Thirstfall - Memory of a Returnee

Veric crosses the line of the pillars.

The giant’s eyes light up in the same instant, red and intense, two deep points appearing inside the stone.

"Eyes..." Rhayne whispers.

Her hand moves toward the symbol.

"RHAYNE! STOP!"

She freezes.

Her fingers hang a few inches from the Eye pillar, and the shock on her face turns straight to me. There’s no time to explain.

The golem is already standing.

The first stride crushes the stone under its foot. Chips fly across the hall and disappear into the mist. The second comes so fast that the weight of that creature stops making sense. Twenty-six feet of rock covers the distance to Veric in a blink.

"Shit! Azure Dividend!"

The blue energy opens around him.

The golem pivots its hip into a roundhouse. The leg comes in like a comet, whistling through the air before it hits the barrier.

The impact drives Azure Dividend into the floor.

The circle of energy deforms around Veric and buries its edges in the stone, opening cracks in every direction. His body is compressed inside his own defense. His knees give a few inches, his joints crack, and blood escapes the corner of his mouth the moment that force pushes through the skill.

Undertow shudders on his arm.

But Veric stays on his feet. Barely. His legs are shaking against the force pressing down on him.

The rebound spins the golem the other way, a brutal rotation that drags the mist around its legs. Red lines start appearing between the stone plates in its chest as the energy gathers again.

Freya sees it first.

"It’s charging another attack!"

My eyes go back to Rhayne, who’s still frozen. Still waiting.

"Rhayne! Don’t leave your hand on the pillar! The eyes came on all at once. Answer the same way. One instant of contact!"

Now she understands.

Her hand pulls back while OXI gathers in her first two fingers until the tips glow, and Rhayne strikes the symbol with one short, sharp movement.

The fingers touch the stone and leave it. The effect is immediate.

The red in the guardian’s eyes goes out. The lines running across its torso die with it, and the body interrupts the second attack halfway through the motion. The rotation slows, then stops completely.

For a few seconds, nobody does anything.

The golem straightens its spine, turns, and walks back to the center. The steps return to that mechanical rhythm, almost indifferent to the crater the kick left under Veric. When it reaches the original spot, it kneels with its back to the great statue and lowers its head.

Silence.

Veric cancels Azure Dividend.

His legs give out.

Undertow hits the stone as he drops to his knees and brings a hand to his chest. His first attempt at a breath ends in a cough loaded with blood.

Zhang Xi is already moving toward him.

She doesn’t even look at me for permission to leave her post.

"Suzanoo’s Love..." she whispers.

She kneels in front of Veric, moves his hand away from his chest, and activates Suzanoo’s Love. The glow spreads under the armor in soft lines, reaching ribs, lungs, and the shoulder that absorbed part of the pressure.

Veric breathes in deep and fails halfway.

Zhang keeps her hands steady.

"Slowly."

He nods.

The second attempt goes in better. On the third, his chest expands without that hard catch.

I watch for a few seconds.

Azure Dividend held the kick.

The skill doesn’t erase all of the force. His body still has to take the energy that comes through, and at this level the guardian already came close to folding him even behind one of the best defensive skills we have.

If I had to judge it, the golem’s strength is clearly close to a Rank B at its peak.

When Zhang starts pulling the OXI back out of his chest, Veric wipes the blood off his chin.

"Thanks."

This time there’s no resistance, no comment, no attempt to get up early.

Zhang keeps working.

"I’m not finished."

He breathes again, feeling the result, and looks at her.

"If you weren’t here, I’d be finished."

Zhang Xi only nods and turns her attention back to the last damaged area near the ribs.

I move closer.

"Veric."

He lifts his eyes.

"This doesn’t work without you."

The smile he was starting to build dies before it arrives.

I tip my chin at the mark the kick left when it hit Azure Dividend.

"Undertow held the first attack, and now Azure Dividend held that one. If we put anyone else there to call the guardian, we’d probably already have a real loss. So. Thank you."

Veric stares at me.

Color climbs up his ears.

He turns his face away and wipes a little more blood from his nose, even though there’s almost nothing left there.

"Bastard..."

I smile.

It’s the closest I’m going to get to a "you’re welcome."

Rhayne is still standing by the Eye pillar. She’s looking at her own fingers, maybe replaying the moment she almost put her whole palm on the symbol.

I go over to her.

"You did great work."

She lifts her face.

"I almost touched it wrong."

"And you stopped when I told you to. Then you got the answer right on the first try."

Rhayne glances at the golem.

"If I’d left my hand there..."

"We don’t want to find out. Right?"

She agrees.

Two answers done.

Hand.

Eye.

Four left.

The difference is that now we have four people free to cover four pillars.

"Let’s reorganize before Veric starts finding it comfortable to get kicked."

"There is nothing comfortable about it," he answers from across the room.

Good. He’s already better.

I point out the positions.

"Zhang, Heart. Rhayne, Mouth. Freya, Crown. I’ll take the Foot."

The four of them move.

Freya stops in front of the Crown and rests the scythe on her shoulder while she measures the distance to the guardian. Rhayne takes the Mouth, still looking at the symbol with more respect than before. Zhang Xi finishes the last pulse of healing and only lets Veric stand after pressing the side of his chest twice to check the reaction.

He winces.

"Done."

"If it hurt, you’re not done," Zhang answers.

