Hello everyone. How are things?
That was a rhetorical question so that you can ponder the nature of existence for a while.
Fuck yes, I worked 'ponder' into a sentence without sounding like a cunt.
There ain't gonna be a change log this chapter cause I can't really find anything that needs changing desperately right now.
There might also be no joke because for the life of me I can't think of any and there's no good ones I can steal from the internet. It all depends on the editor coming up with one (no pressure).
Anthropomancy: Wow gee thanks, the pressure Ezreal, I have like a Zilean puns but they're all old as fuck so I won't use them.
Okay, what did people say after I made a lee sin pun? No one Nidalee sin pun ever.
And now: the chapter. Cause I REALLY wanted to write some of the plot-points in this one for a while now. No spoilers, of course, but shit is gonna go down.
Chapter 52: Friends
14th January (09:00):
I was really starting to get quite tired. Not the sleepy kind of way, the 'holy shit all of my muscles are being replaced by pure, molten pain' kind of way. Considering that I was hauling god-knows how many pounds of metal on my back, it was understandable that I was seriously considering getting out of it.
I couldn't, but the consideration was there.
"So how was it again that you 'ran out' of power in that thing?"
"Everything needs energy to function. I was powering this thing with a, uh, magical reactor core. That core is very large, so it's not here with me right now. It's over at the base. Someone, or something, has fucked with it and now I'm struggling."
"So, what, you've got a really long, invisible wire running from you to the 'reactor' or whatever you called it?"
"Nope. The reactor charges power cells then teleports them to me periodically. It's a very complex manoeuvre and I had to do maths to get it to work so that sucked."
"Pretty much all I learned there was that we're not going to be able to solve this out here." He began while yawning and turning around to peek out of one of the holes in the window: "Especially not now."
"It's a bit of a pickle."
"Wouldn't be if you didn't refuse to get out of the damn thing."
"I can see you're going to go on about that all day if I don't show you. Come over here." I requested whilst pushing up to my feet.
Arckani shivered as he got up and headed over to me, managing to stump his toe and knock over a chair on the way. He eventually managed to get to me without killing himself.
"What am I looking for?"
"You are looking for a lack of something."
"Hmmm…" He searched all over my armour, from head to toes, looking for something that stands out. After taking a step back and observing me from a small distance for a few seconds he clicked his fingers and pointed at me, exclaiming with pride: "There's no way to get out of it."
"Precisely. The only bit that can be removed is the helmet. What I need to do is get to my base and build something to get me out."
"What, you don't fancy spending the rest of your life stuck in a clunky, awkward set of armour?"
"This may come as a big surprise, but no. I don't. Weird, huh?"
He stroked where his chin would be for a few moments, pondering, before shrugging: "Despite everything, you've helped me a few times in your own… 'unique' way, so I suppose I can help you out here."
"Are you saying you'll accompany me back to my base?"
"Yes, that's what I'm saying."
"As the hip kids of the early 2000s would say, wicked."
"Never do that again. Please." Arckani pleaded while putting a hand on my shoulder.
"Yeah, I feel dirty just saying that…" I stared at the ground for a moment before flinging my head up again and continuing with renewed vigour: "Anyway, what should we do in the meantime?"
"This storm doesn't sound like it's going to go on for too much longer so we can't start doing anything that might take ages… hmmm…" He wondered, removing his hand from my shoulder and using it to rub his chin contemplatively.
"Maybe they've got board games somewhere around here."
"I bet they have tons but they're all for three people or more."
"We would be so lucky." I agreed jokingly while lugging myself over to the chest in the corner. Shoving it open revealed that there was nothing of the sort of thing I was actually looking for; instead, it was a life-time's supply of lemons.
"Wha…"
I promptly closed that chest, deciding that lemons would not help relieve our boredom at all.
After going back over to the sofa and sitting down, Arckani joined me. There was bugger-all else in the shack that could have anything fun inside, so we were both pretty slumped-down in dismay.
It took well under a minute for me to get bored enough to tap my couch-sitting-buddy on the shoulder and ask:
"Hey, how about we pass the time by making up some life stories and telling them to each other, cause we both know there's no way either of us is going to tell the other their real history?"
"Can you start while I think one up?"
