20 – Old trees

The dark figure didn’t move. Its rags undulated in the frigid wind of the cavern, the scant light seemingly vanishing upon touching the black cloth that covered the figure.

“You are back…” the words echoed from a remote corner of the icy cave, reflected on the deep blue surfaces.

“What do you mean I am back?” Ishrin yelled through the sound of wind. “Who are you?”

“You return,” the shape said, hissing. “To once more challenge our… destiny…”

Liù became agitated, and beside Ishrin his two companions also felt uneasy. They exchanged looks.

“I have never been here before.” Ishrin answered the question that was hanging in the air between them, unsaid.

“How does it know you?” Melina whispered.

“How do you know me?” Ishrin asked the ragged figure.

But the thing didn’t answer, instead contorting into an abominable shape of limbs and bones, twisting on itself with its hands making circular motions in the air. Even through the magically saturate air, Ishrin could see that something was building up, energies were moving and accumulating with each turn of those black limbs. A bolt of energy, terribly strong and blinding shot out from the monstrous figure. It cut through the air, ionizing it with its crackling energy, radiating heat and power that melted the ice below where it flew, aimed at Ishrin.

Then it stopped. Ishrin held his hand aloft, and the bolt was frozen in the air, standing still. It was still shaped like it was as it sped towards the party, its head like a meteor large and thick and its tail sleek and crackling, but it didn’t move. Well, beside some shaking, in unison with Ishrin’s hand. He was gritting his teeth and sweating as he concentrated on keeping the bolt from resuming its path. Then with a swiping motion he deflected it, and the magic hit one of the walls and exploded, sending shards of ice and rock flying in all directions, and tremors shook the whole mountain.

The two other members of the party disappeared, dashing towards the tall figure that once again was standing hunched yet imposing under the monolith. Meanwhile Ishrin reached and grabbed, using his mind, the topmost part of the monolith and pulled it towards him. The ice strained and groaned, and large cracks began to spread through it, like a spiderweb of thin clear lines of fracture.

Liù lit up.

Melina left the state of fugue-like speed and found herself gasping for air. Her lightning quick dash was arrested in the blink of an eye, and a dark hand was suddenly tightened around her throat, blocking the flow of blood to her brain. In a matter of moments, she felt her head grow light, and she vaguely saw a shape come to her rescue while a small nova of light was coming to life in the distance. The cavern was plunged in shadows, long and black as the new source of light grew more and more bright. Then the grip of the hand lessened, and she recoiled backwards, falling on her back until her reactive armor caught her fall and made her bounce back on her feet. She stabilized herself with wind magic, and vision slowly returned to color.

A severed hand was hanging from her neck, twisted, and covered in a cloth that was dark as night and reeked of plastic and burnt things, dripping an oily grey substance on her leather armor. Lisette on the other side of the screeching creature was keeping the thing busy with her blades, severing appendages and limbs that grew back as soon as they were cut. On the ground the tangle of discarded body parts was forming piles that dissolved into a black sludge.

Melina shook her head. She saw at the far end of the frozen lake Ishrin struggling with his arms outstretched, and following his gaze she noticed the cracks in the ice on the monolith. She then bent her eyes to the nova, spotting Liù.

“Lisette!” she called out. “Plan Ish-4 finisher!”

Lisette grunted approval and dashed towards the monster, attacking it with renewed zeal. Melina too began to attack, weaving wind blades and melee dashes while shrouded in a storm of green that shredded the flesh of the monster that even now tried to grab her and stop her. Her reactive armor seemed to have no effect in stopping its limbs, and thus she had to spend a great deal of focus on dodging or severing the hands that tried to reach her rather than attacking. Lisette was doing the same.

But this was the plan all along. Melina surveyed the battlefield with a lightning quick turn of her head.

“3 seconds!”

Then, without waiting, she dashed in. At the same moment, Lisette too dashed towards the monster, arriving only a fraction of a second later. There was a clang of blades, the hissing of the monster and then… a blinding light. Melina and Lisette reappeared beside Ishrin, who was barely visible with the small nova that was Liù hanging in the air in front of him. From her chest and her outstretched hands, a beam of light powerful and terrible, much more than even the bolt of magic that threatened to destroy them, shot out towards the monolith. The monster was like a singular point of darkness amid the light, shrinking ever more as the beam overpowered it. Then, right as the pixie collapsed on Ishrin’s shoulder and slumped with her head against his neck, he pulled with all his might and the cracks that had spread through the monolith finally gave in. Several tons of ice, rock and severed machinery collapsed on top of what was left of the shadowy creature.

When the dust settled, silence was all that was left. The light below the monolith, that now hung severed and barely half as tall and wide, was dead. The hum of machines gone.

“Is it over?” Melina asked.

Lisette was already surveying the mountain of rubble, digging through the rocks. “I think so, yes.” She said.

A soft hum. The trio snapped towards the central room almost in unison. Below the remains of the monolith was a square of four pillars carved out of granite, covered in ice. A faint light was crawling from underneath them, lighting them, following the lines that intersected and crossed on their surface, only to vanish at the top. Like water dropping down, except it went up. As the light gradually grew stronger, so did the hum of the machines that were coming back to life.

