(Vol 2) Chapter 67: A Helping Hand

It was a really special kind of complete peace in that void. Her mind was always running, running, running, with nothing to shut it off. Meditation was one thing, but complete shutdown? Bliss.

The System had seen fit to make divinity still weak to matters of consciousness. As such, some facsimile of a concussion was obviously quite possible, and it was a total shutoff. A sensory void. She found it quite soothing.

There was just nothing. The mind couldn’t seize. Except maybe to escape? She was certain that, if she designed her own heaven, it would have a little concussion section. At least the kind deities had. It was like a faux oblivion. They’d really outdone themselves with it.

‘Wake up.’

Who was that? Eh. Who cared? She was taking a break.

‘It’s too important. Time is sensitive. We cannot just go back. One little ripple in the lake won’t be enough. This has to be it. It has to be you. Wake up.’

Was it really the Fortuneteller begging her for help? Or her conscience? It would be just like her conscience to pull that shit. It sounded different, right? She wouldn’t beg. No.

‘Remember all who depend on you. You care. This is not you. Remember what you spoke to Death.’

What was it?

‘How you twisted the knife from pointing to his own heart back to threaten the world — as he embraces it. Remember too how you flicked your wrist at the reins to begin the charge of victory and glory. The Chariot rides, the Mad Dog’s tongue lolls out in the wind. You’re on the cusp of the next. Remember! Remember that you are the Light!’

I am the Light. I must go to it. Fight for it. Remember and return, return and remember…

Lots of screaming in her head. A whole domain left to fend for itself for a while tended to do that.

Everything was a big foggy mass smushed together that she had trouble sifting through. She was surrounded by rubble and complete darkness, with rocks pressing against her. Wood stabbing her. Her body was crushed and non-functional, her armor breached and burst in multiple places. If it wasn’t an Avatar with tons of bonuses, it would be super dead.

The system’s word for what she was: Incapacitated. No actions were possible. Certain parts of her body could move, but control was negligible. Hearing was damaged — all she heard were thin, muffled noises, with a great ringing overpowering it all.

Healing. The intangible forms of Servitors were casting it, but many of the wounds were too severe to clear.

Fighting. It was still happening. They were doomed, then.

One screaming voice in her head drowned out all the others. Agonized, terrified, frantic. Its physical source was close, digging out rock and earth with knife and hand. In pain. Hand bloodied. More strength than it was entitled to. The strength of the hysterical.

Finally, she sussed it out, was able to focus on it with prodigious effort. Azure. She was mentally yelling. “Samantha! Please! Talk to me! Please, Goddess!”

“Hrnaugh…” Sammy tried to say something. She forgot what immediately. It would come back to her.

Relief like water in the desert. “Keep talking, Samantha. I’m getting you out!” She could feel the reverberations, the stones in front of her, the mild relief of pressure. And the straining of Azure’s body, screaming to move likeliest the heaviest object she ever had in her life.

“Fight?” That was all Sammy could come up with. But things were starting to clear…

“Yes… two are dead… more golems materialized…”

“No…” They were her Followers. She couldn’t let them die. She had to do something.

Suddenly, glaring light beamed on her face through a hole. It didn’t blind her at all. It was wonderful.

“I see it! Light!” Samantha exclaimed in Azure’s head.

A sudden surge of hope answered her. “I’ll dig you out!”

As realization and awareness rapidly returned, Sammy suddenly felt the panic of being crushed and pinned under rock. While she wasn’t claustrophobic exactly, the situation was a little worse than merely being trapped.

A bloodied hand dug out the little hole wider. Then it reached in toward her.

“I’m here, Samantha! I’m here.”

She needed that hand. It was freedom, it was safety. Salvation.

With a momentous effort of will, Sammy shifted and twisted and squirmed herself to get her arm moving through the rock. To take the hand offered. She pushed and pushed, and Azure reached as far as she could, obviously sobbing on the other side. Wanting to touch her goddess, wanting to console her somehow.

With one last great effort, Sammy got her hand there. Their hands touched…

… and then their fingers interlaced.

It was a drop of water in a pond; it was two worlds colliding. Two… universes of experience… interfacing. Far more than flesh touched.

The Fortuneteller cackled in glee for one joyous, mad moment. ‘Finally.’

