Chapter Nine: Banishment Realms
Written by Jeff
Moving swiftly along the wooded path, Elinea’s mind and body operated on detached wavelengths, her legs propelling and carrying the rest of her like an animal she rode but couldn’t control. Her memory replayed the sensation of the liptis attaching itself to her arm and extending up into her shoulder, where it had latched onto bone and become an extension of her body. Its tendrils now felt like they extended throughout her entire nervous system, overruling any signal her conscious mind attempted to send to tell her legs to slow down and stop moving. The liptis, still cloaked in its velvety glove, was sticking out in front of her body, pulling forward tenaciously like a bloodhound on a leash looking for game.
This lack of control was disconcerting, but it only became truly frightening when the liptis paused for a moment, causing the rest of her body to almost tumble over the suspended arm, then pulled off again at a sharp left angle leaving the trail entirely. Though dimly lit, the narrow path they had been traveling on was verdant and green. The liptis now dragged Elinea’s body into the desolate remains of the dead forest that surrounded it, and despite the fact that there were no leaves on these blighted trees, somehow even less light managed to make its way to her eyes. As the insatiable hunger pulled her further and further into the sea of cracked, ashen husks, all color left her vision, and she quickly found that she couldn’t differentiate between tree or ground or sky. All the pale shades mixed together like clouds of smoke, and she began pulling at the liptis with new tenacity, begging it to stop, hearing Drescel’s voice echo inside of her mind: Stay out of the Gray Wood.
When her legs finally stopped moving, she knew it wasn’t because she had willed them to do so. It was as if the liptis was sniffing, trying to find the magical scent trail it had been following but now had lost. The arm jerked her body in semicircles, searching frantically, starting to move one direction and then stopping after only a step to pull a different way. At first Elinea thought the liptis simply couldn’t decipher a path to follow, but after it had spun her around enough times she realized what was actually happening. It couldn’t decide which way to go because multiple magical entities were closing in on her from all directions.
Once Elinea realized her imminent danger, it was as if a little sense returned to the liptis as well, and the creature gave the woman control over her limbs once more for its own self-preservation. She widened her stance and braced for an attack, using her good hand to pull the velvety glove off the liptis and give it a chance to consume whatever had lured them here. Her eyes darted from side to side, trying to make out any distinct movements, but everything in her field of view was a swirling, colorless wash. As her hearing returned, no longer blotted out by the liptis’ intense, ringing hunger, she could hear faint echoes of the laughter that had met her on the edge of the forest. It was like the sound had concentrated now, yet it still reverberated, moving both towards and away from her. Shrill, sonic laughter directed at her body and bouncing back to its source like echo location.
She heard the cracking sound from the back of her kneecap before the pain even registered in her mind. As she buckled and fell, a bond twisted around the liptis arm and pulled it to the side, like a poisonous snake being grasped by the neck so it can’t bite. Another blow to the chest sent Elinea careening onto her back, and though she tried to instinctively bounce back up, a pressure was exerted on her sternum like a foot pressing her down, though she couldn’t make out any figure standing above her. What she did see was the velvety glove, seemingly floating and moving of its own volition, coming toward her from where she had dropped it and placing itself delicately back over her squirming, constrained arm. The pressure on her chest seemed to lurch forward, and she felt the unmistakable dread of warm, unwelcome breath creeping along her neck. Laughter piped up from all around, directly in her ear as well as in the distance. It started again as child’s laughter, but quickly morphed into a deeper and more menacing tone, like a pitched-down howl of feral hyenas.
Suddenly, the maniacal laughter in Elinea’s ear became a blunt, breathless shriek, and the pressure on her chest was released. She pulled herself up to a sitting position and searched the horizon, but everything she saw still swirled formlessly. Closing her eyes, she focused in on what she could hear, getting to her feet and again removing the liptis’ glove. There was clearly a fight going on around her, and whatever had attacked her was on the defensive. She heard multiple hisses and echo bursts; the sound of solid matter cracking against organic forms; the unmistakable squelch of those forms being pierced. Something crashed into the ground at Elinea’s feet and it sent up a piercing laugh into her ears. Though her head recoiled at the sound, her arm pounced to the ground instinctively, finding a lifeform and ravenously devouring its magical essence. As it was drained, the form seemed to lose its fight and go limp, then ceased moving entirely when it was viciously jabbed by an external force. Still, the liptis fed, until Elinea could sense that the vessel was empty. A voice spoke up in the sightless haze.
