Nothing but bones 2: The chaos rifts

by J. Carrarn

  He knew he had to stop before his energy got too low, but he also knew if the pillar did fall, it might not matter. Suddenly a soft, soothing wave of energy flowed through the rock. It knit the pillar back together, holding it long enough for them to slide further down.

  Tirella's manipulating it, he thought, marveling at how the rock moved as she altered it. He had never seen anyone else mold the stone, and from an outside perspective, it looked incredibly complex. Her mana was swirling around the pillar, weaving intricate patterns as it manipulated the stone.

  Seeing the wreckage of the building and the hole in the middle get closer, he had an idea.

  "Make a tunnel down as deep as you can!" He roared.

  There was no reply, but the stone around the hole changed, smoothing over before another hole appeared just moments before he hit the ground. As he slid inside, the world lit up in a green radiance of stone. The tunnel below became narrower in the distance.

  "I can't keep this up for much longer!" Tirella yelled in a strained voice.

  "Just make it as deep as you can, then slope it off away from the city until it becomes level!" Solus shouted.

  "You think?" Tirella shot back, her voice coming from almost right behind him.

  They slid down, the tunnel becoming so narrow that Solus felt his shoulders scrape the sides. He didn't say anything, though, hearing Tirella gasp behind him. He could sense that the control she had over the stone was fluctuating. After a while, the tunnel began leveling off, and it didn't take long for them to come to a stop.

  Getting up and trying to focus, Solus carefully enlarged the room. He didn't want to spend any more energy than he needed to.

  He sealed the tunnel above them before turning to the others. Tirella was on her back, Sig lying partially across her stomach, unmoving and probably unconscious. Tatjie was still under his arm.

  They had made it! He sighed in relief, but then it hit him.

  "Where is Derin?"

  Warzone

  "..w… wha-t... happened?"

  Tatjie's groan broke the momentary silence of the dark room.

  Shocked back to the present, Solus stopped paying attention to the muted explosions that were coming from above as he turned to Tatjie. She was sitting up, the soft green glow of the stone walls illuminating her ravaged body. The entire front of her chest was bruised and battered, and she spoke through broken teeth with a slight lisp.

  She lives up to her class name. Immovable indeed, he thought. Too bad her body couldn't handle it when she went up against something stronger than herself. He thought back to the fight they had gotten into after he had helped her evolve. No matter how hard he had struck her, she wouldn't move a step back, leaving her body battered and broken.

  "We are underground, and Tendraal seems to be under attack by Kaots," Tirella answered Tatjie's question.

  Tirella sat cross-legged in the middle of the room, a ball of stone in her hands. The shadowy stone groaned and cracked as it morphed and swirled constantly.

  "...what? It's dark..." Tatjie groaned. She stood up and swayed, looking like she could topple over at any moment.

  Tirella put the stone away and rushed toward her side, supporting her. "Stop moving around! We don't know exactly what's going on, but-"

  Listening to Tirella explain things to Tatjie, Solus examined Sig again. The wraith lay motionless beside him, still unconscious. He had been like this since they had gotten here. Putting his hand on the other's chest, Solus felt the faint mana swirling deep inside. Sig wasn't in any danger, but if he didn't get more mana, and soon, he would fall into a torpor that would take him a long time to recover from.

  I must have looked like this, Solus thought, as he remembered how Domain had left him to the wyrms. The memory of the AI's treachery brought a simmering rage with it. He had plenty of time to think while he had been imprisoned in Scathia's tower. Time to worry about the future, time to plan. One of the things that he had thought about was what Domain had been up to since his betrayal.

  The last time anyone had seen the duplicitous AI had been just before Sig had evolved. With his darkhunter body so damaged, he must have either found a Kaot or taken possession of Galg or Sumil.

  Neither of the two possibilities were very appealing, and Solus worried for Sumil's safety.

