Chapter Sixteen: Seeking Truth
Written by Ethan
Laureena crept down the hallway, carefully stepping across the weathered floorboards on the tips of her toes to avoid the chorus of creaks. She held her breath as she moved. Thanks to summers diving for shells at the bottom of Delvorn bay, she had more than a minute of time before she needed to inhale again.
The door at the end of the corridor was cracked slightly, a sliver of light her only means of navigating through the darkness. While the above-ground portions of Papa Danvers’ home were warm and full of light, Uncle Morwy preferred to sleep in the dingy old furnace room down in the basement. It was here where he kept all of his treasure, the mysterious bags and boxes from his days as an Iso - the things she so desperately wanted to see.
Times had gotten tough over the last year, even with Morwell’s help on the boat. Each haul was paltrier than the last, and at times, they didn’t bring back anything at all. It was a problem felt by all the fishermen of Delvorn, and up to that point no one really understood what the issue was. There had been hard seasons in the past, but the abysmal fishing in the area would bring financial ruin to quite a few people on the island if it persisted. Rumors began to float around, everything from pollution to overfishing and even the presence of insatiable sea beasts that ate everything in sight. When the money got especially tight, Morwell moved in with Danvers and Laureena to ensure that between all of them, they had enough to get by.
The day he moved in, Morwell warned Laureena not to go into his room, and Papa Danvers reiterated the message. They were both very firm about it, firmer than they usually were with her. For some children, such warnings would be enough of a deterrent, but Laureena was plagued by uncontrollable curiosity, though she had enough good sense never to hatch her plan before the time was absolutely perfect.
On that particular day, the two men had gone out to collect supplies for the last run of the autumn season, which meant they’d stop off at a tavern on the way back, a tradition that all the fishermen in Delvorn partook in for good luck. By happenstance, school had let out early that day, giving her the ideal opportunity to finally see what her giant uncle was hiding.
Once she was close enough to the door, she reached out and pulled on the knob steadily, letting out her breath lightly as the metal hinges groaned. As soon as there was enough of an opening in the doorway, she squeezed through and inched across the back wall towards the coal chute that Uncle Morwy used as a makeshift closet. Despite Morwell not actually being in the house, Laureena continued to move about as cautiously as she had through the hallway leading up to his doorway, as if his well-trained senses would detect her regardless of proximity.
Laureena tugged on the long handle of the chute, but it held fast. After a few more unsuccessful tries, she attempted hanging off of it using her body weight. When that didn’t work, she climbed on top of the chute and kicked downwards until the metal hatch released suddenly, sending her somersaulting down onto the ground.
“I sure hope he didn’t hear that,” she said to herself as she climbed to her feet and brushed ancient coal dust off of her clothes.
She glanced behind her, relieved to see that she’d absorbed most of the mess from the chute, though Morwell always had a layer of dirt on him from work, so he probably wouldn’t notice, especially if he came home drunk, as he often tended to.
Inside the coal chute was a collection of olive-green bags and boxes, all emblazoned with a black chevron that she knew as the symbol of the Isorropia unit. Morwell kept somewhat mum about his time as a soldier around Laureena, but she often heard him and Papa Danvers speaking about his past late in the evening, after they’d worked their way through a bottle or two of rum. The items in the chute, despite being nondescript, were keys to Uncle Morwy’s past, something she saw as the last frontier of their relationship.
Laureena rifled through the bags and boxes, disappointed to find that most were full of old clothes, crumpled pieces of paper with nothing written on them, and empty bottles of booze. Perhaps Morwell hadn’t brought anything interesting back after he retired. Papa Danvers had told her he seemed to be down on his luck when they met at the bar; maybe he was forced to sell his things to get by?
Peering into the chute, Laureena noticed a few more containers had been pushed out of reach, far enough back that only big ol’ Uncle Morwy could have gotten to them with his exceptionally long arms. She climbed up onto the metal hatch of the coal bin and crawled into the opening, kicking up more dust as she made her way into the tunnel.
Upon reaching the new containers, Laureena noticed an immediate difference: These boxes were secured with multiple locks and covered with skulls, indicating something very dangerous contained inside. But even more interesting than that, these boxes appeared to glow inside the dark chamber.
