Re: PBEM Game: Yarnspinners 2
Vanheim turn 18 is here! (Posted & wiki'd)
With that done, I'll have some time to try to answer Sedna's riddle...
In which Galameteia is lost.
Pherios
We separated. Galameteia stepped back, and I slowly let go of her hands. "Be careful," I said.
"I will," she replied. "Don't worry. I'll see you in a couple days."
After the door closed, my heart wouldn't stop racing. I tried to sit and study, but my mind wouldn't settle. I decided to go for a walk to calm myself.
Out the window, I saw a flock of finches on the roof of a nearby tower. One stood apart, twittering to the others, and I knew, somewhere, a lizard was telling a story. Her audience huddled in twos and threes. I do not think it was a happy tale.
Overhead, the silhouette of a hawk gained a brilliant corona as the sun broke through the clouds behind it. Fire. Vanheim burned, and iron boots trod on its ruins.
I closed my eyes. They usually didn't come so close together, with no gap between vision and interpretation. I threw on a light coat and walked down the winding stairs. Just before I reached the ground floor, I spotted a goose feather in a dusty corner. In my mind, a human hand picked it up and trimmed it. The studious young man set to writing. Behind him stood two women, shimmering, translucent, outlined in flame.
I leaned on the door frame. Fresh air. No, food. That's what I needed. I'd walk to the great hall and get something to eat.
I open the door and keep my eyes down, on the ground, the gutter, anywhere but the sky. In the kitchen, I scrounge for some bread and cheese. Zainos holds up tonight's dinner, a brace of pheasants. One of them lifts its head and looks at me, a tear in its eye. My mother. I see her and Aunt Sennei in armor, flying over a battle. The enemy carries purple standards, and they've overrun our estate. They slaughter our cooks, maids, and hostlers. My mother falls to the earth with a dozen arrows in her.
I rush into the courtyard, gasping. Wine. Or something stronger. And quickly. I walk toward the street, always looking down. But there's a gull with purple eyes standing there. "Do not look away," it says. "Examine every image. You must help me find--" And then he tells me, but the words are just scribbles in my brain. Spells that aren't spells, a machine that isn't a machine, and a mind that isn't a mind.
I hear the wind rise, and see the light dim, and I know that clouds have covered the sun. But I don't look up. I stop before a carved wooden owl on the sign of a shop. "I know you," I tell it. "But it can't be. I don't see you anymore."
"Have courage," it replies. "When the time comes, I will help you."
I hear a low *kwock* behind me. "As will I," says the night-heron. Petema. Where is she? I think she lives nearby. I stumble away from the shop. Maybe I can make it to her house.
Thunder crashes, and an egret shrieks. "Galameteia!" I cry, and before I can stop myself, I look up.
The sky swirls and opens above me.
Nothing is stable; the heavens rotate. Every light in the universe traces circles around me. My head spins. The stars dance and streak across the towering clouds. The air races, rain joins the leaves and dust, and every manner of flying thing races around me in a cyclone. I can't stand. The rain turns to hail. Lightning flashes as straight as the sword of an angel, and it cuts down the egret. Again I shout her name. I fumble for my sword, but my hands are bound behind my back.
Two red dragons tangle overhead, clawing each other, erupting in a fireball. The light from the explosion casts shadows of a square wooden frame on the flagstones in front of me.
I can't feel the ground underneath me anymore. The winds carry me over the forest. I look for a place to set down. A young woman with a staff of thorns frowns. There is kindness in her face, but nevertheless, she shakes her head no. I may not stop in her land. I drift toward the mountains.
Suddenly, I feel hope. I know for a certainty that I will see her again. Then, with horror, I do. My snowy egret's feathers have turned to black. Hope dies. Doom breaks over me. It will never be the same again. I will have no last moment of happiness with her.
I fall on my back in the snow. A gull lands, and another. A heron. An owl. As I lie there, they gather. They surround me. Herons, egrets, pheasants, gulls, an owl, an osprey who is a prophet, and an osprey who is more. They stand in a ring around me and the violet-eyed gull standing on my stomach.
"He is mine," says the gull. "You are all mine."
The larger osprey spreads its wings protectively over the flock and says, "No. You are old, but we have always been here." The blue heron speaks first, then the osprey, the owl, the pheasants. All the birds' voices rise as one in a cacophony of squawks and shrieks. The sun flares, then grows dark as the clouds eat the sky. Lightning slashes the air. The universe cracks.
I pass through many arches in the labyrinth: petrel, plover, piper, puffin...under the heron arch, I find it. I open the cask, spread out the scroll, and read the name. "Now do you see?" asks the gull. "Do you understand at last?"
I loosen the rope so I can speak. "You are wrong," I rasp. Her feathers are still warm. "We are worth far more than what you bought with us." There is nothing in her eyes. There is nothing in her heart, there is nothing in me. It's cold. She's cold. There is nothing. It's cold, it's dark, she's gone. I'm cold, she's cold, I'm dead she's dead it's cold I can't feel I can't I'm
Quellian Ji
So we're off on a field trip to find another piece of the puzzle. "Hey, boss, couldn't you find some place with higher ceilings?" I say.