  Solus's fingers instinctively flexed, and he squeezed the green stone in his hands. As they had tumbled down, he had somehow managed to hold on to it. He gripped it harder, and the smooth material easily resisted the pressure he exerted. He looked down at the intricate weave of crystalline structures. It reminded him of gold, but this was much harder to shape with his abilities.

  As he pondered the material, other thoughts passed through his mind. Especially the strength of the undead and Kaots he had come across in his recent travels kept popping up, and with these thoughts came apprehension about his inability to stop them.

  Sighing, he gazed at the clump of green, and an idea came to him. A grin slowly spread over his face as he focused on the stone. Ever so slowly, its form began to change. As he shaped it, he felt small pockets and cracks inside the stone, and with an incredible effort, he managed to smooth them out. Although it was difficult, it didn't cost him much mana. It did, however, take a long time to get the material to respond to his wishes.

  When he had finally finished, a large hammer lay in his palms. Its haft was as long as his arm, and the head was massive, bigger than his head. He raised it in front of him, feeling its weight. His grin widened. It had been a long time since he had gone into battle wielding anything but his fists. The stone hammers he had created in the past had proved the usefulness of weapons, as long as they didn't shatter on first impact, of course.

  A loud rumble from the city above shook the cave; small bits of the ceiling flaked off and dropped to the floor.

  He had come here looking for a way to close the rifts, but it seemed that he had once more been fooled. Scathia probably didn't know how anyway; she only seemed concerned with consolidating her own power by evolving into a Litch, whatever that was.

  Solus looked up and grimaced. It's time to head back to Skulltown, he thought. The knowledge that the whole trip was mostly a waste annoyed him, and the fact that they couldn't even leave right away made it worse.

  Before they headed back, they had to find Derin. The zombie had proven to be resourceful, trustworthy, and loyal. Qualities that he was starting to realize were more desirable than just having strong allies.

  Checking his energy levels, he sighed in frustration at how slowly they were regenerating. Most of his mana was being re-routed to repairing the damage he had sustained during his capture and subsequent torture. He couldn't leave yet.

  He remembered the previous times he had gotten badly hurt— first by Domain and then by the lake of molten rock and the odd beings that had called it home. His mana regeneration had ceased entirely at those times. Luckily, nothing like that had happened this time. He could feel the constant, if slow, increase in mana. If he could sit here and rest for a few days, he would probably be good as new. He looked at Tatjie and the unconscious Sig. They didn't have a few days.

  "Tatjie," he said, finally coming to a decision and stepping forward. "Stay with Sig and keep him safe. Nothing should be able to get to you down here, so rest and regenerate."

  She opened her mouth to complain, but after a brief moment seemed to think better of it and just nodded. This simple gesture caused her to lose her balance, and she had to clutch at Tirella to remain upright. After almost falling over, she inhaled deeply and laid down, closing her eyes.

  Solus turned to the opposite wall and created a tunnel that led up to the surface at an angle.

  "Let's see if we can find Derin. Hopefully he's still in one piece," he said to Tirella as he headed up into the tunnel.

  Tirella came after him, and they walked side by side in silence. Solus could feel that she wanted to ask him something.

  "Surely, you could easily get us to the surface wit
h your platform trick?"

  "I could, but I have little mana remaining, and it's regenerating as we walk," Solus said, wondering if that was what was truly vexing her.

  "I absorbed most of those wyrm orbs…" Tirella said, the words lingering in the air like a question.

  Solus didn't reply, curiously waiting for her to continue.

  "According to my status window, my mana-field and physical density are 16100/17000 and 12000/12000 now. That means that I should be almost ready to evolve again, right?"

  Solus started, stumbled, and almost fell over. So fast!? Why do they keep telling me these things while I'm walking? He thought, shocked at how strong her mana-field was.

  Examining Tirella, who quietly stared at him, he was curious to see how strong she had become. The values she just mentioned so offhandedly were as high as his own before the World Elemental had tampered with his pattern. Had she been holding herself back while fighting? If she had the same earth affinity as him, didn't that mean she should be just as capable at shaping stone? Then he remembered some of the red skeletons with fire affinity. Not all of those were equally strong, so something else might be going on.

