I can not tell if I am awake or not, constantly flitting between the sark stone and void in front of me and the absurdity of dreams
My whole body feels numb and buzzing, a deafening ringing in my ears
I feel like I am sinking into the earth, until everything goes dark
I am… back home?
It is a flat field. I do not recognize it, but a massive sense of déjà vu washes over me.
I am zig-zagging towards someone, every step painful
Starting slow, I eventually break into a run
Each step seems to change my body, from the one I despised for so long to the new one that I'm starting to feel like my own
It is blurry, but the person in the distance is almost completely recognizable.
She is fairly tall, about my height. She has short blond hair. She is wearing a faded… no, my faded shirt. It is her usual outfit she wears when we were too tired to go out.
She would always take them without asking, making me think I had lost my mind.
I can feel my body grow heavy, the familiar weight that I have spent years of my life living with
Grace is just standing there, smiling at me, it almost hurts to look at her.
And then my next step lands firmly on the ground, the weight lifting instantly as I shrink down towards the ground, a strange frailty in comparison to my old body.
I look back up to her, and Grace is gone.
This new woman is a bit taller and leaner, toned muscles peeking slightly from the sleeves of her shirt. Her long blond hair is tied messily and seemingly hastily into a tail; strands on her forehead peek out in a slight curl.
Her clothing is plain, seemingly hand made. It fits loosely, showing more for practicality over fashion.
It is strange, just by the way she stands, she reminds me of someone—the name at the tip of my tongue.
But my next stride finishes; I am jolted upward, and that familier weight lands heavily on my shoulders once more.
This goes on for what feels like a marathon, jumping up and down as the woman I am chasing changes again and again.
Multiple figures appear behind her as she reaches a hand out towards me, people that I know with one step, vaguely familiar strangers with the next.
She opens her mouth to say something, but this dream is cut abruptly short
I am dragged down and down until an inky-blackness envelops me whole. I slam to the ground, pinned by a gruff-looking man, violently shaking me
There are scars and slashes all over his face, as if someone took a scalpel to it
"Jace!"
His strikingly dark blue eyes seem to have been stitched together, remade into an all-consuming void.
His tanned skin and jet-black hair seem to help his face disappear into his deep hood
"Wake up! Oh for the lord above, wake up!"
My vision blurs as it adjusts to the dim light. My ears are ringing, so it is a little hard to hear.
"Jace!… Jace!"
The man slowly morphs into the terrified face of a kid
Fire light dances on the walls of the dark and dank cave
"Kienan, was it? What happened?"
"Gods! We fell, and the darkness swallowed us; we finally landed a little bit of time ago. I'm the only one that…" Kienan drifts off as his eyes dart between me and something to my left
The firelight on the walls is cut by the writhing shadow of somebody, causing the light to flicker in and out a little
"Where… Rider, where is…" But my heart stops as my eyes trace up my left arm
It is buzzing all the way up to my wrist, which is immobile underneath a large piece of rubble.
I…
I can't
I can't feel anything
My stomach churns as my eyes dart this way and that
Then my head becomes lightheaded, and it all disappears, but I can still feel my chest rapidly, yet steadily rise and fall
"Where… Gulp, where's Rider?"
"Shouldn't we try to move the—"
"Where is he?!" I yell, surprising myself
My head feels heavy, each thought covered in a smog-like cloud
I strain around to find Rider, pulling on my arm. Bolts of pain shoot through me, sending my body trying to lurch away, sending more and more until my body lays sore
I can faintly see Rider slightly above my head, a writhing mass of flame. He no longer screams
Kienan sits over me, I can see his body shaking with uncertainty and fear
"Book… Where's the… Where's the book?"
"The what?"
"My booklet, where… where is it?"
"I don't—"
He trails off as he spots something, scampering over to somewhere out of my sight. He returns with my booklet, wiping off the dust from it.
"Stream… go to"
Kienan rapidly turns pages before holding it out to me to see
I strain my head and reach out my other hand, trying my best to concentrate. My voice is raspy as I try to annunciate
"Flow through the land a gush—a flowing current through the land. Soak those in my sight—"
My hand becomes moist as my buzzing limbs move towards my outstretched hand, a faint blue glow emanating from it
I draw a circle in the air. A cracking blue circle follows my finger above Rider
"Punch through rock or fill a lake: Stream"
As I complete its chant, droplets fall off the now fully formed disk. They fall more and more until a steady stream falls into Rider, crackling and sputtering out the kicking flames
My hand falls to the ground limply; I can feel my reserves of manna begin to run dangerously low.
It is now pitch black.
