by Skyler Grant
Lay on Hands
Ashley screamed as brutalized and mangled flesh began to knit itself back together. Drawing in ragged breaths she pushed herself back to her feet.
"That was leaves? What the fuck are you made of?" Ashley asked the trees.
The forest wasn't inclined to answer as it remained more interested in killing us.
"Can't you do anything?" Cobalt asked.
"Yvera isn't answering me. Mela still has her occupied somehow," I said.
"Ashley?" Cobalt asked.
"Yvera could set them on fire. Mela could make an enormous chainsaw. What tricks do you think you Atlantia has for this situation?" Ashley asked, irritated.
"Desiccation?" I asked.
Ashley tilted her head as she engaged in the internal conversation with her goddess. "No good. It's part of their system right now, which kind of gives the element of wood priority. Give her enough time she could pull off a drought, but in the short term that isn't helping."
Right. We needed some other solution then.
I hit on one. I didn't exactly like it, but I didn't see where we had any other choice. They were attacking us because they viewed us as a threat to the forest and the wood, and they were right. I needed to give them a more immediate danger.
I focused on the tree line in the distance, a part not attacking us, and channeled a series of Smite spells one after another until the entire thing had been set ablaze.
The trees in front of us shook and rattled in rage and tried all the harder to kill us. That was only to be expected.
"What are you doing?" Ashley asked.
"He's doing a good job at making them angry," Cobalt said.
Maria was a patchwork of flesh and spider-web stitches, giving her the look of some hastily assembled patchwork doll. "Idiot," Maria said.
I wasn't done yet.
"We need rainfall nearby," I said to Ashley.
"Atlantia doesn't like being bossed around," Ashley said. All the same, in the distance clouds did loom and rain began to fall.
"Withdraw from this fight and we move the rain to save the forest here," I called out to the trees. "Continue and we allow this forest to burn."
Branches rattled, but for the moment the trees ceased their attack. Perhaps they were discussing things amongst themselves.
"That was your plan? Threaten to burn their friends and family alive unless they cooperated?" Cobalt asked, then nodded. "Works for me, if they buy it."
"There had to be another way," Ashley said unhappily. "We could have held out until Lea came and we made our escape."
"We don't know how long that's going to take. Maybe she has a lot of issues to work out? We couldn't keep this fight going."
"If they don't abandon the fight, retreat back into the mists. Perhaps Lake will welcome you back in and I can cover your escape," Cobalt said.
"I doubt it's an accident these were waiting for us, mother," Maria said. The spiders had done a good job, especially now with combat temporarily over. She was starting to look like a real girl again instead of some sort of spider-infested rag doll.
"You think she tried to kill us?" I asked. I found the thought a little disappointing. I mean, I just got done sleeping with Lake. I liked her. I also wasn't convinced she was any sort of good spirit. I might have felt judged when I was with her, but not in that way.
"You fucked an avatar of truth, didn't you? I know that expression," Cobalt asked, aghast. "I hope you didn't ask for a performance review afterward. Anyway, I don't think it was her. Remember, we burned some forests in that battle earlier. These trees probably know."
I had not, in fact, asked for any sort of performance review. I'm not an idiot. There are some truths one doesn't need to know and that one counted highly among them.
"Maybe. The trees sure are taking their time deciding," Ashley said.
The nearby forest continued to burn.
"They are weighing the short-term good against the long-term consequences," Cobalt said.
"You speak tree?" I asked.
Cobalt shook her head. "Nah. I've just been in the situation a lot on both sides. The bad guys threaten to kill everyone in the village and you try to figure out whether it is worth letting them get away or not."
"Could you not put it that way?" Ashley asked.
"I do like this you, but the old one wasn't as squeamish," Cobalt said.
"I miss the monster," Maria said sadly. "You made me feel more human."
Ashley looked between them, confused, and asked me, "Any idea what they're talking about?"
"Yeah. You don't want to know," I said.
"If it involves me I'm pretty sure I do," Ashley said, giving me a stern look. "I mean, we just went seeking truth. It's not a time for lies between us."
She made a good point. Besides, it mattered to her and to all of us. Her changing things in the past and that seeming to alter the history in our world made a strong case for us not being real. I could have tried to keep that to myself, but would I really be doing anyone any favors?
"You changed time recently. You used to be kind of a sociopath. You spent a few years torturing and being tortured by an A.I. back home, and when you bonded with Atlantia you sort went full on scary," I said. That was the quick version.
Ashley blinked. "No shit?"
"Yeah. We went back in time and met the same A.I and you chopped his head off," I said.
Ashley turned now to stare at Cobalt and Maria. "This happened?"
"Can't vouch for that part," Cobalt said. "Me and my daughter are more fixed than everything around us. We remember how things were, and see how they are now, but don't actually remember any of the new timeline."
"I kissed Yvera and her local copy sort of did a data dump, which is why I remember both," I said.
"Huh," Ashley said. She didn't seem to really know what to make out of all this. I couldn't blame her. I was still trying to figure out all the ramifications myself.
