Gravetower

by Kell Inkston

  “Correct,” Love says, smiling now that she’s retaken the reigns. “Seeing this, wouldn’t you also agree that your memories are not all you expected them to be?”

  He looks to the ground with a mixed gaze. “No… no I suppose they’re not.”

  “Then trust me when I say that the number one thing we need to be doing right now is tracking down Oa.”

  Chaos crosses his arms in thought. “Allow me to consort the party on the matter.” He turns and looks to his minions, but at the same time, Love looks at them too; this is not an expression Aoline’s seen on Love’s face before — it’s serious, almost angry.

  “What say you all, my minions?” Chaos addresses openly, even to Aoline.

  “Do as she says, my master,” Dark Arts Minion says averting her eyes from her ruler.

  “It would be the… tactical decision, sir,” Ranger Minion admits bluntly.

  Aoline gulps as Love, ever sweet, always kind, stares her down with a firm, vindictive gaze. This must be how people get things done at the highest level, because she’s feeling pretty intimidated right now. She feels almost betrayed as she draws in air to speak. “Overlord, it’s…” She looks away, “Knight Love tends to have a pretty good idea about what’s going on. I trust her, anyway,” Aoline says, not certain if what she’s saying is actually true anymore.

  Chaos nods. “I trust her as well.” He turns to little Scout Minion. “And what say you?”

  Love didn’t anticipate the last reaction, however, which makes sense— as Scout Minion is the most Chaos-like of the entire party, possibly among all his minions for that matter. To Love’s social transmission, Scout Minion can only interpret it one way.

  “Eh, she’s got some… pretty good advice, Poppi—” She pauses for effect. “If you were a friggin’ weak-ass pansy boy!” she exclaims, shocking everyone, and winning a smile from Love, though it’s probably not the happy kind of smile.

  “Is that so?” Chaos asks.

  “Yeah! You get sidetracked, sure. It’s that sidetracking that makes you the unpredictable badass we all know you are! We’re not here just to,” she makes quotation marks with her little dark hands, “hmmm, oh! Complete the mission, my lord,” she says in a fairly obvious mock on Love’s manner of speaking. “We’re here to do this your way. Things won’t mean as much if we simply complete some asinine objective and don’t do it the way you would, sir!”

  Chaos hums as he looks to the ruins.

  Love takes a deep breath amidst the pause; confronting the minion is entirely out of her scope.

  Scout Minion clears her throat. “Poppi, I know you don’t always realize it, that all your decisions are important, but who does? You’re the Undisputed High Overlord for a reason, Poppi!”

  “I… I suppose you are right,” Chaos says with a faint smile.

  “I am right! You didn’t become the ‘god humiliator’ by following advice! Trust your sword, sir. If we fail we’ll fail in the most Chaos-way imaginable!” Scout Minion finishes, straightening up from her monologue exchanging gazes with Love, each now firmly written down on the other’s “list”.

  There’s a pause, and Chaos comes to a nod. Love still has time to salvage this, but she can’t use herself. She looks over to Aoline, and glances over to Scout Minion. Aoline, no neophyte to social interaction, gets her intention straight off— and she’ll do it if it means staying on her good side.

  “Eh…” Aoline takes a breath. “The most Chaos-like thing to do would be to complete the mission!” She interjects, forming words at mad-speed in her head.

  Scout Minion double takes in disbelief as Chaos nods his head to the side. “Really?” he wonders out loud. Just as he says this, however, his antennae perk up all the way, as if he’s just noticed something. He looks to the ruins with a certain, focused gaze, tuning out of the conversation and “being himself” for lack of a better term.

  “Yeah! No one’s heard of you failing, and if we spend time in that ruin, not focusing on the task at hand, we could get uprooted at the worst possible time!” Aoline says, unaware that Chaos is no longer listening, though neither is Scout Minion, whose confusion dissolves into certain victory as she crassly crosses her arms. Aoline just gave her prime ammunition.

  “Surely,” Scout Minion leaves in a pause, copying Chaos’ rather dramatic method of delivering one-liners and rebuttals, “you don’t mean to say that he could fail, do you?” she finishes.

  Aoline flinches and Love looks away bitterly.

