Chapter 19
We learn about a special door
When: Day 247
Where: Library
"Denice?" someone softly said, somewhat surprising since silence surrounded sincere study. I jumped and looked behind me.
"Janet!" I exclaimed. "If I had a heart it would be racing, why did you sneak up on me like that?"
"I apologize, I don't like to thread near someone that hasn't called me but Michael is concerned and sent me to fetch you."
"Concerned about what?" I snapped the book I was looking at closed and stacked it on top of the other books nearby.
"There's an unscheduled train coming towards us."
I started to feel a chill. "From Bad Place?" Is someone coming for those celestials that have been helping us?
She shook her head. "Actually, from Good Place. He doesn't know what it could mean. If Bad Place gets wind of it and thinks you're being helped by them…"
You mean if the faction not already helping us learns of it? We should take care of this as quickly as possible in any case. "I'll meet you out by the track." I raised my hands, gestured, and vanished from the library.
Looking around I didn't see Micheal around anywhere but Janet was right by my side. "I'll have my thread stop the train here," she told me. "You can probably see it coming." She pointed, and I could. It looked the same as The Bad Place train which didn't make a whole lot of sense to me because shouldn't it be nicer? But it pulled up and stopped and several people, including a Janet, got out. She was dressed and looked identical to the one next to me, and both nodded to each other. Parts of the same whole I suppose, I wonder what it's like to look yourself in the face. Huh, have to ask a twin sometime. Oh man, I just thought of a prankster's dream- have a water user change you to look like someone, and do pranks or other mischief where you can be seen. I'll have to write that down, anyone that professes innocence to any crime could be telling the truth even with witnesses, we would have to use divination magic to get to the bottom of such a thing.
"Thank you for coming to meet us," said the man in the lead. He looked much like Michael, in an outdated suit but without any outstanding features. He looked younger though, if that meant anything to beings that were only disguised as humans. Two others were with him, a plain looking man and woman who were looking around from the stairwell down from the train. "I'm Ezekiel. With me are Daniel and Mary." He indicated the other two that stepped off the train and waved. "We must speak with Michael right away, as well as the leader of Midveil? I understand you've recently selected one?"
"That's me, Denice," I told them. "Would you like to head back to the warehouse or just wait until Michael can make it over here? He should be along any second." He can teleport just as easily as I can. And Janet should be able to tell him where we are.
"This concerns all of Midveil," said Mary. "We should hold a general meeting if possible."
"Very well. If you would like to follow me?" I gestured towards the town and they all nodded, so we started off. I noticed they were stomping through the snow as though they had never done so before, and to be fair they probably hadn't. I cast a spell to blow it out of our way, it wasn't exactly water but it responded just as easily to water controlling magic. At least for me. They seemed grateful and filed in behind me. They didn't seem angry or looking for a fight, so I had no idea what their purpose was in coming here. Great, did we do something wrong? Is our time up? We didn't even get a year though, they can't end this experiment yet. Do they want The Button? My thoughts were fairly dark as we approached the town when suddenly the three celestials perked up.
"Excuse me," Daniel said, heading towards one of the houses. We all went after him, I was asking if I could help him with something. He ignored me, yanked the door open and peered inside.
What, does he think this is some kind of RPG, he can just go into anyone's house he wants and steal their stuff?
He turned to me. "You have celestials here?" he demanded. Past the door I saw a few people, playing some kind of game with dice with one of the celestials from Bad Place. He sheepishly waved.
I guess they can sense each other. "They were helping us build things," I told him. "But even they don't like to work in the cold."
"They? There's more than one? This is highly irregular! You, I don't recognize you! You're breaking the treaty being here, you're from Bad Place? But you're helping the humans? Explain yourself!"
"Not why we're here," Mary told him, gently taking the door handle from him. "The humans are trying their best to get people out of Bad Place. If they got some help, should we say that's wrong?"
"Of course it is! This creates an imbalance here."
"You're welcome to send representatives and come here yourself, if you want to balance things out and help as well," I told him.
"We may have to, those people are not to be trusted!"
"Hey!" said the man inside. Daniel slammed the door on him, making Mary rub her hand as he had yanked it away from her again.
"Let's go. Honestly, letting them come here, humans really do have terrible judgment. Or no, I suppose he's right at home here, isn't he? Have you made a casino yet, I think the phrase is 'with blackjack and hoo-'"
"Daniel, this is not behavior befitting a celestial," Ezekiel told him. "Maybe cool it with the insults? We're trying to make a good impression here, yes?"
They are? Why?
"Ah, here's Michael," said Mary, no doubt trying to change the subject. We turned to look and he was coming towards us, along with another Janet. "Is he helping you build as well?"
"Actually no, only the occasional consult," I told them. "He's tried to stay as neutral as possible."
"At least someone knows how to follow a contract," Daniel muttered. "Let's get out of this cold already. Honestly Michael did you have to push for so much snow?"
"It's random, balanced with the amount of sun they get in the summer, as you well know," Michael told him. "Also, while it's so great to see you and everything, what are you all doing here?"
"Once we're inside," Ezekiel told him.
