by Riker Kane
“Are you sure you need to do this?” Lyra said. “We can gather the resources here. The Warriors of the Serpent… Do we really need their support in this fight?”
There was a noticeable concern in Lyra’s eyes. A part of me wanted to listen to her but I knew what I had to do.
“The Warriors are Qashians,” I said. “Just like you. If not for the resources, Operation Reconciliation is still a go.”
She let out a deep sigh and nodded before taking a step back.
“We will wait for you,” Rhiannon said.
“Don’t wait too long. I might be flying for a bit.” I hovered into the air then moved forward across the marsh of black oil. The three ladies grew smaller in the distance as the swamp of venom got larger all around me.
There seemed to be no end to it. What was a small trail turned into a giant lake of darkness.
“That’s hot…” I wiped the sweat from my brow, noticing how much more it was bubbling. One of the bubbles burst and some of the venom splashed against my cheeks. The stinging mist made me grimace and move higher.
I flew over the marsh and saw no signs of anywhere to land safely except for the stumps of dead trees. “This is a bust,” I sighed. “How the hell did the Warriors make it out here without getting themselves killed?”
The farther south I got, the more the trees themselves began to disappear. There was nothing around me except for the sky above and the bubbling venom below. I moved even higher, trying to survey the entire forest but even the clouds seemed darker, so I couldn’t see where I needed to go.
I lowered myself back down and stayed below the clouds. It would’ve been peaceful flying by myself if the view wasn’t so dreary. The smell of toxic venom was getting stronger. It hissed with steam rising to the point it felt like I was choking on it.
“Dammit…” I lowered myself down, trying to find a pocket somewhere I could breathe properly. “Fly too low and I’ll choke. Should I even bother?”
Something hit me. Some pride in my gut. The Warriors of the Serpent were out there. I had to find them just for completion’s sake.
“Stupid pride—”
BOOM!
An explosion of venom sent the black liquid spraying into the air. I didn’t move fast enough to avoid it. It splashed against my armor and made it sizzle. My cheeks burned as I wiped it away to avoid getting into my eyes.
“RAAAAH!” A roar filled the air. Something loud and grotesque was down there, no doubt.
I circled above as high as I could then looked down to see something reaching out of the venom. A thick, four-pronged claw as black as the venom that covered it. It was bigger than my whole body, each claw sharp enough to pierce me from my foot and out through the top of my head.
I didn’t know what the rest of it was. I didn’t want to imagine how big the rest of it was. All I knew was I needed to get away.
I flew through the air, zooming through the toxic mist and growing fog.
BANG!
Another explosion of the venom was followed by another claw reaching out to grab me. It extended into the sky, snatching me right as I moved into its path. Just my luck.
“Get off!” I fired a Radiant Beam and blasted myself free before it could squeeze itself around me. I flew forward as more and more claws began to appear from the venom. They didn’t stop, snatching at me like I was crowd surfing.
I fired at them with beam after beam but there were so many, I couldn’t keep up.
It got so foggy, I didn’t know which way was farther south. I didn’t know if I was in the marshes. I didn’t know if I was anywhere closer to finding the Warriors of the Serpent.
Discretion was the better part of valor. I finally decided there was no point in trying to push forward.
I turned upward to ascend completely away from the marshes when something grabbed my ankle. A claw ensnared my leg and forced me to send a fireball to burn it off. But before I could ascend, another claw grabbed me and tugged me down.
“Damn… Come on…” I gritted my teeth as I fired a fireball to burn myself free again. But every time I readied myself to move back up, another claw would rise from the venom and pull me down.
I kept blasting.
They kept coming.
More and more claws grabbed me, pulling me closer and closer into the bubbling venom. The heat warmed my entire body, making the sweat drench my brow. The stench flooded my head and made me gag. No matter how hard I tried, I didn’t have the strength to fight all of the claws clutching me. It was like being inside of a prison made of bone.
My feet dug into the oil and the heat was like sinking into lava. The rest of my leg disappeared. Then my body. I was up to my neck.
“Hold on…”
I took one last breath before the rest of my head was submerged. There was no telling if I would drown or be poisoned to death first. I just ignored all of the pain surging through my body, waiting for the Life Rune to activate went my hit points dropped to zero.
There was nothing to see. There was nothing to hear or smell. I couldn’t even feel anything. My senses left me completely. There wasn’t even darkness. There was just… nothing.
…
……
………
“Agh!” A deep gasp filled my lungs as my eyes shot open.
I shifted my gaze left and right as I panicked. Something on my arm made me turn—the gentle touch of a hand. I followed it up the arm it was connected to and the woman standing there.
Her eyes narrowed as she smiled warmly. “We have been waiting for you, Ultima. Welcome to Asrath.”
24: Believers
She was around my age, somewhere in her 20s. She had a dark caramel complexion on her smooth skin. Her eyes had the same tone, as friendly as the smile on her lips. Her hair a lighter shade of her skin, dark blond, short, and slicked back over her head. It would’ve been nice running into someone like her if I just hadn’t witnessed what I did a few seconds ago… or was it even a few seconds ago?
