Chapter Twenty Five: Answerability
The Astral Plane, Somewhere on the World Tree, February 22nd 1392 a.c.
When the dust settled and the sound waves diminished, it revealed both Dusk and Quel standing right in front of each other. Both of them were hunched over slightly from swinging their blades at one another.
"It looks like we've reached the end of our battle," rasped Quel, each and every word a a struggle to gasp out.
"Don't sound so pained, idiot," Dusk replied, his voice bearing a lot of strain in it as well, though not as much as Quel's.
They had each dealt the other a serious blow. Dusk, imbued with the power of a demigod had been more than a match for Quel at his most powerful. If Quel had sought to block Dusk's sword blow it would have resulted in him not only having his blade shatter in his hands but Dusk escaping any harm. He had instead taken the blow head on while aiming a powerful slash at the psiforged's torso. Both blows had done telling damage.
Quel coughed up blood and fell over onto his stomach, except that in the Astral Plane he just flopped forwards. A large gash ran from his left shoulder down towards his right hip and penetrated deeply into his body. He had nearly been cut in half, his own blood pooling in the air around him.
Dusk hadn't escaped harm, though. Quel had aimed every last ounce of his power into one point: the psiforged's chest. He had succeeded in stabbing Dusk all the way through, impaling him on his zanpakuto. Because Quel had aimed slightly upwards the small tree on Dusk's back had been pierced as well. Dusk's core and the tree's heart had both been penetrated. He was slowly dying. Again.
"You always were such a stubborn child," Dusk remarked, almost to himself.
"And you were always a strict teacher," Quel replied, just as softly.
They gazed at each other as the life drained out of both of them.
"Why didn't you kill me?" Quel asked. They both knew with the power of the Wings, Dusk could easily have cut Quel to pieces.
"I don't know," Dusk replied honestly. "Perhaps it is just your fate to live on Willbearer.
"I will not give you the Regalia. Even in death I cannot forgive myself or you for what has happened." Dusk summoned the device that held the many gods and goddesses in it. He grasped it and tossed it with all his remaining might towards the Eddos Ring and the portal to the Abyss.
"I'm sorry I chose you as a target for my hate boy," Carthas said. He was his old self again, without the persona of Dusk clouding his mind. "I have something I need to tell you before I pass on. Are you listening?"
"Speak on Carthas," Quel said, coughing up more blood.
They drifted together in silence for awhile and Quel thought the psiforged had expired, when Carthas started talking.
"I was reborn in darkness, not knowing anything of what I had done before I had died or even who I was. I had bursts of memory return to me in flashes. Vibrant memories tinged with sorrow I did not understand. Then He came to me and told me who I was and what I could do to change my fate."
Quel felt a chill enter his bones. Either that or he was dying faster than he thought; one of the two. They floated there together in the stillness, the sounds of battle far off and distant enough to be in another world.
"He gave me a plan and the Regalia. I'm not even sure if he was real or a figment of my imagination. You asked me what my goal was in kidnapping all of these deities. It was the rebirth of Khyber, the dragon that forms the Underworld on Eberron. One of the Progenitors... His revival would have ushered in a new Dark Age..."
Quel was almost speechless. "Who made you do this?"
"I know nothing of him. Only that first meeting with him, which turned me down this path."
Carthas' eyes began to flicker, his time had come. "Don't die Quel. Live..."
One spark of light, as tiny as a mote of dust, detached from the slowly withering tree on Carthas' back and sped towards Quel. He watched it coming, curious and tired to the marrow of his being. It touched him on his Third Eye and the world vanished.
"How's that portal coming?!" yelled Saida over her shoulder, not taking the time to look as she dodged the claws of a glabrezu and kicked it in the jaw two times in rapid succession. The mighty demon recoiled backwards and was replaced by a succubus, blatantly naked with horns, a forked tail and bat wings. She was nonetheless pretty looking, until Saida broke her nose with one blow and sent her flying back to smash into the other demons and celestials struggling with each other all around them. Chuldo and Abir were holding their own, but all three were exhausted and would soon cave from the pressure. Dong Dong still lay in slumber behind Rishi. The little old man was still meditating and didn't respond to Saida's query. Flau had fallen unconscious as well and floated/laid near Dong Dong.
