41 – Damage

An explosion rocked the cavern. He saw, right before the currents of space and time sucked it all away, the far end of the room explode as the excess power was routed through broken circuits, devoured by the collapsing of the realm because he waited too long. He tried to scream, to warn Lisette not to use the shields as he told her earlier because they had no aft shields now, but he was already alone. A mind, information racing through the multiversal stream in a raft made of salvaged materials, and when the turbulence came, he thought that all was going to be over.

Lisette didn’t know about the damage that the ritual circle had sustained before vanishing from the snowy realm of the mountain, and thus directed the extra energy of the turbulence, just a fluctuation in the quantum stream of reality, to the aft shield with mechanical precision. She could sense Ishrin, vaguely, and for a moment wondered why he was not doing the same. If he didn’t act within 0.122 seconds of the turbulence, then it was going to go from bad to disastrous. Still, Lisette didn’t panic, nor did she doubt Ishrin. Instead, as she waited for him, she marveled at the strange world that was unfolding before her eyes. Something she had already seen once, but that she found so fascinating and amazing that not even spending an eternity here would satisfy her.

From reading about it in a scroll to actually seeing it… the quantum world, a concept so strange and alien… but she could see it. She could see the strings that held the worlds together. She could see the vibrations of those strings, just like Ishrin said she would, and could sense the power of magic flowing through them and propagating like waves made of something intangible yet so, so powerful.

It was all over in a matter of moments. Something was wrong. Ishrin had eventually activated the shielding but for some reason it didn’t hold as it should have. By all calculations Lisette knew it should have yet it didn’t. Something was wrong. It took her but a moment before her mind reached the one logical conclusion to explain what was going on: part of the ritual was damaged.

***

Ishrin’s eyes, if he still had any, would have widened until they threatened to burst out of his skull. He was only living as a form of pure energy, hurled through the gaps between worlds by his own ritual and a couple of jury-rigged monster cores, but the instinct to widen his eyes was there. As was the idea of speaking out, unable to contain his surprise. Beside him, intangible but there, Lisette had done the unexpected.

“She figured it out.” He wanted to say. “She knows it’s damaged!” He wanted to laugh hysterically. “We can survive this, after all!”

Together, without knowing what the other was doing, Ishrin and Lisette both engaged the strange protocols with their made up names that Ishrin had come up with. A bubble of protective energy burst into existence around them, stabilizing their forms and momentarily giving them real bodies again.

They wasted no time.

“What modules are we missing from the ritual circle?” Lisette asked, no emotion in her voice.

“133 to 183.” Ishrin said.

“That is all of our shielding.” She said.

“Not all. There was always supposed to be more. Here, grab the stick with both hands.”

She watched him release his hold from the steering wheel and walk to the edge of the strange, bounded space they were in.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“Save all of us, hopefully.”

***

Melina felt nothing at first, but then it was like she was being pulled in all directions, her body stretched and compressed, her bones turned to dust while her muscles were ground and squished. She wanted to scream, yell at the top of her lungs but she had no voice, no lungs with which to scream. And there was no air to gasp, and no space to occupy, and she had no body with which to feel all the strange sensations she was feeling. There was just a mind, suspended in the interstitial space that pervaded more than universes, more than existence itself, and it was under attack by senses it wasn’t supposed to have. Senses it couldn’t control, sensations it could not shut off.

It was cold, then hot, scalding, the blood boiling in her veins. Her mind was about to black out when all the sensations ceased and she saw a kaleidoscope of things, worlds, universes. For a moment she was one with all of creation, and she could see and know everything.

Then darkness, and a hint of pain, like the ringing of the eardrum after a sound too loud to bear. A tinnitus that didn’t go away.

“Everyone in one piece?” A voice from afar. Ishrin.

“Yeah.” Another voice. Lisette.

A chirp from her arms.

She looked up, struggling to put into focus the singular source of light. A torch, illuminating a dark brown space that was damp and humid. Warm.

