by Turtle Me
The elf, Albold, raised his hands, making it clear he meant me no harm. “Sorry, Ellie… Eleanor. I know we’ve never really talked, but I just wanted to give you my condolences. For Arthur. I’ve met and even talked to him before back when he was…” Albold ran a hand through his hair and smiled awkwardly. “I’m sorry, this is difficult.”
The anger flared within me. I tried to smother it, but after Virion’s attempt at grandfatherly kindness, my feelings were a little raw. “Thank you,” I said stiffly, not meeting Albold’s eyes. Brushing past the elf, I shoved aside the leather hanging and practically ran down the handful of steps that led into the City Hall.
Gritting my teeth, I started to run through the narrow streets, taking the quickest path back to our shelter.
Why does everyone think I want to hear their stupid condolences? I thought. I knew that they meant well and that it was childish to push away their kindness—of course I knew that—but at this point, it just felt like they were picking at my scab, not letting it heal.
Then I thought about the elves being held prisoner in Elenoir, and wondered how many of them were Albold’s family and friends. Had he lost siblings in the war? A father? I didn’t know, because instead of listening to him, I’d acted like a little kid and ran away.
You’re not a little kid anymore, Ellie. You don’t get to act like one.
I forced myself to slow to a walk and rubbed the tears from my eyes. I would calmly walk home, get Boo, and head out into the tunnels to Rinia’s.
267
The Bridge
ARTHUR LEYWIN
“Stop screaming!” I snapped over my shoulder at Regis, who was doing his best to follow me through an endless meadow of glowing white wildflowers and tall blue grass.
“Then tell them to stop chasing us!” Regis howled, a little trail of fire billowing out behind him like a cape.
Behind us were hundreds, if not thousands, of rodents, each the size of a puma, with glowing purple claws… and all of them were incredibly pissed off at us.
“I told you not to go poking around those giant holes!”
Regis sped past me, afraid of getting scratched by those purple claws again. “How was I supposed to know that thousands of giant rats were living in them!”
I leapt over a rock that was mostly hidden in the grass. “What exactly were you expecting then? Giant snakes?”
Instead of responding, Regis veered hard to the right to avoid a slash from the gleaming purple claws of a rat-creature that burst out of the grass right beside us. I kicked out as the creature followed him, lifting it off the ground and sending it squealing out of sight.
“Regis, Gauntlet Form!”
An aura of black and purple flared from my right fist as I whirled around, skidding to a stop. The army of giant rodents was rapidly approaching.
Once I had enough aether to attack, I slammed my fist into the ground, releasing an explosive blast that distorted the very air around us and sending a lethal shockwave through the approaching horde. Several dozen of the aetheric rats fell dead, but hundreds more ran right past the corpses.
I hooked my index finger in the ring attached to the pommel of the dagger, unsheathing it in a brilliant white arc. With my aether focused on my arms, I became a cyclone of blade and fists, cutting, stabbing, and striking every giant rodent within range.
Wielding a dagger was difficult at first. Despite the similarity in shape to a sword, the style of fighting required to effectively use a dagger was vastly different, and something I’d only briefly trained in as King Grey.
It was fun though. Utilizing the ring at the bottom of the hilt, I was able to hook my finger through it, freeing up my hand to strike or parry with a palm. The shorter length of the dagger meant that strikes and slashes were faster and more concise, allowing for sharper and more unpredictable movement.
All around me, the beautiful blue grass was flattened and stained rusty red with blood, and the corpses of the giant, purple-clawed rodents began to pile up in gruesome hills.
Despite the carnage, the aether-rats kept pouring in, forcing Regis and I to turn and start running again or risk being overwhelmed. As if we were running a gory marathon, we kept up this cycle of running to thin out the horde, then stopping to deal sudden death to the pack’s frontrunners. Meanwhile, the vast field of tall blue grass stretched on like some endless, surreal ocean.
