kapuchuMay I comment on how fitting it is that the Bloodborne character is plunging into the lair of an eldritch horror?
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Pithy did not bother sweeping the rest of the floors, instead following the staircase down to the ground level.
The stairs led out to what seemed to Pithy to be a large receiving area. There was a long, oval desk with machines much like the glass box she had encountered above, and hallways led out to the right and left of it, both reading ‘UNDERGROUND ACCESS FOR PERSONNEL ONLY’. She thought she could see the glare of red eyes from deeper inside.
More pertinent to her situation, there was a set of double doors at the opposite end of the room, with the same ‘EXIT’ sign she had seen on the rooftop hanging from above it.
Pithy began to walk forward, rapier in hand and eye darting to and fro, scanning for turrets she might have missed. She reached the entrance without incident, and pushed it open with her free hand.
The night air greeted her
Pithy couldn’t help but to feel a measure of relief at being outside the strange building. The walls and ceiling may have provided cover from threats, but the lack of life beyond black-winged monstrosities and the uncertainty that she might accidentally trigger some kind of alarm or defense system in her search had never left the back of her mind.
Her current surroundings were no less strange, but at least they were improved by a clear view of the sky above.
As she had seen from the rooftop, large poles were placed along the path, evenly spaced from on another. Focus lights were attached to them, sending light streaming down in wide beams that illuminated the way from building to building, but here and there, intermittently between poles along the sides of buildings and within the alleys between each facility, the dark remained deep enough that she feared someone might be staring straight at her.
She considered stepping out from the illuminated path so her eyes could adjust to the darkness, but the fluttering of wings and sudden, shifting movements in the darkness dissuaded her. She noted that bloodied corpses of the dark, winged things had begun to accumulate on the illuminated path before the entrance—no doubt the work of the turrets in the rooftop. Less than she expected, however.
The dark trails leading into the dark told her all she needed to know. It seemed the local wildlife would not waste a free meal no matter the source.
She wondered if that had been the intended purpose of these lights, to keep these animals from harassing those who worked here as they went from building to building, but that assumed the beasts had been present while this place was staffed. Something in her gut told her they were a more recent addition.
Pithy began to walk down the illuminated path, sticking close to the sides of the building and keeping an eye for obstacles she might use as cover in case something began shooting at her. The light made her feel horribly exposed, but she instinctively understood that the bats would not come for her in the light unless she provoked them. At least the thunderous sounds coming from up ahead led her to believe the enemy was not yet laying in ambush for her.
Along the way, Pithy saw signs of break-ins to some of the Justice hubs adjacent buildings. One of them had a pair of turrets flanking a door, both with their barrels drooping to the ground, sparks jumping from where their red eyes should have been. The door itself had had its lock smashed, and judging by the sonorous cracks she kept hearing, she had a good idea of what could have wrought this damage.
Without bothering to investigate the building, Pithy carried on towards the sound. Soon enough, she caught sight of what she had been looking for. The announcer’s flying familiar was there, seeming to peer around a building’s corner to where the peals of thunder were coming from. Now, however, they were accompanied by the sound of fluttering wings, screeches, and challenging, vociferous screams.
“You’ll never catch me alive, you honky mahfahs!”
BLAM BLAM BLAM.
Pithy sidled out of the light to the wall below the familiar, glad that the bats’ attention was elsewhere. She did not know whether to blame that on the commotion ahead, or on the fact that they seemed to actively avoid the familiar flying above her. At this point, they must have known better than to carelessly approach the metal constructs.
She peered around the corner to see a baffling sight.
Standing atop a four-wheeled, open metal carriage, a small, dark-furred creature aimed a pair of decorated shooters similar in shape to the one she had found at a dispersing cloud of outraged black wings. BLAM. Another bat fell to the ground to join a dozen other corpses.
“I ain’t nobody’s food!”
The delectable morsel that was the shooter-toting honeybadger must have been tempting enough for the bats to attempt nabbing her from the illuminated path, but the feisty little creature would not be taken so easily.
Pithy grunted ill-humoredly from her hiding place. She had seen the creature among the contestants, but had honestly hoped dealing with the ridiculous thing would fall to another.
As the bats began to flee from this absurdly dangerous prey, the little honeybadger comically waved her shooters at the retreating swarm with her tiny arms and indignant air.
“Yeah you better run! Flying rats!”
The flying familiar took that moment to peer out of the corner, and quickly ducked back under cover as a shot chipped the wall right in front of it. The sudden crack close to her head made Pithy start, and she drew back into cover, but the sudden motion was not lost on the feisty animal.
The honeybadger laughed. “Don’t think you can hide, girl. I see yo’ skinny ass back there.”
Pressed to her cover, Pithy scowled. This day (night) had already fallen well outside of the norm, but she could be excused for not expecting it to begin by being pinned behind a wall by an angry weasel with a hat and a pair of six-shooters.
The stairs led out to what seemed to Pithy to be a large receiving area. There was a long, oval desk with machines much like the glass box she had encountered above, and hallways led out to the right and left of it, both reading ‘UNDERGROUND ACCESS FOR PERSONNEL ONLY’. She thought she could see the glare of red eyes from deeper inside.
More pertinent to her situation, there was a set of double doors at the opposite end of the room, with the same ‘EXIT’ sign she had seen on the rooftop hanging from above it.
Pithy began to walk forward, rapier in hand and eye darting to and fro, scanning for turrets she might have missed. She reached the entrance without incident, and pushed it open with her free hand.
The night air greeted her
Pithy couldn’t help but to feel a measure of relief at being outside the strange building. The walls and ceiling may have provided cover from threats, but the lack of life beyond black-winged monstrosities and the uncertainty that she might accidentally trigger some kind of alarm or defense system in her search had never left the back of her mind.
Her current surroundings were no less strange, but at least they were improved by a clear view of the sky above.
As she had seen from the rooftop, large poles were placed along the path, evenly spaced from on another. Focus lights were attached to them, sending light streaming down in wide beams that illuminated the way from building to building, but here and there, intermittently between poles along the sides of buildings and within the alleys between each facility, the dark remained deep enough that she feared someone might be staring straight at her.
She considered stepping out from the illuminated path so her eyes could adjust to the darkness, but the fluttering of wings and sudden, shifting movements in the darkness dissuaded her. She noted that bloodied corpses of the dark, winged things had begun to accumulate on the illuminated path before the entrance—no doubt the work of the turrets in the rooftop. Less than she expected, however.
The dark trails leading into the dark told her all she needed to know. It seemed the local wildlife would not waste a free meal no matter the source.
She wondered if that had been the intended purpose of these lights, to keep these animals from harassing those who worked here as they went from building to building, but that assumed the beasts had been present while this place was staffed. Something in her gut told her they were a more recent addition.
Pithy began to walk down the illuminated path, sticking close to the sides of the building and keeping an eye for obstacles she might use as cover in case something began shooting at her. The light made her feel horribly exposed, but she instinctively understood that the bats would not come for her in the light unless she provoked them. At least the thunderous sounds coming from up ahead led her to believe the enemy was not yet laying in ambush for her.
Along the way, Pithy saw signs of break-ins to some of the Justice hubs adjacent buildings. One of them had a pair of turrets flanking a door, both with their barrels drooping to the ground, sparks jumping from where their red eyes should have been. The door itself had had its lock smashed, and judging by the sonorous cracks she kept hearing, she had a good idea of what could have wrought this damage.
Without bothering to investigate the building, Pithy carried on towards the sound. Soon enough, she caught sight of what she had been looking for. The announcer’s flying familiar was there, seeming to peer around a building’s corner to where the peals of thunder were coming from. Now, however, they were accompanied by the sound of fluttering wings, screeches, and challenging, vociferous screams.
“You’ll never catch me alive, you honky mahfahs!”
BLAM BLAM BLAM.
Pithy sidled out of the light to the wall below the familiar, glad that the bats’ attention was elsewhere. She did not know whether to blame that on the commotion ahead, or on the fact that they seemed to actively avoid the familiar flying above her. At this point, they must have known better than to carelessly approach the metal constructs.
She peered around the corner to see a baffling sight.
Standing atop a four-wheeled, open metal carriage, a small, dark-furred creature aimed a pair of decorated shooters similar in shape to the one she had found at a dispersing cloud of outraged black wings. BLAM. Another bat fell to the ground to join a dozen other corpses.
“I ain’t nobody’s food!”
The delectable morsel that was the shooter-toting honeybadger must have been tempting enough for the bats to attempt nabbing her from the illuminated path, but the feisty little creature would not be taken so easily.
Pithy grunted ill-humoredly from her hiding place. She had seen the creature among the contestants, but had honestly hoped dealing with the ridiculous thing would fall to another.
As the bats began to flee from this absurdly dangerous prey, the little honeybadger comically waved her shooters at the retreating swarm with her tiny arms and indignant air.
“Yeah you better run! Flying rats!”
The flying familiar took that moment to peer out of the corner, and quickly ducked back under cover as a shot chipped the wall right in front of it. The sudden crack close to her head made Pithy start, and she drew back into cover, but the sudden motion was not lost on the feisty animal.
The honeybadger laughed. “Don’t think you can hide, girl. I see yo’ skinny ass back there.”
Pressed to her cover, Pithy scowled. This day (night) had already fallen well outside of the norm, but she could be excused for not expecting it to begin by being pinned behind a wall by an angry weasel with a hat and a pair of six-shooters.
Exploration post go!
I'm sorry. Contemporary technology is fascinating. Will get to Pithy meeting Jo soonish in a hopefully much shorter post.
I'm sorry. Contemporary technology is fascinating. Will get to Pithy meeting Jo soonish in a hopefully much shorter post.
Once every competitor had grasped their phylactery, a sputtering noise filled the room. One hand still on her blade, Pithy forced herself to remain still as first sudden, small spurts of white smoke fluttered out from under the platform she stood on. The device quickly gathered strength, and with a hissing sound of escaping air, a curtain of fog fell over her. She barely had time see the same happening to the other contestants before her vision was completely obscured by white.
The single chime of a bell (The whole world is white) cutting through the sputtering fog machines sent a shiver down her spine.
At that moment, Pithy caught sight of a silhouette falling at her feet, but she could do little more than to lift a hand to shield her sight from the sudden explosion of light.
And then, just as quickly, her surroundings faded to black.
Tentatively, Pithy brought her arm down. Rather than the thirty-two podiums and the motley collection of humans and demons, darkness greeted her. High above, the Inquisitional College’s ceiling had been replaced by a sky of roiling clouds. Occasionally, moonlight would stream down from an opening in the clouds, only to be covered again moments later.
