View Full Version : What slips through the Cracks
Turgid, sloughing waste spilled out of the bowels of Ettermire and into the brackish river mouth that flowed south. Once pristine and beautiful, the price of Elvish ingenuity now showed apparent across the landscape. Plains that stretched from one horizon to the other were marred by thick, ugly clouds that blotted out sunlight. The putrid stench of oil and lubricants stained the air and made it a chore to breathe.
He watched the greenish blue water cascade down into the morass that filtered southward, untreated by the filtration plants that staved off disease for the denizens of the Alerian capital. Cream colored eyes hardened in incomprehension at the blatant disregard for their surrounding ecosystem. At the cost of their homeland, the proud people of Alerar had elevated themselves above even the clouds. The bitter realization turned his stomach.
"If you follow the river to the edge of the sea, you'll find the Port of Etheria," he recalled the words of the kind girl who had helped him to the sewers. "Once you get there, the last challenge will be finding a ship. I can't make any promises that you won't be stalked or attacked, though."
Eyvik had cautioned her not to follow into the elaborate labyrinth that flowed beneath Ettermire. Doubtless agents of the Guilds were already alight with information on him and plunged deeply into their relentless hunt. "Rayleigh," he muttered her name, as though he meant to commit it to memory. "Stay safe."
In a land that cannibalized itself for the sake of industry and improvements, it was hard to think anyone was safe at all. Flecks of garbage crackled beneath his footsteps as he clambered out from the service exit, greeted by the warmth of several rays of sunlight through the cloud cover. "Move swiftly under the cover of night," Roman, the fledgling "magician" had cautioned him, "they will run you down like dogs in daylight. The military weakens patrols after sunset, and the likelihood of being sniffed out drops drastically."
"It sounds like you've done this before," Eyvik had teased, and Roman only shrugged his indifference. Regardless, the blonde haired boy stared out now at the crawl of airships across the sky and knew better than to test his luck.
"I wouldn't make it twenty yards without being spotted," he estimated. He took in the surrounding area, sure to scrutinize every detail. "Then there are the short patrols," he considered in a low voice. "I should keep to the sewers until nightfall," he resolved.
The youth ducked back behind a grate that had been broken by force, bent and frayed. Silently, he wondered about the struggle that had caused such a feat. What manner of beast had the strength to sunder tempered iron and warp it into such disrepair? His fingers moved across the gray black bars absently, but his gaze was on the river beyond. It was at least a day's walk to Etheria, if Rayleigh had told it true. "I should have asked about cover," he chided himself softly, "ah, well. I'll just have to be quick, won't I?"
The sun had reached the far western edge of the sky already, but it mocked him by lingering. The reds and yellows of Alerar's skyline were almost enough to endear it to him.
Almost.
Night crept into the Alerian sky without warning. Stars twinkled intermittently in his bleary gaze behind the constant film of industrial smog. "I shouldn't have fallen asleep," he chastised himself. "How long have I been out?" With a quiet curse of his imprudence, Eyvik got his late start.
Smacks of muck and bog accompanied him as he waded out of the mire and into the plains. His pantaloons clung desperately to both legs as swampy water dripped from them. "I need a bath," Eyvik remarked in a sour voice as he trekked southward.
Ettermire had a certain, acrid stink that clung to it and marked its denizens. As Eyvik got further from his prison, the young man began to experience new smells and tastes. Air felt different on his tongue and in his lungs, smooth like water and crisp. Green flora spanned the fields for miles, a strange growth he had learned to call "grass," something that did not exist within the confines of the concrete capital of Alerar. When he stooped to pick a strand, the blade gave quickly and stained his fingertips a verdant color.
Eyvik popped the grass into his mouth, then promptly spat it out again. "Disgusting," he sputtered between gobs of spittle, a futile attempt to rid his mouth of the foul taste. "How do people sustain themselves on vegetation?" White rays of light bathed the sea of gently blown grass, and Eyvik glanced back.
