To Whatever End

The time had come for the caravanners of Tipa to make what would be the hardest, even if not the last, decision of their lives. Would they be the party of adventurers that would destroy the source of the miasma and set the world free of it, even at the cost of their own lives? Or would they turn back from Mount Vellenge and leave the abyss while they still could?

David looked around at his fellow caravanners, seeing in them the same fear of inevitable doom that threatened to take the heart of him. But none of them had come all the way to the end of the world for nothing, did they? This alone gave him the resolve to make his decision. He drew his sword, a powerful weapon that the Lilty blacksmith who forged it had christened "Ragnarok." In the language of the warrior people it meant "the end of all things"—and even if it was his end, it would also be an end to the oppression of the miasma. "We didn't come to the end of the world for nothing, did we?" said he. "We've come to the source of the miasma—let's destroy it and lift its curse."

Lydia looked up at David, her brown eyes meeting his hazel ones for a long moment, and then she too drew a thin but razor-sharp blade. "I guess I can't let my big brother face this menace alone," she added as she gave David a brief weak smile. "The world will be free of miasma, even if none of us here live to see its freedom."

Dimo Nor adjusted the golden gauntlets that covered his hands and forearms before readying his spear—the one that his father had given to him two years ago following the tragedy of the Black Knight. "Too long it's been that this evil has had its way with the world we live in," he said as he raised his determined green eyes to the eye-holes in Khetala's helm. "No more."

Anaїs Nin's silver eyes fell dark with a pang of grief as she unwrapped a pair of magic angel-tear earrings from the torn piece of cloth in which she kept them safe, but only for a moment, replaced by the flame of determination. She raised her legendary racket forged of orichalcum. "Whatever it takes to clear the miasma, I will do it," she told all her fellow caravanners, "for all who would be free."

"The decision is unanimous, then," replied Khetala, picking up the crystal chalice and holding it high. "We march upon the edge of night."

So the caravan from Tipa began the climb up the slopes of Mount Vellenge. Within two hundred yards of where they hitched the reins of the papaopamus that pulled their wagon, however, a large boulder blocked their path. Even as she heard Dimo Nor let slip a swearword that only Lilties ever used, Anaїs Nin rushed forward and battered the boulder with her racket until it crumbled.

"Cowardly monsters," said the young Selkie woman scornfully. "Hiding behind rocks with no fighters for miles around—yikes!" she yelped as she jumped aside just in time to avoid the disembodied-arm-swing of a floating spherical monster.

Passing the crystal chalice to David, Khetala crossed two fingers be-ringed with magicite rings and brought the monster down with a Gravity spell. Before the sphere could rise again, Anaїs Nin whacked it several times with her racket, and Dimo Nor leaped forward with a powerful spear-thrust to defeat it. "Plenty more where that thing came from," the Lilty warned.

Dimo Nor turned out to be right—every time Anaїs Nin smashed a boulder with her racket, monsters waited on the other side for the motley caravanners. Most were spheres, tonberries, or death-knights, but occasionally the monster behind the boulder was a shade that wielded a blade, mace, or spear—one boulder even hid a chimera. To fight this variety of monsters, Khetala passed the chalice alternately to David and Lydia whenever she needed to bring down a sphere or force a shade to materialize so that Dimo Nor, Anaїs Nin, and whichever Clavat was not holding the chalice could attack the monster in melee. Although some monsters dropped magicite or food when slain, most simply dissolved into the miasma from whence they came.

"Now which way?" asked Lydia once the caravanners reached a crossroads of sorts where boulders blocked both paths ahead.

Khetala raised her head to the heavens as if praying for guidance. "We go right," she answered after a long pause. Dimo Nor looked at her uncertainly, as did Lydia, but Anaїs Nin proceeded to smash the boulder that blocked the left path. Another spear-wielding shade awaited the caravanners on the other side, which they defeated. It left behind a plume of phoenix down when it dissolved into the miasma. "Leave it," Khetala commanded, holding Lydia back as she approached to retrieve it. "Remember that our plan depends on the monster Raem not finding us alive once we defeat the Meteor Parasite."

Soon, however, they came upon a crystal-like object that glowed with an ominous-looking purple light. Standing in front of it was a tonberry, which David dispatched fairly easily—but almost as soon as the tonberry dissolved into the miasma, the light of the crystal chalice stopped glowing.

Dimo Nor was the first to collapse to his knees as miasma poisoning began to set in. "Destroy—that—purple thing!" he choked out. But he needn't have bothered saying anything; as was her role, Anaїs Nin leapt forward and smashed the crystal with her racket, letting out an exhausted breath once the chalice's crystal glowed again. She alone remembered to hold her breath when the chalice's crystal had stopped glowing in order to minimize the effects of miasma poisoning.

"Okay, now we know we have to be quick about destroying those things," she panted. Thankfully, the caravanners only encountered two more dark crystals—one more before they reached what appeared to be a moogle nest underneath a stone bridge, and one afterward. The latter unfortunately had a large plant-like tentacle guarding it against intruders, a monster that tried to freeze the caravanners with ice when they attacked it. The tentacle had succeeded in freezing Lydia once and knocking Khetala to the ground with a powerful lashing strike before Dimo Nor and Anaїs Nin walloped it.