“If you’ve had enough to eat, I’d suggest we move out of the gray before more of them arrive. Here, take my hand.”
Elinea felt fingers gently make contact with her own, though when she looked down there seemed to be nothing around her hand but smoke. She grabbed onto the phantom with surprising desperation, like a lost child being found by a concerned adult, a stranger trusted implicitly out of fear and disorientation. The concerned specter guided Elinea swiftly through the gray, pulling her delicately but intently and helping her keep balance through uneven terrain she couldn’t perceive.
As they moved away from the scene of the fight, the liptis tried to pull Elinea back in that direction, wanting to feed more on the fallen magical creatures. Strangely though, the essence it had just drained had also invigorated Elinea, strengthening her, and she found that she was now better equipped to control the creature’s will, yanking the liptis along with whatever unseen force was yanking her. Before long, she could see distinct darkness on the horizon, and as they drew closer, that darkness took on shades of green, and she knew that they had found the path once again.
As they crossed the threshold between the Gray Wood and the green path, the form of her guide took shape. It was a man wearing a cloak not unlike the one Drescel had given her, and beneath its hood she saw dark skin offset by a white, coarse beard. A strip of black cloth was tied across his eyes. In the hand that wasn’t holding hers, he gripped a staff of gnarled, knotted wood that stood taller than him. The bottom of the staff was sharpened to a point, covered in gray sludge.
“I’m not sure how you ended up on Vlyk,” the man began, “but you won’t last very long on this island if you go running into the Gray Wood like that.”
“Yes, so I was warned.” She held up the gloved liptis hand, as much to inspect it herself as to show to him. “Unfortunately, this thing didn’t take the warning seriously enough.”
The man didn’t adjust his head to face her raised hand, but instead delicately moved his fingers across the air alongside his hip, each fingertip rising and falling slightly as if running along the surface of a relief map. As he did, the liptis perked up at Elinea’s side, sensing a magical essence emanating from him.
“A liptis. How strange. I take it you’ve been to see the crab man, Drescel. I should have known straight away; your cloak reeks of rotten fish.”
She inhaled through her nostrils reflexively, catching the scent for herself. “Yes, I suppose you could say he’s the reason I’m here on Vlyk. I was brought here by some Magi who found me on an island called Gullau, and Drescel nursed me back to health, or so he says. I’m on my way to go see those Magi now, or one in particular - a Lord Hallister.”
“I am traveling to Hallister’s keep myself,” said the man. “Let us walk together, then. It seems you might need a little guidance.”
For the first ten minutes or so, both Elinea and the man were fine walking in amicable silence. Neither one asked the other’s name, or attempted to glean any sort of information about the other. Elinea, for her part, was utterly embarrassed about needing to be saved; about the liptis being a new liability that could drag her off into danger and get her killed. She appreciated this man rescuing her, but still, that wasn’t necessarily a reason to trust the stranger. This was Vlyk after all - home to the most-powerful and worst-offending Magi on the planet. She hadn’t even arrived at a single destination before something had attacked and bested her. It was reflecting on the attack that finally made Elinea decide to spark up a conversation.
“What were those things back there? There were multiple of them, right? I couldn’t see anything once I left the forest path.”
“We call them Shrieklings,” he responded. “And there were three of them, yes, but there’s plenty more about. They’re remnants of a Magi named Ullan. He sought to harness and amplify the same blight that caused the Gray Wood, and it tore him apart. The pieces of him, to our horror, became the Shrieklings. We can’t kill them off fast enough. They just keep breaking themselves apart and creating more.”
“I’m guessing they would have killed me?”
“Eventually. They’re more interested in a perverse sort of play.”
“How were you able to see them?” she asked. “Or see anything out there? Everything was swirling and formless, like smoke.”
“There are many different ways to see,” he said. “I lost my traditional sight long ago, before I was banished to this island. It was likely a blessing. Traditional sight doesn’t do you a whole lot of good in the Grey Wood, or against the other myriad illusions on Vlyk. I’ve actually been looking at you, as we’ve been walking, and I must say I don’t entirely know what to make of you.”
“I don’t entirely know what to make of myself, either,” sighed Elinea. “I was once what the Aquine called Touched. I used to be powerful. Revered. Now, I seem to die or need saving at every turn.” She held the liptis up and gave it a scowl. “This thing was supposed to help me regain an advantage, but so far it’s only been a liability.”
“You died, hmm? That’s generally not one of the easier obstacles to overcome.” He held his hand in the air, running his first two fingers horizontally until they seemed to catch and slow, then he brought his thumb up and twisted his wrist, as if grasping and yanking on a string. Elinea felt a tugging from inside her chest, as if a string attached to her sternum had been yanked, and she lurched forward a step.