It had been over seven minutes since he had plopped himself down after asking for five to prepare something to stop up the portal. Finally, he stretched without making a sound and floated up to the portal. He went to the top of it, reached into his pack and dug around until he pulled out a shard of crystal that was honey colored. It impacted with the top of the ring and caused the majority of it to crack. Energy began to pour out of the ruined ring.
"Halfway done," Rishi said. "One good spell will finish the job."
"That's all you needed to do!?" Saida asked in outrage. "WHY THE HELL DID YOU HAVE US COVER YOU FOR OVER FIVE MINUTES!?"
"Because I needed the time to think and digest my edamame bean casserole I had for lunch earlier," he said with a shrug.
Saida hit him on the head very hard.
"Oh look at all de purdy burdies..." Rishi said to himself before falling over.
"You grab Dong Dong. You grab Flau and I'll carry our eccentric old man here," Saida said to Chuldo and Abir in turn, jabbing her finger at each of them. They all raced away from the portal, dodging and running now instead of fighting. It was lucky for them that all of the demons and celestials were too busy battling each other to pursue them. When they got far enough away, Saida fired off a shock wave back at the portal.
When it arrived the Eddos Ring cracked even more and gave way, exploding violently and knocking down demons and celestials for over one hundred feet in every direction. Our band was far enough away that instead of being knocked flat they were able to ride the shock wave.
"We have to find Quel and pronto!" Saida said. Without looking back they ran/floated on at the speed of thought.
He was standing in a clearing. Trees towered all around and from the odor of the air and the cloistered feeling this little vale gave off he suspected himself to be deep in the middle of an ancient forest. It was at the end of a beautiful sunset, night was falling. A single glimmer of light lay in the center of the clearing. The sky was darkening and the clouds that peeked over the horizon were shades of pinks, oranges and reds.
Quel was incorporeal, he knew that much. He was here to bear witness to something. This wasn't his first vision, nor was it going to be his last. He knew to pay very close attention to what it showed him.
A rustling noise was heard off to the side. He turned to look and froze. A man wearing a dark cloak with the hood up and over his head, hiding his features completely, was standing next to and looking down at the glimmer in the clearing.
Quel willed himself towards the man and tried his best to see who he was and what the glimmer was. He stared and stared in vain, unable to see the man's features. At least I can tell it's a he and not a she, Quel mused.
The glimmer revealed itself to be a small baby tree sapling. It was an Ouritsuju sapling.
This is how the tree came to be in Carthas' back!
Suddenly and violently, the hooded man turned and stared directly into Quel's eyes. His eyes were yellow, like a Sith's. Distorted by the darkness in his soul, they were windows onto the landscape within his heart and mind. Quel did not like what he saw.
The dream ended, everything fading away to a gray blackness. The last two things to disappear were the yellow eyes, still locked on Quel, and the glimmering little sapling. Sleepiness overtook Quel, making him drift off into a waking dream state. After everything that had happened to him in his life, from losing his parents to fighting this battle over the Regalia, he just wanted to lay down and rest. Let everything pass him by for now.
"Quel!" yelled a voice familiar to him, disturbing his rest.
He felt a spark of light pierce the gray blackness around him, forcing him to wake up.
"QUEL!" yelled Saida.
His eyes snapped open to see the cat-girl's face inches above his, a look of worry and relief flooded into her eyes. She didn't seem to mind the cloud of blood hovering around his body.
"My ears..." he said lamely, in the middle of a delirium. His mind wasn't firing it's synapses properly.
"Your wound won't stop bleeding," she said softly.
He peered down at the giant cut all down his front and saw that she was right: it was still bleeding profusely. He would be dead within minutes if the bleeding didn't stop and he still might die due to blood loss. Coldness of a very profound and deep nature was seeping into his body, trying to claim it.