"I always wondered what freedom felt like," he mused suddenly, "and I suppose I thought it would feel more exciting. It's as though this is just how things ought to naturally be."
The thought passed quickly, and Eyvik renewed his march. The sound of airships overhead remained prevalent, but the hulks seemed oblivious to him. Lights flicked over the plains now and again, though they rarely lingered on one spot. The youth felt a chill through his arms and legs as the wind picked up speed, and it occurred to him that nothing on the outside of Ettermire existed to stay the cold. "The world is so different beyond the walls," he muttered. Everything was new, fascinating, and intense. Eyvik took it all in like a moth to flame.
The first vestiges of dawn slipped through unannounced to peek at Eyvik. He scowled, grimly aware that he had slept far longer than he intended. Ettermire loomed like a shadow behind him, but every mile between them made it look smaller. On the horizon, Eyvik could see the beginnings of a cleaner river. He knelt beside the water, strangely clean, and touched it with a finger. "The pollution doesn't carry this far," he observed in bewilderment. Close to the city, the ground was dry, cracked, and devoid of beauty. Somewhere between where the grass began and the trees ceased to appear withered, some phenomena gave the waters purity.
"Magic," came a new voice from behind him. Eyvik whirled round in surprise. A lithe, Elven girl smiled at him with sincerity. Her chestnut hair and fair skin were a stark contrast from the Alerian elves he was used to. She carefully strode toward him. "Ettermire and the other Dark Elven monstrosities devour the land in pursuit of progress. They leave behind filth and death without any thought for the future of Alerar itself."
"Let's back up a bit," Eyvik replied, not unkindly. "I'm afraid I don't know you. My name is Eyvik, and-"
"Eryna," the beautiful woman introduced herself, and her strange garb rustled like leaves in the wind. "I am a druid, the last druid left in Alerar. It is my magic that preserves the lands outside of Alerian spoilage."
His mouth clamped shut. Druidic magic. Something in his mind understood what she meant, and somehow, Eyvik felt that he knew about the strange power. "How is it that the Dark Elves are not aware?" he asked softly.
"I doubt sincerely whether or not they care," Eryna replied, "they seem far more obsessed with their tinkering than the countryside. Eyvik knew that was true immediately, but it had never been so evident before this moment. Within the walls of Ettermire, to anyone but an outsider, there were no problems. There was a lifestyle that everyone shared, and the world outside was irrelevant.
"You look out of place," the Druid finally pointed out.
Eyvik hesitated. "I should go," he murmured, "I've stayed too long."
"Oh, I won't keep you," the elf held out her hand. "Please, just do me this one favor. This orb is filled with the essence of Alerar's life. It weakens with each passing day, and I fear that one day, it may die outright."
Eyvik paused, then looked down at the orb. "What do you want me to do with it?" he asked.
Eryna smiled sadly. "You are no druid, nor a miracle worker," she replied, "all I wish is that when I leave this world, someone remember what I did, and the land that once thrived here." She held the orb out to him, and Eyvik placed a wary hand on it. "This is memory," she told him. "A druid who touches this orb will see what I have seen and know what I have known. This orb is the birth and life of Alerar, and a warning for what happens when those who live on the land forget to love the land."
He clutched the orb tightly, stared at its milk white surface, then tucked it away. "One day, when you have the time, deliver that to the Archdruids in Raiaera for me." He turned his glance toward her, but she was gone.
Her words were a whisper on the wind.
Battered by daylight, Eyvik took stock of his reflection in the river next to him. His pants were filthy, caked in grime and mud, and his feet reeked of sewage. Despite the urge to vomit, he admitted that the smell was little worse than the streets of Ettermire, especially when one compared them to the rest of the world. Alerar alone was so vast, such an untapped font of beauty, yet metropolitan machines lived oblivious to it.
It seemed almost sad.
The strange bauble he had acquired several hours earlier shifted between his fingers thoughtfully. It glowed gently with a strange light that felt cool against his skin. "Druidic magic," he ruminated softly, "doesn't have memory magic, to my understanding."
