Gravetower

by Kell Inkston

  It was this that shut Worry Minion up.

  The cheering crowd hits a fever pitch as Confetti Minion and Vuvuzela Minion ensure that everyone knows the he is taking his leave.

  Gunfighter Minion shoots off into the air wildly, upsetting his stetson.

  Hospitality Minion ties up a pretty bow around a part of the space gate’s console.

  Space Adventure Minion fires her phaser at a tree for some reason.

  Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion screams at the top of his lungs as he bashes a hexagonal shape into the ground.

  Cooking Minion, watching from up on the tower, flips an omelet.

  Chaos and Aoline step through the divide to Overlord Space, and in a flash they’re gone.

  The fanfare lasts as Worry Minion falls to his knees and Bird-Feeding Minion comes up from the side.

  “Well?” She asks.

  “Well what?”

  “How was he?”

  “I don’t think I worry too much, do I?”

  She smiles sweetly. “Are you worrying about it now?”

  He sighs. “Yeah, he was something else.”

  “… So hey, we could finish up feeding the birds and then hit the skate rink if you like.”

  “The… skate rink? Are we allowed to do stuff other than our job?”

  She smirks. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  After a moment, he comes to a nod. “You’re right. Let’s go do… I dunno, minion shit.”

  Maybe there’s nothing to worry about after all, he wonders. Maybe this “ultimate evil” is in fact, the maturation of good that he and his old fellows could never recognize.

  Side Chapter 1: A Setback

  The tremors cease within the High Catalog, and Ywn, physically unshaken, marvels at the sight of nearly every single comm line in his network breaking out.

  What little remains of his breath, becomes heavy in disbelief.

  “G-” … he struggles to speak as he can only imagine what happened outside. “Gwynn.”

  There’s a pause, some static, and her voice rings in. “Sir.”

  “Please, for the love of The Goddess, tell me that didn’t just happen.”

  It’s rare that Scribe Gwynn’s tone is anything other than gentle, but the weight is clearly on her at a time like this. “Is your radio-spectrometer working, sir?”

  He doesn’t even need to look at it. The number is so large he can see it out of the corner of his eye. “…It’s all so goddessdamn high. Please tell me I’m just going crazy and there’s nothing to worry about.”

  “…Sir, Chaos… detonated one of the invasion warheads… here, at The Central Library.”

  “…Then… give me the damage report.”

  “…I-I’m afraid all of the detectors outside of the Catalog are gone at a distance of about… seven miles, sir.”

  “…So the damage is so great that we can hardly measure it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ywn begins floating forward, eerily hovering along the steps of his main pedestal. “I’m going to get visual confirmation.”

  “Sir, no! The radiation is at ground zero levels outside!”

  “I want to see it for myself,” he says simply.

  “You’ll die!”

  “I’m The White Knight, Gwynn. I can handle a little warmth.”

  “Please, si-”

  “Turning on visual feed,” Ywn says as he begins streaming his sight and body statistics over the comms network.

  Gwynn muffles her concerns as Ywn reaches the end of the High Catalog.

  “Open doors,” he commands softly to the in-base intelligence.

  A pair of irritating bleeps sounds off. “CONCERN: EXTERIOR ENVIRONMENT RADIATION AT DEADLY LEVELS,” a blaring, smart, male voice emanates from all around him.

  “Administrator argument.”

  “ACCESS GRANTED.”

  The doors open to the depressurization chamber, just in case of a situation like this, and Ywn waits the three seconds required to match the pressure with the outside. A rare situation, but the bulkheads need to be maintained for just such an occasion as this.

  The outer doors open, and all Ywn sees for miles is burnt, torn, blackened-brown wreckage. The glistening, holy whites of his city of science has been reduced to an apocalyptic, silent mess of broken dreams.

  “You see my feed?” he asks.

  “Yes sir.”

  “This is what happens when we do not act as a team.”

  “…Noted, sir.”

