go, Ryoka was certain. But it was real, and reality beat a fairytale ending every time. They still had to get out of the ruins of course, and Erin had just realized Pisces ate the last sandwich she’d packed. There was confusion and anger and dust and empty coffins and the still-present smell of feces, but…
Ceria was still alive.
Ryoka was saved.
—-
And when she had a spare moment, Ryoka walked away from the others. The wide passageway was still empty of any moving corpses, but that wasn’t what Ryoka was concerned with.
She walked past rotting piles of…muscle. Organs. Bone. It was impossible to really say. She had no wish to disturb the dead, and the shapeless mounds sickened her.
But she looked anyways. Ryoka paused next to a piece of armor covered in redness. She squatted down and tried not to vomit on the remains.
Was it him? Ryoka could barely remember what armor Gerial had been wearing. And Calruz—how would she even tell? She could look for bigger bones, she supposed.
It wasn’t right. This wasn’t right. She couldn’t even bury them, even if she knew which ones they were. She could—put them in a coffin? How? Lift up the entrails and guts with her hands? Use a shovel? A bag?
It was all wrong. All so wrong. And Ceria was alive—Ryoka had to prioritize her. But her heart hurt.
“Too slow. And too weak.”
Far too weak. She hadn’t even killed a zombie coming down here. Of all of the people who’d come to save Ceria, Ryoka had been the most useless in the end.
“To be fair, I do not believe anyone expected much of you.”
Ryoka looked up and turned around. Pisces was standing behind her. He raised his hands as she stared at him.
“I merely followed you to ensure your safety. It would not do for something to ambush you.”
Was that the reason? Ryoka stared at Pisces and then mentally shrugged. She stood in the corridor and stared at the dead remains. After a while she turned and began walking back. Pisces followed her.
“It occurs to me that we have little to discuss.”
“That’s about right.”
They didn’t speak for several more minutes. Now this, this was what Ryoka was used to. Awkward silence and trite conversations. She searched for something to say.
“Thanks for your help, though.”
“Think nothing of it. For my part, I am…relieved Ceria is alright.”
“You know her?”
Pisces hesitated.
“We have a history. Not so much a relationship as an passing acquaintance, but once—suffice it to say that we were students in Wistram together, and that we were once…friends. I felt the world would be poorer for Springwalker’s absence, that is all.”
“I see. It’s good you came.”
“Yes. I agree.”
More silence.
“That artifact you used…it is quite interesting.”
“It is, isn’t it?”
“Might I see it? I promise to be quite careful.”
“Mm. Maybe someday.”
“Ah. That would be a polite way of saying ‘never’, would it not?”
“Yep.”
They walked on. It was quite far to get back to the room with coffins, but Ryoka felt running and leaving Pisces behind would be a faux pas. She was tempted to do it, though.
After an interminable amount of time, Pisces spoke again.
“Would you consent to letting me inspect that device if I told you there is a strong trace of magic on it?”
Ryoka stopped. Pisces nearly ran into her. She stared at him.
“You can see that?”
“Yes. It’s quite obvious to me. I suppose Springwalker was distracted, but I can…sense something. Was some sort of [Message] spell cast here, by chance?”
Ryoka hesitated. Weigh the options. But it might be worth the risk.
“Yes.”
“And it was linked to that device somehow. Well, I may be able to recover that conversation if you should wish it?”
“You can do that? How?”
Pisces smiled enigmatically, or in a way he probably thought was enigmatic. It looked smug, to Ryoka.
“I was a student at Wistram. That spell uses their methods as its base. Any older student learns to pick apart the incantation to see what is spoken. Hence the unique version of the spell Ceria and I know.”
“It won’t damage…whatever that is. And I can be trusted to be discreet.”
Again, Ryoka hesitated. Think. If he learned the details of the conversation…well, was the cat out of the bag already? But he was offering to resrtore the conversation, which would be extremely helpful.
Ceria could do it. But after how many days? More importantly, what was the real risk? If he knew…
The world would soon know. And far more dangerous people than he had already figured it out. Ryoka handed him her iPhone.
“Here.”
Pisces held the slim phone extremely carefully as he studied it. But after a cursory glance at the construction of the device, he seemed to peer at something else, some invisible substance hovering in the air around it.
Ryoka wished she knew what he was looking at. She was able to cast magic…or one spell to be exact. But even though she tried to focus her eyes, she saw nothing.
“Quite astonishing.”
