Hello! I know I don't have too many readers, but I am going to try my best to crank out one to two chapers of this story a month if possible. Keep in mind, this chapter and the next are out of my own mind in terms of the trip up to Janos. I thought it'd be fun to make the puzzles less "video game-y" and come up with trials of my own. Please know reviews are such a motivation and give me all the happiness in the world! Thank you as always for reading!
Vera II
We faced the second set of giant double doors together. They were exactly like the ones I blasted open outside — super wide and tall with tons of squiggly designs on them. The only difference was these ones had a HUGE, circular lock slapped on 'em.
Man, the key for this thing must've been as big as my arm! That gave me an idea…
I raised my hand and wiggled my fingers around theatrically, ready to shove my entire arm into the slot, but felt a cold grip wrap around my wrist that stopped me in place.
"You really don't think before you act, do you?" Raziel sighed heavily, and even though he didn't have pupils, I could tell he'd be rolling his eyes if he could. "What do you think will happen to this arm if there is some creature beyond this door? Or if the lock is enchanted to only respond to one key, and it crushes your fragile bones into a fine paste?"
"I'd just use my powers to make it grow back like a lizard, duh," I said with confidence, but eyed the lock suspiciously now. I wasn't gonna risk it, and when he knew that, he dropped my arm like it was something toxic he didn't wanna spend another minute touching.
"You know what? Fine. Maybe I'll have more luck looking into the thing. All I'm sayin' is, it'd be great to know what we're up against before we're…up against it," I proclaimed, and when he didn't protest, I pushed my face against the metal. "Now, let's show the audience what's behind door number two!" I said in my spot-on announcer voice, moving my head from one side to the other to see if I could catch a glimpse of ANYTHING besides darkness. Nope. Ugh.
"No luck." I pulled away impatiently, my skin practically sticking to the metal. It was still super cold, but I had amped myself up between creating the fire and getting excited about my future after my Nosgoth History Lesson with Raz. Even thinking about it now, I felt like that warm blue fire I'd made was burning inside me. I was gonna save the world with my unreliable powers but reliable awesomeness!
When my powers actually decided to work, they made my whole body feel warm and tingly, like when I drank too much egg nog last Christmas Eve. My cousin Ayla'd had to yank me out of the chimney when I wanted to find out what I'd gotten for Christmas early and couldn't find our presents anywhere. I'd been convinced our parents had somehow stashed 'em up there Santa-style. Turns out, I'd forgotten to look in the coat closet.
Raziel leaned against the door, crossing his arms all casual-like, and eyed me thoughtfully, "I have a theory about this lock, but first." He gestured to me with his head, "Humor me, sorceress."
"Ooh, ooh, ok," now was my time to shine. "So, there once was a man from Nantucket —" I started excitedly, but he cut me off with a groan.
"Please, no references. I haven't the stomach for any more of that nonsense," he said in annoyance, which was his trademark tone. He left his spot on the door to stand back behind me, gesturing impatiently, "I meant try to unlock the door with your powers."
"Alright, fine, but you're gonna regret missing out on a prime dirty joke." I raised my eyebrows suggestively and tried to elbow him playfully, but he pulled away sharply, almost making me fall backward. Oh right — I already forgot the dude didn't like being touched.
I focused as hard as I could on the door, throwing my arms out, and they began to spark white. It was always pretty cool to see what colors the aura around my magic hands decided to glow. I mean, if it were up to ME they'd always go purple — my favorite color — but I was fine with Skittles hands.
The lock shook a little against my powers, but nothing else. A sharp pain in my head stabbed at my temples and I had to stop. The white light on my hands sputtered out and the warm tingle disappeared.
I didn't know what the dang problem was - it didn't feel like my powers were DRAINED or anything. I'd had more than enough time to rest up in between the stairs and now!
"I can't do it." I glared at the doors, rubbing at my head, then perked up, "But I CAN still tell you that Nantucket joke if you're interested."
"That's about what I anticipated." Raziel nodded and stepped forward, raising his arm up and making his crazy green sword thingy appear. He stuck it slowly into the lock.
"So it's stupid for ME to put MY arm in there but you think your undead nightlight is the key to this dumb —" I stopped when I heard the lock click loudly, and he took his arm out, totally smug about it all.