A sudden inspiration occurred to him and when he saw that the many quells were gone he knew he had a chance to carry his wild idea through to fruition. He began a benediction to all of the goodly gods to aid him again in whatever capacity they could. He prayed for what felt like many minutes, with nothing happening and still more blood pouring out of him. His prayers were fueled by desperation and a need to carry on living. Then, with amazing suddenness, a divine light suffused his body and closed up his wound, filling him with renewed vitality and warmth. He stretched and yawned, almost overcome by exhaustion. He was very grateful to the gods for aiding him again, obviously.
Now he had to pay them back by rescuing the kidnapped gods and goddesses. He remembered that Carthas had thrown the Regalia into the portal. He had to go and retrieve the device from the clutches of whatever fiend held it and force his way back through the portal. Success wasn't likely, but neither was his willingness to simply give up.
Saida was not alone: Abir and Chuldo were behind her, carrying the limp forms of Dong Dong, Flau and Rishi.
"Are they...?" Quel asked, looking at Saida.
"No one's dead, yet." She clarified. "We need to get out of here quickly."
"I know where we can go," Quel said. He realized something had changed in him, but couldn't quite place exactly what it was. He knew it was important, but other things required his immediate attention.
They all set off for one of the many portals that opened up onto the World Tree. They were lower down on the trunk of the tree, not quite halfway up it's length. A shimmering portal stood before them guarded by a small squad of fierce angels in battle armor and wielding spears and shields.
"Hail and Well Met!" Quel hollered to the angels.
"Who goes there and what business do you have with Our Lord Oghma?!" yelled back the captain of the little squad.
"We seek sanctuary from this battle!" Saida answered back. "We aren't demons, if you can't already tell that much!"
"We have people in sore need of healing!" Abir yelled.
"Me daughter's life is in danger ye winged birdman!" Chuldo yelled. "Let us pass!"
"Please!" Quel added at the end.
The angels looked at each other and the captain looked everyone over once more, pausing when he saw Dong Dong and Flau. Flau looked horrible, covered in blood as she was and hanging lifelessly in Abir's arms.
"Alright!" The angel captain said loudly. "I'll let you pass, but only if you forfeit your weapons to us!"
"Ok!" Quel answered before anything could hinder this sudden acceptance.
Chuldo began to strip out of his armor, it being his one remaining weapon. Everyone else was basically weaponless, asides from them being living weapons, of course. Abir did his best to not look like an incendiary device given sentience and Saida tried to look like a harmless well-muscled woman who had no idea how to knock people out sixty different ways with just her pinky finger. Everyone floated towards the angels, but Quel hung back. Saida stopped to look at him, confusion in her eyes giving way to anxiety in a flash of understanding.
Everyone turned to look back at them both.
"You're not coming with us, are you?" she asked quietly. It wasn't really a question.
He shook his head, smiling at her lovingly.
"I closed the portal. The demons won't last much longer."
"But I have to find the Regalia before I can stop," he replied.
He was sad of eye and full of acceptance over his situation. Saida loved him very much at that moment. Without wasting any more time arguing, she glided up and kissed him. They stayed like that, savoring the eternal moment. They would not forget this. Saida detached herself and looked him in the eye. Her luminous orange irises matching his sky blue orbs in a shared gaze of longing, sadness and warmth. She could not stop him from going. To do so would be to break his character as a man and she couldn't do that to him. He had to do this. She also understood that if she went with him it would only hinder him from accessing his full potential.
Taking off his pistols he gave her his Life Belt along with his guns. She knew that was a very bad sign, but pretended she didn't know of the significance of his gift.
"Take these," he said to Saida. "They'll serve you well in a pinch."
"I will keep them close."
They stared at one another in silence for a second.
"Give 'em hell," she teased.
"With deepest regards from Saida," he added.
"I never told you my last name, did I?" she said, a nostalgic smile appearing on her face.
"I never asked for it," he replied with a matching smile of his own.
"It's Mi'ihen," she said, caressing his hair once before turning to glide back down to everyone else. "Saida Mi'ihen!"
"Go crack some skulls lad!" Chuldo yelled.
"Thanks for releasing me Quel!" Abir shouted. "You bastard!"
