Chapter 121 – Safe
I stumble out the other side of the portal and find myself somewhere else. It’s disorienting for a moment; it was only an hour ago that we had left the ruins up in the higher levels of the Drifting Isles, and that is most certainly not where we’re reappearing now. Polished stone beneath our feet, a well lit room—
Something whips past me. A spear, stabbing straight into the midst of Kanin’s glass and shadows.
“Mir!” I cry.
Mirzayael stays her blow, freezing mid-lunge. Her head whips to the side, wide eyes landing on me, and I feel the full force of her surprise and uncertainty in my mind.
“Fyre?”
Her voice cracks as she drops her spear, rushing forward to embrace me. My arms are pinned to my chest before I can attempt to hug her back, and she lifts me into the air with the biggest bear hug I’ve ever received.
Perhaps realizing she’d fully incapacitated me, She quickly drops me back to the ground with an undercurrent of embarrassment, checking me over for any injuries.
“I feared—” Mirzayael stops herself, but the maelstrom of emotions about her mind speaks more than words ever could. “I couldn’t feel you. Like our connection had been severed.”
“I’m sorry.” Arms freed, I’m finally able to hug her back. Her relief is overwhelming. “My telepathy couldn’t reach outside the dimension we were in. I didn’t mean to make you worry.”
“Me, worry?” She smiles faintly. “Never.”
I laugh lightly, and tension goes out of my shoulders all at once, like I’ve shrugged off an incredible weight. We lean in and share a brief kiss, and for a moment—just a moment—I allow myself to feel safe.
But just because I’m home doesn’t mean we’re out of danger.
“Is everyone okay?” I ask after I pull away. I finally register that I’m in the Throne Room. “Lorata’s champions—” My thoughts are interrupted as my gaze lands on the throne and the Dungeon Core’s presence bursts into my mind with a happy greeting.
It has been so long! Did I bring back any tasty rocks? It hasn’t had nearly as many tasty rocks to eat. But the spider lady did give it a couple and it got to eat some mana when it shot lightning at people.
Um…
“The champions have been trying to get through, but the dome has held them off,” Mirzayael replies when it’s clear I’ve become fully distracted. “We may not be able to endure the assault forever, though. Their numbers are growing each day.”
Kanin chucks Mirzayael’s spear out of the midst of his void, forming himself into a spherical blob of broken glass shards and Ink. “Each day?” he repeats with his translator.
Mirzayael does a double-take when Kanin’s voice emits from the alien-looking blob. “It’s been nearly three days since you all vanished.”
I let out a tired breath. “I had expected as much.”
Ollie tumbles out of the portal in the next instance, rolling head-over-heals and giggling madly.
“THAT WAS FUN!” Ollie declares, once more causing Mirzayael to do a double-take. “CAN WE GO AGAIN?”
The Dungeon Core, entirely unperturbed (or unaware) of Ollie’s size, happily greets the boy. Did he bring any rocks back for it?
“OH, WAIT, UM. YEAH! HERE.” Ollie shakes himself off, sending a scattering of pebbles and dust from his scales that the Dungeon Core excitedly snatches up.
“Ollie?” Mir thinks, tinged with concern.
“Shrinkage spell,” I quickly explain. “Dizzi’s work, so he would be more covert. Careful, though, he still weighs the same.”
And then Hans emerges from the portal, squinting and blinking against the throne room’s bright lights—or at least, too bright for a dhampyr. Kanin moves to his side, helping him out of the way of the portal. It feels like they’re coming through far too slowly, but that would be due to the time dilation. It might take fifteen minutes for all of them to arrive from our perspective.
Mirzayael takes a step back with me. “Is that…?”
“One of the Travelers, yes,” I confirm. “And we have thirty more on the way. I’m going to need help to get them all oriented.”
There’s too much to explain, and now that we’ve begun our escape from the Heavens, I fear we have very little time before one or more of the gods attempt to stop us. I share memory snapshots of everything that’s transpired over the last (relative) hour, and Mirzayael frowns as she begins to sort through them.
“Our guards are already strained trying to keep an eye out for enemy champions,” Mirzayael says. “But I’ll see what I can do.”
“Please do,” I say. Mirzayael squeezes my hand, and I squeeze back. “Send whatever help you can find. I’ll handle things here in the meantime.”
“I’ll be back soon,” she assures me as she lets go. But she doesn’t linger; she’s much too practical for that. Mirzayael turns and races off, even as our minds remain close. Her mental presence is more comforting than I ever could have imagined.
“Where is this?” Hans asks, craning his head toward the fantastical mosaics that cover the ceiling.
“Welcome to Lusio,” Kanin says.
I turn my attention back to Hans, stealing myself for all the conversations I’m about to have and the questions I’ll have to answer with every other Traveler that comes through as well.
“Welcome to your new home,” I add.