Since nothing seemed ready to simply pounce at her, Pithy remained still, blinking owlishly as she waited for her eye to become accustomed to the dark. She concluded that the figure she had seen drop at her feet, what had been responsible for the change of scenery, had been the lantern the young Michael had used to lead her there.
From morning to night in the space of an hour, she reflected. Jumping between realms was horribly disorienting.
As she adjusted to the darkness, she became able to make out the details of her surroundings. The first thing she noticed was the yellow-colored ‘H’ painted on the platform she stood on, contrasting heavily against the drab grey of the rooftop she stood on. And it was indeed a rooftop she had been placed on, overlooking a good portion of what Pithy thought to be the city she had seen on the horizon while at the Inquisitional College’s courtyard.
This was a stroke of luck, she realized. Had she found herself anywhere else, her first instinct would have been to reach a place from which she could survey the city. However, she had been saved the effort of finding a vantage spot.
However, there was something that made her hesitate to take immediate advantage of this good fortune. At the four corners of the platform, dark, stolid silhouettes stood, gazing at the night sky with long, barrel-like heads moving back and forth steadily along an arc. She could hear a whirring sound as they moved. As she stared, one of them uttered a beeping sound, and its barrel fixed at a point in the sky. There was a loud rapport, a shriek, and something dark and winged fell from the sky to the ground below. With the threat eliminated, the sentinel resumed its scanning of the horizon.
In her mind, Pithy likened them to the golems and constructs certain wizards would use to protect their workshops, and that sometimes roamed aimlessly around ancient ruins. She suspected that they would see no differences between her and that winged thing were she to cross the sights of their shooters.
While she hesitated, the sound of wings drew closer. Pithy drew her rapier from its sheath as she caught sight of another construct, winged this time, approaching her with something that resembled a purple eye fixed on her. The winged construct stopped some distance away, out of the sentinels’ line of sight, and Pithy finally saw the wooden box affixed to its bottom.
A light shone from it, creating the image of a young man dressed in a similar style as the other members of the College in the air before her. Pithy forced herself to keep a hand away from her temple to nurse an incoming headache as he began to speak to her. It seemed people like this existed in every world.
And he is to be the announcer we were told of, isn’t he? Joy. She imagined similar familiars would be following the other competitors to track their progress as well.
She wordlessly shook her head as the man said his piece and left her to her own devices. Turning to the horizon, she took the chance to study the layout of the city, obscured as it was by the cover of night. Straight below, she could see the numerous buildings that formed this facility. A few them had ‘H’s painted atop them, indicating platforms like the one she stood on. Lights shone from what from a distance looked like tall poles, sending circles of light downwards to light up the path between buildings.
Aggravating as he was, the announcer had given her this place’s name.
Justice Hub, was it? It brought to mind images of prisons and guard barracks. Perhaps this place had once been the seat of this city’s law enforcement force? It seemed much too large, but then so did the city, and she knew little of what threats an alien city would have had to contend with. The smaller buildings surrounding the citadel she stood upon looked largely unfamiliar to her, and without any knowledge as to their purpose, the reasons for their placements escaped her.
Pithy clicked her tongue. In other circumstances, she might have been interested—excited, even—by the prospect of an alien city filled to the brim with magical and technological marvels she had never so much as heard of, but the grim purpose of her visit did much to curb her enthusiasm.
To make matters worse, the one item which she truly wished to study, whose workings might very well give her insights on how to treat her condition, was likely a soul box holding her very essence, something she did not feel at all comfortable tampering with.
Her ignorance could well become a fatal liability.
Once she was satisfied, she stepped down from the platform. She gave the sentinels—turrets, the man had called them, like towers on a castle’s walls—one last wary look, half-expecting them to turn to shoot at her now that she had left them, but they simply continued scanning the skies with their red eyes.
At the other end of the rooftop, two doors faced her, both side by side. Though she could only truly describe the first one as a door, with a caricature of stairs and a sign reading ‘EXIT’ in bright red letters above it.
The second she thought of as a double door only by association, as it had no knobs nor hinges on which to turn when she pushed against it. Noticing a small button at its side, she gave it an experimental push. It lit from within with white light, but nothing else of note seemed to happen. Frowning, Pithy removed her cowl and pressed an ear close to the doors. Sounds of groaning metal greeted her, but they told her precious little. Just as she pulled away to try the labeled door, there was a ding, and the double-doors sheathed themselves into the walls, revealing a small, empty square room illuminated by pale light.
Pithy merely stared at the room, puzzled as to why the doors would lead to such an obvious dead end. After a moment, the doors closed themselves on their own. Surprised, Pithy pressed the button again, and the doors opened again, without delay this time.
“Ah.” An elevator. The delay could be explained by the platform traveling to get there. She had seen hand and pully operated ones in construction and mining jobs, and once or twice she had come across enchanted, floating platforms, but this metal cage was a first for her. The door began to close again, and this time she allowed it. Strange as the contraption was, she would rather not sit inside any steel cages she found in an alien city.
She turned to the safer choice and opened the door with the signs. Pithy started as the same pale light suddenly illuminated a flight of stairs going down, but when nothing else seemed to happen, she began her descent. The flying familiar, which had until that moment been hovering some distance away, simply remained outside once she ventured into the building.
Pithy glanced thoughtfully at the glass-like objects emanating light as she walked. Rooms illuminating whenever she entered them would make her position obvious, particularly if those rooms had windows. She considered destroying the lights, but quickly decided against it. She would need a way to see one way or another, and she preferred not to leave an obvious trail of broken glass for others to follow.
By the time she came to the first door, she knew she had walked down several levels of the building. It struck her as strange, but she could hardly ask the architect about it. She paused at the door, considering her options, then opened it. It would not hurt to explore this facility. Truth be told, until she found leads regarding her enemy’s location, the best she could do was to avoid exposed places from which she might be ambushed.
We were told to wait before initiating combat, but… What they needed was to gather souls, not provide a show. If she could not trust herself not to jump at the chance of an ambush, she could not trust the others not to do the same. It was as simple as that.
The door led to a straight corridor, which lit up with that same, pale light when Pithy stepped forward. Several doors framed the hallway on each side, most with numbers, a few with names to go with them. A short distance away, she saw the metallic sliding doors of what she was now certain was an elevator.
With mild curiosity, Pithy began to try the doors on this floor. With discouraging results. Locked. Locked. Locked. Locked.
The fifth door opened, but the moment light streamed into the room from the hallway, an outraged screech came from within, followed by the sounds of several flapping wings. Pithy could barely see the outline of sharp talons against the backdrop of an open window before she slammed the door shut. She heard another set of shrieks as the black creatures crashed against the door, but after a few moments of frantic fluttering and scratching noises, silence returned.
Mercifully, her next few attempts did not reward her search with a flock of bat monstrosities, but neither would they open. Pithy fought against the urge to tear the doors down using her magic. She had no idea if doing so would trigger wards or other security mechanisms, and neither was she particularly eager to find out.
Fortunately, the next attempt succeeded. When Pithy grabbed the handle, the door simply creaked inwards before she could turn it. She paused to look at the nameplate fixed below the room number. It read ‘Lt. Desmond Kessler.’
Lock must have broken. When no piercing screeches broke the silence, Pithy walked into the room.
Unlike the stairway and hallway before, no light came on when she walked into this room, leaving only the light streaming in from the hallway outside to illuminate it. There was a desk inside, with a few devices she did not recognize facing towards a chair. Portfolios, too many to go through, were piled along the walls in bookshelves.
Seeing the glass window at the other end of the room, Pithy closed the door behind her, shrouding the room in darkness.
Half-navigating the place through memory, half-feeling her way around the desk, she approached the window and peered down to the other buildings. There were no lights at their windows, and she could see nothing moving on the ground. She caught sight of the announcer’s familiar hovering outside, its purple eye seeming to stare right at her even in the room’s darkness, and she found herself wishing she had smashed the construct when she had first seen it. She could only hope the construct would give her leads as to her opponent’s location.
Confirming that, for the moment at least, things seemed relatively calm outside, Pithy turned her attention to the room itself. Perhaps she could glean some information regarding the turrets, or the purpose of this place.
The runes inside her rapier’s guard, still at hand since the moment she had caught sight of the familiar in the roof, glowed. Pithy felt the familiar resistance—patterns in the magic locking and becoming rigid—as she tried to shape a spell outside of her aspect. For something this simple, it mattered little. A mote of light appeared at the weapon’s tip, then hovered above the desk, bathing the room in a faint light.
Pithy approached the desk, giving the plastic devices a curious look. From this side, she could see that one of them, a flat, upright rectangle, had a film of what seemed like glass at its front. It had a button with a blue pulsing light on it, but pressing it once merely turned off the light, and pressing it again made the pulsing start over. There were several notes stuck to its corners with adhesive paper, written on in small, sharp penmanship.
She pulled on one, bringing it closer to the magelight to read and ignoring the cold emanating from it.
‘Reminder: Mag B-day on Thursday. Buy gift.’
Pithy let out a small snort. The fact that she was still capable of understanding the language despite being in a different realm was nothing short of miraculous, and yet here she was, reading someone’s shopping list. She pulled out a new one.
‘Door broke. Have Terry bring in a locksmith.’
And another.
‘Lost new hire at entrance to Hi-Clear area. Suggest change to automatic security protocol.’
Pithy frowned at that. Automatic security likely referred to turrets like those at the rooftop. If they had killed people despite them working at this facility, it did not bode well to what they might do if she ran afoul of them.
Leaving the notes alone for the time being, she focused on the other devices on the desk. The rectangular apparatus in front of the first had several more buttons, all with characters imprinted on them. She gave them a few experimental taps, but the machine did little that she could see. The last device, which seemed fit to hold in one hand, had two buttons and a wheel between them. They made a clicking noise when he pressed on them, but little else. She had a feeling they were supposed to work in tandem, but as long as she failed to activate the machine, there was precious little she could learn about them.
Puzzled, Pithy followed the cables, eventually kneeling before a large, rectangular box. Numerous cables were attached to its back, and on its front, she could see a few more buttons. She zeroed in on the one with the circle cut by a small line at the top. It was the same symbol as the one on the glass box’s button.
She pressed it, then started as a whirring noise came from inside the device. She stood up and realized light was coming from the glass box. Words and images began to appear on the screen, along with a small bar with a percentage number atop it.
After a moment, the screen went blank, then was quickly replaced by a simple blue background with the words ‘Choose a user.’ Under the words, there was a single entry under a small picture of a middle-aged man. It read ‘Kessler.’ Below it, in smaller letters, she could read ‘Change User’.