He held the orb up and the sunlight filtered through it like a shard of glass. "You must be some manner of seed," he spoke to the strange artifact, though he expected no response. "A desperate, second chance at life away from this poisonous land. I can't say I blame you for that. I'm the same way."
He laughed, and the orb slid smoothly along his palm and into his pocket. "That's ironic," he chuckled.
The water next to him rippled gently, and he glanced over at his fractured image. Eyvik stopped. The fluid stilled, then displaced again. Wide eyed and alert, Eyvik skimmed the horizon with his careful gaze. The earth rumbled faintly this time, and he let out a faint, short breath. "Gods," he managed to utter before it came into full view.
Every nation prided itself in something. Raiaera was once the seat of Magic in the known world. Salvar had their brutal faith, and Corone was a hub for trade and the heart of legends. Alerar was the youngest of the four great nations, yet its mounting power boasted a greatness to rival all before.
The steam powered titan cranked and clambered forward with slow, lumbering steps. One foot, then the other carried the behemoth forward, the slow churn of fossil fuels in an alchemically powered engine gurgling like an empty stomach. Where there ought to have been a head, a dark skinned elf hooded in crimson clenched the reigns. "Power output at seventy percent," Eyvik heard the alchemist call out, and he noticed a score of Dwarves and Dark Elves hurrying beneath its towering legs, dutifully attentive to their calibrations and menial tasks. "The walkers will never transition from prototype stage if we cannot harness a sustainable energy source!"
Eyvik flushed, but he had already broken into a run. This far from the capital? His thoughts were a blur of panic as he raced down river, unable to fully comprehend what he had witnessed.
"Hmmm?" One of the servitors glanced up from his calibrations and caught a glimpse of the fleeing humanoid. "Princeps Avinash," he called up to the elf mounted in the Golem, "what do you make of that?" The dwarf pointed, and Avinash glanced toward Eyvik in the distance.
"Someone who does not wish to be seen, Servitor," the Princeps replied concisely, "let us acquiesce to the contrary, shall we?" The oily black haired man with gray skin reached forward and pressed a button. With a series of complicated beeps, a hologram appeared before him and the Golem magnified the image of their mysterious running man. Princeps Avinash felt his thin lips twist into a cruel smile. "Someone who does not wish to be seen with very good reason, at that. How stable are the shock absorbers, Servitor?"
"Fully operational, Princeps. Why?"
"I have decided that this would be a prudent time for a test of the SRDS thrusters," Avinash replied slowly. The panicked outcry from his minions was quickly followed by them scattering. The Golem hissed several plumes of steam as it gathered itself low, and the undercarriage glowed deep with putrid light. "Initiating SRDS protocol in five... four... three... two..."
Thick and stifling unlike the previous few minutes, the air around Eyvik felt intense and hot. A wave of concussive force rattled the earth beneath his feet as he ran, and chunks of sundered earth rained down on him. Despite himself, the shaken youth stole a backward glance.
Jets of blue flame roiled from various orifices along the lower extremities of the strange bipedal monstrosity that now cast a shadow over him. Beads of perspiration sizzled on his skin as Eyvik struggled with any sort of response. "What a stroke of luck, finding you out here," the Elf giggled inanely at the prospect, overtly pleased with himself. "To think, the elusive Project EYVIK has been within our grasp all along."
His wide, pale eyes searched desperately for an avenue of escape as the growing dread seized his chest and clenched. "Come now, boy," the Elf spoke in a low voice to his quarry, "return to Ettermire with me, and you will face considerably diminished punitive measures." From a Dark Elf, talk of light punishment was among the greatest of kindnesses. Their race was infamously unforgiving, and Eyvik knew it. "This is the only time I will make such an offer, so you would be wise to accept it."
His jarred body still reeled from immense impact. The strange machine had covered almost a half mile distance in several seconds, and the subsequent burst still lingered in every one of Eyvik's nerves. "What are you whispering?" Avinash commended suddenly? The boy made no sound, but his lips were moving in time with his heartbeat. "Speak up, child, if you wish to beg for mercy, you had best do it audibly."
