Chapter 11 White Out
Finn struggled to make his way through a cavern. It was harder to walk with the infinite blackness that covered everything. Finn's head was throbbing. He had one hand over his mouth and broken nose. The only sound Finn could hear was the sound of his own footsteps and the slow dripping of his own blood.
'How can I not hear him, he's covered in all that armor.' As he took two more steps, Soturi's fist flew through the air and made contact with the left side of Finn's head. Finn collapsed on to the rough stone floor.
"Fight back." Soturi said calmly, stepping away from his apprentice.
"I can't." Finn said as he separated himself from the ground. "I can't fight what I can't see." The boy stood with his feet planted and his arms up, ready and willing to fight.
"Yes, you can." Finn thought he had heard Soturi coming from the left again. So he leaned to his right to dodge the attack, only to meet Soturi's right fist. Finn was flung backwards. Grunting as he hit the floor. "You're relying on your senses far too much." Soturi grabbed Finn by the straps of his pack and put him back on his feet. "You need to learn how to overlook them. See without your eyes. Hear without your ears. Feel without your hands." Finn spit the blood out from his mouth so he could talk clearly.
"How is that possible?"
"You tell me." Soturi rammed the palm of his hand into the center of Finn's chest. Finn was thrown against the cavern wall. Pain shot through his entire body. He tried his best not to scream, but it came out and echoed through the tunnels of the cavern. "Overlook your senses, boy. Complete the test, and kick my ass." Finn moaned as he stood up. He took three steps before tripping on a rock, and fell to his hands and knees. Every breath he took was long and deep.
'Fine.' Finn thought as he slowly stood up again. He whispered to himself as he closed his eyes. "See, without my eyes. Hear, without my ears." Finn cleared his mind of all thoughts and emotions. After several minutes, the details of the cavern came to him. He envisioned every rock, every stalactite. Soturi came into view as well, along with a weird yellow fog that surrounded him. Finn could see a small smile on his face.
'Come on.' Soturi's voice rang through Finn's mind, but he overlooked it as well. The King lunged forward, fists clenched. Finn's warrior instincts reacted immediately and he barrel rolled to his right. As Soturi's fist made an imprint in the stone wall, he was filled with delight.
"Good, good!" Soturi removed his hand from the wall and faced Finn. "Well, I'm waiting?" He said, his arms outstretched to some extent. Before Finn charged, he picked up a rock. Soturi took a swing at his protégée, but Finn dodged that easily and he slammed the rock into Soturi's helmet. It rang like a church bell as Soturi became as disoriented as a drunk man. Finn delivered two of his own punches to the gaps in Soturi's armor, right in his gut. Then a third to his jaw. The force of all three punches sent Soturi backwards, but he was still standing.
Soturi's head was still ringing as Finn made his next move. He jumped up and kicked Soturi in his chest with both feet. The king toppled to the stone floor. He laid there for several seconds and then started to laugh. Finn walked up to him, eyebrows raised.
"What's so funny?" he asked.
"I'm just having trouble processing the fact that you've done more in five months, than I've done in over forty years." Soturi snapped his fingers, and both he and Finn were now in a thick forest. During the transport, Soturi put himself upright. Finn's eyes were twitching due to the change of light. "It's almost unnatural. My calculations were off by so much. I think it's time that you got one."
"You know I can't read your mind."
'Actually, now you sorta can.' Finn's eyes grew wide when Soturi's voice rang inside his head again.
"Did you just…"
"Yep. And you can do the same and much more when you get one of these, a valta as its named." Soturi said as he raised his hand with the yellow eyed gauntlet on it.
"Like what?"
"Well, a valta allows whoever is wearing it to use their ora, manna, magic juice, whatever you want to call it. To turn it into things such as beams of energy, and force fields. That's what most of this training was for. Later on you will unlock certain abilities like teleportation and healing injuries. The best part is that you will also receive armor similar to mine and with my help, you'll learn how to in half the time." Soturi walked up to a fascinated Finn and placed his hand on his forehead. "I will give you the method of reaching the…" He stopped in mid-sentence when he realized something. "Huh, it appears that you've already been there. Regardless you are going back to the place my people called the King's Labyrinth or as it is known today…" 'The Dungeon of the Crystal Eye.' Soturi thought with a smile.