"Sure, I'm great at bullshitting. I started out life by popping into existence from thin air. Some magic bullshit or something, I don't know. Anyway, I was fuck-knows how old when I started but I totally knew how to do a bunch of shit already. I don't think anyone ever tried to explain why… anyway, that was all a while ago. Here's the plot twist, this all happened a few years ago! Yeah, didn't expect that! If I was going by how long I've existed I'd be, like, five or some shit! We don't though, cause that'd seriously reduce how cool I am a character. After a while of doing very little, I met the hottest dude ever. Like, seriously. I don't even swing that way but daaaaamn. But I'm getting off topic, we did a bunch of cool stuff and occasionally went on adventures until one fateful day he lost all his organs, skin and flesh then became a skeleton. I called him Rex and he was pretty dang spooky. Eventually we decided I'm probably supposed to be a bad guy in someone's story so I found a bunch of skeletons and took up residence in a mountain with a sick name. 'Deathskull Mountain of that Cool Frozen Place', although it prefers to go by 'Ted'. So yeah, the exact backstory you'd give a bad guy when you really, really can't be arsed to come up with one."
"I'm not sure that's 'exactly' what I'd use if I was writing a story and needed a bad guy. Never-mind that though, I've got one. Unlike you, I was born like a normal human being to a rich family. Now, for my entire childhood I was always a bit of an anti-social guy. Luckily, I was smart enough that I always finished lessons earlier than everyone else, so I didn't have to spend much time there. I still did, cause they had cool stuff there. However, that whole place was pretty shit. Not just the school, the entire country. My parents were distant, the government was repressive and did a lot of imperial stuff, and I had no friends, so I left. I ended up here eventually and immediately it all went to shit. I actually kinda like this place, so I decided to try to reverse it. I've been doing the whole sneaking thing ever since."
"The mistake you've made is you created a story that I could actually believe. It's supposed to be dumb and unlikely."
"Okay. There was some fire, a considerable amount of TNT and I'm pretty sure an adolescent T-rex was involved in some way. Then I went and punched some little thing called Teemo and was rewarded by the people of the land with a huge amount of rolled-up cloth to cover up my disgusting face and body with."
"The reward you got for punching that little shit was some stuff to cover yourself up with? Not a trophy or money or a new TV?"
"Nope. Cloth."
"You got ripped off."
"Yeah. I did."
"Do we actually have anything else to do?"
"We could talk about our interests and stuff."
"Explosions, skeletons, and magnets. HOW DO THEY WORK?!" I yelled to the heavens before, very suddenly, calming completely.
He was taken aback for a second before he replied: "Skiing, explosions, and swimming."
"Swimming must be interesting around these parts."
"Yeah. I also like sunny days at the beach but… yeah, not so many chances these days."
"I don't think there's anything else we can tell each other without removing the intrigue and shit."
"True. Shall we go try our luck in the snowstorm?"
"My luck is pretty good these days, so sure." I agreed while standing up and trudging over to the door. Arckani caught up as I tugged it open and took that as an invitation to walk through before me.
"Just because I've got the title of Dark Lord, doesn't mean you don't show me common manners."
As I left the not-so-terrible conditions of the shack and closed the door, a fresh wave of wind hit me just as the sound of Arckani speaking did: "Sorry, I'm used to people opening doors for me."
"Oh, I'm sure all your cloth-covered lookalikes are very nice to you back… wherever it is your base is. Do you even have a base?"
"Yes."
"Clearly, you have a dumb base. Mine is in the only mountain with 'Deathskull' in the name."
"Wait, was that bit actually true?"
"Fucking yes it is! Someone a few years ago thought the mountain was so cool that they filled out the legal paperwork to have it changed from 'fm-296' to 'Deathskull Mountain of that Cool Frozen Place'. Imagine my fucking face when I found that out! Hyped as fuck!" I explained happily as we began struggling through the storm.
"It may come as a surprise, but I actually can't imagine what your face looked like."
"It is helpful, then, that I included the highly descriptive phrase 'hyped as fuck'. Imagine that expression on your face, then imagine your face was not the train-wreck that I am guessing it is."
A particularly strong wave of snow cut him off just as he started replying, but it died down quickly: "It's not so much a train-wreck as a… I think a highway pile-up best describes it."
