by J. Carrarn
The skeleton slowed to a walk just before it reached the treeline and then stopped.
"Ah, so I will need to traverse yonder forest? So be it!" Domain's soft laugh followed this statement, quickly increasing in volume until it became a high-pitched and manic cackle. The AI had shed its calm and collected demeanor, and deep down in its processing core, it knew something had gone terribly wrong when it had transferred itself into its new host.
Domain dodged and skipped nimbly through the forest, leaping over snapped bone branches and small fissures, while its bones cast their blue light on the white trees. He continued on through the forest like this for what seemed like hours, when a rift showed between the trees.
"Finally!"
More maniacal laughter echoed through the forest for a while, only to stop abruptly when Domain disappeared through the rift.
On the other side of the rift, the AI was spat out into a vast yellow desert. It took a look around and screamed.
"No, no! Wrong, all wrong!" It turned and jumped back through the rift, landing back in the Bone forest.
"I will find the right one. I know I will!"
Another insane burst of laughter cackled through the forest as the skeleton rushed off.
—
Galg stood in front of the stone gates that led into Skulltown.
"Let me in!" he shouted, his voice echoing up the wall.
A black skeleton guard looked down. It had glowing green eye sockets and mismatched dull grey plates across its skull.
"Who are you?"
The guard's voice drifted around Galg's head, and the skeleton snorted.
"Galg, one of Derin's party of wyrm hunters! Now let me in," he projected at the bottom of the wall, not bothering to send his voice up. It echoed around him and would be audible beyond the walls.
After a short moment, the guard's voice returned.
"Wait here."
"Bah, run all day and night, and what do you get? Still have to wait at the gate, and what does he mean by 'Wait here'? Where am I going to run off to?" Galg growled.
It took a long time before the gate finally opened. A squad of white plated skeletons led by a Blackguard stepped between the doors and blocked Galg's path.
Galg walked forward, muttering to himself. He stopped in front of the Blackguard, stopping mid-sentence.
"Stupid, stupid every- What do you want?"
The Blackguard stared down at Galg before turning to the others behind him.
"He is who he says he is."
A soft voice came from one of the white plated skeletons.
"I've seen him before, with Tatjie. I'd recognize those strange blue cracks of light anywhere."
"See? I'm famous! Now let me in already!" Galg said as he stepped around the Blackguard. A black plated hand on his shoulder stopped him.
"You are an odd one."
The Blackguard's voice sounded dull and emotionless, and it effortlessly pulled Galg back. Its dark eye sockets inspected Galg for almost a minute before the guard spoke again.
"Alright. Go to your quarters. There might still be Kaots loose in the city."
Galg nodded in annoyance, and the other released him.
"Well, thanks for the warning there, Captain Amazing. I'll just nip off then, shall I?" Galg spat. He disappeared with a buzz, reappearing a dozen yards away close to an alley. Then he disappeared again.
Like a bolt of lightning, Galg zipped through the quiet streets. Only a few plate-covered, evolved skeletons were patrolling the streets, but he paid them no mind.
"'Shut up, Galg', 'distract the giant monster, Galg', 'go and find Drys, Galg'. Bah! Ingrates!" he grumbled.
When he arrived at the city, he saw that most of the buildings, including Drys's home, were unlit.
"Perhaps he's sleeping?" Galg muttered under his breath.
He strolled up to the door of the largest and second-most important building in the city. Drys's residence. Or The Lordly Manor as Galg liked to call it. He knocked at the door for a while, and when that didn't get a reaction, he shrugged nonchalantly.
"Well, they can't say I didn't try. Now it's time for some me-time!"
Galg turned around and sauntered away, humming an oddly disjointed tune. Neither the action nor the song had been heard on the planet in a very long time. Enjoying this knowledge, he didn't see the gleaming red eyes that stared down at him from one of the nearby building roofs.
