Chapter Ten: Beneath the Surface
Written by Ethan
The Irapa village was half-buried in heavy, wet snow by the time Finnegan finally located it. Great drifts steadily swallowed circular huts that were nestled together in rows on either side of an octagonal space where a substantial building had once stood. In its place, charred, smoldering bits of timber poked up from beneath an ivory blanket like skeletal fingers reaching for help.
Finnegan moved through the abandoned settlement with careful, deliberate steps, straining to hear and see as ceaseless wind clawed at his face. Around him, an impenetrable wall of white was imminently closing in on his location. Before long, the storm would bury the last vestiges of the Irapa, and him as well if he wasn’t careful.
Before he’d arrived in the Northern Plateaus, Finnegan had been cautiously optimistic that the Irapa would be more than a match for Laureena and her beast. They were a legendary people - the only Magi that the Capital had avoided altogether during the many purging campaigns - which was telling considering the hubris of the council and their unyielding belief that every corner of the world was subject to their imperialism. Even if orders to go after the Irapa had come through, there were few Isos who would have considered taking on such an assignment, outside of Commander Caldwell himself and that giant of a man who had been the Isorropia leader’s protege.
“Too bad Morwell isn’t around to help clean up this mess,” Finnegan said to himself as he peaked into one of the huts. “He may have been the only one able to put that girl in her place, and now she’s burning down the world with a monster using his name.”
The hut was empty, with no sign of fire damage or any kind of struggle. In fact, the dwelling was in surprisingly good order, as if the occupant had left intentionally and expected to return. With more searching, Finnegan found that all of the surrounding buildings were in the same condition. Maybe this wasn’t a mass grave after all; perhaps the Irapa had escaped, though to where he had no idea. Finding the village itself had been difficult enough - even with Yura’s guidance - so he could only imagine the lengths the Irapa would have gone to conceal a hideaway.
Finnegan continued towards the center of the village, to the site of the battle between Laureena and the shaman. He glanced back at his craft and saw that its landing gear was no longer visible, the snow steadily inching upwards to consume it entirely.
“Well that’s not great,” he said with a nervous chuckle.
Finnegan was in no way ignorant to the prospect that this could be the last leg of his journey, though he had assumed his end would come at the hands of a fiery teenager and not freezing to death or suffocating under the weight of an endless snow drift. The members of his unit had told him about an old Iso named Krane, a soldier who had survived numerous missions with barely a scratch, only to choke to death on a piece of tough meat on his first day of retirement. As an officer, Finnegan had outlasted countless threats, from low-level thugs to the most dangerous Technik death squads. Now he was on his own, on the other side of the bureaucracy, trying to help prevent the end of the world on his own terms. After everything he’d gone through, dying from exposure in the Northern Plateaus would mean he was just another Krane. He did not want to be just another Krane.
The remnants of the shaman’s lodging still emitted heat as Finnegan walked up to the smoldering rubble. The fires from Laureena’s beast clung steadfast against the cold along the upright wooden support columns, the snow’s progress seemingly stifled by the heat. He’d run across numerous conflagrations during his pursuit of the girl, some taking months to die down, and sometimes only through magical intervention or when completely submerged in water. A year before, he’d traveled to an island called Sibar, a great wooded land where the flame only stopped when the ocean began. Despite Laureena only directly targeting the Touched, her impact on the rest of the world was no less devastating. Her careless infernos were erasing people and places that had held strong for centuries against lesser threats.
Finnegan walked up to one of the columns and warmed his hands. His digits had begun to stiffen despite the many layers he wore and the insulated Iso armor underneath. As he stood looking into the flames, he couldn’t fight the feeling that the flame stared back, its flickering steady like a heartbeat.
He watched as the flame began to creep down the column, ash floating off into the sky as it chewed its way down to the base, melting snow and revealing wooden planks that had been covered moments before. His attention was immediately drawn to three blackened bodies that were previously hidden beneath the snow. There was little left in the way of identifiable characteristics, but they were definitely not human...the limbs and torsos were far too slender and long.