Laureena knew that her adoptive uncle had a revolver and a few long knives, which were swords in the hands of normal men, but nothing like what was contained in these boxes. She wondered if it was something magical…could Uncle Morwy be a Magi? Her nervousness turned to fear; magic was illegal in these parts and merely being in association with someone like that could get a person exiled. She couldn’t imagine losing her uncle, couldn’t imagine losing her home.
Her fear slowly transformed into anger and she crawled out into the room backwards, as there wasn’t enough space to turn around inside the narrow chute. Why would he take such a risk? He was an Iso, so he knew better than anybody what disobeying the Capital could mean.
“When Uncle Morwy gets back, I’m gonna give him a piece of my mind,” she grumbled under her breath as her feet met the metal hatch.
“Then by all means, little one, please do.”
Laureena wheeled around in surprise to find her uncle standing in the doorway of his room, watching her as she scooted out of the coal bin.
“I…I…” she struggled to find the words, shocked at his sudden appearance. It seemed he had heard the chute open.
“Why are you in my room when I specifically told you not to?” Morwell said stoically as he walked across the room and sat on his oversized cot.
“No, I want to start!” she replied with an intensity that caught him off guard. “Why do you have magic boxes in your closet?”
He cocked his head in confusion, not understanding what she was talking about at first. Then it hit him.
“You crawled that far into the coal chute?” he asked, though he wasn’t actually surprised. Laureena was as tenacious as they come.
“Yeah, I did and at first I felt bad but now I don’t because now I know you were hiding magic boxes! We could all get exiled! I mean we’d probably eventually escape, but Papa Danvers is too old for that!”
Morwell sat silently, in awe of the little spitfire that stood in front of him. In that moment, she seemed larger than him, and while he was disappointed she disobeyed him, he couldn’t stay mad.
“You’d make one hell of an Iso, Laureena,” he said as he walked past her and towards the chute. “And they aren’t magic boxes - actually they’re the opposite.”
He reached back and pulled out one of the boxes, putting up his hand to signal her to keep her distance. He unlocked the box, opened up the lid, and gingerly pulled up a small blue orb from within.
“What is it?” Laureena asked, fighting the urge to move closer.
“It's called an avtimag bomb, one of the devices we used when capturing Magi. It creates a field that stops a person from being able to use magic. When this thing explodes, the blue light inside sucks up magic and dispels it. Though it can still be very dangerous for normal, non-magical people as well.”
“But why do you have them? Are you still hunting Magi? I thought you were retired.”
“I am retired, and no, I am not hunting Magi anymore. If I’m being honest, I wasn’t very happy when my commanding officer told me I needed to retire. Being an Iso was all I knew. So on the night of my retirement celebration, I drank more alcohol than I’d ever drank in my life. Don’t remember much of anything after that. The next day, I woke up on the transfer ship with the worst hangover I’ve ever had, though somehow I’d made it there fully dressed and with all my belongings packed up. Once I landed in Delvorn, I checked my stuff and found a few of these boxes stashed at the bottom of one of my bags. Must have made way to the armory in a stupor.”
“And no one stopped you?” Laureena asked.
“I’m not easily stopped,” he replied with a smirk.
“But why do you still have them, if you’re not planning to use them?”
“I hope I never do have to use them, but that doesn’t mean I never will. Listen Laureena, I’m going to be straight with you because you’re old enough now. The world is becoming more and more dangerous every day. Some of the fishermen working the deep waters have been telling some pretty strange stories about things they’ve seen. Some have gone missing entirely. I’m just being cautious is all.”
“But, I thought you weren’t so easily stopped?”
“Well I’m not, but I’m also still alive because I’m always prepared. If something horrible tries to get one up on me, it’s going to pay the price, I guarantee you that.”
Laureena smiled, happy that Morwell wasn’t hiding anything bad, but also that he was honest with her. She was growing up, and as much as he and Papa Danvers wanted to protect her, they couldn’t treat her like a child forever.
“Now then, you still disobeyed me, so we’re gonna need to think of an appropriate punishment for you,” Morwell said, taking a look at the lock box covered in skulls before deciding to put a few of the orbs into his travel bag instead. “But, how about we wait until we get back from this fishing trip. I can’t imagine you’ll get into more trouble while we’re gone.”
“No problem!” Laureena exclaimed as she bounded out the door and back up the stairs to her room. “No more trouble for me!”