“Shot in the chest with a Magi revolver,” he mused. “I know this mark. Belongs to a man named Finnegan. Iso officer. No eyes, like me. That sound about right?”
A vision of the man who shot her splashed across her mind. She almost convulsed physically when the memory replayed the bullet entering her body.
“He had prosthetic eyes, but yes.”
“Of course he did,” said the stranger. “Finnegan never did have quite the same touch for envisioning the obscure. Surprised he shot you, though. He’s not a bad guy. He must have thought you deserved it.” For the first time since speaking, his face turned to her. “Maybe you did.”
Elinea scowled. “I assure you, I did not.”
“No need to get defensive,” he smiled. “I was sent to Vlyk, so who am I to pass blame on anyone’s life choices?”
“And what exactly did you do to get sent here?”
“Doesn’t matter what happened in the past. What matters is what you do with what’s in front of you.”
As he said this, Elinea realized that they were approaching a rock hillside, huge slabs jutting up out of the ground with the same sharp intensity as the mountains that surrounded the perimeter of the island, stretching up into the sky though not part of any connected peaks. Around it, the trees became thick and the path ended at the rock face, dense forest continuing on behind. The stranger held his hand up for her to stop, which she did, and he got down and took a crouching position. He pursed his lips and began to blow delicately, and in front of them small plumes of dust began to pick up in the wind and trail away, revealing what looked like a thin wire of blue light stretching across the path. He picked up the sides of his cloak until they were dangling around his knees, then took tall, deliberate steps over the trip line. Without needing explanation, Elinea did the same. The two of them continued forward until they were within an arm’s length of the stone slabs.
“I’ve come to speak with Hallister,” said the man. “He’s got another visitor as well - another Touched for your collection, though this one’s been damaged.”
A slat opened up in the rock face, its outline invisible before, revealing the top half of a woman’s face.
“We don’t need what you’re peddling, wanderer. On your way.” The eyes darted over to Elinea. “And clearly, that woman is not Touched.”
“I told you, she’s been damaged. But I can see beneath. She was once very much blessed by the Remnant.”
Elinea gave the man a curious stare, but didn’t ask for further explanation, instead facing the woman behind the opening.
“I was sent to Lord Hallister’s keep by Drescel,” she explained. “Hallister should know about me. I was the one who was found in the chamber, on Gullau.”
“Ah yes,” said the woman. “I heard about you. That was quite a while ago. They weren’t sure if you were going to make it or not.” She eyed Elinea over. “I guess only part of you did. Unfortunately, Lord Hallister is indisposed at the moment. You’ll have to come back later.”
Elinea frowned. “And where would you like me to go until he is ready to accept visitors? I’m not exactly accustomed to Vlyk, and I was nearly killed just getting here, if not for the intervention of this man. I was under the impression I was headed to a keep. There’s no place for me to wait for Hallister inside that rock? With you? Where I might not die?”
“Well, I suppose he was expecting you,” said the woman. “Just you, though. Your friend stays outside.”
Elinea glanced at the man, in a way seeking reassurance, and though his eyes were covered he saw her apprehension and gave her an approving nod.
“I do not seek shelter,” he said aloud to both of them. “I merely came with a warning - one that I think Hallister and the others should want to hear.” The woman behind the stone gave him a stern look, but didn’t interrupt. “The barrier is holding strong, and I sense no Vist attempting to pierce the veil. But something is prodding at the orb. I can feel it, trying to make its way through.”
The woman frowned. “And you’re sure it’s not Vist?”
“The Vist are unmistakable. I would know if they were beneath the island trying to gain entry.”
“It’s probably just the Nemarus, then,” said the woman, shrugging. “One of the Touched must have closed off transport, and you’re sensing them butting up against the closed door.”
“If the Nemarus wanted through,” he said with a tone of condescension, “they would simply do it. They won’t though, because they know that teleporting in would drain the orb and temporarily drop our barrier. This is something else. Something Hallister and his Touched should be mindful of.”
“I’ll be sure to pass it along, but as I already mentioned, Hallister is currently indisposed. To be honest, I’m not sure how long it will be until he’s capable of taking much on, but I’ll let the Touched know what you said.”
Elinea looked at the man with newfound curiosity, wishing she would have used her time walking with him to learn about any of the number of things of which he just spoke. As he turned to walk away, part of her instinctively wanted to ask if he was going to be okay out here, though she knew that was both ludicrous and condescending. Instead, all that came out of her mouth was simply, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Elinea. See you around.”
