Locking Up the Sun

[Letho]

((Closed to Inkfinger and Homunculus))

At this very moment, with her back in the dirt again and with her behind bruised again, Lorelei hated her father.

“It’s not fair!” the fallen lass fumed, sounding a bit too much like a spoiled brat both to herself and her accursed foe. She pulled the rebellious strands of red hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear. Her hands were dirty, but she didn’t seem to care anymore; after all, by now she was dusty from head to toe from all the tumbles she took in their backyard. Dusty and annoyed and tired and feeling like she went through a marathon of Citadel battles. Some ten paces from her, leaning onto a blooming cherry tree with an undecipherable calmness on his face, her nemesis patiently waited for her to recover.

“Why?” the man asked, his arms folded over his muscular chest. Even at his current respectable age of forty, Letho Ravenheart seemed to lose none of his impressive physique. On the contrary, the graying head of shortly cut hair, the small wrinkles riddling his face, the trimmed salt-and-pepper beard, they all worked in unison to give the legendary swordsman a look of a hardened veteran, someone who lived to tell quite a few tales. “Because your fancy fireworks do not work?”

Yes, that was the main problem Lorelei had when it came to fighting her father. Ever since Tempus Island and that horrendous battle Letho had grown immune to any and all type of magic. No, that’s not right, she reprimanded her own definition. It was something significantly different than a simple immunity that the mage felt around the man, an abysmal aura that seemed to annul everything magical in its proximity, a black hole somewhere inside the man that greedily pulled in every bit of energy. It was as if he was a wound in the very fabric of magic and sometimes she felt like her very soul was being dragged into that chasm. Other times – like this very afternoon – she simply felt irritated by the fact that every magic trick she pulled out of her non-existent pointy hat turned out to be as effective as throwing a sheet of paper at the man.

“Yes, because my fireworks don’t work!” she responded, lifting herself up with a weary groan before she picked up her quarterstaff. She wanted to hit him so badly right now. They’ve been training melee combat for weeks now and she was yet to land a single hit on him. She needed a hit, needed it before she went crazy. “I’m not a bloody warrior, father. I’m a mage, I fight with magic!”

“And if by chance you encounter someone immune to your razzle-dazzle? What then? Do not limit yourself just to wizardry,” Letho said in his lecturing voice, taking a couple of steps towards her. In his hand, the weapon of her personal doom – a wooden training sword. He raised it to his face like a fencer. “Now, let us duel again.”

Reluctant, vexed and in a desperate need of a bath, thirteen year-old mage nodded her head nonetheless, bringing her staff in a defensive horizontal position. She took a deep breath, then another, trying to quench the fires or her anger and open a path to some rational thinking. Brute force wouldn’t cut it here, she came to realize. She could scorch the entire Willow Hill and swing at him with every bit of might and skill she had, and he would still get away unscathed, unfazed, smirking like a man who knew a secret you didn’t. It was time for new tactics.

This time, the moment he advanced towards her with an extended thrust, she opted to backpedal instead of parrying it, but it got her only a split-second reprieve before the wooden sword came at her again. She kept backing away from it, swatting away some of the more dangerous blows until her back was against the wooden fence that separated the yard from the surrounding meadows. When he swung at her again, Lorelei deftly jumped on top of one of the horizontal beams, then leapt over Letho’s head with a spin that sent a blow towards his spine. He blocked it (of course), bringing his sword overhead and behind his back at just the right time, but she didn’t fret. The leap wasn’t her endgame.

Finding herself behind his back, the spry lass pulled her staff back and extended her right hand instead. And in an instant a burst of vibrant flames was sprayed at her father. Most of it simply diminished the moment it came close enough to the man, but the remnant of this burst set ablaze the grass around him. This resulted in a thick curtain of gray smoke, but Lorelei knew this wasn’t enough. Letho’s senses were far too sharp to be dulled by a simple puff of smoke and if she charged at him, she’d probably be in for another aching collision with the earth below. Instead, her flaming hand was on the move again, ending the flare and instead summoning a circular portal at her side. By then Letho emerged from the flames and smoke, unsurprisingly undamaged despite being dressed in just an undershirt, but she didn’t flinch. Instead of bringing her staff up to block his next attack, she created another portal in the middle of the diminishing cloud of smoke.