“You can see what was cast?”
“Yes—an odd messaging spell. Some kind of written communication system? It’s very…bright.”
Ryoka realized he must be looking at the chat log, the magical screen that had appeared when she answered the call.
“I didn’t realize it would still be visible.”
“Yes, well, the magic cast for this spell is several magnitudes greater than…almost any spell I’v
e seen before. It must originate from Wistram. I would know that even without the spell signature. Only they would be this moronic.”
He rolled his eyes and shook his head in distain. Ryoka looked at him. It was always nice to meet someone who liked to talk if they had something worth hearing.
“What makes you say that?”
He gestured to the iPhone. The air seemed to shimmer at his fingertips.
“It’s the nature of this spell. I—have no idea how it was done, to be honest. I can only speculate that a high level mage, or several of them used a [Far Speaking] spell combined with some kind of location spell and this…thing. I imagine a [Message] spell accounts for this, but it would require an insane amount of mana.”
“Why?”
“If one person were to ah, write in this discussion, everyone who received it would necessitate a [Message] spell. It’s a complex bit of magic and the cost would be multiplied by the number of participants. So many messages…only those fools at Wistram would have the magic to cast such a spell.”
Ryoka thought she understood Pisces’ distain. If what he was saying was right, the conversation she’d taken part in had an exponential cost with each user that joined.
Sixteen times…at least fifty, possibly a hundred messages in the chat. A thousand and six hundred spells cast? No wonder voice chat was out of the question.
The air was beginning to waver. Pisces frowned and his hands began to glow even brighter, shedding tendrils of blue light that flowed together to form the screen again.
Ryoka blinked as the chat log came back into focus. It hovered in the air over her iPhone, a blue screen with white text. Pisces was sweating.
“I ah, seem to have miscalculated. Even restoring this log seems to be taxing me quite unduly.”
“I’ve seen most of the details. Here. Give me that.”
Ryoka took the iPhone from Pisces as he frowned and more magic flowed out of his hands. Ryoka quickly scrolled down the chat, pausing a few times. Pisces’ eyes darted left and right, trying to read. She didn’t give him much time, though.
Ryoka got to the end – where she’d signed off as batman, and suddenly stopped. She saw the notification for her logging out, but there was more text below it.
Pisces peered over Ryoka’s shoulder as she read the conversation between [Kent Scott] and [twinTrouble_53]. Her mind was spinning, and that was before she read the brief message in Japanese at the bottom.
“Now that is interesting.”
The chat log abruptly vanished. Pisces lowered his hands and mopped at his brow.
“You okay?”
“I am fine. Just…taxed.”
Pisces took a few deep breaths, steadying himself. He pointed at Ryoka’s iPhone.
“More importantly, I fear your desire for anonymity might be in vain, Miss Griffin. That shor conversation contained more import than the rest of your fascinating…discussion. There is a name to frighten those fools at Wistram.”
“You mean twinTrouble?”
“…Yes. This twin trouble character revealed himself to the other one, did he not? After you had ah, closed the connection. The name he called himself. Flos.”
Ryoka nodded.
“I’ve heard of him. Flos. The King of Destruction.”
“None other.”
Pisces exhaled slowly and wiped the rest of his sweat away with the hem of his dirty robe.
“Flos. If the sleeping king has indeed awoken, it means this world is about to change. Quite dramatically too, if I’m any judge. Well, even the meanest [Soothsayer] would be able to predict that.”
Ryoka frowned. She’d read about the King of Destruction in a list of contemporary world powers. The entry had been short and intriguing, but the all the details had been recorded in another volume she hadn’t bought.
“Tell me about him.”
Pisces shrugged.
“What is there to say?”
He caught himself and glanced at Ryoka.
“Ah. Well, to one who might not…know of him, Flos is a king who was once poised to rule over nearly half of the civilized world. He abandoned his kingdom however, and for ten years he has slumbered in his decaying capital. Until now.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
“Quite.”
They didn’t have the rhythm that Erin seemed to generate in her conversations. Pisces politely picked at his robe while Ryoak stared at her phone. The mage seemed to think for a second and added a second casual detail.
“The mages at Wistram were quite afraid of him, even inactive as he was.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes. I suppose you don’t know that the greatest mages living gather every ten years to deliberate on the future?”
“I did not know that. Do tell.”
“They gather together to ponder recent events and plan for the future.”
“Like. A think tank?”