The slat in the rock slid closed, and as it did a door slid upwards, smooth and silent. Before going inside, Elinea stopped to watch the blind wanderer make his way down the path, only realizing far too late to respond that she had never actually given the man her name.
One eyebrow instinctively raised as Elinea entered through the rock doorway and into Hallister’s keep. The inside was palatial, every surface made of intricately carved and polished wood without a rock face in sight. The woman at the door walked her into a circular, central room that stretched up stories into the sky, the perimeter winding with walkways and banisters that led up from floor to floor. The walls were lined with books and curios, taxidermy, and creatures in yellowing jars. The putrid smell of her robe was overtaken by leather and tobacco and the delicate crispness of brittle paper permeating the air.
“I can see why you don’t let just anyone inside of here,” said Elinea. “I appreciate the invitation.”
“Hallister was curious to see what became of you. It’s been what, two years now since they brought you here?”
“That’s what I was told. I only just woke up today, though.”
“And Drescel threw you right out into the wilds? Heartless crab.”
Elinea gazed up at the light cascading from the center of the cathedral ceiling - a gaping, open skylight illuminating the book-lined interior of the keep. “It was a little rough getting here, but I think I already much prefer it to spending any more time in Drescel’s cave.”
The woman introduced herself as Sylvia, a protégé and assistant to Corrilous Hallister. She explained that Hallister, along with two of the Touched, were currently in the process of a rather intense experiment, but that Elinea was welcome to stay in the keep until he was able to see her. Any room in which the door opened could be used as a bedroom, and there was plenty of food in the kitchen on the second floor. When Elinea showed the woman the liptis and inquired about magical food, Sylvia said she would bring some scraps up from Hallister’s laboratory that were sure to still have some magical essence lingering inside.
Though she was extremely grateful to have found herself in such a stately, secure, and well-stocked manor, Elinea was disappointed to learn that there were currently only two other Touched in the keep - not the gathering Drescel had alluded to - and both were presently busy with Hallister. Many other Touched had congregated here in the past, but dispersed well over a year ago at this point. The reason they had all flocked to Vlyk, only months after the Shift, was for a conference of sorts. Hallister, along with Vlyk’s resident Touched named Brinn, had taught the Touched from other islands in the Outer Rings how to create and maintain barriers around their islands. Once they had learned this art, they returned to their islands, better equipped to keep the storms from permanently ruining their agriculture, and preventing the Vist from entering up onto the island by piercing and corrupting their orbs.
Though hesitant at first to act as a teacher, Sylvia eventually took pity on how ill-informed Elinea was for a former Touched, and filled her in with as much essential knowledge as possible. As Elinea had expected, the Vist were the proper name for the nasty skin-suit monsters that had destroyed Koa, though she was utterly shocked to find out that the creatures were crawling up from the insides of columns that descended into a dark hellscape below. The keep was filled with books, and though none actually held a proper history of the realm that supposedly lie below, many contained stories and allegories to the creation of an overworld. Sylvia patiently provided Elinea with a variety of texts that were useful in expanding past concepts as well as events brought about by the Shift, but was explicit that she herself was by no means an expert. She had only become privy to the real truth of things when she was exiled to Vlyk. Lord Hallister was the real scholar; he’d spent his life gathering these texts, learning the true history that contradicted everything taught by the churches and schools in the Central Islands. She estimated that most of the texts remaining with any semblance of truth regarding the world below were gathered here in the keep’s library.
Sylvia was loathsome of the Central Islands, and not simply because they had exiled her to Vlyk. She was convinced that there was a deeper and more profound reason for the Capital’s mass exiles than simply overstepping limits on magic and technology. No, Sylvia was convinced a grand conspiracy was afoot, and central to that conspiracy was information contained in these books. The Central Islands had once attempted to destroy the library, and Hallister with it. The story everyone was told was that Hallister had caused an explosion that destroyed an entire city, but the truth was quite the opposite: The Central Islands had destroyed that town trying to get rid of Hallister and his accumulated knowledge. When Hallister survived unscathed, it was easy to still pin the blame on the man and exile him, but he took extra care to make it appear as if his library had been destroyed in the blast. Though he was “exiled” to Vlyk, Hallister quickly found it to be a suitable home, populated with plenty of other Magi to align with, most of whom were not quite so crazy or dangerous as the Capital Islands had advertised. In the following years, most of the other Magi on the council which he had once sat were also exiled to the Outer Rings, and at his behest and reassurance they relocated themselves to Vlyk. Hallister and these Magi built this keep, and the library was secretly transported to it without the knowledge of the capital.
