An Age of Mysterious Memories

B 2 C 40: Hell’s Bells

The last obelisk falls in the distance, and the sky goes awash in red. It’s that stark red, the same as the eyes that have been hounding me since Day One. I plummet out of the sky as I’m sent spiraling into panic. Four individuals and several spells break my fall. I struggle to breathe, clawing at my throat, my eyes lose focus and my tinnitus rings as loudly as ever. My right arm spasms and twitches and its wrist flicks painfully backwards. It’s the eyes. The eyes are what was released into this world. The obelisks kept them out. Somehow, somehow the eyes are sent throughout time to my beginning. That’s why there’s a second beginning that stretches out before.

The eyes, they’ll forever haunt me, always, every turn of my journey and every step of my life’s tale. If it could possess a phoenix, even temporarily, then anyone might be taken from me. I could lose anyone and everyone. I could have to fight Teuila again. It’s too much. I can’t, I can’t take it.

Suddenly, of all things, Lucky licking my cheek snaps me from my panic attack. But Lucky hates me. Has the world flipped upside down?

From my position on my back, it seems like the whole night sky is alight with fire. Realizing that’s not normal, I frantically ask, “Guys, guys? Why is it so bright atop the cliffs!?”

Everyone turns to gaze upward, several of our aerial specialists head upwards to check it out, returning with horrified looks on their faces.

Har composes himself to state, “The lava, it’s, it’s covering the entire Fire Biome. It’s pouring out at an incredible pace, like the planet is vomiting its entire lifeblood to the surface.”

I take stock of everyone around me. Lao, Agwai, ‘Naia, M^2, Sugar, Spice, Har, Sal, Teuila, Luni, Lil, Olioli, even Bettie are all accounted for.

Where’s Mataalii? Where is he? He’s not here as lava is threatening to pour over the edge of the cliff. He went to fire biome by himself, didn’t he? Not a question in my mind about it, he went back there. Fire Biome is flooding with lava, and Mata’s stats page is all screwed up. We’ve just lost a brother. That can’t be what future me wanted. It can’t be. I’d warn myself, I’d have stopped Mata from leaving somehow, kept him under watch, something. I can’t possibly believe that I’d give us a message and not save Mata. What was going through my head? I couldn’t possibly need events to play out exactly this way. That can’t be right. Some future me was cold and calculating enough to determine that this had to happen? The thought frightens me to my core, a remorseless future me would chill me to the bone. I might not trust myself, but I trust Luni. She believed whatever she learned, wholeheartedly, and she knew this would happen. She trusted me, so I’ll put my trust in her.

Sal and Har fly up the cliff to scout out if there’s anything that can be done to stem the flow, but a pterodactyl shows up and begins chasing the two of them. It’s a massive beast, and I dare not look it in the eyes right now, because I have a feeling about them.

There’s utter shock when the entire family receives the message, “Mataalii has left the party.” I didn’t even know that was something that was possible. Why would he choose to do so? The Mana twins, his babies as he calls them, are here, with us, in this family, this party. He at least had to be conscious to make such a choice, so he hasn’t derezzed. My heart sinks into the pit of my stomach as I can only manage to come to one conclusion. Mataalii hates me enough, is hostile enough to me, that he was a valid target for possession by the Red Eyes.

My mind devolves into panic, not only that I’ve lost a brother, but he’s now in the hands of my most fervent enemy, one who has hounded me since Day One. This creature can exist simultaneously across time, including several places at once. It can leave fractions of itself in some beings. Mata must have possessed a fragment of it that he inserted into Lil’s core. How much of that was Mata’s choice? The nightmares consume me as the lava pours over the edge of the cliff, threatening to consume all we have worked for. I crumple to the ground as my knees buckle. I must be wailing tears of loss in between sobs of fear. I feel a tap on my shoulder, but none of my family are at my back. I sense a presence shaking their head.

With pulse pounding in my ears, threatening to blow my eardrums with my own heartbeat, and eyes bulging against their sockets, I stand. I cry out, “Spice, that plan you made, go, take them to safety, I’ll catch up! Teuila, get Bettie to the humans, have her warn them! Make sure that if they evacuate south they won’t fight Luna or the beavers! You got that Bettie!? Don’t let them hurt the bear or the beavers! Then Teuila come back to guard the family, I’m sure it’s a tunnel structure!” Teuila hesitates for only a split second before following my request. She’ll only be gone for a few minutes to cover that distance. I should be able to hold out that long. I start with a massive FFS, but sucking the atomic heat from such a wide area at once is too much when that area is mostly lava.