"Ooh, nasty. Morbid curiosity has me wanting to pull off your face-cloths and see; but common sense is reminding me that I don't want to clean the puke off my helmet."
The conversation died away quickly as a fresh blast of wind shoved us both to the side. I slid a short distance to the side but managed to keep standing. It wasn't easy, considering I was basically lugging three hundred pounds of metal on my back.
There was the positive of me knowing where I was going, at least. I didn't some sort of high-tech contraption that required no power and would work perfectly fine in a major snowstorm. I did, however, have a compass-thing that I'd messed around with until it pointed to the largest source of nuclear material in the area. Of course, that would be my place. Who else would have fifty tons of uranium in the room under their bed?
A while passed of nothing but us pushing our way through the storm as it very slowly died down. The end wasn't in sight, but the mid-point of the latter half was. I was starting to think that we'd actually have a journey that went as planned and I would be able to sleep for a few decades. Of course, that wasn't going to happen. That would just be too easy.
I wasn't particularly surprised when a building suddenly appeared in my tiny field of vision.
"Whoa. This isn't the place."
Arckani hit into my back then held onto me as he stumbled over to my side.
"What is it then?"
"I don't know. I can only see about two metres of bricks in any direction."
"So what you're saying is we have to go on a tangent and investigate it."
"Yeah. Obviously."
"I hope it's not an occult temple. We have way too many around these days."
"That is an odd problem to have." I replied while hugging the wall and making my way along it, searching for an entrance.
Arckani followed behind me as he explained: "Well, after a few months of the traditional gods not doing a whole lot to stop the brutal oppression going on all over the place, people started turning to the ones you'd find out about while drunk and in the 'Fiction' area of the bookstore."
"I realise this is a dumb question, but has it helped?"
"Not at all. The only places that you could call 'active battlegrounds' are Piltover, Bilgewater and, of all places, Bandle City."
"I wouldn't think regular people could stand up to these Summoner assholes."
We reached a door made of wood and cast iron. As I attempted to shove it open, Arckani went on: "It's complicated, but they've somehow come up with ways of blocking the most powerful Summoner Spells. Because they can't win by just freezing everyone in place, the League has had to get down and dirty. It's been going on for months now and no-one seems to be winning."
"Are champions still getting involved?" I asked while finally shoving the door open, cracking apart the layers of ice that had held it together.
"The majority are on the rebel side. Turns out, even bad guys don't like it when you nearly tear their planet apart."
"Interesting..." I trailed off while carefully taking my first few steps into the building. The inside was drowning in darkness, limiting my sight to a few feet around me in any direction.
"I can't see shit in here."
"Me neither. See if you can find a torch or something."
I went over to a wall and kept a hand on it as I crept along the hallway. I was pretty sure I heard Arckani doing the same on the other side.
As we went, it became obvious that a fight had gone down in that place. Furniture had been thrown about, painting knocked from their walls, slices made into the stone walls. The questions were, who was fighting who and, maybe more importantly, how long ago were they fighting?
I didn't really have much to go on, so I focused my attention on getting an idea of my surroundings, a task made difficult due to the absence of light. From what I could tell, the entire place was made of badly cemented stones that crumbled at my touch.
"Found one. Where are you?" Arckani whispered.
"Over here."
A moment later he appeared from the shroud of darkness and came over to me.
"Give it here."
He handed me the old-fashioned torch. It was little more than a wooden stick with a metal cage at the top, containing a hopefully flammable material.
I took the material out and put it against the metal plate on my arm, then shoving it forward. The flame came to life in my hand, so I stuck it back in the metal cage and handed the torch back to Arckani.
"Quite the party trick you've got there."
"Thank- oh, that's not good."
"What ar- oh… that's definitely not good."
We found ourselves looking at the fresh corpse of a man, quite obviously killed by the huge chunk of flesh missing from the side of his chest in the shape of a huge bite mark. The man was slumped against a wall with a hand resting on his wound.