Pithy’s first instinct was to touch the name where it appeared on the glass, but the screen did not seem meant to take inputs. Her next thought was to write the name on the rectangular device, but nothing happened either.
Frowning, she grabbed the smaller device. She noted with some bemusement that a white blur flashed along the screen, and, after some searching, saw a small white arrowhead hugging the edge of the glass. Turning the device, she saw a hole from which a red light was shining. She pressed a finger on it, and noticed the arrow shift slightly. With a flash of insight, Pithy pressed the device against the table and nudged it. This time, the arrow followed the motion until it rested atop of the image. A darker blue highlight surrounded it, and Pithy felt a swell of triumph.
Pithy pressed on both clickers at once, and new text entered the screen.
‘Please enter your password.’
Pithy’s spirits fell. She moved the clicker arrow to the white area and clicked on it. A small bar began to appear intermittently, as though waiting for input. Pithy frowned and glanced at the character box. Very slowly, making sure she pressed the right buttons, she spelled the name ‘Kessler’. When she looked at the glass box, she was somewhat surprised to see the dots that had appeared, one for each character.
A part of her at the back of her mind was delighted by this. It’s to keep others from seeing what you write.
She experimentally clicked the arrow next to the white field, and a circular symbol took the place of the words, spinning in place. After a moment, the circle disappeared, replaced by the ‘Please enter your password’ text. This time, below the white field, were the words ‘Incorrect Password’ in an angry red.
Interest piqued, Pithy began to go over the notes adhered to the glass box, but nothing on them immediately hinted at a password.
She knelt before the desk, pulling open one of its drawers. More portfolios. Too much to go through. Closing it with little more than a cursory inspection, she peered at the drawer on top of that. A glass bottle of something that could be nothing more than expensive alcohol, and a small packet which smelled of tobacco when she brought it to her nose.
Slowly, it was dawning on her that rather than being abandoned, this place felt like its occupants had been present up until a day before Pithy arrived, and then vanished overnight. She looked up to the top of the table and swept a gloved finger over it. It left no tracks. No dust. Is someone keeping this place clean?
She shook her head. Such thoughts were not immediately relevant. She stood, hooking her hands under the drawer under the desk, and pulled it open.
Pithy sucked a breath at the sight that greeted her, her search for the password all but forgotten. In hindsight, it was not particularly strange for this Lt. Kessler to keep a weapon in his workplace. Resting within the drawer was a shooter, similar to those he had seen some of the competitors carry. She reached down and grasped the wooden grip with one hand, feeling the polished, metallic surface of its long barrel with the other.
She remembered the accuracy with which the turret in the roof had killed the careless bat, and realized that, if this world’s shooters could be so reliable, she might benefit from carrying one. Still, she knew enough from the ugly, clunky shooters of her world that she would need ammunition for it to be useful.
She followed the length of the barrel to a cylinder at the contraption’s middle, and pushed a finger against it. The cylinder rolled in place, and she could see the empty grooves where projectiles would go. She placed her finger on the trigger, as she would have with a crossbow, and pointed the weapon at the wall. She pulled. The metal projection at the back of the weapon pulled back. The cylinder turned slightly to chamber a new projectile. And the metal projection hammered back down.
Click.
Fortunately, the drawer had held more than the shooter. From within, she pulled out a harness with a sheath for the weapon and a heavy pouch. Opening the latter revealed over a dozen of the expected projectiles, all roughly the size of her little finger.
She fiddled with it until the cylinder swiveled to the side, then loaded the projectiles into the weapon. Reinserting the cylinder came with a satisfying clicking sound.
That dealt with, Pithy turned to the harness. She thought she knew the way of it. Removing her cloak, Pithy wrapped the straps around herself, tightening and slackening them where she could to make up for the obvious size differences between herself and its previous owner. Once she was finished, she pushed the shooter into its sheathe under her right arm. She supposed the good Lieutenant must have been left-handed.
As Pithy put her robes over her shoulders, a sudden rapport sounded from outside. At first, Pithy dismissed it as the turrets on the ceiling firing at the bats, but as a second and then a third boom joined the first one, Pithy looked out the window.
A good ways below, she spotted the purple glare of the flying familiar’s eye hiding at the edge of one of the buildings below, as though trying to peek around the corner. She hummed. She had been told she would hear her enemy before she saw them.
Pithy took a slow breath, a wispy cloud of vapor escaping her lips. For the first time, she realized how cold the room had gotten.
Pithy strode out, dismissing the magelight as she went. The door opened as easily as it had the first time.
The single chime of a bell (The whole world is white) cutting through the sputtering fog machines sent a shiver down her spine.
At that moment, Pithy caught sight of a silhouette falling at her feet, but she could do little more than to lift a hand to shield her sight from the sudden explosion of light.
And then, just as quickly, her surroundings faded to black.
Tentatively, Pithy brought her arm down. Rather than the thirty-two podiums and the motley collection of humans and demons, darkness greeted her. High above, the Inquisitional College’s ceiling had been replaced by a sky of roiling clouds. Occasionally, moonlight would stream down from an opening in the clouds, only to be covered again moments later.
Since nothing seemed ready to simply pounce at her, Pithy remained still, blinking owlishly as she waited for her eye to become accustomed to the dark. She concluded that the figure she had seen drop at her feet, what had been responsible for the change of scenery, had been the lantern the young Michael had used to lead her there.
From morning to night in the space of an hour, she reflected. Jumping between realms was horribly disorienting.
As she adjusted to the darkness, she became able to make out the details of her surroundings. The first thing she noticed was the yellow-colored ‘H’ painted on the platform she stood on, contrasting heavily against the drab grey of the rooftop she stood on. And it was indeed a rooftop she had been placed on, overlooking a good portion of what Pithy thought to be the city she had seen on the horizon while at the Inquisitional College’s courtyard.
This was a stroke of luck, she realized. Had she found herself anywhere else, her first instinct would have been to reach a place from which she could survey the city. However, she had been saved the effort of finding a vantage spot.
However, there was something that made her hesitate to take immediate advantage of this good fortune. At the four corners of the platform, dark, stolid silhouettes stood, gazing at the night sky with long, barrel-like heads moving back and forth steadily along an arc. She could hear a whirring sound as they moved. As she stared, one of them uttered a beeping sound, and its barrel fixed at a point in the sky. There was a loud rapport, a shriek, and something dark and winged fell from the sky to the ground below. With the threat eliminated, the sentinel resumed its scanning of the horizon.
In her mind, Pithy likened them to the golems and constructs certain wizards would use to protect their workshops, and that sometimes roamed aimlessly around ancient ruins. She suspected that they would see no differences between her and that winged thing were she to cross the sights of their shooters.
While she hesitated, the sound of wings drew closer. Pithy drew her rapier from its sheath as she caught sight of another construct, winged this time, approaching her with something that resembled a purple eye fixed on her. The winged construct stopped some distance away, out of the sentinels’ line of sight, and Pithy finally saw the wooden box affixed to its bottom.
A light shone from it, creating the image of a young man dressed in a similar style as the other members of the College in the air before her. Pithy forced herself to keep a hand away from her temple to nurse an incoming headache as he began to speak to her. It seemed people like this existed in every world.
And he is to be the announcer we were told of, isn’t he? Joy. She imagined similar familiars would be following the other competitors to track their progress as well.
She wordlessly shook her head as the man said his piece and left her to her own devices. Turning to the horizon, she took the chance to study the layout of the city, obscured as it was by the cover of night. Straight below, she could see the numerous buildings that formed this facility. A few them had ‘H’s painted atop them, indicating platforms like the one she stood on. Lights shone from what from a distance looked like tall poles, sending circles of light downwards to light up the path between buildings.
Aggravating as he was, the announcer had given her this place’s name.
Justice Hub, was it? It brought to mind images of prisons and guard barracks. Perhaps this place had once been the seat of this city’s law enforcement force? It seemed much too large, but then so did the city, and she knew little of what threats an alien city would have had to contend with. The smaller buildings surrounding the citadel she stood upon looked largely unfamiliar to her, and without any knowledge as to their purpose, the reasons for their placements escaped her.
Pithy clicked her tongue. In other circumstances, she might have been interested—excited, even—by the prospect of an alien city filled to the brim with magical and technological marvels she had never so much as heard of, but the grim purpose of her visit did much to curb her enthusiasm.
To make matters worse, the one item which she truly wished to study, whose workings might very well give her insights on how to treat her condition, was likely a soul box holding her very essence, something she did not feel at all comfortable tampering with.
Her ignorance could well become a fatal liability.
Once she was satisfied, she stepped down from the platform. She gave the sentinels—turrets, the man had called them, like towers on a castle’s walls—one last wary look, half-expecting them to turn to shoot at her now that she had left them, but they simply continued scanning the skies with their red eyes.
At the other end of the rooftop, two doors faced her, both side by side. Though she could only truly describe the first one as a door, with a caricature of stairs and a sign reading ‘EXIT’ in bright red letters above it.
The second she thought of as a double door only by association, as it had no knobs nor hinges on which to turn when she pushed against it. Noticing a small button at its side, she gave it an experimental push. It lit from within with white light, but nothing else of note seemed to happen. Frowning, Pithy removed her cowl and pressed an ear close to the doors. Sounds of groaning metal greeted her, but they told her precious little. Just as she pulled away to try the labeled door, there was a ding, and the double-doors sheathed themselves into the walls, revealing a small, empty square room illuminated by pale light.
Pithy merely stared at the room, puzzled as to why the doors would lead to such an obvious dead end. After a moment, the doors closed themselves on their own. Surprised, Pithy pressed the button again, and the doors opened again, without delay this time.
“Ah.” An elevator. The delay could be explained by the platform traveling to get there. She had seen hand and pully operated ones in construction and mining jobs, and once or twice she had come across enchanted, floating platforms, but this metal cage was a first for her. The door began to close again, and this time she allowed it. Strange as the contraption was, she would rather not sit inside any steel cages she found in an alien city.
She turned to the safer choice and opened the door with the signs. Pithy started as the same pale light suddenly illuminated a flight of stairs going down, but when nothing else seemed to happen, she began her descent. The flying familiar, which had until that moment been hovering some distance away, simply remained outside once she ventured into the building.
Pithy glanced thoughtfully at the glass-like objects emanating light as she walked. Rooms illuminating whenever she entered them would make her position obvious, particularly if those rooms had windows. She considered destroying the lights, but quickly decided against it. She would need a way to see one way or another, and she preferred not to leave an obvious trail of broken glass for others to follow.