The trees were grouped in a circle. I'm sure they heard all that as well, and I wondered what they thought of all this.
"So, if it changed me, like all of me, how did it do that?" Ashley asked Cobalt.
"You're asking me?"
"You aren't affected. I know there is a reason. Am I going to have to lay the same truth line on you? We're friends. Maybe you don't remember that, but I do. Please, just be honest with me."
Cobalt look torn before saying, "It's not something that's going to bring you any comfort. Reality isn't as flat as all of you like to pretend it is. There isn't a story that gets told or a game that gets played that isn't real somewhere else."
"So, you're saying what? We're just real versions of the characters our real selves somewhere else are playing?" I asked. That made my head hurt.
"Not exactly. The Crucible Shard is different from most places. It's totally not reflective our reality, but imagine that everything has a "realness" ranging from one to ten. Your reality is maybe a three while the Crucible Shard is an eight," Cobalt said, keeping a wary eye on the trees.
"So, we're playing a game more real than our reality?" I asked. My head hurt even more.
"That is closer to the truth," Cobalt said.
"But we got stat bonuses for our attunement to the real world. It makes us total badasses," Ashley said.
Maria simply stared at her.
"I know you felt like you were getting a bonus to outpower everything in the world, but has that actually been happening?" Cobalt asked.
It hadn't. I'd more than once reflected how unfair it seemed that we had all these big bonuses and the world still seemed to give us a fair fight.
"What is it then?" Ashley asked.
"You're getting a handicap. The world has recognized that you are at a considerable disadvantage and is trying to help even you out with the content," Cobalt said.
That made sense. That made a lot of sense. I thought all this time we'd been getting Gifts that made us juggernauts, and we'd failed to live up to our potential. In
stead, we were vastly underpowered and trying to get a leg-up to match the others.
"So, I'm different because the Crucible Shard's eight beats the three back home," Ashley said.
"Yes, while me and Maria are tens. The world can try to change us all it likes, but it would have to get very smart or clever to actually do something like that," Cobalt said.
"Why are you a ten?" I asked.
Cobalt gave a wry smile. "My mother. Her blood is extremely powerful. Think of her as Elven and the world that she rules a ten. She breaks the scale by being so damned real and nothing and nowhere quite compares."
It was a lot to take in, although the pieces seemed to fit. It also hurt. Nothing makes you feel quite so small and insignificant as learning that you really are small and insignificant.
Cobalt noticed my expression and held up a hand, "Don't look so miserable. The fact is that you are here and you are leveling up. Everything you've done here, every relationship you have formed and connection you have made, is all making you more real."
"Is that what happened to Yvera? She was here a long time ago, she and all those like her," I said.
"They kind of conquered the world," Ashley said.
"Of course they did. You see what I can do Liam, and that is here where things are so much more solid than most places. I can take on an army naked and do it for kicks. There, I could slaughter every man, woman, and child on the planet given a little time. There is quite literally nothing your world would be able to throw at me that could stop me," Cobalt said. The words carried no hint of doubt. No uncertainty. This was her life.
Ashley and I exchanged looks. I felt sick and she looked the same.
"I'm still not sure what that really means. In that world, we are connected to a game. What happens to us, if we logged out?" I asked.
Cobalt gave a helpless shrug. "I don't have all the answers. The you of here is now a hell of a lot more powerful than the you of there. Maybe you split in two and this you keeps going? Maybe you snap out of the game there stronger and faster, and able to throw fire."
"Can you take us there?" Ashley asked.
"Back to your world? Probably. Lea could navigate us there, but I wouldn't recommend it," Cobalt said.
"No. I want to go. Not for long, just to prove that this is all really so," I said.
"Fine," Cobalt said. "We can make a detour."
The trees rumbled and began to head back towards the forest. My threats had been accepted.
Ashley gestured and the clouds moved. Rain began to quench the fires.
"We need to rescue Yvera first, though. I'm worried about her," I said.
"Yeah. We need to make sure she is okay. I'd feel terrible, if something happened to her and we just wandered off," Ashley said. That wasn't sarcasm. She really did care. This her, the new her, got along great with Yvera. It was just another bit of strangeness to add to my life.
It was another half-hour of waiting before the Vainglory flew overhead and extended down a ladder. Lea waved from the deck and I could see Walt behind her. He was functional, at least.
It was time to find out if this side-trip had been of any benefit.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
We climbed aboard the Vainglory. We were all a little more quiet than usual, a little more thoughtful. There had been a lot of truth in a short while. More than we were comfortable with. If my time in this world was teaching me anything, it was the importance of the lies we sometimes tell ourselves.
If what Cobalt had said was true, the connections I made here were important. I was both dedicated to the idea that I should worry less about who I slept with, and wondering if there would be some kind of consequences for laying with Lake. Through that tie, I became a little more defined, and formed a connection with truth.
Consequences took many forms.
After a short time to clean up after the battle, everyone gathered on the bridge so that we might discuss our next move.
Walt had an expression that was nearly blank, but his eyes did at least seem alert.
"How are you doing?" I asked him.