Immediately, I knelt down beside him and began checking the bite mark. I had to pull his hand away to be able to see all of it, so I did as respectfully as I could. The thing that stuck out most was that the edge of the hole was perfectly rounded. A normal animal would have taken a much rougher chunk, due to their teeth not being perfectly aligned. Another thing I noticed was, the victim was slumped against a wall with his hand on the wound when we found him. So, the wound hadn't initially killed him, he'd had time to get down and bleed out. Also, if this was a hungry animal out looking for food, wouldn't they have eaten him when they killed him? The evidence I had could have led to multiple theories, so I needed more. We'd either have to meet the attacker ourselves, or find more bodies until we could work it out.
"What's happened to him?"
I stood up and turned to him before explaining my thoughts: "My best theory is a creature of some sort got in somehow. A fight occurred and this guy lost. Since there's no weapon here, I'm guessing he wasn't one of the people fighting it or he was disarmed before being killed. As you can see, he received this wound, leading me to think the attacker was waist-high and not entirely natural. I'm supposing a robot, a mix of robotic and organic parts, or a creature from the void. It knew that he wasn't going to survive, so it moved on quickly, likely chasing other people who were in this hallway at the time."
"That leaves a lot of things we don't know."
"And that's precisely why we need to keep on going and find out more."
"Agreed. So, do we charge in and face it head-on or sneak around and try to get the jump on it?"
"First, we find out what we're facing before we fight it. I don't want to end up like this guy. After that, we try to find survivors and get them to safety. Then, we bring this monster to some axe-based justice."
"But I don't have an axe."
"You get the torch, I get the axe."
"That's not a very good deal for me."
"Don't worry, you'll get to be the torch-and-nondescript-other-item guy when we find the other… you know… item."
"And until we do?"
"Hope we don't run into it."
He stared at me for a few seconds then sighed and stepped past me. I pulled out my axe and followed, staring at my surroundings far more than before. The slightly increased light showed that it had definitely not been a short struggle. Scratch marks covered the walls and floor, ceiling-lights had been smashed on the ground, and splatters of blood decorated every surface to one extent or another. In some places it was like someone with a nosebleed had sneezed; in others it was like someone had decided that the walls would look better in crimson red, ripping out their still-beating heart to use as a paintbrush.
Knowing that we were likely not alone, every creak or knock took on a whole new meaning. Instead of that clinking being the plates on my armour hitting together, it was the claws of a horrific monster stalking me from the shadows.
The fear wasn't what was getting to me most. It was the annoyance from knowing I could do nothing to stop that fear. Every part of me wanted to get a grip and stop shuddering. Not only was it messing with my grip, it was making me jump at shadows that weren't even there.
As we proceeded, two doors crept out of the darkness on either side of the hall. Well, there was one door. The other was just a doorway with a small pile of wooden rubble in it.
We went up to the one on the side we were sneaking on, which was, thankfully, the intact one. Arckani was about to put his hand on the doorknob before he pulled his hand back and turned to me: "Should I go in first or should you?"
"I should go in first. Then, if there's something in there, I can hit it very hard."
"But what if something is in here with us, waiting for you to go away so it can fuck me up?"
"Man, no-one's willing to take one for the team these days…"
I didn't need to see his face to know he was giving me a stare that, if nothing else, meant he was not particularly happy with me.
"I was kidding. We'll just get through it at the same time. That way, neither of us can get picked off by a spooky scary monster thing."
"Won't that make it worse?"
"Nonsense!" I grabbed Arckani and embraced him before shuffling through the door. We awkwardly passed through it and got to the other side without either of us dying or suffering any major injuries. A few brief moments passed where I didn't really want to let go. It had been months since I'd got a hug from anybody, and Arckani was exceptionally soft in the many layers of cloth.
"Can you let go?"
I sighed: "Yeah, I suppose."
After letting go and taking a step back, we had a few seconds where neither of us spoke. I attempted to break the silence, but I think I made the situation worse: "You smell nice by the way."
He shook his head and walked further into the dining room, the torch illuminating ever more of the long table as he went. From the amount of clutter that had been thrown around the room, I made an educated guess that the table was fully stocked before the fight had screwed it all up. It took a concentrated effort to not step in some sort of food or blood.
We slowly progressed through the room, both reacting in some way to every noise or movement. On multiple occasions, I very nearly smashed the multiple objects that a fly landed on.
Eventually, we managed to find a double-door. Having walked around in that room for a short while by that point, we both felt pretty confident that precisely fuck-all of interest was in there.