"Oh very well. Let's go."
"One second," I told them. I turned to Janet. "Janet, can you pass a message on to everyone? I know, normally you would say you can't but this seems to be important. Tell them we're meeting at the warehouse about something important with three," I glanced over at the celestials, "ambassadors from Good Place. I don't want to keep them waiting while we get together, after all."
"Very well." She vanished, leaving only two of her threads there.
"Now we can go."
Twenty minutes later most people were in the warehouse wondering what was going on, and Michael said they should get started. "So what's this all about?" he demanded.
"It's the you know what," Ezekiel told him. "It's doing that thing again, you know?"
"They didn't."
"We think they did."
"Why?"
"You think we know? You've been around them longer, you tell us."
"I can't even imagine. Well, maybe I could? Great, this is just- How many?"
"We're tracking four."
"Unbelievable. To think they would do something like that! To risk so much, and for what?"
"I know, but we need to do something too. But we can't stress the system any more than it already is so we came here. You know no one from our side would go back there at this point. Plus they probably wouldn't have the skills."
"Yes, yes, and no one from the other could be trusted at this point, yes, I see your dilemma."
"Excuse me," I broke in. "What in the blue blazes are you talking about? What you know what? I don't know what. Explain!"
He stared at me for a moment, in between glancing at everyone gathered around us listening. "I should probably just tell you..."
"Get on with it already."
He looked out at the others a final time and sighed. "Fine. There is a way back to Earth. One door, closely guarded and locked with a single key. We celestials can use it to travel there if we need to. But we don't, typically. But when we do, our powers are sealed. We become essentially human, our outer disguises becoming our true forms. There isn't that much magic on Earth to begin with so even if we could show our true forms we couldn't do much. But there's enough they could cause problems even then."
"And how did they use such a portal, it must be guarded against just such an unauthorized use, yes?"
"The real door is, yes. Some time ago, as part of a plot to disrupt my plans with the founders, Bad Place created their own. Some celestials used it. It was crude, didn't work as well, but got the job done. They could use it to go to Earth without using the main door. But we found out about it because our door started to, for lack of a better word, show static. Distortion. When they used their door it reflected in our door. And of course we happened to be focused on the area they went, which helped."
"And it happened again," said Ezekiel. "So we looked into it. Four celestial signatures have been detected on Earth. Their seals are holding, they're still human for the most part but we can't imagine why they went down there."
"Why wasn't this rogue door destroyed when it was found?"
"It was," Mary assured me. "Someone built another. Of course we couldn't demand they hand over all research that made the first one possible. I mean, we could, and they might have even given us some. But they can make a copy as easily as anyone else. We could never be sure they gave it all to us."
"Naturally." Except with divination magic? But then it's 50/50 because they would protect it from divination magic with anti-divination magic I expect. "And you came here to..."
"Recruit," Daniel told us, looking sour. "We need someone to go down there and find out what they're up to. Then bring them back. We'll get the location of the new door out of them ourselves, and destroy this one too. Those in Good Place aren't suitable for the most part for such a mission, they're running around living out fantasies and whatnot. Their skills will have totally degraded by now, and they're too far removed from human life to function there. Celestials can't go, it's a miracle as it is going though an unauthorized door sealed their powers but it happened. We can't risk anyone stronger going and we all suddenly find ourselves ripped out of our disguises."
"And you can't send any human souls from Bad Place, I've been there and seen what that place does to them," I finished. "That leaves us."
"Exactly."
"We would essentially be returning to life."
"You would still be souls?"
That took me back. "You don't sound sure."
"Honestly, we're not." The three celestials traded a look. "We can use the portal just fine. But a soul like yourself using it? We actually aren't sure what will happen in that case. If it's been done we don't have a record of it."
"So we could just poof into non-existence, or be totally unable to pass through at all?"
"Or be trapped between worlds, unable to interact with either," Ezekiel suggested.
"You could always be thrown backwards in time, to the moment of your death," Daniel informed us. "Made to relive it again, then make your way back to this point in time unaware you've done it before, only to be made to relive it again in an endless time loop."
"You guys aren't building a good case for yourselves, you know that right?"
"Every action carries risk," Mary sighed. "Even for us. Naturally we cannot force you to go, and we are planning to go to Bad Place after making this stop. See if we can track the rogue portal down from this end. You could accompany us on that mission if you desire instead."
"I think we better do both." I turned to the others. "So I'm looking for volunteers for two missions. The first is back to Earth, braving the danger of being ripped apart or whatever trying to go through the door, to look for the celestials that have gone to Earth. You say there are four of them down there?" The celestials nodded. "Fine. Myself and three others, that seems balanced and that's what Midveil is supposed to be about. I also want several people to go with these three, to Bad Place, and help them look for the portal. It could be guarded, I suggest you know some kind of battle magic or at least a spell or two that can be used that way. Waters? Step up and represent, your divination magic may be needed here."
"I'll go with you," Ramesh announced, stepping up. "You came to my rescue, it's time to pay that forward. And as I'm part celestial now anyway maybe I have the best chance of making it through the gateway in one piece. It's calibrated for 'me' anyway, right?"
