Chandra snorted again from amusement.
The goose. Again? Artorian followed suit, eyes opening to the sight of the wrecked baths. Now that he wasn’t dazed, he could see the awful cracks and tears in space. It was like the building had smashed at speed into a cliffside. Twice.
Yuki carefully prodded him. “My Dreamer? Are you well? The fire Dreamer woke from the thought trance earlier, and vanished as Zelia does.”
He nodded, though frowned as his eyes took in further details. “Yuki, are you missing an arm?”
She calmly dipped her head to reply. “One of those splintered cords passed against my left side, and my arm instantly obliterated upon touch. I have frozen the wound, and will be fine. Are you well? Are you injured? We have many questions.”
Artorian slid from her grasp, and checked himself. Not difficult to do since a towel-wrap counted as his only clothing. “Looks like Dawn spared me from damage. I’m tip-top, save for the face that feels like it should be sore. Though, ‘we’?”
He glanced at Yuki again, this time with effort. The look of her gaze was not her own, and through the deep connections they held he discovered the truth. He could feel an awake Halcyon and concerned Zelia present in a forum space that Yuki remained connected to. He approved of the idea. Multiple minds sharing the senses of one? Clever! He liked it. “Ah, I understand. Hello, dears. I’m well. I perhaps… need some clothing, and to fetch the iridium. I’m not leaving it here.”
Yuki smiled, but now Artorian realized that it was distinctly not Yuki speaking. It was Zelia doing the talking! Well, well. That brought up the question of just who might have been talking to him before. Or were they rubbing off on one another? He’d been wondering what was off with Yuki! “Of course, my Dreamer. A yellow ginkgo leaf robe will be provided.”
Yuki blinked, and a cold veneer crawled over her features, setting deep into her expression. “The iridium? Very well. Come.”
Ha! He knew it! There she was! On his feet without a second to waste, he hurried after Yuki as she formed ice on the path below her. She was skating through the cracked, twisted, and broken halls. How novel! He’d been running along, but now that he had seen her do it… he needed to try.
It was just some water Essence, given shape as blades. Additional water Essence was released beneath the blades to allow for smoother sliding, and ‘let go.’ Ordinarily, that would have been called wasteful in a technique. Given it was Mana-powered however, the water Essence retethered into the chilly Aura that hung around her. The frozen energy returning to her with ease.
Well, then! Jumping onto the ice road she was forming anyway, he copied her technique. He eased smooth and clean into the ice tube, then immediately slipped, skidded onto his fallen face, and slid the entire pathway to the vault down in that fashion. He fumbled around, but kept slipping, entirely unable to get up without wrecking the road, which he currently didn’t want to do.
Yuki tried not to smile when she stopped at the vault doors, and watched her Dreamer slide in face-first. He wasn’t at all amused, and that made it all the better. “We have arrived.”
“You don’t say?” The tiny undertone of chagrin seeped through his words, but he pushed up properly to stand now that he wasn’t at risk of wrecking the entire half-tube. Making that trip wearing only a towel had been less than stellar. That meant this was, of course, the exact moment a spiderling popped out of slipspace with a package.
*Pop*.
Artorian sighed. “Like clockwork.”
The spiderling was ecstatic, and looked entirely human. If it wasn’t for his face dehumanizing from how giddy he was, the spiderling would have sold the ruse perfectly. Six eyes gave it away, though. “Thank you, my boy. Mind helping me get this on?”
*Kiiii*! He’d never heard a spiderling ‘squee’ before. That was new. Kind of adorable? Once clad properly in the yellow ginkgo robe, he noted that it was far softer than the original version he recalled. Ah! Spider-silk quality. Yes, that would do it. The spiderling folded out of his vicinity before he could properly thank him, but given the humanization had almost completely undone, perhaps it was for the best. Did he have fans?
Yuki had opened the massive, nine-door barred set of interlocked rooms in the meanwhile. Rather elaborate? Then again, it was supposed to be a vault, and Asgard should be realm nine? No, it was eight. Guesswork for the number of doors on his end. He dropped it. Not important.