Chidinma is the next through, holding the hand of the young dryad girl. The woman steps out of the void, glancing about as if merely setting foot in a new, mildly interesting building. The girl huddles tight to her side.
“Hello,” I say, gently leading them out of the way as I keep my heart carefully guarded. “I’m Fyre. What’s your name?”
The girl looks at me with a hint of uncertainty. “Yuna.”
“Nice to meet you, Yuna,” I say. “Are you hungry?”
She nods shyly.
I’m Checking her even as I ask her questions. It seems a bit rude to just learn everything about a person without them telling me themselves, but I need to make sure no one is hurt—or is suffering the negative effects of a Role Requirement.
Yuna, however, seems to be in good health, and her Sanity stat is at 100%. I also learn she’s twelve years old.
The walls around my heart threaten to cave.
“OH, YUNA!” Ollie pushes off the ground—cracking the floor in the process—to come floating over to us. The girl’s eyes light up as Ollie lands in front of her, his oversized translation stone clutched between his claws. Yuna lets go of Chidinma’s hand to crouch in front of the little dragon. “THERE YOU ARE! LOOK, HERE’S MY SAPPHIRE I WAS TELLING YOU ABOUT! DO YOU WANT TO SEE MY HOME?”
Chidinma sends me a message through the System interface.
[Chidinma: Go on, now, I can take care of this one. You’ll have plenty more people on your hands soon enough.]
I give her a relieved smile.
[Fyre: Thank you. That means a lot.]
And not just because I could use the extra hands. I hadn’t expected to find more kids like Ollie. I suppose I should have, in retrospect; given over a hundred souls reborn into this world, statistically there would be a handful of kids. But I wasn’t emotionally prepared for it, and I don’t have the bandwidth to process it right this moment.
But I also hadn’t expected Ollie to help soften the transition for the other children. Not every kid is as effortlessly social as him, and whether he realizes it or not, his presence is incredibly helpful. The other kids won’t be alone. Not to mention, what child wouldn’t be drawn to a talking puppy-sized dragon?
I double-check Ollie’s spell timer as I move away to help with more Travelers as they come through; he has another ten minutes before the spell will wear off, and while the throne room is technically big enough for him to squeeze into, I’ll want him out on the balcony before then. For now, however, I don’t want to interrupt the work he’s doing to help put others at ease.
As I mentally relay more requests to Mirzayael—food, water, blankets, and anything else I can think of—I also begin to process the memories she’s sharing with me.
It’s been a busy few days. We haven’t been visited by any gods, yet, but whatever signal Mura Tal sent up the night we fought him in the Isles has attracted more champions to our city’s doorstep.
A couple were known champions, and Mirzayael and the councilors were able to use the Dungeon Core to expel these individuals from the city as soon as their name showed up in the Surveillance spell’s logs. Three more were suspected new champions, and these were expelled only after they revealed their malicious intentions. Worried that more might have snuck into the city without their knowledge, Mirzayael conscripted the help of Sandro to Check all the new arrivals for a Demigod title. Brilliant idea—I’m glad she thought of it.
Now that I’m back, she’s relieved he will no longer be a single-point-of-failure. So far, she believes the Fortress is champion-free, but with more champions coming and going, sometimes showing themselves outside the Barrier, sometimes vanishing altogether, she is concerned of an impending, coordinated effort to infiltrate the city.
“At least I don’t have to worry about the gods,” Mirzayael privately remarks to me as she continues to inform her guards and the councilors of the developing situation. “I was concerned their lack of presence was because they were disguised in a way Sandro could not recognize.”
A valid concern, given I’ve witnessed Shirasil and Blair disguise their true stats from me in the past.
“Yes, we got lucky,” I agree with Mirzayael. “The gods probably don’t even know what’s happening here yet. From what I gather, champions can’t directly access the Heavens; they have to request entrance from their god. This coupled with the time-dilation is a serious bottleneck in their communications between realms.”
“At least one knows,” Mirzayael reminds me. “Teranu. He left the same night you did.”
“Which means he’s been in the Heavens for an hour at most,” I muse. I wonder if that was why Rinviu came back to do a second sweep of our room. He might have been informing Lorata on what was occurring with the Fortress as we were in the process of breaking the prisoners out.
If so, that might have saved us. With Lorata remaining in the Heavens longer instead of immediately investigating the Fortress, our city was given more time to prepare. If she had come to Lusio immediately, then she would have actually had more time to ambush Kanin and myself in the Heavens, as we would have lost the time dilation advantage.
“It seems an absurd handicap to inflict upon oneself,” Mirzayael muses, also thinking over this time dilation. “Why isolate yourself from what’s happening in Lusio? Why make it so difficult to communicate with your champions?”
I have theories about this—very strong theories, given what I learned while in the Sanctum. “If their goal is to spend as little time in Lusio as possible, it makes perfect sense.”