The lava begins encircling our entire settlement somehow, it fights its way back uphill after being diverted around us. I dash back and forth, parallel to the edge of the lava flow, erecting superchilled air barriers as much as I’m able. Though I manage to create a small dam of cooled rock, the lava quickly continues to spill around the sides. Gazing eastwards, it’s like the waterfall has been replaced by a lava fall. Worse, the river level is rising, a river that is now lava instead of water. I sense my family members disappearing into some sort of secret place, one by one.

The terror that I’m fighting off threatens to consume me. I can’t help but think about all the times my family members have been in danger. The flood of lava reminds me of the Night of High Water, the pterodactyl reminds me of a difficult foe, Octorochi. The lava flood also reminds me of the beaver dam, both times. It also reminds me that we nearly lost Lil and Teuila to some mysterious force in the foothill of the cragbeast queen. A cragbeast queen that was possessed, similar to the pterodactyl now attacking us. My only body parts that respond are my fingers at the ends of my trembling hands. The pterodactyl makes a swoop for me in my panicked state, but Sal and Har both blast it sharply with wind that only mildly scratches its tough hide.

Sal and Har traveled so hard, they’ve only had a few hours to recover since they arrived with Lu and Lil. They’re not doing well at all, but I can’t bring myself to move as I see the pterodactyl’s eyes. Stark-red, pupil-less eyes. Sal dives beneath its wings and summons a mighty wind blast upward, knocking it off of its trajectory that would have gutted me and smashed me to smithereens. She’s screaming at me to run or fight, but I can do neither.

I mumble, barely a whimper, “P,please, please go. I won’t die to this.”

It’s true, other than perhaps some injuries from the pterodactyl, I could walk out of this mostly unscathed even on autopilot. They can’t hear me though.

Har motions for Sal to find a better vantage, so she rockets skyward as best her wind magic will allow, she aims for the cliffs, but I can’t warn her that there’s no structures up there. There’s nothing to gain a vantage from. Her vertical ascent is much slower than what I can manage, but I can’t even manage to move. A sonorous bell rings out from the pterodactyl’s mouth, an awful thunderous noise.

Suddenly Sal is knocked out of the air as if by some invisible force, far too far away for me to reach or to help. Har is rushing down to try to save his sister but, oh, oh no. She cooled a small patch of lava but then was immediately engulfed as the rest of the flow swept over it, splashing her. Is that how I will die? Sal isn’t derezzing, she’s, it’s so gruesome. Har has her arm! He’s, oh no. He is, he’s, he just gave up. He just, the only thing that was left was her arm in his hand, and he let his wind magic end. They, they were gone in an instant. It was so fast. That’s how it would have worked in my memories. That’s how my memories say lava would treat people. Is that what’s going to happen to me, right now? The pterodactyl begins its thunderous dolorous gonging directed at me, knocking me over and shattering the dock of Shellcracker Pond.

I blindfold myself and let lava begin to surround me, trying to overcome my fear. When the pterodactyl enters my danger wrap sense range, I summon a dozen umbral copies of Gae Buidhe for a terrifyingly powerful US, it tries to release its sonic attack one last time too late, even as its gonging sounds loud the beast dies. The pterodactyl derezzes, and I can feel the furious entity try once again to pass through me. Once more I’m given a glimpse, some shared memory. A stone bridge, temple steps. The entity takes off in frustration, I can tell it’s heading towards the center of Fire Biome.

Teuila returns and pleads with me to go. I remind her that I’m fine, that lava barely affects me at all, and that she should head to the family to keep them safe. She acquiesces and follows where she’d seen Spice go before leaving.

I remove my blindfold to witness the calamity as it happens around me. The lava seems to have a mind of its own. Every bit of molten stone that I cool and block off seems to only cause further lava to try to work against gravity to flow back uphill towards me and the pond. Wait, lava with a mind of its own? I don’t know if this will help, or be the worst mistake of my life. Vesuviform, I choose your freedom. Please don’t kill me. Please don’t attack my family. I summon the orb that I’m positive contains the heart of Vesuviform from my inventory. I huck the orb into the lava as far north as I can, which is a fair distance at this point, but it’s not enough to be out of sight range of VF as they swirl into existence.

I gulp nervously. Tension hangs in the air as I’m busy dashing about, cooling lava into rock as it remelts. VF watches me, and I worry that they’re simply enjoying observing my losing battle. Vesuviform seems to swim away upstream, taking a significant portion of lava with them, though not enough to staunch the flow. Somehow I get the impression that they’re headed to the volcano to put a stop to this. But it’s several days of travel. No, it’s several days of travel for me, probably a few hours for a creature like Vesuviform. Still, I’m losing ground by the second. There are mere minutes before the pond is completely finished being overtaken, then seconds after that our homes will be destroyed. At least the whole jungle won’t be destroyed if VF is really going to soothe the volcano.