—
Solus rose from his position, overseeing the forest of stone. The rising sun basked the grey forest in its red light, shadows growing longer. Taking a last look around, he jumped from the tower. Air whistled past his head as he fell, and he quickly summoned a stone pillar below him. Although it began to crumble straight away, it managed to cushion his landing enough that he didn't destroy any of the nearby trees.
As he was still too high, he summoned another pillar, only to end up crushing it as well. After destroying four more pillars, he finally landed on the forest floor amongst the trees.
He marveled at how dense and chaotic the forest was. From the top of the tower, it had seemed orderly. Looking around, proud at what he had created, he noted the details on the small leaves and smiled happily. After drinking in the view for a while, he ran toward where the sun was rising.
He tried to dodge through the trees at first, but it slowed him down so much that he ended up running in a straight line. Crashing through the trees, he carved a straight path through the forest. It pained him to destroy what he had just created, but he was worried about Sig and the others.
There are plenty of trees anyway, he thought, trying to make himself feel a bit better.
The sun was bright yellow when he finally reached the forest's edge. After running a good distance out into the empty wasteland, he stopped to take one last look at his creation. Behind him, the forest spanned from north to south as far as he could see. Remembering the need for watchtowers, he focused. A stone tower grew up from the dust beside the forest. As tall as the one in the middle, it didn't have any glittering stones decorating it, but the walls were as thick as he could make them. Looking up at the top and then around the empty wasteland, he felt like creating more.
"Can't now… but I'll be back someday," he mumbled.
As he turned his back to the forest and began speeding across the wasteland, images grew in his mind—small stone towns of his creation that littered the wasteland, filled with undead.
After a moment of savoring the image, a realization came to him. That would only happen if he could stop the rifts. His mood darkened, becoming a volatile mix of anger and despair; it was so intense that it caused his muscles to cramp up, causing him to stumble.
He barely managed to hold out his hands to catch himself as he crashed to the ground, drawing a skidding trench through the topsoil of the wastes. In disbelief at what had just happened, he lay there, almost overwhelmed by the sudden and intense emotions.
He tried to clear his head of the chaotic emotions by shaking it, but the emotions raged on undeterred. They lasted for what seemed like a long time until vanishing as suddenly as they had come, leaving him shaken.
Scanning his surroundings, both with his eyes and his other senses, he tried to find the reason for what had just happened. There were some soft wyrm-tremors far off in the distance, and he felt a great disturbance ahead, but those were all too far away to have been the cause.
When he couldn't find anything, he got up and oriented himself.
I need to speak to Drys about this, he thought, wishing he could share his concerns.
Slower this time, he resumed his journey, focusing not only on what was going on around him but also on his own emotions.
Soon he could feel clearly what was going on ahead of him. The pounding and stomping were becoming more and more detailed. His stone-sense had grown so much clearer that he could now picture the scene in his mind. Hundreds of undead, stomping around, jumping, leaping, and screaming.
There was a battle ragi
ng ahead!
Thinking of joining them, Solus prepared for the surge of battle rage, ready to hold it at bay lest it cause another breakdown. Instead, his mind stayed calm and tranquil.
Where was his battle rage, the surging, hungering emotions that he had always felt at the prospect of fighting?
After a moment of confused contemplation, he tried to fan the flames himself, imagining tearing off limbs and slamming the enemy into the ground. His mind remained calm, and while that was a good thing compared to the turmoil he had experienced only just before, it annoyed him. He had always enjoyed the surge of emotions that came to him before a good fight. Something had changed since his recent evolution, something besides the comparatively small increases in strength and skills.
Feeling a growing uncertainty, he ran forward at a slower pace. Perhaps watching the battle would trigger his familiar battle fury and return him to some semblance of normalcy.
The closer he got, the clearer the picture became. He could see dust clouds and tiny figures clashing with each other in the distance. Flashes of light, mostly red and purple, were followed by far-off thunderous explosions.
