Chapter 193: Chapter 193

We spiral, falling down. The entity that I am descending from the cosmos for the second time today. But now, this time, I am the hand that clutches. My fingers grasp the dungeon-master tighter as we fall, my cape billowing behind me as we rush towards the deepest, darkest heart of the dungeon. Black-water swallows us entirely and the stale, dry air of the library slowly becomes colder, damper, denser as we fall.

 

  The plane below comes into vision, the darkness below, the wet below comes to surround us. Frost crackles on my armor as the damp air around me condenses and freezes over in an instant. The darkness shifts to a pale blue as the pit slowly comes back to my eyes, as the walls of the hole turn into a lustrous, wet ice.

 

  I bend my legs down and we land. The force sending me down to my knees. A violent crater forms in the ice where I land, cracks shooting out like lightning during a storm in all directions, splinters of frozen wet fly like shrapnel, skidding down the many corridors as flakes of fine particulate rain back down around us like freshly falling matutinal snow.

 

  “You- you!” The dungeon-master stutters, the cold of the ice reaching them. “YOU STUPID FUCK!” They clench their hair. “You’ve killed us. You’ve killed us both!” Their fingers dig in deeper as they mutter again. “You’ve killed us both. What for? What for? What was this all for?! All of these years?!”

 

My gaze turns upwards towards the ceiling and I watch as the ice grows over the hole that seems to have been formed just for us.

 

Just for me.

 

I tap my lance against the ice and it goes ‘diiiiiing.’

 

  I begin walking. “Why?! WHY?!” The dungeon-master hits me again. “WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!” They clamber out of my hands, wrapping their own hands around my spinal cord as if grabbing my neck to choke me. “WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO SO THAT YOU’LL LET THIS ALL END?!” Their eyes go wide, frenzied, rabid. The bones of my spine crack as my skull turns to face them, to face their wet gaze. The tears of which are freezing on their cheeks as the ice claws at us both.

 

  I walk, my boots ripping free from the frozen water that was starting to clench tightly onto my feet. Turning my head back forward without saying anything, I walk, I listen. I see. The dungeon-master hits me again, the echo of their strike ringing down the icy corridors, as they slowly lose steam, as their boiled over anger comes to a peak and settles, crushed under desperation and fear. The dungeon-master falls back down into the cradle of my arm and howls like a lost child at midnight.

 

  I set my lance down and, pull my cape forward, around over my shoulder and covering them with it, I bet they’re cold. Some pencils and some old paper fly to the side as I kick them away, the implements having fallen down together with us. Picking up my lance, snapping it free from the ice, I continue walking and hum my little tune. The melodiousness buzz bouncing off of the ice, the sound reverberating as if we were surrounded by a buzzing swarm of insects.

 

I tap my lance against the ice as I walk. Ding-ding-ding.

 

It's been long since coming. Since the second we started falling it sensed us. It sensed me. The thing that reaches. The thing that is coming for me, the thing that has always been after me. The thing that wants my eyes so that it can see.

 

“What do you waaaaant?!” cries the dungeon-master, resembling a child more and more every minute. Which is what they are. What they always were. Not in body, but at least in their heart of hearts.

 

But now, without the facade of the dungeon, without the pressure of a thousand eyes watching them, without the numbing of their liquor. There is nothing left but me. Nothing left but us and the ice. There is nowhere left to hide.

 

I stop and I turn to the side, listening to the sound coming in the distance. The wet slapping of something feeling against the ice. There’s not much time left until it reaches us. I hope I can find them.

 

Ding.

 

Turning to keep walking, the metal of my boots clanking, I find myself in a familiar intersection and look up towards the long since frozen minotaur.

 

  I turn left and go down the passage, down the way where I remember him being. The ice contracts, the tunnel growing tighter as we press down further. Soon, the walls begin scraping against my broad shoulders. The freezing dew grabbing hold of me like a thousand little hands, clutching me, holding me tight. I walk and the ice splinters free as we reach the end of the passage. A dead-end that wasn’t here before. My lance cracks the ice, chipping it as I stab into the barrier. I wrench my arm back and strike again, harder now. This time with more feeling, with more CONVICTION.

 

  Something sloshes in the distance, wet slaps ringing out as it strikes against the ice. My lance strikes again, the piercing sound ringing out like the crystal bell as the blade meets the regrowing ice once more. The blade of the lance piercing through the thin mucus layer of the virgin ice, reaching into the hole beyond. It’s not a metaphor, it’s just kind of squicky.

 

  Something sloshes. Something reaches from afar, down near the start of the intersection. The dungeon-master is clawing at their own head, their eyes wide and fearful as they hear it coming too. As it encroaches. As it reaches. I like that look, I like that look in their wide, fearful eyes. Even the dungeon-master is afraid of the thing that reaches. Even the dungeon-master is afraid of losing their eyes. Even the dungeon master sees what I see now. “What do you want?! What do you want?! What do you want?!” is all that they keep muttering as I lift my arm, throwing my cape to the side, as I jam the dungeon-master head first through the gap that I’ve made in the ice.

 

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A small thud is heard as they fall down on the other side, together with a flurry of surprised voices.

 

I tap my lance against the ice. ‘Ding’ as I turn back forward to face down the tunnel, my back to the hole that regrows itself shut.

 

“So you finally made it,” asks an old, tired voice belonging to a long since dead man.

 

“HOOONEEEEY-!” Cries another one next to it ecstatically.

 

“Is that the guy?! I’ll kill him!” says the voice of a human woman.

 

“Don’t be mad, they’re… troubled,” says Madison.

 

Ding.

Ding.

Ding.

 

  I grip the lance tighter, smashing the base of the shaft down against the ice as it sloshes down the tunnel, as it comes into focus. As it comes for me, its entire, wet, sloshing body filling the passage. Like a fat maggot, pressing its way into a tear-duct. It sloshes and slaps around as it comes closer, as it feels me. As it feels for my eyes. Our eyes.

 

“YOU SHIT! WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT?!” Shouts the dungeon-master from the safe-room that Nichodemus had made, just as the ice grows closed behind me, sealing us apart in two separate worlds.

 

Ding.

 

  I turn my gaze back forward, facing towards the thing that reaches, now that there is no one here but me. My lance held high in the air, my pose ready, the energy of the dungeon flowing through me. My eyes wide. My eyes see. My eyes. My eyes. My eyes. My eyes, you and me. A hand claws against my skull as my body spasms, as the lance shakes under the vibrations of my fingers.

 

Ding.

 

  It reaches and I tell the dungeon-master my deepest wish, as I lurch forward into motion, convex energies surrounding me. My cape flies wildly as if caught in a raging storm. The crystal body of the ice melting and rippling as I fly forward towards the thing that reaches, as the intestinal tract of the ice ripples in waves as I force my way through it, as the magical energies of the anti-hero’s body rip and tear through it. As I scream. As I scream. AS I SCREAM AND IT REACHES.

 

“I WANT YOU TO WATCH ME!”

 

  Time slows as I fly forward, the lining of the ice quivering as the tip of my lance drifts towards the thing that reaches. As its tendrils drift towards me. As in that time-frozen second, between us both, above, below, left, right, everywhere around us a thousand eyes open wide as we come together to converge in the center. Green eyes, red eyes, blue eyes, brown eyes, black eyes, gray eyes, eyes of every color, of every shape, of every size open up around us. Filling the ice, floating disembodied at improbable distances and yet still watching as if just next to me. Still seeing. Still seeing my CONVICTION as we meet in the middle.

 

Ding.

 

The world explodes into a blinding light, as the crystal bell rings aloud. As the anti-hero’s strike shines out.

 

 

 

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