Chapter 20: This is hopeless

They ran.

The team screamed down the sizzling hallways at full speed, dodging around the overflowing magma pits, not bothering to give the magma squid a chance to grab their legs. When they made it to the next room, they skidded to a halt, gaping at the altered scenery.

What had been an extra wide room prior to the boss fight had become a lava-bridge, maybe two feet of stone with liquid death on either side, radiating heats that would char-broil a normal human in a matter of seconds.

Something they don’t tell you about lava rooms, lava gives off enough heat to cook you from several feet away. Even further if you’ve got an entire lake of it.

“What, what’s going on?” Ron asked, still slung over Brett’s shoulder.

In the middle of the bridge was a red-hot golem monster being birthed onto the path they needed to use.

“We don’t have fucking time for this,” Jeb muttered, glancing at Jess. “Can you go over and get ready to catch?”

“I can do that.” Jess said, bracing her foot against the wall.

With a grunt, she launched herself up, sailing high over the golem, presumably landing safely on the other side of the room.

“Who wants to go first?” Jeb asked.

“I’ll go,” Brett said, handing Ron his shield.

Without preamble, Jeb picked up Brett and tossed him over the obstacle, aiming for the other side of the room. The big Soldier flailed his arms and legs as he flew across the distance, until Jeb felt him come to a halt on the other side.

“Alright Ron, you ready?” Jeb asked, watching the Golem’s head turning ponderously to look at them. Behind the golem, he could barely make out the tip of Brett’s spear waving.

“I’m not sure if – AIIII –!”

Jeb grabbed Ron and his death knight and threw the two of them over the bridge, into the waiting arms of Jess and Brett. The necromancer had the presence of mind to put the shield between himself and the lava lake, but Jeb saw the death knight burst into flames before it disappeared behind the charging golem.

The air was hot.

“Cover your sensitive bits!” Jeb said, picking up himself and Amanda, lifting them out of the way as the flaming golem slammed into the wall just below them, snatching up at their feet.

Jeb felt like he was flying through a convection oven as they flashed across the open area, his exposed skin screaming in agony and peeling. Jeb was pretty sure he lost a good portion of his hair. Amanda fared better with the armor she was wearing acting as an insulator.

They landed to see Ron putting out the fires on his Death knight, Brett and Jess motioning them to hurry.

“Go, go go!”

Ron grunted as Brett picked him up again and the five of them got back to running, turning their way up the winding tunnels, aiming for the copper insect people village.

They blazed through the place, some of them literally on fire. The leather exterior of Jeb’s armor released a cloud of smoke behind him a moment before it burst into flame, fed by their high speed movement.

Jeb couldn’t stop to put it out. That was a death sentence. He couldn’t take the armor off, either. It might be on fire, but it was still cooler than not wearing it.

“My ass is on fire!” Ron’s voice was lost in the constant rumbling surrounding them as the entire cavern shifted.

What the hell?

The floor lurched up beneath him, smacking into his dangling legs and knocking off his charred stump-accessory

The peg leg tumbled into the distance behind them as they zoomed into the entrance hallway.

The entrance seemed to be…swelling shut, the stone around the sides bulging outward, closing off the thin ray of daylight leading to the outside.

“Fuck that,” Jess growled, tucking in her shoulder. The Assassin was in the lead, her light clothes mostly burned away. She summoned a helmet and a shoulder guard, ramming into the narrowing entrance with everything she had.

Jessica burst through, tumbling to the ground in a shower of pink-hot shattered stone.

Brett threw Ron through the narrowing hole before charging it himself. Brett was nowhere near as small as Jessica, and with the armor he was wearing…he presented a much wider obstacle. There was little to no chance he’d be able to make it through with his own momentum.

Jeb cut off the Myst holding him aloft as they came to the closing exit and funneled his telekinetic energy into Brett’s back, shoving the soldier forward with literal tons of force, aiding his charge.