“I’m okay.” She struggled to say. “Where are we?” She asked, getting up.

“Welcome to the—” came the grandiose voice of Ishrin, but then he started to cough and held himself up with two hands propped up against the stone wall, coughing and coughing. “…Labirintine dungeon.”

She rushed to him. “Ishrin! Are you okay?”

He nodded. “I am. I am. Just need some air. Give me a moment.”

Ishrin looked at his hands and saw blood. He immediately closed them into fist, to conceal the sight from the others and cast a quick cleaning spell to hide the evidence. Then he cast the spell again, this time on the girls, followed by a suite of diagnostic spells on all of them. The results were encouraging, one after the other they were reporting no lasting damage. Everyone was perfectly healthy and safe… except for when he cast the last of the spells. Then it all clicked.

“Well,” he smiled a crooked, toothy smile marred with blood at the edges of his mouth. Fresh blood. “This might very well be my worst day of this last month. No wait, that was when I died. But then again… I am dying…”

“What?” It was Lisette, surprisingly, the one to speak first. “What are you saying?”

“Oh, don’t worry.” He said, stumbling over his steps and struggling to stay up. He swayed, like he was drunk. “Y’all are too.” He said, pointing at the others. Then he looked at Liù. “You might find yourself returning to the elemental plane of light sooner than expected.”

The pixie shot up into the air to come crashing against Ishrin. She punched him in the face in protest, then went to hide in his hair. To her horror, as she gripped a few strands to stabilize herself on top of his head, the hair came out and she found herself gripping two thick locks of black hair. She gasped.

“Ishrin!” Melina yelled, watching him collapse to his knees.

“I’m just…” he coughed. “Dying quicker than you. Hell,” his voice was coarse and dry. “I’m the lucky one. I don’t get to suffer for two weeks and shit and piss blood like you two will.” He looked up at Melina, seeing two of her. Slurring, he spoke again. “See, our decisions led us here. Now it’s time to accept them. I have a thing or two to say to Albert anyway. I made mental notes, you know?”

Melina couldn’t find words to say, but her eyes were moist and her face tense. Beside her, Lisette was sitting next to Ishrin, her head buried in her own knees and crying. The torch, discarded on the ground, crackled and cast long shadows in the cave. Monsters seemed to move in the distance, howling. Time stretched to stillness. The air was heavy, hot and unbearable.

Timidly, Liù went down Ishrin’s body and nestled herself against his chest. Little tears were staining her cute tiny face as she pressed herself against his body, feeling his weak heartbeat. She began to light up, like a small beacon but the light was soft and warm instead of harsh and white as it usually was. It felt pleasant, nice and welcoming. It spread from her small figure that was now a silhouette of light and went into Ishrin, coursing in his veins, in his heart. When it died out, the pixie was gone.

Melina immediately rushed to Ishrin’s laying body but was beaten to it by Lisette.

“Is he alive?” she asked.

Lisette nodded. “He is breathing.” She stated. “No thanks to you.”

Melina recoiled at the vitriol and hatred in her voice. As the leader of the party, the decision to destroy the mountain, the very same decision that had put them all in such a situation, had ultimately been hers. Had Ishrin still been conscious, he would have argued that he agreed with her decision, and that it wasn’t just her who should shoulder the blame. But he was not. And she was feeling the full weight of her decision, staring at Lisette who instead had had nothing to do with it, stuck as she was in a time dilation spell without even knowing what she was there for. Or had they told her?

Melina had trouble remembering things straight, but while she couldn’t recall whether Lisette knew or not what they wanted to do, she knew for a fact that the woman had not been asked for her opinion. She had just been told what to do, both by her and by Ishrin alike, like she didn’t even have a say in the matter. Like she was broken in the head somehow. Like she could not decide for herself.

