“That should be more than enough,” the revenant says.
“So, what do I do with these points, then?” I say.
“First of all, you’re going to need to get as close as you can to the place where the God of Time first materialized into this world,” the revenant says.
“Oh, okay,” I say. “Melindra, can you—”
Before I even got to start my sentence, Melindra had already cast her magical air currents on me, which are now slowly raising me into the air.
“Yeah, that’s what I wanted to ask,” I say. “Thanks!”
I then raise my arms in the air, and I fly all the way up to where the God of Time was floating when he first made his appearance.
“Alright, I’m here,” I say, as I stop in mid-air and turn towards the revenant. “Now what?”
“Now I want you to focus hard, and to tell me if you can hear some very faint echoes, coming from that area,” the revenant says. “Given that this is the place where the God of Time first made his link to the Magium, there should be a small, invisible rupture in space and time, through which it’s possible to hear our own voices, coming from the future. You won’t be able to hear them unless you block out all other sounds with your mind, and focus exclusively on those voices. Can you do it?”
“I’ll try,” I say.
“Take your time,” the revenant says. “The second stage of the ritual is still a long way from beginning.”
As I block all of the sounds around me and focus only on this small area, like the revenant said, I suddenly become aware of some barely audible voices, which are all talking at the same time. It’s already difficult enough to actually hear the voices, but to also be able to make out what they are saying, I’m going to require a lot more concentration than this. I start to focus even further, until I’m able to separate what each person is saying. I manage to identify a few dialogues this way, but after a while, I get a very intense headache, and I am forced to stop.
“Is everything alright?…” the revenant asks me, as she sees me massaging my forehead, while I’m keeping my eyes closed.
“Yeah,” I say, as I’m still trying to recover from the pain. “I just got a sudden headache, that’s all.”
“If you needed to focus so hard that you got a headache, then you shouldn’t force yourself any longer,” the revenant says. “We wouldn’t want you to faint of exhaustion in the middle of the ritual. Did you manage to find out anything useful?”
“Yes,” I say, as I slowly stop massaging my forehead and open my eyes to look at her. “There was a woman whose voice I couldn’t recognize, gloating about the fact that she had cast some sort of spell on you, to prevent you from concentrating on freezing time. That’s about all the useful information I had time to gather, before the headache hit me.”
“A spell that would prevent me from freezing time?” the revenant says. “It must be a dizziness spell of some sort. Does anyone here know how to cast any magical protections against dizziness?”
“Yes, I do,” Illuna says. “However, I should warn you that this spell will also make you vulnerable to suggestion spells. Do you still want me to cast it on you?”
“If it’s the only spell against dizziness that you have, then yes,” the revenant says. “I’d rather protect myself against a known threat, than worry about a threat that may never come.”
“Very well,” Illuna says.
She then points her palms towards her and says an incantation, as a white light surrounds the revenant for a few seconds, which then disappears almost as quickly as it appeared. In the meantime, I head back towards the ground, and as soon as I land, the air currents around me stop moving completely.
“It’s done,” Illuna says. “I finished casting the spell.”
“Well, that’s… something, I guess…” Daren says. “But I was hoping we could find some way to stop the next trial from happening altogether, instead of just gaining a small advantage. Revenant, couldn’t you try to unfreeze the time for the world around us, and see if that cancels the ritual?”
“The time-freezing spell around us was cast without my control, so I can’t undo it,” the revenant says. “I’m not sure if you realized this, but the time got frozen long before I first appeared in front of you. Up until recently, your group has also been frozen in time, along with the rest of the world, while I’ve been in that trance, walking for days, until I managed to reach you. The time only got unfrozen for you when I was close enough to deliver the prophecy.”
“Hold on, a second,” Arraka says. “You’re saying that this is the first group you’ve visited, since you entered your trance?”
“Yes, I’m quite certain of it,” the revenant says. “Why do you ask?”
“Ahahahahahaha!” Arraka laughs all of a sudden. “So, you’re telling me that these chumps are the ones who are the most likely to influence the prophecy? Ahahahahaha! That’s it. Pack your bags, everyone. This continent is doomed!”
“What is she talking about?” Daren asks Melindra, as Arraka is still laughing in the background. “Why would we be the ‘most likely’ to influence the prophecy? Are there others who will be receiving the same prophecy after us?”
“Yes,” Melindra says. “You are only the first group to be visited by the time weaver. Once the God of Time is done with his ritual, you will be frozen in time once more, and then the prophecy and the ritual will be repeated for other groups of people as well. Not only that, but this same prophecy will be delivered to you and the others at least two more times, before the events prophesized will come to pass, in order to announce you if any progress has been made, towards your goal of averting the disaster. The reason why Arraka said that you were the most likely ones to influence the prophecy is because the time weavers always visit their targets in order of priority, which means that your group may have the most decisive role in the events to come, depending on your choices.”