"See you again soon!" Rishi hollered, apparently recovered from Saida's blow. He had a large red bump on the top of his bald head.
Quel laughed. He would miss them all. He hoped this would only be a short trip where he got the Regalia and made his way back without a hitch, but he suspected differently. He knew differently.
The demons were putting up quite a fight. The World Tree hadn't ever seen such a catastrophe as big as this one. Quel found himself stumped on where would be the best place to go first. After hovering around the periphery for a while and coming to no sound conclusions, he sighed with exasperation and dove into the thick of it. His bankai form hadn't yet deteriorated his energies to the point where it vanished. He was quite surprised over that and wondered if his seal was giving way a little. His Visored mask had expended itself in his final fight with Carthas, so he couldn't call upon it to help him now.
He fought like a demon against demons, his invisible blade outlined by rushing winds lopping off appendages and heads with equal ferocity. His bankai's white fur clothing was beginning to get covered in blood and was by this point more brown and red colored than white. After doing this mindless and bloody task for a span of time, Quel saw a celestial commander trying to rally his troops and headed towards him.
"What's the situation!" Quel yelled at him, fending off two glabrezus intent on crushing him to pieces with their claws.
The celestial commander looked Quel up and down. Apparently satisfied he wasn't a demon (As if fighting two glabrezus wasn't a big indicator.) the commander talked with Quel.
"I don't recognize you warrior, but I will tell you this. A female warrior was sighted damaging the portal and then destroying it from a safe distance, but it somehow didn't work. The portal is still open! We can't get men close enough to go through and figure out how to destroy it!"
Quel lopped the head off one of the glabrezus with his sword and cut the other one in half when it gawked at it's companion.
"Leave that to me!" Quel shouted. "Get some of your best men together! Then follow me as I make a hole for you!"
"Understood!" the commander said, pausing. "Can I really trust you stranger?!"
"You're going to have to!" The commander didn't entirely like that answer but didn't argue the point either.
Quel had a pretty good idea why the portal was still open, but he had to make sure.
The commander got his squad together with astounding speed. Twenty-five angels and archons of justice followed Quel as he created a funnel of wind and shot down it towards where it ended at the flickering remains of the portal. Demons still streamed out of it, but their numbers weren't too overwhelming. Quel sent three scythes of wind at them that cut them to ribbons. He had forgotten how powerful his bankai was. His exhilaration was tempered by respect and caution: too much power inspired recklessness in those who didn't understand how to control it and honor it. That and they had to pass through a floating mess of body parts and other things less pleasant.
The squad, led by Quel and the commander, sped through the portal.
On the other side they encountered a small city's worth of demons, all of whom were shocked to see celestials brazenly attacking them in their own territory. Despite the initial surprise, the angels and archons would have been annihilated within moments if Quel hadn't been there. He conjured up five large tornadoes that caused panic; he summoned down three giant walls of wind that flattened the tanar'ri and carried them screaming off into the distance; and finally, he collapsed from overexertion when he was done. The Regalia was nowhere to be seen, but the cause of the portal's continued existence was found: a small crystal pendulum that spun back and forth on the opposite side of the gateway, maintaining a link to the other side.
It must be a counterpart to the Eddos Ring. Some kind of Eddos Pendulum. Quel groggily got back to his feet, two of the angels supporting him until he could stand on his own. At that exact moment they were unmolested by attacking tanar'ri, but more were martialing for another assault beyond the range of the five protective tornadoes.
"We only need one man to stay here and destroy the artifact. Everyone back through the gate!" the commander ordered his men.
"I'm not coming," Quel said.
The commander seemed surprised, but also grateful Quel was willing to sacrifice himself. He held his hand out for Quel to shake, opening his mouth to speak when a great conflagration of energy snuffed out all five of Quel's tornadoes and swept across the champions of good, knocking them all over. The pendulum shattered from the force of this energy and began to close rapidly.
"Go through the portal!" Quel yelled, shoving the celestials nearest him towards it. "I'll hold them off!"