  “O…of…”

  Love looks over to Aoline, and shakes her head with a slight wave of the hand: never mind.

  “No, of course not. Sorry if I implied such… hey, what’s going on, overlord?” Aoline asks.

  Chaos’ features are wide, gleeful, scary — he knows a fight is coming. “On your guard, my company,” is all he says.

  “Wh-what?” Aoline mutters as the minions, one by one, all realize what’s wrong, with Love at the very end of it.

  “Mmm, that’s not good,” Love says as she feels between her bow and her heavily-enchanted, adamantine dagger, unsure which one is more appropriate for an opponent like this.

  “What happened?” Aoline asks.

  “That mana signature changed,” Love says.

  Aoline takes out her sword, “How?”

  “It’s somehow gone, entirely, dear,” Love answers, her words giving purchase to the breeze.

  Everyone is quiet as they look to the ruins in wait. Chaos, always a step ahead of everyone else when it comes to intuition, prepares for reaction not from the ruins’ direction, but from behind.

  There’s a mild airy burst, a draft from the direction of the ruins, and then even the wind dies down.

  Abruptly, a gust of air tosses about Aoline’s tied up hair, before a flash overtakes the group — a blinding light, and the sound of clashing metal. The second Aoline can swing behind her to see what happened, she beholds Chaos and Love, drawing at reflex to stop a sword-sized, jagged kris blade from smashing through the back of her skull. For the first time, she sees blood from the overlord himself— as unlike Love, he didn’t ready a weapon to stop the enormous dagger; it’s almost as though Love were expecting it.

  “Well, the esteemed Jack La’Coss!” Chaos greets with an executioner’s grin.

  The assaulting figure— a cloaked, masked, hulk of an individual— pushes forward with his sword-knife, ranging the edge further along Chaos’ hand as he attempts to reach Aoline. “So much for taking the weakest first,” Jack says, his voice as empty and cold as a million solitary days of winter.

  “What brings you here dead-servant? Not tea, I would assume,” Chaos asks.

  “Cahl personally prescribed me to you. It’s finally your time to go, overlord.”

  Aoline mutters in confusion as Chaos intentionally firms his grip on Jack’s blade, forcing out more of his white infusia onto the ground. “You dare insult me with your limited concept of death?”

  “The honor is all mine, overlord. To ferry down the legend himself… of course, I suppose only I would be capable of such a feat.”

  Chaos laughs. “But of course, except your dear Cahl is going to be disappointed this day.”

  “Disappointed?”

  “Disappointed with itself that it insulted me by not sending Ceron, or itself, even.”

  Jack shows no insult through his mask, and he wouldn’t readily admit that the comment about Ceron did get under his skin. “He didn’t send Ceron because he couldn’t do it, you uppity piece of shit. Cahl is undeniable. Surely you, in all your arcane knowledge of the first realm, would know that. I spoke with that mountain child you had tea with yesterday. He said you actually knew much more than you let on. He also warned me that you might be like this.”

  “…Mountain child?” Chaos asks pleasantly as if he were simply sipping afternoon tea with the Legendary Grim Reaper and assassin of gods, Jack La’Coss.

  “You petulant fool,” Jack spits through his ghost-white mask.

&n
bsp; “Pedantic knave,” Chaos pokes back playfully moving forward into the blade with purpose.

  “Insolent wretch.”

  “Arrogant cur.”

  “Insipid pretender.”

  “Insignificant…” Chaos hums in thought and Scout whispers a suggestion. “-nerd!” Chaos finishes triumphantly, “Cahl will simply have to make do with being disappointed.”

  Jack scoffs. “And just how will that be?”

  “When I take your scythe and send you back to your basement, you… you loser!” Chaos challenges with a certain grin and mostly certain language, eying the reaper’s scythe hilted to his back by a few leather straps.

  “Good one, Poppi!” Scout Minion whispers.

  Jack laughs. “So it is with a fool and his precious mortality. No one’s ever won a grim reaper’s scythe.”

  Chaos grins. “That will change today… I must ask, still. If you have come for me, then why were you looking to kill my dear vassal?”

  “In truth I’ve been tasked to ferry any and all souls that move to slay the necromancer Oa.”