“Huh…” Daren says. “I’m not sure if I should be feeling reassured that we will be having a good chance of stopping the calamity, or worried that we’ll likely be right in the middle of it, when it happens. Either way, we shouldn’t be thinking about that now. What we should be focusing on is trying to interrupt the ritual. If the revenant doesn’t have any more ideas, then maybe it’s time to take matters into our own hands. Hadrik, come with me for a second. I want you to help me take a look around, and see if we can spot something out of the ordinary.”
“Alright,” Hadrik says. “Lead the way.”
“Did you really walk all the way here without any rest?” Flower asks the revenant, worried, as Daren and Hadrik are moving away from us. “Aren’t you tired? Don’t you need to eat?”
“I am undead, so I require neither food, nor rest,” the revenant says, in her usual expressionless tone. “However, even if that were not the case, the trance that I was in earlier would have shielded me from any such problems. When you are inside the trance, your body is practically put in a magical stasis, of sorts, and all of your bodily functions are put on hold, until you are out of that stasis. If it weren’t for the God of Time intervening in the middle of these prophecies, I probably wouldn’t even have remembered that any of this has happened.”
“Oh, I see…” Flower says, not being sure how to interpret the revenant’s complete lack of emotion when talking to her. “Uh, sorry to have bothered you…”
The revenant looks at Flower, surprised, seemingly unable to understand why she apologized to her, all of a sudden. For a second there, it looked as if she were about to ask her what was wrong, but ultimately, she decided against it.
“Hey, Flower,” I say.
“Yeah?” Flower says.
“Just so you know, the revenant wasn’t bothered by you, or anything,” I say. “It’s just the way she talks, due to being an undead. You should probably ignore her tone of voice altogether, if you want to avoid any more misunderstandings.”
“Oh!” Flower says, as she suddenly turns towards the revenant. �
��Sorry! I thought you were mad at me for asking stupid questions. I didn’t mean to upset you!”
“You did not upset me,” the revenant says. “And you weren’t asking stupid questions.”
“Glad to hear it!” Flower says, with a smile.
She then approaches the revenant, and holds out her hand to her.
“Friends?” Flower asks her.
“I… already said earlier that if the God of Death were to order me to kill you, I would—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Flower says. “We can still be friends despite that fact! But only if you want to, of course…”
The revenant hesitates for a second, but then she slowly grabs Flower’s hand, and she grips it firmly, as a sign of their newly formed friendship.
“Great!” Flower says. “Remember, friends always look out for each other! If you ever need my help, just call. Uh, unless you have been ordered to kill me or something…”
“Thank you,” the revenant says. “I will remember that.”
After a while, Flower goes to talk to Melindra, while the rest of us remain behind, waiting in silence for the next stage of the ritual to begin. In the meantime, Daren and Hadrik are apparently still walking around, trying to see if they can find anything unusual that could help them spot a weakness in the ritual. As I am looking around, to see what everyone is doing, I suddenly realize that Leila hasn’t participated in any of our discussions, so far, and she has barely even moved from her spot since the ritual started. At the moment, she is just looking at the ground, while avoiding making eye-contact with any of us.
Could it be that she still didn’t manage to get over what happened in her first trial? Come to think of it, she was also at the Beacon, so it wouldn’t be too surprising if she got a similar ritual to that of Kate. That is not good… Kate might be strong enough to endure the emotional trauma caused by such a trial, but what about Leila? Maybe I should go talk to her, and see how she’s holding out.
“Leila, is everything alright?” I say, as I get a little closer to her.
Leila looks surprised, when she hears my voice. I think she has gotten used to being ignored in these situations, due to her quiet nature and her generally weak sense of presence.
She raises her head, to look me in the eyes, and then she nods, slightly, in order to answer my question.
“I’m fine,” Leila writes. “Just a little shaken up, that’s all.”
“Do you want to talk about it?…” I ask her.
Again, Leila looks at me surprised, for a second, but then she smiles faintly, as she writes a new text in the air, in front of me.
“Not now,” Leila writes. “But maybe later…”
Since Leila didn’t really feel like talking at the moment, I decided to give her some space, so she could be alone, with her own thoughts. As I was going back to my original spot, I saw the revenant displaying a bit of emotion in her eyes again, as she was preparing herself to ask Kate a question.
“I… have a question to ask,” the revenant tells Kate, with hesitation in her voice. “What happened with Kevin and Suzie? Did you have to leave them at an orphanage, or—”
“No, we didn’t need to do that,” Kate says. “We left them with Enrique. He offered to move in with the children, after he found out about Rose’s death, so he will be taking care of them, from now on.”
“Enrique…” the revenant says, as she seems to be recalling some distant memories. “Yes, Enrique is a good man… I’m sure he will take good care of the children. Thank you.”
The feeling of anxiousness that could be seen in the revenant’s eyes is now turning into one of relief. Those human emotions do not last long, however, because soon afterwards, the look in her eyes turns back to the empty, expressionless gaze that she had before.