By the time she came to the first door, she knew she had walked down several levels of the building. It struck her as strange, but she could hardly ask the architect about it. She paused at the door, considering her options, then opened it. It would not hurt to explore this facility. Truth be told, until she found leads regarding her enemy’s location, the best she could do was to avoid exposed places from which she might be ambushed.
We were told to wait before initiating combat, but… What they needed was to gather souls, not provide a show. If she could not trust herself not to jump at the chance of an ambush, she could not trust the others not to do the same. It was as simple as that.
The door led to a straight corridor, which lit up with that same, pale light when Pithy stepped forward. Several doors framed the hallway on each side, most with numbers, a few with names to go with them. A short distance away, she saw the metallic sliding doors of what she was now certain was an elevator.
With mild curiosity, Pithy began to try the doors on this floor. With discouraging results. Locked. Locked. Locked. Locked.
The fifth door opened, but the moment light streamed into the room from the hallway, an outraged screech came from within, followed by the sounds of several flapping wings. Pithy could barely see the outline of sharp talons against the backdrop of an open window before she slammed the door shut. She heard another set of shrieks as the black creatures crashed against the door, but after a few moments of frantic fluttering and scratching noises, silence returned.
Mercifully, her next few attempts did not reward her search with a flock of bat monstrosities, but neither would they open. Pithy fought against the urge to tear the doors down using her magic. She had no idea if doing so would trigger wards or other security mechanisms, and neither was she particularly eager to find out.
Fortunately, the next attempt succeeded. When Pithy grabbed the handle, the door simply creaked inwards before she could turn it. She paused to look at the nameplate fixed below the room number. It read ‘Lt. Desmond Kessler.’
Lock must have broken. When no piercing screeches broke the silence, Pithy walked into the room.
Unlike the stairway and hallway before, no light came on when she walked into this room, leaving only the light streaming in from the hallway outside to illuminate it. There was a desk inside, with a few devices she did not recognize facing towards a chair. Portfolios, too many to go through, were piled along the walls in bookshelves.
Seeing the glass window at the other end of the room, Pithy closed the door behind her, shrouding the room in darkness.
Half-navigating the place through memory, half-feeling her way around the desk, she approached the window and peered down to the other buildings. There were no lights at their windows, and she could see nothing moving on the ground. She caught sight of the announcer’s familiar hovering outside, its purple eye seeming to stare right at her even in the room’s darkness, and she found herself wishing she had smashed the construct when she had first seen it. She could only hope the construct would give her leads as to her opponent’s location.
Confirming that, for the moment at least, things seemed relatively calm outside, Pithy turned her attention to the room itself. Perhaps she could glean some information regarding the turrets, or the purpose of this place.
The runes inside her rapier’s guard, still at hand since the moment she had caught sight of the familiar in the roof, glowed. Pithy felt the familiar resistance—patterns in the magic locking and becoming rigid—as she tried to shape a spell outside of her aspect. For something this simple, it mattered little. A mote of light appeared at the weapon’s tip, then hovered above the desk, bathing the room in a faint light.
Pithy approached the desk, giving the plastic devices a curious look. From this side, she could see that one of them, a flat, upright rectangle, had a film of what seemed like glass at its front. It had a button with a blue pulsing light on it, but pressing it once merely turned off the light, and pressing it again made the pulsing start over. There were several notes stuck to its corners with adhesive paper, written on in small, sharp penmanship.
She pulled on one, bringing it closer to the magelight to read and ignoring the cold emanating from it.
‘Reminder: Mag B-day on Thursday. Buy gift.’
Pithy let out a small snort. The fact that she was still capable of understanding the language despite being in a different realm was nothing short of miraculous, and yet here she was, reading someone’s shopping list. She pulled out a new one.
‘Door broke. Have Terry bring in a locksmith.’
And another.
‘Lost new hire at entrance to Hi-Clear area. Suggest change to automatic security protocol.’
Pithy frowned at that. Automatic security likely referred to turrets like those at the rooftop. If they had killed people despite them working at this facility, it did not bode well to what they might do if she ran afoul of them.
Leaving the notes alone for the time being, she focused on the other devices on the desk. The rectangular apparatus in front of the first had several more buttons, all with characters imprinted on them. She gave them a few experimental taps, but the machine did little that she could see. The last device, which seemed fit to hold in one hand, had two buttons and a wheel between them. They made a clicking noise when he pressed on them, but little else. She had a feeling they were supposed to work in tandem, but as long as she failed to activate the machine, there was precious little she could learn about them.
Puzzled, Pithy followed the cables, eventually kneeling before a large, rectangular box. Numerous cables were attached to its back, and on its front, she could see a few more buttons. She zeroed in on the one with the circle cut by a small line at the top. It was the same symbol as the one on the glass box’s button.
She pressed it, then started as a whirring noise came from inside the device. She stood up and realized light was coming from the glass box. Words and images began to appear on the screen, along with a small bar with a percentage number atop it.
After a moment, the screen went blank, then was quickly replaced by a simple blue background with the words ‘Choose a user.’ Under the words, there was a single entry under a small picture of a middle-aged man. It read ‘Kessler.’ Below it, in smaller letters, she could read ‘Change User’.
Pithy’s first instinct was to touch the name where it appeared on the glass, but the screen did not seem meant to take inputs. Her next thought was to write the name on the rectangular device, but nothing happened either.
Frowning, she grabbed the smaller device. She noted with some bemusement that a white blur flashed along the screen, and, after some searching, saw a small white arrowhead hugging the edge of the glass. Turning the device, she saw a hole from which a red light was shining. She pressed a finger on it, and noticed the arrow shift slightly. With a flash of insight, Pithy pressed the device against the table and nudged it. This time, the arrow followed the motion until it rested atop of the image. A darker blue highlight surrounded it, and Pithy felt a swell of triumph.
Pithy pressed on both clickers at once, and new text entered the screen.
‘Please enter your password.’
Pithy’s spirits fell. She moved the clicker arrow to the white area and clicked on it. A small bar began to appear intermittently, as though waiting for input. Pithy frowned and glanced at the character box. Very slowly, making sure she pressed the right buttons, she spelled the name ‘Kessler’. When she looked at the glass box, she was somewhat surprised to see the dots that had appeared, one for each character.
A part of her at the back of her mind was delighted by this. It’s to keep others from seeing what you write.
She experimentally clicked the arrow next to the white field, and a circular symbol took the place of the words, spinning in place. After a moment, the circle disappeared, replaced by the ‘Please enter your password’ text. This time, below the white field, were the words ‘Incorrect Password’ in an angry red.
Interest piqued, Pithy began to go over the notes adhered to the glass box, but nothing on them immediately hinted at a password.
She knelt before the desk, pulling open one of its drawers. More portfolios. Too much to go through. Closing it with little more than a cursory inspection, she peered at the drawer on top of that. A glass bottle of something that could be nothing more than expensive alcohol, and a small packet which smelled of tobacco when she brought it to her nose.
Slowly, it was dawning on her that rather than being abandoned, this place felt like its occupants had been present up until a day before Pithy arrived, and then vanished overnight. She looked up to the top of the table and swept a gloved finger over it. It left no tracks. No dust. Is someone keeping this place clean?
She shook her head. Such thoughts were not immediately relevant. She stood, hooking her hands under the drawer under the desk, and pulled it open.
Pithy sucked a breath at the sight that greeted her, her search for the password all but forgotten. In hindsight, it was not particularly strange for this Lt. Kessler to keep a weapon in his workplace. Resting within the drawer was a shooter, similar to those he had seen some of the competitors carry. She reached down and grasped the wooden grip with one hand, feeling the polished, metallic surface of its long barrel with the other.
She remembered the accuracy with which the turret in the roof had killed the careless bat, and realized that, if this world’s shooters could be so reliable, she might benefit from carrying one. Still, she knew enough from the ugly, clunky shooters of her world that she would need ammunition for it to be useful.
She followed the length of the barrel to a cylinder at the contraption’s middle, and pushed a finger against it. The cylinder rolled in place, and she could see the empty grooves where projectiles would go. She placed her finger on the trigger, as she would have with a crossbow, and pointed the weapon at the wall. She pulled. The metal projection at the back of the weapon pulled back. The cylinder turned slightly to chamber a new projectile. And the metal projection hammered back down.
Click.
Fortunately, the drawer had held more than the shooter. From within, she pulled out a harness with a sheath for the weapon and a heavy pouch. Opening the latter revealed over a dozen of the expected projectiles, all roughly the size of her little finger.
She fiddled with it until the cylinder swiveled to the side, then loaded the projectiles into the weapon. Reinserting the cylinder came with a satisfying clicking sound.
That dealt with, Pithy turned to the harness. She thought she knew the way of it. Removing her cloak, Pithy wrapped the straps around herself, tightening and slackening them where she could to make up for the obvious size differences between herself and its previous owner. Once she was finished, she pushed the shooter into its sheathe under her right arm. She supposed the good Lieutenant must have been left-handed.
As Pithy put her robes over her shoulders, a sudden rapport sounded from outside. At first, Pithy dismissed it as the turrets on the ceiling firing at the bats, but as a second and then a third boom joined the first one, Pithy looked out the window.
A good ways below, she spotted the purple glare of the flying familiar’s eye hiding at the edge of one of the buildings below, as though trying to peek around the corner. She hummed. She had been told she would hear her enemy before she saw them.
Pithy took a slow breath, a wispy cloud of vapor escaping her lips. For the first time, she realized how cold the room had gotten.
Pithy strode out, dismissing the magelight as she went. The door opened as easily as it had the first time.
@DracoLunarisHeh, I like those two at the bottom of the list. Wonder how quickly the order would change if they removed that upper layer of clothing. Probably about as quickly as it would change if it came to light that one is a witch dealing with self-inflicted demonic possession and the other is essentially a necromancer.
Pithy paused as she entered the building, robes dripping water on the floor as she took in the sight that greeted her. Much like the men’s clothes, the building itself was constructed in a style she was not familiar with, but while the size itself was impressive, the long hallway with its many doors branching paths did not remind her of the grandeur of a noble’s estate or the forbidding solemnity of a religious temple. This was a place for work.
Her eyes roamed for a moment longer before they fell to the path before her. Tracks of dirt and mud in strange and varied shapes and sizes marked the way forward, evidence of those who had been brought before her. Storms must have heralded their arrivals same as hers. What drew her gaze, however, was a trail of red mixed with the rest of the tracks.
The men leading her had seen it too.
The one named Michael wore a concerned expression as he looked down at the blood. “Think the others ran into trouble?”
The older man shrugged. “It would not be surprising. The Crucible’s participants were not chosen for their restraint. Much the opposite, in certain cases.”