  The overlord laughs. “Truly?”

  “Yes. It is a deeper web than you could ever imagine, overlord. I serve Oa out of necessity, not of loyalty. Cahl would grace you with more pathetic years from your magic power, but now you have crossed that final line. En garde, y-” the very second Jack made the mistake of challenging Chaos’ honor in single combat, the overlord ranges his hand all the way through the blade up to the hilt, grasping it equal to Jack as he throws his left fist directly into the white mask.

  In a flash, the two tumble down the hillside, turning up the grass and soil as they tear across the plain.

  “What do we do?” Aoline asks, just a little nervous that there’s now more people to worry about.

  Love shakes her head. “Nothing. We wouldn’t want to get in the way, after all,” she says, a single eyebrow raised with some modicum of sass.

  “So… questions?”

  Love sighs. “Sure, dearie.”

  “Who is that?”

  “An agent of Breathlend, one of the first realmer kingdoms.”

  Aoline sighs, too. “…You’re joking.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “There’s first realm… kingdoms?”

  “Yes. Breathlend deals in life and death, for instance— or Inklend deals in causality.”

  “So Breathlend people are like grim reapers?”

  “Right, all ‘deaths’ answer to them since they delegate where people go after they die.”

  Aoline’s eyes are wide as she watches Chaos dexterously and gleefully dodge Jack’s wild, violent swings. “Okay so-”

  “Yes, there is an afterlife, and a person can end up going to any one of them if they so please. Heavens and hells, paradises and ‘oblivions’, all are managed and maintained by Breathlend. Rules are often fairly specific, though, so make sure to pursue a relationship with one of the gods or whatnot if your mind is set on it. It’s sort of like a job interview I guess.”

  Aoline’s hums. “Got it, so how about Inklend?”

  Love glances knowingly.

  “They catalog important events in The Omniverse. Everything notable to the first realm is put down by scribes,” she says, obviously letting on way, way more than expected.

  Aoline nods. “So, is there a scribe writing about this?”

  Love smirks. “A matter of fact, yes.”

  Aoline looks around. “Right now?”

  “We don’t know for sure when it’s written down, but I expect it’s around this time; after all, I did read a certain book titled Gravetower.”

  …

  Aoline raises a brow as Chaos laughs down range, fighting the grim reaper bare handed amidst the splitting of air and the clashing of weighted body against dirt. “Which is?”

  Love smiles. “Mmm, well, It’s a story quite a lot like what’s happening to us, actually— except it has a bad ending. Ours certainly will not.”

  The young knight-traitor hums. “Huh, so like the narrative of that book is like what’s happening now?” she questions.

  “More than you’d care to know,” Love says, cutting it short.

  The group watches Chaos sling crackling, tremoring spells at his enemy, who seems to be having trouble fighting someone that only let himself get hit the first time to protect Aoline.

  “See,” Scout Minion says sassily to Love. “One hundred percent easy.”

  “Caution is always prudent, dearie,” Love replies to the minion at her side, “Jack La’Coss is a grim reaper after all.”

  “Yeah b-”

  “And I’ll presume you’ve never even met one, have you?”

  Scout Minion scoffs arrogantly. “Whatever. I knew Poppi could handle this dingo-ass trick.”

  “Your creativity for insults never ceases to amaze me,” Dark Arts Minion says with her trademark creepy smile.

  “It’s a bit crude, I think,” Love says.

  Ranger Minion, already in the prone waiting for the order to shoot, smirks at her words while Scout Minion shakes her head in disgust.

  “You’re truly hopeless, human.”

  “I’m only doing my best with what I know. You would be wise to listen to a realmancer, I think.”

  “You could know everything, and he’d still get through it. Poppi is the prime expression of sentient life, after all!”

  There’s a short pause among the group— but considering Love has read Gravetower and recalls, apparently, that she has a similar argument with Scout Minion near the end of the book, she has her ammunition ready. She places her hand along her mouth in mock-surprise. “Oh my, could it be you’re actually Pseudo-Philosopher Minion in disguise?”

  Scout Minion’s confidence disintegrates instantly as Dark Arts Minion turns her head away to hide her goofy smile.