“Shit!” Bret was able to grunt as he suddenly accelerated, slamming into the stone wall hard enough to shatter the blockage, tumbling out into the open air.

Unfortunately, no longer supported by his Myst and missing a pegleg, Jeb collapsed to his hands and knees, which immediately caught fire.

“Gah!” Jeb stared down at his bubbling hands for a timeless instant before he felt an armored arm wrap around his waist, hoist him into the air and throw him through the Brett-shaped hole.

Jeb hit the ground hard, rolling downhill and incidentally putting out his armor.

A fraction of a second later, Amanda dove through the narrowing entrance, landing on the ground with a metallic clatter.

We’re all out, Jeb thought scanning the terrain. They were somewhat charred, missing large swaths of skin and clothing, but they were all alive, thank god.

“Hot, hot!” Brett shouted, tearing his superheated armor off of him, followed by Amanda and Jess, tearing leather straps to shed armor hot enough to cook meat on.

Ron’s clothes were mostly extinguished, so the necromancer took care of his gently burning zombie. It looked more like a mummy now, honestly. The creature’s water content had been removed.

The mountain shuddered under them again.

Jeb looked down the slope and spotted one of the mountain’s ridges pull itself out of the ground, earth and stone sloughing away to reveal a titanic hand lined with molten rock.

Ah, shit. We’re not out of the woods yet.

***Casey***

“This is shitty,” Smartass grumbled, using her squirt-gun’s power-washer attachment to clean out baby Casey’s diaper. “And not just in the literal sense. When I offered to help with the baby, I was thinking teaching her Fairy law, or how to use Myst, not cleaning diapers.”

Casey glanced at Smartass sideways. “You do know humans don’t even learn how to speak until they’re two years old?”

Smartass gasped. “Two years? Years!?” The faerie looked down, rubbing her chin contemplatively. “Fairies know how to speak from the moment they’re born.” She looked back at Casey. “Are you sure she’s not…simple?”

“Human babies can’t speak.” Casey said, trying to maintain her patience.

Smartass jabbed her chest. “When I have larvae, you can bet your behind they’re gonna bust out the shell talking.”

“When you have larvae?” Casey couldn’t help giggling at the Fairy’s silly pose. “How old are you? two weeks?”

“A hundred and forty-seven.”

“Weeks?” Casey asked hopefully.

“Years, duh.” Smartass wiggled her head sassily.

“But you’re so…” dumb. Casey didn’t want to finish that sentiment. “Innocent.”

“Hard to lose your innocence when everyone else has the attention span of a goldfish,” Smartass said. “You know, I’m the smartest fairy of my generation. I can stay on task for hours, sometimes days. It’s why they named me smartass.” She polished her fingernails on her chest.

Casey opened her mouth, looking for something to say that could dance around the fact that being called Smartass was generally not considered a good thing.

She was still looking for the words when baby Casey started fussing, wriggling around in her living swaddle.

“What’s wrong?” Casey cooed at her daughter, trying to get her to calm down. “Are you hungry? Is that it?” Casey took her baby and held her up to her chest where the greedy little munchkin would normally start sucking like a hoover, but baby Casey pushed the offered boob away, going from upset to full-on bawling.

“What is it?” Casey asked, picking her daughter up and putting her over her shoulder, patting her back. Maybe the baby needed to burp or fart or something.

Baby Casey just bawled louder, her chubby cheeks turning red.

She’s never been this bad, Casey thought, anxiety beginning to wear at the edges of her calm. According to Amanda, baby Casey was very well behaved.

Well behaved for a baby means crying only when hungry, poopy, or sleepy, so roughly six times a day, allowing time for hour long naps.

She’d never cried for no reason before.

“It’s okay, Casey,” Casey said, partially to her daughter, partially to herself. She glanced off to the side as spotted Smartass watching them with an arch look.