The sun had risen just after Finn did. He had been preparing for his trek to the Dungeon of the Crystal Eye. Soturi told him all he would really need was his mind and also to leave his sword at home, and he did. All he had really done was grab his pack, and left a note for Jake. Finn jumped out of the second story window just because he could, he landed feet first on the grass. Finn groaned in pain as the nerves in his legs flared up. He still hadn't fully recovered from the beating he had received five days ago. Finn sucked it up and started a mad dash towards the Candy Kingdom. When Finn arrived there, he tip-toed his way into the royal stables. He called out the names of every strange animal until Finn found what he was looking for.
"Jelly horse, jelly horse, jelly horse, jelly horse, jelly horse, swan, ah there you are." Finn smiled at the majestic beast still sleeping in front of him, the Marrow. He opened the gate so he could remove the bird, but it refused. Interesting fact, Marrows are the only kind of birds that like to wake up at the crack of noon. The bird let out a squawk as it thrashed at Finn with its beak and talons. The Marrow returned to nest when Finn backed off, it actually stared Finn down for a minute until it returned to its sleep. Finn slowly got up from the ground and brushed the hay off of him.
"How am I gonna get you outta' there?" Finn asked the bird. It only responded in a dead silence. Finn glanced at the end of the stable and saw a big fridge. He walked toward the fridge and opened it to find several buckets filled with fish. "There's my answer." Finn grabbed the bucket with the most fish in it and returned to the Marrow and whistled for its attention. Once the bird saw the fish, it immediately thought of Finn as a friend. Finn tossed a fish, the bird caught it in mid-air and swallowed it whole. Finn held up another fish to lure it out of the stable. And once the two were outside, Finn placed the bucket on the ground so the Marrow could finish the rest of the fish. As he mounted the bird he realized that he might want to leave a note and so he did, right in the Marrow's nest.
"I wonder how mad the princess is gonna be?" he said as he remounted the bird and took off. The Marrow screeched rather loudly as it flew higher and higher. Finn closed his eyes and relaxed as the wind blew past him.
"HEY!" Finn heard the scream of the princess very clearly, even though the Marrow was well past the castle walls. "THAT'S MY MARROW!" Finn hadn't heard Princess Bubblegum scream like that since the incident with the Duke of Nuts.
"Okay, she's not mad. But she is really pissed."
For the entire forty minute ride to the dungeon, Finn had thought of what the princess might do to him. Everything from her simply yelling at him, to a tad bit of torture. However Finn forgot all about the princess' rage when he saw the well that was the entrance to where he was going. Finn maneuvered the bird to where the princess's swan had rescued him and Jake the last time they were here. Mostly so he could avoid a confrontation with that demon cat with approximate knowledge of everything. He'd wanted to come back here just to kill that thing for some time now. But that would have to wait for another day. Finn landed the Marrow next to a tree and jumped through the opening.
Finn cautiously walked towards the stone stairway that wrapped around a menacing tower that held the colossal diamond known as the Crystal Eye. Finn grabbed the diamond, lifted it up and threw it to the side. It left quite a number of cracks in the floor when it landed. Once the diamond opened the hole it was covering, Finn ran back down the stairs just in time for four flying eyeballs that were engulfed in flames to pop out of the hole. Finn knelt at the bottom step as the eyes circled around him. He looked up at them before he bowed to the eyes. The fire went out as the eyes stared at the boy. After ten seconds of this, the eyes faded out of existence. Finn had learned from his previous visit to this dungeon. When those eyeballs attacked him and Jake last time, they immediately went for some weapons that had been scattered around the room and they would have died if not for the princess' aid. Finn picked himself up with a smile and returned to the top of the small tower. With closed eyes and a deep breath, Finn jumped down the hole. He fell for eight straight seconds in complete darkness. Finn put his feet and pack on the walls of the hole when he saw a dim light below him. By the time Finn was about two feet from the light, he came to a dead stop. The boy removed his legs from the wall of the hole so he could enter the light.