“Wow, it sure has been a while since we finished our first trials,” Daren says, after some time. “I wonder why it’s taking so long for the second stage to start…”
“I’ll tell you why,” Arraka says. “It’s because you shmucks gave Selkram so much raw material to work with in the first stage, that he’s still busy converting it all into energy.”
“What?…” Daren says.
“Your negative emotions!” Arraka says. “That’s the raw material that Selkram is using to convert into magical energy. And while you losers were busy repeating those rituals over and over, sinking into the depths of despair or cursing the God of Time, you were giving him exactly what he wanted. Honestly, I think he got so much energy from you people, that he might not even need a second stage from your group. I guess we’ll see about that soon enough.”
“Well, I’m happy to have been of assistance,” Daren says, in a dry tone. “I suppose this gives us more time to investigate the area, then. Come on, Hadrik, let’s try interacting with more of these frozen insects and trees. Maybe we’ll be able to find one that isn’t protected by an invisible, impenetrable shield, so we can finally cancel this damned time-freezing spell.”
Although Daren and Hadrik got to patrol the area for quite a while longer, they didn’t manage to find anything useful. Eventually, a bright white light covered our area once again, and this time, I could feel my whole body being transported somewhere else, instead of only my consciousness.
When the light fades away, we all find ourselves in the middle of a city which is… unusual, to say the least. The first thing that catches my attention is that there is one very large black tower in every corner of the city, and on top of each of these four towers, there is an incredible amount of magical energy, that can be seen even with the naked eye. The energy has a purple color, and it is moving wildly in every direction, as if it were trying to escape its prison. On each side of these thousand foot tall towers, there are big, floating platforms, that keep going up and down at a slow speed, and they seem to be carrying hundreds of people towards the levels of the towers that they need to reach.
Leaving these strange, tall buildings aside, what is even more peculiar is what’s happening directly above us. Currently, there are hundreds of metal, horseless carriages, flying through the air, with people inside them. While these carriages are flying around, there are large holographic screens floating above us, picturing a man that is relaying the same message, over and over, in the Common language. The holographic screens look just like the ones that were created by Golmyck’s illusion-casting device, when he announced our first objectives. The message that keeps getting repeated is: ‘All non-lessathi citizens are to present themselves to the military reserve area immediately. We are under attack. I repeat, we are under attack!’.
The flying carriages are moving in a frenzy, while people around us are all hurrying in the same direction, which I’m guessing is the way to the military reserve area. As if this wasn’t already unsettling enough, I can’t help but notice that the whole city is filled to the brim with dark blue banners, having a hawk holding the sun in its talons drawn on each of them.
Very shortly after being transported here, I also heard someone talking loudly in the lessathi language, through a magical voice magnifier, although the words he was using were too complicated for me to fully understand with my current level of ancient languages. From what I could gather, it seemed that he was also giving directions to the scared people running on the streets.
I’m not really sure what kind of an attacker could make a whole city panic like this, but something tells me that we are about to find out, very soon.
As I look around, I suddenly notice that my hearing is no longer as good as it was before we were brought to this place. I quickly check my stat device, in order to confirm my suspicions, and I see that the three extra levels in Hearing, granted to me by the secret code have indeed been lost.
“I can’t believe this…” Melindra says, as she looks at the black towers in the distance. “Those towers coated in seredium dust look exactly like the kind of buildings the lessathi empire used to have thousands of years ago. I’ve only read about them in books. Even six hund
red years ago, before the lessathi empire fell, you would not see something like this in their cities. The closest I’ve ever come to seeing anything resembling these towers was in Ollendor, where they are still preserving old relics from the lessathi empire’s days of glory, but still, those were only ruins. For these towers to be in such good condition, we would need to have been sent back to when the lessathi empire was at its very peak. Four thousand, or even five thousand years ago! What is the God of Time thinking?”
“Should I take it that we are still in Varathia, then?” I say.
“Well, technically it wasn’t named Varathia back then, but yes, we’re on the same continent,” Melindra says. “The Varathian towns from our present time have been built on the ruins of the old lessathi cities, and the only place where the lessathi ever had an empire was on this continent, so there’s no doubt about it.”
“Hmm…” I say, as I take a long look towards the large towers in the distance. “I wonder where those towers are getting all of their energy from. I mean, do they just extract it all from the air, like the stat device, or what?…”
“From what I know,” Melindra says, “the energy from these types of towers was supposedly charged by mages from the city, who worked voluntarily every day to keep the energy alive, and who would receive monthly payments from the empire as a reward for their contributions to their society. This energy would then be used to power up these flying vehicles that you see above us, and also other technologically advanced devices that would make life easier for every citizen.”
“So, if we’ve been sent to the past again, does this mean that there are some events we have to repeat?…” Hadrik asks.
“No, this is a different type of ritual!” Arraka says. “Can’t you see that you’ve been transported here with your bodies, instead of just your consciousness?”
“You’re saying that this time we’re allowed to change something that happened in the past?” Daren says.
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