And so Elinea spent the next days poring over ancient tomes, trying to paint a clearer picture of what was happening to the world, and what role she was meant to play in it as a Touched. As Sylvia had warned, these were not historical texts. They were parables, legends, fables - but it was clear to see where the truth seeped into the fantasy, and which tales persisted over generations. A world plagued with terrible beasts, inhospitable to all but the most wretched. Travelers from afar; Settlers who came to this world and decided to rebuild it in the image of their own, sparing those who sought peace, knowledge, and cohabitation. Great pillars constructed, and a new, better world built above. A being of light, left behind by the Settlers, able to bestow the power of the orb barriers that kept the world aloft. Guardians appointed by this Remnant to protect the new realm against ancient threats. There were numerous stories of monstrosities that had found their way up from the depths and wreaked havoc in the new world. Creatures so fierce that they could not be defeated, only imprisoned by orbs of containment, locked away at the bottom of seas or deep within mountains. It was impossible to know how much of the stories were real and how much were just that - stories - but Elinea devoured the texts regardless.
It wasn’t until she had been at the keep for well over a week, drinking tea, flipping pages, and letting the liptis suck away at magical detritus from Hallister’s lab, that Elinea really began to wonder what the lord of this keep was actually so engaged with. No one besides Sylvia ever came out from any of the rooms, and Elinea usually spent her days in a big red padded chair on the other side of the second-floor walkway from the kitchen, which never seemed to have any less food than what she alone took. That said, she also couldn’t account for how the larders were stocked with fresh fruits and vegetables that clearly hadn’t grown in the forest outside, so it was easy enough to assume “magic” was the answer to anything she didn’t understand in this house. How long was she willing to wait around for this man? Did it matter? It wasn’t like she wanted to see any more of this cursed island, and once he’d met with her, he might ask her to leave the keep and send her packing into the woods to fend for herself.
Still, the thought kept pestering at her, so one morning before Sylvia woke up, Elinea decided to take her tea with her for a stroll up and around the circular walkways to the top floor. She moved exceptionally slowly, the tip of each foot barely moving past the heel of the other, listening intently for any sounds in the closed-off rooms. It was on the third floor that she found herself wondering, Where are you, Hallister? and seemed to hear a response from inside her mind.
“I’m just through these doors. Come in if you like. I think I’m ready for guests now.”
Elinea placed her hand against the doorknob and pressed gently, testing for any trace of give. It swung down freely, unlatching and opening though she had applied only the faintest bit of pressure. This room was an ornate bedchamber, with a four-post bed draped in white silks surrounded by beautifully carved and constructed wardrobes and dressers. Between the doorway and the bed stood an antique bassinet, a style Elinea knew to be at least a hundred years removed from fashion. She looked around the room, trying to find the voice that had spoken to her, creeping closer and closer to the bassinet until she peeked over the side and saw that there was indeed a baby inside. A newborn, squirming and naked, with fiery crimson skin. It looked at her intently, and she could sense its thoughts traveling up to meet hers.
“You’ll forgive me for making you wait so long.” The voice, though clearly coming from the mind of the infant, was that of an older, long-grown man. “I had no way of knowing when you would emerge from Drescel’s cavern, and it just so happened that your transformation completed just as mine was taking place. I am Corrilous Hallister. It is a pleasure to meet you.”
As he said this, a woman with crimson skin appeared in the doorway behind her. She looked at Elinea skeptically, holding a bottle in one hand and a tiny, soft blanket draped across her shoulder. Corrilous spoke up.
“Aida, please meet our new houseguest. What was your name, friend?”
“Elinea.”
“Lovely name. Aida just recently birthed my new form here, so I suppose she’s something of my mother, though I must admit it feels rather preposterous to call her that. I hope you don’t mind if I eat while we talk? This infant body requires such constant feeding. If it’s all the same Aida, I think I’m up to trying this one by myself.”
Aida didn’t step into the room, but rather just held the bottle out into the air. It levitated out from her hand and floated over to the bassinet, gently tilting above the infant’s mouth, whose hands went up to its sides though the baby clearly wasn’t holding the bottle up with physical force.