He slowly started pushing the door open for us to go through, but I wasn't gonna let him get away with it.
"WAIT WAIT WAIT. REALLY? You knew THE WHOLE TIME that my powers wouldn't do crap?! You gave me a headache for NOTHING?" I threw my arms up in the air incredulously, my head still pounding.
"You give me a headache every time you decide to scream something that could just as easily be spoken, so I'd say we're even," he said simply.
I thought it was an accident, but he hesitated a little and then elbowed me the littlest bit like I had tried to do earlier to him.
"DID YOU JUST JOKE WITH ME?" I screamed excitedly, proving his point but not caring.
He winced at my volume and the echo it created in the quiet, cave-like room. "I have been known to joke on occasion," he said defensively. Yeah, right.
Taking down those dogs that almost killed me and bossing me around seemed to come so much easier to him than joking around did, but there it was! It was awkward, yeah, but it was great seeing a different side of the uptight skeleton dude who was teaching me how to use my magic.
"Uh, I'd bet my whole novelty t-shirt collection that you've probably taken down more monsters than you've EVER made jokes." I laughed at the idea of Raz telling a knock-knock joke, and made myself giggle until I snorted imagining him wearing my yellow shirt with a Corgi puppy wearing sunglasses that said 'inCORGnito.'
His brow furrowed while he thought about what I was asking. "If I didn't have so many brothers, I might have won your collection. Lucky for me, whatever 'teed shirts' are seem like something I'd have absolutely no interest in." He was still talking casually, like he hadn't just DROPPED A GIANT BOMB.
"Wait, WHAT? You kill PEOPLE? You killed your BROTHERS?!" My voice jumped so high that it cracked as I scrambled back from him in shock, stumbling over the stupid boots Moe got for me. I thought he just killed evil monsters like those dogs at Moebius' pad!
I mean, yeah, I knew he WAS kinda creepy looking, but the first thing he did was rescue me, so I thought he was one of the good guys! He might've choked me, but I probably would've done the same if I saw some nerd dressed like Moebius, and even though it was RUDE it wasn't like he'd REALLY hurt me! But finding out this dude killed his actual FAMILY was making me rethink EVERYTHING.
There were times when I wanted to murder my sister Lily for being a prissy brat, but I couldn't imagine actually going through with it! Usually I just threw a red shirt in when she was washing her white cheerleading uniform or stuck my chewed-up gum on the bottoms of her shoes.
"They were the ones who made me like this." Raziel's tone turned cold and his white eyes narrowed after my totally normal reaction to hearing the news. "I would do it again one million times over."
It was like he was OFFENDED that I was freaked out by hearing such a crazy and messed-up thing! Buuut the last thing I wanted to do was piss off this guy who was capable of killing his family. I mean, I felt like he barely even liked me, so who KNEW when I'd be next?!
"Uh, not to like nitpick or whatever, but I thought you said earlier that Kain made you like this?" I tried to ask casually, but I could tell he wasn't convinced by my trying to be chill when I was absolutely NOT chill.
"It was all of them," he snapped, his voice raised. Well, there goes trying not to piss him off. "Kain ordered it, three of my brothers watched, while two cast me into an abyss, all with smirks on their faces. I burned in agony for thousands of years until I became this creature."
For the first time in my life, I didn't know what to say. My cousin Ayla always told me I needed to be more empathetic and put myself in other people's shoes. It was always hard for me to do it, but this was even harder than usual. The whole revenge murder-ing five people thing was just a LITTLE intense. I'd always heard growing up that two wrongs don't make a DON'T KILL YOUR FREAKIN' FAMILY!
Okay, maybe that wasn't the phrase, but close enough in this situation!
It was starting to hurt, holding back all these thoughts that wanted to burst out of me, but I breathed out and asked the first thing that I could think of when the silence was getting awkward, "Was it...hard? To, uh, kill them?" I asked, cringing at how weird it sounded coming out of my mouth.
Stupid Ayla. This was the last time I was gonna take her advice. Not only did I feel like an idiot saying it, but he scoffed at me.
"Kain asked the same ridiculous question. Was it hard for them to kill me? Not in the slightest." His venomous anger turned to disgust, "Besides, in the thousands of years I spent suffering and burning in the abyss, they had mutated into revolting creatures thanks to the Pillars' corruption."