What intrigued as much as it worried me was the light that shone through the doors. I looked over to Arckani and nodded at him. A mutual understanding was reached, and he opened the door just enough to see through while I turned to the darkness with my axe prepared. I felt a pat on my arm, so I stepped backwards through the door, turning when I passed through fully. We emerged into a wide, open room with a massive window on one of the walls. To call this place anything but the epicentre of the battle would be doing it a disservice. Bodies were everywhere, furniture was strewn randomly across the room, and snow was drifting in through the huge holes in the main window. From the things present, I supposed that the room used to function as a living area of some sort. It had bookcases against every wall with sofas and very comfy-looking chairs spread around, though most were knocked over or quite badly damaged. Or both.
A few very useful adornments to the room were the various decorative suits of armour placed in the corners of the room and the crossed-sword crests that sat on the walls. I pointed over to the nearest one before taking a few cautious steps further into the room. Kneeling down next to the nearest body to me, I got to work checking it over as Arckani pulled two swords from one of the crests. He held them both in one hand and jogged over to me. After a while of him holding the torch out for me to take, I grabbed it and set it on the ground.
"So I take it I've got to handle the torch now."
"Yep. I'm much more comfortable with two swords so you get that."
"Whatever, just cover me while I try to piece together what I can."
"If you think you can put one of these guys back together well enough that they can just tell us what happened, that'd be nice."
I laughed sarcastically then returned to my investigations. About a minute later I stood up and consulted with Arckani: "Basically, we're in trouble. From the looks of it, this thing can take a whole lot more than its fair share of hits while also crushing things with a bite-force of fifteen hundred pounds. This thing, whatever it is, could fuck either of us up pretty comfortably if we let it get its mouth on us. Even my armour at full power couldn't deal with the amount of pressure we're facing."
"How are we supposed to kill the fucker then?"
"You don't."
I didn't say that. Arckani didn't. It came from behind us.
It was fair to say that, when I turned around, I was pretty surprised by what I saw. At the other end of the room was an alien in shining, platinum armour. He skin had a pale blue tone and his eyes shone with flaming white light. Possessing an additional set of arms that poked out from his shoulder blades and a frame much thinner and taller than an average human, he wielded a glaive with a blade seemingly made of pure light. In his other normal arm was a shield decorated by nothing but a golden, eight-pointed star with all its tips curved around like the tendrils of a galaxy. I couldn't get much of an idea of what it looked like under all the armour, as it was covered from head to toe. At its side was a robot beast made in the shape of a huge dog with a head almost as large as its body and a set of jaws to match. It was made of the same metal as its alien master, however a large amount of the platinum was concealed by splatters of blood.
It pointed at us and declared proudly in an overwhelmingly Russian accent: "You have been found guilty of the use of heretical magics by the Wanari Empire! Lay down your arms and surrender yourself for execution!"
Arckani was either too confused or too amazed to say anything, so I replied: "But my axe ties this whole look together!"
"Cease your pathetic attempts at comedy!"
"Hey, at least I'm trying to lighten the mood. It's a bit sombre in here, don't you think?" I questioned jokingly while motioning to the bodies.
"These villains committed the same vile acts as your compatriot! Now give up your weapons! You have five seconds to comply!"
I turned to Arckani: "You can do magic?"
"A little bit here and there."
"Oh, cool. You take the dog." I concluded before bringing my axe up to meet the glaive about to chop me in half. For a thing with arms not even as thick as a bottle of beer, it sure did have a lot of strength. Helpfully, not as much as me.
I was already going for a swing moments after shoving his weapon away from me. Luckily for the alien, he had a shield to deflect such attacks. He didn't waste time though, immediately following up with a thrust of his glaive. I stumbled to the side to avoid it before retaliating by throwing my fist at him. I managed to land the backhand on his face, knocking him back momentarily. It didn't have any long-term effects, as he immediately picked himself back up and kicked me away. I was knocked back quite a distance, only managing to halt myself when I was already a few metres away. After barely managing to knock away a thrust of his weapon, I received a lovely shield-bash directly to my head. My back hit the ground and I got a great view of him jumping up to drive his weapon into me.