***
Laureena watched as the second wave of Vist made their way through the storm, seemingly endless in number. She looked to Morwell, his ape-like arms the size of tree trunks and ready for destruction.
For the most part, they’d had the upper hand throughout the first battle, each dead Vist empowering Morwell when the black orb vacuumed up the purple smoke that leaked from their broken bodies. Even when the second wave moved in, Laureena presumed it was only a matter of time before they had rid themselves of the monstrosities.
The first few attackers were easily smited by Morwell and absorbed by the orb, yet when Laureena tried to switch realms she felt her power sputter a bit, like an old engine trying to start after sitting cold for too long. She tried again, this time transferring over but only for a very short time. On her third attempt, she was able to stay outside the physical realm, but soon realized that her false starts were the least of her problems.
Morwell was unyielding during the attack, but with every Vist he destroyed he shrank a small-but-noticeable amount, the azure material that bound his body becoming more difficult to stretch and accommodate his growth. The orb tried to keep the beast fueled up, but no matter how much of the Vist smoke it absorbed, Morwell’s state continued to deteriorate. The blue substance that had always felt like a minor inconvenience for him to overcome was either getting stronger, or they were getting weaker.
There was only one way the three were going to make it, but Laureena feared that if she had struggled shifting planes, she’d completely fail at teleporting. As the doubt crossed her mind, the orb moved towards her, as if to acknowledge what she was thinking. It turned in Morwell’s direction and shot out its beam, siphoning energy from the beast, causing him to diminish dramatically in stature.
Immediately, Laureena felt energized, though without the extra mass and energy provided by the orb, Morwell was immediately overwhelmed by the Vist. She closed her eyes, letting the knowledge they’d attained from their raids on the Capital military bases flow throughout her mind, sparks of light bouncing against one another until a map of the world began to form within her consciousness. Drawing on the connection she had with her own orb, Laureena could picture small, glowing spheres populating across the image, each symbolizing the location of an orb belonging to an island. Most were a dull grey, meaning they’d been destroyed, while the rest were concentrated in the giant landmass that was the Central Isles. Given their current predicament, Laureena knew transporting her party right into Capital territory would surely end in disaster.
Morwell was fading quickly, and his fire blasts were merely annoying the Vist now as more and more of the creatures converged on their location. He swung his arms as hard as he could, and through he was now only slightly larger than an adult Callan, he split an attacker in half, spewing smoke and grey chunks across the white ground.
A single sphere on an island called Veru, just outside the main grouping of the Central Islands, caught her attention. It was a risk considering its proximity to the Capital, but she had little choice.
“Morwell, come to me!” she called out.
The beast ducked under the attack of a Vist that had come around his flank and barreled towards Laureena, his tentacles causing steam to rise up from the ground as it melted the snow around them. The orb followed suit, though it struggled to propel itself, as if it too was running low on power.
“Come on…” Laureena muttered to herself nervously as beams of light began to materialize around her body.
The Vist were now swarming from all sides like ants flooding to a hive. Morwell and the orb were almost within teleport range, but the monstrosities were nipping at their heels.
“DO IT NOW YOU STUPID CHILD!” a recognizable voice exploded in her head.
Without hesitation, Laureena commenced teleporting, grinding her teeth for only a moment before she and her companions were split into a billion particles and rapidly whisked away from their location.
Before now, she’d never really been aware of how it felt to teleport, as if her mind was always so focused on her quest for vengeance that the sensation barely registered. But this time was different, and she felt every facet of it, her senses registering a complex range of stimuli from the process despite how brief it was. It was an unsettling change, like a protective shield had been lifted from her mind, exposing her to a new, harsher reality.
When she opened her eyes, she found herself submerged in snow, with a child-sized Morwell desperately trying to dig her out. The teleportation had been interrupted, and they were still in the Northern Plateaus. Laureena quickly pulled herself out of the snowbank and looked around, hoping that they’d at least teleported far enough to be out of the Vist’s range. Fortunately, the swarms were nowhere to be seen.
While they hadn’t made it to Veru, they had gotten within a mile of the Northern Plateaus’ coastline. She had recalled seeing numerous fishing villages dotting the shore when she and her companions had first landed and decided that was the best place to recuperate, though she was unsure of how long they would have until the Vist found them and attacked again.