“What? You planned to beam me away?” he asked, but his trademark smirk was met with her own this time.

“Not precisely,” she responded, flinging her staff at the first portal. The wooden weapon spun and disappeared within the dimensional hole at her side only to some flying out of the other, bonking Letho on the back of the head before he had a chance to parry it. It made the bulky man take a staggering step forward, then scratch and shake his head. His squinted eyes went to his daughter first, then to the humming hole in reality behind him, then back to his daughter. His face, dead serious and traditionally frowned, was hard to read at first. But then a grin cracked it and the severity of his keen glare softened and Lorelei allowed herself a sigh of relief.

“Excellent,” he finally spoke. “You adapted, used your magicks, your weapon and most importantly your head. Your head, Lorelei, it will win you more battles than anything else. Remember that.”

“I will, father,” she responded, trying to act all adult and calm, but in reality she felt as giddy as child on a festival day. She had finally done it, finally got an upper hand on her old man, finally got this massive burden off of her shoulders. She knew she’d probably get beaten again tomorrow, probably for the next few days as well. But the realization that Letho wasn’t in fact invincible or infallible gave her the necessary incentive to continue the training.

“Hmm... These things look quite handy,” the swordsman commented, kicking a rock into one of the portals only to witness it emerge on the other side. “Could a man...”

He wanted to ask his daughter could a man pass through it, or was it limited to just objects, but never got a chance. The moment he approached one of the round portals, the clear picture of a fragment of their backyard blurred and disappeared, and just when he expected it to fizzle out like all magic in his presence, it offered a different view. Instead of grassy knolls and flowery meadows, the portal displayed dusty desolation, an endless desert beneath sullen, pale skies. And before Letho got a chance to ask his daughter was this normal or was she trying to show her powers off or something, an invisible hand closed around him as if he was a pawn on a chessboard and yanked him through the portal.

And suddenly the dismal picture or a scorched land became the dreadful reality. The fresh spring breeze was replaced by a whipping dry wind that threw dust and sand into his eyes, the sunny dome overhead ripped away and replaced by the gray shroud behind which the sun was barely more than a vague round shape, robbed of all its power. It was a dead land, with even the tough, stringy plants looking petrified and lifeless, and it stretched for what looked like forever in all directions. The portal that brought him here (though he wasn’t all that certain that it was Lorelei teleportation magic that pulled him here) was gone, together with the picturesque view of the cottage on the Willow Hill and his defiant daughter.

“This does not bode well,” Letho commented to himself, acknowledging his environment and his utter lack of any kind of equipment. His mind didn’t dwell too long on the magic that brought him here, though. Always more of a doer than a thinker (despite his endless lessons to Lorelei about using her head in combat), wonderment was replaced by simple practicality. He needed to find a settlement fast, needed to scour this desert for water and information. There was only one thing that jutted up from the monotonous horizon; an almost unnatural mountain that spiraled upwards like a spear made of stone surrounded by a reddish glow. Tucking his only armament – the worn wooden sword – at the belt of his pants, he started the trek towards the dark tower.

((I was thinking that there would be a large city around the tower, but we could probably run into each other in some oasis outside the city and eventually get ambushed by the crazy lizard people. Or something like that.))

[Abomination]

"Dear! There's someone in the field!"

In the farm house, dressed in typical overalls and saggy cotton pants, a man sat at the dining room table drinking his tea. It was morning, so it was time to tend to the crops. Corn didn't take much work aside from the constant watering, but with his son only six years old, he was on his own for most of the day. No sense putting a child that young out there; he'd get heat stroke or worse.

"Don't be silly," he replied to his wife. "It's nowhere near harvest. Stealing stalks would be pointless right now."