"Hey, that's my thing!" I shouted, quite peeved off, before knocking his glaive away from me with one hand and kicking his legs out from under him. He fell on top of me and I immediately went to disorientate him with a head-butt. It landed perfectly, giving me a chance to grab him by the neck and throw him off. He hadn't gotten back to his feet by the time that I had went over and kicked him over the head. I hauled my axe over my head and brought it down on his, severing it instantly.
A crash from behind me caught my attention, making me turn around to find the source. All I could see was a new hole in one of the walls with a metallic tail quickly disappearing through it and into the darkness beyond. I could only take a few steps before another crashing sound made me turn. This time, I discovered a hole in the ceiling with a beam of blinding light coming through it. The pillar was bathing over the alien's body, lifting it a few feet into the air and regenerating it. The thing's head literally reattached itself to the body.
"That's some bullshit right there." I declared, about the same time as the light faded and he stood back up.
"Witness the power of the Kusári!"
"More like the power of bullshit." I mumbled while trying to think up a plan. If I couldn't kill him by beheading, I'd have to try something different.
He approached me slowly as I sighed and looked down at my axe, still covered in his yellow blood: "I hope that didn't hurt, cause we're going to be trying again and again until it sticks."
The alien dived forward and swung his weapon at me in a wide ark, though it turned out to be a fake-out when he spun, reversing the momentum and sending the weapon at me from the complete opposite direction. I barely managed to duck under it and still stick my arm out in time to stop a blow from his shield.
"Uh-uh bitch!" I chuckled before heaving my axe up. A last-second intervention by one of his back-arms knocked the axe, turning it on its side. Still, the blow went through and smashed him upside the head. His helmet was knocked high into the air and landed in my hand.
"Holy shit you're ugly." I stated, quite repulsed by his appearance. He had a mouth in the shape of a 'W' with four long, thin holes above it that I guessed served as a nose. His eyes were vaguely triangular, with three eyelids that emerged from the corners of the triangle and met in the middle. Thin ridges decorated the entirety of his face in odd patterns. He had what looked like a white beard, however it was connected to his jaw on one end and the top of his neck at the other.
He looked rather angry, if I had to make a guess at whatever the hell that configuration of ugly was.
"Uh, here, please, cover that up." I pleaded while throwing the helmet back to him lightly. He made no attempt to catch it, instead letting it hit him in the chest and fall to the floor.
"Oh come on, four arms and you can't spare even one of them to catch that?"
He growled at me before coming in again for another bout. This time around, he opted for dozens of weak but rapid attacks. It was considerably more difficult to deal with, however the few times that I did get hit glanced off my armour quite handily. Despite that, I still did my best to dodge or block everything I could. My confidence in that set of armour was not very high at the best of times, but with the current lack of power, it couldn't get much lower.
When it became clear that I couldn't wait for him to become worn-out, I had to force an offensive. One off-target swing gave me a chance to charge him. I took a hit on the way, but still managed to dive at him. I pinned him to the ground and delivered two strong punches before grabbing him by the head and throwing him across the room.
Then, the perfect thing possible happened. The storm outside intensified so harshly and suddenly that all light faded from the room, save for the torch still lying on the floor next to one of the bodies. Suddenly, I was practically invisible, while he was still glowing like a pure-white fire.
Keeping a silent footing all the way, I approached him until, at the very last moment, I rushed forward. I managed to wrench his shield away and throw it into the darkness before disappearing once more. Another attack of the same tactic led to him being disarmed.
Even as I charged forward with my axe ready, he stood fearless in the face of death. The alien took as proud a stance as he had when the fight began as my axe cleaved into his midsection, ripping him in two. His remains fell to the ground and I delivered a few blows to where I supposed the vital organs would be before relenting, falling back against a wall as the storm subsided and light filtered in. This time around, no blast of light from the heavens came to resurrect him once more.
"Right… vital organs… Go for the organs." I mumbled between laboured breaths. The fight had taken its toll on my already-diminished endurance, reducing me to a gasping wreck on the ground. There was no chance I'd be able to go and help Arckani with any level of effectiveness, so it was a huge relief that, soon after my fight had ended, he emerged from the previously-created hole.
I barely lifted my hand into the air to wave him over and shout: "How'd yours go?"