Before she could begin walking, Laureena heard a faint sound, like a tiny whisper underneath her. Scraping the snow away, she found the orb buried there, its dark exterior looking dull and worn.
Laureena waited for the orb to hover up and follow them, but soon realized that it wasn’t moving. The battle had depleted them all, but the orb seemed to have taken the brunt of it.
The small sphere had been a constant companion for the last few years, but only now did she really take the time to look at it, to actually comprehend it being there. She knew it was necessary, as it helped Morwell stay strong, but looking at it now, it felt less important than it had before. Did it have a purpose besides sucking up purple smoke? What was even inside?
As Laureena contemplated the orb, she felt fear, but not her own. The sensation was akin to seeing someone else shivering. She looked to Morwell, but he stood silently looking back at her, his usual stoic self.
Scooping the orb up in her arms, Laureena began to make her way towards the coast, with Morwell bounding behind her. The beast had now shrunk to the size of a herding dog, its movements clumsy, almost comical. The metal box that was permanently attached to his head now covered it completely, and she wondered how he could even see where he was going. She desperately hoped they wouldn’t run into any more danger, as her pint-sized protector barely even melted the snow now as he moved. Still, she couldn’t help but smile as she watched him fumble along.
A giggle slipped from her lips, a sound she hadn’t heard since she was with Calix. Just like remembering Kiluu beneath the Irapa shaman’s lodge, Laureena realized how little she had thought about the boy she’d met four years prior since she began traveling with Morwell and the orb. Her chest suddenly felt tight and a single tear fell down her cheek.
She wiped it away, unsure where these feelings were coming from. It had been constant rage since she left the glassy shores of that unknown tomb all those years ago. That horrible outcropping that had taken both Calix and Uncle Morwy away from her. Where she’d seen the red woman in the flames, and been consumed with a fire of her own for revenge. Now, for reasons beyond her comprehension, that fire within her had died down to a spark, replaced by once-muted emotions that grew intensely in its place.
Even Morwell moved as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, his arms flapping up and down while he walked as if a pleasant song was playing in his mind.
An angry whisper broke through the peaceful memories that had begun to reclaim her thoughts.
“DO NOT FORGET WHAT THEY DID TO YOUR FAMILY!”
Laureena no longer doubted that there was another among her group, a passenger subtly guiding them throughout their journey. The inhabitant of the orb. Whisper man.
“Who are you?” she said aloud, but there was no answer, only a soft buzz emanating from within the orb.
The mission to destroy the woman in the flames - and all those with crimson skin - still held a place in her thoughts, but it seemed so much less important now. It was hard to understand why hunting them down had given her such a sense of satisfaction, and if it was her own satisfaction or one manufactured by the voice in her mind. It reminded her of a boy at school who had constantly talked about how delicious his mom’s cakes were. When everyone in class finally got a chance to try them, they were good, but the boy’s enthusiasm almost made them sweeter. She often wondered whether eating those cakes without him around would have made them taste any different.
“DO NOT FORGET...” the voice called out again, but this time much weaker and no longer within her mind. It was physically coming from the orb.
Laureena suddenly felt irritated at the nagging voice and tossed the orb into her pack along with the snowshoes that Calix had given her. Seeing them, she realized that they would undoubtedly be helpful trekking across the snowy tundra, and fastened them to her feet.
“You seem tired,” she said to the orb with a tone of condescension. “Why don’t you rest.”
After a few hours of walking, Laureena, Morwell, and the talking orb finally made their way to an abandoned village on the edge of a colossal void where the ocean used to be. Massive snow dunes covered the majority of the buildings, but a stone tavern sitting atop a hill in the center was still accessible by foot.
Inside, she could see light and a bit of smoke billowing out of a window. As they moved closer, she could hear soft singing from what sounded like a child as well as the occasional whimper from another. There were people inside.
The orb, more of an ornament than active member of the group now, feebly whirred to life.
“GO,” the voice called out. It spoke with an intensity that caught Laureena off guard.
She acquiesced, suddenly aware that her mind felt oddly focused on the command. She felt her demeanor shift, the anger building up like a fire being stoked and fanned. In parallel, a strange sensation welled within her mind, distinctly different from the anger, scratching at her like a dog begging for a scrap. Hunger…was she hungry? Of course she was, but physical hunger came from her stomach, and this hunger was inside of her mind. This hunger belonged to the orb.