"The lil 'un saw him too! Says his hair is as yellow as the corns. Can you please go look, dear?"

There was no use browbeating her. He didn't like to work before even getting his breakfast in his belly, but he knew his wife's persistence. He put on his straw hat and went outside into the heat. It was an unusually hot day, but it was good for the corn so he couldn't complain. Just in case there was some animal in there, he grabbed a pitchfork resting against the fence and went to investigate.

The child peered into Homun's face, "Mister! Hey mister! Are you asleep?"

Homun was squatting, apparently he had lost consciousness due to exhaustion, but he had been sleeping in a squatting position. Groggily, he opened his eyes.

"You got a death wish, kid?" Homun asked, standing up straight and baring his carnivorous fangs.

"You got sharp teeth, mister! Are you a vampire?"

"A what? No."

"Then are you a mo~onster?"

Homun sniffed. He looked around, trying to figure out where he was. This didn't look like Raiaera, and this kid didn't look elven. The corn field was enormous, but it looked like there were meadows and plains beyond it.

"Sure. Where are the elves?"

The kid laughed, "There are no elves around here, silly! You're a funny monster!"

An approaching voice called out, "Is that you, Jimmy?" The farmer combed through a few stalks of corn and came face-to-face with Homun. "What are you doing here, stranger?"

"Daddy! That's no way to talk to a monster!"

"Listen here Jimmy, what did I say about wandering off? Get back inside, your mother must be worried sick!"

"Awww, I never get to have any fun!"

Dejected, the kid disappeared in the corn, leaving only the two men.

"You lost?" asked the farmer, still gripping his pitchfork tightly and chewing on a piece of straw. "And... what's that smell?"

Homun sniffed around. It was there, he was just used to it by now.

"Oh this?" Homun smiled. "It's just blood."

After all, Homun had killed everyone in the previous town the other day. Surprised, the farmer pointed the pitchfork at him.

"L, listen here, stranger! I don't want no trouble! If you'd kindly just leave my property..."

"I don't think so," Homun interrupted. "I haven't gotten in my fair share of killing toda---"

Suddenly, Homun found himself submerged underwater. Wide-eyed and confused, he looked up and swam to the top. His head splashed out of the water, his eyes darting about frantically. What just happened? Where was he? There were some trees and plants, but... he could see in the distance nothing but sand. Pulling himself out of the water, he coughed out what he had swallowed, wiping his mouth as he got up to look around. So much for the smell of blood. It was ridiculous. Was someone's backyard cut out and placed in this desert? Wherever he was, it sure as hell wasn't Raiaera. The wind started blowing, throwing sand all over his wet body. Brushing himself off fruitlessly, he squinted and noticed something in the distance. It was hard to see, but it was definitely some sort of massive shadow.

Thinking about how he got here was pointless. People don't teleport around for no reason. In fact, he found the event fascinating. He decided to put his plans on hold to investigate. Walking out of the small oasis, he started towards the distant shadow. Whatever wanted him here was getting more than it bargained for.

[Inkfinger]

Cael Strandssen remembered the sea, spreading out around him like an endless plain of shattered, blue-green glass, bucking like an untamed horse. He remembered the sky, a maelstrom of malevolent clouds, gray-green and yellow like a bruise on the heavens. He remembered clinging to wood, clothing and hair plastered to him in a second skin, the captain shouting orders to men who looked as terrified as he felt –

But I don’t remember getting here.

That first wayward thought after waking was a problem, because now (head pounding, ears ringing, every muscle in his body stiff and sore and seconds from going on strike) the wild ocean was nowhere in sight. He was surrounded, horizon to horizon, by sand; the sky above was a sheet of whitish brown, radiating heat down to meet the same heat rising from the sand.