“Mammals,” She said, shaking her head. It was somewhat less effective as Smartass was currently cleaning off the diaper.

“Wait,” Smartass said, tilting her ear, shutting off the squirtgun. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Casey demanded. “All I can hear is this one screaming into my ear.”

R-R-R-R

An echoing rumble spread through the air, coming in under baby Casey’s screams and rising above them, until all they could hear was the shifting of earth.

Then the mountain lurched underneath them.

“This is….” Smartass cocked her head to the side, glancing down at the stone beneath them, her eyes growing wide.

“Casey, you need to fly, right now!” Smartass said, holstering her watergun and grabbing Casey on the ear, applying a torturous amount of torque.

“OW, ow, ow!” Casey said, trying not to drop her daughter as the fairy pulled her by the ear out of the renovated cave.

“Quick, deploy your wings and get some distance! The mountain is waking up!”

“I don’t have any wings, quit it!” Casey said, staggering out into the open and whapping Smartass with her free hand.

Her stumbling gait and occupied hands led to Casey tripping over her own feet, toppling forward, baby Casey shrieking as the two of them went down.

Oh god! Casey’s mind was flooded with baby brains dashed on the stone as they fell through the air.

In a timeless moment, Casey shifted her grip, grabbing the back of her daughter’s head and extending her arm straight out, halting their fall as she absorbed the inertia with her arm.

The rock cracked a little under her hand, making her palm sting.

Casey’s heart stopped for an instant before baby Casey started crying again, heedless of the near-death experience.

“God-damnit, Smartass, you could’ve gotten –“

The cave they’d been sheltering in interrupted Casey’s words with a violent explosion containing the vast majority of their personal effects sailing out into the air, trailing smoke.

Casey looked behind her and spotted a bright glow coming from the cave entrance. There was another brief flash of light, forcing her to close her eyes. She heard the sound of tearing metal, and when she opened her eyes, she saw the iron cookpot laying in front of her, with shards of jagged stone sticking out of it like shrapnel.

The pot had dived in front of her to take the hit.

“Shit!” Casey cursed, scrambling to her feet, carrying Casey away from the volatile cave. she surveyed the mountain. All across its surface, the mountain was tearing itself apart, exposing veins of molten stone.

Smartass was right: They needed to fly.

“Mich-aaaael!” Casey shouted at the top of her lungs, diving into her Core and tearing pages out of her father’s bible in a whirlwind of power, sweeping all of it out through her channels.

They burned from the strain.

Huge arms wrapped around Casey’s waist, and her stomach sank as the ground lifted away beneath them.

***Jeb***

“Hold onto each other!” Jeb shouted as the five of them streaked down the mountainside, aiming for Casey and the baby. “If you fall, I can’t catch you!”

Jeb was lifting himself and Amanda. Brett and Jess were clinging tightly to Amanda, while Ron had a death-grip on the back of Jeb’s neck as they soared through the air. If the necromancer’s Body wasn’t so low, he’d actually be causing a problem.

The Death knight tried its best to keep up, leaping from stone to stone in pursuit of its master, but it was quickly falling behind.

“There’s the camp!” Jess said. “I don’t see Casey! All our shit’s on fire!”

A moment later, Jeb saw it too, a barren campsite filled with flaming wreckage that had been ejected from the renovated cave.

Shit, was Casey in the cave when it exploded? Jeb thought as they landed on the rapidly heating stone, braving the scorching temperature long enough to stick his face into the entrance.

“I don’t see her!” Jeb shouted over the rumbling mountain.

He glanced back and spotted Casey’s living spoon, blanket, washbasin and clothesline. They were on fire, and had gathered together to form a flaming arrow pointing to the northeast.

Jeb looked in the direction they indicated, scanning the side of the smoking mountainside, trying to pick out a young girl and baby among the geysers of smoke and flame.

“Up there!” Jess said, pointing in the same direction and up about fifteen degrees. A huge pair of brilliant white wings were flapping up and down, carrying a speck away from the mountain.