"It is where it is," Vethru replies.
"It's just, I like some room to stretch my wings, you know? In case, uh, I want to go somewhere. In a hurry."
"Galameteia and Kestumaia aren't complaining," the boss says. "And their turning radius is bigger than yours."
Of course his pet Valkyries aren't complaining; they worship him. I've known him too long for that. But still...they're probably the best company here. Hallixene is boring, the dwarf just mumbles, and the stiffs, well, carrying the torches is the limit of what their brainpower can accomplish. Conversation is a bit too advanced for them.
I'm in no mood for the boss's philosophical digressions, so I flutter over to Galameteia's shoulder. I get a good grip on her mail and say, "Hi, sweetie."
"Hello, Ji," she says in a low voice. "Me, too."
"What?"
"I don't like these caverns, either."
"Thanks for speaking up," I say. "Local 554 of the Vanheim Air National Guard thanks you for your support."
"There's a difference," she says. "I can agree with you about not liking being underground without complaining about it. A complaint is a dislike you've gotten too emotionally attached to."
"I'm the sidekick. I'm not paid to make those distinctions."
Our sparkling banter gets interrupted by our arrival. "Cracks and shards," I say. Everyone else is silent. Except Kor, whose mumbling sounds suspiciously like, "I told you so."
I'd say he's entitled. Damned if the earth's blood really isn't seeping out of the ground. It looks like honey, or sort of like amber, except honey or amber doesn't look like it's charged with about a bazillion volts of electricity. Or magic. Or something.
Vethru bends down to examine it. He's happy. When Kor leads us to the next chamber, Vethru is ecstatic. There's an opening there, circular, with inscriptions all the way around. It looks like it goes down to where that stuff in the other room is coming up from. The fact that the opening is closed by a giant, faceted, blue-green crystal sends Vethru into fits of joy.
Hallixene just looks thoughtful. The stiffs don't care. But Galameteia, she starts to shudder.
"What's wrong?" I ask her.
"I've seen this," she whispers.
The boss doesn't miss a thing. I suppose that's why he's still alive, er, around after all this time. "This is familiar? What did you see?"
"Power," she says. "A great concentration of power. Danger. A gorgon."
"Are we successful?" he asks.
"I...you are," she says. "I don't think I am."
He hobbles up to her and looks her straight in the eye. "Don't be afraid. The futures you see aren't set in stone."
"I know," Galameteia says.
"Do you want to turn back?" he asks, and I think that's kind of low. It's exactly the right question to shame her into carrying on, and she does. But I can tell; she's still really nervous
The show goes on. Kor and the Big V take down the crystal, and we make our way down the stairway behind it. On one claw, I've been in enough tombs that haven't been opened since the dawn of time to know that the biggest danger in most of them is allergies. On the other claw, the exceptions tend to make you want to drop your feathers and fly away screaming.
When we walk into the big chamber at the end of the stairway, I get a bad feeling that it's the latter case.
Everybody does their job: Kor has the stiffs spread out to shine light through the whole room. Hallixene and the Valkyries step out in front of Vethru. The room is fairly big, and there's a dome somewhere up above us, so I take off and began circling.
There are statues all over the place. Warriors, wizards, some of those half-animal people, a couple lizards, and even one giant. Half of them look angry, and the other half looked terrified. It's pretty impressive, but across the room is the centerpiece. There's a glowing inscription covering about two hundred square feet of the wall. Lots of geometric figures connected by lines with arcane letters all over the place. Underneath it is a statue of as noble a creature as I've ever seen. About ten feet tall, robes, beatific expression.
Oops. It's not a statue.
"You Shall Not Possess The Rune. I Have Been Called; I Protect The Rune," it says. Its voice doesn't fit under the dome. It rumbles all around us. One of the stiffs actually falls over.
"Can't we discuss this?" asks Vethru, which I know is one of his delaying tactics. I know why. I recognize the thing on the wall, sort of. I've seen some of the other ones. They're all different, but they all give you the same feeling in your gut. The boss is buying time, while he gets his tendrils into it.
He's almost not fast enough. I feel my wings begin to stiffen. Ouch. My control surfaces need flexibility. I pitch and yaw, then I see the glowing thingie change. I stop plummeting and start flying again.
The mouthy statue isn't very happy. "You Have Interfered With The Rune! You Are Not Permitted To Manipulate The Rune!"
"If I had a credit for every time I heard that..." says Vethru.
And you know, I could kill him for being so flip about it. I mean, I know he can't help it. It's just the way he is. And I know it didn't make a difference in what happened. But I liked the kid, both of them, so I still hate him for it.
The damned statue unfolds these big stone wings and launches itself at the boss. The Valkyries, they're pros, they don't hesitate. A half ton of stone angel comes hurtling toward the boss, and these two little girls jump right in the way.
In flight, the statue whips out about eight feet of stone sword and beats Kestumaia's spear out of the way. Galameteia, she's just a little bit quicker. Her spear finds its mark and splinters on the statue's chest.
Its sword goes right through her. She doesn't scream, not really, as she slides off the blade and falls all the way to the ground.
Vethru frowns. I go for its eyes.
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