by Dakota Krout
“I can… wait. What?”
Dani’s voice made The Master’s face crumble. He knew from her tone that she knew. “Drat. I had hoped it wasn’t so obvious. Well, abyss. I hope I can hide the fact long enough to save everyone.”
“You mean he is right?” Dani seemed to be having a hard day. She flew over and landed on the Silverwood tree to calm down.
“Indeed, he is,” The Master confirmed solemnly. “If we are going to do this, we need to do it right and fast. Faster than even I had hoped. Here is how you can help…”
DALE
“Ahh!” Dale shouted in fury as icy water poured over him. “Fight me, Cal!”
As expected, there was no answer. Dale grumbled for a moment, then went silent in rage as he remembered his last few moments of consciousness. He went outside of the medical tent he was in, grumbling about water and wondering why he wasn’t at the church’s medical area. The teeming masses of people moving around caused his mouth to close with an audible *click*. He had never seen so many variations of sentient beings walking around together without fighting. To be fully truthful, there were often tense moments, especially when the Northmen and Amazons walked past each other.
Dale ran around Mountaindale, searching all of the usual places that his group members were fond of. After fruitless calling and searching by not only himself but messengers as well, Dale decided that they must be in the dungeon but was wondering why they would go without him. Deciding that he would simply need to find out later, Dale decided to go into the dungeon and take out his frustrations on the Goblins. Maybe he would stay down there for a few days… why not?
He left a message to his friends and team at the academy; as soon as a messenger saw them, it would be delivered. Until they came to collect him or for four days, he would be fighting Goblins. Dale was just leaving the academy to jump into fighting when he heard a voice calling out to him. “Dale, m’boy!”
“Headmaster, good to see you. I’m sorry to be blunt, but I was just going into… are you a Mage?” Dale had just turned to look at the older man and was now gaping at the aura he saw in front of him. “What in the world kind of…?”
Artorian laughed heartily, taking a deep breath and wiping a tear away. “Lad, you aren’t going to believe it. I got to the top of the tower. I wanted to thank you for bringing me to this amazing place.”
“But… what…?” Dale sputtered, trying to get a sense of the raw might coming from the man.
“Do you really want to know?” Artorian frowned at the youngster.
“Yes!”
“It's Love.” Artorian began laughing anew as Dale’s expression turned thunderous. “Oh yes, sunshine and Love. That’s Headmaster Artorian.”
“You are messing with me.”
“I swear that I am not.” Artorian’s words rang with Mana; there was no way for him to have made that promise and survived if he were lying. “Anyway, let me know if you need anything. I’m off to play with my new powers.”
Dale stood there trying to deal with the new information as Artorian became translucent and flew away faster than Dale had ever seen another Mage move, vanishing with a fading *Whee!* “Sunshine and love. Just… at least he didn’t find some law for pillows. Now I really need to hit something.”
He went into the dungeon, bypassing the early levels and popping out into the Goblin area. Bloodlust radiated from him, and a smile played across his face as he charged at the nearest fortress. He still needed to be careful, as sometimes, a wandering Bob would appear, which meant Incantations and Runic traps. Those weren’t something that Dale was ready to fight against. At least, not head-on. Yet. He ran straight at the fortress wall, leaping off the ground and tumbling over the sentry on duty. The Goblin didn’t even get a chance to see him or raise an alarm since Dale crushed his head from above in passing.
Now, a good chunk of the Goblins in the area were D-ranked, with the wandering Shaman, Bob, appearing every once in a while. This meant that there were wild variations in the average power levels of the Goblins, anywhere from upper D-ranked to upper C-ranked. Dale had just entered a fortress with only D-ranked Goblins. They never even saw him, though they understood that they were under attack. The human simply killed them with brutal and efficient assaults from invisibility, moving on as soon as they stopped twitching.
When the last Goblin fell, Dale was dissatisfied. He moved onto the next fortress, finding that it too was only home to D-rankers and a single Goblin in the C-ranks. “Cal, what’s with the Goblins on this floor?”
“Won’t be a problem.” Dale looked deeper into the dungeon and cracked his knuckles. It was time for a proper fight.
Chapter Fifty-nine
Dale left the dungeon four days later, bruised, bleeding, and in a bad mood. He eventually found his companions, stopping and staring at them darkly. “Rose… are you wearing a dress? What in the abyss is going on? Why didn’t any of you come find me?”
“Dale! You are just in time!” Hans walked over wearing nice clothes and a wide smile, patting Dale on the back hard enough that he could actually feel it. “We didn’t get you because there was no point! We are taking it easy before the end of the world, and if we survive, there will be plenty of time for training afterword! What have you been up to?”