Laureena held up her hands to stop Morwell, signaling him to move behind a small snow drift until she determined it was safe. The beast flailed his arms in agreement, awkwardly sliding across the ground until he was out of sight. The orb nestled itself deep into her arm and a soft heat began to resonate from within.
Laureena crept up towards a stout wooden door, carefully pulling it open so as to not alert anyone inside. The wind concealed any noise the old hinges made, and like a shadow she slipped through the opening.
Holding her breath, she tiptoed through a hallway and rounded a corner into a large area filled with long tables and benches. It was dark, save for the flickering fire that had been built in a hearth at the far end of the room.
In front of the hearth, a motionless form lay on the ground, flanked by two small children in multiple layers of mismatched clothes. A young girl sang softly as she rubbed the back of the individual on the floor, an older woman who must have been their mother. The other child, a boy, held his arms tightly around his knees, crying and rocking back and forth.
The old woman suddenly spasmed, startling both children, and flopped over onto her back. She gasped for air and her eyes rolled back into her head as what fight was left in her faded away.
As Laureena watched the sad scene, the orb floated up out of her arms and into the air, moving in the direction of the dying woman. The children, finally noticing their uninvited guests, crawled away from their mother’s body and held each other tightly, quivering with fear.
The orb suddenly opened up and shot a familiar beam of light towards the mother. She began to violently shake as the beam pulled a green-hued mist from within her body. It flowed out of her mouth and eyes, circling around her head as if trying to hold its position, but the orb’s beam was too strong. It vacuumed up and devoured the mist, hovering independently for a moment after it was gone before clattering to the floor.
Morwell, sensing the orb’s activation, bounded into the room. As he neared the group, he began to grow, tendrils of blue material snapping as he reached the size of a child again.
“MORE,” a pitiful voice called out from within the orb.
Laureena looked at the children, understanding what the orb’s occupant intended. She realized it then: the orb could feed upon much more than the Vist’s purple smoke.
Thinking back, she’d never paid much attention to what the orb did during her and Morwell’s fights against the Touched, as she was so engrossed with the task at hand. It wasn’t until the Vist had started attacking them that she actually began to ascertain how the orb sustained itself and Morwell. It seemed that the orb’s dissipating control over her had blessed her with a moment of clarity.
She looked to Morwell, who was already beginning to shrink again, the glowing blue material now pulling tighter than ever. The memory of her first encounter with the beast shot into her mind. She’d found him glowing with blue light outside the cave, close to where she had found the remains of her uncle.
She gasped out loud. “Uncle Morwy’s weapons!”
Her uncle had a very serious look in his eyes when he explained the purpose of the blue spheres he kept locked away in the coal chute. They had anti-magic properties, able to contain even the most powerful Magi if applied directly. He had put them in his travel bag and brought them on that final fishing trip. The avtimag bombs must have exploded when he was killed by the fire…a fire that could only have come from her protector.
Anger and sadness welled up inside of Laureena, and she shot a glare in the direction of the beast, who was now sitting pitifully on the ground near the orb. It looked in her direction and feebly pointed an arm towards the orb.
“Free…” the beast said, projecting the words into her mind like the shriek of a million seagulls.
The realization was so obvious, how had she not seen it before? Both she and the beast were victims of the orb, its influence driving them to do its bidding, leeching them of their free will. But the relationship was different with Morwell; he and the orb were almost symbiotic in a way. The orb sent power to Morwell to destroy, and then sucked up the essence afterward to gain more power in return. But the avtimag material covering the beast had been sapping and dispelling the orb’s power reserves this entire time. Whatever was inside that orb had been hemorrhaging power ever since Uncle Morwy had hit its vessel with that bomb. The battle with the Shaman and subsequent fights with the Vist had tapped it of its reserves completely, and as the last of its power faded, so too did its control over the two of them.
She rushed over to the children and ushered them away from the orb, shooting them a reassuring smile as she helped them out of the building. Once they were safe, she picked the orb up off the ground with both hands, closed her eyes, focused deeply, and shifted realms. Not to the limbo she inhabited between worlds when she fought and used the beast as an extension of herself, but to the first realm she had ever visited outside of her own, the one she had visited the first time she grasped the orb. The realm filled with infinite fire, where she had seen the woman with crimson skin. She knew now that this was the realm of whatever lived inside the orb.