I looked behind her head at the ceiling. Light was coming in from a window though my surroundings were still shrouded in darkness.
“Rest.” She put a hand on my chest and eased the thudding in my heart with her casual voice.
“What…”
“My name is Maris.”
“Maris… I’m Virgil.”
“Virgil. The common name for the avatar of the gods.”
“…You know I’m Ultima?”
“Word of your presence has spread across the plains. There is nothing that happens in the Sol Lands that we do not know about here in Asrath.”
“Asrath… This isn’t some sorta afterlife, is it? Because I’ve been to some spooky places before…”
Her smile grew as she laughed. “You are amusing.”
“It’s about time someone realized it.”
“I can assure you that you are conscious… What do you last remember?”
I didn’t have to think long because it felt like only a few seconds ago. “I was flying over the venom in the marshes. It bubbled even hotter. The smell choked me. Then the claws grabbed at me. They pulled me under. They flooded my whole senses.”
“Yes… Our mind draws upon the most terrible things when we are influenced by the fumes of the venom. Before I was immune, I remember being ravaged by jackals and hyenas. The memory of it is clear in my head to this day, their teeth gnawing at me as they ravenously tore into me.”
I narrowed my eyes in confusion as I looked her up and down. She wore plain brown linens that were wrapped around her body. All along her arms, her brown skin was as smooth as it was on her face. “You don’t look like someone who was eaten alive,” I said.
Her smile didn’t go away. “That’s because I wasn’t. It was the venom that made me think I was before I fell unconscious. And the same happened to you.”
“So, you’re telling me I didn’t actually get pulled down under by a bunch of venomous claws?”
“That is correct. We found you un
conscious on the ground during our scout.”
“You found me… You didn’t find anybody else, did you?”
“You were alone.”
Despite not knowing where they were, I trusted the judgment of the others to keep themselves safe.
Maris leaned in closer and put a hand on my arm. “Vacindra sensed your arrival. You appeared just as she expected.”
“Vacindra?”
“The mistress here at Asrath. She will have the rest of the answers you seek. Come with me. I trust you are well now.”
I sat up and took a deep breath. The smell of the poison was replaced by something sweet and floral. I put a hand to my face and didn’t feel the stinging pain of the venom. “It looks like I’m in good shape.”
I got up from the bed and realized I was in small quarters, everything made of wood. Along with the mattress, there was only a small dresser to rest my things and what appeared to be a lavatory off to the side.
“It looks like you live pretty comfortably out here,” I said.
“We have made a home for ourselves.” Maris turned around and pulled open the door blocking the exit. I looked out toward the light then stepped into it.
All around me, there were more log cabins strewn about. The ground was black but not sticky or muddy. The trees around me were white but their pines were plentiful, indicating they weren’t as dead as the forest I’d just left. The sky was blue with the sun shining despite how black and white everything was.
More important than that, the people seemed ordinary enough. They dressed the same as the townsfolk in Haven. And they went about the same ordinary tasks. Whether they were weaving or cooking or chopping lumber, none of them seemed threatening. If I was still dreaming, at least the dream was pleasant enough.
Maris led the way as we walked through the small village. “Asrath houses approximately one hundred former Qashians.”
“You’re the Warriors of the Serpent.”
“We referred to ourselves as warriors initially. We did not want to join Cellica and her ‘Nobles’ in the mountains. Nor did we wish to remain at Haven. We are more than just raiders. When we founded Asrath, we realized how fortunate we were to come to this land—the one you call Iorus. It is Mistress Vacindra that helped us understand our destiny.”
“With a name like that, she must be pretty important.”
“She is the chosen one. She links us to Aeona herself.”
“And who’s Aeona?”
“The god of this land. Without Aeona’s blessing, we would not be able to survive.”
“Aeona…” I thought about the names but none of them matched the ones I’d met in Zion. Maybe Cybil was holding out on me. Whatever the case was, I knew Maris wasn’t lying to me because she seemed serious about all of the details.
She led me toward the edge of town toward a small pathway lined with black rocks. The walls were about fifteen-feet high, smooth and shiny. I looked closer and saw some of the rocks beginning to shift.
“What the…” I stopped in my tracks and moved closer to the wall. I placed my hand on it and felt it vibrating underneath my palm. If that wasn’t enough, the walls themselves seemed to shift left and right. “I don’t know if I’m going crazy or not but it looks like this wall is moving.”
Maris put her hands behind her back, staring at me like I was the crazy one. “You do not have to fear the walls collapsing on you. I can assure you Asrath is the most secure location you will find in the Sol Lands. Neither threat from the land or the other world will hurt us here.”
The woman seemed confident enough it was easy to believe her. There was no point in asking more questions since the answers I was looking for were probably with Mistress Vacindra.
We headed down the black pathway and then I saw it. “Whoa…” The side of the mountain had been carved into a giant skull. The skull itself was made of the black of the mountain, its mouth big enough for dozens of people to walk through at once. “This would be some attraction in Las Vegas.”
There were a few men on guard, their armor made from black rocks. From their cuirass to their leggings to the swords on their hips, they looked like medieval Omegas. None of them paid any attention to me as Maris led me into the mouth of the skull.