“Wouldn’t that make her…” Michael’s words trailed off as he caught the half-lidded look Pithy had leveled his way.
“Go on. Do complete that thought,” she said dryly.
The young man hesitated.
Dr. Howell shook his head, as though he did not much care for the banter. “It wouldn’t be wrong to say we were fortunate.”
Pithy turned to look at the other man and, released from the woman’s expectant glare, Michael coughed into his wrist. “Let’s keep going,” he suggested once he had composed himself. “We’ll know more once we meet the rest.”
Seeing no reason to object, Pithy followed as the men delved deeper into the building. As she went, her eyes trailed the multitude of doors they passed. Occasionally an open door would reveal a desk, chairs, and stacks of documents that reminded her of the office of an advocate she had done business with years before. She remembered how the innkeeper had told her that the men struck him as scholars, and had little trouble picturing people working at those desks, with students roaming the hallways, large books and stacks of paper in their arms.
What did not fit with that image were the rope barriers placed before doors and branching hallways. Pithy felt fairly confident that even without the muddied trail and the men leading her she would have been perfectly able to reach the place she was expected to. She found some slight amusement in the fact, as it seemed to hint at the nature of the mind that had set up this occasion.
The stage is set, the cast is ready, and the main show is about to begin. All that is left is for you to go to your respective places, but do take care not to wander into the backstage.
“Where is this place?” she found herself asking.
“We’re in the Inquisitional College,” Michael supplied from the lead position.
Unhelpfully. She had already guessed as much. “I meant geographically. This is the first time I hear of this College, and I don’t recognize the city outside.”
It’s not like the human cities I have come across. It’s much too large, and has no walls. In truth, she had never seen anything quite like it. She considered saying as much, but quickly decided there would be no point in making her ignorance evident.
It was Dr. Howell that offered her an explanation. “We do not have an answer that would mean much to you, Lady. We are no longer in your world, after all.”
Pithy found herself ready to raise her voice in protest, but she clamped down on the words. Talk of other worlds parallel to her own were not unheard of in her where. The domains of the gods, those tied closely to the existence of the world she lived in were generally acknowledged to be tightly woven but separate realms, and magic users that relied on summoning magic told of countless other worlds from which their demons hailed.
Academically, demon had long become a word used to describe unidentified beasts and beings from other realms.
She realized that what she found difficult to believe was not the idea that they had made a jump to a different world, but that it had been done so seamlessly. She would have expected an extreme confluence of power to be required in order to open a path between two disconnected worlds, but all they had done was walk with a nondescript lantern—
Except that was not entirely the case, was it? There had been a storm raging around them as they traveled, and if she were to guess by the muddied trail leading forward, the circumstances of her drawing had not been unique.
The sensible part of her warned against taking the men at their word, but she could not deny that she wanted to believe the man with the trimmed beard and sunken eyes. She had already followed them to this strange place. If a device that could enable such travel existed in this place, perhaps this College had truly found something that could aid her. She wondered if they would allow her to examine the lantern were she to ask.
Belatedly, she became aware of Howell’s steely eyes fixed on her profile. Pithy met his gaze, prompting him to speak his mind.
“Something tells me you do not find this entirely unlikely,” he ventured.
Pithy shrugged, trying to hide the uneasiness she felt at the man’s ability to guess at her thoughts. “Perhaps I’ve become jaded,” she admitted.
“Here we are,” Michael announced. Before them stood a pair of white, shuttered swing doors that vividly reminded Pithy of the entrance to a bar she had visited in a frontier town. The fact that it did not fit with the surroundings made her think it was a new addition, and a temporary one at that. “Once you are inside, look for an unoccupied podium,” he told her. “We’ll follow behind you.”
Pithy brought her hands to the sides of her head, making sure her cowl was still in place, then brought her right hand to her hip, resting it on her rapier’s handle in a gesture that stilled her nerves. Thus ready, she swung the door open and walked into the large atrium.
Heads turned to study her as she walked towards an unoccupied podium, and she took the time to study the competition in return. She counted thirty-two podiums in all, some filled, some still vacant. Though many of the entrants exhibited the humanoid features she had become familiar with, some with small additions or differences, others could only be described as monsters.
Demons, she found herself brought back to an earlier thought. And if I were to remove my cowl to show my ears and part my hair so they could see all of my face, would some not think the same of me?
What Pithy took to be the rest of the participants steadily began to fill the room, each going through the ritual of marching to their own podium under the weight of the stares of a murder of killers, made heavier by the last joining in their number to glare at the next.
As she watched the procession to its end, it occurred to Pithy that it was impressive that the College’s staff had been able to fill every podium. Not a single participant had refused the invitation. Though as her gaze found the one lone attendee standing behind an amorphous, smiling monster, she found herself agreeing with Dr. Howell’s assessment. They had been fortunate indeed.
Finally, from a walkway above the podiums, an old woman addressed the congregation. Pithy listened with interest that quickly turned into dismay as she realized that the woman planned to gloss over the details of their predicament in order to focus on the organization of the tournament itself.
And why not? Every fool here—myself included—has already agreed to be used. And if this machine cannot grant wishes, or the College intends to use the winner’s one wish for themselves? Well then, that’s a bridge to cross later.
She found herself wishing that whatever this machine was, it continued to grant wishes once the ritual was performed. Of course, she was certain such convenient things would not exist in any reality, for any reality in which such a thing existed would have destroyed itself in the blink of an eye.
Pithy directed her frustration forward, to the heart-shaped object resting on the podium.
Phylactery.
Now this was a word she knew, and not one she liked. She held a hand over it, hesitating. Focusing on the small figurine, she could feel the weight of an enchantment nestled within, but the structure of the spell was unlike any she had observed before. She couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
In a way, this encouraged her. It lent credence to the idea that she had been transported to a different world with miraculous possibilities. However, it also made her realize that donning the accessory would be something she could not take back. Even were she to find something capable of helping her in the wreckage of the abandoned city, she would need to play her part to its conclusion.
Then again, if I had options in the first place I would not be standing here.
It was with this in mind that the woman grasped the chain and slipped it over her head, taking a moment to smooth out the disturbed hair and cowl. The pendant she placed under her clothes, feeling the imitation rest close to her actual heart.
Her eyes roamed for a moment longer before they fell to the path before her. Tracks of dirt and mud in strange and varied shapes and sizes marked the way forward, evidence of those who had been brought before her. Storms must have heralded their arrivals same as hers. What drew her gaze, however, was a trail of red mixed with the rest of the tracks.
The men leading her had seen it too.
The one named Michael wore a concerned expression as he looked down at the blood. “Think the others ran into trouble?”
The older man shrugged. “It would not be surprising. The Crucible’s participants were not chosen for their restraint. Much the opposite, in certain cases.”
“Wouldn’t that make her…” Michael’s words trailed off as he caught the half-lidded look Pithy had leveled his way.
“Go on. Do complete that thought,” she said dryly.
The young man hesitated.
Dr. Howell shook his head, as though he did not much care for the banter. “It wouldn’t be wrong to say we were fortunate.”
Pithy turned to look at the other man and, released from the woman’s expectant glare, Michael coughed into his wrist. “Let’s keep going,” he suggested once he had composed himself. “We’ll know more once we meet the rest.”
Seeing no reason to object, Pithy followed as the men delved deeper into the building. As she went, her eyes trailed the multitude of doors they passed. Occasionally an open door would reveal a desk, chairs, and stacks of documents that reminded her of the office of an advocate she had done business with years before. She remembered how the innkeeper had told her that the men struck him as scholars, and had little trouble picturing people working at those desks, with students roaming the hallways, large books and stacks of paper in their arms.
What did not fit with that image were the rope barriers placed before doors and branching hallways. Pithy felt fairly confident that even without the muddied trail and the men leading her she would have been perfectly able to reach the place she was expected to. She found some slight amusement in the fact, as it seemed to hint at the nature of the mind that had set up this occasion.
The stage is set, the cast is ready, and the main show is about to begin. All that is left is for you to go to your respective places, but do take care not to wander into the backstage.
“Where is this place?” she found herself asking.
“We’re in the Inquisitional College,” Michael supplied from the lead position.
Unhelpfully. She had already guessed as much. “I meant geographically. This is the first time I hear of this College, and I don’t recognize the city outside.”
It’s not like the human cities I have come across. It’s much too large, and has no walls. In truth, she had never seen anything quite like it. She considered saying as much, but quickly decided there would be no point in making her ignorance evident.
It was Dr. Howell that offered her an explanation. “We do not have an answer that would mean much to you, Lady. We are no longer in your world, after all.”
Pithy found herself ready to raise her voice in protest, but she clamped down on the words. Talk of other worlds parallel to her own were not unheard of in her where. The domains of the gods, those tied closely to the existence of the world she lived in were generally acknowledged to be tightly woven but separate realms, and magic users that relied on summoning magic told of countless other worlds from which their demons hailed.
Academically, demon had long become a word used to describe unidentified beasts and beings from other realms.
She realized that what she found difficult to believe was not the idea that they had made a jump to a different world, but that it had been done so seamlessly. She would have expected an extreme confluence of power to be required in order to open a path between two disconnected worlds, but all they had done was walk with a nondescript lantern—
Except that was not entirely the case, was it? There had been a storm raging around them as they traveled, and if she were to guess by the muddied trail leading forward, the circumstances of her drawing had not been unique.
The sensible part of her warned against taking the men at their word, but she could not deny that she wanted to believe the man with the trimmed beard and sunken eyes. She had already followed them to this strange place. If a device that could enable such travel existed in this place, perhaps this College had truly found something that could aid her. She wondered if they would allow her to examine the lantern were she to ask.
Belatedly, she became aware of Howell’s steely eyes fixed on her profile. Pithy met his gaze, prompting him to speak his mind.
“Something tells me you do not find this entirely unlikely,” he ventured.
Pithy shrugged, trying to hide the uneasiness she felt at the man’s ability to guess at her thoughts. “Perhaps I’ve become jaded,” she admitted.
“Here we are,” Michael announced. Before them stood a pair of white, shuttered swing doors that vividly reminded Pithy of the entrance to a bar she had visited in a frontier town. The fact that it did not fit with the surroundings made her think it was a new addition, and a temporary one at that. “Once you are inside, look for an unoccupied podium,” he told her. “We’ll follow behind you.”
Pithy brought her hands to the sides of her head, making sure her cowl was still in place, then brought her right hand to her hip, resting it on her rapier’s handle in a gesture that stilled her nerves. Thus ready, she swung the door open and walked into the large atrium.