He forced himself to sit up with a groan, sending a cascade of grains wsshing down the small slope, blinking grit out of his eyes. He was at the epicenter of a circle of bent, shattered and warped boards, each bone dry and half covered with sand. He reached out to pick one up, hand shaking ever so slightly. The board felt as if it had never touched water, and caught roughly on his fingertips. He turned it over, staring at the letters carved and painted deep in the wood. Queen’s Requ-, the board said before it splintered.

Cael blinked.

…that’s not possible.

Queen’s Requiem was the ship he’d been on short hours ago. Somehow, he was landlocked, and staring at what appeared to be at least part of a ship wreck. He shoved the end of the board into the sand, using it to lever himself to his feet. The movement kicked up another cascade of sand; it twisted on its way to the ground, a sandstorm in miniature that only dissipated when he dropped the board again with a hollow thunk.

What happened? And how?

The faint hissing of breeze-blown sand was the only response. He stood for a second longer, staring out at the heat-wavering horizon before he shook himself from his reverie. This isn’t going to help matters. Blinking up at the weak sun wasn’t much help either: it was almost directly above him, now, giving no clue which way was north. Cael, finally, picked a direction and set out, stumbling over the soft earth. He’d only made it five feet before he lost his footing entirely, something looping loosely around his ankles.

What in all nine hells…

He rolled, kicking madly, mind pulling thousands of unpleasant images as to what could be grabbing him – creatures akin to the legendary specters of Fallien, capable of sinking beneath the sand; or octopodal creatures with malice in their fiery orange eyes, or some trap laid by an unknown and unknowable hunter…

The panicked thoughts were cut short when the sand cascaded away from his attacker, washed away in a wave of relief. He’d tripped over his pack; the leather knapsack had survived unscathed somehow, his naginata tangled through one of the straps. He sat in the sand, disentangling his ankle. Well. Don’t you feel silly now? When he finally picked up the pack, water dripped in a small river, running through the metal fasteners as if they were a sieve. Oh, wonderful. The water disappeared mere moments after it hit the ground, leaving the sand dry again. All my books…

There were no sounds, other than the hissing sand and the water dripping from his pack. The silence was almost oppressive, almost a noise of its own. It was the only thing that kept him from staying exactly where he was and drying out his books. He had to hear something, even if it was the leather creak of his knapsack’s straps, and the crunch of his own footsteps. He clutched his weapon tightly, in preparation for…

Well. He didn’t really know what for. But when it happened, he’d be ready. He trudged for what felt like forever, the faded-coin sun sinking behind him and to his right, slowly. It made his shadow waver and dance long and midnight-dark before him, ready to swallow him whole if he took a misstep.

Or, he scolded himself, you’re letting your imagination get away with you again.

...In retrospect, that did seem somewhat more likely.

The heat didn’t seem to be fading with the encroaching evening – if anything, it seemed to be rising: a heavy, pre-storm feeling filling his lungs and leaving his hands and face slimy with humidity. He wiped his face on a silken sleeve, grimacing when all he managed to do was smear dust through the sweat without easing his discomfort.

He kept walking, one foot in front of the other, towards what he figured was the south-east. He'd been leaving, and therefore closest to, Fallien, and most of the civilization in Fallien was in the south. Something, some small inner voice, was clamoring that this probably wasn't Fallien and that he really should be watching where he was walking, but he did his best to ignore that voice for now. The sky was changing, slowly, the clouds and haze growing darker every second. The sky seemed to promise stars through the wispy clouds…

He regretted ignoring that voice not even three steps later when the ground vanished from beneath his feet. He flailed, madly, before landing with a splash. He was, abruptly, waterlogged again, but no less hot; neck deep in stagnant water the exact same dead-bone-dust shade as the sand. The water merged, seamlessly and without warning, into the sand: no embankment, no beach, nothing that a normal body of water would have at a shore. He spat sand out of his mouth, and took an experimental stroke in the direction he’d just come from.

The liquid was thick, but not sticky, and it smelled like mud. It resisted, but he was able to gain a foot or two before he was forced to stop and tread muck, panting. It wasn't quicksand, he didn't think, it wasn't sucking him down, it was just heavy and problematic and-

-And something brushed by his foot.