  “…Any report on casualties?”

  There’s a long pause as Gwynn pulls over a long breath. “Sir, it’s in the… millions, sir.”

  There’s a moment where Ywn’s body, filled with technology and the light of human progress, nods abruptly, emotionally, like a man who had just lost something great, and was forced to come to terms with it.

  “O-okay… okay.” He takes a deep breath. “…Chaos, then.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “…Chaos… then,” he says again.

  “…Correct, sir.”

  “Tell me this, Gwynnivere: did he survive?”

  “…Let me see… I’m looking over the data reports now. The background mass detectors claimed something of his weight and mass was present at the time of their destruction, so it’s likely Chaos was caught up in the blast… we don’t know, sir.”

  “Check for mass transfers.”

  “Oh, of course, sir… o-oh!….”

  “What is it?”

  “A… an exact transfer of his estimated weight from the Nervous Library’s detector’s… he got away.”

  “So he survived a nuclear blast.”

  “… We have reason to believe that’s the case, sir.”

  He looks over the irradiated hell wastes. “… Oidhche, is that… you?”

  “Who, sir?” Gwynn asks.

  “…After all these years. Of course it would be one of your own to cross my path,” he says outwardly, as if speaking to a ghost.

  “S-sir, if I may ask who you’re referring to.”

  Ywn sighs. “Only a dark spirit, my Gwynnivere… yet sometimes… even spirits need to be driven out. How many teams are available down there?”

  She hums. “Most were out mounting for the invasion. Only the interior company is left,” she explains.

  “…Breath Corps… They’re about to have a new assignment.”

  “They’ll be all ears, sir. What’s the objective?”

  Ywn stares bitterly through his complex, camera-assisted visor. “…Data collection. I’ll field the details once they’re in kit.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He turns back to the inside of the High Catalog, and hovers back to his pedestal.

  “Close all lines,” he says. The Intelligence instantly closes every connection and line of communication from Ywn, sealing him in privacy.

  “Open the black line,” he says.

  There’s a short pause. “…Now what is the honor of which I must thank for your call?” Comes a voice. Although the voice is comely, gentle, and almost fatherly, the few human parts remaining in Ywn reel in horror.

  “I believe you would be interested to know that Chaos just killed your little puppet.”

  “I am well aware, thank you.”

  “And that my world has just been nuked?”

  “I felt their pain, as they are already with me. I am aware of this as well.”

  “Ask them if any of them know where he went.”

  “They do not,” the voice answers. “However, I do know where he’s headed.”

  “Where might that be?”

  “He killed one, so two remain. It’s my impression that he’s attempting to get to me, of all sorts.”

  “…That would make sense. It probably blames you for the entire thing.”

  “It certainly does, when he remembers to do so. Don’t you worry a hair on your sweet head, Ywn. I have this all under control.”

  “And how’s that?”

  “A c
ertain realmancer just entered the service of my little Pales. Would you like to meet her?”

  “…You are quite the resourceful one.”

  “As I can be. Perhaps you have noticed, but there is a meddler in this affair.”

  “Who?”

  “It’s an intelligence beyond our bounds. To it, we are but fictional characters.”

  “…The upper realms?”

  “Yes. One of their kind has taken notice, albeit by accident, but the objects it creates are still within the scope of realmancy, I have found.”

  “So Knight Love… has she been able to view these documents?”

  “With a dubious level of accuracy, yes.”

  “How long has she been capable of it.”

  “Before the Liefland incident. Only recently has she gained the skill to target particular manuscripts, as she only recently collected a primary manuscript of our situation to work off of. I believe it’s just in time for us to get our best use out of her.”

  Ywn is quiet a moment as he touches down to the floor and takes a seat. “Does she know the future?”

  “A version of the future. What is… worse, is that the meddler also knows of this.”

  “So the logs she reads could be falsified by this entity.”

  “You are as perceptive as ever, White Knight. Rondi was wise to choose you all those years ago.”

