by Ian Rodgers
Her expression brightened slightly. “Good news, though! I’m going to be sending you straight to him! Not only will he give you some information, dear Jellik, on how to control your newfound power, but he’s also found the third member of the Chosen Ones! Yay!”
The attempt at levity didn’t go over well with her audience. Dora just stared at her, unamused, and I remained still in my seat, my lack of facial features doing wonders for my own deadpan attitude I was projecting.
The Living Saintess sighed at us, then rummaged through her desk, removing a greenish blue marble I recognized as a one-use portable portal.
“This will take you directly to Celbrem’s hut in the Elemental Plane of Wind,” Shyla informed us, before tossing the item onto the floor behind our chairs. It shattered upon contact with the marble tiles, and instantly a swirling vortex the same color as the marble appeared.
“Finish his tasks, get your fellow Chosen One, then find your way to the Elemental Plane of Earth and locate Grandor. Then, once you’ve done his tasks, he’ll send you to me. At which point I will then give you tasks, and send you off to find Barron, who is the last person on the list to train you to face the Void,” she told us. She looked at me, and then Dora, with pity in her eyes. “I’m sorry for the way things have turned out. We wanted to teach each of the Chosen Ones separately, to ensure you all had individualized training. But it seems that Fate and the Void have different plans for you.”
“We’ll do our best!” I promised, trying to be cheerful. Dora on the other hand just sighed.
“I’m getting sick and tired of portals.”
We got out of our chairs and walked over to vortex, and stepped inside. Thankfully, the sensation of being turned into noodles, bent like a pretzel, fried like a slab of ugly meat, and then seasoned with All The Secrets Of The Multiverse was quite short this trip, and we were soon deposited on the lawn of a rather odd looking building.
“Are those roof tiles made out of feathers?” I asked queasily as my gooey body settled down.
“Looks like it. That’s one big chimney,” Dora commented from where she lay on her back, looking up at the house in front of us.
We just lay there for a few minutes, and let the dawn light wash over us. I felt a pang of nostalgia as I stared up at my surroundings. The floating sky islands and ever-present clouds of Aerum were a welcome sight after so much blank, featureless white and gold back in Luminoth. Not to mention the beautiful red and orange colors, courtesy of the dawn.
Which, come to think of it, was weird. Like all Elemental Planes, Aerum was not a planet, per say, but a vast, endless plane that was, if not flat, then at least infinite in all directions. If there was a sun in the sky, it was a magical construct or illusion. Where was the light actually coming from? Did Aerum and the other Elemental Planes rent sunlight from Luminoth?
“Wow, my head is full of weirdness,” I announced as this caravan of thought trundled through my mind. Dora snorted.
“What else is new?” A few minutes later she moaned and coughed and burped a bit before going still. “…I hate portals. They’re always unpleasant in some way.”
“At least you’re a solid being. I’m squishy, and made of mostly water and magic! Portals are a trippy experience for me.”
We lay there for a bit longer, staring at nothing in particular.
Chapter 6: The Third Chosen One!
We stayed where we’d been deposited on the soft grass and watched the sky brighten with the dawn. It was mesmerizing in its beauty. So calming… so soothing…
“Do you want to get up at some point?” I asked after a bit as the novelty wore off slightly. Dora thought it over for a bit before shaking her head, content to lie next to me, spread eagle on the ground.
“Nah, I think I’ll just stay here for a bit longer… gods, how long has it been since I’ve had a chance to relax?”
“We really should knock on the door, though. Let him know we’re here,” I pointed out. Dora grunted and tried to rise. Her arms flailed pathetically about in the air for a bit before she dropped them. Then, she shook her head and rolled her eyes.
“Can’t do it. Too weak and tired.”
I snorted at her antics, and decided to take over the important task of letting Celbrem the Silent Storm, one of the Six Heroes of Chaos, know we’d arrived. I grew an extra long tendril that reached up and grabbed the brass door knocker attached to the hut’s front door.
After rapping on the door for a few seconds it rapidly swung open. The sudden motion surprised me, and caused my body to go flying towards the entrance since my tendril was still grabbing the door knocker.