I first worried that Mataalii would be taken from us by lava, now I worry that Mataalii is somehow immune to it, or worse, controls it. If Mata somehow catches Vesuviform as VF races to the volcano, can Mata control the lava beast? Well, that’s pure speculation, I don’t have any idea what’s keeping Mat alive in Fire Biome right now.

I glimpse a future where Lao is unconvinced that I will follow along, she believes she has to come back to save me. We unwittingly pass one another, Lao and Lucky end up far too deep in lava, and by the time I catch up in that future, Lao dies. She derezzes with Lucky before I can even get back to her when I've caught on that she turned back, there's not even an opportunity to use the phoenix plume on her. This is definitely why Lao could never be given the idea that she could come rescue me with Lucky.

In such a future, I could see myself becoming cold, calculating, ruthless, especially to find a way to use my time travel well enough to prevent it. Is that it? Was all of this pain and suffering to save Lao? Would she have wanted that? I can't say I'd have done anything less.

I abandon trying to save the buildings of the Shellcracker Pond Settlement, and instead I claim as many of our belongings and as much of the material as possible, including significant chunks of the buildings. I find Spice’s secret tunnel entrance, and it’s ingenious. There’s a sort of sieve trap at the bottom, he probably planned it for flooding, but it might work for lava as well. It leads to a massive chasm for the liquid runoff. Off to the side, there’s a doorway of stone. My family must be down it. Sadly this tunnel heads northwest, right under the lava, and towards our neighbor’s caves. I step outside the tunnel and let out one more massive Flash Frost Storm to buy a few precious seconds as I take off down the tunnel after my family.

Whew, I’m catching up to my family, wait, it’s just Lao and Lucky, why are they running this way? No, no I’m fine.

I shout, “I’m fine! Go on!”

Lao, Lucky! Lava pours through above the two of them and there's no room to move, no time to react. My instinct is to JT myself into Lao's position, knock her out of place and use the phoenix plume on her as she's derezzing.

A voice in my mind shouts, "Lucky must survive!"

But, but Lao, she's, she's she's like my mother.

"Look at Te."

Trusting the voice, I use JT and summon the plume from my inventory, Teuila likewise becomes Valkyrie and summons her plume, leaping backwards from the rest of the family to meet me at Lao. I touch my plume to Lucky as I blow a gust of frigid air strong enough to freeze the lava flow, the two plumes are consumed, and Lao and Lucky aren't taken from us. Teuila's first instinct of course, was to also save Laomati. We'd have both used up our plumes, and Luni couldn't have gotten here in time to save Lucky.

The rest of the family are on their way backwards from where they were up ahead. Sugar tries to reinforce the currently tenuous frozen lava dam.

Spice exclaims in terror, "We, I, I built it to spec! I would never skimp! I just had Mata do the surface reinforcements. He said he would take care of it., that's the one spot I asked him to do while I was getting this done. He only had one job, he said he'd do it!”

Mata, you sick, twisted soul. You killed Laomati, you basically killed your own mother. Now I'm going to have to kill my own brother. So in this timeline, Mata has to go darkside, so that Lao's death happens where we can reach. I must have gone through timeline after timeline to find a way that saves Laomati and Lucky. Wait, why Lucky? The voice was so insistent. This isn’t even over. Future me still has plans for us.

Now I see why the rest of the family began to turn back as well. Our smaller neighbor, drum in tow, is running full tilt away from a lava flow that fills the entire tunnel behind them. Our neighbor must have just lost everything. The lava must be consuming the entire eight leggers warren right now.

I start retreating with the family, but I make sure they pass me so I can cover our escape by stopping this wall of magma. I think it’s magma when it’s completely below ground, even if it was above ground then went back below ground. I guess it doesn’t matter. Heh, matter sounds like Mata if you pronounce it a certain way without enunciating the r. Focus brain! Oh holy crap I’m completely submerged in lava!

Even with massive thermal resist, and Valkyrie equipment, this is still excruciating, and sizzling away my flesh at a rapid pace. I wade out of the lava towards my family and conjure another FFS, and another, and another, over and over. On the far side of my family, lava is pouring down from the secret entrance, into the runoff sieve that Spice designed. Good boy Spice, good plan. I love you so much little brother.

I call out, “Lao, has Lucky learned how to dig? If so, have him dig south by southwest from this point, preferably in his full form!”