“We can keep chatting even though my mouth is full,” the voice continued. “I’m sure this is all quite off-putting. Let me explain. What you are witnessing is the first stages of a new age in protecting this world from the threats below. As far as we know, this infant is the first-known child conceived by two Touched: Aida here, and Brinn, who is below the keep, busily maintaining the barrier around Vlyk. The birth was not a simple process, and required our own harnessing of power of the orb on this island to accomplish - something the Remnant may not be all too pleased for us for meddling with, if it ever deigns to bless us with its presence. Once the child was born and deemed healthy, we successfully transferred my consciousness into its body. With the help of dear Mr. Drescel, whom you already know, we will soon begin the process of accelerating its growth.”
Elinea looked at the infant in stunned silence.
“Truly amazing what we have been able to accomplish with the science and magic on Vlyk that the Central Islands are so keen to cast away. But the real question isn’t how we did this, but rather why, hmm? As a Touched yourself, you are quite familiar with the powers bestowed upon your kind by the Remnant. They’re really quite extraordinary. But there are secrets that the Magi have unlocked that are quite extraordinary as well. The Touched offer second-to-none defensive possibilities - you are by creation an extension of the barriers that keep our world afloat. But this world is facing a tremendous war against the creatures that have been simmering in the darkness below. And while it’s important to go to war with shields, you simply don’t enter a fight of that magnitude with shields alone. You need spears. And swords.”
Elinea looked at Aida, who was standing in the doorway with her arms crossed, nonplussed. “You were fine with a Magi taking over the consciousness of your newborn child?”
“It’s been two years since the Shift,” she said bluntly. “We need all the help we can get. The Remnant has had plenty of time to make more Touched, but it hasn’t transformed anyone that we know of. Hallister had a plan, and so far, it seems like a pretty good one. I didn’t birth that baby out of love. I birthed it to fight for the people in this world. Any postpartum emotions I might have had were canceled out by the fact that ‘my baby’ speaks directly into my brain with the voice of an old man.”
“Aida has been overflowing with motherly love since my transformation,” Hallister chided. “The infant’s consciousness is still in here with mine, and I will teach and nurture it extensively, and when it is time, it will be given a new form of its own to aid in the fight ahead.” The infant paused and the bottle came to rest at his side. “Come Elinea, please stand closer, these eyes barely focus at all and I’d like to have a good look at you. I was so curious to see if Drescel could bring you back to full health, and if your powers would return if he was successful. Your skin was still the palest shade of red when you were brought to this island, but I see it has reverted back to its natural brown. I take it you no longer have any of your abilities?”
Elinea was surprised to realize that since learning her skin had changed color, she hadn’t even tried to see if her powers were actually gone; she had just immediately accepted the loss as a reality. After they had fizzled out on Koa and allowed her to be killed, she wondered if she was subconsciously afraid to even test them out. She gave Hallister a stern look and clenched her left fist, trying to raise a barrier. Dregs of magical essence stirred inside her - food consumed by the liptis faintly sloshing - but nothing resembling her former power. She gave the infant a dejected nod.
“Chin up, lass. It’s a miracle you’re alive at all. If the Vist hadn’t corrupted and shattered the orb on Gullau to make it up to the surface, I’m sure you would have eventually been made whole. Do you remember anything about the process? Clearly you had died when you were placed in the chamber, and you left it alive, if only barely. I’m so curious about resurrection with the orbs. It’s been hinted at in texts, but you’re the only Touched I know of who has returned to the living after departing. Tell me everything - anything - you can.”
“I’m sorry, but there’s nothing to tell. That Iso officer shot me, and then there was blackness, and I woke up inside Drescel’s shell.”
“Hmm, I wondered if that would be the case,” said Hallister. “Do you mind if I take a look myself? Inside your mind? I’m not surprised you can’t remember, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t experience anything in the transition.”
For some reason, Elinea looked over at Aida for some kind of guidance, but the woman just shrugged at her as if to say, I don’t care what you do. Elinea looked down at the infant, closed her eyes, and hesitantly sighed, “Ok.”
The sensation of having Corrilous inside of her mind wasn’t instantly unpleasant, but rather like sitting inside a private coach that you were enjoying to yourself, and when someone else came inside, you thought, I suppose there’s room enough for two. She could feel him flipping through thoughts like files in a cabinet, going deeper and deeper into her subconscious, until he found the right set of memories and they sort of clicked into place, shifting what she saw with her mind’s eye. It wasn’t just one memory, but a series of them, and she knew they weren’t memories of anything she had lived in her mortal life. In them she crossed a stretching desert; swam across an endless sea. Snow pelted her as she navigated treacherous mountain peaks. She trekked through rolling blue fields under a purple sky; wandered through unshakable night, the sky and ground indistinguishable with stars. Then, she was standing in a sea of flames, exhausted to the very core of her being, unable to move forward, unable to retreat. She howled - screaming, laughing, both at the same time - trapped in a hellish limbo. Hallister left her memory, and she instantly wished she hadn’t remembered these experiences at all.