“About time you got…” the Grand Elf wearing fancy mage robes on the other side began, before he received a face full of purple goo.
Dora laughed wildly from where she lay on the lawn as she watched a legend scramble desperately at his face, trying to pull me off, and from the inside I heard a howl of laughter that was very deep and masculine in tone. And in the distance, I heard a chirping sound that very much sounded of mirth. Even the birds of the Elemental Plane of Wind were laughing!
I peeled myself from Celbrem’s face and quickly uttered an apology. The elf waved it off, face red as he sucked in precious air.
“Just try not do that again,” he scolded, before sending a piercing stare Dora’s way. She cheekily waved back, a wide grin on her face.
“Hey there. You have a nice, soft lawn,” she complimented him. The famous elf snorted and waved his hand at her in response, but it was not to return the half-orc’s gesture of greeting. Instead, she lit up as a blue-green aura wrapped itself around her, and to her immense surprise she found herself floating up and into the house.
“I swear, it’s as if Fate chooses Chosen Ones solely to make my life more difficult,” I heard him mutter as he levitated Dora inside. “First Barron, now these three? The gods will be merciful if these are the last ones I’ll have to deal with for the next few millennia…”
He glanced down at me as Dora floated by. “Close the door,” he instructed me, and I did so, once the half-orc Healer was planted on the hard stone floor of the hut.
“Introductions are in order, I suppose,” Celbrem said, folding his arms. “You know me already, I hope. Celbrem Yuliot Silverray, also known as the Silent Storm. I was part of a motley band of heroic fools who ended up being known as the Six Heroes of Chaos for reasons myself and the rest of us will never let Barron live down.”
A smirk crossed his face as he recalled the past. He then shook his head, and pointed to me. “Speak!”
“Um, hello, my name is Jellik, though my friends call me Jelly,” I said, waving a tendril in the air. On a couch that was shoved up against the wall, a person wearing very fancy black full plate armor waved back. This figure also had a purple cape that glowed with enchantments, and a silver halberd that radiated divine energy. He also had a modest golden crown attached to his helmet, which was oozing Light magic.
“I’m, uh, a Royal Ooze who was blessed by the Roan family’s Miraculous Mystery Bloodline Trait and given a soul and mind of my own. And, also, I’m the Herald of Nia’s Chosen Ones. Nice to meet you all.”
“Hey there, Jellik! Hey there, beautiful green woman! I have no idea who I am!” the man in black armor said cheerfully. Dora and I stared at him for a bit, confused by how nonchalant he was acting. Dora’s cheeks had a faint reddish blush to them, though. As one, we turned to look at Celbrem, who sighed with a shake of his head.
“No idea,” the Grand Elf admitted. “He turned up on my doorstep last night, and it’s clear he has amnesia. Plain old boring head trauma-based amnesia. No memory charms, or curses, that I could detect.”
“But, it’s clear that he’s supposed to be the Paladin for your little group. The armor, the weapon, the lack of magical talent… it all fits!” Celbrem declared. He then shouted at the man, “And take off your helmet when speaking to others! Stop putting it back on all the time!”
“But I feel more co
mfortable when I’m wearing my armor…” the person complained, but he still did as his host commanded.
The helmet was removed, revealing a fairly young-looking brown-haired man. He couldn’t have been older than twenty! He did have a scar on his cheek and I could glimpse scar tissue around his neck. In fact, it almost looked like someone had snapped it, only for powerful magic to heal the injury before it killed him!
Dora noticed as well, and her eyes narrowed. her gaze alternating from the wounds around his throat, to the crown-like headpiece on the helmet. She too sensed the magic in the artifact.
A loud, intrusive cough cut through the silence, and Celbrem glanced at Dora. The Healer rolled her eyes but complied, sitting up off of the floor.
“Hey there. I’m Dora Halfmoon. As you can see by the robes and minty green coloration, I’m a half-orc Healer. I have only a tiny inkling about what’s going on with my life right now, but since a Paladin and a Herald have been mentioned, I guess I’m supposed to be the Cleric of this little group,” she said as her introduction. “And I could probably heal his amnesia fairly quickly.”