Two vast and eternal entities entwined, Fate making a knot echoing through reality. Samantha looked into the eyes of another being, Hers Forever — like many, but More Than — yet in her form and contours was Herself reflecting back in a million gleaming facets.

The Chameleon of her Light. And within was the soul of The Lover of Fate — her balancer, her harmonizer. Between them was a grand Union.

‘What is the Day without the Sky?’ The echo of the word dripped with passion so strong as to be painful in her head. Regret and a sad pride channeling into hope.

‘A barren and lifeless void over the dust. All Light — to have meaning — must Reflect.’

On that last echoed word, The Lover’s reflective eyes that held Samantha within them flashed, seemed to Open… and draw her in. An all-encompassing vision took over.

✦•············•✦•···········•✦

Innogen, Goddess of Fate on the world of Detokallene, stood atop the principle tower of her fortress with her lover Blue, and looked out at the approaching vast horde on the horizon. She felt nothing but pity for them. The cannon fodder of the First Minister’s final march to destroy her greatest alcove of Followers. The seeming marshaling of her comeback after a long, self-imposed exile.

Little did he know — hopefully — she’d carefully cultivated it all to draw him. This sort of battle wasn’t one he’d leave to his peons. She’d killed all his other Ministers decades ago, during her revenge rampage. There was only one he could trust with this: himself.

She had a special plan for him. One so special, she’d had the details wiped from her surface thoughts, triggered to return upon the right omen and moment. Whatever it was, it was worth the trouble. It held within it hope for the future. Not that reality iteration… Detokallene’s universe… which was doomed. The next time. The next chance, at whatever it was. Their resolution.

‘Defeating him and surviving. The right mix of components necessary to do so.’

She’d already failed that. Multiple components were dead and spun out to the next iteration, her own duel lost. Mostly, anyway. She’d dealt her share, but he’d lodged his Godkiller in her mind in the end. She fell for his elaborate tricks — his layers and layers of contingencies. All thanks to her hubris, she was irrevocably tainted.

It was doing its foul work already. She could feel it always, slowly growing and stretching tendrils in her mind, inching deeper with every little weakness. The only thing that could stop it was within her, and it had been corrupted through the bomb’s first work.

At least she abandoned her hubris enough to flee. In the time since, through the Hall of-

The memory zipped ahead in a brief flash, as though a part were cut out.

-finally turned to Blue and gave a weak smile. Squeezed the hand she was holding, fingers interlaced. Her good hand, her ‘real’ one. The other had been ruined along with the arm, permanently unhealable in that Avatar, just as half her body had been.

She’d filled it all with multiple ablative layers of hard light constructs. Prosthetics. She couldn’t give up the Avatar. Too many investments. Key maxed resistances. Far more valuable and costly than mere physical matter. But the First Minister had punished her for it with the damage. Perhaps he’d try some custom dispelling/unraveling of the constructs en masse. She wasn’t sure.

‘His specialty isn’t [Death] or [Shadow] alone. That would be one thing. It’s Entropy…’

Blue was as beautiful as ever as she returned the smile, high winds blowing her white hair and her golden dress, every inch of her perfection from her pointed ears down to her stylish boots. Unlike Innogen, she’d need no armor in the battle. Her skin would become nigh unbreakable crystal. Who and what she was.

Innogen sighed longingly. She’d rather live a few more days with her. Decadent indulgence. Bliss. But hope was calling. It was her duty to answer. She’d already had more share than she deserved — of happiness — and soon they’d have to worry about her sanity. “Blue, tell me I must massacre these people. If you tell me I shouldn’t, I won’t.”

“We must, Sunshine,” Blue answered, nodding sagely. Calm as a forest pool. “Soldiers. They come to kill you, me, and our friends. What we conspire, we conspire for the wretched soul of our enemy. If it works, perhaps more of our people live. Perhaps peace can still persist. We must draw him out, regardless. He knows we’ll expend resources on them. We don’t want him to be too cautious.”

Innogen had to smile again, at her lover’s optimism. And she had a sudden epiphany about her plan, one she wasn’t sure she wanted to have. She knew it was through the bomb in her head. She was going to use it against him.

‘The Law of Sympathy. A door of correspondence through that, to him. Yes… a weakness exploited for a strength. Oh, what the cost will be… but no matter. I knew I’d die today.’