Yuki’s voice rang from inside the vault, and Artorian hurried in. “My Dreamer? I have encountered a problem.”
Artorian saw said problem right away. *Eeesh*. Nine doors didn’t matter when they were all busted to the abyss. Good call on not leaving the cheat-metal behind. The intricate embossing he passed on the way in was artfully exotic. Asgardian culture at its finest, with matching imagery of mead halls over the ages. He saw what the specific issue was when Yuki failed to budge the Li from its pedestal. Right. Dawn had brought it down here. She could carry the thing, Yuki could not. “Allow me.”
Stepping back, Yuki gave her Dreamer the room as Artorian walked up self-made light-brick steps. He wasn’t currently tall enough to reach the pedestal. Picking the Li up, he tried to smile and show off! He got as far as a half-smile before the light frames beneath his feet shattered from the ridiculous added weight.
Yuki enjoyed another quip. “That’s twice you’ve been on your cheek today, my Dreamer. Perhaps another bath would do you well? Since you insist on using your face to clean the floor.”
Artorian responded flatly. “Ha. Ha.”
Grumbling as he got to his feet, he just kept the metal Li in hand. His scowl faded when he noticed Yuki’s quiet, worried expression as her eyes remained on a visible tear in the world. She had a question in mind, but didn’t want to voice it.
Artorian could guess what it might be, and just started answering the unspoken query. “In short, Cal, our Great Spirit, probably got hit with a rock. The place we’re in has shattered, and is healing. Slowly. The supervisors are going around to see if anything might stop or hamper that process down. My vote is to remove causes, if found. I have the sneaking suspicion I’m going to find problems on Eternium, but as I can’t seem to shift into it, it must be cut off, connection wise. I’ll find out why when I can. Marie will likely beat me to it, but my guess says it’s a Silverwood issue. In short, we’re fine. Don’t touch the wiring. Heal up.”
He somberly regarded Yuki’s wound, and grit his jaw. “I currently don’t know how to fix your arm.”
Yuki shrugged like it was no big deal, sated with the answers. “It’s but an arm. If one were to attempt to make a joke that I am disarmed, the jest would be but on the surface level. Observe. I gained this idea from a story I gathered.”
From her wounded shoulder, three Ice-mimicries of her arm burst out. She moved them with all the difficulties of a normal limb. They even combined into one, her dexterity fluid as water as she articulated her fingers. “See? No harm. I shall take to seeking these threats on Asgard. I do not wish you to see it further in this state. Leave. I will tell you when you may resume your bath.”
Artorian frowned. “Are you sure?”
The snow lady merely blinked at him, adamant. “Shoo.”
The youth surrendered, raised his hands in defeat, and *fuffed* out.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Hel was just as drab as ever. Gray here. Gray there. Gray everywhere. Tatum, would it have hurt to add a color scheme? Young Artorian kicked the ground, sending a wave of soot flying at Mach speeds. Oops. Looked like Svartalfheim was going to experience a little dark fallout. It’ll
be fi~i~ine.
Pressing a hand to his hips, he knuckle-tumbled the Li and had a cursory check around. Odd. Where were all the skeletons? Last he knew they were all h— “Sweet Cal!”
He jumped from shock. A massive steam Elemental deer had just soundlessly popped in from nowhere. Like it had slid between the layers of existence and stepped out without effort to shove its curious nose into his face. He turned, but there was a second doe, also with its nose in his face. Where did these deer come from? On second thought, a little obvious, wasn’t it? Incarnate-ranked creatures could do the layers thing. Great. At least he wasn’t getting squished purely by gravity. A nice boon.
Since the deer were being dears, he did nothing and stood there, letting his face and outfit be nuzzled, nudged, and sniffed. Well, they seemed docile enough, and the spider ginkgo did smell nice.
The deer weren’t skeletons anymore. Instead, they looked like truly souped-up versions of the original creature. When the third doe showed up with a fawn in tow, he could see that affinities were passed down through the lineage. How interesting. The initial two deer possessed serious water affinities, and that showed clear and obvious in their Incarnate forms.