Steam rose as the living flame continued to snake its way across the destroyed structure’s floor, growing in size as it consumed what little remained of the burnt-out lodging. Individual smoldering sections from all around the perimeter of the building seemed to alight and coalesce in the center of the wreckage, growing from mere flickers to a feeding frenzy. Through the fire, Finnegan could now see a cavernous lower floor being revealed beneath, hidden under what he had assumed was the foundation.
His concentration was snapped and he was forced to step back as the individual fires converged onto a single area, melding together and slowly transforming into a humanoid shape. Despite its constant wavering, the shape was clearly recognizable as that of a teenage girl.
“Stop following me,” a voice called out, raspy and inhuman. “I have no dispute with your kind, but I will not allow you to interfere.”
“Unfortunately, I’ve got a dispute with you.” Finnegan flung his parka off, revealing a suit made of tough animal hide atop his refurbished Iso armor. He pulled the hood up over his face, the eye holes of its previous owner fitting snugly around his artificial eyes. The suit covered his entire body, not a visible bit of flesh or armor beneath it, though the flap that shrouded his mouth was not quite as thick as the rest.
During his travels, Finnegan had never come across a living creature that could deal with the sheer heat Laureena's beast produced. Even the shields of the Touched would give out eventually after prolonged blasts of fire from the monster. But this changed when he happened upon a volcanic island inhabited by large reptilian beasts that congregated around lava flows. Inexplicably, the creatures were able to wade directly into the molten rock without incurring any damage. From here, the idea for fireproof armor was born. After a bit of stalking and a relatively uneventful tussle with one of the creatures, Finnegan had enough of their skin to cover his entire body and theoretically shield himself from the flames.
In a flash, Finnegan leveled his revolver at the fiery figure and released a volley of shots, though each one passed harmlessly through their target.
“You're a projection,” he said, placing the revolver back into his holster. “I should have assumed as much.”
The face in the fire grinned maniacally before a tendril of flame burst towards him. Finnegan stepped backwards instinctively, just out of reach of the attack. The tendril grasped in the air, flames licking at Finnegan’s suit as he stood and eyed the girl intently. The projection quivered and dimmed as it tried to stretch further, the effort appearing to drain it.
“You're tired Laureena, maybe even hurt. I'm pretty sure I’d be dead by now if you weren't. Instead of meeting me head on, I'm talking to an illusion. You've spent too much energy teleporting between islands, attacking the Touched. You're powerful, but that power isn't endless, is it? And now you've gotten ahead of yourself.”
“You know nothing...” The voice sounded different this time, more strained and distant.
Finnegan smiled. “I know that you came here before going to the Capital, even though that’s where all the Touched are being kept. A bit out of the way isn't it?”
Laureena's projection appeared to flinch, stepping away from Finnegan and towards a large snow bank just behind the ruins of the lodge.
“Almost like you needed a break,” Finnegan continued. “The shaman surprised you. Surprised me too, honestly. Our records didn't show any Touched up here, but those records were outdated and incomplete, same as the records you got your hands on a few years ago, when you torched Ebensvail Station.”
Her attack on Ebensvail Station, a small artificial island used for intelligence gathering and data storage, was her first attack and the only one where the Touched weren’t the targets. Most people had assumed the station merely caught fire, only suspecting Laureena’s involvement when similar attacks began to occur in other intelligence outposts. Upon further investigation, Finnegan discovered that the station was primarily used to keep tabs on the Touched, whose existence had been long known by the Capital's inner circle. How Laureena knew the truth about Ebensvail Station was a mystery, but her finding it explained how she was able to locate Touched around the world so easily.
“I'm warning you,” said the projection, releasing a burst of flames around its body. “Do not seek me out. I am still far stronger than you.” Behind it, the snow bank began to melt, slush running down in streams, forming steamy puddles around the projection’s feet. As the snow turned to water, large chunks of ice became visible and began to crack.
Finnegan shrugged. “I guess we'll have to see about that.”