  Tirella's stare had turned into a frown, and he quickly nodded his affirmation. "One more wyrm mana-orb should get you there."

  Tirella nodded, and they continued forward. He felt the turmoil in her increase until she suddenly stopped.

  Solus turned and looked at her, wondering what she wanted to know.

  "Why did Scathia tell those skeletons to grab me?" Tirella's face remained emotionless as she stared at him.

  A sharp tremor caused them both to grab for the walls for support.

  Glad her question wasn't difficult, Solus turned back and started walking again. "She wants our mana-orbs..." he stopped as he remembered how Scathia had referred to their orbs. "Well, she said she wanted a mana-core, but I-"

  Tirella drew in a breath, and Solus stopped mid-sentence and looked at her.

  "Do you know what a mana-core is?" he asked, curious.

  Tirella didn't respond right away, and when she did, she sounded lost in thought. "I remember the word… when I was in Bastion, there were rumors floating around, but because I wasn't like I am now, I didn't understand. But I remember."

  When she continued, Solus had to strain to understand her whisper.

  "When the first huge rifts opened, enormous Kaots erupted out of them. They were almost the size of Wyrms and just as unintelligent and ferocious. They immediately began to mindlessly charge Bastion's walls.

  Although large, their tendency to charge headfirst at things made us believe that we could still defeat them, and Jagged fought one. The battle lasted for a long time, and as it continued, the vast difference in strength became more and more obvious. In the end, battered and wounded, Jagged emerged victorious..." Tirella's voice trailed off as she gazed off into the tunnel ahead.

  "I was the only one still there to witness it. The rest had been caught in the crossfire, crushed, ripped apart, or otherwise ended… So, I was the only one who saw how Jagged, barely still functioning, ripped open the Kaot's enormous head and crawled inside. When he came back out, he was carrying a big, angular mana-orb. As we dragged ourselves back to Bastion, I remember him muttering that he wasn't able to absorb it. Later, the rumors began, and the name mana-core began popping up. No one knows who named it that..."

  As Solus listened to her, something nagged at the back of his mind. What she described sounded familiar. A large, angular mana-orb... When she mentioned Jagged hadn't been able to absorb it, he suddenly remembered.

  At the end of the battle for Skulltown, he had found a similar orb in the massive Wyrm. It had been attached to its insides with odd fleshy tendrils, and neither he nor Drys had been able to absorb it. After experimenting with it for a long time, Drys had grown annoyed with its reluctance to reveal its secrets, and so Solus ended up storing it away in his tower. As far as he knew, it was still there, forgotten and gathering dust, buried beneath the other things under one of his tables.

  "Solus?" Tirella asked, louder this time. He realized that he had been lost in thought and that she had called his name a few times before.

  He frowned. Should he tell her? He remembered how he had been attacked by those he had thought were his allies: Silt, then Domain. He hesitated, then recalled something. He hadn't really trusted Domain from the start. The AI had somehow always seemed untrustworthy, but he had somehow forgotten that as time had passed. Tirella, however, had never given him that feeling. It was more the other way around. He felt a sort of kinship with her.

  Turning to look at her, he saw she was staring at him intently. She had had many opportunities to harm him, or even end him, yet she hadn't. The feeling of distrust faded, and he grinned at her.

  "I have one of those things," he said.

  "A mana-core?" Tirella said, stunned.

  "Yes. One of the enormous Wyrms I fought had one." Solus's mind spun as he realized something. "That means the big one back in that ancient city would have one as well, probably many times bigger than the one I have back in Skulltown," he said unenthusiastically. He vividly remembered the size of that Wyrm. He would prefer not to have to tangle with it.

  Silent again, they continued forward, both mulling over the possibilities.

  "We could tell Scathia…" Tirella said softly, sounding uncertain.

  Solus stopped and turned around. "What? Why?" He felt his previous doubts about her resurface, and it took him more effort to push them down.