"Pretty well. Came close to losing limbs every once in a while, my head included, but I can't complain." He explained, almost breathing as heavily as I was, as he approached: "Looks like yours went well too."
I stared down at the body then up to Arckani as he finally reached me: "Yeah, I suppose you could say that."
He scratches his butt then slumped down next to me, kicking away a chunk of the alien so he could stick his legs out. After taking a deep breath, he turned his attention back to me: "Don't happen to know anything about those… whatever they were, do you?"
"Not. A. Thing."
That was a lie.
"Dark magic can't tell you anything?"
"Nope. I don't even think that's how it works."
"How so?"
"Well, like, surely dark magic would be more about dark things, right?"
"What do you count as a 'dark thing'?"
"I don't- fucking, you know! Things! Which are dark!"
He stared at me for a few seconds, motionless, before replying blankly: "You're not very good with magic, are you?"
"Still better than you."
"Oh you wanna bet?"
"I'm not willing to compete right now but I'll happily see what you've got. I bet I'm not even mildly impressed."
Suddenly, I was on fire.
"Fire? Really? I don't know someone even vaguely magic who can't do that."
He grumbled before the flames disappeared: "Look, I can't do a lot in these rags. They're dampening."
"Dampening?"
"Yeah, nothing works as well when it's damp. Like gunpowder… Or guns… Or puppies."
"Makes sense when you put it like that."
A silence followed, neither of us being able to think up any way to continue properly. Eventually, I got up to my feet and offered my hand to help Arckani. He accepted, though not happily.
We went back the way we came in, stopping by to get the torch on the way.
As we made our way outside into the finally-subsiding snowstorm, I looked back for a few moments to realise what we were actually in. Apparently, the alien had thought that a ski resort had something to do with heretical magic. There was even a big sign saying what it was outside, but we missed it so I doubted he would have had any better luck.
The horizons around and the sky above cleared incredibly well in the first few minutes we were out in the open. Slowly, I started to recognise the surrounding mountains, ridges and scars. Somewhere along the line, I'd actually managed to memorise some of the more obvious features of the land surrounding my base. Amazing, considering how little time I had actually spent up there.
When we hopped over the same scar that I had dropped my favourite pen down, the path home became clear to me. Partly because I had some idea where we were, mostly because I could see Mt. Deathskull in the distance.
"There it is! The beautiful mountain I call my house." I declared grandiosely, motioning in its general direction with both hands.
Arckani stopped walking: "We're here already? Huh."
"I know. It is not at all very far from a big scary enemy compound."
"Well then, I suppose that means this is where we part ways for now."
"Aw no, man, come on! You've got to at least let me show you the inside! I've got these new rugs in there that feel like your feet are being smothered by a mother's love!"
"I really have to get back- wait…"
"What's-"
"Shh! There's…" He trailed off while kneeling down and putting one hand on the ground.
In a burst of movement he was on his feet and had his hands on my shoulders: "Is your base earthquake proof!?"
"Yes, but wouldn't we want to stay outside for an earthquake?"
"Not one like this!" He exclaimed quickly while grabbing my hand and tugging me in the direction of our base. Whatever was coming, it wasn't going to be pleasant.
We had at least a mile to go and even I was starting to feel the shaking, accompanied by an impossibly low and quiet rumbling. It was as if the entirety of the Freljord itself was very slowly being moved.
On our way to my base, we crossed over many cracks in the ground. However, something was changing within them. I didn't know if the cracks changing was causing the earthquake or the other way around, all I knew was that they were getting a hell of a lot brighter and spewing out a hell of a lot more magic. It flowed like an upside-down waterfall, gushing forth so much purple light that the sky was beginning to turn purple with it.
Every step felt like it could rip the floor underneath it apart when the shaking began in earnest. It was getting so bad that my main concern was no longer the purple lightning that was arcing to the ground every few seconds. It felt like it was only a matter of time before it hit me and, with a little under a hundred metres left to go, it did.
I couldn't explain precisely what happened, but I knew that lightning was not even remotely normal. Instead of zapping me and letting me run along my merry way, it froze parts of me, set others alight, and filled my armour with steam.