In a single swift motion, he reached into the pack on his back, pulled out, and armed an avtimag bomb. Even if it was merely an illusion created to throw him off her trail, Laureena's projection was still part of her. Subduing it would surely weaken her further, making his end goal a bit more attainable.
As he cocked his arm back, Finnegan noticed the steadily melting ice behind the fiery girl and multiple frozen forms becoming visible inside the snow bank. The closer Laureena's projection got, the faster the ice melted, until Finnegan finally recognized what had been trapped beneath. The bodies were frozen in place, mid-movement. Flash-frozen. Before he could release the bomb, the projection exploded in heat and fire, vaporizing the snow and ice that had enshrouded the buried entities.
Five Vist shuddered and broke free, shaking off the icy remnants of their makeshift prison before taking notice of Finnegan. They hissed in unison at the sight of him, separating and rushing off, disappearing into the storm. He could sense the creatures lurking, but the snow flurries made it impossible to see or hear which direction they were moving.
“Uh oh,” he said, reaching into his pack, grabbing a handful of bullets, and swiftly loading them into his pistol.
Finnegan moved into the center of the ruins, readying his pistol and trying futilely to steady his quivering muscles in the cold. He’d barely made it out of Koa alive the first time he’d faced the Vist, and without the assistance of Koan warriors, he definitely would have ended up shattered and sucked up into a column like everyone else on that island.
The Vist’s presence in the Northern Plateaus was a shock since there was no evidence that a column was being raised here. No purple smoke, no craters, nothing. The fact that the Irapa village itself was still intact was evidence enough that a shift had yet to occur in this region.
The sound of a roar sharpened his focus as one of the creatures burst forth from the storm and rushed at him headlong. He fired his pistol, hitting it square in the chest. It dropped to the ground and tumbled hard into one of the columns before popping up and rushing back into the storm.
Before Finnegan could even inhale a steadying breath, another Vist came charging at him from behind with the same attack. He barely had time to spin around and avoid a venomous talon to the face, diving to the ground as the Vist sprawled over the top of him. He shot at it as it retreated into the storm, missing wide and sending his bullet into the snow.
Two more Vist came at him in unison, flanking from opposite sides. One of them went low, diving at his legs and rag-dolling him up into the air. Only an instant after leaving his feet, the second creature smashed into his shoulder, flipping the man head over heels and causing the revolver and the avtimag bomb he had been holding to go flying out of his hands.
Though his Iso armor absorbed much of the landing impact, Finnegan still struggled to catch his breath as he rolled onto his stomach and brought himself to his feet. The two Vist were now circling him like wolves, and out of the squall the three remaining creatures stepped forward, hissing as they surrounded him entirely.
“Five against one?” Finnegan said with a cough. “Just because the world is ending, that’s no excuse to stop playing fair.” From behind his back he withdrew a short retractable pole that tapered into a thick stock at either end. “Come on then you awful bastards, finish me off.”
With an almost imperceptible flick, Finnegan extended the pole outwards, doubling its length and releasing two large blades and a dozen smaller ones on each end, transforming the inconspicuous rod into a deadly glaive. He twirled the weapon deftly, evenly distributing the weight between his two feet and readying himself for the next attack.
One of the Vist, clearly unimpressed by the man’s show of skill, sprang forward from his right. Finnegan slashed towards its extended arm, lopping off a few of its fingers before seamlessly bringing the other side of the glaive down and removing the creature’s appendage at the elbow. It screamed in surprise almost as much as agony, purple smoke flowing from the wound and dissipating into the air.
A second creature attacked from his left, coming at him from a low angle. Finnegan side-stepped it like a matador, bringing the glaive up from below the creature and severing its right leg in one fell swoop. It collapsed onto the ground, clawing futilely at the missing limb before dragging itself out of danger.
The third and fourth Vist attacked simultaneously, telegraphing their attack with furious roars and gnashing of teeth. Finnegan brought the glaive up to his chest, parallel to the ground, the blades at each end aligned with the chests of the charging beasts. He flung an edge towards the faster of the two and as it suddenly attempted to duck, the glaive's blade lodged directly into its skull.