Holy Sway, whatwasthat.

He froze; murky water dripping from his raised hand. Funny, he thought, through the part of his mind that was yelling for him to move, but that felt like...

The surface of the water to his right exploded in a flurry of sandy golden scales, coils and coils and coilsof them. He reacted accordingly: panicked, shoved the shaft of his naginata between his teeth and struck out for the shore in the strong strokes of one raised by the seaside.

Those strokes grew slower and slower with each passing fraction of a second, the layers of sandy muck growing thicker and thicker on his clothes. The water boiled furiously around and behind him, driving him on until his own breath and heartbeat drowned out the sound, and still he swam. There has to be a current, his mind screamed through the panic, You're caught in a current; otherwise you'd have hit the sand by now.

The thought didn't help, for all the obvious reasons.

The noise and motion around him subsided, slowly. And, equally slowly, he stopped paddling to tread instead. The water - or mud, whichever it was, really - fell still. Too still. There was no current, nothing that could have pulled him away: the shore had, inexplicably, moved. He pulled the naginata from his mouth, rubbing his aching jaw with one hand as he kicked to remain afloat. He almost hugged the polearm, shaking wet, gritty hair from his eyes to look at the sun. Maybe he'd turned himself around in his confusion -

Instead, he came face to face with a grinning, golden, leonine face, raised above the murk on a long, gleaming neck; so close he could see his reflection in the deep garnet pools of the serpent's eyes.

"What good," came the voice in both his head and his ears; it grated like sandpaper yet rang like a church bell, abrasive and soothing at the same time. "is your little stick going to do, dare I ask?"

Well. That was an honest question, and the serpent-lion-thing hadn't eaten him yet - Maybe it's just waiting for your answer.. Cael swallowed, feeling the muscular, silk-and-steel slide of coils beneath his feet. Too close...

"I...um." He answered, voice as small as a scolded child's. "I can poke things with it?"

The serpent laughed, rippling the water around his chest and the air around his face. Cael winced beneath that hot breath, but didn't dare move.

"Right. Poke things. Such a human answer."

The coils tightened around Cael's legs with just enough force for him to realize just how strong this thing was, just how easily it could go tighter if it wanted. He had time for one, aborted half-shriek before his mouth filled with sand and water, the serpent dragging him beneath the surface.

His bad ear whistled; his good ear rang. His lungs screamed as he held his breath, face brushing abrasive scales. He tried to kick, surrounded by darkness so profound he would have happily killed for the weak sun of the desert above, but his strength seemed sapped by that very darkness, and the oppressive heat of the serpent's scales.

"Breath, fleshling," The serpent said again, chuckling and low, louder than Cael would have thought possible given the environment. The mage shook his head, emphatically, arms wrapped tight around his naginata.

The hells. You want me to die?

"It would be most inconvenient," the serpent continued, coils tightening further, until the splintered and worn shaft of the weapon pressed uncomfortably against his chest, "if you asphyxiated." It squeezed once, so hard that Cael almost thought he felt his ribs creak, his lungs in agony before the coils loosened, abruptly, shocking him into inhaling -

And he could breathe. He could feel the sand and water on all sides, feel it filling his nose, his mouth, but he could still breathe. They were slow, laborious gasps, but they alleviated the burn in his throat.

He tried to find his voice; when it finally came, it was in a hoarse croak. “W-what are you doing?”

The serpent merely let out another throaty chuckle before letting the silence fall again. Sand and water and then, oddly, the sensation of solid rock surrounding him went on and on as time blurred as readily as the rest of his reality. It could have been moments, could have been hours before the coils wrapped around him constricted again – and vanished.

The out-of-control feelings of momentum, however, did not.

“Don’t worry. I will see you soon.” echoed through his mind; the sand and speed vanished in another splash. He surfaced in a shallow pool of clean, clear water, spitting grit and sand and muck furiously.