  “… So, I can trust you will cooperate?”

  “In this quite exceptional case I see no reason not to count you as my ally. You can count on my full excitement towards whatever you wish to try.”

  “…To fight something that knows the future… this will be a challenge.”

  “Oh, I thought you said you were a solution-oriented individual?”

  Ywn stares forward, his visor helmet concealing the menacing gaze out into nothingness. “... I think we can continue claiming that. The solution won’t be pretty, but it will be necessary… It’s what Rondi would want.”

  “I suppose next to Oidhche, you could be considered Rondi’s only true apostle, couldn’t you?”

  Ywn sighs. “She’s bigger than any of us, than anything. I don’t think it’s right to say I can speak for her.”

  “But you just did.”

  “The human Rondi.” He looks up to the high, high ceiling of his inner chamber. “I have no clue what she’s like now.”

  “Perhaps with a realmancer, the clues will begin to flow out. You’ll see her soon enough.”

  “…Yes. So I will grant you my aid, and in return…”

  “You may have her. I do not interest myself in such childish guessings the same way you do. I have all the answers I need.”

  “Thank you, Ohkiij.”

  “And thank you, Ywn. So long. Let’s hope that the meddler does not catch on to the advantages of his unique position too quickly.”

  Side Chapter 2: An Unexpected Signal

  Author Note:

  It is with some trepidation that I write these words, but I feel that for the sake of posterity and a complete narrative, it would be a worthwhile endeavor. I added this note as a sort of preface— as I truly had no idea, for the longest time while writing, what was actually forming on the page; it wasn’t until I had read it that I realized this note might be necessary.

  In my line of work I’ll sometimes gain insights on people of The Omniverse who are in fact closely related to myself and my doings, to the other ‘lending’ kingdoms, and even to the mountain itself; however I have never, until these events, heard of myself mentioned by a character. I pride myself in staying up in my tower, not meddling with affairs— but there are times, I suppose, in which even the best placed precautions are laid bare. What follows is a legitimate gleaning analysis like my usual, however the character in question was myself. The overarching narrative, then, I cannot possibly imagine. I ask you, the reader, to read this all with caution— as it all may seem dreadfully unrelated to the events within Dimension #13 and Knight Love and all that sort.

  All the best,

  Kell Inkston

  In Inklend, above the bounds of The Pools, The Scribery in S.E.E.R. stretches far with the same kind of austere beauty as would an evergreen woodland, mystically kissed by glistening white brick.

  In one of the highest offices, but not the very highest, Head Analyst Kell Inkston leans back from his chair. He has no idea what he has just witnessed. A matter of fact, this will not be the most shocking part of his day— as shortly after all this, he will glean out this chapter that you, the reader, are reading now.

  “She… she knew?” Kell mutters to himself, his four lenses glinting dully in the room’s lantern light. He stares over the pages a bit more, but he truly wasn’t imagining it all; Knight Love knew about Inklend and, perhaps even worse, she knew she was being narrated upon!

  He taps his desk a moment as he looks behind his shoulder. He’ll have to proceed very carefully with this moving forward. If The Big Eyeless were to find out, she would certainly put him in containment.

  Kell hides the pages in the swamp of paper around his desk, blending in perfectly with a dozen other, far less pertinent narratives. With a quick fixing of the tie, he starts out of his office and passes by his secretary.

  “Ahh, Mister Inkston,” Tem Lannink says with a lazy wave.

  “What’s up?” Kell asks, the thought of having been already found out by some arcane process swirling through his thoughts.

  “Your wife called and asked if you wanted macaroni or spaghetti for dinner,” Tem says, sanitizing his two lenses with a cleaning wipe.

  Kell looks aside. “Aren’t those both macaroni?”

  “Sir.”

  “Spaghetti will be fine if the kid’s good for it; tell her thanks,” Kell says as he waves off.

  “Will do, thanks sir.”