Its partner stopped short, aware that Finnegan's weapon was now stuck deep in its brethren's head. Instead of swiping at the man, the creature leapt over the top of him instead, just behind the dead Vist, avoiding the free end of his weapon. It swiped viciously, forcing Finnegan to dive away only a moment before its clawed hand would have sent his head flying from his shoulders.
With a roll, Finnegan was back on his feet, trying to retrieve the glaive, pulling at it with all his strength but unable to wrench it free. The two remaining uninjured Vist were now barreling down on him, eyes glowing with rage. He brought up his foot and slammed his heel down onto the shaft of the glaive, splitting the weapon in half and giving him a single usable blade.
The two Vist came at him simultaneously again, repeating their previous strategy of attacking his lower and upper body in quick succession. Instead of dodging the attack, Finnegan dove up and around at the Vist who went high, steadying his hand on its shoulder before flinging his other arm around and planting the makeshift sword into its back. As the Vist who went low swung at the man’s legs and whiffed, it looked up to see its partner falling down on top of it, knocking it onto its back, with the force of Finnegan on top sending the already-impaled blade careening into its chest. The pinned creature clawed at the man as he worked his blade deeper into its sternum, feeling the metal work through the flesh of one Vist and into the other. Finnegan let out an animalistic scream as he drove the blade deeper and deeper, not stopping until he felt it pass through completely and stick into the frozen ground below.
A few meters away, light glinted off his revolver, catching his eye. With one final push, Finnegan sprung forward off the splintered handle and towards his gun. As his chest slid across the snow, his hand met the revolver’s handle, and Finnegan twirled around and unloaded two shots into the craniums of the writhing, pinned creatures, coating the white ground with a spray of lavender.
Finnegan brought himself to his feet and searched the area for the two Vist he'd merely injured. They were nowhere to be seen.
“Cowards!” he screamed out into the storm. “I could do this all day!”
Slowly, the blizzard that had been ravaging the landscape began to die down, a bit of muted sunlight making its way through the clouds above.
“Well would you look at that,” he chuckled as he reloaded his pistol. “A bit of good fortune for ol' Finnegan.”
As soon as the words left his lips, an echoing chorus of roars and hisses erupted around the man, the clearing storm revealing dozens more Vist closing in on him from all angles.
“Scratch that!” Finnegan yelped. “I cannot do this all day!”
His head shot around frantically, looking for any sort of escape route, and he remembered seeing a room below the shaman's lodge when Laureena’s projection had materialized. The fire had indeed burned a hole through the ground floor, but it was barely big enough for him to fit his legs into, let alone his entire body. He began to kick at the damaged wood, slowly but steadily breaking off bits of charred pieces with each blow.
“Come on, come on” he said nervously, trying to ignore the herd of Vist coming closer and closer with each passing moment.
He stomped and stomped; halfway there. A single Vist came into view to his right. It screeched, signaling the others to his location, and rushed towards him.
Out of time, Finnegan scampered up onto the snow drift behind him and jumped with all of his weight onto the splintered opening. He felt the wood break, but instead of falling downwards, he was flung up into the air and away from the opening like a trampoline, careening and flailing over the embankment he'd just jumped off of.
Finnegan tumbled into the snow and looked back in a daze to see a girl riding atop what appeared to be a long, thick tentacle swirling with blue light, emerging from the hole in the ground he had just been trying to enter. This was no projection: Her dark hair blew violently around her head, facial features barely distinguishable due to the intense glow of her ferocious yellow eyes.
“I told you to go away!” Laureena screamed. Her beast contracted and squeezed up through the small hole in the wood like an octopus escaping confinement, emitting waves of noticeable heat as it emerged and expanded above. Behind them, a small black orb followed closely, pulsating light intermittently like a flickering star.
As Laureena approached, Finnegan noticed the air around her quivering strangely, similar to what he’d seen with the overexerted projection, but this seemed to be happening in the space around Laureena’s physical body. It was as if she was fighting to maintain an ethereal form, and with each moment that passed, it became clearer and clearer that this was a fight she was losing.