A droplet of sweat dripped from his nose as Eyvik turned his stony gaze toward the Princeps. "...sigil of the chained angel, the First Seal." A warm, gentle glow emanated from both the lad's hands as light engulfed the brutal machination. Gears seized and ground to a halt as streaks of powerful, piercing light stretched across plate and hugged the walker tight.
"What in N'jal...!" Avinash smashed his hands down on the dash, but a burst of reflective light warded away his blow. The Elf cursed aloud, a string of Ettermire's foulest insults, and glared down at the escapee. "What have you done to my creation, boy? I will tear you to pieces, you insubordinate filth! You are little more than a puppet, a hollow vessel, a repeatable mistake. Who will miss you if I erase you now?"
Eyvik stood his ground, every shaky breath like a lance through his person. Though the seal was powerful, he lacked the capacity to maintain it for a lengthy amount of time. The effort sapped him of power, and despite his facade of defiance, it would take all he had to affect a successful escape. "I don't have time for this," he muttered, reminded of the ever-shrinking window he had to escape.
With an excruciating effort, Eyvik rounded and took off with haste. "You get back here!" Avinash commanded, "I am not finished with you, abomination! You will see me again, Eyvik, and you will suffer when that time comes!"
Two of the servitors finally caught up to Avinash, rooted to the spot where he had landed. "Magic," one observed dumbly, "but I have not seen this type before. Is it Elven?"
"Sealing magic," Avinash interrupted, "in the days of the Tap war, it was abundant in Raiaera. Their highest order of mages kept it to themselves, hoarded away and secret from the world." He felt their eyes questioning him, only to briefly recall something he had forgotten. "I have heard such things, at least. How he would come to know such a power is troubling."
"It is reasonable that he is a target that the Guilds have marked," an Elven servitor remarked thoughtfully, "but why is it that we have never heard anything of him, or seen even a picture?"
"Send word back to Ettermire," Avinash evaded the question with an order, "Princeps Avinash has encountered Target Eyvik. Inform me of their orders once we receive them."
"Should we engage further?" questioned the dwarven servitor, his brows furrowed in contemplation. "With such a power as to halt a Titan Walker, even in prototype stages..."
"Do not engage," Avinash snapped, "we are not privy to the full scope of his abilities, nor the nature of his hostilities. It should be assumed his is of the highest order of threat, and that a special detail will be dispatched to deal with him."
The second servitor bowed his head, but his brows knit further together. What are you hiding, Princeps? Who is that boy?
"...a puppet, a hollow vessel, a repeatable mistake."
The harrowing words echoed though his disjointed thoughts as the river valley bled into a single spectrum of color. Trees and earth collided in his vision and the distinct gargle of his displeased stomach tore though his trembling body. At the time, the Princeps' words flew over his head as he fled for his life. Now as they rang in his ears, he felt the cold fire in his body. "I am human," Eyvik rasped through heavy breaths. "I am human, and you will all pay dearly for caging me."
His weak and heavy steps sank into the grass. Eyvik fell onto both his hands in a feeble attempt to orient himself, only to dry heave a mouthful of spittle. "The Alchemist Guild," he spat the name hatefully, though frailty laced his words as well. His dirty fingers clutched at tufts of green. "No," he huffed, "I can't stop now," Eyvik stated, "they'll catch up if I stop."
The boy slowly gathered both feet under him. Shakily he stood, faltered, but he remained upright. "I can't give up now," he reminded himself, "if I give up, they win."
He staggered along the river southward. Each time he glanced back, there was no sign of the mechanical beast behind him. "It can't be that easy." Etheria port stood several leagues south of Ettermire, on the Radasanthian sea. The two cities were distant enough that one could not be seen from the other, save for the lingering pollution that hovered around Ettermire like a fog. The first signs of settlement appeared to Eyvik as guard posts and uniform, bland-colored buildings.