He landed in a pool of crystal clear water that was ten feet in diameter and about fifty feet deep. Finn looked back up at the hole he had fallen from. It was surrounded by a barrier made of pure light. The room the pool was in was similar to a giant bubble that had been cut in half. The curved walls were painted and engraved with beautiful art. Around the pool were four pillars that held the eyeballs Finn had bowed to a minute ago. He swam to the edge of the pool and stepped out. Once Finn was on dry land he realized that it wasn't stone like the rest of the labyrinth, but metal. He tried to ignore everything around him, but was captivated by the beauty of it all. Soturi's voice rang through Finn's mind as he told him to focus and to stay at the task at hand.
"Oh, sorry." Finn looked around and saw the door on the opposite side of the bubble room. When he reached that, there was a long corridor that looked as if it was stolen from a mansion on the top of a hill. Finn walked down the corridor slowly, admiring the drapes and fabrics that shined as if they were made of gold. The metal floor, ceiling and walls where the golden cloths were hung, had the same luster as silver. As Finn neared the end of the corridor he saw two doors that were covered in every gem known to man. Diamonds, pearls, rubies, you name it, all in the shape of the gauntlet he was here to obtain. He placed his hands on the doors and was about to push them open when these words passed through his head.
'Finn, I'm going to tell you now, that when you go through those doors, I will be of no help to you. What you seek must be retrieved solely by you. And it will be worth it, trust me.'
"Like I have a reason not to." Finn said as he pushed the bejeweled doors open. The boy stepped through and the doors slammed shut with an echoing thud. Finn stood in total darkness, the only sound he could hear was the sound of his accelerated heart beat. He nearly jumped out of his skin when two torches lit themselves and started a chain reaction of more torches that illuminated a large circular room. The floor of the room was covered in scraps of metal that were shaped irregularly. Finn step hesitantly forward, as if something was about to ambush him.
Down from the ceiling, came a blue orb of light. The orb circled around Finn for several seconds before it stopped in front of him.
"Who are you? Why are you here, in my labyrinth?" The orb spoke in many voices, all at the same time and all of them male.
"My name is Finn the Human, and I have come for a valta. And I will not leave until one is on my arm."
"You have survived the trials of this place and so you will have your wish. Place your dominate hand on me." Finn did not hesitate to put his right hand on the orb, but if he knew what was going to happen, he certainly would have taken his time. A hot, searing pain shot through Finn's arm as blue light from the orb engulfed it. The pain was like nothing Finn had ever felt before, it felt as if his flesh was being ripped apart atom, by atom. Finn clamped his jaw shut and fell to his knees. He tried to tough it out, but soon blacked out from the pain.
"Awaken, awaken." Finn could barely hear the orb's many voices. "AWAKEN!" The orb shouted, rousing the boy in an instant. He shot up and glanced around the room. Finn saw two things as he got up, one that the orb was now white. Two, the valta was on his right arm. He examined the gauntlet carefully. It felt natural to him, because as far as Finn could tell the metal had replaced his top layer of skin. A greenish eye with a black triangular pupil stared back at him. Below the eye was a large pearl, embedded into the metal. He then realized that this must come with every valta, because he remembered that Billy's had a sapphire gem and Soturi's has a topaz gem in the exact same spot where the pearl was.
"Finn the Human…" The orb drifted away from Finn and the scraps of metal to rise up from the ground and orbited the ball as it spoke. "…you must prove to me that you are fit to wield a tool that magnitude of power. In one last trial." the scraps of metal began to collide together and form the shape of a wingless dragon. It had thick long claws, four sturdy legs, and a slender body. Its very long tail was composed of sliding metal plates, the same as the neck that was ten feet in length. The head of the dragon was bird like, with the addition of glowing white eyes and four curved horns, two of which looked more like ears than horns. "One of combat."