Lao responds by speaking to Lucky, “You hear that my Lucky protector? That direction, please, for the good of all of us.” She kisses Lucky’s forehead as Lucky transforms.

Lucky digs with preternatural prowess, like the cragbeasts that make up part of his form, when they learned to dig, they could plow through solid stone. I guess this is one of the reasons Lucky absolutely had to survive. I usher the family into the tunnel that Lucky is making, and I know that we’re going to catch up to the lava and slightly outpace it in time to meet up with the humans. I don’t know what happens then. If they attack, I will probably go completely psychotic and lose my sanity. Hopefully between myself and several hundred ice mages who’ve had some warning, we can do something.

As I predicted, I can tell we’re under the humans by the panicked stomping that audibly and visibly shakes the ground above us, I give the signal for Lao to tell Lucky to dig upwards, and he complies. Lucky turns around and licks my face repeatedly. I can’t help but to hug the big lug. I swear he hated me. Was Mata somehow responsible for that? Or did Lucky find out I was going to save him? Is this his gratitude? I guess the only one that might be able to find out someday is Laomati.

Regardless, I need to find Priscilla or Reginald, whichever one is cognizant enough to give orders.

I cry out, “Lil, can you burst out of here in dragon form, and get Sugar, Spice, ‘Naia and M^2 away from here?”

Lil replies, “You got it partner!”

Lil begins shuttling the most vulnerable among us, while Lao, Olioli, and Agwai ride forth on Lucky as he bursts out from the ground.

I shout my command to the humans to back off as I create a hallway of ice leading south through their ranks for my family to pass through. I telepathically whisper to Luni, “You can go too, I understand if this is scary. I love you, I don’t think less of you.”

Lu sends back a mental image of her shaking her head, giving crossed arms, and then a thumbs up. I can’t help but smile at her cutesy method of communicating during such a frightening occasion.

Lu, Teuila and I look for the leadership, but it’s complete chaos in the human ranks, they seem to have gotten the warning from Teuila and Bettie thankfully at least.

I grab the nearest soldier by the arm and shout into his face, “Where’s Sir Reginald, or Priscilla?!”

When the soldier points off vaguely southeastward, I take Teuila and Luni in that direction, knocking aside any soldiers that are stupid enough to draw weapons or spells on us.

There she is. Priscilla is still a wreck, I can’t blame her, first her city, now this. Sir Reginald is barking orders, it seems like he took an impromptu promotion due to his proximity when the commander went mentally AWOL. I’m pretty sure he’s quite a ways down the chain of command, being something to the equivalent of staff sergeant. I don’t know much about military rank in the world in my memories, and less about it here, but I’m glad he was close by.

Even still, I’m going to need Priscilla for this one.

I cry out, “Sir Reginald, Priscilla, I need all of your mages with ice or liquid or wind powers, every last one of them! Get them to form behind me with an oblique angle like their swords! Heavier on the river side! Have them pour everything into an attack focused on me, everything that you can muster!”

Priscilla actually begins to rouse from her daze. She asks, “Is that a death wish?”

Sir Reginald knows what I’m thinking though, he saw the trio of mages coalescing shared mana to try to kill me in the exhibition match. Reginald responds for me, “No, it’s a plan to save our bacon, all of it. Please Madam Warden, give the order. I guarantee you won’t regret following this one’s advice.”

It takes several minutes to get the word out across the ranks, and several minutes more to get everyone into formation. The lava is getting dangerously close when I can feel the energy pulsing in the air. I can sense new life arriving as well. I see these beautiful ancient trees collapsing and being incinerated, but somewhere behind me within the camps, all of the eggs are hatching.

Three hellish bells seem to go off in my mind, the three blasts let loose by the pterodactyl. I know what the three energy pools were for now. I wrap myself in one tether, I gain what I thought was my adult form. I wrap myself in a second tether, I double in size and take on properties of all those I’ve loved, and all those I’ve lost. I hesitate, Lu’s voice rings out from nearby “You got this, always have, always will hero!”

I wrap my heart in the third tether, and my vision goes red, I further triple in size, but I remain me, I retain control. If Luni hadn’t anchored me, I wouldn’t be able to face this side of myself. I don't have enough energy in each pool to form each tether out of combat, so I’m in energy debt, but that means I can trigger a limit break. I enter limit break mode immediately.

The attacks begin coalescing down the line, all aimed directly for my heart, and I absorb it all to my inventory. It goes on for minutes, finally there’s nothing left. My flesh is melting from acid, frozen from frost, coated in toxins, but still I persist.