It was empty. Pure nothingness. There were no flames; it looked nothing like the place she had visited before, but somehow she knew it was the same. It had taken four years, but all the fire in this realm was eventually extinguished by the avtimag bombs her uncle had used in the last moments of his life. She knew deep down that he had used them, at least in part, to protect her. Uncle Morwell never lost a fight.
Then, Laureena felt the voice that was usually in her head, but it was all around her now, surrounding her. She felt it begin to coat her consciousness like oil, penetrating and leeching, and before it could engulf her completely she shifted back to her own realm.
Laureena dropped the orb to the ground with a thud, turned towards Morwell, and nodded.
“Do it!” she cried, jumping out of the way as Morwell pulled the remaining energy from the orb and grew to the size of a bear.
He roared ferociously as he raised his massive arms above his head and brought them down upon the orb again and again. As he landed blows, avtimag material sloughed off his arms, coating the shattered orb and locking in whatever might still dwell inside.
Finally free, Morwell stepped back and walked towards Laureena, his body shrinking with every step. The magical tether was cut between him and the orb now, and the rest of the avtimag that had coated him for so long simply evaporated away into the air. By the time he reached her, he barely rose up to the middle of her calf, no longer glowing blue but instead a dull, matte green.
The metal box that had been stuck to his head finally dislodged and fell to the ground, clanging loudly before melting away into the wooden planks below. For the first time, she could finally see his face; this was his natural size prior to being corrupted by the orb. He was a cute creature, with big black eyes and two tiny holes for nostrils. A small black slit which could have been his mouth appeared to turn upwards in a smile.
She knelt down and picked the tiny beast up, choking back tears as her most trusted consort over the last four years slowly curled up in her hand and withered away into a dry husk. A look of contentment was etched across his face. Both of her Morwells could now rest.
Collapsing to the floor, Laureena broke down and cried as long and as hard as she had the day Calix and Uncle Morwy had died. Years of restrained thoughts and feelings poured from her memory and panged her soul, the realization of the horrific things she’d done nearly suffocating her with guilt.
She may have been free from the monster, but she wasn’t free from her smothering conscience. There were numerous witnesses to her gruesome crimes, innocent bystanders terrified by the ecstasy that had erupted within her as she killed the Touched, or anyone else that got in the way. Her faculties were back now; she’d saved the children in this house from being killed and absorbed by the orb. But sparing a few children now would never redeem her for all the others who had been caught in the crossfire of her revenge.
As she lay there, bawling, Laureena became aware of the light in the room steadily growing brighter, an overwhelming feeling of comfort pushing the frigid air out of the room.
Laureena meekly pulled herself up to her knees and looked in the direction of an object that shone bright as the sun. She tried to shield her eyes, but the light’s intensity found its way through her hand and squinted eyelids. Soon, she could feel pure warmth flowing through her entire body.
She felt herself starting to lift off the ground, floating mid-air as a vision played out in her mind:
Out on the edge of the world, Laureena saw herself standing at the bottom of an immense column, cast in darkness and surrounded by friends and enemies alike. Above them, a new world grew from the corpse of the old, beckoning them to climb, to fight, to rule. It was clear - the only way to survive was to get to the top. And once they made it up, survival was only guaranteed for those who earned it.
Before she could make sense of the vision, she woke back up on the floor of the tavern, the bright light still present but dimmed enough to reveal a tall, humanoid shape standing above her.
“Who are you?” she said, nearly paralyzed with fear.
“Your people have many names for me: Settler, Remnant, Interloper. Honorifics have a tendency to intimidate, which is not my intention here, so you can call me whatever you prefer.” As it spoke, the light emanating from their body transitioned to a simple glow.
Laureena marveled at the sight of the mystical being that stood before her. The Remnant was tall and slender with androgynous features and simple, unicolor clothing that illustrated someone who was above the need for identifiable characteristics. When she looked away, Laureena knew that she wouldn’t be able to describe their face or anything about them, as if the being lived only within her present moment.