Heads turned to study her as she walked towards an unoccupied podium, and she took the time to study the competition in return. She counted thirty-two podiums in all, some filled, some still vacant. Though many of the entrants exhibited the humanoid features she had become familiar with, some with small additions or differences, others could only be described as monsters.
Demons, she found herself brought back to an earlier thought. And if I were to remove my cowl to show my ears and part my hair so they could see all of my face, would some not think the same of me?
What Pithy took to be the rest of the participants steadily began to fill the room, each going through the ritual of marching to their own podium under the weight of the stares of a murder of killers, made heavier by the last joining in their number to glare at the next.
As she watched the procession to its end, it occurred to Pithy that it was impressive that the College’s staff had been able to fill every podium. Not a single participant had refused the invitation. Though as her gaze found the one lone attendee standing behind an amorphous, smiling monster, she found herself agreeing with Dr. Howell’s assessment. They had been fortunate indeed.
Finally, from a walkway above the podiums, an old woman addressed the congregation. Pithy listened with interest that quickly turned into dismay as she realized that the woman planned to gloss over the details of their predicament in order to focus on the organization of the tournament itself.
And why not? Every fool here—myself included—has already agreed to be used. And if this machine cannot grant wishes, or the College intends to use the winner’s one wish for themselves? Well then, that’s a bridge to cross later.
She found herself wishing that whatever this machine was, it continued to grant wishes once the ritual was performed. Of course, she was certain such convenient things would not exist in any reality, for any reality in which such a thing existed would have destroyed itself in the blink of an eye.
Pithy directed her frustration forward, to the heart-shaped object resting on the podium.
Phylactery.
Now this was a word she knew, and not one she liked. She held a hand over it, hesitating. Focusing on the small figurine, she could feel the weight of an enchantment nestled within, but the structure of the spell was unlike any she had observed before. She couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
In a way, this encouraged her. It lent credence to the idea that she had been transported to a different world with miraculous possibilities. However, it also made her realize that donning the accessory would be something she could not take back. Even were she to find something capable of helping her in the wreckage of the abandoned city, she would need to play her part to its conclusion.
Then again, if I had options in the first place I would not be standing here.
It was with this in mind that the woman grasped the chain and slipped it over her head, taking a moment to smooth out the disturbed hair and cowl. The pendant she placed under her clothes, feeling the imitation rest close to her actual heart.
White.
The whole world is white. Snow is falling heavily, the powerful wind stirring the flitting crystals in a whirlpool that swallows the horizon.
Down is white.
Up is white.
North, east, south and west have lost all meaning. The whole world is snow.
A small girl wades through the blizzard. Her skin has a deathly pallor, and a blue coloration has begun to spread from her fingertips. Her thin sleeping gown is the same color of her surroundings, and makes it difficult to tell where her body ends and the white starts. The only thing separating her from the snow is the wind-whipped black hair on her head.
The sound of bell chimes rings through the storm, but she knows the sound to be in her head. She would not be able to hear them so clearly through the raging wind otherwise. She is less sure about the words riding in the wind.
“It’s not enough. Never enough.” A woman’s voice. Frustrated. She sees injustice before her but finds herself powerless.
“Death is rarely dignified,” came another whisper, lilting as if holding back laughter. Knowing. Mocking.
It was all nonsense, but familiar nonsense nonetheless. Where had she heard these voices before?
She has lost all sensation from her legs, which she supposes must be a mercy. She does not remember setting out on this path, but she knows she was barefoot when she did. The snow reaches her thighs, so she cannot see her feet, but she suspects they have the same color as her fingertips by now. It faintly occurs to her that she is dying, but cannot think of anything to do about it. The bells make it hard to think.
“This has gone too far. Can’t you see that?” What a strange tone. Both accusing and pleasing at the same time.
At least she can still move her legs, which is more than she had any right to expect. Still, she is afraid to look behind her. She knows she would see no tracks where she to do so.
“Warmth, is it? That is your wish.”
Where the other voices had been but whispers, this one is stronger, seeming to reach from beyond the storm. And the girl somehow knows it is addressing her.
She tries to answer that yes, she would trade anything to escape the cold. The words do not even reach her ears, swallowed by the storm the moment they leave her mouth. Swallowed by the chimes.
“Come to my arms, then. I will embrace you, but know that I shall take everything you have to give.”
The girl cannot help but be confused at that. She has nothing to her name. Everything she could have had belongs to another.
Still she raises a trembling hand forward, as if to part the blizzard. The prospect of succor is overpowering.
Just then, there is a great tremor, and the girl looks back in surprise. A wall of white crashes against her, and the words in the wind titter in her ear.
“Such wonderful opportunities can be born from such an arrangement!”
Lightning thundered outside, disturbing the sleeping figure’s rest. With some effort, a single blue eye fluttered open, drifting towards the window. Rain pitter-pattered against the glass, filling the room with a droning sound.
Like a thousand tiny bells.
She dispelled the intrusive thought, drawing herself up on the bed. She raised a hand up to part the stream of black hair that had fallen in front of her and rubbed at her temple.
She winced as something hard touched her brow and groggily looked down at her hand. Translucent, crystal digits looked back. Her breath caught on her throat. She blinked reflexively, and when she saw her hand again, pale skin and thin, ladylike fingers greeted her.
She let out a long breath and clutched the hand to her chest, willing the beating of her heart to slow. The dread at the back of her mind would shadow her for the rest of the day. The feeling had become a constant companion as of late.
Just how much longer did she have?
Thus roused to wakefulness, Pithy slid out of her bed before going about her morning rituals. At the time of dressing herself, the woman studied herself in the room’s mirror as though seeing her reflection for the first time.
The woman in the glass stared back at her with icy blue eyes. She was tall and svelte, with sculpted physique and features that gave her a sharp quality. Her swath of black hair fell to her back, and had been arranged in such a way that it obscured the right side of her face. The ears poking out at the sides of her head ended in sharp points.
She trailed a finger down her side, smoothly following the contour of one of her ribs, ending the exploration just below her breast. Not two days ago, there had been a long cut there, courtesy of a mad duelist with eyes much like her own. There was not so much as a blemish there now. The healers of the city of Bren, well-loved by the gods, were skilled in that regard. The duelist had scored another slash climbing up the right side of her jaw. No wounds remained there either, but Pithy had no desire to touch that patch of skin. Hair might have obscured that side her face, but she knew where to look to spy the glittering surface hidden beneath.
She took up her clothes and began to dress, slipping into her white shirt and leggings.
Not two days ago she had participated in a competition presided by the Eight Elemental Lords, great beings that ruled over nature. Rumor (more than rumors if one asked the locals) indicated that the chosen winner would be granted a boon by their chosen Lord. Pithy had participated and killed her opponents—had seen first-hand the divine intervention of the Lords—but she herself had not been chosen.
Next came a black belt, followed by long black boots and leather gloves. Even in the rain, she needed to go out. Make the rounds. She had pinned her hopes on the intervention of a god to heal what ailed her, and now most of her leads had grown cold. She needed to find new ones or somehow pick up the old trails.
A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts, and she glanced at the room’s entrance.
The knock came again. “Miss Pithy? Are you there?” came the innkeeper’s tentative voice.
Pithy approached, grabbing the slender rapier resting against the foot of the bed as she passed. She unbolted the door and cracked it open, then opened it fully once she saw the short, balding man waiting outside.
“What is it?” she asked curtly.
“Apologies for the inconvenience.” The man took stock of the woman’s mood and the weapon held in her hand and smartly decided to keep his message brief. “Two men just arrived and asked for you personally, miss.”
Pithy’s brow rose, surprised, then furrowed in consternation. A good portion of the city had come together to spectate the competition she had been a part in. It only occurred to her now that people who had seen her might now seek her out.
But for what? To offer me mercenary work? Or could it be someone who knew me from before?
“Did they leave their names?” she pressed.
“No, but they don’t seem to be from these parts. They struck me as scholars.”
Pithy wondered at that. It was not the kind of crowd she thought her spectacle would attract. But then, she noticed the innkeeper hesitate. “Is there more?”
“Yes, miss.” The innkeeper frowned, as though he found what he was about to say distasteful, then added. “They asked me to tell you something. That they could offer you a second chance for a wish.”
Pithy immediately understood the reason behind the stout man’s reluctance. There were only two kinds of people who fought in the Elemental Lords’ competition. First, there were those who sought to honor their patron god, and second were those who sought a wish. By then, the innkeeper was no doubt aware that Pithy had been a participant.
It was common knowledge that among the surviving losers, multiple would be approached by poachers looking to capitalize on their desperation for profit. Pithy seethed at the prospect of being singled out by such people.
“Turn them away,” she said icily. “I don’t have time for such nonsense.”
“Let’s not be hasty.”
The innkeeper started and turned to the stairs, moving to the side so that she could see a man calmly walking towards them. “Sir, I told you to wait at the lobby.”
The man’s most distinctive feature was the trimmed beard that framed his face, black save for a few streaks of grey running down its length. His eyes were sunken, and the steely grey orbs stared out like lights from within a cave. He was dressed in a style she didn’t recognize.
His clothes are dry, she thought distantly.
“I thought the Lady should hear our message directly,” the man replied to the innkeeper before looking back at her. She found the man’s stare decidedly uncomfortable. “After all, hers is a race against time.”
Her throat suddenly felt parched.
The trio sat on a table at the inn’s lobby. Pithy sat on one end, a blue robe worn over her clothes like a cloak, with her rapier and a pair of daggers strapped to her belt. The two men sat on the other. One of them was the bearded stranger with the sunken eyes, who was regarding her calmly. The other was younger and clean-shaven, and was currently casting nervous looks at the people sitting on the other tables. A lantern sat on the floor besides him, but she did not pay this too much attention.
The rain continued unabated outside, so many of the inn’s patrons had either remained in their rooms or walked down to the entrance for food, drink and chatter. With the competition and the celebratory festivals that were to follow, finding lodging in the city of Bren was nothing short of a herculean task, and this showed. The din of conversation filled the room, and most of the tables had been filled.
When Pithy had made her way to the table led by the first man, the younger one had stood up, flashed her a personable smile, and asked if it might not be better to have this conversation somewhere more private.
“No, this is quite fine,” she had told him before sitting on the table with an air of finality. The men had shared a look, one with concern, the other with resignation, and had sat as well. If this was dangerous business, the din would make it difficult to overhear the conversation, and the presence of other people in the room would serve to discourage violence from either party.
As they sat, the innkeeper approached and asked if they wished to eat breakfast. She asked for wine. Her appetite had been soured when the first man had spoken. The other two asked for water.
The pitying look the innkeeper gave her as he retreated irritated her. He was likely convinced she was being taken advantage of. She had an inkling that that was the case herself, but the words of the bearded one had given her pause.