"I'm both well and poor," Walt said. "You might say I've been stripped clean to my essence. There were memories that were driving me mad. They have been removed, although most of my other recollections went with them."
"So, do you know who I am?"
"I'm not suffering from full-on amnesia," Walt said. "I know who all of you are, but the knowledge almost feels second-hand. Like events I am well-removed from and only read about, instead of lived. I feel no attachment."
Well, that was weird. And off-putting. Walt might not have been a great friend, but he was a part of the group. I didn't want him mind-wiped.
"So, Lake couldn't help?" Ashley asked.
Walt shook his head. "Before, I couldn't even find a sense of self among the fragments that remained. My few remaining memories were without any consistent narrative. I am a person now, but I'm no longer who or what I was."
Ashley had been all psychopath and made herself sane. It seemed Walt hadn't been so fortunate. Although he might come out of this experience alive, I didn't think it was for the better.
"What about your connection to Mela?" I asked.
"It's there. She is brilliant, powerful, with a mental acuity and powerful creativity that lights everything around me," Walt said, and then paused. "She had thought to control me. With my mind broken, she had hoped to take me over completely. That has been stopped."
Well, that was some good news—given I could believe him. I wasn't sure that I did.
"Liam seems to have lost contact with his Goddess. Do you have any idea what is going on there?" Cobalt asked.
Walt looked down, concentrating. "Not exactly, but I believe that Mela is with her. I have a location, if that would be helpful."
"Go for it. If you know where they are, I can get us there," Lea said. "I've already tried a few scries on my own and wasn't getting anywhere."
"Mela has a workshop here. It is tremendously old. I believe it pre-dates even the Elvish presence in the area. She is there. It is a mountaintop that stands alone and not as part of a chain, tremendously tall. Somewhere to the north-east."
"Vague," Lea said, as her runes flared to life and she began to open portals. "But I can work with it. I've already been scouting terrain."
Cobalt pulled a chart out from her collection and stretched it out on a table. "It's been awhile, but that sounds familiar."
"You've been there?" I asked.
"We were close allies to the Elves. They disliked ogres even more than Leosi did," Cobalt said with a chuckle. "We were on a diplomatic mission and he tried for a grand romantic gesture, bathing in the spring runoff from some peak."
"Sounds nice," Lea said.
"Worked. Maria was conceived there," Cobalt said.
"Both uncomfortable and unpleasant to think about," Maria said.
"You have no idea. Those waters were cold. I mean delightful in some ways, but the nerves go so completely dead things just went on for hours," Cobalt said.
"Please stop," Maria said.
"Seconded. You think this mountain is the one in question?" I asked.
"Elves hated it. Steered clear of it," Cobalt said. "Part of the reason it was great to get some privacy. It's not on the map, but... heading of thirty-three degrees."
Lea flicked her hands and a portal depicting a large mountain appeared. "There it is. We're not that far at top speed. That the one, Walt?"
"That is it," Walt said.
The Vainglory at top speed could cross considerable distance quickly and soon the peak was towering outside the ship. It was a mass of solid stone reaching towards the heavens with the slopes reddish and desolate of any vegetation.
"Not much growing there," Cobalt said, glancing towards Lea. "Can you give us a closer look?"
Lea waved her hands as portals quickly skimmed before her. "I'm not getting anything from the inside. Warded against scrying. But the outside is interesting. See that big
boulder on the slope? Look at what happens when I pull a magical scan of the interior."
A glowing nimbus of blue showed through the rock. What seemed to be some sort of deformed turret.
"Gun emplacement?" I asked.
"That is my guess. Not a functional one, but that fits, if this place has been long abandoned," Lea said.
"If she decked this place out with weapons like that, it must have been a big deal to her once upon a time," Cobalt said. "I know places like this. This is the sort of place you look out from to see the whole world beneath you. My family loves to build their palaces somewhere like here."
The Vainglory circled the peak. Below us there came a rumble and a pair of massive doors opened to reveal a dark cavern inside the peak.
"An invitation?" Lea asked.
"No," Walt said. "She doesn't want us here. She is quite angry at me for bringing you."
It said a lot to me that he had. He might think no traces of our friendship remained, but he'd taken our side over that of the Goddess in his head for a reason.
"Automated then," Cobalt said. "It must be picking up the technology on the Vainglory. Nothing else like it around here, the sensors think we are some new invention of Mela's."
That would explain things. Hopefully it meant any defenses inside that might still be operational wouldn't be aimed at us.
"Shall I take us in?" Riggs asked.
"Do it," Cobalt said, and then added, "But cannon ports open and have the dimensional drive powered up. I don't like taking the Vainglory into a place where the exit can trap after us."
The Vainglory sailed into the cavern. Once we had passed through, the door behind us began to close, sealing and leaving us in complete darkness.
"Guess the lights don't still work?" Cobalt said.
"Mela's devices don't really use them," Walt said. "They can, but they don't require light to function."
Fantastic.
"Sun flares. It's a big cavern, give us two floaters," Cobalt said to Riggs.
The Vainglory pulsed as one of the cannons fired and in the air two miniature suns blossomed.