They had come at last to the point of no return. "This is it," Khetala told them, "when we go forward, there will be no turning back."

"Then we march forward and destroy this menace," answered David, "for the people of Tida who lost their lives to the miasma."

"For Hurdy of Tipa," agreed Lydia, "may we succeed where he failed."

"For the Black Knight," subjoined Dimo Nor, "whose soul was so ravaged that only in death did he find peace."

"For De Nam of Leuda," added Anaїs Nin as she now picked up the chalice, "who tried to be free but at last buried his ambition in the marsh of dead dreams."

Khetala adjusted the magicite rings on her fingers. "To give hope to those who live on," said she, "we make our final stand."

Even from their distance the caravanners could see the miasma emanating from the great Meteor Parasite—a huge round creature sunk into the ridges of the mountain, covered in millions of filmy-looking tendrils. More tentacles like the one that had gurarded a dark crystal sprouted up on either side of the parasite, and a long slender appendage emerged from its core.

Before the red-tipped tentacle could try to burn or lash anyone, Khetala froze it with a Blizzard spell and Dimo Nor hacked it to pieces. The black-tipped tentacle, however, proved harder to defeat, as Khetala tried many spells against it, to little avail until she cast a Holy spell that weakened it significantly and hammered it repeatedly. David, Lydia, and Dimo Nor each tried their best to chop at the Meteor Parasite's long central whip-like appendage with their weapons, while Anaїs Nin rushed around trying to keep everyone within the protective aura of the crystal chalice. Occasionally, however, Anaїs Nin would need to drop the chalice in order to cast Cure spells on her fellow caravanners—or even run to rescue a party member that had been flung outside the chalice's aura by a hard blow.

Suddenly, however, the parasite stopped lashing at the caravanners with its whipping tendril. Instead, that tendril appeared on the back—along with blue- and purple-tipped tentacles that respectively tried to freeze and paralyze the caravanners. Now the Meteor Parasite started to knock the caravanners around with spells that made the ground explode beneath them, and all the while it held its tendril out of both Clavats' reach, as their swords were not long enough to reach the tendril. "We'll never hit it, we need to try another way," Lydia called out. Then she had an idea: "I'll take the chalice, Anaїs Nin—see if you can jump high enough to reach that long thing there!"

The plan worked—Anaїs Nin succeeded in whacking at the tendril with her racket several times before a purple-tipped tentacle that sprouted up lashed her hard enough to knock her several yards outside the chalice's aura. Realizing this, Lydia tossed the chalice to her brother. David caught it perfectly, running to Anaїs Nin with the others following in his wake and hauling her upright with one arm.

With just a few more racket-strikes at the tendril, however, the Meteor Parasite changed its form again. This time its tendril emerged from the front, below a large eye-like organ, and the tentacles on either side were again red- and black-tipped. As the tentacles lashed, the parasite shot dangerous blue projectiles like bullets wildly at the caravanners.

David, Lydia, and Dimo Nor could attack the weak point of the tendril more easily now, but everyone had trouble avoiding the large bullets, especially Khetala, who now had a harder time casting spells on the tentacles. The caravanners were getting frantic now—the chalice had never changed hands as often as in this battle as they rushed to protect each other, alternately striking with their weapons, casting spells, or running with the chalice to keep everyone within its protective field. At last Dimo Nor drove his lance one last time deeply into the root of the parasite's tendril and yanked it out. The great Meteor Parasite convulsed violently, thrashing about so much that the Lilty was sure that this was the end of it.

But even as the Meteor Parasite dissolved into the miasma that it spewed all over the world, the caravanners heard a great roar.

"Raem," said Khetala. "RUN!"

Nobody needed telling twice. They had to scatter, hoping that the miasma killed them all before Raem caught anybody, or they would lose their memories to the demon.

David had made it several yards away, as the miasma started to blur his vision and make him feel terribly ill, when a death-knight set upon him. The blond Clavat had barely even raised his sword to defend himself—and the death-knight impaled him upon its jagged blade, leaving David bathed in his own blood, to die at last.

Lydia, bruised and bleeding, limping from a twisted ankle sustained in the final part of the battle, saw what would probably be a safe niche to hide in were it not for the miasma, in a near corner. There she curled up into a fetal position under her shield, trying to focus all her thoughts on the hope of green country and clear blue sky as the miasma took her, her hope for the future that she would not see.

For Khetala, the clouded distance that she ran through seemed endless—when would it end? she wondered. She had her answer less than twenty seconds later as she sank to her knees, too weakened to run anymore, and fell face-forward onto the all-but-untrod path, a magicite stone rolling from her furred hand.

Anaїs Nin's desperate bid to outrun Raem, however, was probably the quickest-ending, for just as she started to feel sick from miasma poisoning a black-tipped tentacle sprouted up a yard in front of where she ran and lashed her on the side of her head. The blow knocked her out cold and flung her to a steep length of slope where she tumbled down the mountain to just a hundred or so yards away from the Tipa caravan's wagon—where at last the miasma nipped the last bit of life out of her.