My body was more than up to the challenge of the endless run, and the aether-clawed rodents posed little threat to me in small groups, but after several hours I began to worry. Unlike the chimeras and the millipede, the rodents’ bodies didn’t contain a drop of aether. Only their claws were coated in a dense layer of aether, which made them dangerous to even Regis, but there was very little benefit in killing them since I was using more aether than I was regenerating.
“Over there!” Regis shouted as he veered slightly to the right and picked up speed.
I saw it too. Far in the distance, there was an all-too-familiar teleportation gate glowing brightly, beckoning us. It was only after we drew near it that we realized reaching it wasn’t going to be as easy as just sprinting the rest of the way.
Separating us from the gate was a chasm at least thirty yards wide. It stretched out to the left and right with no end in sight, so it didn’t seem like going around was an option.
“What do we do?” Regis asked as the wheels in my mind turned. Behind us, the horde of more than a thousand rodents, hell bent on killing us, approached with zeal, perfectly ready to throw themselves to their deaths for the chance at a meal.
Pumping out more aether from my core, I forced myself to run faster in order to gain some distance from the horde of rodents. As we got closer, I realized there were two columns poking up out of the grass on each side of the chasm.
“I think there’s a bridge there!” I said, pointing to the two columns, now just a hundred yards or so ahead. Once we were on the bridge, we’d be more or less safe from the horde, as the rodents would have to fight each other to even get between the pillars.
Seconds later, I skidded to a stop just in front of the pillars, which were about three shoulder-widths apart, and cursed.
A thick, rune-inscribed chain was connected to each of the columns, but rather than stretching across the chasm, it trailed down into the crevice below. At the bottom, there was a stream of glowing red, and by the heat radiating up from the depths, I knew that it was lava.
“Well… there was a bridge.” Regis gazed dejectedly down into the abyss. “I wonder what did this?”
“Not what. Who.” I seethed, punching the tree-sized pillar of stone out of sheer frustration before turning back to face the army of rodents. The damage was purposeful and, seeing as we weren’t the only one to journey through these lands, it was easy to deduce that the Alacryans who passed by before us had done this.
“Please don’t tell me you’re going to try and kill all of those creatures,” Regis groaned.
“Not exactly.” I gave my companion an appraising look. “I have a plan, but you’re not going to like it.”
Regis stared at me, deadpan. “Have you ever come up with a plan that I liked?”
I hid behind one of the columns, replenishing my core using a handful of rodent claws that I had severed and stored in my bag. Regis was flying toward me like a fiery cannon ball, and he was screaming. Just behind him was the horde of aetheric rodents, desperately clambering atop one another and swiping savagely at the will-o-wisp.
“I hate you!” Regis howled as he drew near.
I waited until he was about a foot from the cliff before releasing the same aetheric aura that I had used to immobilize the giant millipede.
The frontline rodents were struck dumb, their bodies tumbling uncontrolled as the aura crushed down on them. Most were already too close to the edge, and they slid off and plummeted down into the lava river by the dozens.
The air around me grew heavy as the aetheric aura spread,
and wave after wave of rodents crashed into one another, unable to even try to save themselves from falling off the cliff.
Meanwhile, Regis hovered in the air just above the chasm, inviting the giant rodents in the back—those not yet aware of the cliff—to try and kill him. My companion laughed maniacally as he watched the stunned rodents whirl and tumble to their deaths below.
“Come on, you pea-brained rats! Try and touch me with those manicured claws of yours now, bitches! Hahahaha!”
“Now!” I roared as the final wave of giant rodents approached the cliff. Regis shot upward as if he’d been launched from a catapult, and dozens of aetheric rats clambered atop one another in a desperate attempt to reach him. In seconds, the shifting tower of flesh and fur was nearly twice the height of the columns.
I used most of my aether to burst forward, pushing off the column for maximum speed.