“Thanks,” Jeb said to the living utensils.

They formed into a thumbs up as they were consumed by the fire, possibly referencing Terminator 2.

Jeb company lifted off in their awkward group hug, aiming for the distant wings. From several hundred feet in the air, it was easier to tell what was happening on the mountain.

Ridges that had previously lain dormant were now showing themselves to be the arms and legs of the Mother of All Fire Golems

MOAFG? Doesn’t really roll off the tongue. I think I’ll call her Felicia.

Felicia was waking up, and man, Felicia looked like she woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

Jeb put serious speed on when he saw the legs drawing in under the enormous mountain. they were still over Felicia and they couldn’t afford to –

The sheer mass of Felicia’s movement created a tailwind that catapulted them forward, barely hanging onto each other.

Casey was coming into view, Mike’s arms wrapped around her waist, his wings struggling to keep them aloft. Now that he was bigger, it was easier to see that her guardian angel was ripped.

“Casey!” Jeb shouted, waving.

“Oh thank gawd,” Casey said, her accent slipping out as Smartass dived out of the teen’s hair and latched onto Jeb’s ear.

“I saved her life, pay up,” Smartass said, holding a tiny hand in front of his nose.

“Can it wait until after we get away from the magic mountain?” Jeb asked.

“Hmmm….okay, but I’m going to charge fairy interest.”

Jeb was about to ask what ‘fairy interest’ was, when an explosion rattled all thoughts out of his head, forcing him to glance over his shoulder.

Felicia…was standing up.

The enormous mountain rose from the ground, centuries of dirst sloughing off the rock face to reveal a menacing visage covered with veins of glowing magma.

Felicia ugly.

I pray to god and whatever demons of hell are willing to make a bargain for my soul, Jeb thought as he saw the creature continue rising into the sky, above the tortoise, above them.

Please let that thing be on our side.

The mountainous creature paid no attention to the gnats buzzing around it, it’s gaze fixing on something to the west.

The World Tortoise.

With a bellow that they could feel in their ribs, Felicia the Flame Mountain charged the tortoise, which was about the size of an extra-large dog in comparison.

“Holy shit,” Jeb muttered.

“Oh yeah, The Flame Titan and the Word Tortoise do notget along.” Smartass shouted over the ruckus, nodding sagely.

“When where you going to volunteer that information!?” Jeb demanded.

“What information?” Smartass asked curiously,

It didn’t take a genius to see that waking Felicia and getting her to kill the World Tortoise was the easy way to solve the Impossible tutorial.

Felicia charged forward with a roar, forest spraying out of her way like water as she charged the massive creature. The tortoise saw her coming and deployed its air-force, thousands upon thousands of vicious monsters of various shape and size.

Bugs on a windshield.

“GRAAA!” Felicia brought her fist down on top of the World Tortoise’s shell like a hammerblow, and the creature’s hind legs buckled. Another strike and the shell popped, the rear legs giving out completely.

Jebs other passengers were getting into it now, cheering Felicia on.

“Get us out of here, you gigantic bitch!” Amanda shouted over the others.

Felicia’ gigantic fists turned toward the tortoise’s skull. The World Tortoise hissed and snapped at the oversized fists coming down on it, but the bites did nothing, the fiery fist smashing the tortoise’s skull into the forest floor.

“Fuck yeah!” Jeb shouted, almost losing control over the telekinesis that kept them aloft.

Felicia didn’t stop there, she kept pounding that overgrown tortoise skull into the ground like a mad thing, creating a massive crater and drenching the nearby forest in blood and brains.

This is it! Jeb thought, hope fluttering to the surface in his chest for the first time in nearly a month. We’re out of here!

The body of the tortoise began to…glow a pale blue.

“Uh oh, what is that?” Ron muttered.