Now I create Umbral Shots duplicates of the entire attack. I push back the lava with US. How fitting. I fire the last of the umbral attacks, then the main energy itself I coat in the deepest umbra I can muster as I release it. I engage a limit break climax and blanket the land in a cool frozen shadow. I call it Black Ice.

There’s a stunned silence as the humans wait for what they fear is the inevitable bad news of the lava breaking free, but the wedge of lava from here to the falls is completely frozen over in a massive reverse sweep, even if the lava is still coming, it will take hours to make it over that, and hours more to make it back to us. A cheer raises through the assembled crowds. I’m not sure if the trees themselves were dropping loot, or if the lava was pushing gems as sediment, but the darkness is broken only by glittering lights speckled across my Black Ice shadow in patterns reminiscent of galaxies.

Vesuviform has stopped the volcano, somehow I know this. Perhaps it’s because the Roc is flying overhead. It echoes what it said to me at the phoenix nest, and I nod solemnly. Its warning came to pass. I’m grateful for its warning nonetheless.

My tethers drop one at a time. I drop from somewhere around thirty feet tall to around ten to fourteen feet tall as the first tether drops. Instead of the usual umbral transformation, it’s more like that whole ruined portion of my body sloughs off, leaving the healthy secondary form underneath. My second tether drops, accomplishing much the same. I’m reduced to between five and seven feet tall in what I call my more authoritative form, instead of calling it my adult form nowadays.

As the final tether begins to unravel from around my heart, there’s a flutter of feathers and a woosh of air as my Valkyrie leaps to my side. She knows what this cost me. I’ll have lost at least two pools of energy, and if my enhanced fourth form hadn’t taken the brunt of the attacks, I’d also be spending the next several months or years recovering.

I pass out in Teuila’s arms, trusting her, Luni, Lil, and Sir Reginald to keep the newly hatched ‘critterfolk’ safe.

I awaken to a tenuous peace between the humans and the critterfolk, mostly brokered by Bettie and Sir Reginald. Bettie has the tiniest hint of wind magic about her now, a final gift from Sal and Har, perhaps from Sylphie as well. She can understand the speech of ‘critterfolk’ because of it.

We’re in dire straits because there are no provisions now, and twice as many mouths to feed. Also as I suspected, I’ve lost both extra pools of energy, and my own energy capacity is now locked again, leaving me with a small amount of mana I can actually access, with my greater max mana cap being inaccessible until I find some method of breaking the lock again. I really hope I don’t need to face another godbeast to do so.

At least the food situation I can solve. I call over Sugar and Spice, “Hey guys, can you put together a couple of shops from these materials I managed to salvage? Hey Lu, want to have the biggest grand opening of any shop ever?”

Luni excitedly responds, “Do I!?”

I set out the materials from my inventory, Sugar and Spice get to work immediately. ‘Naia and M^2 try to entertain the wounded soldiers that had to have attacks channeled through themselves to make the link all the way to me. Their interpretive dance about the whole situation is amusing to say the least.

The humans don’t have inventory interfaces, so they’re going to have to rely on the ‘critterfolk’ to purchase produce from Luni and Laomati. The ‘critterfolk’ are going to have to share, because the humans have been busy looting the gemstones and currency from along the lava-washed plain that is now devoid of trees.

It’s rough, we’ve lost friends, allies, a brother, an entire population, but we’re still a family, and we can persevere. I’m terrified to make the lava plains our home. I’m afraid the Fire Biome will act up again some day, and I’m desperately trying to not make the same mistake I did with my family at the coast. If a second storm of death hits, I want to be far away from it, so I suggest we all pack it in and get marching before nightfall. It took me a while to notice, but there’s a massive swathe of forest to the south that just vanished, as if the trees gave their life force to help the effort in stemming the tide, perhaps literally adding to my life force to withstand the extra attacks. We should head south through what little remains of them. We should get Luna, and warn the beavers too.

Right now it looks like there’s only two, maybe three, possible safe locations to settle, near the nagas, or near the elves. Somewhere off to the northwest, Morgan and the Undine have a hidden settlement as well, I hope it was safe from the lava.

Regardless of what we choose, the Shellcrackers will weather the storm of consequences together. Any flames that burn us physically or metaphorically I will cool with shadows and umbra. I gaze out at Agwai, Laomati, Lil, Lucky, Luni, Manaia, Manameia, Olioli, Spice, Sugar, and Teuila. I would endure a thousand waves of lava and more for them.

There’s a somber air about my family, but joy lingers just beneath its surface as we make new friends, and our family metaphorically grows by the thousandfold.