With aether shrouding my body, I stepped on the heads of the crazed rodents, climbing on top of them to get as high up as possible. Trying to avoid looking at the river of lava below, my eyes scanned the far side of the cliff for the safest place to land, but in the end the shortest route across was a straight line.
With one foot on a rat’s pointed, snarling face and the other planted firmly on the backside of another, I leapt off the crest of the rodent pile.
I tried not to think about what would happen if I didn’t make the jump. I doubted that even my vivum-enhanced healing abilities would be able to regenerate me faster than the lava would eat away at my body.
At the last second, I felt something latch onto my leg, just above my ankle. My own forward momentum ripped me away from the snapping claws or teeth that had grabbed him, but it was just enough to throw off the entire trajectory of my attempted leap.
“You’re not going to make it!” Regis screamed as I flew out over the deep crevasse. I seemed to be moving incredibly slowly as I watched the far wall approach, but Regis was right. I was on course to hit the far wall about twenty feet below the cliff top.
With my dagger in my hand, I summoned the remaining sliver of aether to reinforce both my arm and the dagger before driving it into the face of the cliff. The blade sheered through the hard stone, burying the dagger up to its handle, and I jerked to a stop with such force that I couldn’t believe the blade didn’t snap off.
All around me the air was distorted, rippling from the waves of heat emanating from the stream of lava drawing closer.
‘Gauntlet Form!’ Regis shouted in my mind as he joined with me, having crossed the chasm easily behind me.
I don’t have enough aether! I growled mentally, unsure what to do next. Despite myself, I glanced down just in time to watch a handful of huge rats splash into the lava, their screeches cutting out with sudden finality.
‘Use my aether!’
My hand started glowing black and purple as Regis released his aether into my body.
With no time to waste, I unleashed the aether coalesced into my fist, striking downward rather than straight at the rocky cliffside.
The impact created a large crater in the cliffside, but I had struck too close to where the blade was lodged in the stone, and it tore free, sending me plummeting downward. I was freefalling for only a second, however, before I managed to snag my fingers over the edge of the depression that I had created.
My sweat-slick fingers slipped across the powdery rock, and I nearly lost my grip, but a jutting fang of stone saved me.
Clinging for dear life, I scrambled awkwardly at the cliffside with my toes and knees until I was able to throw one leg up over the ledge and pull myself up. I rolled away from the ledge and lay curled up in the small cave that I had created with Gauntlet Form.
“We made it!” Regis cheered as he popped out of my chest. My companion seemed slightly shrunken, but I was having a hard time focusing on him as I struggled to breathe. The air was thick in the little cave, but I didn’t think it was just the heat. Too tired and hot to figure out why, I was tempted to let sleep overtake me, but I knew that falling unconscious this close to the molten river spelled certain death.
“Thanks for saving me,” I said to Regis.
The little black orb bobbed nonchalantly. “I’m not very keen on finding out what happens to me if you die. Just promise me a bigger chunk of aether next time and we’ll call it even.”
I nodded wearily before getting back to the matter at hand.
Even without strengthening my body with aether, I knew I could climb the cliff, and common sense dictated that I should get as far away as possible from this river of lava, or I risked being baked alive like the countless puma-sized rodents I’d watched vanish below the slow-moving orange glow. Still, a little rest couldn’t hurt…
“So, you all rested up? Ready to climb up out of here?” Regis asked cheerfully only a moment later. My companion was happily watching the dumber rodents continue to jump into the chasm as they chased after us, only to fall to their fiery deaths.
I rolled to my side and watched one of the beasts cartwheel through the air then disappear under the lava with a thick plop.
Glimmering purple sparkles within the lava caught my eye, and I used a little aether to strengthen my sight: floating slowly down the molten stream were hundreds of aether-clad claws.
"No. Not yet,” I said distractedly, scanning the inside of the crater I was in. Then a wide grin slowly spread over my face as yet another brilliant plan snapped into place.