Jeb saw it too, as the light began to warp around the creature like spandex, being reeled in from every direction, while giving off that increasingly bright blue.

“What is what?” Brett asked, glancing at them.

If Brett can’t see it, it’s gotta be Myst.Jeb thought.

Power continued to gather in the Tortoise’s body even as Felicia continued diligently turning the tortoise’s head into a fine paste.

“Whatever that is, I don’t like it,” Jeb muttered.

Obviously it didn’t care if Jeb didn’t like it or not, because it kept growing until the light was blinding.

Jeb covered his eyes and looked away moments before there was a sudden spike in the light that he could see through his hand, before it died away to nothing.

When Jeb took his hands away, the World Tortoise was gone, disappeared from beneath the crushing blows of Felicia.

“Did we kill it?” Ron asked.

“If it was dead, we wouldn’t be here,” Jeb murmured. Felicia seemed to know what was going on, as the mountain stood up and charged further west, toward…

“Oh, there it is.” Casey said.

“All that Myst and it moved half a mile?” Ron wondered.

“And it’s not wounded anymore,” Jeb said, his jaw clenching. Something about this situation was striking a bad chord, sending goosebumps up the nape of his neck.

“Oh. Shit. You think it can do it again?” Ron asked.

“We’re about to find out.” Jeb replied as the mountain tackled the tortoise into the ground, got into a mount position and started pummeling it into the dirt.

A few minutes later, the light flashed again, and there was the tortoise, in the exact same spot, unharmed.

Again it happened.

And again.

Each time the tortoise came back, their hopes sank just a little bit.

Jeb forced his way through the despair, watching closely for any hint on how to defeat the damn thing, he suddenly noticed one thing: The tortoise always respawned in the exact spot it had been standing when the Safe Zones expired, in the exact facing and posture.

Despite the torn up forest from the two giants wrestling, Jeb was able to identify the place from memory, his Nerve allowing him to precisely identify landmarks, even from a different angle.

Having learned his lesson about Fairies and their willingness to volunteer information, Jeb turned to Smartass, who was perched on his shoulder.

“Smartass, why does the World tortoise always come back in the exact same spot?”

“The World Tortoise isn’t the biggest or strongest titan, but there’s a reason it’s never been killed. You remember the safe zone timer?”

“Yeah?” Jeb asked, his skin breaking out in goosebumps.

“Well, the timer isn’t arbitrary. That’s the amount of time it takes for the titan to create a Vitgheist.”

“A what?”

“A vitgheist?” Smartass said, peering at him quizzically. “A personal point in space time that the body and mind is restored to if it’s ever destroyed?”

“Like a save state?” Ron asked from over Jeb’s shoulder, the necromancer’s voice quavering.

“Yeah man, there you go. Whatever that is.” Smartass waved dismissively Anyway, there’s only a two week period of time in which the World Tortoise even can be killed.”

“Why didn’t you tell us that!?” Jeb demanded, glaring at the fairy a handful of inches away from his face.

“I couldn’t!” Smartass shouted back. “Everyone in the Tutorial is under a geas! You have to ask!”

“You little–!” Jess growled, tensing in Amanda’s grip.

“It’s not her fault!” Jeb interrupted before Jess could piss off their only source of information.

“When is the next two week period going to take place?” Jeb asked.

“A hundred and forty years, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up,” Smartass said, giving Jeb a look that screamed ‘ask me why’.

“Why shouldn’t we get our hopes up?” Jeb asked.

Smartass sighed as if some invisible restriction had been lifted. “The wipe is coming in a couple weeks, so you should probably focus on enjoying the remaining time before you stop existing.”

In the distance, Felicia’s rythmic pounding started to slow. They watched as the mountainous creature clutched its chest and staggered backwards, looking for all the world like a man suffering a massive heart attack.

The mountainous creature sank to its knees, the flames jetting out of its body diminishing as it slumped to the ground.