Woah. Nosgoth had a LOT going on. So, by my count, we had whatever the heck Raziel is, vampires, sorcerers, ghosts, aaand now the Avengers joining the fray.
"Mutated? Like...spandex superheroes? Like Spiderman flinging webs out of his hands or like Thor with his lightning powers or like —"
He cut me off before I could mention any more hot dudes wearing tights, "Like absolute monsters. Finally, their outsides matched their grotesque insides. We thought our new abilities were gifts, back when I was alive. Rahab gained an immunity to water's burn, Dumah's strength became beyond that of even a vampire, Turel's hearing enhanced to supersonic levels, and I grew wings, which was the gift to trigger Kain's jealousy. Gaining these now-pathetic things was the death of me."
He gestured to the light blue, hole-filled, veiny things off his back that I had thought were hunks of leftover skin before I'd seen him glide over the gap in the stairs. I hadn't really cared about them when I first met him because I was focused on everything else he had goin' on, but ever since he used them to get up on the platform, I couldn't stop looking at them. I wondered what they looked like when he was a vampire, but it wasn't like I was gonna ask him now when everything that came outta my mouth was pissing him off.
"After these gifts developed, my brothers began a long transformation process that made them more...animalistic.. Zephon became a giant bug-like creature. Melchiah, who was the last of Kain's sons and therefore the least stable physically, became a giant bulk of flesh." I could tell by the tone of his voice that he REALLY enjoyed the karma that had hit his brothers.
Hearing all that made me feel a little better. I mean, they were still his bros, but a mutated blob that screwed you over is a lot easier to get revenge on than an actual person… Hopefully, I'd never know from experience, and would just have to take his word for it.
"So you kinda got lucky then, right? I think what you are now is way better than hamburger meat. Plus, you got to meet me!" I gestured to myself with both thumbs and a wink, but Raz's hands curled into fists.
"Lucky?" His cold voice hissed out in disbelief. I saw the sword on his arm light up, then flicker a little before deciding to disappear. "Yes, thousands of years of suffering to come back as this carcass. How lucky. To be manipulated by everyone I come in contact with, and then be stuck with the most obnoxious woman I've ever spoken to in all my years of life and death, who passes judgement on me when she can barely see a set of stairs without wetting herself. I am so incredibly lucky."
I felt my cheeks flush with anger and embarrassment and growled through gritted teeth, "Shut up, Blue Boy."
Maybe I HAD almost peed myself back there, but I'd only gotten to go ONCE since leaving Moe's behind a bush in the swamp, which was HOURS ago!
"Eloquent as expected," he spat, fuming just as much as I was. His short sentence rang through the cave and grated on my still-throbbing head.
"Can we stop yelling in a room that echoes everything we say?" I matched his tone, and of course the stupid stair-filled room rebounded my words back at me as we glared at each other.
"Actually suggesting something helpful for once, are we? I would love for us to move forward so you can stop wasting even more of my time." He whipped around and pushed open the double doors, cutting me off to walk in first. I was fine with that; I was close to punching his dumb, jawless face anyway.
This room was way more lit up than the last one, but only 'cuz it was smaller. It still had just the torches on the wall and was just as depressingly grey and stone-y as the last room, only this one had a dirt floor.
We were standing in front of what looked like four gravestones spaced out horizontally. Creepier than the stair room, but I could handle it as long as there were no more heights. Besides, it almost seemed like it was trying too hard.
Raziel stomped ahead past the graves like a big baby. Both sides of the room had a few stairs on the left and right walls leading up to a landing and three doors — one in the center, one to the left and one to the right.
He could go ahead with his sulky, bony butt and check those out while I looked at the graves. That was where the prime comedy opportunities were.
"I know we're mad at each other, but I learned after my grandma got buried next to a dude named 'Richard Butts' never to pass up looking at tombstone names," I called out. "I got kicked out of the funeral for laughing, but it was worth it." I looked over to the blue skeleton, who didn't react. I guess he didn't get it. "His name was Dick Butts, Raz. Dick BUTTS!" I snickered so hard at the comedy gold that I straight-up snorted.
"'Four dead," the blue skeleton muttered, rudely ignoring me as he continued to stare at the dumb, boring doors, "There's a sign on each door that says Four dead."