"It hurt less."

She watches him a moment longer before releasing him.

Veric rolls his shoulder, tests his breathing, and walks with Undertow on his arm.

"Now you’re done," she says.

He doesn’t argue.

"Same rule. First movement. Part, nature, and intensity. Don’t confuse the attack with the signal."

Everyone nods.

Veric puts Undertow out in front and crosses the line.

The red comes back to the golem’s eyes, but this time the eyes are already ruled out. I call it.

"Ignore the eyes, that one’s done! Watch it!"

Nobody runs this time. Everyone looks for the first gesture after the eyes come on.

The head starts to rise.

Slowly.

The sound of stone scraping runs along the neck while that enormous block leaves its lowered position and comes up until it’s upright. The movement ends with a hard lock.

"Crown!" I shout.

Freya has already moved.

"I saw it. I’ve got this."

She doesn’t strike the pillar.

The scythe blade goes into one of the side grooves and catches. Freya widens her stance, drops her center of gravity, and pulls the shaft with both arms.

The Permafrost wings are still active and they fold in, giving her leverage. Ice runs across the floor under her boots, forming a layer and locking her feet in place.

The scythe groans against the stone.

I track the golem’s movement again.

The head rose slowly.

There was no explosion, no acceleration.

It was weight.

A head that size, solid stone, has to weigh tons. The movement takes continuous force to lift it against its own mass.

And Freya worked that out before I had to say anything.

She pulls harder.

Her arms go tight, the ice wings spread now, and her whole body goes back against the shaft of the scythe.

The golem stops.

It doesn’t even finish standing.

The red eyes go out while it’s still kneeling, and the head returns slowly to its original position.

Freya releases the tension.

I look at her.

’Smart as hell.’

Veric stays behind Undertow for a few seconds, waiting for something else to happen. When he realizes a third impact isn’t coming, he lets the air out and simply sits down on the floor.

"I never thought I’d say this, but thank you, Freya."

She works the scythe out of the pillar.

"I’m keeping this moment," she says.

"Veric. Up."

He looks at me.

"I just sat down."

"And there are three left."

The look he gives me says several unkind things, but Veric gets up anyway.

Crown is finished.

Foot, Heart, and Mouth are left.

Three pillars.

The fourth level starts now.

I look at Veric, then at Rhayne.

The guardian has escalated a lot between activations. I don’t want to meet the fourth attack relying only on Veric’s body and a defensive skill that already sank into the floor.

"Rhayne. Could you Link with him, please?"

The silence comes fast.

Small, but noticeable.

Rhayne looks at Veric.

He doesn’t answer.

"Sure," she says.

I leave the Foot position and take the Mouth she’s giving up. Freya moves to the Foot. Zhang stays at the Heart.

Rhayne walks over to Veric.

This should be simple. I’ve done it dozens of times. She raises her hand, touches his face, activates Link, and it’s done.

Except when Rhayne is standing in front of him, the two of them take longer than they should.

She lifts her hand without the gloves.

I know that gesture.

Her palm usually finds my cheek without any hesitation. It’s almost mechanical between us after a few activations.

With Veric it’s different.

Her fingers arrive first, brushing the side of his face before the palm settles. Rhayne makes the movement carefully, almost testing whether she’s allowed to continue.

Veric goes red.

He doesn’t hide it very well.

His shoulders go rigid, his eyes drop to some point between the two of them, and for a few seconds he seems to forget what to do with his own hands.

Out of the corner of my eye I see that Freya noticed as much as I did.

Zhang Xi glances over too before returning to the guardian.

The connection settles and Rhayne takes her hand back slowly.

Then she lowers her head.

That’s when something starts bothering me. She doesn’t look embarrassed.

She looks sad.

Veric is avoiding looking directly at her too.

I remember the station.

Rhayne holding a piece of his armor, her head down in exactly that way. Veric touching her hair before saying they’d talk later.

’Did that conversation ever happen? We would have noticed.’

I don’t know what the two of them have left to finish, but this situation bothers me in several ways. Especially with three pillars still waiting.

The silence between them starts to get heavy, so I grab the first concrete thing that comes to mind.

"What did it come out to?"

Veric doesn’t answer.

I wait.

"Veric?"

He takes a deep breath, still looking down, and when he speaks his voice comes out low.

"Ninety percent."

It takes me a few seconds to understand that I heard it right.

Ninety.

I look at Rhayne.

Her head is still down, arms at her sides.

Then back at Veric.

He’s carrying that number in a way that makes me even more uncomfortable.

I know Link.

I know the difference between a functional connection and an affinity at that level. Ninety percent doesn’t appear because two people spent a few days getting along.

And both of them look terrible about it.

"Dryden?"

Freya calls me.

I turn to her.

"Everything all right?"

I don’t have an answer for her.

Zhang Xi is the one who pulls all of us back into the room.

"We need to finish this soon if we want to leave here alive. The clock on the Soul Tickets is still running."

I look at her.

Then at the golem.

Three pillars are still waiting.

To my left, Veric holds Undertow ready without looking at Rhayne. She stays linked to him, just as quiet.

Zhang is right.

The question will have to wait.

Even so, as I set Eventide and turn my attention back to the guardian, my eyes pass over the two of them one last time.

Veric.

Rhayne.

’Ninety percent.’

Then I face the kneeling giant.

We need to survive first.