“I’m sorry,” the voice said softly. “I see why your mind locked those experiences away.”
“What were those visions?”
“Different planes. Some of them, I believe, were banishment realms. When you left your body, but didn’t die completely, I fear you were trapped between this plane and whatever your final destination would have been. You put up an incredible fight to get back here. I am truly impressed.”
“What is a banishment realm?” she asked, brushing his compliment aside.
“The most powerful creatures who inhabited the underworld - sometimes, when they made their way up to this level, there was no choice but to confine them using special orbs and then ‘banish’ their spiritual forms into another realm. A fire monster would be banished to a fire realm, for example, where it was essentially harmless. This is old magic, mind you - work of the Nemarus in the first age after the platform was built. I know little of the specifics.”
Suddenly, Sylvia appeared in the doorway next to Aida, looking worried. Behind her, rain was falling steadily into the central corridor.
“I’m sorry Lord Hallister, but there seems to be an issue. The barrier appears to have fallen.”
Brinn came up to the main floor of the keep shortly thereafter, unsure exactly what was happening with his powers. His meditation had been deep, but snapped when the barrier collapsed. His ability to keep it intact had just sort of diminished, a heavy weight you can’t help but let slip from your fingers. Aida tested her personal barrier and it seemed fine, so she chalked it up to Brinn simply being exhausted from his continued effort, but Elinea warned them that this may be something different. She told them of how her powers had slowly shorted out before her death on Koa, before the Vist appeared and ravaged the island, turning it into a column.
Hallister did not seem particularly concerned that this was the work of the Vist, though. This hiccup in their powers was likely due to the orb going dormant, which happened after immense amounts of power were used to teleport into an orb’s chamber. Since he and Brinn began instructing the other Touched in the Outer Rings, the Vist had never been able to bypass an active barrier to get to the surface, and they couldn’t corrupt and shatter an orb until they had already passed through it. Someone must have transported to the island, and there was an exceptionally short list of beings that could do so. It was most likely one of the Nemarus, and if that was the case, they had nothing to fear.
Still, with the barrier down, the surrounding storm eventually closed in and began to howl and dump water on Vlyk. With the orb temporarily out of commission, Aida and Brinn were hesitant to use any of their stored power to make a barrier to keep the rain from falling through the skylight into the keep. Sylvia was tasked with trying to board the opening up, scouring the premises for anything sturdy and long enough to stretch out and prevent the rain from getting in. While she was up on the top floor taking measurements of the hole, a voice rang from outside the front entrance, perfectly clear though it supposedly passed through a layer of solid rock.
“Hello in there. I’ve come to see about the Touched on this island.”
The voice was young, almost childish, but not like the laughter that rang out in the Gray Wood. Elinea, Aida, and Brinn were standing in the central room on the ground floor, just on the other side of the door, which currently looked like merely a bookshelf. From upstairs, Hallister beamed into their minds: “See who it is. Make sure it’s a Touched looking for guidance and not some damned blighted Magi.”
Aida walked to the shelf and slid a book sideways. The top halves of five books detached and opened up a peep hole. She looked out at the visitor, hands placed firmly on her hips.
There was only enough time for her to say, “Kid, I don’t know what you think--” before a stream of fire shot through the eyehole and sprayed across Aida’s face. Her barrier reacted instinctively, sending the flames to either side without burning her skin, but she jumped back, startled, then slammed the eye hole closed.
To Elinea, what happened next seemed like a blur. A sound like the roaring of a river picked up outside, overtaking the crash of the rain and blasting against the side of the keep, but this sound wasn’t water. The heat was so intense that before long the rock dripped and melted away, and even with their shields up, the Touched in the room were afraid to get too close to whatever was approaching. The liptis began to twitch uncontrollably, but this time, it wanted away from whatever magical entity was coming, not towards. Elinea ran up to the third floor to check on Hallister, but he was already floating out of the room when she got there, infant eyes closed and concentrating, trying to pull the external stone walls down to block the section the intruder had opened up. It was no use - a massive beast of flame crouched through the molten opening and extended itself inside the keep, violently swinging flaming simian arms down on top of the two Touched on the ground floor. Blue light ripped and pulled around its flames, the avtimag material endlessly trying and failing to encase its form. Behind it, a girl, barely a teenager, seemed to be choreographing its movements, encircled by a floating black orb.