“Tell me the truth, Arthur. You’re a masochist, aren’t you?”
“No, I don’t particularly enjoy feeling pain, Regis,” I stated, lowering my toes.
“Oh so you’re just dunking yourself in lava for shits and giggles?”
I stopped. “Do you mind? I kind of need to concentrate if I don’t want my body to melt.”
Regis rolled his eyes. “Oh, I’m sorry for trying to dissuade you from skinny dipping in lava.”
“Apology accepted, now shut up.” I took a deep breath. Even after hours of testing the theory behind what I was about to do and dozens of limited attempts, it was nerve-wracking to actually submerge myself into the molten river.
Dipping my entire body into the stream of lava, I immediately felt a scorching, but tolerable, heat coursing through me as I pumped aether from my core to keep from burning alive.
It was an odd feeling, but it didn’t take long for me to confirm the benefits of my magma bath. I had been right, except it had gone far beyond even my starry-eyed expectations.
Seeing the glowing purple claws of the rodents had been the clue I needed, though I hadn’t come to the point of actually acting on it without some additional confirmation.
Just like how the last level had its own unique ecosystem, so did this one. When I had consumed the aether from the rodents’ claws, I realized that they were only coated in aether. Their natural claws—while sharp and near-indestructible—were just black. Seeing how their bodies weren’t able to innately wield aether like the chimeras, two-tailed monkeys, or the millipede, I assumed that they had acquired the aetheric coating around their claws by some other means.
Their species lived underground, using their sharp claws to dig tunnels, so I speculated that there was something in the ground that was rich in aether, and that they dug through it in order to layer their claws with aether.
After hours of using the white-bladed dagger and aether to dig and punch deeper into the cave, Regis and I had found it…
An aether crystal.
The one that we found was about seven feet in diameter and extremely dense with aether, making it a stronger source for me to absorb energy from than even the millipede had been.
It was the presence of the massive aether crystal that made the ludicrous thought growing in the back of my mind possible. I needed a way to push tremendous amounts of aether through my body all at once. There was a limit to how quickly I could temper and purge aether without some kind of catalyst. Like defending my body against a
consistent, fatal bombardment of flesh-melting lava.
With no way of knowing if my body would fare as well as the rodent claws, I did the only thing any wise and intelligent person would do: I tested myself.
After several hours of melting my fingers, waiting for them to regenerate by absorbing power from the aether crystal, and then doing it again while adjusting the input of my aether, I had finally come to where I was now: buck naked, standing next to the shallow edge of the molten river.
But it had worked. My body felt as if it was going through the tempering and purging stages of my patented aether refinement process over and over again every second.
Because of how much aether I needed to expel constantly in order to keep my body from burning, I could only stay inside the river for about a minute at a time at first. Each time, though, I lasted a little longer.
“Wow. Five minutes,” Regis acknowledged, his entire form bobbing up and down as he nodded vigorously. “New record.”
I stared at the aether crystal, which had dulled into a hazy gray color. “Just in time. I think it’s about time we leave.”
“Really?” Regis’s eyes sparkled like a puppy whose owner had just tossed it a big, juicy steak. I felt a little sorry for my floating companion; after the rodents had finally given up on trying to chase us across the ravine, Regis hadn’t had anything to watch except my naked body going in and out of the lava.
Nodding, I started to put my clothes back on. After adjusting my darkened leather bracers and gorget, and equipping my bag and the white dagger, which I had grown quite fond of, I draped the teal, fur-lined cloak over my shoulders. “You ready?”
“Hell yes,” Regis declared, zig-zagging through the air around me. He floated out over the chasm, then stopped abruptly. “But before that… was it worth it?”
I let aether erupt from my core. Rather than seeing the thin sheen of magenta cover my entire body, however, my aether burned a brilliant purple, all traces of the reddish hue now gone. What really surprised Regis though, was the fact that almost all of the aether had coalesced into my right fist.