  “Wow,” Ranger Minion says, breaking professionalism due to the exceptional comeback.

  Aoline has no idea who Pseudo-Philosopher Minion is, but she’ll go out on a limb and guess he or she is an immense dork.

  “W-… w-…” Scout Minion turns away with a jaunty, though dejected, disposition. “Damn!” she turns back. “That was actually pretty good.”

  Love giggles. “Get wrecked,” she says bluntly, like the capstone of her comeback. “And all I’m saying is that from my gatherings, a few of us don’t make it out of here— but I just changed that,” she says with another firm nod.

  Aoline had tuned out of their conversation the moment Love said “get wrecked”. The real Love isn’t quite what she imagined, and yet Chaos seems to be so much more.

  She focuses down range, watching the wounded overlord dash about with an agent of death itself, steadily slowing down bit by bit as Chaos whittles away his opponent’s rumored-to-be limitless stamina. While his movements are like air, and his speed like a shooting star, what she cannot get her mind off of is how… happy, he looks fighting free like this.

  For a moment she considers something that Order has considered many times: perhaps Chaos is less of a figure and a person, and more of a thing, or a law of the universe — undeniable in its conviction, but easily repurposed for the uses of others. He is quite forgetful after all. For just a moment before Chaos lays on his final strike, the knight wonders just what he would be like if he could remember everything.

  At that, Love and Scout’s conversation halts immediately— hearing the immense, dishonored scream of terror from a grim reaper as Chaos slams his fist through the figure's chest and tears it out the side, taking up the scythe from Jack’s backside in the same horrifying motion. Just as Jack rotates to plunge his kris blade into Chaos, the overlord swings across him with his own scythe, cutting through and ushering Jack’s soul from his body.

  “Sam’hal’hain,” Chaos speaks down at the defeated Jack’s soul. With his spell Chaos raises up returning presences to banish the spirit back to his proper realm.

  Amidst his empty, dead breaths, the ghost of Jack raises his masked head to speak
. “You’ve made a grave mistake, overlord.”

  Chaos scoffs. “ ‘Hasn’t missed a mark in five thousand years… except one’ Hmm, not quite the same ring to it, I am afraid. So sorry I had to ruin your title.”

  “You are nothing to me, overlord. I’ll be back and you’ll be like grass under my boot,” Jack growls as his soul begins to dissipate back to Breathlend.

  “ ‘Got killed by nothing’, oh my, I’m afraid that title would be even more embarrassing!”

  “I knew you’d be so ignorant as to assume you’ve won. You have no idea what you’re up against!”

  “Your opinions are as false as your legacy, coward. Perhaps next time you will think to come at me with more than a butter knife and an inopportune moment.” With those words from Chaos, Jack is no more in their world, and subsequently delivered to Breathlend where he must convey a very disparaging account of his failure to the Silent Court. Jack is among the head reapers, after all, he answers directly to the lowest chamber.

  Chaos returns to the calls of victory and cheers gulping down Jack’s scythe and dagger-sword.

  “Well done, Poppi!” Scout exclaims among other congratulations from the group.

  The Lord of Infinity Nails waves his hand aside as if it were nothing but a pleasant trick. “I feel quite sorry for him— recruited into Oa’s guards and forced to protect something so evil.”

  Love coos in thought, even though she already knows the answer. “Could it be that it has some captive souls as ransom to Breathlend?”

  Aoline shakes her head as the group strolls over to the ruins. “Wait… what?”

  The group shares a friendly laugh at Aoline’s expense.

  “I’ll explain all in time, dear,” Love says with a smile.

  They reach the ruins in about five minutes of walking, the aesthetic instantly inspiring Chaos to open up an items shop in one of the dilapidated stores and revive the local economy. Not even Scout Minion could back him up on this one, though, so Love talks him out of it and they agree to go into the woods as they forge onward to the grim mountain.

  Chapter Six: A Night to Remember

  The light wanes in the land, and the knights’ company travels past the ruins, finding tales of a violent struggle between who they assume to be Chaos and one of Oa’s stronger minions. All the while, Glory continues to push the thought that Chaos was probably injured in the battle, and that they should absolutely make their move tonight.