Gods. I don’t know where I am, but I hate it already.

He staggered upright, limbs weak and shaky, as he attempted to readjust to the sudden stillness. He was in a pool that only reached his knees, and he was alone. The serpent was gone, and there were unbroken tan tiles beneath his feet, from pool edge to pool edge. The ceiling was a network of roots, dry as everything else seemed to be, but strong looking; the thinnest was still thicker than Cael’s arm. He peeled his jacket off, tossing it over his shoulder, and climbed from the pool.

The light was dim down here, beneath the ground, and it reflected from the pool, throwing shimmering silvery patterns onto the roots above him. The smooth stone walls were painted in vibrant colors, though they were washed out in the paleness of the light: huge trees, connected by swooping lines. Vines, perhaps, or bridges, it was hard for him to say – but the pictures continued all along the wall. They looked nothing like the wasteland he had been brought from; the trees were vibrant green, surrounded by marsh grass and wild lilies painted in careful detail; and strange structures and figures that Cael couldn’t quite comprehend rose from among the reeds.

He brushed his fingers reverently across the stone as he followed the paintings, leaving wet footprints on the tiles. He was heading towards the source of the light – but he paused at the foot of a carved stone staircase, staring at what looked like a simple map.

There was a small “x,” inlayed with crushed red stone – either a target, or an emblem: you are here – in the middle of the map, while rivers and waterways and lakes, colored blue and sparkling in the light, twisted and curled around it. Someone had rubbed mud all over them, dulling the blues to a murky, disheartening brown, and there was fresher paint, a sickly grayish green, splashed above the mud to the east – a spire, painted in the middle of what looked like it had once been a flood plain. It was circled with red paint.

Alright, Cael amended his earlier thought. That one is the target. This one… He looked around again. This almost looked like a basement, and if the paintings were to be taken at face value that was probably the room’s function. There were shelves carved into the rock on either side of the steps, shelves filled with things: jars and boxes and what looked like toys, each item coated with a fine layer of dusty sand from outside. The sand hadn’t been disturbed in a long, long time. This one was home.

He took the steps slowly, fingers reflexively tightening on his naginata, though part of him was very aware that there was no one here but him. He kicked something on one of the steps – it rebounded with an abrasive metallic clang. He bent to pick it up, an uncomfortable feeling skittering down his backbone when he saw it in the light from the top of the stairs. It was a small, wrought-gold statuette of a serpent. He looked at it for all of a second before one glittering eye seemed to wink at him. He hastily put it down on a shelf, turning it so it faced the wall, and all but pelted up the remaining steps.

The staircase turned a corner before opening; a a mirror reflected the light down. He took that corner at breakneck speed, planting one foot against the wall to launch him up the last stretch, convinced he could hear scales on tiles, absently thanking whatever deity would listen that this staircase had no doors (...or no doors any more.)

The same desert the serpent had dragged him from met his eye the moment he hopped off the last step; transformed by the setting sun into a golden-orange. The sky above was midnight blue, now, dusted with stars. The serpent had taken longer than he thought. He turned to see where he’d come up.

Massive stumps dotted the landscape; the worn tracks of former rivers looping around each and every one. The world of the paintings, of marshes and grasses and exotic birds, had once existed, but not any more.

Cael turned to his best estimate of the east, already half-knowing what he’d see. And there, sure enough, was a dark, malevolent shape that towered into the sky, blocking out the stars in a huge patch of the night. The longer he watched, the more the edges of the shape seemed to waver, glowing an eerie dark-red that skittered in his eyesight, like the ethereal sky-lights in northern Salvar.

He took another look over his shoulder, picturing the watery world that had once been here, possibly not that long ago. You need to find out what happened, at the very least, he thought, staring at the remains of what looked very much like it had once been a boat. His eyes, however, were inexplicably drawn back to the unnatural, red-haloed blackness. And…that seems like a good place to start.

He hitched his pack higher on his back, clutched his naginata like a walking stick, and set off towards the strange horizon.