“It is no simple feat to destroy one of the eight, and you’ve come as close as any, with the help of your ‘uncle,’ of course. But I fear Värlof still lingers within you, as a passenger. Soon, it will regain its influence, perhaps wrench control from you entirely. For now, it's weak enough that I could purify you, and end the accursed deity for good…though it means losing the gifts it bestowed upon you.” The Remnant’s voice was both calm and assertive, booming and gentle. “Which would be a shame. I’ve enjoyed watching your journey.”
“Nothing I choose now will make up for the things I’ve done.” Laureena said, holding back tears.
“Your actions have had an impact, but in the grand scheme they were negligible. This world is but a prototype for something better, as was the one before it. For those who are tied to this world - those whom we tied - truly understanding that reality is outside their comprehension. Completely by design of course; only machines can be programmed to work against their own interests. Who is going to protect a world unless they care about maintaining its existence? You killed off many Touched, this is true. But their time of being chosen was coming to a transition regardless. You’ve seen the vision of what awaits you, and anyone else able to reach the new world above. Everyone will see this message. After that, what Värlof did through your hands will be inconsequential.
“Our time together is fleeting Laureena,” the Remnant continued. “Keep your passenger and perhaps you’ll ascend to the new world, or follow your moral compass and be rid of the monster entirely. For the entertainment your journey has afforded me, I will give you this choice.”
Laureena wanted it to be a difficult decision, but it wasn’t. Vision or not, she knew the Shift would soon render the world unrecognizable, leaving the majority of the surviving population in perpetual darkness, to be picked off by the Vist or whatever other horrible creatures showed up when the lights went out. Laureena was many things, but she wasn’t a quitter.
“Let it stay,” she said. “It’s not stronger than me.”
“And so it will be. I hope to see you soon, child.” The words seemed to fade from her ears as the Remnant vanished in a blast of white light, forcing her hand back over her eyes. As the light faded, the same vision from before replayed in her mind, but it wasn’t identical to the one she had seen before speaking to the Remnant. In this vision, she once again stood at the bottom of an immense column, cast in darkness and surrounded by both friends and enemies. But this time, there was something off about the scene, something that terrified and confused her. The group assembled at the bottom of the column had her surrounded, their body language illustrating a clear intent to attack.
After a few moments, Laureena opened her eyes again and looked around the desolate tavern. She extended her arm out, focused on the remains of a long wooden table in front of her, and a fiery tendril snaked out from her palm. In an instant, the table was ash. A smile crept across her face.
Thinking back to the map she’d built within her mind, Laureena scanned for a new destination to teleport, one that resembled what she’d seen in her vision. She assumed it had to be in the Outer Rings, where the columns were the most concentrated. But just like before, only two islands were suitable for teleportation. If she couldn’t teleport to the edge of the world, she would have to fly, and there was only one place that still had access to a fleet of airships. There were still plenty of active orbs in the Central Islands.
In an instant Laureena warped across the world, her atoms seemingly smashing into a wall before rejoining and dumping her body onto the ground. It was raining hard, and she put her hand to her head and groaned in pain, then looked up to see that she was on a quiet beach next to an arcing orange-hued barrier that separated the Capital from the rest of the planet. In the distance, a group of massive creatures rapidly approached the shore, kicking up towering clouds of wet sand into the air as they descended upon the last bastion of the world.
Fate Index:
1. Interspecies relationship becomes a little one-sided
2. Protagonist’s hangover leads to some incredibly fortuitous turn of events
3. Extended stream of consciousness
4. Fantasy deathmatch
5. Protagonist’s identity is thrown into question
6. People begin to question their belief system
7. Protagonist gets overzealous and makes a major mistake
8. A creature’s weak spot gets found by accident
9. A great artifact of the past is found, calling to a new owner
10. Something consequential turns out to be an illusion
11. An antagonist is offered a moment of possible redemption but must decide to act on it
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. After a long string of losses, a character begins to succeed only to jeopardize someone else's success
17. Protagonist takes up cause of beleaguered
18. Razor clams
19. Virtue of protagonist is tested by an ally
20. Nothing happens when something is supposed to happen
Outcomes Used:
2. Protagonist’s hangover leads to some incredibly fortuitous turn of events
11. An antagonist is offered a moment of possible redemption but must decide to act on it
Added outcomes:
The world’s problems are a projection of one character’s mind
(thanks to @julytel on Instagram)
The inevitable end is actually a rebirth
(thanks to Alex)