Theories I hope to confirm with Shirasil or Blair as soon as I have a moment of breathing room.
Assuming I’ll see Blair again. Assuming she isn’t imprisoned as a traitor herself due to her champion’s actions.
My heart jumps. “Aquenno! Is he—”
“He’s fine.” There’s a hint of exasperation in her tone. “Shirasil appeared in the throne room right after you left, dumping both Dizzi and Aquenno at my feet. Just about gave my healer a heart-attack. He was far too pleased about it.”
I smile in spite of myself. That does sound like Shirasil. Ultimately, though, I’m just glad everyone is okay.
“Fyre,” Kanin says, floating over as I help acclimate the most recent Traveler. By now, over twenty of them have made it through. I stretch as I turn to meet him; the action of the previous hour is starting to settle into my muscles.
Kanin is more of a humanoid blob at this point, though even that is a generous description. It will take him time to build his body back up, I imagine. At least I can help synthesize some glass for him when he has time to focus on those efforts.
“Fyre,” he repeats, his voice crackling through his translator. “We—wait.” He pauses, then when he speaks again, the translator’s sounds has cleared. “There, that’s better.”
I frown with worry. “Are you all right? Your messages in the Contact interface were glitching earlier as well.”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” Kanin says. “It’s when my mind gets too entwined with Ink’s—it doesn’t play nicely with the System, I think. Some kind of interference. Anyway, here.” A pair of glass hands hold out my bracer. “Thank you for letting me borrow it.”
My heart squeezes at the sight. I gingerly take the bracer from him and slip it back over my wrist. I haven’t had it long, but I already felt the absence of its presence on my arm. “Thank you for keeping it safe.”
His head—probably—tilts at my words. “Yeah, of course. But also… thank you for helping. For everything. This, these people…” He gestures to the rest of the throne room, which is quickly becoming quite full between the Travelers and the Fyrethians who are showing up to help. “I know it sounds cheesy, but I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“You’re selling yourself short,” I say, but he vehemently shakes his head.
“No, I’m really not. You made this possible.” His glass and void seem to press closer, making himself appear smaller. “Even if I’d managed to jailbreak them on my own, what then? Where would we have gone? Everything you’ve done here, with this city, is amazing.”
I smile fondly. “It wasn’t just me, you know. None of this would have been possible without the Fyrethians. Their resourcefulness, and perseverance—and above all, their compassion, still willing to take in others despite everything they’ve been through.”
“Yeah.” A ripple passes through his elements. “The people of this world are something else, aren’t they?”
I suspect he’s thinking of his own friends with that comment. At the thought, I glance through the room, but can’t make out Noli.
“How many more are left?” I ask.
“Four Travelers and Noli,” he says immediately. “They should be through, soon. Noli won’t go until the last of me is through. Should only be another couple minutes on this side.”
It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around the idea that he can split his thoughts across multiple temporal frames like that. It doesn’t sound pleasant—and sure enough, when I Check his Sanity stat, a couple of points are missing. But we’re almost done. They’re almost all through.
Abruptly, Kanin goes stiff. His glass and void freeze, and when they start moving again, there’s a nervous, jagged ripple that runs through the void.
“It’s Lorata,” he tells me, and my stomach goes cold. “She’s coming for us.”
Two more Travelers stumble through the portal.
“How close?” I ask, already reconnecting with the city’s spell system via the Dungeon Core’s interface. The Barrier spell, Surveillance spell, and Weapons system are all operational. I open up the Filter list of names integrated with the Barrier and Surveillance spell networks.
“I—I don’t think she’ll make it in time,” he says, though his void is still swirling faster, agitated. “Two more Travelers. I’m pushing them all through, now. God, they’re moving so slow. I hate this.”
“Can you end the Planar Linkage spell after you’re through?” I nervously glance toward the portal in the middle of the throne room and the dozens of people scattered around it. Are we about to have the head of the Pantheon appear in the midst of all this?
Mirzayael’s mind abruptly joins mine, on high alert and listening in on the conversation.
“Yeah,” Kanin says, gliding back toward the portal. I follow quickly after. “Yeah, I think I can get it closed before she reaches us. Shit. It’s going to be close.”
Even if he does manage it, I highly doubt that will be the end of things. She has no reason to stick around the Heavens once we’ve all left, and Kanin’s portal isn’t the only way the gods have to access Lusio.
Given how anxious Kanin is acting, however, I decide not to voice these additional concerns aloud.
“We’re ready for her,” Mirzayael assures me.
I hope she’s right. I’ve seen the way she’s handled the city in my absence—confident, cool, capable. A true queen. We can handle champions. And Shirasil helped confirm our city was capable of repelling gods, too. But Lorata…
Well, maybe she’s not as threatening as I’d originally imagined. I stood my ground against her once today already. She’s certainly still incredibly dangerous, but perhaps not as insurmountable as the title “God” would lead one to believe.