The dragon's head arched back and opened its jaw wide. It then sprang forward with white flames pouring out of its mouth. Finn only had a second to react. He raised his hands up, as if to deflect the blaze. However the flames quickly overwhelmed him. For five more seconds the dragon continued to spew fire. When the fires died down, Finn was still in the stance he was in when the fire overtook him. The only difference was that his valta was glowing and there was a protective bubble around him that faded along with the fire. Finn was so busy admiring the fact that he was still alive, that he didn't notice the dragon's tail swinging around. It swept Finn off his feet and clear to the other side of the room. He groaned as he hit the wall. The dragon's thunderous footsteps filled the air as it came toward Finn. As he stood up to fight, Finn noticed that his valta was still glowing. He pointed his palm at the dragon and concentrated. Not long after a white beam of energy shot from his palm. But with no aim or control, the beam just zigzagged several feet away from the dragon's head.
"Not this again." Finn said as he hit the gauntlet, hoping to get a solid beam like when he wore Billy's valta. But instead of that, the valta's glowing crawled up Finn's arm and continued to surround the rest of his body. As the glow dwindled away, armor took its place. Armor that looked a lot like Soturi's, the only difference is that Finn's armor didn't look as if it had been through hell, and his was as white as snow. Before Finn could question this, the dragon's head lunged at him with its jaw wide open. Finn grabbed both top and bottom jaws. The force of the attack pushed him against the wall, but he still held strong. With an unnatural strength bestowed to him by the armor, Finn was able to twist the dragon's head to the right and the hwell. It cracked the floor with a booming thud.
"Oh man, if Jake could have seen that!" The dragon swung its head to the left so it could pick itself up, and in the process it knocked Finn down. The dragon took advantage of the downed hero, and struck at him with its bird like head. Finn rolled out of the impact zone and left the dragon's head stuck in the floor. While it was preoccupied, Finn rushed to its underbelly, the Achilles heel of every dragon. But before he could cause any damage, the dragon's tail wrapped itself around Finn's legs, dragged him out and hung him upside down in the air. The dragon pulled its head out from the floor and turned to Finn. It opened its mouth for the third time and Finn knew what was about to happen. He carefully aimed his palm at the dragon's mouth and fired another beam of energy, this time with deadly accuracy. The beam went down the dragon's gullet, just as the fire was halfway up. The two collided causing most of the metal plates in the dragon's neck to be blown off. The rest of the metal beast collapsed and returned into the hundreds of metal scraps Finn had found when he entered the room. Finn removed himself from the pile of metal and staggered towards the door. He only turned around to watch the orb rise from the scrap pile and float back up to the ceiling. As Finn stepped toward the doors, they opened by themselves.
'Congratulations, Finn.'
"Thanks, Soturi." When Finn walked through the doors, his white armor disappeared. "What the…?"
'The room is magical. It enhances your powers by a lot, actually. But with that on your arm, the rest of your training will be a breeze. I promise."
"Sweet." Finn strolled down the corridor paying more attention to his new toy than the works of art around him. When he entered the room with the pool, he saw that large metal rings had come out of the water and formed stairs. He climbed to the top ring and saw a metal plate the exact width of the hole above. Once both of his feet were on the plate, it acted as an elevator. Carrying Finn to the top of the hole. He found his way back to the Marrow and mounted it.
"Okay girl, let's go home." Finn said patting the bird. But before it took off, a pair of hands grabbed Finn from behind and threw him to the ground. He looked at the sky and saw the Marrow flying in the clouds. Looking down at Finn was an angry pink face.
"Hey princess." He said feebly.
"Dear princess, I need to borrow your big bird. Finn. That's all I got for an explanation, so I'm here for a better one that just might calm me down. Now let me hear it."
Finn didn't reply right away, he had to think and nothing came to mind. 'Soturi, I little help would be nice.'
'Well, maybe you could knock her unconscious.'
'Not funny, dude. Should I tell her? I mean, she can keep a secret.'
'No! No one but us is to know that my brother is alive. At least for now, but we'll find the best way to address the public.' Finn continued his mental conversation while the princess grew more impatient by the second.
'Yea that's nice, but what the hell am I supposed to do here.'
'Honestly, I've got nothing and you're screwed.'
First off, I'd like to thank the Narwhal-Riding Alien, being the only person who reviewed the last four chapters and the only person who apparently gives a crap. I'm just saying, a little review never hurt anyone.