"Weird. If we needed help counting to four, why would they even think we'd know how to read?" I asked disinterestedly, more focused on finding a name on the gravestone. I wasn't seeing anything, but the stones also seemed pretty worn down. This one even had a few hunks taken out of it.
"I wasn't positive you could do either, so it's nice to have that reassurance," Raziel said snarkily, and I whipped my head up to glower at him.
"I liked you better when you didn't joke," I huffed, while he continued to pace from one door to the other in thought.
"Who said I was joking?" he shot back, not bothering to turn around.
I threw a middle finger up at his back. Even if he DID turn around, I don't even think he understood what the gesture meant. He always cocked his head to the side when I gave him the thumbs up. That didn't make it feel any less better to do. In fact...I lifted my other hand and made the gesture with that one too for good measure, sticking out my tongue until I got bored.
I did one more once-over on the worn gravestone in front of me for a name and found nothing. No Hugh Jass. No I. P. Freeley. Bummer. I gave up on it, starting to walk over to the next one, when I heard a crunch under my feet and looked down.
Pieces of what looked like...bone?! — yep, it was bone — were all over the ground. It looked like someone's cheesy Halloween decorations, but I could tell nothing here was plastic or bought at Walmart. I tried to back away from the spookiness, but there were bones EVERYWHERE. I guess I'd been too busy being pissed at Raz to notice I had been stepping all over chunks of skeletons from the moment we walked in. Ew. Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew.
"I think there are a lot more than four dead over here!" I grimaced, hopping around and trying my best not to step on any more crunchy bone bits. It was no use. They were everywhere.
Suddenly, the floor began to shake. I tried to get away from the tombstones (I had seen enough zombie movies), but something blasted out of the ground and grabbed on to my ankle tightly.
I flailed as the rock came up out of the dirt, feeling the blood rush to my head. The stone kept getting bigger and bigger and I realized as I was LIFTED OFF THE GROUND UPSIDE DOWN that the tombstone was this thing's head, and it now had a hulking body made of more rock that had been hiding underground. Its rocky hand was clamped hard onto my ankle.
The weird monster yanked me around in the air as I heard more rumbling, trying to wiggle around to see what was happening.
The other three tombstones had also come out of their spots in the ground and were lumbering towards Raziel, who was at the ready, crouched with his sword out.
"Put me down NOW!" I screamed at the faceless monster holding on to me, but it didn't listen.
It started slowly going toward Raz too, who I could see dart out of the way of the other rock creatures' punches easily as he met us in the middle of the room. The blue dude was FAST, I'd give him that, but anyone would be with no fat or skin on their body to hold them back.
"I know the concept of being helpful may be foreign to you," Raziel started to snap at me, dodging more attacks before whipping out the sword arm thingy and jumping onto the shoulders of the stone dude that held onto me, "but using your powers would help right about now."
"Even if they decided to work, I can't exactly do anything with my hands from down here, smarty pants!" I yelled back, trying hard to swing myself up to the monster's hand that gripped hard on my leg. I couldn't do a sit-up on a normal day, but this was a sit-up on hard mode and it was NOT happening.
"Try creating something you can throw at them, like a ball of fire," he instructed annoyedly from above me, using his sword to cut off the head of the monster holding me. "You made a whole fire by yourself earlier, this should be nothing!"
Easy for him to say. Slowly (but not slow enough for me to get my ankle out in time to make a good landing) the monster holding on to me fell. Raziel met me at the ground in time to catch me before I face-planted, but then tossed me over to the side to face the other rock creatures. What a charmer.
I hopped up quickly, but kept my distance. It was hard enough to focus while I got my sense of balance back, but it didn't help that every time the tombstone trio took a step or punched, there was an earthquake.
It'd be three against two now if I could get my stupid powers working. I put my hands together and then slowly brought them apart, seeing a flickering ball of flame in my right palm. If it was good enough to take down Bowser, I was positive it'd work on these goons. I whipped the fire hard at the closest rock monster aaaaand it immediately fizzled on contact.
"Mama Mia!" I face palmed in frustration, at a complete loss for what to do next.
Use ice, you idiot.
The jarring thought vibrated through me, like when you turn the car radio on but forgot last time you were JAMMING out to Chumbawumba and left the volume all the way up and get BLASTED with sound.