Her beast wasn’t much larger than the Vist at this point, its metal hat fitting snugly on its bulbous head. The avtimag material that covered its body was keeping the creature’s flames mostly concealed beneath oscillating strands of blue light. Morwell lumbered behind the girl, slouched and dragging its arms across the ground and turning the snow into puddles of slush. It too was struggling to function, the heat produced from its body making its surroundings feel more like a warm summer day than the surface of a star.
Despite the two of them clearly being in a diminished state, Finnegan knew they would still be formidable foes. Besides, he was completely unnamed, and an army of Vist was making their way to rip him apart. His luck had most certainly run out. The only question now was which of his enemies would take him down first.
Two Vist rounded the corner of the ruins, caught a glimpse of the man, and dove in his direction with arms outstretched and jaws open wide. Finnegan closed his eyes, praying for a quick end. But it didn’t come.
For some reason, the Vist went straight for Laureena and her beast instead. The girl looked on fearfully as the monsters latched onto Morwell and began to claw at its tentacles, but the beast puffed up and grew in size, slapping at the monsters with its massive arms and knocking them onto the ground. Morwell reared back and fire licked out from beneath its avtimag barrier, and the goliath slammed its simian arms down on top of the stunned Vist, smashing them into purple puddles.
The black orb that had been hanging behind swiftly floated forward and approached the dead Vist. The sphere began to shake, then split in half to reveal a gelatinous substance that floated like magma in zero gravity. A bright beam of light shot out from its core, pulling in the purple smoke that had begun to rise from the dead Vist. Once it had absorbed it all, the orb closed and moved back behind Laureena and the beast.
Finnegan immediately noticed a change in the two, as if they'd been revitalized. The flickering around Laureena became less noticeable, her physical form fading and drifting back to whatever space it went for protection. The beast pulled itself up from its slouched stature and the avtimag threads around it stretched and snapped, the heat from its body now making the air around Finnegan noticeably uncomfortable.
The Vist continued to attack Laureena and Morwell, coming at them from all directions and leaving Finnegan alone to crouch nervously beside the snow bank. In her diminished state, Laureena could barely hold back the horrific creatures as they swarmed. She howled in anger as Vist claws phased through her physical form, her beast reacting to her every movement, swinging its massive arms around, ripping at the creatures with its tentacles, and sending out weakened versions of its fire blasts that merely burned the Vist instead of incinerating them. As the creatures jabbed Morwell’s fiery limbs with their petrifying claws, purple stone patches would begin to appear across its body, within moments igniting and oozing away harmlessly. The orb darted in and out of the action, draining as much Vist smoke as it could while avoiding direct attacks.
Not wanting to lose his window of opportunity, Finnegan scrambled away from the battle and attempted to run towards his craft. As he got to his feet, he felt the air around him grow unbearably hot. He hadn't taken two steps before Laureena's fiery projection appeared in front of him.
“You will not leave this place alive,” it said, floating towards him.
He stared into the formless face of the entity as it approached, then back at Laureena’s physical body, which was still controlling her beast, locked in a brutal battle. How was Laureena able to wield such incredible power? He'd dealt with some of the greatest Magi in the world, and none of them matched the abilities this girl possessed.
“Laureena wait!” he said to the projection, holding up his arms.
“This name you continue to say means nothing to me.” The projection laughed, pointing towards the girl’s physical form. “That is merely the name of the vessel.”
“Wait...what the hell are you?” As Finnegan said it, the projection reached out its flaming hand and placed it on the man’s chest.
“I am Värlof. I am the fire that ruled the world. I am the flame that has burned since light first illuminated the dark. The world below was taken from me and moved to a world above. I wish to take it back.”
The fiery form pushed its hand forcefully into Finnegan’s chest. His hide armor began to sizzle and smoke as the projection's hand moved through the top layer of fireproof reptilian skin and then past the Iso suit beneath. Finnegan screamed out, the smell of singed hair and flesh coating his nostrils. He tried to swat the hand away, but his arm caught fire as soon as it made contact with the projection.