  Tirella looked at him with her pitch-black eyes, and a nasty smile came to her face.

  "Then we could try to trick her into coming with us or telling us how to use it to stop the rifts."

  Solus's eyes widened, and his doubts snuffed out. The constant flickering of them was starting to annoy him, though. Staring into her intense dark eyes, he felt the same kinship as before, telling him to trust her. A wide smile grew on Tirella's face, and he blinked, turned, and coughed.

  "Yes, yes. That's a good idea."

  He increased his pace, trying to understand what was wrong with him. Every time he was with Tirella, he felt distracted, his emotions almost impossible to control but not like the anger he felt when that shadowy Kaot was around. It perplexed and unsettled him.

  He increased his pace.

  "We need to hurry," he said, more to himself than to her. A confused, startled reply came from behind, and he could feel the distance between them grow as he sped up.

  He continued running until the light at the end of the tunnel became bright. The dull sound of the din of battle came from the tunnel entrance, and the ground shook and shuddered.

  Is it daytime already?

  He didn't think they had been down here for that long. He slowed down and stopped a small distance from the entrance. Loud thudding came from beyond, and he saw Tirella following him. She didn't seem tired, but when she looked at him, she frowned.

  Ignoring her look, Solus pointed to the exit. Dark, thick clouds drifted through the sky.

  "Get ready to fight," he said as he stepped out of the tunnel. They were still within the walls of Tendraal and a few feet from the nearest buildings. The muted sounds of fighting blossomed into a loud cacophony of explosions, screams, and roars.

  A strong wind was blasting bone dust and pieces of bone debris against his chest. The once chaotic and magnificent city of Tendraal had turned into a mass of ruined and fallen buildings. Something had flattened the area in front of them, towering stacks of crumbled bone blocking their line of sight.

  A short distance to one side was a still-standing section of buildings, and Solus saw dozens of undead in the window openings, peering out into the city. They were all looking at something in the distance, and despair was evident on the faces of the zombies and other fleshies.

  "How are we going to find Derin in this mess?" Tirella asked, raising her voice so Solus could hear her.

  "Let's get to the high ground first. I've got an idea!
" Solus replied, his deep rumbling voice hard to understand amidst the sounds of destruction.

  They moved toward the still-standing building, jumping over the piles of broken bone.

  When they had reached the top of a partially intact building, Solus turned to look out across the city. He took a step back, his eyes widening in shock. Enormous winged undead creatures soared through the air, shooting ragged balls of red crackling energy at the tiny figures that fled below them. Each spot they struck exploded, bone shrapnel shooting outward as buildings crumbled.

  They were almost at the foot of the mountain, and as he surveyed the battlefield, he saw that only two of the three towers that had held up the immense skull still stood. A dozen of the flying things were clinging to the sides of the remaining towers.

  "What in all of the hells are those things?" Solus muttered. If Tirella had heard him, she didn't reply, and when he turned to look at her, he saw she was looking at the flying monsters, shocked. Her face was slack, her mouth hanging partially open.

  "Tirella?" Solus said, reaching out to shake her shoulder.

  She shuddered and jumped back, at the same time slapping his arm away. Then she blinked and looked around.

  "It's just like Bastion!" she growled, turning once more to stare at the flying things.

  "Those were the first to arrive. Ygdra, they called them. They flew over the walls, destroying parts of the city before we managed to dispatch them all."

  "How long after these Ygdra came did the massive ones arrive?" Solus asked, watching the flying monstrosities as they continued chasing the undead. One dove down and came back up with a tiny figure in its claws. Seeing the yellow plates, Solus shivered as he got a grasp of the flying thing's size. They were almost the size of Wyrms!

  "I don't remember, exactly. My memories of that time are a bit fuzzy, but not long. A day or two?"

  Two of the Ygdra fired a volley of energy at a larger building, bringing it and a whole network of smaller structures around it crashing down. The thunderous sound of the destruction interrupted them, and then a shockwave of bone dust followed it, washing over them, almost knocking them over.