He considered that these Incarnate Beasts ‘wore their power on their sleeve,’ as if to tell anything that might see them just how dangerous they were to hunt. Like some kind of fish that glowed because it was poisonous.
He wanted to pet one.
Before doing so, he thought about it twice. He was an A-ranker in an Incarnate form. These were Incarnate creatures, in Incarnate forms. Would the tier of his Law be enough to offset the difference in power? Were the deer even tied to a Law? How did this work for creatures at their level?
His questions went unanswered. All the deer scattered by folding themselves into a different layer. In the span of a heartbeat, they were all gone. What could scare off S-rankers? He closed his eyes, and inhaled sharply.
He knew. He just knew.
*Honk*?
“Makes a loud song before approaching my about-to-be-bruised butt.” Exhaling his remaining breath, he winced and looked over his shoulder. Sure enough. The all-gray multi-headed cobra-chicken horror was curiously staring him down. That only lasted a moment before recognition kicked in. Abyss. Not only did the goose remember him, but it remembered that it didn’t like him. “Well, it was nice seeing you, there’s clearly nothing wrong here so I’m just gonna go and—”
*fffffFFFFFFF*
The goose was on him like white on rice, and Wagner loudly honked with all its heads. It chased Artorian at breakneck speeds as they both took off, sending waves of soot out behind them as they passed. It didn’t seem to matter how wide Wagner’s wings spread, the air wasn’t slowing it down even a little while Artorian booked it. “Teleport, teleport, teleport! Come on. Why can’t I teleport?”
Artorian wildly dodged an incoming bite. Skidding sideways to avoid a nasty bite that would have taken his entire torso off. He hoped the soot-cloud his slide kicked up would deter the beast.
*Honk*!
It hadn’t.
“I require immediate fuffening!” Artorian didn’t even know who he was yelling to. Nobody was listening as he zig-zagged through soot dunes to avoid neck-extending goose bites. Brown flames sputtered from the mouth of one while arcs of electrified ice seared the landscape near him from another. A third was expelling copious pockets of oil, and those quickly caught fire. Igniting from the heatless brown flames. Oddly enough, the oil burned green. Those details really weren’t his problem right now. Running onwards for dear life as he tried again and again to engage his ability to fuff. This was a terrible time for this to not work! Was the goose doing this to him? Not fair!
Hadn’t he put a teleportation platform onto Hel? Yes! He had! Just the one. Where was it? Oh, how he missed dilation abilities. He could have easily… Hang on.
Who is that?
Artorian’s dead run turned from escape for dear life to an enraged charge. That was a demon. The slaughter-class infernal dropped to a knee from its arrival in Hel. It was having an incredibly difficult time just existing here.
How had it gotten to Hel? It shouldn’t have… Oh. Well. There was the teleportation pad! Active, too. Best to shut that down before annoyances occurred. Since the goose was hot on his tail, he lobbed a celestial ball at the demon’s head mid-run.
The discordant flash-bang went off right in the demon’s face as he got to his feet, becoming aware of the approaching creature that was honking discordantly. The infernal newcomer surprised the goose, who now had two unwelcome unpleasantries to deal with. “What in the name of the Saccharine Abyss is that awful malady?”
Artorian could hear it speak in its guttural tongue. He hadn’t expected knowledge of scree-scree to come in handy so soon. The demon thing had no idea what he was up against. Excellent. Oh, that was a Mage! Possessed by a demon. The Abyssalite just happened to be in charge at the moment.
The slaughter-class didn’t know what to make of the scene of a twelve-year-old being chased by a house-sized, multi-headed freak of nature. Except perhaps, to not be in its way.
Akravid the demon tried to turn and run a different way, but found himself unable. His feet had been locked in light-bricks! How in the abyss were they so heavy that even he, when merged and in control of a Mage, could not budge? The explanation that followed didn’t help one bit. “Yuki, you beautiful sculpture of a woman! It is solid! Haha!”
Artorian ran right past the rooted Akravid, who had a mere moment to complain a single syllable before Wagner tore him into misty chunks. “Observation. Incarnate creatures tear Mages to tiny giblets. Noted!”
