Fated (Chapter Thirty-Nine)
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mindcrackloveChapter list: http://tanadin.dreamwidth.org/382.html
Map of the continent: http://tanadin.deviantart.com/art/F
Character status spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Kingdom of Orvex, Minecraftia. October 16, year 573. Time instance 483Z.
"Oh my god." Nia froze, the breath stolen from her lungs. "Oh my god..."
The entire group stared at the scene before then with horror.
Everything was burned to the ground, charred into ash. A massive inferno had ravaged the area, making it impossible to tell if it has once been plains or forest.
Nak shifted in his saddle. "Should we really be walking through here? It seems much too dangerous..."
"It's the fastest way." Nia told him, snapping out of her horrified state.
"Let's get through here as quickly as possible." Shred said, voice quiet and fast. "Now."
Nia forced herself to move forward into the scorched terrain, ignoring what appeared to be a charred corpse of some kind of humanoid. They had almost made it out of the burned area, but it wasn’t quiet enough…
Adrian had to stop to puke upon seeing the corpse and the horrified expression still somewhat visible on its face. Shred put a hand on his shoulder and let him lean on her for a few minutes until they started to walk again.
Even Mira’s spirits seemed down. She snuggled tightly against Shred’s chest, shaking. She had never seen anything like this before but she knew that it wasn’t good. Shred looked straight ahead, gently stroking the dragon’s scales. Unless you looked into her eyes, it was almost impossible to tell that the destruction bothered her greatly. Her eyes flicked around despite the stillness of her head- either some kind of ancestral memory of some kind of horror was rearing its ugly head or she hadn’t been exposed positively to the destructive power of fire in the past.
No one is, especially not Blame the Controller.
Nessy shivered as they walked, hugging herself slightly. "It must have been one of those Hostiles, like that stone thing we fought." She refused to call it a dragon.
“I don’t want to meet something with this much mastery over fire.” Nia whispered.
“You may have to.” Shred muttered. “As much as I don’t want to admit it, we have to kill whatever it is that can do this- and that means confronting it.”
The group fell silent after that, brooding.
Velloh soon pulled himself up onto Teramelle's back, behind Niel. His hooves were feeling particularly awful in this kind of terrain and he had lower stamina than everyone except Niel. He mumbled something about chest pains as he relaxed on the unicorn’s back, sighing in relief. Niel whimpered slightly in sympathy, shifting uncomfortably.
Adrian sighed quietly. He had never found out why Niel had those bandages on his torso, but he suspected they were quite tight and the source of both Niel’s breathing problems and chest pains.
After a few hours, Claire tugged on Zekara's sleeve and lowered her voice. "Are ya sure this is a good idea? Don't get me wrong, I love adventure, but this is a bit too much."
Zekara shook her head. "We don't have much choice. Where would we go?"
Claire fell silent, pondering this as they walked.
The only solution was to carry on.
~~~
Tranpar sat next to Xullos as the hybrid lay on his back, gazing into the sky as it steadily darkened. He had awoken just minutes ago, still set to a nocturnal cycle, and seemed to be eagerly awaiting the stars.
"Why do you look into the sky so much?" Tranpar asked him, tilting his head. His too-large hat slipped over his eyes and he had to push it up in order to see, blinking curiously.
"Space is interesting." Xullos replied, turning to look at him. "It's so vast and contains so many wonders. Imagine what we don't know! The universe could go on forever."
"That's impossible." Tranpar told him immediately. "But the thing is, it's so huge and expands so quickly that it might as well be infinite. We could never catch up to the edge of the universe to try and surpass it, but it's theoretically possible to be there. Assuming that you could manage space travel, of course."
Xullos nodded, looking back at the sky. "I want to go to the moon." He said finally, after about fifteen minutes of silence.
Tranpar looked at him, pulling his eyes away from the first stars as they appeared. He considered that briefly before speaking. "I'll help you."
Xullos sat up. "Really?!"