“Okay,” I agree with Mirzayael. “I believe you.”
Even if I can’t always believe in my own capabilities, I can have faith in hers.
“Oh.” Kanin stops. “Oh, shit.”
“What is it?” I ask.
Everyone spills out the portal all at once, thrown sprawling to the floor. The Travelers, Noli, and the rest of Kanin’s glass and void. At least, I hope it’s the rest.
The air behind them warps, like a ripple in reality. Then the yawning dark crumbles in on itself and the air stitches itself back shut.
Kanin is scrambling to pull himself together—literally.
“Lorata,” he tells me. This time, the voice coming out of his translator is garbled with static. “She’s coming.”
I tip my head, perplexed. He’d just told me this moments ago. Is his mind really so fractured that he can be unaware of something a different part of him had said?
“Don’t,” I say, gesturing for him to calm down. “It’s alright. We’re prepared for her, remember?”
His movements slow as he seems to calm down a little. Then he whips toward Noli, who is sitting quietly where she tumbled out of the portal but otherwise hasn’t tried to move. “Healer! We need a healer.”
“I’m okay,” the elf objects, signing one-handed.
“Her hand,” Kanin tells me. “She’s hurt.”
I shake my head at the elf’s poor attempt at martyrdom. “Let me see it.”
Reluctantly, Noli lifts an edge of her dress to reveal her other hand; I can’t make out much beneath the blood.
My stomach turns at the sight. It seems their escape from Lorata was much too close for comfort. “I’ll send for a healer right away.” In fact, I’ve already sent for Opal, but she hasn’t arrived yet.
“It’s nothing,” Noli insists. “My life is in no danger. Is anyone else injured? Are you okay?”
“Fine, fine,” Kanin says as the friends begin to fuss over each other.
I turn my attention away from them; the portal may be closed, but I remain as tense as before. I have no doubt Lorata won’t have given up that easily, and I need eyes as many places as I can get them.
“Would you mind?” I ask Mirzayael.
“Not at all,” she assures me.
I close my eyes as I activate Psionic Senses, and when I open them, I’m looking through Mir’s.
I’ve never used Psionic Sense with her before, but seeing the world through eight eyes isn’t as disorienting as I would have thought. Much how my own two overlap to create a wider field of vision, the same is true for an arachnoid’s gaze. In fact, since she still has two primary eyes and the other six are so much smaller, it’s almost no different at all.
She’s standing atop the city’s wall, looking out the dome. There are some distant figures hovering outside, though they’re too far to make out details, and I’m unable to Check them through her eyes.
“Champions,” she explains. “Always one or two out there watching us at any given time.”
We watch for a minute in silence, eyes scanning the horizon.
“She might not appear immediately,” I muse. “The time difference means it may have only been a handful of seconds in the Heavens since we escaped. And she might plan first before confronting us.”
“Perhaps,” Mirzayael agrees. “But I hate waiting. I’d much rather—”
The Surveillance spell activates.
And then Lorata is there, hovering before Mirzayael and glowing like a miniature sun. She looks down on Mirzayael with distaste.
Mirzayael’s mouth stretches into a wide grin.
“So you’re the other queen,” Lorata says, practically spitting out the words out. Her hair is frazzled, and I swear I can make out bits of rubble stuck to her attire. “I will deal with you later.”
“No,” Mirzayael says as Lorata begins to turn away. “I think you’ll deal with me now.”
Now that her presence has been registered by the Surveillance spell, I add Lorata’s name to Filter. Mirzayael activates the weapons system.
This last part wasn’t strictly necessary. The moment Lorata’s name went on the list, the magic system was already targeting her to expel the unwanted threat. But I can’t say the extra firepower isn’t appreciated.
The dome flashes and light erupts around Lorata. The god braces against the magic, a shockwave of energy splashing around her. She bares her teeth in a snarl and pushes back, but the Barrier spell is slowly overcoming her defiance.
And that’s when the Weapons System hits.
A bolt of magical energy strikes Lorata in the chest, and a blinding light flashes from the contact. Mirzayael is forced to close her eyes and turn away as the light burns into her retinas. The force of the impact resonates through the kingdom with a bone-shaking boom—I can feel it from all the way in the throne room.
Mirzayael blinks rapidly, running a hand over her face as her vision clears. And where Lorata had previously stood, there is now nothing but a smoking magical trail leading to the nearest wall of the Barrier—and beyond that is a hole in the cloudy wall of the Drifting Isles, as if a cannon ball had just carved a path through it.
It worked. Fyreneth’s magic protected her city from the gods, all these centuries later.
“It did,” Mirzayael agrees, momentarily overcome by surprise. Then the relief and elation hits, and she throws her head back in an unbridled laugh.