He jumped onto the teleportation platform, the impact forcing waves of soot to roll away from his location. He victoriously punched both his arms into the air. “Ha! Success! See you later, you… Why am I not going fuff?”
*Snap*.
One blink later, and Artorian was standing like a fool in his bonfire room, his arms still raised like some kind of victor. He had been shunted back to his Core in the Silverwood Tree. “Abyss! He got me! That horrible little… my iridium! Oh, no.”
On Hel, Wagner wasn’t feeling too great.
That first bite? No problem. That skippy little annoyance? Stomachache. Something incredibly heavy had been swallowed, and the weight was unpleasant. Wagner stood, shook his feathers, and steadied. Then Wagner had a thought and flapped. Iridium began coating the outside of Wagner’s body, and a far more mechanical and shrill sound rumbled from his many throats. He wanted to sing his beautiful song, and the iridium responded to that desire. In order to make the goose sing better, it merely needed a greater range of options. To give a greater range of options, it just needed to bond with the creature. So it did.
When Wagner craned his many mechanical metal necks, all were coated in shiny, dense, Incarnate-ranked iridium. Wagner liked this feeling. It made him feel unique, and the reflection coming off his own feathers was pleasing. To anyone else, the goose appeared as some kind of house-sized golem. Monstrous and terrible. To Wagner, it was simply time to honk beautiful music! Loud enough to keep unwelcome guests away from its home.
The world was his lawn, and nobody was allowed on it!
When another demon entered through the hijacked beacon, it lived for about point two moments before death ensued. Wagner wasn’t having any of their quack, and had found out where the nuisances were coming from. Wagner thus decided to camp in this position. There would be no trespassers.
In Artorian’s bonfire space, the youth grumbled in lament and rubbed his forehead. “Lost the iridium, didn’t find out what a demon was doing on Hel. Didn’t find out why I couldn’t teleport. It was going so well! Can I just go back to having a nice bath?”
Scilla appeared with her chin pressed to her fist, her pink irises locked on his slumped form. “You sound rather… motivated… to get back and get working.”
Artorian whined. “Clearly! Though that was my only body in Cal’s Soul Space. He’
s unconscious and I’m a useless orb now. I cannot return until Cal wakes up and forms me another one. Even worse, I’ve still got no access to Eternium, and now I can’t even go check on Marie.”
*Argh*.
Scilla nodded to agree with him, like it was the truest thing ever said. “Sounds like you’re in a pickle. Would be a shame if I knew how to get you back into the Soul Space.”
The youth’s eyes sharpened to those of a veteran warrior that had just been slighted. “Young lady, don’t you toy with me.”
Scilla grinned, and winked at him. “I would never. I do actually have something in mind. But…”
Artorian’s sharpened gaze dropped, his forehead returning to the palms of his hands with a flop. “But you want me to face a regret.”
Scilla grinned wider. “Ding! We have a winner. You’re stuck anyway. Right? Motivation to go back? Well, here comes Scilla from Chasuble, with her basket full of laundry. I have one clean piece, ready for wear. If you don’t give me a hard time, I also won’t remind you that you had Zelia’s yellow robe for maybe ten minutes before you lost it.”
She pressed her cheeks against her knuckles, smushing the puff as she smirked.
“Wagner ate me!” He motioned to the wall, as if that damnable goose was hiding right on the other side. “I will just… have to be honest with Zelia.”
Scilla snapped her fingers. “Dang. Was hoping you’d try to hide it to give me an easy one. Oh well. So. Ready?”
Artorian grumbled. “Don’t have much of a choice, do I? Fine! Let’s get through the third one. Where is this one at?”
Scilla’s phantom digit appeared at her lips, rather than move her arm naturally. She was pensive a moment, but found the location. “Skyspear library.”
The youth was confused. “Skyspear library? I don’t have any regrets at the library.”
The smile he was getting back from his warden of the liminal was unsettling. “Really? Well then, this one will be quick. See you in a bit!”
Anima: A Divine Dungeon Series (Artorian's Archives Book 6) Page 29