“We need to go.” Melina said.

“Agreed.” Replied Ishrin. “I think all we accomplished was slow it down. But it will be back. Let’s get out of here.”

***

“What was that room?”

Ishrin shrugged. “I think it was a gathering chamber. The beam of energy going up to the ceiling is probably what powers the rest of the mountain.” He said.

“Then… we need to destroy it!”

“Can’t.” Ishrin said.

“Why not.” Said Lisette.

“I’ve taken a good look at the monolith before we left. It was already almost as big as it was before we took it down.” Ishrin said.

“Wait… does this mean that—”

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“The mountain can heal, yes. At least, some parts of it can.”

The party rested at a small fire they set up in a room dug in the side of the corridor. This side of the mountain seemed to be more natural, with rock instead of ice covering the walls, and the temperature was higher. It was dimly lit, dry and, most importantly, sloping upwards.

“What’s the plan?” Melina asked.

“You tell us, boss.” Ishrin said, smirking.

“You and that attitude… come on. You know what I mean. This last fight was already hard enough, and I get this feeling that it’s only going to get worse from now on.”

“I did not think of the last fight as hard.” Lisette said.

Melina looked at her. “Excuse me? I got almost strangled to death back there. I didn’t even see the thing move to intercept me!”

“You did.” Lisette said. “However, I did manage to rescue you without much difficulty. The monster was fast and could regenerate, but it was not strong.”

“Ishrin, help me out. Please?” Melina said.

“I don’t know…” Ishrin smiled. “I thought that fight was a very good warmup, if anything.”

“Warmup?”

“Yeah! I mean, I didn’t even need to use my whole standard arsenal yet! The Pebble Sword is gathering dust, you know?” he said.

“But then what? What if we meet a monster that requires us to use all we have to take it down?”

“Then we finally start improving!” Ishrin said, getting up and pacing around. “It’s no good to fight easy fights, you know? You said that yourself, I think. Beside that minor hiccup where you got grabbed, everything went smoothly back there! There was a plan, a formation to execute, and we did so without difficulty. That’s nice and all, but not challenging enough to actually grow. This is good to polish our skills, not to improve them.”

Melina looked at the fire for a few moments.

“No, you’re right. I got spooked when I got grabbed. That’s on me. I should use that mistake as a leaning opportunity instead.”

Ishrin gave Melina a thumbs up.

“That is indeed a great learning opportunity.” Lisette said, then she too gave Melina a stiff thumbs up.

“Now,” Ishrin said. “You don’t get to ask us what the plan is. If I wanted to be the leader, I would have been. Nope. I get to be the airhead, while you do all the responsible adult stuff. How about it?”

“Fine. I can take suggestions, though.” Melina said.

“Yeah, of course.” Ishrin said. “The plan is always the same, for now. We keep going up until we find whatever this ‘lost spawn’ we are supposed to retrieve is. There’s only one way up for now. This makes it easy.”

“Before we go…” Lisette said. “I am troubled by the words spoken by the creature. Do you think they might be important to keep in mind?”

Ishrin blinked. “…Maybe?”

***

I found Lisette’s stare unbearable. Usually, it wouldn’t have been. Hell, not even the stare of a god could move me. And it’s not like I was not in my prime anymore, nothing like that. Having an indomitable spirit is not something that can be eroded by a temporary loss of power. No.

But the more I looked into her eyes the more I found myself thinking about those words the monster said. And I didn’t want to. I knew where my thoughts would go if I did, very much in the same direction that they went right before that bolt of magic shook me out of them and brought me back to the present. My gaze went to Liù, still snoozing on my shoulder, strapped to my armor.

It was clear that the monster was connected to the consciousness of the mountain. Technological consciousnesses, like the mountain’s, don’t forget. What did it see in me that reminded it of something from its past? There were many possibilities, yet one was chief among all. The Hero, the Third Hero or whatever who had sealed the mountain in this realm and damaged its exterior beyond repair. Willow was her name.

A conversation I had with my pixie a few days ago came to my mind. We were still in Noctis, at the inn. The sun was shining through the gaps in the wooden boards of the windows, and it had woken me up earlier than usual. I turned around and saw the little ethereal body of my summoned pixie as she slept peacefully, all curled up against my hip in a depression in the mattress. She had her own little bedsheets, yet she had tossed them to the side and was leaning towards me in search of heat.

“Do you know what your name means in my tongue, Liù?” I asked her, softly as not to wake her up.

“It means Willow. Like the tree.” I said. “Like that beautiful tree that grows on the side of the green rivers, and on the shore of the blue lakes. The tree that weeps but is never sad. The tree with drooping, bright thin branches. Full of leaves and life. My favorite tree. The Weeping Willow Tree.”

I chased the memory of that conversation out of my conscious mind. Because now it triggered many other memories, more painful. Memories that maybe, maybe I wanted to be able to put behind me, or at least not think about for a little while.

This damned mountain.

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