“Still, you couldn’t pop down and tell me that? I was so worried that you would arrive as I was leaving that I couldn’t force myself to come up for air!” Dale growled at the Assassin, who only smiled in reply. “I spent the last day working to perfectly hold my aura no matter what, and I made a ton of progress. We need to get back to training!”
“Sorry, Dale, not today.” Hans handed over a small box. “Hey, can you put this on?”
“What? Why?” Dale’s questions went unanswered as Madame Chandra appeared among them.
“Oh good, Dale made it in time.” Chandra looked over at the others with a frown. “Are we sure that this is the best course of action? We have a lot of work to do, and I can’t have you four vanishing for days on end like you have been.”
“It’s what we want, Grandma.” Rose smiled sweetly at Chandra before turning to face Dale.
“Alright, someone tell me what is going on!” Dale barked in frustration at their expectant expressions.
Hans laughed, causing the others to join in. “Well Dale, we’re getting married, and you are my best man. Let’s go. Put that flower on, will you?”
“What?” Dale hollered as the doors to the church opened. He hadn’t even realized where he was standing. “Are you kidding me? She hates you!”
“Nah, we got that all worked out. Flower, Dale.” Hans motioned at Dale to move, and when he didn’t, Chandra *tsked* and made a motion. The flower popped onto his chest and firmly grasped his shirt. “But… but!”
“No butts, let’s go!” Hans grabbed him and ran to the front of the church, and Dale watched as the surreal ceremony flew by. When the newlywed couple started walking out, Dale followed in a daze.
“Am I dreaming?”
“I have just… absolutely no idea how to handle this. There was no warning, no lead-up!” Dale confessed to Tom as they watched Hans and Rose step through the portal for lands unknown. They would be back in a day or two, when the assembled races of the world would launch their initiative against Xenocide.
Tom bobbed his head in understanding. “I agree,
this is quite the shocking turnaround. I admit, though I did see it coming. Her physical attacks against him were an obvious sign of interest, and after she actually shot him, they were technically engaged by Northman standards.”
Dale looked sideways at the tall redhead. “Your country is weird.”
“I know.” Tom smiled halfheartedly. “I do miss it, though.”
“Have you tried…?”
“Not right now, Dale. I will if we survive this.” Tom looked away, leaving Dale feeling like an absolute jerk. “My family… it is not so easy as explaining that I have found a way to fix my issue as a berserker. I will be tested and tested and not allowed to heal.”
“When you say tested…?” Dale was cut off by a hand wave.
“Berserker rage has a chance to appear when you taste blood… or when you are close to death. Both… both forms will be tested.” His voice was heavy and dark, so when he stopped talking, Dale simply nodded.
“Any word on the portal? Or whatever it is they are trying to do?” Dale asked as they walked toward the tavern. They both needed a drink after the day’s sudden shifts.
“All I know is that it is going poorly. Though the materials are present, and the experts are working on it…” Tom looked up at the moon, which was looming large in the sky and put his fist up. It barely covered the moon from his perspective. “They think it will not be fast enough. Xenocide laughed at us this morning and left. He left, after saying that he knew exactly what we were doing. Then he told everyone that he had been staying on the Runes so that he could devote more power to them, and he was telling the truth. They are so much more potent that I overheard The Master saying that if the moon impacting doesn’t destroy the planet, the Runes breaking from the impact would. Not might, would.”
Dale shook his head and thought longingly about the small comfort that Hans and Rose had found. It made him realize that he may never have that or find it for himself. He slowed, then came to an abrupt stop. Tom continued a bit longer before noticing that Dale wasn’t with him. “Dale? What are you doing?”
“Possibly something very, very stupid.” Dale turned and started looking for The Master.
Tom watched him walk away, shrugged, and followed after. “Why not? Should at least be interesting.”
They walked into the academy just as a large structure lifted out of the floor of a warehouse Dale had never seen before. It was dug into the ground and was in the dungeon’s domain because of it.
“You really want me to tell him that?” Dale spoke out loud, getting a few people to look at him.
“Got it, sheesh.” Dale walked up to the craftsmen that were working at a frantic pace to try and build a mobile portal that they could send Xenocide’s Runes through. “Excuse me, The Master? I need a moment.”
“No.” The response was swift and brutal. “Far. Too. Busy.”
“Something stupid.” Dale’s words to the air made The Master glance over.
“Oh, it’s you. Good, Minya needed to leave, and the only other person who can talk to the blasted dungeon is Artorian. I can’t convince him that he needs to focus on this, all he wants to do is play with his Mana! I’ve never seen a more unreliable… get over here and help me work with the dungeon.” The Master’s words cleared up a lot of confusion from Dale’s mind, especially how Artorian was able to progress to such a high tier of Magehood.