The open pathway was lit by torches burning bright along the wall. At the end of the path, there was a lone spotlight shining down from the darkness above. It illuminated a woman sitting alone in a throne made of bone.
“Mistress Vacindra,” Maris announced. “He has awakened.”
The woman stood up straight for me to see. She wore a black gown made of shiny silk. The material covered her arms and her legs, piling around her ankles. A plunging neckline all the way to her belly button gave me a view of her cleavage though not entirely of her shapely breasts. Her skin was pale from her body to her face. Her eyes were a striking blue, made more mesmerizing just because of how pale her skin was. The same for her red lips, which looked like they’d been painted with blood. Despite carrying herself with an imposing stature, she had a slim physique that wasn’t intimidating.
“Welcome, Ultima.” Her eyes narrowed as she smiled. I wasn’t sure if her smile was friendly or not. I was ready for anything.
“Mistress Vacindra,” I said with a nod.
“Aeona sensed your arrival,” she spoke with an assuredness that rivaled some of the CEOs I had to deal with back home, though her pitch was more feminine and pleasant to listen to.
“Maris tells me Aeona is responsible for a lot of things.”
“She speaks the truth.” Vacindra rested her hands at her sides and raised her chin. “When we first traveled to the swamps, we were consumed by the venom’s toxic fumes just as you were. But we were saved by Aeona—revived so that we could establish Asrath and help restore the Sol Lands to its former glory.”
“The Sol Lands haven’t been occupied since ancient times.”
“It has been many years. Aeona’s patience has led us to this point.”
I would’ve thought Vacindra was crazy but common decency stopped me from poking fun at Aeona. I was the last person who could talk trash about gods intervening in ordinary people’s lives.
She moved closer to me, her floral scent filling my nostrils. She was a few years older than me, no older than thirty I’d guess. Her skin was so pale, I could see the smoothness of her cheeks, the only creases coming from her wry smile.
Vacindra looked me up and down in examination. She put a hand on my chest, her fingernails long and black. Her hand trailed over the center of my chest and clutched the Life Rune.
“If you’re thinking about stealing that, it’ll be tricky,” I said. “I’m pretty attached to it.”
The glow resonated with a yellow pulse behind my tunic. “I was merely checking to see if you are indeed Ultima.”
“You can test the Rune if you want. I don’t have any equipment with me at the moment though.”
She pulled her hand away and nodded. “You are Ultima, that is true.” She walked back to her ivory throne and sat down. There was nothing but darkness around her. The walls were far away. The ceiling was too high to know it was there. There was something ominous about her sitting in a lone spotlight, despite how friendly she seemed.
“Tell me the purpose of your arrival, Ultima.”
“Down to business, huh? I respect that. Well, I need resources to build the Holy Light Cannon. The lumber, sap, and mud specifically.”
“And this Holy Light Cannon of yours… It is to deal with the presence of the other world to the east?”
“Yes. But I’m sure Aeona told you that.”
She bowed her head. “There is an undeniable malevolence resonating from that structure. It must be dealt with.”
“Then I’m glad you’re in agreement.”
“And what other purpose do you have for being here?”
“You might be Warriors of the Serpent but you’re also a Qashian. I’m here for reconciliation and reunification.”
“Hmp
h.” Vacindra giggled to herself like I told a bad joke. Maris chuckled along with her.
I shrugged, waiting for them to have their fill. “I sure wish I could make people laugh intentionally…”
“The chance of reconciliation is unlikely,” Vacindra said. “When our people first arrived to this land, it was I who suggested we must use the power of this land to fight back against the other world. I sensed the gods who were already present. I believed they would be willing to fight for us. But what was the response? I was laughed at and ridiculed. Only those with true faith followed me to the swamps to seek a higher power.
“And in turn, Aeona has granted those of us in Asrath the livelihood you see now.” Vacindra shook her head. “Now they come seeking me for help.”
“The only way we’ll be able to beat the other world, to beat Pandora… We’ll have to do it together. Not just you. Not just me. Every Qashian.”
Vacindra stayed quiet, her eyes staring at the ground in contemplation. “They call us zealous and overly devout. They say our belief is unfounded. But it is just and genuine.” She sighed a deep breath through her nose and nodded. “I will put my pride to the side and join you in your quest. You have my support, Ultima.”
“Thanks. Now I just need to—”
“If you can prove to me you are not simply using Aeona’s assistance for selfish benefits.”
Of course. There was always a catch.
I stopped myself from rolling my eyes, instead laughing because I had to expect this.
“There is a man named Erasmus,” Vacindra said. “He was one of our greatest thinkers. A scientist who served Aeona just as all of us did. But something happened to him. He has turned against us, his mind influenced by the other world.”
“In what way?”
“He has kidnapped someone. A woman named Zolie. He killed two of our people while escaping.”
“What’s he doing with Zolie?”
“He is a scientist. I assume he is trying to attempt to conduct more experiments on her to serve his new gods. He is a traitor and he must be dealt with.”
“I see…”