Hallister pulled an entire bookshelf down onto the girl, seeing that she was controlling the beast, but the books simply phased through her form. Her eyes were dark, shadowy, and Hallister screamed out to the Touched below that she was controlling the monstrosity from another realm. The flaming beast flailed at the Touched, slinging fire in all directions, igniting the ancient tomes along the walls. Rain poured down through the open skylight in the ceiling, hitting the fire creature and filling the room with steam as well as smoke.
The monster’s arm smashed through the third-floor walkway, nearly crushing Elinea and causing her to let out a frightened scream. The shadowy girl heard the exclamation and went to strike at it again but paused mid-swipe, seeing that unlike the Touched on the ground floor, the frightened woman up above didn’t have crimson skin. For just a moment, she stared into Elinea’s eyes - certain she had seen that face somewhere before - then turned her attention back to the Touched in front of her.
Elinea scampered up the stairs, trying to get to the skylight at the top. She passed Sylvia on the seventh floor, who was using her abilities to gather up the falling rainwater and distribute it across the inferno of books lining the walls. Nearly the entire vertical corridor was in flames now, and Elinea coughed and choked as she climbed, walkways crumbling and fiery chunks of banister falling down on the fight below. When she got to the top floor, Elinea reached and jumped for the edge of the skylight, but it was just outside of her grasp. She extended and jumped, jumped again, but it was simply too high. She looked down and saw the floating infant Hallister looking up at her, seeing her try to escape. The baby’s eyes closed, and a book shot up through the smoke and rain and deposited itself in her hand. Then Hallister’s voice was inside of her head:
“Jump again.”
She looked up at the edge of the circular skylight and leaped. Her legs sprung higher, pushed by a force from far below, and the three liptis fingers grabbed on firmly to the ledge. She tried to pull herself up, but her muscles were still too weak from years of disuse, so she simply dangled, hoping the liptis could maintain its grasp. She looked down at the inferno raging below and her eyes were filled with smoke, stinging and blinding, and she squinted painfully. Then she heard another voice, but not in her head. This voice came from above.
“Reach up. I’ve got you.”
Still holding the book, Elinea thrust her left hand up into the air as violently as she was able. Her wrist was snagged by a firm grip. It pulled her up enough to get some leverage for the liptis, and she flopped up over the edge of the skylight and coughed in the rain. Her eyes opened to find the blind wanderer standing over the edge, running his fingers together to get a sense of what was transpiring inside the keep.
“I think it’s best we get going,” he said.
“I think you’re right. Where should we go? Back to Drescel?”
“Yes, but only because he has a vessel, and we need to try and get aboard. I came here to warn Hallister. The Vist are on their way, and the barrier is down. They’ll be here in a matter of hours. We need to get off this island immediately.”
The stranger picked Elinea up to her feet, and she realized that they stood at the top of a small peak, erupting black smoke like a miniature volcano. The green forest was far below, surrounded by the Gray Wood. Flames were licking the sides of the skylight now, and it was impossible to see anything inside. Elinea followed behind her blind guide, descending the mountain at a dangerous pace, constantly looking back at the plumes of smoke and cursing her inability to do anything to help those trapped inside the keep.
Fate Index:
1. Antagonist gains great power
2. Protagonist’s hangover leads to some incredibly fortuitous turn of events
3. Protagonist has/develops some incurable urge they must sate daily
4. Unknown blind wanderer somehow related to a protagonist enters the story
5. Protagonist’s identity is thrown into question
6. Flashback episode
7. A utopian world is described or created by an adolescent
8. Protagonist joins or befriends powerful creature
9. A great artifact of the past is found, calling to a new owner
10. Something consequential turns out to be an illusion
11. Shrek and Donkey cameo
12. Betrayal
13. Protagonist finds powerful item or treasure
14. Magic finger traps, but for the brain or heart
15. Millions of insects start their march to devour everything in their path
16. Goonie squad
17. Protagonist takes up cause of beleaguered
18. Super intelligent magical infant
19. Protagonist becomes famous
20. Ancient deity decides to walk the mortal realms
Outcomes Used:
4. Unknown blind wanderer somehow related to a protagonist enters the story
18. Super intelligent magical infant
Added outcomes:
Someone gets refueled
(thanks to @39kfm39 on Instagram)
Razor clams
(thanks to Becky and Brian)