"Really! Once this is all over, I'll help you get to the moon. I'm pretty smart, you know."
Xullos grabbed one of Tranpar’s hands and shook it enthusiastically. “Thank you! Thank you thank you thank you! You’re the best, we could learn so much, it would be so so so so so cool!” Xullos was practically leaping out of his skin, he was bouncing with excitement so much.
A true passion for that which could not normally be reached.
Tim suddenly sat beside them, looking at the two curiously through the slit between planks of wood in the box on his head. “Moon?” He questioned.
Tranpar nodded and pointed upwards, in the vague direction of the moon. “After we finish the prophecy, Xullos and I are going to go to the moon. Do you want to come?”
Tim bounced and nodded empathetically. “Can Tarsen come?”
“Everyone can come!” Xullos threw his arms wide. “We can all go to the moon and have a great time!”
“If you can breathe on the moon. You can’t breathe in space, you know.”
Xullos blinked. “I hadn’t thought of that. I know you can’t breathe in space, but…”
“I mean, you might be able to breathe on the moon, we have no idea, but it’s not very likely.” Tranpar cleared a patch of dirt and grabbed a stick to draw with. “Okay, look, here’s a basic outline of what we need done… Just preliminary planning, you understand…”
Katrin laughed quietly as she watched the three enthusiastic kids talk and draw in the dirt, leaning against a tree. The group took turns watching them- particularly Tranpar- due to how unpredictable and defenseless they were. She glanced at the sky at the same time they did, noting how bright the moon was. She could still remember how that odd shadow that had always been in the sky had covered the moon about a month ago, bathing the world in bloodred light, before vanishing.
She shivered. That was when the Hostiles had appeared. She had heard from Samuel that the shadow had been the Bloodshadow, which had caused Mira- a baby dragon currently with someone called Shred the Mainframe- to hatch. She wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about that, but she was hopeful that she would get to see the baby dragon. She’d always wanted to see a dragon.
Katrin was so lost in these thoughts that she almost jumped out of her skin when Zel stepped next to her and tapped her shoulder. She shrieked briefly before cutting it off, swatting at him. “You scared me!”
“You should be more alert.” Zel laughed quietly, shaking his head. “Are you watching them?” He jerked his head at Tranpar, Xullos, and Tim.
Katrin nodded. “Yeah. It’s my turn.” She sighed. “I’m not a huge fan of it.”
Zel leaned on the tree beside her. “Responsibility’s difficult, huh?”
Katrin nodded again. “Yeah. Like…if something happens to one of them, it’s my fault, and I don’t feel capable enough to take care of them. You know?”
Zel’s expression darkened. “Yeah. I know.” He looked away, and the memory of Vorna suddenly hit Katrin like a minecart full of bricks.
Oh.
“Hey.” Katrin shifted and reached forward to gently turn his face back towards her. “That wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known that the monster was down there.”
“I was responsible for everyone, and Vorna’s dead becau-“
“Don’t.” Katrin growled. “You couldn’t have known, okay? You’re not familiar with the swamp. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s Marcus’, because he didn’t warn us. He was following us and didn’t warn us.”
Zel sighed. “This is all a mess, isn’t it?”
“With someone dead? Yeah. It is.”
Zel suddenly moved to hug Katrin tightly. “Never again.” He whispered. “I won’t let anyone die again. Not on my watch.” He hesitated. “Especially not you. Okay? You’ll be fine. I know you’re worried, but you’ll be fine…”
Katrin hugged him in return, but shook her head. “How can you know that?”
“Because I’ll personally see to it that you won’t die.” Zel whispered softly.
Sounding ominously like a pact that had been sealed.
-~-
Vechs was sobbing.
Curled up, alone, in a remote corner of Spawntown, sobbing.
He couldn’t take it anymore. Looking into Nia’s orb, he could see the destruction that his Hostiles had caused. That he had caused.
Looking into the Hostile orb, he could see Arcbiter gloating to Altair about how much he had burned, how many he had killed.