Which was, Melina realized, the way she had always treated Lisette. Without even realizing what she was doing, or what the meaning of such treatment was. But now she could see it. Lisette was not damaged like she unconsciously thought she was, she was just different. Her emotions were different. They were buried. Hidden. She ran away from them because she did not understand them. But now they were coming out all at once.

“I am sorry.” Melina said in the end, voice small and low. “I didn’t think…”

Lisette got up and squared her off. Right in that moment, Melina felt small and insignificant, and Lisette was like a gargantuan being of stone before her.

“It is a matter of no importance now. We are in the labyrinthine dungeon, in the 7^th layer. Beasts and monsters of all tiers up to 7 surround us. This is not the moment for me to act on my negative emotions. Let us focus on getting out of here.” She said, then a note of emotion colored her voice. “Besides. We will not live long enough for me to take it out on you. I am already feeling weakened.”

Melina didn’t know what to say, and only nodded. Her mind was racing with a million thoughts, about leaving the party when they finally reached the surface, about disappearing altogether. But then she remembered what Ishrin said, and the last sentence Lisette said finally rang true, that they too were going to die, and looked at Lisette. She was crouching over Ishrin’s body, making a makeshift stretcher with some wooden sticks and her own armor. With every cut her blades dug into her beautiful armor, Melina flinched, and she watched Lisette get undressed layer by layer and destroy the invaluable enchanted clothes without second thoughts. In her mind was a question: would she be capable of doing the same if it was required of her?

It was so easy to think she had the moral high ground over the insensitive Lisette and the airheaded Ishrin but… all her life, Melina realized that she only helped others when it cost her zero to do so, never actually risking anything just because it was the right thing to do. How many times had she turned her head to the other side as not to witness injustice, just because the price to pay if she wanted to get involved was too high? The latest, and greatest example was her resigning from the guild as a master and returning to the freedom of being just another adventurer. She had the right to be selfish, of course, but what right did she have to pretend not to be?

They were going to die now, and Lisette hated her guts. But at least they could make sure that Ishrin survived, they could take him back to the surface, out of danger so that when he wakes up… he will wake up, her mind screamed. He was not going to be stuck in a coma, she was going to struggle to survive until she could see with her own eyes that he was alive and well, and that he could walk on his own feet. Only then could she die. Ishrin was still going to hate her, but at least he was going to be alive to do so.

Shaking herself out of her stupor, Melina joined Lisette in using her own armor to craft the stretcher. She could feel from time to time the cold eyes of the other adventurer, red and bloodshot as Lisette’s gaze studied her movements and her face, and did her best to not think about it, to not lock eyes lest she break down and cry in guilt and shame.

Her decision. It had been her decision, to destroy that wretched mountain. To stop it from what? From destroying Noctis, where her enemies were gathering ready to strike against Ishrin and her? Perhaps she should have let it, let the astral space spill out into the prime material and wipe out their problems.

Instead, she tried to act all righteous because she still thought Ishrin could pull her out of danger for free. And it cost them Ishrin’s life, then Ishrin was saved but Liù had died to save him, and in the end, both she and Lisette were going to die as well. Such hubris she had, thinking she was stronger than anything. She struggled to remember, and she thought that perhaps Ishrin had tried to talk her out of destroying the mountain, but she could not be sure, her mind was addled, the world was spinning.

His words, for he had said something about the mountain when they reached the control room, they twisted and changed in her mind. Their echoes were lost in damaged memory engrams in her brain, firing haphazardly from the damage the quantum teleportation had caused to her mind. In the end, she was sure that he tried to talk her out of it, so sure. But how could she be sure of anything?

It didn’t matter. She knew that he knew best. He was who-knows-how old. And here she was, thinking that Ishrin’s warnings were nothing but empty words spoken from the mouth of a lazy person who simply didn’t want to put in the work. Lately, she thought, it slipped her mind that Ishrin was actually several millennia old.

He was wisdom, she was a fool.

She swore to herself that if she ever were to survive this, she was going to trust Ishrin’s every word.