I gingerly open my palm, creating a trio of flame light motes. Two spiral above me as I send the third over to Rider
The metallic, scaled body suit glistens in the light
Finally, he moves, curling up on the ground. The metal clinks and squeaks together, scraping on the ground
There is metallic scraping noise that fills the silence
Chink! Chink! Chink!Chin-Skack, Cirr-Chink!
Now all that is left is the sound of Kienan hurrying between us, trying to check on us.
"Rider, Kienan," I mumble, "Get—Get this rock off of me, please"
Kienan shuffles over to me, bracing against the rock to push it
It doesn't move
"Rider!" I yell before inhaling a mouthful of dust, practically coughing up a lung. The jerking pulls at my arm, making me let out a pained scream.
I can hear some shuffling before Rider stumbles over to me
He looks grim and is unusually quiet, and his hair looks singed. Everything else on him seems to have been burnt away, but his body seems unharmed, except for a few cuts. Metallic scales are biting into his shoulder. Some of the scales tried to retract inwards, leaving small crevices that reveal what used to be his arm. All that is in there is a swirl line of flames, sparking and snapping in the vague shape of an arm
Together, they brace against the rubble to push it off; they are able to start to slowly push it off.
But all it does is slowly grind my hand against the ground
Again, I let out a horrible scream
"Stop… Stop!"
"Wha—What!?" Rider yelps
The pain radiates through me, my eyes shooting wide open as the fog momentarily lifts, taking off the edge.
"Where's my blade?"
Kienan looks at me questioningly, before a brief look of horrified understanding crosses his face. He reaches down into his belt to unsheathe my blade.
"Just do it"
He kneels by my arm and readies it
I take out my trusty mask, now covered in grime and dust and… Gods, I hope that is blood. I try to wrap it the best I can into a ball and stuff it into my mouth
Just as the cold steel touches my skin, Rider firmly jerks Kienan's arm away.
There is an instant acrid smell as Kienan jerks away from his grip, my blade clattering to the ground
Rider stumbles backwards in shock, that blank expression returning to his face
"Ri—Rider! That's good, we gonna need that," I gag a little, spitting out the cloth as the smell wafts over to me, "we're going to need that heat, I need you to grab me once it's… done"
"Bu-but—"
"Do you have a better idea?" I unintentionally snap
I give a nod towards Kienan, before looking back at Rider. "Are you ready?" He gives me a grimace in response
That will have to do
I hesitantly put the cloth back into my mouth
Kienan touches the blade back onto my wrist
This is such a bad—
He cuts into my hand
The pain… it surprisingly did not last long. He… cut my hand and got about halfway, then the pain just… dissipated, until all I felt was numbness.
"Now!" I try to yell without screaming
I shouldn't, right?
I let out a shriek of pain as Rider's hand shoots out and grabs where a hand used to be
The searing pain quickly dies down into nothing once more as it is cauterized.
I slowly move my arm free towards my face. My head is spinning as I look at it
No
I wearily stand up, Kienan helping me until I can stand firmly on my own
Again, it weirdly does not hurt, or at least not as much as it is. There is now a steady, but nauseating pain
We just stand there in the silence for a little bit. Rider is looking at the ground. The motes spin slowly above our heads, casting shadows on what little of his face I can see, unable to tell anything of what he is thinking
Kienan finally breaks the silence with a meek voice.
"We should probably get going?"
As he says it, it feels a little awkward
"I guess we should," I say, looking around for somewhere to go
Over in the distance, the rock opens like the giant maw of a monster, the darkness inside so dark, it almost looks solid
"I guess we go that way"
I start walking over towards it, ready to be swallowed up
I brush past Rider, who is just standing there. He grabs my arm as I pass with his normal hand
"Jace… I… I'll get us out of here. I pro—"
"Can we leave now?" I say, cutting him off
———————————————————————————————————————————
The Stone is smooth and damp, lightly reflecting the light of the trio of motes spiraling above us. It is quiet, except for the sounds of our shuffling feet as we walk, just blindly wandering forward.
I can not tell how long it has been, but it feels we have been walking for hours, artificially elongated by the silence; Rider usually never shuts up.
My heart is thumping, pumping me full of a sluggish energy. Each step getting ever so slightly harder than the last, my wrist beginning to throb
My head has begun to clear, racing this way and that as I think of a million things at once
Mary, gods, did Ms. Misha get her to safety?
How did she just cleave that woman...
My stomach lurches, only adding to the nausea that is being tugged out by the lights leading our way, slowly draining my falling reserves.
Something else...
Where are we?
What time is it?
Are we going to die here!?
Crash!