Watching his creations laugh, watching his mistakes destroy everything worthwhile in the world below, filled him with a horrible hatred for himself and what he had done. He screamed in rage, picking up the cracked orb and throwing it into the wall with all of his strength.
It hit the stone with a dull clink and fell to the floor with an identical sound, unchanged.
Vechs curled up tighter and sobbed harder, shaking and silently begging for it all to be over, for the hallucinations to leave, for the Hostiles to be gone, forever, forever…
He was so distraught he didn’t even react when he felt a hand on his shoulder. The voice of someone speaking his name eventually got him to raise his scaly head. His eyes took a moment to focus on the face of the person who had squatted down next to him.
The thirty-first Mindcracker frowned at him, looking concerned. “Are you alright, there, Vechs?”
Vechs shook his head. “No. I’m not.”
Shree sat down beside him, adjusting his hat. “Tell me about it. I don’t know a whole lot about what’s going on with the Hostiles thing and you’re losing your mind.”
Vechs almost said no, he wouldn’t lay that burden on Shree, but he hesitated. Shree could take it- he had been through shit too, and it could really help him to talk about it to someone who hadn’t lived through the events involving the Hostiles.
Shree had actually been a Mindcracker before Vechs, but he had fallen during the battle that killed several Mindcrackers before Vechs had shown up. He had fled the Vortex in order to survive but, feeling like he was being babied by the other Mindcrackers (despite being over a century old) as he was physically around thirteen years old, he stayed in the overworld to get a break from it all and mature some. Oddly enough, Guude had been unaware of his existence, and Shree never felt the urge to return in the fifty years that Vechs was a worldbuilder- then again, fifty years isn’t that long to a worldbuilder.
Shree had been turned mortal at the same time as the others, and had also become immortal again when he eventually died a mortal death. He was now physically almost an adult (the Vortex had spared him being caught in eternal early puberty). It had been a bit awkward and confusing when Shree had shown up in the Vortex, leading to a long story that had been told and retold as other Mindcrackers rejoined them.
As Vechs recalled this, he also recalled the story of the Hostiles. He stumbled his way through the whole story, ending with their return a month ago.
When he finished speaking, Shree got up and picked up the orb again.
“This thing isn’t good for you- Blame’s right about that.” He looked Vechs in the eye. “I’m going to give this to Blame. You don’t need it, okay?” He moved back over and hugged Vechs before moving towards the exit of the room. “Don’t come after it.”
Vechs let him go and didn’t feel the urge to go after the cursed object, feeling a kind of relief brought on by talking about what had happened and his realization that the orb wouldn’t, couldn’t, help him.
He never wanted to deal with it ever again.
no subject
Date: Thursday, October 1st, 2015 01:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, October 1st, 2015 10:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, October 1st, 2015 02:06 am (UTC)G.C. (@)(@)(@)(@)(@)(@)(@)(@)(@)(@)(@(@)(@)(@)(@)(@)
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Date: Thursday, October 1st, 2015 10:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, October 1st, 2015 03:58 am (UTC)Also, I'm sorry you had a terrible day!! Your quality of writing didn't seem affected at all to me! I really do hope you feel better. :)
no subject
Date: Thursday, October 1st, 2015 10:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, October 1st, 2015 04:02 am (UTC)Ahhhhh Xullos and Tim and Tranpar are all being so cute I luv it >///<
-Random Anon
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Date: Thursday, October 1st, 2015 10:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, October 2nd, 2015 06:06 am (UTC)I actually can't think of anything else to say. (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::)
-the lurkiest lurker
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Date: Saturday, October 3rd, 2015 12:53 am (UTC)I'm really curious as to who you anons are, you know..
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Date: Saturday, October 3rd, 2015 06:13 am (UTC)-TLL
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Date: Saturday, October 3rd, 2015 04:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, October 4th, 2015 06:22 am (UTC)-TLL