However, none of what he was witnessing affected his calm demeanor, at least not compared to before.
When he was close enough to make out the group of undead's physical details, he noticed something hidden behind the clouds of dust kicked up by the frenzied combatants. The dust partially obscured it, and it took a moment for him to recognize what it was.
Rift!
Rage accompanied the thought, along with an all-consuming desire to destroy and wipe away the dangerous gate to another world.
For a moment, he thought that his battle rage had returned at last, but then he realized that it was something else. Instead of a desire to fight, all that was there was a deep hatred for the black, crimson-edged rift, and underlying that was fear.
With all his effort, he reined in his anger, resisting the urge to charge forward as he tried to understand the cause of the fear. It felt as if something buried deep in his mind was warning him, trying desperately to alert him to the horror it represented.
I'll figure it out later, he thought, forcefully pushing the feelings away. When his some calmness returned to him, he charged headlong into the fray.
As he ran toward the battle he focused on the two factions skirmishing with each other. The largest group were Kaots, fighting without any strategy whatsoever. Screaming, biting, and clawing, they just charged mindlessly forward, hoping to overwhelm the defenders through sheer force of numbers. They swarmed around a small wall surrounding a group of skeletons. Each time the Kaots struck at the barrier, there was a flash of bright red light, and one of the Kaots was blasted away by the resultant explosion.
The many crumpled Kaot remains revealed that they didn't seem to understand or realize that their own actions were the cause of their destruction. Their behavior reminded Solus of Sigmitons. No matter how many Kaots were destroyed, more kept coming through the rift, mindlessly charging after the others.
This is what Tirella saw, Solus knew, and the idea of it happening to Skulltown caused his concern to deepen. This must be stopped!.
He focused on the defenders. It was a much smaller party, only made up of skeletons. For a moment, Solus thought they might be from Uran's city. Then he realized none of Uran's undead were this coordinated. Grey boned, with yellow plates covering their lower bodies and forearms, they numbered only a few dozen.
The ring of defenders stood, almost touching the barrier that encircled them. They had their hands locked with their neighbors, and the yellow plates covering their arms glowed brightly. In the middle stood a smaller group, tightly packed together and also holding hands. They were staring at each other, and in their midst was a crackling ball of red energy.
As Solus slowed down, watching in amazement, he saw a red burst of lightning shoot from the ball and strike one of the Kaots. The unfortunate thing barely had time to utter an alarmed cry before it was disintegrated on the spot.
Solus kept back, carefully observing what was happening and resisting the urge to wade in and destroy the rift. One reason was that he had no idea how he would go about destroying the thing in the first place.
Counting the Kaots and watching the barrier only slightly buckle with every attack, he knew that the skeletons would have long been victorious were it not for the constant reinforcements coming through the portal.
He realized that the battle would last for a long time. Time he could ill afford to waste. He needed to get to the rift and close it. Circling the fight, he headed toward the rift.
"You! Can you assist?"
A soft projected voice spoke in his ear just as he was about to reach the black rip that seemed larger and more ominous up close.
Solus ignored the voice. His anger was becoming harder to control the closer he got to the rift. Again, the rift was half as tall as him and twice as wide. Two steps away, his mana-field began to pulsate and buckle against the negative energy coming off of the portal.
Before he realized what was going on, two undead leaped through the portal, landing within striking distance of him. He struck out at them reflexively with both of his arms. One of his blows connected, and the struck Kaot was propelled unceremoniously back through the rift. The other gracefully ducked below the blow. It was a fleshy one, thin and with long many-jointed bone limbs growing from its back. It let loose a piercing scream and began to strike at him.
Solus didn't manage to react in time, and one of the bony limbs battered at his chest. He blinked. There was no pain. Instead, it had felt like someone gently tapping him. Unfazed, he was about to launch an assault of his own when all four of his opponent's bone limbs moved so quickly that he only saw a blur of movement heading straight for his face. At the last moment, he closed his eyes, and sharp stabs hit his eyelids and face.