  Kell stops awkwardly. “I meant tell her thanks.”

  Tem looks at Kell strangely. “Uh… yes sir, I said I would.”

  There’s a pause. “Right, but you just thanked me.”

  “Yes, for your time, sir.”

  Kell draws back. “A-ahh, right. Thanks. One of those days, I guess.”

  Tem chuckles as he gets back to his game of solitaire, “Yeah, sure.”

  With just enough extra speed to betray his embarrassment, Kell exits the room and starts down the circular halls of S.E.E.R., ever overlooking the long hanging gardens which open up from the floor and stretch down a dozen or more stories below. He takes the elevator, sharing it briefly with Fionn Inkerne.

  “O-oh! Hey sir!” Fionn says, tightening his grasp onto his papers meekly.

  “Hi,” Kell responds simply as the lift stops and Fionn bows his head before stepping off. His coworkers are waiting outside, and all gawk at the sight of the illusive Head Analyst, laxing in the elevator like the rest of them do every day.

  “H-hello, sir!” one of them greets as she enters, ushering in a slew of greetings from nearby coworkers who don’t want to be thought of as anti-social to their boss.

  Kell just nods his head as the lift doors close. “Nice day today.”

  “Yeah!” the coworker says with a nervous twinge.

  The analyst’s journey down continues as the elevator passes the ground floor, into the depths of the Assignments Department.

  The doors open, and he steps out.

  A far cry from the calm full office atmosphere above, Assignments is a cubicle chaos of rushing analysts, scientists, paper pushers and secretaries.

  All of the noise— the moving, the folding and filing of causality reports— stops the moment the first “Afternoon, sir!” is spoken by the one-eyed Lin Inksang.

  Everyone holds their phones and pens in hand, frozen as they watch Four Eyes himself pass through their busy domain.

  “Afternoon,” Kell says back to her, issuing out a rush of greetings from everyone. He nods them off with the usual day-to-day compliments and makes his way to the Assignment’s center office.

  A three-eyed lass in a suit almost as nice as K
ell’s is already at her feet to shake his hand.

  “Sir,” Kaie Morgandink greets with a nod as Kell closes the door behind him, “what brings you down to our little slice of bureaucracy?”

  Kell coos good-humoredly. “I wanted to ask about some legal tape stuff.”

  She descends into the chair across from her desk with inhuman grace. “Oh,” she hits a switch from under her desk, and the blinds draw down as the fan’s selector flicks electronically to ‘high’ for maximum noise coverage. “Analyzing an extraneous narrative again?”

  He shakes his head. “Not this time.”

  “Accidentally read into a work of fiction where the character became self aware?”

  Kell scoffs. “Not quite, but closer.”

  She rests her elbows on her desk to prop up her chin. “Well now you have me interested.”

  “Alright— and as always I’m telling you this in the strictest confidence.”

  “Of course.”

  “I was doing a common analysis of the Rondi Account.”

  “That’s still not done?”

  “Longest account running by far, and I don’t think it’s on its way out either.”

  She sighs. “Damn, what a mess. So what happened?”

  “One of the thirteens, Meeo Letlind?”

  “The weird one?”

  “Yeah.”

  “With the beetle as a pet?”

  “Yeah.”

  She draws in with interest. “What about her?”

  Kell takes a long breath. “She mentioned my name.”

  “…” Kaie chuckles, and looks jokingly over at her calendar. “It’s not April yet, man.”

  Kell doesn’t say anything, but simply delivers as honest a gaze as an expressionless inkling is capable of.

  She steadily leans back. “You were never much of one for pranks, after all.”

  “I don’t suppose I was.”

  “By the wizarddamn roots… She said your name?”

  “Yes, and she read… she read one of my accounts.”

  “But how? Aren’t Inklend accounts protected by causality reporting?”

  “…I suppose that depends on what form the narrative takes.”

  With the exception of the buzzing fan filling the room with cool, rolling air, the silence in the room is unbearable.