The World Tortoise shrugged Felicia off and placidly went back to grazing on trees, a living whirlpool of monsters swarming around it.

Nobody had any words for the dread creeping up their spines.

It couldn’t be killed. Not anymore.

Jeb recovered first.

“If we can’t win the Impossible tutorial, how do we escape?” He asked, changing tactics. In this situation survival and winning were synonymous. “Do we have some kind of trackers or I.D.s on us that they can use to ‘wipe’ us?”

“you can’t ‘escape’.” Smartass said. “We’re in a magic cage. The System pinched off a bit of the Death wilds and made it wrap in on itself.” Smartass said, spinning her fingers. “Go too far one direction and you’ll wind up right back where you started. It’s very big but it’s still a cage. There’s no access point either, nothing comes or goes, and at the end of the allotted time, everyone that isn’t supposed to be here gets unmade.”

Jeb’s skin went cold.

“Hold Ron,” he said, handing the ginger kid to the cluster of bodies, lowering them to the ground before taking off.

Jeb shot straight up at a hundred and twenty miles an hour, forming a large bubble of air trapped around himself, enough to last him a good half hour before he passed out.

He didn’t need nearly that much.

As he rose above the world, he paid close attention to the curvature of the planet.

It rapidly curved further and further as he pulled up, growing smaller and smaller as he rose literal miles above the planet.

There. Oh god.

Looking down at the rapidly shrinking marble beneath him, he could see the at the very edges, Felicia the Fire Titan, duplicated and stretched across the horizon, in more than one place at once.

Out of morbid curiousity, Jeb looked up, his lungs seizing as he spotted an identical marble of forest slowly growing above him.

Jeb screwed up his courage and went full steam ahead, watching the world above him grow and grow, its every detail an exact match for the one he just left.

It rapidly grew above him, until Jeb flipped himself upright, landing beside the rest of his party.

“You see anything?” Brett asked. Jeb glanced at him from the corner of his eye glancing up at the direction he’d come from. At some point the tiny planet he’d come from had faded from sight.

Was this Brett the same Brett as before, and Jeb just got turned around by twisted space, or was there some kind of parallel dimension fuckery going on?

Did it matter?

“Yeah, I saw that we’re screwed. The forest’s in some kind of bubble of twisted space.” Jeb said. “There’s no way out.”

“Fuck that. Fuck this! Jess shouted, glaring at all of them. “Are you telling me I’m going to die because that idiot Eddie was on a goddamn power trip? Why do I have to…” Her fists clenched, teeth digging into her lip until blood began to drip from the corner of her mouth.

“Should’ve killed you when I had the chance,” She said. “Maybe I wouldn’t be in this fucking…” She bit off her words, glared at Jeb for a moment before leaping away, sailing through the air with her Ability.

Jeb’s stomach sank as he scratched his head and sat down on a nearby log, idly wiggling his ill-fitting pegleg, contemplating death.

Not like it’s gonna make a huge difference anyway. Maybe if someone else makes a Blue serpent furnace, they’ll wonder who I was.

Brett let out a sigh, his arms wrapped around Amanda, whose face was buried in his shirt. “Jeb. We’re going to go process this. Let us know if something important comes up.”

Jeb gave them a halfhearted wave as the couple disappeared into the forest.

“I’m gonna…check on Jess.” Ron said.

“Try not to die,” Jeb said, waving him off, leaving Jeb sitting alone on the log.

Well, almost alone.

A hand clasped his shoulder, Casey peering over his shoulder, holding her child against her chest.

“For what it’s worth, I think Jess doesn’t mean that. She’s just scared. You saved my life, and I don’t think anyone could’ve done a better job than you.” Casey said gently.

That washed a little of the hollow feeling out of Jeb’s limbs, and forced an almost involuntary chuckle out of him.

“It’s worth a lot.” He fixed Smartass with his gaze, a tiny fire in his chest carrying him through.

He had more questions for the Fairy.