Casting it from her mind, she looked back to the army approaching. It was time for the first stroke. “Are you ready, Blue?”

‘Would that I had the right pieces in play. Would that she not have to be this for me, now. I’d spare my jewel such a stain… such a price.’

“Your will is mine, Your Majesty. Always.”

They lifted their entwined hands up, and a tremendous, terrible power channeled from Innogen through Blue — through The Chameleon, through her Reflector, her Magnifier, her Prism, her Translator. Sometimes… when absolutely necessary… her Weapon.

Out arced the threads of Fate across the distance, concentrated tangles from the Goddess flowing through The Lover and made into endless branching lines of doom. They found and touched thousands of lives — the lives of soldiers — and they shredded their connections to existence like cheesecloth.

Removal.

Minds, souls, and bodies evaporated into nothing without a scream; without a sound but for the fall of armor and weapons. It was like the touch of a feather, and each one would move on in the cycle, of course. There would be no undead raising. That was key.

‘I’m so, so sorry. May it serve the purposed end. May I be cursed for my sins, if only the rest are freed.’

✦•············•✦•···········•✦

The Fortuneteller’s voice echoed very tangibly in her head, “For the unlocked memories, Fate has granted you 5 [Goddess] exp, the Special Skill [Sympathetic Targeting], and the Powers [Removal] and [Channel Domain (Fate)]. Won’t that come in handy?

". . ."

Right on the heels of this, as she bewilderingly came back to reality, she felt a change arcing through her body.

======================================================

Perfect Reflection: Restoration has been used on you by User Azure. You are fully healed. Your armor is undamaged.

======================================================

It was nearly instantaneous, happening in a flash of light, and felt a lot like being ‘reset’ to an earlier time. Her brain came out of the fog rather explosively.

Many were yelling encouragement and support, begging her to wake, all directly into her head. She sent to them all, “I’m back. Stay alive!”

Azure was crying in relief, overcome with joy that she was back. There was an underlying shock, too, because she had changed as well. The memories… she’d been there along with Sammy from the other side. She’d absorbed them.

Samantha was aware of some of Azure’s changes. Namely, touching her was like interfacing with both a mirror and a living relic. She didn’t need to look — line of sight was far more crude than touching a relic.

She was also… it was hard to put into words. Something different. But she didn’t have time to ponder over every intricacy right then. Shit was happening and she was needed.

The first thing she did was get the hell out of the hole by Mirror Walking through Azure, and popping into the open air next to her.

Azure glomped on her immediately, and Sammy wrapped one arm around her back as she surveyed the scene at play over the top of her Blueberry’s head. She needed to be all business until she found out how to resolve the conflict.

The giant golem was rampaging against her Followers using its own arm as a club. Her people had done an admirable job of not dying. Tashome had been squashed unconscious, and should have been dead — had been left for it — but that was his [Death Defiance] at work, she was sure.

Canmore was miraculously still up, running around bloodied and avoiding his powerful, angry foe. Obviously, they had led the giant away from the body of their goddess. Dart was still harassing from the air, but all the other Faerie Dragons had been downed, sacrificing their bodies to keep their mortals alive. She was proud of them.

Orswyth and Galynth were riding hard through the city… in their own chase scene, essentially, pursued by super-fast golems.

I have to do something…

When she looked at the giant golem, she felt a strong, strange familiarity. Established Sympathy, from their fighting, from ‘it’ having its own over the inn, over everyone with that accursed dust that had been used to target them.

It wasn’t Sympathy with the golem, but someone piloting the golem from somewhere else.

Sammy grimaced. Hatred, in part. But also, in getting an instinct for what she was about to do. What she had to do while knowing there would be… a price.

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Comment: Jeeves was right about the helping hand, wasn't he? Muhuhahaha (Vol 2, Chapter 42). Lots of pieces come together, but of course the questions remain legion. Layers of the onion! On to the next. ;-)

'What is the Day without the Sky?' - this one absolutely is stuck in my head. I keep hearing this deific voice like in a movie or something. I blame the game Planescape: Torment. Dak'kon would always be epic in the middle of battles saying shit like 'There Cannot Be Two Skies' while dropping a spell. :P