Lord Zee
MarshalSolgriev
urukhai
Alby47
Crispy Octopus
Lambda-19 rammed a whalebone spike into the yielding flesh. Each crack of her hammer thrust it deeper still, and she held on to the cliff face with one hand as she worked. She looped her rope around the spike and tightened the knot with her teeth.
Her exhausts steamed with hot effort as she kicked off from the wall.
Lambda let herself fall until the rope swung her back into the cliff, watching her feet land between geometric chaos. Half of this surface was too smooth, half of it too sharp, none of it stable. As she watched, another gangly quadrilateral shape peeled itself out of the living landscape, whip around in the wind and throw itself down to the chasm below.
Only eight more jumps 'til the end of the line.
When she was finally within reach of the opposing wall, Lambda gripped the rope and loosened the straps holding her bladed crucifix. Recombinance sat dull in the sunless light, a winged spearaxe with a glowing harpoon at its cue.
One more jump...
Lambda let go of the rope and leapt for the cliff.
She missed.
The wing of her blade slashed into the dull surface but did not catch. She was falling.
She saw the chasm spread out below her for miles in perfect detail.
Lambda angled down and spun with Recombinance in her hands- it impaled a spidery imp from above and she thrust it into the cliff as she fell.
There was a sound like sand against metal and she cried out as her elbows caught her fall, eyes shut in her blindfold as she dangled from Recombinance by her arms. The imp had fused with the cliff and absorbed the spearpoint with it as it regrew.
Gasps.
"God damn it."
"Nice save."
"Thanks," said Lambda, dry but appreciative as she hauled herself up onto her spear.
It took several minutes to climb back up to the plateau she'd been aiming for, but silicic acid joints reset fast. By the time she took Sampi's hand at the top of the cliff, she was hurt, stiff, and frustrated, but far from agony.
Sampi insisted on checking her anyway. She appreciated the attention.
"Bleeding?"
"No."
"Lost anything?"
"Nope."
"Dislocations?"
"You just spent five minutes feeling up my joints, Sampi."
"And I'll do it again if I have to. It should be me doing this stupid journey, Priestess. That's what I'm here for."
"I'm sure you're good for other things."
Sampi scowled. His eyes were hidden inside his skull, but that didn't stop Death's Sight.
"Oh cheer up," said Lambda, slapping him over the head with a grin. "You know I'd be going even if it was that fallen castle again." She pointed across to the pit at the center of the circular plateau and spoke loudly. "Think we can go see what's in there?"
"I don't know. Can you?"
Awkward pause.
"For someone with no taste for permission, you spend a lot of time asking it, Lambda," said Jvan. "You need to grow out of the idea that I'm a person. I'm not. I'm a god. I'm a million worlds worth of living landscape. I don't even know what's in here. If you want something then take it. Don't wait for me to care."
Lambda stood, then shrugged. "Nice! Let's go then."
Sampi followed, folding his arms and staring into the nearest Jvanic Eye in the hope that she would notice his disapproval.
"Lambda, your boyfriend is side-eyeing me."
"I am not her boyfriend," he muttered.
"Yes you are," said Lambda, falling backwards into his arms to kiss his forehead. Sampi looked away.
Lambda strutted ahead.
Between her long legs and the crablike mobility rig Jvan had given Sampi, they crossed the plateau with ease and good time. The pit yawned before them, another cliff leading into a far wider abyss; It was easily a hundred metres across. Lambda ran a hand through her ice-crystal mohawk.
"...Another Heartland?"
"They do tend to intersect."
"And we haven't even gotten to know this one..."
Sampi shuffled. "What do you see?"
Lambda leaned, adjusting Death's Sight over her skull. "It's deep," she said. Sampi saw her grow a faint frown. "I can see something. I think..."
But her time was up. The depths flashed to mirror the pale amber clouds, and
"Back!"
The fiery creature shed its shell and soared, trailing brilliant streams from its halo. Lambda slashed wide with Recombinance, but the blade met only laced energy and hovering beads.
Sampi drew an obsidian sword and threw it. It sank deep into the flying creature's chest and it gave a noise too alien to be described. The entity turned and swept into its second dive.
The Pronobii ignited. Jets roared from their back and skulls, and the world around them grew that much colder- But it was not Slough's footprints they were treading. This world was barely alive enough to be drained.
Sampi threw another blade, and a third. His scimitars hacked into its wings. The entity's left side began to list.
"Sampi, brace!"
Lambda tore off her blindfold and met the creature's gaze. Unliving it might be, but it was not immune to this.
The entity shrieked (cackled? chorused?) and recoiled as whatever passed for its mind was overwhelmed by a rush of chaos. It curled and tumbled, crashing across the plateau as Lambda met it with her spearaxe. It toppled towards the edge of the pit.
And it recovered fast.
The creature's fin stretched out and stabbed itself on the wing of her spearaxe before it fell. Stripped of the silken relic, Lambda was too blind to see more than a blur until the sudden jolt that yanked her after the falling being.
She did not let go of the staff. It was not in her nature.
She fell.
Sampi roared as he sprang to the pit. He could see nothing more than the blaze, fading along with the heat of their departure.