She had told no one of her circumstances, and if someone had reached into her mind and plucked those thoughts from her, she was certain she would have noticed the intrusion. The idea that she might not have and that her mind was open like a book to the one sitting before her was too terrifying an idea to contemplate.
But then how? Did he simply guess? That was more likely. He had said nothing of the nature of her desires beyond her need to accomplish them quickly. Slipping time made a good bedrock for desperation.
Only a minute later, a waitress walked up to the table and left three wooden cups before her guests. Pithy took a hearty gulp from her wine and frowned, disappointed. It had been watered down. Did the innkeeper think he was doing her a favor? She put her cup down, and looked at the men.
“So?” she asked. “What do you want from me?”
The young man started, realizing he had been spoken to, and looked away from the other tables, giving her his best diplomat’s smile. He held his hands together in front of him. She wondered if it was to keep them from fidgeting.
“Right,” he started. “I am Michael Lambert. We apologize if we have put you on edge, Pithy, but our business required us to meet with you.”
It did not occur to her that him knowing her name was strange. They could have gotten it from the innkeeper, or from the competition’s roster if they had been there a few days ago.
“You already brought me to the table,” Pithy said coolly. “Skip the pleasantries.”
“Very well.” Michael nodded agreeably, then drew closer as though afraid others might be listening in. “Truth is, this is a simple matter. We have come to ask you to participate in a tournament held by the organization we belong to. We call it ‘The Crucible’, and the winner will be granted a single wish.”
A grand name, if anything. She was now almost certain her first instinct had been correct and this was nothing but a scam. “A single wish, you say? And shall it be granted, no matter how outlandish?” Pithy feigned interest.
Michael gave her a conspiratorial smile, as though they were accomplices of a crime. It made her want to slap him. She brought her cup to her lips and took a moderate sip to quell the urge. “Indeed. It might even be used to soothe that thing you brought into yourself.”
Pithy had to try very hard not to choke on her wine. She closed her visible eye and slowly brought her cup down.
“Why?” she asked, steadily.
The man’s smile faltered, as though he had expected his revelation to have sealed the deal. Indeed, the fact that the men knew of her circumstances shook her, but this alone was not enough for her to risk life and limb. She was not yet sure the men had a solution for her problem.
Pithy opened her eye, giving Michael a calculating stare. “You are aware that this city holds a yearly competition with a similar premise?”
The young man nodded impatiently. “Yes, we heard from the other patrons that it took place recently, but—”
“The wishes that a god grants to others are of no use to themselves. But you said your Crucible is held by people. So why does this organization bother with a tournament when they could simply fulfill all their wishes? Or are the leaders of this group so starved for entertainment that they’ve wished for this Crucible to take place?”
For the first time since they sat down, the man with the sunken eyes spoke.
“You misunderstand, Lady.”
Michael seemed surprised by the interjection. “Doctor Hallow?”
“The Inquisitional College is not capable of granting wishes. However, we believe we have unearthed something that can.”
Michael drew closer to Hallow and whispered something that Pithy could not hear over the din. The man shook his head, and Michael sat back on his chair with a troubled expression.
Pithy ignored this byplay. “Explain.”
“We have discovered an artefact. A machine…” His eyes narrowed as something occurred to him, and he asked. “Do you know the word?”
Pithy nodded. In her head, she saw an amalgam of the clockwork toys that were quickly becoming popular in human cities and the strange weapons the lizard people of the south brought out from their domed cities.
“Good,” the man said. “In order to activate this machine, a specific ritual is required. This is what we have come to know as ‘The Crucible’. At first glance, it seems like a method to determine the worthiness of those who would use it.”
Pithy sat back, toying with the idea in her mind. She had never heard of a machine with such an ability, but her expertise lied elsewhere, and she had seen many strange gadgets before, in any case. If this Inquisitional College was attempting to activate a wish-granting machine the proposal made more sense.
However, there was still a problem in the premise. If the winner received the wish, what would be left for the people of the College? It is very likely that the winner will be double-crossed at the end.
Pithy peered at Howell’s unnerving eyes, and realized it did not matter to her. If there was to be a wish at all, she simply needed to play along until she found a way to secure it.
The problem is, does this machine truly grant wishes?
“Do you have proof for your claims?” Pithy asked, knowing the answer before the words left her lips.
“Only our word,” the man responded gravely. Then, he offered, as though he were doing her a kindness, “That said, you may find reasons to believe if you come with us.”
Pithy let out an unladylike grunt, unconvinced. “Would I not be better served by waiting a year here? In Bren I have seen divine intervention at work, while you cannot guarantee that your machine does as you suggest.”
“Have you a year, Lady? Two? Three? However long it might take you to succeed?” At this, the man’s façade of patience cracked. “I will not take kindly to a fool interfering with my work just so she might kill herself at her leisure.”
Pithy glared at the man, but found no retort. The man knew of her plight, so her last query had been nothing short of insulting his intelligence. All that was left was to either refuse, or take the plunge.
She drained the rest of her cup, wishing she had asked for something stronger, then stood up. The men followed suit. Pithy looked at them expectantly, then told them, “Well then? Lead the way.”
Michael Lambert brightened, his smile returning, and motioned for her to follow, lantern in hand.
The pair led her outside. Rain was still falling, the water streaming down her hood, and a bank of fog obscured the streets.
“Come along now, Pithy!” called Michael, the glow of the lantern making him easy to locate. “Perhaps you’ll be more inclined to believe us when you see this.”
Pithy moved behind him, hands close to her weapons. “If you lead me to an ambush, you will not be happy.”
For a moment, the trio walked in silence through the foggy streets, the only guiding light the lantern in Michael’s hand. Then, so quickly that she was almost certain her eyes were playing tricks on her, the fog and rain disappeared, replaced by a stone courtyard.
She knew before studying their surroundings, almost instinctually, that they were no longer in the city of Bren.
Before her stood a massive building, and far-off the alien vista of a sprawling city, larger than she had ever seen.
“This way, Pithy.”
Michael was ahead, motioning for her to follow. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the lantern in his hand, and comprehension dawned. Besides him, Doctor Howell gave her a knowing look from those sunken eyes.
She remembered an earlier thought. Their clothes are dry.
Shaking her head ruefully, Pithy strode towards the large building.
The whole world is white. Snow is falling heavily, the powerful wind stirring the flitting crystals in a whirlpool that swallows the horizon.
Down is white.
Up is white.
North, east, south and west have lost all meaning. The whole world is snow.
A small girl wades through the blizzard. Her skin has a deathly pallor, and a blue coloration has begun to spread from her fingertips. Her thin sleeping gown is the same color of her surroundings, and makes it difficult to tell where her body ends and the white starts. The only thing separating her from the snow is the wind-whipped black hair on her head.
The sound of bell chimes rings through the storm, but she knows the sound to be in her head. She would not be able to hear them so clearly through the raging wind otherwise. She is less sure about the words riding in the wind.
“It’s not enough. Never enough.” A woman’s voice. Frustrated. She sees injustice before her but finds herself powerless.
“Death is rarely dignified,” came another whisper, lilting as if holding back laughter. Knowing. Mocking.
It was all nonsense, but familiar nonsense nonetheless. Where had she heard these voices before?
She has lost all sensation from her legs, which she supposes must be a mercy. She does not remember setting out on this path, but she knows she was barefoot when she did. The snow reaches her thighs, so she cannot see her feet, but she suspects they have the same color as her fingertips by now. It faintly occurs to her that she is dying, but cannot think of anything to do about it. The bells make it hard to think.
“This has gone too far. Can’t you see that?” What a strange tone. Both accusing and pleasing at the same time.
At least she can still move her legs, which is more than she had any right to expect. Still, she is afraid to look behind her. She knows she would see no tracks where she to do so.
“Warmth, is it? That is your wish.”
Where the other voices had been but whispers, this one is stronger, seeming to reach from beyond the storm. And the girl somehow knows it is addressing her.
She tries to answer that yes, she would trade anything to escape the cold. The words do not even reach her ears, swallowed by the storm the moment they leave her mouth. Swallowed by the chimes.
“Come to my arms, then. I will embrace you, but know that I shall take everything you have to give.”
The girl cannot help but be confused at that. She has nothing to her name. Everything she could have had belongs to another.
Still she raises a trembling hand forward, as if to part the blizzard. The prospect of succor is overpowering.
Just then, there is a great tremor, and the girl looks back in surprise. A wall of white crashes against her, and the words in the wind titter in her ear.
“Such wonderful opportunities can be born from such an arrangement!”
Lightning thundered outside, disturbing the sleeping figure’s rest. With some effort, a single blue eye fluttered open, drifting towards the window. Rain pitter-pattered against the glass, filling the room with a droning sound.
Like a thousand tiny bells.
She dispelled the intrusive thought, drawing herself up on the bed. She raised a hand up to part the stream of black hair that had fallen in front of her and rubbed at her temple.
She winced as something hard touched her brow and groggily looked down at her hand. Translucent, crystal digits looked back. Her breath caught on her throat. She blinked reflexively, and when she saw her hand again, pale skin and thin, ladylike fingers greeted her.
She let out a long breath and clutched the hand to her chest, willing the beating of her heart to slow. The dread at the back of her mind would shadow her for the rest of the day. The feeling had become a constant companion as of late.
Just how much longer did she have?
Thus roused to wakefulness, Pithy slid out of her bed before going about her morning rituals. At the time of dressing herself, the woman studied herself in the room’s mirror as though seeing her reflection for the first time.
The woman in the glass stared back at her with icy blue eyes. She was tall and svelte, with sculpted physique and features that gave her a sharp quality. Her swath of black hair fell to her back, and had been arranged in such a way that it obscured the right side of her face. The ears poking out at the sides of her head ended in sharp points.
She trailed a finger down her side, smoothly following the contour of one of her ribs, ending the exploration just below her breast. Not two days ago, there had been a long cut there, courtesy of a mad duelist with eyes much like her own. There was not so much as a blemish there now. The healers of the city of Bren, well-loved by the gods, were skilled in that regard. The duelist had scored another slash climbing up the right side of her jaw. No wounds remained there either, but Pithy had no desire to touch that patch of skin. Hair might have obscured that side her face, but she knew where to look to spy the glittering surface hidden beneath.
She took up her clothes and began to dress, slipping into her white shirt and leggings.
Not two days ago she had participated in a competition presided by the Eight Elemental Lords, great beings that ruled over nature. Rumor (more than rumors if one asked the locals) indicated that the chosen winner would be granted a boon by their chosen Lord. Pithy had participated and killed her opponents—had seen first-hand the divine intervention of the Lords—but she herself had not been chosen.