“Did Shyla send you with a memory recovery spell?” Celbrem asked eagerly, but Dora shook her head.
“No. I have something better,” the half-orc replied with a smirk. She rose from her spot on the ground and walked over to the unknown Chosen One who simply watched her with a smile.
“You’re sure it’s a purely mundane issue, and not a magic one?” Dora asked carefully as she performed an Analysis spell on the brunet’s head, and the famous wizard nodded.
“Absolutely. No hint of magical interference at all. In fact, I’d be surprised if anything less than a Level Seven spell could even get through his thick adamantium full plate,” Celbrem stated, walking over to his male guest and rapping a knuckle on a pauldron. “This is Berserker armor, made from the finest black adamantium the dwarves can dig up, and further reinforced by runes of magical resistance.”
“Hang on, Berserker armor? I think I recall reading something about that in the papers while I was in Drakon,” I mused. “Didn’t someone claim a suit of Berserker armor after discovering the long-lost tomb of the Hero-King?”
“Oh, yeah, that’s right, that did happen!” Dora said, snapping her fingers as she remembered as well. “Even I heard about that back in the Cracked Land! Some adventurers, one of which was a princess trying to reclaim the throne of her homeland after she was chased out by an evil relative or something, found the entrance to the tomb and claimed it as their own! That was, oh, about a year ago, last time I checked.”
I gasped in shock and everyone turned towards me. “Wait, a year ago?! Dora, what year was it when you left?”
“Uh, I got sent to Targua and the Aether in the late summer – or was it early fall? – of 3312 AC. Can’t recall the exact date. Wasn’t really paying attention to it, either, since I’d been busy trekking through a jungle at the time,” she revealed.
“I’ve been gone for over a whole year?! But that-! No, it hasn’t been more than four months since I left in the late spring of 3311 AC!” I panicked. Could my internal clock have failed?!
Celbrem nodded his head solemnly, a look of sympathy crossing over his face.
“You’ve just encountered one of the many unpleasant facts about traversing the Aether,” the mage said. “Time flows erratically within its domains. The Elemental Planes are more stable than some of the other realms and dimensions, but a day here can end up being two or more back on Erafore.”
“That can’t be,” I muttered to myself in disbelief.
“I fully understand your pain. Though in your time construct it’s been a mere four hundred years since I last stood on my homeland’s soil, for me, I’ve endured over a millennium of relative time trapped in the Aether, unable to escape or do much of anything,” Celbrem revealed, his expression pained and bitter. “The Void’s curse is strong. Sometimes I wish it had simply killed us instead of damning us to live a life like this!”
The Grand Elf saw the incredulous looks Dora and the unnamed brunet were giving him, and shook his head, grief on his face.
“Zard, that damned prisoner, cursed the six of us with terrible fates,” the hero revealed. “First, was to be trapped here, in the Aether, for eternity. No easy death or trip to the Afterlife for us! Furthermore, we can barely move between the Elemental Planes we were initially deposited in. Lastly, he cursed the six of us to embody our nicknames and titles. Dorsed constantly weeps, unless he is in the presence of one of us, a being strong enough to overpower the curse temporarily, or a Chosen One. Danica must always laugh or try to make others smile and laugh unless she too is near one of the conditions that makes Dorsed stop crying. I myself cannot speak unless the same conditions are met!”
“Each of us six were damned by the Void in various ways. Be glad that you have us to teach you how to avoid this fate,” Celbrem stated. “So get over losing a mere year! Suck it up!”
I winced at his command. Just ignore that I’d effectively been gone for a whole year? What about Liliana and the rest? Were they worried about my disappearance? My lack of contact?
“I-I don’t know if I can do that,” I stammered weakly. Celbrem shook his head in disappointment, and had the look of someone about to launch into a scolding rant, but it was the armored amnesiac who spoke up next.