“A what?”
“Nevermind.”
“Yes, well, one of the things the gathering did was attempt to predict what calamities might befall the world. They created a list of the most likely disasters that might destroy civilization or eradicate life as we know it. Flos was named the eighth likeliest candidate so long as he lived.”
Ryoka paused. She opened her mouth, closed it, and tried again.
“Really?”
“Oh yes.”
“One man?”
“Well, his kingdom would follow him wherever he went. Say rather it was his potential the mages feared.”
“Why number eight? Is there any special reason for that.”
Pisces shrugged indifferently.
“The mages speculated that it is far more likely he would conquer the world or be stopped. Destroying everything is an outside chance, as it were.”
“But still the eighth most likely chance.”
“Yes.”
Ryoka pondered that for a moment.
“Did this gathering determine how likely it would be that he’d actually conquer the world.”
Pisces smiled.
“They did.”
“And?”
“He has a 30% chance depending on a number of factors.”
“I see.”
“Quite. I imagine all those able to retrieve a log of this message would be quite alarmed. Word is probably spreading by spell and letter as we speak.”
What was Ryoka supposed to say to that?
“Mhm.”
Pisces stared at Ryoka. Ryoka stared at Pisces. There didn’t seem to be anything more to say. After a moment, Ryoka coughed in a fake way into her fist.
“We should probably get back to the others.”
“Quite. I trust Ceria and Olesm are well enough to walk by now.”
They were.
—-
“We should talk.”
“About what? Aren’t we talking already?”
Erin wondered why Ryoka was trying to corner her in one part of the massive coffin room, but the other girl seemed insistent.
“I know we don’t have time now, but we need to have a long conversation.”
“About what?”
Ryoka gave Erin a flat look, but Erin wasn’t sure what for. After a moment, the Asian girl shook her head.
“About us. About this world, about how we came here and what’s happening.”
“Oh. You mean talk about everything.”
“More or less.”
“Well, now’s not the time. Ceria thinks she can walk so…”
“Of course not now. Once we get back, I mean. At your inn, or somewhere private.”
“My inn’s pretty private. I can lock the door if that helps.”
“Maybe.”
Erin waited. Ryoka seemed pretty intent, but she really had no idea why.
“Is that it?”
“I suppose. Just—don’t say anything you don’t need to until then, alright?”
That was easy enough. Erin didn’t think she had anything that didn’t need saying�
�if that even made sense.
“Okay. We talk later. ”
“Right.”
“…Right.”
It was one of the more awkward exchanges Erin had been privy to, and she’d met a lot of awkward chess players.
Her stomach rumbled. Ryoka and Erin both looked down and Erin covered her stomach.
“Are you hungry? I saved you a sandwich.”
“Pisces ate it.”
“The soup?”
“Ceria and Olesm drank most of it and Rags took the rest.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
Olesm grinned weakly as both Erin and Ryoka jumped and turned around. The Drake was on his feet again, although he seemed unsteady.
“I truly didn’t meant to steal your lunch, Erin.”
Erin exchanged a glance with Ryoka.
“You know, a missing meal isn’t going to hurt me. When we get out of here, I’ll cook up a feast, and you’ll all be invited, how’s that?”
Erin caught Ryoka’s eye and amended her statement.
“—And um, make some nourishing broth, too. Maybe postpone the feast for a while?”
“That sounds good.”
Ceria was on her feet. She seemed a little better. There was more color in her cheeks, although they were still deathly pale. But she managed a smile.
“If it means I can get out of this hole, I’ll eat my right hand. It wouldn’t be too hard at this point.”
Erin laughed politely while Ryoka awkwardly avoided looking at Ceria’s hand. Pisces approached and Rags followed, dragging the wreck of the crossbow behind her.
“All is clear.”
Ksmvr nodded at Erin as he and Toren walked over. Erin looked around. Everyone was present, but no one said anything. She cleared her throat.
“Um, shall we go?”
They began the slow ascent back towards the surface. It was slow going, even with Erin helping Ceria and Toren supporting Olesm. The Drake and half-Elf were stiff and their feet dragged with every step. But they were just as eager to return as the others.
“Why didn’t you leave after you realized the other undead weren’t there?”
Erin asked Ceria that after they paused for a break. The half-Elf’s face was pale as she sat on the floor and took a few deep breaths.
“We thought they were waiting to ambush us if we got out. They did that to us the first time. We thought they were just being silent.”