An imposing figure appeared through the vanishing remnants of Quel's tornadoes. It was undoubtedly a demon lord. A hulking brute, over eighteen feet tall, even while hunched and covered in a pale-blue fur. Two leathery black wings extend from it's back, a long tail ended in a cruel point at it's rear and it's face was framed by raggedy large ears. It's eyes were tiny points of malevolent light above it's overly large mouth full of fangs.
Quel summoned up another gust of wind and used it to send all of the angels and archons flying through the portal. They all cried out, startled, but vanished through the quickly dwindling portal before their cries had even finished leaving their mouths. Now it was just Quel and the angry demon lord, along with a hundred or so of his minions... It laughed even as Quel readied himself for the fight. Quel smirked and fired off a giant scythe of wind that cut off one of it's wings. He would go all out from the starting gate, giving the demon lord no leeway.
Behind the falling archfiend he saw many more demons of all shapes and sizes coming to join the fight. It was going to be a long day. Then he noticed a small portal off to his right that seemed to be beckoning to him...
Saida stood in the middle of a great forest of verdant trees with a spring behind her. Flau and Dong Dong had just drunk from the spring and been healed. They were tending to their wounds and recovering from their ordeal on the World Tree. She felt empty. Quel had just thrown himself into the darkest and worst place anything or anyone could ever go to. He had literally gone into the depths of hell! She believed he would come back, but deep down she also knew there was no chance he would make it. He was probably already dead, torn limb from limb.
She was made of strong stuff, so tears would not come. It took a lot to make her cry, she was made of stern stuff and had been through many ordeals already in her life. Focusing on the present, Saida turned to talk to their guide: one of the many angels who dwelled on this plane, the House of Knowledge, domain of the god Oghma.
They would be staying here until they could return to the Prime Material Plane. But they had no idea how they would be going about doing that...
He was in a very bad predicament. The portal had led him to relative safety, but in doing so he had landed in a very sticky web and was currently surrounded by giant mutant spiders, their venom coated fangs dripping onto the webbing where the spittle sizzled and turned the web black. It wasn't the best way to go out. Struggling only further tangled him in the webbing and agitated the mutants. He chose not move and see why these blood curdling monstrosities weren't killing him.
He didn't have long to wait. A door opened in the opposite wall and an exotic female figure walked sexily into the room, hips swaying with every step. Her footfalls echoed loudly, no doubt because she wore high heels.
When she got close enough for him to see properly he was immediately aware of how stunningly gorgeous she was. Her beauty was enough to make any man crave her and be filled with desire. His eyes greedily tore over her body, admiring her ebon black skin and luminous white hair. She didn't have much clothing on, only thigh high leggings that had straps attached to a bikini bottom she wore. High heels and a crown resembling spider legs clawing at the sky was all she had on. Aside from that she had on minor accouterments of armor: arm bracers and knee pads shaped like spiders. Her pointy elf ears were pierced numerously with various earrings and many rings decorated her feminine hands. The rest of her body was exposed to the elements. Quel noted dully that her nipples were both pierced.
He was hers, entirely. She made his body grow hot with desire and lust. Anything she desired, he would have done. Even killing for her seemed only natural and part of life's greatness. Then he locked eyes with her and saw the depths of her evil black soul. First came fear, overriding her mind control magic, then came anger and rage over her despicable soul. He was mostly irate with himself for being weak and gullible enough to be sucked into her glamour like any common human male.
Then she spoke, and his mind shattered, reducing him to a mewling sack of meat. Her voice was power incarnate, making everything else vanish from his mind.
"I have been watching you for a long time. Do not worry for your quest is at an end: I hold the Regalia in my possession. I have much in store for you mortal. Do not struggle so, in the end you will cherish me, of that I am certain. And when the time has come, as the Queen of Spiders, it will be my supreme pleasure to introduce you to the ones who wiped out your little species of protectors. They are a perfect breed of my children, full of power and ambition. The Hämähäkit are dying to meet you."
In her eyes he saw boundless evil. She smiled and he knew she would toy with him, breaking him just for the pleasure of it, before she gave him over to his eternal enemies. The Hämähäkit had returned, all worlds would be fodder for their undying hunger.
Quel really couldn't see how his situation could get any worse.