Etheria had never aspired to the greatness of the Capital. It was a military post and a port. As a militarily controlled city, the inner workings of the Guilds were restricted there. He force marched toward the city, aware of all the sentries as they stared at him. "Halt," called a gruff, authoritative voice. "Identify yourself."
A line of men and elves armed with gearlock rifles walked toward him, weapons pointed down. "My name is Jarrod," he lied, both hands calmly at his sides. "I lost my way in the mountains, traveling from Salvar."
"That's an impressive distance to cover," one soldier responded skeptically, "and over a markedly impassible range of mountains."
"Purportedly impassible," Eyvik corrected, "there are many things people don't know when they refuse to learn."
"Assuming that story checks out," another responded, "the condition you're in is miraculous compared to what it ought to be." He stepped toward Eyvik and ran a finger over the fibers of his pantaloons. "You smell like shit," he commented, "and it looks like you've been wading through garbage. Is there anything you'd like to change about your story?"
'The upper steppes are littered with pollutants," Eyvik replied calmly. "I encountered several pockets on my way south. You should talk to someone in Ettermire about a clean up initiative."
The collective snort provoked a sigh from Eyvik. "Fair enough, Jarrod," the first soldier told him, "you know as good as I do, no one in Ettermire gives a damn about saving the world. Go get yourself some clean clothes and enjoy your stay in our civilized town."
They parted, and Eyvik hobbled between their ranks toward his first respite in days.
To think, he believed when Roman had deemed finding a ship to be the hardest task in Etheria. Eyvik stared blankly down at the fabrics that lined the merchant's table, brow creased and pensive. "This is hardly what I think of as 'casual attire," he commented softly, aware of the shop keeper over his shoulder.
"Ah, a skeptic eye," the young seamstress praised as she clapped her hands merrily. Eyvik glanced over at her in disbelief. "Truth be told, these fashions are highly acclaimed in Ettermire, but outside the fringes of high society, there has been little love for the style."
Without comment, Eyvik looked over the scant fabric and questionable stitching. Comical blends of vibrant green and electric pink blended in a smattering of splotches that looked more like an artistic mishap than an intended design. "I can't imagine why," he muttered finally with a dismissive gesture.
"Alright," the girl conceded, an expression of annoyance on her face. Eyvik wondered if she had been heart set on making that sale. "Well, we can try something less exotic."
"Gods, yes. Please." The youth sighed his relief and tossed the filth ridden garment he had been wearing for weeks aside. Immune to her blushing, Eyvik seemed totally oblivious that the seamstress had her eyes locked on his physique. "What else do you have?"
"W-well," the girl stammered, then quickly sorted through her goods in a panic. "Pick something, anything. Just please, put a shirt on!"
"Tch," Eyvik let out a sound of frustration as he picked up a shirt and inspected it. "You're supposed to be selling to me," he said, "I know next to nothing about fashions and trends. I need something that will make me fit in."
"That depends entirely on where you intend to go," she countered logically, "and you've only told me you want to fit in." The strawberry blonde girl wore a sweet expression that belied her inner distress. Her cheeks flushed of color when he turned to face her and placed a hand on his hip. His muscles contracted and flexed, and she nearly swooned. "Here!" she cried out. Her hand jerked from the heap of clothes and produced a flowing mass of black fabric.
"Hmmm?" Eyvik accepted the article and held it up. The folds draped over his arm and hung down to his waist. "It's a cowl," he told him, "perfect for bad weather or cold days. You can wear it like a hood, or just loose around your shoulders."
He wreathed the item around his mantle, where it hung over his torso and mostly covered his flesh. "Let me make some adjustments,," she said quickly. With a needle and thread that appeared in her hand magically, she knelt next to him and her hands moved like wildfire over the cloth. "A bit of thread here, a cut there...!"
She took a step back, and the back and front of the cowl were connected by two seams. "Sleeveless, but still a shirt. What do you think?"
Eyvik held up both hands and stared into the mirror behind her. "I think that I could do far worse for my gold," he joked, "but what do you have in the way of pants?"
The girl almost fell over.
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