A twitch of fear made him jump a good distance back. Opening his eyes a crack, he saw the Kaot rush after him, the bone limbs speeding toward his eyes again. He focused, and a stone hand shot from the ground, grabbing the Kaot around its waist and raising it into the air. It began to howl and flail, striking savagely at the stone that held it. Small bits of debris flew off, and cracks appeared in the stone hand. Keeping his distance, Solus summoned more hands to bind the Kaot while also increasing the density of the one already there. At the same time, he tightened the grip. He barely noticed any effort during the whole process, but he was having more and more trouble keeping his anger under control.
Another group of Kaots poured out from the rift, and Solus loosed a deep rumbling growl while summoning more stone hands which grabbed the Kaots as they appeared. Each time a hand caught a Kaot, they threw their catch back through the rift.
Furious now, Solus stepped toward the struggling undead and struck it hard on the side of its head. The bald, wrinkled head ripped from the neck, bits of flesh flying everywhere as the head sailed through the air, bouncing a few times as it hit the ground before finally lying still.
Releasing its limp body, Solus quickly closed the gap to the rift. A dozen hands were still grabbing Kaots and flinging them back through, but some escaped their clutches or managed to dodge them and rushed straight toward him. With the roiling emotions that demanded he somehow close the rift, the added annoyance infuriated him, and finally, he couldn't hold his anger back anymore.
Drawing a deep breath, he roared at them.
"Get lost!"
A massive cone of warped rippling air stretched from his mouth. Undead, dust, and the stone arms blasted apart, almost turning to powder. Tiny pieces of bone, flesh, and stone were flung back through the rift. A hushed silence fell as he stared at the destruction.
That's new, Solus thought before his roiling emotions urged him to head to the rift.
This time he got to it before any more Kaots could come through, and he was about to examine the rift when he felt a surge from deep inside. Before he could stop it, his mana-field popped into existence,
covering the portal and a vast stretch of the terrain around him. His new racial pattern began fluctuating, the lines glowing and dampening.
Shocked, he felt his mana drain away, while at the same time, the rift began to shrink. It wasn't a large rift to begin with, only just large enough for two Kaots to jump from at the same time, but within moments it was so small just one would have had trouble squeezing through.
Under Solus's curious and amazed gaze, the rift rapidly shrank further until only a small black dot remained. He expected it to disappear, but instead, it continued to hover in place. The mana-drain ramped up, and he was about to try and stop it when the small dot imploded.
Dust, Kaot remains, and stone were all at first sucked toward it and then suddenly blasted away, leaving a small crater behind.
Solus blinked in surprise. Besides forcing him to step back, the blast had not harmed him. Still, the last drain had been so intense he shivered. There was no sign of the rift anymore, but he knew already this wasn't the ideal way of getting rid of them. It was far too dangerous and had cost too much mana.
After a second, a quick succession of zaps and screams came from behind him, and Solus swirled around. The remaining Kaots lay broken and scattered on the ground, some groaning while others tried to crawl away. The skeletons behind the greatly weakened barrier released their hands. Still glowing, they began shooting small red bursts of energy at the stunned Kaots.
Within moments, the thorough yellow plates had decimated the Kaots. When the last changed to a scarred, shivering shape, the yellow-plated undead turned to Solus.
One of the skeletons in the middle, barely distinguishable from the others, stepped forward.
"Thank you for the assistance. Now, who are you?"
Solus recognized the same emotionless voice as the one who had asked for his assistance before. He was about to answer but then stopped himself. He had no idea who these undead were, but he did have an idea of where they might have come from and whom they called master.
"Are you from Tendraal?" Solus asked.
An unheard message passed between the skeletons. They grasped each other's hands in a single fluid motion, and with a woosh, the barrier reappeared. The group in the middle raised their hands toward Solus, crackling red energy appearing.