"Or you're in more danger because of your dual nature, but it's up to you," I told him.
"What's this?" Mary asked.
"Never mind. Anyone else?"
Stefan and Siew Yan stepped up, both grinning. "I'm up for another adventure," Stefan told us.
"And I have a feeling you'll need my talents," Siew Yan told me. "If we don't have magic, I'm really the only one who can defend themselves. No offense, Stefan, you're learning but you're a green belt at best. That's a karate thing, right? You know what I mean?"
"I get you," he sighed. "I'm not stopping you!"
"Thanks," I told them gratefully. "And for the other?"
Several people stepped up for the other mission and the Celestials went back to the train. Janet summoned another one for us, but before we left I asked her who was going to be in charge while I was gone. She pointed him out.
"Otis!" I said, putting an arm around his shoulders. "Buddy!"
"Hello, Denice."
"So here's the deal, k? I'm gonna be gone a minute here, right? When I come back, this place better not be on fire. Or changed all that much, we clear on that? In fact due to my heroic actions on Earth I'll probably come back with a mess load of new points, further putting me ahead so don't get any ideas, you hear me?"
"I get it. I'll keep things going while you're gone don't worry. No major policy changes, I get it."
"Good man! Actually I should have appointed a vice president sort of role so people could go to number two if I was busy. I'll get on that when I get back. You up for this?"
"Going to have to be, aren't I? Yes, yes, don't worry I can handle things while you're traipsing around on Earth. Bring us back something."
"What, like a balloon? A fish in bag? A stuffed toy? You got it."
"Good luck."
"Thanks," I said seriously. "Hope I see you again. If not, just, keep this place going, okay? I've been trying my best and I have no idea if we've got a good foundation here or not but we're going in a direction, and that's something. I wouldn't want to lose that now."
"I'll see what I can do."
We rode the train with Michael and Janet over to Good Place, and I was feeling excited to get a little taste of what we were all working towards. However, once we pulled into the station Michael simply teleported us to our destination, so I didn't get to see anything there. We made our way through a strange emptiness, a maze of catwalks held up by nothing in a dark void. There was no light but we could see perfectly, and Michael seemed to know exactly where he was going as he didn't hesitate at any intersection. We finally made it to a desk manned by a single bored looking man, beyond which was a shimmering doorway. Or more accurately a door frame, where a white mist swirled between.
"So these are the four, huh?" he asked, standing up. He didn't look like much, just a normal person in a guard uniform. He wasn't huge, bulging with muscles or crackling with magic.
This is the guard? I mean not to let appearances inform my thinking but I think I could take him. Why didn't these other celestials just come and use this door? Building their own must have been a hassle. Four of them could overpower this one guy, right? Doesn't seem right. Do they rotate? This must be the most boring job in all existence, there's not even a field of grass to look at or any books to read! How does he stand it?
"These are the ones," Michael told him. "You're putting them down in the area the signatures were detected?"
"Of course. We can't do better than that. You'll have to take it from there," he told us.
"I figured. Anything we should know?"
"There is one thing." He reached down and picked something up, handing it to me. "Here's the key." It was a regular looking door key, with a fob on the other end that had a button. "When you're down there, hit the button to summon the portal to your location. Please don't lose the key, we don't have any other ones."
"I'll try not to then," I told him. "Anything else?"
"Yes," Janet said, holding something up. It was a necklace with what looked like a crystal in the center of a glass ball. "Here, this is for you."
"Hey, if you're giving her stuff I want a light saber!" Stefan protested. "I mean I want Iron Man armor or a Green Lantern ring but I'll settle for a light saber."
"I'm breaking the rules giving you this as it is," she told him. "But it's an extreme circumstance so…"
"What is it?" I took it and looked it over.
"Crystallized magic. The others will be fine, but you, Denice, have more powerful magic than they do. That means you draw more magic than they do to cast spells. Normally you don't notice because there's lots of magic around here. Down there though, you will notice the difference and won't be able to cast spells very well. I think you're going to need to, so I made this for you. It will get used up, and you can try casting spells without it first, but use it sparingly."
Great, the person with divination magic isn't going to be able to use it without pulling some from the 'tank?' That will limit our options as we need to track these celestials down the hard way. "Thank you." I put it around my neck and tucked it under my shirt. "I guess you can't come with us, huh?"
"Sadly, no. I mean yes, I could, but I too would just be a person. No ability to summon things. That's tied to my existence here."
"I see. Well, if there is some kind of deity behind all this, send them a prayer on our behalf. See you all soon." I moved around the desk towards the door, and the others followed.
"Simply tell it to open and hold up the key," said the guard.
"Very well." I held it up. "As the holder of the key that unlocks the door separating life and death, I command the way be parted! Let this door be opened at my command! Eleas! Rath! Mucha!"
"Very nice, I'm rubbing off on you," Stefan remarked as the space between the door turned from a misty white to a city scene.
"Thank you. Avengers assemble." I stepped through. As my body passed through the door a sudden thought struck me. I still look like a fish person. How am I going to change that when I-
I was through the door.