“Sorry. Listen, are you going to make it?” Dale looked directly into The Master’s eyes, waiting for the man to spout a platitude or lie outright.
“At our current pace…” The Master hesitated but forced himself to continue, “we will complete the project too late to turn the moon, let alone send it away. We still need to try.”
“I have an idea,” Dale spoke heavily, swallowing deeply as he thought about his next words carefully, “but I need your help to stay alive. Can you give me a moment?”
The Master saw the look in Dale’s eyes and forced himself to look at the people around him. What he saw were drawn faces, terror, and absolute exhaustion on people that typically never even needed to sleep. They had not rested, had not stopped continually using their power, for days. “I can spare a moment. The rest of you… go get some sleep. Be back in thirty minutes.”
There were protests, but even the staunchest of them stopped working when they saw the Master leaving the room. They may be enthusiastic about survival, but the pace they had been setting was brutal even by The Master’s standards, and he usually had tireless undead doing the work. They went to get food or quietly sat and took a short nap among those that had recently been racial enemies. A common goal and the threat of eradication was a good motivator for drastic shifts in mentality.
“Alright, Dale. You have my attention. What can you do for this that we cannot?” The Master listened patiently as Dale spoke, his eyes bulging slightly. When Dale had finished, The Master rubbed his eyes and released a long, slow breath. “You’re sure? Can you do it?”
“I see no other option.” Dale’s mind suddenly flashed back to Adam’s last words to him, and he felt like he had been punched in the gut. Was this what he had meant? His mind said yes… but his heart told him that this was not going to be his hardest tribulation.
“Then we try it your way, Dale.”
Chapter Sixty
“I mean, technically you are doing it,” Dale quipped as he donned simple wool clothes.
“Look, can you do it without shattering the Runes and killing us all?” The hope in Dale's voice made it even harder for me to admit that I couldn’t. Not for sure, and not in such a localized area.
<...No,> I finally admitted, seeing his face fall a little even though the answer was expected.
“Then here we are.”
“You know what Xenocide said. He would know better than any of us at this point what his Runes were capable of. If he thinks that all our plans end in our failure… even though he is obviously insane, I have no reason to think that he is wrong. Our only chance is to do something as insane and hope that it works out.”
“Too late now, Cal. I’m committed.”
“Thanks, Cal,” Dale muttered under his breath as he stood before the others.
The Master looked him in the eye. “Are you sure about this? Once you start, failure means that a lot of people will die, including yourself.”
“Been there, done that,” Dale breathed the words softly, looking up at the now very concerned Master. “I’m ready. Let’s do this while we still might have time to succeed.”
“Then here we go.” The Master, Barry, and the group of Mages ranging from A to B ranks were airborne in an instant, flying toward the Runes Xenocide had left floating in the air. They were shining, the connection they created pulling the smaller of the two moons toward their planet at what must have been extraordinarily high speeds. As Dale settle
d into a seated lotus position on the swirling Runescript, he breathed deeply and evenly.
The Mages were a whirlwind around him, moving at breakneck speeds as they set up and activated various Runes of their own. None of them trusted what they were doing, as, in their words ‘the blasted dungeon made this in a day, and it has never been tested’. Barry and the Master waited until everything was in the proper position, then used their own energy to bring the Runes to full power.
When the new Runescript was humming with the same mysterious frequency as the Runes made by Xenocide, The Master nodded at Dale. “Feel free to begin when ready. At this range… I think it will be hard for you to fail. Just…”
“Get ready, Master,” Dale spoke in a dreamy tone, having been pushing to enter a state of trance-like calm. “I am about to start.”
The Master nodded, then stood back a few feet. If this didn’t work as hoped, being further away wouldn’t help at all. He watched as Dale’s aura shifted all at once, going from radiating light and peace… to becoming a slight sheen of water that began to collect on his skin. Not only that, but Dale suddenly became an aberration to the Master and to everyone watching. Instead of appearing as a human, as anything living or even inanimate, Dale became a black hole to their senses.
There was no Essence, no Mana, nothing where Dale was… unless they looked with just their eyes. Then all they saw was what appeared to be a sweaty, sodden young man who was breathing heavily. The ‘sweat’ collecting on Dale began to run off of him and drip onto the Runes below. The Runescript gave off a sinister *hiss*, like a powerful acid touching bone. Wherever the water touched, the Runes would darken for a long moment.
“It’s not doing anything!” Barry snarled at the waiting people. “It’s not enough!”
“Patience, Barry. The show hasn’t even started.” The Master’s words were just enough to make Barry stop, but his frustration was evident to all. “Disenchanting water is barely known, and I have never met someone who could actually produce it. All it does is turn the amazing into the mundane, and who would want to do that?”