Next came a black belt, followed by long black boots and leather gloves. Even in the rain, she needed to go out. Make the rounds. She had pinned her hopes on the intervention of a god to heal what ailed her, and now most of her leads had grown cold. She needed to find new ones or somehow pick up the old trails.
A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts, and she glanced at the room’s entrance.
The knock came again. “Miss Pithy? Are you there?” came the innkeeper’s tentative voice.
Pithy approached, grabbing the slender rapier resting against the foot of the bed as she passed. She unbolted the door and cracked it open, then opened it fully once she saw the short, balding man waiting outside.
“What is it?” she asked curtly.
“Apologies for the inconvenience.” The man took stock of the woman’s mood and the weapon held in her hand and smartly decided to keep his message brief. “Two men just arrived and asked for you personally, miss.”
Pithy’s brow rose, surprised, then furrowed in consternation. A good portion of the city had come together to spectate the competition she had been a part in. It only occurred to her now that people who had seen her might now seek her out.
But for what? To offer me mercenary work? Or could it be someone who knew me from before?
“Did they leave their names?” she pressed.
“No, but they don’t seem to be from these parts. They struck me as scholars.”
Pithy wondered at that. It was not the kind of crowd she thought her spectacle would attract. But then, she noticed the innkeeper hesitate. “Is there more?”
“Yes, miss.” The innkeeper frowned, as though he found what he was about to say distasteful, then added. “They asked me to tell you something. That they could offer you a second chance for a wish.”
Pithy immediately understood the reason behind the stout man’s reluctance. There were only two kinds of people who fought in the Elemental Lords’ competition. First, there were those who sought to honor their patron god, and second were those who sought a wish. By then, the innkeeper was no doubt aware that Pithy had been a participant.
It was common knowledge that among the surviving losers, multiple would be approached by poachers looking to capitalize on their desperation for profit. Pithy seethed at the prospect of being singled out by such people.
“Turn them away,” she said icily. “I don’t have time for such nonsense.”
“Let’s not be hasty.”
The innkeeper started and turned to the stairs, moving to the side so that she could see a man calmly walking towards them. “Sir, I told you to wait at the lobby.”
The man’s most distinctive feature was the trimmed beard that framed his face, black save for a few streaks of grey running down its length. His eyes were sunken, and the steely grey orbs stared out like lights from within a cave. He was dressed in a style she didn’t recognize.
His clothes are dry, she thought distantly.
“I thought the Lady should hear our message directly,” the man replied to the innkeeper before looking back at her. She found the man’s stare decidedly uncomfortable. “After all, hers is a race against time.”
Her throat suddenly felt parched.
The trio sat on a table at the inn’s lobby. Pithy sat on one end, a blue robe worn over her clothes like a cloak, with her rapier and a pair of daggers strapped to her belt. The two men sat on the other. One of them was the bearded stranger with the sunken eyes, who was regarding her calmly. The other was younger and clean-shaven, and was currently casting nervous looks at the people sitting on the other tables. A lantern sat on the floor besides him, but she did not pay this too much attention.
The rain continued unabated outside, so many of the inn’s patrons had either remained in their rooms or walked down to the entrance for food, drink and chatter. With the competition and the celebratory festivals that were to follow, finding lodging in the city of Bren was nothing short of a herculean task, and this showed. The din of conversation filled the room, and most of the tables had been filled.
When Pithy had made her way to the table led by the first man, the younger one had stood up, flashed her a personable smile, and asked if it might not be better to have this conversation somewhere more private.
“No, this is quite fine,” she had told him before sitting on the table with an air of finality. The men had shared a look, one with concern, the other with resignation, and had sat as well. If this was dangerous business, the din would make it difficult to overhear the conversation, and the presence of other people in the room would serve to discourage violence from either party.
As they sat, the innkeeper approached and asked if they wished to eat breakfast. She asked for wine. Her appetite had been soured when the first man had spoken. The other two asked for water.
The pitying look the innkeeper gave her as he retreated irritated her. He was likely convinced she was being taken advantage of. She had an inkling that that was the case herself, but the words of the bearded one had given her pause.
She had told no one of her circumstances, and if someone had reached into her mind and plucked those thoughts from her, she was certain she would have noticed the intrusion. The idea that she might not have and that her mind was open like a book to the one sitting before her was too terrifying an idea to contemplate.
But then how? Did he simply guess? That was more likely. He had said nothing of the nature of her desires beyond her need to accomplish them quickly. Slipping time made a good bedrock for desperation.
Only a minute later, a waitress walked up to the table and left three wooden cups before her guests. Pithy took a hearty gulp from her wine and frowned, disappointed. It had been watered down. Did the innkeeper think he was doing her a favor? She put her cup down, and looked at the men.
“So?” she asked. “What do you want from me?”
The young man started, realizing he had been spoken to, and looked away from the other tables, giving her his best diplomat’s smile. He held his hands together in front of him. She wondered if it was to keep them from fidgeting.
“Right,” he started. “I am Michael Lambert. We apologize if we have put you on edge, Pithy, but our business required us to meet with you.”
It did not occur to her that him knowing her name was strange. They could have gotten it from the innkeeper, or from the competition’s roster if they had been there a few days ago.
“You already brought me to the table,” Pithy said coolly. “Skip the pleasantries.”
“Very well.” Michael nodded agreeably, then drew closer as though afraid others might be listening in. “Truth is, this is a simple matter. We have come to ask you to participate in a tournament held by the organization we belong to. We call it ‘The Crucible’, and the winner will be granted a single wish.”
A grand name, if anything. She was now almost certain her first instinct had been correct and this was nothing but a scam. “A single wish, you say? And shall it be granted, no matter how outlandish?” Pithy feigned interest.
Michael gave her a conspiratorial smile, as though they were accomplices of a crime. It made her want to slap him. She brought her cup to her lips and took a moderate sip to quell the urge. “Indeed. It might even be used to soothe that thing you brought into yourself.”
Pithy had to try very hard not to choke on her wine. She closed her visible eye and slowly brought her cup down.
“Why?” she asked, steadily.
The man’s smile faltered, as though he had expected his revelation to have sealed the deal. Indeed, the fact that the men knew of her circumstances shook her, but this alone was not enough for her to risk life and limb. She was not yet sure the men had a solution for her problem.
Pithy opened her eye, giving Michael a calculating stare. “You are aware that this city holds a yearly competition with a similar premise?”
The young man nodded impatiently. “Yes, we heard from the other patrons that it took place recently, but—”
“The wishes that a god grants to others are of no use to themselves. But you said your Crucible is held by people. So why does this organization bother with a tournament when they could simply fulfill all their wishes? Or are the leaders of this group so starved for entertainment that they’ve wished for this Crucible to take place?”
For the first time since they sat down, the man with the sunken eyes spoke.
“You misunderstand, Lady.”
Michael seemed surprised by the interjection. “Doctor Hallow?”
“The Inquisitional College is not capable of granting wishes. However, we believe we have unearthed something that can.”
Michael drew closer to Hallow and whispered something that Pithy could not hear over the din. The man shook his head, and Michael sat back on his chair with a troubled expression.
Pithy ignored this byplay. “Explain.”
“We have discovered an artefact. A machine…” His eyes narrowed as something occurred to him, and he asked. “Do you know the word?”
Pithy nodded. In her head, she saw an amalgam of the clockwork toys that were quickly becoming popular in human cities and the strange weapons the lizard people of the south brought out from their domed cities.
“Good,” the man said. “In order to activate this machine, a specific ritual is required. This is what we have come to know as ‘The Crucible’. At first glance, it seems like a method to determine the worthiness of those who would use it.”
Pithy sat back, toying with the idea in her mind. She had never heard of a machine with such an ability, but her expertise lied elsewhere, and she had seen many strange gadgets before, in any case. If this Inquisitional College was attempting to activate a wish-granting machine the proposal made more sense.
However, there was still a problem in the premise. If the winner received the wish, what would be left for the people of the College? It is very likely that the winner will be double-crossed at the end.
Pithy peered at Howell’s unnerving eyes, and realized it did not matter to her. If there was to be a wish at all, she simply needed to play along until she found a way to secure it.
The problem is, does this machine truly grant wishes?
“Do you have proof for your claims?” Pithy asked, knowing the answer before the words left her lips.
“Only our word,” the man responded gravely. Then, he offered, as though he were doing her a kindness, “That said, you may find reasons to believe if you come with us.”
Pithy let out an unladylike grunt, unconvinced. “Would I not be better served by waiting a year here? In Bren I have seen divine intervention at work, while you cannot guarantee that your machine does as you suggest.”
“Have you a year, Lady? Two? Three? However long it might take you to succeed?” At this, the man’s façade of patience cracked. “I will not take kindly to a fool interfering with my work just so she might kill herself at her leisure.”
Pithy glared at the man, but found no retort. The man knew of her plight, so her last query had been nothing short of insulting his intelligence. All that was left was to either refuse, or take the plunge.
She drained the rest of her cup, wishing she had asked for something stronger, then stood up. The men followed suit. Pithy looked at them expectantly, then told them, “Well then? Lead the way.”
Michael Lambert brightened, his smile returning, and motioned for her to follow, lantern in hand.
The pair led her outside. Rain was still falling, the water streaming down her hood, and a bank of fog obscured the streets.
“Come along now, Pithy!” called Michael, the glow of the lantern making him easy to locate. “Perhaps you’ll be more inclined to believe us when you see this.”
Pithy moved behind him, hands close to her weapons. “If you lead me to an ambush, you will not be happy.”
For a moment, the trio walked in silence through the foggy streets, the only guiding light the lantern in Michael’s hand. Then, so quickly that she was almost certain her eyes were playing tricks on her, the fog and rain disappeared, replaced by a stone courtyard.
She knew before studying their surroundings, almost instinctually, that they were no longer in the city of Bren.
Before her stood a massive building, and far-off the alien vista of a sprawling city, larger than she had ever seen.
“This way, Pithy.”
Michael was ahead, motioning for her to follow. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the lantern in his hand, and comprehension dawned. Besides him, Doctor Howell gave her a knowing look from those sunken eyes.
She remembered an earlier thought. Their clothes are dry.
Shaking her head ruefully, Pithy strode towards the large building.
@obliviousRoadie The Xs are reserved for player characters. Those spots have already been taken, though. They're just missing character sheets.
Have another fox lady for an NPC.
I'm in this weird place where I want to play both characters, but only one can get the chance to shine.
I'm in this weird place where I want to play both characters, but only one can get the chance to shine.
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