The ice broke away quickly and the steam leaked out of my helmet well enough, but the fire was more persistent. As was my luck, it had caught on every flammable part of my armour. All the cloth and rope I had decorated it with was being burnt to a cinder as I ran through the increasingly dreadful conditions.
By the time we reached final stretch the door, I could barely stand on my own two feet, let alone run. The mountain was faring much worse, apparently, as the doorway and the hall beyond it collapsed right before we could get there. Rocks blocked it completely and there was no time to get to the back entrance, so we had to improvise.
I turned to Arckani and had to scream to be heard over the sound of the planet ripping itself in two below us: "Do you trust me!?"
"Not much!"
"Good enough!"
I picked him up and held him in front of me before running at the side of the mountain. When we were about a metre from it I brought Arckani as close to me as I could and turned sideways before jumping. We crashed into the weakened stone with enough force to crumble it to pieces, collapsing a part of the ceiling to my room. There was a bit of a fall before I felt the stone impact my back and my companion drop on my front.
Still not quite certain we were completely out of trouble, I, still lying on the floor, kicked around on top of my bedside table until I hit the button I was looking for, instantly closing up the hole in the roof.
Finally safe, I felt Arckani climb off me. Considering how surprisingly uncomfortable the pile of rubble I found myself on was, I pushed up to my feet just long enough to collapse onto my nearby bed.
"Well…" I started before looking over to the only other person in the room: "That was an experience."
He came over and sat on the bed before replying: "No denying that…"
It took him a moment to notice the biggest difference.
"Hey, why isn't it moving around in here?"
"I was waiting for that. Turns out one of the previous owners basically made the whole base a gyroscope of some sort."
"That was definitely a good investment."
"Yeah. Much better than the torture room guy."
"The what?"
"Never-mind." I hurriedly answered while sitting up from the bed. I stared at Arckani, asking moments later: "So does this mean you owe me now?"
He had to think about it for a second before answering: "Yeah, I do actually. Huh." He paused for a second: "So, what do you want?"
"Do I have to call it in now?"
"Yes."
"Good, because I was going to do that anyway. Now, please, don't get offended by this I just really need to see your face. Morbid curiosity is the strongest curiosity I've got. That's why I know what the digestive system of a still-living Kraken look like."
"Does that mean you got eaten by a-"
"Yes."
"And then you came out in its-"
"Yes."
"… Moving swiftly on, my face. I suppose by now you've earned it, so, just give me a moment."
He got up and stood in a bit of open space between all the stupid shit lying around in my room. Slowly and carefully he started unfurling the layers of cloth as I stood up to face him and get a good view. Slowly, more and more of her face were revealed until I could see her entire head. Immediately, I keeled over, laughing so hard it made my stomach hurt. I fell to the floor and rolled around on it, clutching my aching sides.
"What the hell are you laughing at?"
"AAAhhahahhAAhha we're so fucking stupid AhahhaAhh I can't even fucking believe how goddamn dumb we are! We gave so many hints and neither of us got it! AhAHAHAHHaaAAHA!"
"Didn't get what?!"
It sounded like she was getting annoyed and I didn't want to get beaten up, so I calmed myself down and explained: "Any normal person would've noticed all the shit by now but not us two! Us big dummies and our dumb faces! It's fucking priceless Ahri!"
I stood up, still holding back the laughter and pulled off my helmet. Ahri stared at me right in the face for a brief few seconds before she started giggling, giving me my que to start laughing again.
I calmed down to a hearty chuckle as I went over to a toolbox and pulled out a disassembler. All it took was to attach it to my armour and immediately I was free. Reminded me just how light I was.
When I turned around, Ahri was in the middle of getting out of the rest of the rags. With one push outward by all of her tails, the rest of the cloth fell away.
"Explains the weird body shape." I thought as I stepped over to her. We finally settled down at the same time and shared the briefest of moments staring into each other's eyes before both diving in for what had to be the best kiss of my life.
Yeah. The series finally has both of its title characters together again. Surely, only good things can come from this development.
Plus I came up with a whole new species and shoved them in here because I was bored. Don't expect them to come back. I don't think these things through enough to bring them back.
Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed the chapter as a sort of Snowdown present. I also hope you all have a wonderful end of year, whether you celebrate anything around this time or not.
Goodbye plebs.