“Look, I might not be the best person to give advice, seeing as how I know only three things: I can fly with my cape, I fight with a halberd, and I hate birds.” I stared at him, and Dora was eyeing the man like he had more than just amnesia wrong with his brain. But the brunet went on, “As such, be glad you can even remember the people you love enough to worry about them. And as long as they too remember you, then I’m sure they’re worried as well.”
“Surprisingly insightful from the man who spent a whole hour shouting at the birds that fly past the window,” Celbrem muttered. The elf then looked at me, his ears twitching slightly. “But yes, he’s right. Get yourself together. Are you an Ooze who’s going to hide and sulk when things go bad, or are you an Ooze that’ll face the problems?”
As the legendary mage muttered ‘I can’t believe I’ve had to give a pep talk to an Ooze!’ under his breath to himself, I bobbed slowly in acceptance.
“Fine. I can’t change the outcome, anyway,” I sighed. Dora grinned.
“That’s the spirit! Accept the futility of life! Do it, and join us!”
The young man laughed and echoed, “Join us!” in a faux-spooky voice. I chuckled with them before asking Dora,
“So, when can you fix our new friend’s head?”
“Give me a few diamonds, and I should be able to do it,” Dora said after a moment of thought. “Or an opal, if you have one.”
“I have both, take your pick,” Celbrem said, waving a hand and the drawers on a table slid open, revealing a king’s ransom in sparklingly beautiful precious stones within. Dora’s jaw dropped, as did Mr. I-Don’t-Know-My-Name’s.
“Shiny,” I said appreciatively, and Celbrem waved it off.
“They’re just ordinary jewels. No magic in them at all, save for a touch of ambient energy drawn from Aerum. They should be perfect to use as spell catalysts, Miss Dora.”
“Err, thank you,” the half-orc said nervously, walking over to them and plucking out a diamond and opal, both finely cut, and the size of an apple seed.
“This should be plenty,” she announced as she returned to the amnesiac, who watched with interest. “And it shouldn’t hurt, either. Just to double check, how long ago did you suffer memory loss?”
“Err, maybe a day ago? It was light out when it happened, but I found my way here when night rolled around,” he explained.
“He’s been in Aerum for exactly twenty-six hours,” Celbrem announced. When we all looked at him curiously, he held up a magnifying glass that had a bunch of additional lenses, along with numerous runes. “This tool can examine the auras of objects. Using it on the boy showed he’d been in the Aether for only
a short while, since the ambient mana had only just begun to settle on and around him, and the amount of Wind element residue on his armor revealed he’d been in the Elemental Plane of Wind for that amount of time.”
“Alright, twenty-six hours,” she murmured. “Better add a couple minutes just to be safe. Maybe a whole hour.”
Then, with the tiny opal in her right hand, and the diamond in her left, she placed her fists against the scarred young man’s temples and began to chant.
“I do not fear death,” Dora intoned, and I could feel the words of the chant stirring the magic within and without her, and the very air itself quivered from the power of the words. “‘I do not fear its embrace. I fear time. I fear failure. I fear not having lived a life worth living.”
As she spoke, I watched with my magical vision as the energy pouring out of her was absorbed into the two gemstones she held, then transmuted into a force of nature that swirled around the young man’s head. It was beyond fascinating to watch as the magical power began to unravel the damage done to his brain.
“And it is this fear that drives me ever onwards. Do not despair! I am not judgement, merely justice. I am not hate, but love. Give everything and expect nothing. Life and Death dance together in the eternal song of Existence. Restore!”
The two jewels disintegrated in her hands, becoming dust, which then transmuted into motes of pure white light that dove into the patient’s head. As I observed him, I was able to see a spark of life and understanding enter his eyes. At that moment, I knew he’d recovered what he’d lost.
Dora then muttered another incantation, and the excitement faded from the patient’s eyes, replaced by tiredness. He yawned and was soon asleep.
“His brain needs time to sort the restored memories and integrate them with the ones he’d made while the rest were missing,” she explained. “Standard practice for memory loss patients. Though since I used such a powerful spell to fix him, and he doesn’t have all that many new memories, I doubt he’ll be asleep for more than an hour.”