Finnegan had just enough time to think, “Ok, this time I’m really dead,” before the ground beneath him opened up like a sinkhole and his body plummeted down and away from the projection’s fiery grasp. Everything went dark and he was tumbling awkwardly through a massive tunnel that was dropping him deep underground. He reached out his hands to slow down his descent, but the walls of the tunnel were pure ice, and there was no amount of friction he could cause to slow himself.
After multiple end-over-end tumbles, the grade of the tunnel became less steep and his movement gradually slowed until he was deposited unceremoniously into a large chamber. He tumbled across the soft ground, landing in the middle of a dimly-lit, cavernous snow den. An underground river ran from one end of the space to the other, its waters glowing with a soft blue light that illuminated the room just enough to see dozens of immense tunnels similar to the one from which he'd just emerged.
As Finnegan lay there, pummeled and confused, he heard a loud clomping sound in the far corner of the room. He sat up to see that a gigantic animal with bright blue eyes was languidly making its way towards him, its fur coat covered in fresh snow.
From what he’d seen in books, it looked like something between a proper bear and an ursua, though far larger and without the special features that allowed those unique northern creatures to live amphibiously. Its exposed underbelly was layered with overlapping, stone-like growths resembling armor, and were also visible through areas in its coat that were missing thick tufts of fur, like the pads on a shaggy dog’s foot.
Given that he'd continuously stumbled from one predicament into another, Finnegan assumed he was about to become this creature's dinner, but the lumbering animal passed by him and walked innocently towards the stream instead. Once there, it took a big mouthful of water and moved back towards the tunnel entrance he’d come through. The animal held the water in its mouth for a few moments and then opened it up to expel a giant ball of snow that it pushed up into the tunnel. The creature continued this act a few more times, and the hole was completely sealed.
Once it was done, the animal turned its attention to Finnegan. It approached gently and stood over the top of him like a lion over a mouse, giving the injured man a proper view of just how colossal it really was. Slowly, it lowered its head and dropped its massive tongue onto the wound on his chest, methodically licking at it until the burning pain disappeared completely. After it finished, the animal started to move to the far end of the cave, but stopped after a few steps and turned towards the man.
“You want me to follow you?” Finnegan asked, climbing to his feet and making his way in the creature's direction.
It led him to another sprawling tunnel on the opposite side of the den. After a bit of walking, the two of them found themselves in another large room, though this one was lit by torches. Furniture and supply crates dotted the area and a long wooden table sat in the center. At the end of the table, a stout man in fur garments sat hunched over, flanked by three young girls wearing long cloaks made of hide and head pieces constructed from animal bone. They appeared to be tending to the man as if he was injured.
“Well, what have you brought us now, Jartow? Is this man tonight's dinner?” He laughed deeply, then coughed.
“Please shaman, you are not yet recovered from your wounds,” one of the girls said, while another rushed to fetch him some water.
“I'm perfectly fine,” the shaman said, standing up and steadying himself on the table. “It'd be rude to just sit here as a new guest arrives. Thank you, Jartow. Why don't you get some rest, you've been quite busy today.”
Jartow lumbered over to a corner of the room and laid down, the entire room quaking noticeably as it dropped onto the floor. The animal yawned, and the room suddenly felt ice cold.
“I'm afraid we have little time for pleasantries,” the shaman said, pulling back his hood to reveal crimson skin, a bright white beard, and long, braided white hair. “I can sense Värlof’s power returning, so there’s no time to waste. We have a god to kill.”
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. Someone gets refueled
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. Razor clams
19. Protagonist becomes famous
20. Ancient deity decides to walk the mortal realms
Outcomes Used:
8. Protagonist joins or befriends powerful creature
20. Ancient deity decides to walk the mortal realms
Added outcomes:
A character begins to doubt reality
(thanks to @yawnsport on Instagram)
Improbable infant survival
(thanks to Scrat)