In my absent thoughts, I trip and slam face-first into the hard ground
Kienan is the first to help me up. As he does, I can see Rider's hand hanging in the air before clenching up into an uneasy fist
I try to take a step; a queasy jolt shoots through my body. The mote's light flicker
Kienan slings my arm around his shoulder, and helps me up. Rider comes to help, but I brush him away. He has grown quite a bit taller than me, so it might make things worse, plus his fiery arm does not put me to any more ease, given the situation he put us in
We continue in silence for a little while longer
"This will be quite the story on our hands, don't we?
I have never heard Kienan talk more than on this day
Rider eagerly joins in, smiling, though still something felt missing from it. "Yes! This is a story we will be telling years from now!" Rider happily skips forward, "We will be grand heroes one day, I just know it. We shall become even more famous than that of the legendary party!"
"The who?" I ask
Rider stops abruptly
They stare at me incredulously
Then, in almost unison. "You haven't heard of the legendary party?!"
"They are only the greatest heroes of this century!"
"Even I have heard of them." Kienan adds
"Well than, I guess you'll have to tell me once we're ou-" I try to say
"One hundred years ago, the king and queen called upon some of the greatest men Orin could muster. They called upon the former historian and writer of the monarch kingdom, Thaddeos Licht was called with his knowledge. Markoth Barion, an explorer and aristocrat, and Julian Caspian, a legendary pirate, were then called for their expertise of the land and sea. Then they called upon Theodore Plith, the skilled in magics, and the greatest mage the world has ever seen."
Rider dashes forward and points an imaginary sword into the air, the life seamingly rekindled in him, his stupid smile plastered back onto it
"And finally, the king and queen, Erebus the fifty-third hellish monarch, and Ether the fifteenth Heavenly monarch, stepped down from their thrones to lead the party. They adventured in and out of the world, fighting against the tyranny of an evil Lich!"
He jumps up and duels an imaginary foe. He stumbles as he begins to leave the edges of my lights. It is quite an amusing sight; I can't help but chuckle a little
"Finally! After a long battle, they succeeded against their evil foe, and the corruption he sewed across the lands! Hya!"
He finishes off his foe, his footing finally giving way as he falls on his butt.
I can see a slight smile creep onto Kienan's face next to me
Rider shuffles quickly to his feet. "And we, shallover take them! WE shall become even more famous than them! The three of us!"
Kienan looks to me questioningly
"Really?" I ask, "If you think you need to earn it, I think you definitly have after all this"
Suddenly, the dam bursts. My head drops, swaying a little before I raise it again.
Everything rushes all at once, the trickle from before building into a tidal wave that demolishes anything left standing. I gasp as the pain in my hand worsens.
"-and together! We will become- You ok Jace?" Rider asks
I quickly look up, my eyes darting in every which way as the apparent gravity of the situation lands heavily on me. My throat is dry, I feel ready to run away in any direction
"No, and it's all because of you that we're in this mess to begin with! You and all your "Hero" bullshit." My words surprise the small part of my mind that feels sane in this moment, but just gets washed over in something boiling and cold at the same time
"Always dragging me into messes all over the place! I have risked my life so many times since I met you! You always spout this "hero" nonsense what feels like every irritating word!"
I shift my weight off of Kienan. I continue to erupt
"You always bring your nose charging in where it is not welcome! And today! You went charging into that damn tunnel without even thinking! You would have killed yourself if it weren't for me!"
I take a Shakey step forward
"And that day, I think I almost died defending Mary because I felt I had to, since you dragged me into there," I motion towards Kienan, "mess. I thought I was gonna die over a girl in an alley! Again!"
Rider has a strange expression on his face. Fear, horror, guilt
That tiny part of my mind manages to grab hold of the steering wheel, gaining control for a second
What am I saying?
All these swirling emotions well up in my eyes. My mind goes blank and light. My body goes limp as I fall to the ground.
What would have happened to him if he didn't drag me along? What would have happened to Mary? Kienan
I have a few more thoughts before it goes blank
My lights blink out, swallowing us in darkness
I guess we are lucky, though
The rock explodes with a brittle crack above us
Outlined in the light leaking in is a shadow of a man
Is it the girl again?
Curling horns jut out of his head as stabbing purple eyes look at us, smiling with a toothy grin. Silvery-black blades curl around his arm, shifting into a metallic snake.
Multiple figures drop down from the hole
A grey-green eye glows in the dark, rapidly approaching me
I strain my eyes to see
He throws five glowing orbs into the air, immediately illuminating the entire cavern.
It is Father; he is kneeling over me with an expression that I do not recognize.
It is his eye, I think. It drips with a single drop of blood as he shoves his hands under me and lifts me up
He... floats? I think? My vision begins to blur.
"Fa... Father?"
I manage to make out what I think is Ms. Rhea and Ms. Misha fussing over my friends, my only friends.
I shut my eyes, trying not to hurl at the now debilitating pain from my wrist, now radiating throughout my body.
But once I do, everything goes dark