Was that...my conscience? It'd never been so loud or mean before, but maybe all this craziness was causing it to be more of a jerk.
"Alright, I got this!" I yelped, running after one of the rock monsters. "Let it go, bitches!" I screamed, hurling ice out of my hands and absolutely coating the tombstone creature in it, causing it to freeze in place. It slowly fell backwards and shattered into a bunch of pieces.
"BOOM, BABY!" I fist pumped, grinning as I stared at the remains of the hulking giant I had easily taken down.
Raziel nodded at me in approval, doing his best to dodge the two creatures who kept taking shots at him. He seemed to be running out of steam — he was still able to move out of the way, but he was definitely slowing down.
"How's this for useful, Razzle Dazzle?" I called to the scarf-wearing dead guy, running up to a rock dude confidently after taking down the other one so easily. I did my best to "Elsa" this one too, but nothing came out of my hands.
Not again.
I skidded to a stop and swallowed hard as its rocky fist came toward me, scrambling away from it. The tables had DEFINITELY turned.
My legs felt like jelly, and not just cuz the big oaf hitting the ground had narrowly missed me. I hated being powerless and relying on Raziel, who'd only recently decided he kinda sorta thought I was an okay person to talk to, aaaaand then changed his mind. I would rather eat my boot than be a damsel in distress.
The good thing about the tombstone brothers being massive was that they were slow as all heck, and I was able to create some distance between myself and the one focused on me at the moment to sneak a peek at how Raz was doing.
He had taken out the other one with the same method as the first — slashing its head off and letting the body fall to the ground to crumble.
One left. If only I could do literally anything other than focus on getting away from the hulking monster.
My task got easier when the thing changed course and suddenly charged Raziel, who had been heading toward us anyway, catching us both off-guard. Its fist collided with my blue travel buddy, who hadn't gotten the chance to move away fast enough.
"No!" I screamed, feeling icy sweat down my back. The monster's punch hurled Raziel across the room where he bounced off the wall and landed hard on the ground.
He couldn't die now — not when the last thing we'd done was get in a fight!
When he got up slowly, I let out the breath I didn't know I was holding in relief. I didn't care if my powers didn't want to work. I'd MAKE them work. I'd help Raz take down this last dude and maybe even think about apologizing for earlier…if he apologized first, of course.
I tried to run over to him to see if he was really okay, but before I could make it to him, he seemed to flicker and fade and then disappear into thin air. UH, WHAT?
Had he just nope'd out of here just when things were getting hard?! I knew we were mad at each other, but he was going to just leave me like that?! I guess he thought I wasn't worth the effort. I was all alone now.
My chest tightened up, and it suddenly felt harder to take in air. I bet Raziel was relieved he didn't have to deal with the 'Most Obnoxious Woman he'd ever met' anymore. I shouldn't have been surprised. He wasn't even the first person to call me that this month.
I tried to swallow a lump in my throat, but my mouth was too dry and I choked. The cold sweat on my skin started to prickle, and all I wanted to do was curl into a ball until my brain felt like it wasn't melting. What was happening to me?
I remembered Ayla having me help her with her psychology test and making me read out the flashcards. The words "anxiety attack" flashed in my brain, but I couldn't think clearly.
A sting of tears cut the corner of my eyes, and I flushed with embarrassment. I wasn't even sure if the rock monster could see without a face, but I still felt dumb. As I wiped at the tears with my sleeve, I noticed my hands were glowing the dark purple I'd been hoping for.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself. End this. Now.
There was that voice again. I felt the knot in my chest and stomach untangled almost immediately as power surged through me, and just in time, because the last rock dude was ready to pummel me. I took in a deep breath, feeling the rest of my anxiety melt out of me.
"Go back to some cheap old person's lawn who gives out Almond Joys for Halloween!" I pointed at the headstone, getting ready to fight, but then the fiery purple light emitting from my hand built to my finger and blasted out, hitting the monster square in the head, causing it to explode immediately. After its head had turned to dust, the rest of its body broke apart with it.
I did it. I didn't even have to THINK about what I wanted to happen — my powers had just pummeled a monster into GRAVEL.
I was fully prepared to do a dope victory dance, but after one jump in the air, my knees buckled and gave out, making me fall to the floor. I felt heavy all over - my head, my eyes, my body, and then everything faded to black.