Gate of Wisdom

District of Guidance, Fifth Ring

Annabelle eyed up her loved one with concern. Tharia had gone back to her happy demeanor. She somehow managed to keep a spring in her step that made her forget about the business that had happened with her back. The smile was just the thing Annabelle needed any time of the day but underneath it all, she sensed a deep sadness.

Her behavior was a stark contrast with their surroundings. Row after row, the houses had a thick grime of dust on them. It had baked into a thick crust once the rain stopped and the sun came up. The morning after the false star had even scared of the monsters. They saw the occasional monstrous muzzle, snout, maw and other unspeakable things lurking in the dark. Yet it felt like a cease-fire. No one walked out onto the grey roads, nothing alive ventured between the grey facades. There were no birds to welcome the morning, no animals to speak of, not even any other humans around. How little of them there still might be. The capital felt truly dead to Annabelle. While Tharia’s verbal barrage could be draining at times, today she found herself listening to every word.

“Talk about things that are just not meant for me. I have tried to walk with a sway of the hips once. Two breaths long and I was on the ground, cursing the... uh”, Tharia shot a glance in her direction with an apologetic grin, “praying to the gods. That reminds me, do you hate dresses because of those demonic shoes they come with? Because in that case, I get it. Who thought pushing up the heels was a smart idea?”

After yesterday night, they had opted to choose the lower gate. Just the idea of getting anywhere near that temple district had sent Tharia into shock, so they both agreed on walking the other path. With every monster scared senseless, there wasn’t much difference between either. The houses around them were hard to make out under their dust cover. Some inns, a variety of shops along the main street. The sign of an orphanage had been used in a makeshift effigy that no one had gotten to burn yet. They found clothes strewn on the street, along with toppled over market stands. Everything of value was gone, everything else had been stamped to dust of its own in the riots.

“They probably were people with a fetish for long and slender legs. Hmmm”, Tharia suddenly grinned from ear to ear. Taking this as her cue to step in, Annabelle quickly raised a hand and chuckled.

“Can you get your mind back on the road please?” Annabelle suggested.

Tharia pivoted on the spot and then shrugged her shoulders, “It's grey, smudgy and even more ugly than usual. My mind goes to silly places if I don’t give it some leeway. I just thought how odd it would be if we could build a cage around the sun. Maybe build a tower and go visit it. Three thousand steps of... that reminds me, how are you feeling? Is your breath holding up?”

Annabelle reached for her chest and nodded. She no longer was short of breath. A shiver made her refocus her attention on the road. Tharia could be dangerously infectious. The cold air was owed to the nearby gate. It reached up several dozen meters and was but the smallest part of the fortification wall. Far above their heads and just slightly to the side, she saw the curve of the temple bridge. Standing below it and gazing up the wall made it clear just how large this structure really was. Yet many marks in the stone itself told stories about how often the wall had been attacked in its prime.

“So this is a war-time wall? Quite the difference. I think the outer wall could fit in four or five times and still not reach up to the top. Why do you think they build them this high? It doesn’t make sense. No siege weaponry could reach across the outer wall already, so why?”

The gate itself stood ajar but one of the massive chains of the mechanism blocked the path. Each link of it was easily seven meters tall and made out of metal. Annabelle rested her hand against it. Her cursory attempts to push the chain aside were met with failure. She hadn’t really expected it to work anyways. Tharia was still going on about the walls in the background.

“I wish I had read more about these things. Why are there arcane runes on a wall of this era? The arts have fallen out of favor centuries ago, besides these are just wrong. See that O shaped Symbol? It should have jagged edges, not rounded ones”

Annabelle turned her head towards Tharia, “Why do you know these things?”

“Passing interest?” the small woman said and shrugged her shoulders, “I’ve had too much time on my hands as a child. It’s not like anyone has the aptitude anymore, so it’s just conjecture anyway. So, we’re stuck now, aren’t we?”

The goddess returned her attention to the chain. She ran her hand along the metal, looking for grooves she could use to climb but despite being out in the open for perhaps centuries, it was still in decent condition. Safe for the end that had been gnawed off. Annabelle held her hand to the side and willed the Scythe into existence. Golden light gathered into the shape of the wooden handle, and then the blade. She stepped back and then put a foot forth. Assuming a basic combat stance, she then quickly stepped forward and used the momentum to slash her scythe from above at the same time. She had aimed the bladed part at the metal and as expected, the weapon just bounced off. It hadn’t even left a mark.

“I could kick myself for leaving the rope with the other Rucksack. You know, I tried looting it from the House of the Inspired but there were too many mad hybrids there. What else can we do... can you try summoning your weapon into it? I’ve seen you do it a few times”

Annabelle nodded and let the Scythe go with a simple wish. She then held it out in front and once more recalled the weapon into existence. The golden light poured into the chain and with a delayed effect, it appeared directly inside of the massive bulbs of metal.

“It’s stuck”

“Of course it is. Unsummon it please”, Tharia said and moved closer to her. When the golden light flaked away, they saw a hole inside the chain. Still, she would need to do this many hundred times just to cut through it.

“Good start. Have you ever tried moving it while bringing it out?”

Annabelle narrowed her eyebrows. She hadn’t. There was little control over the light, it simply appeared when she willed the tool into existence. It was worth a try, however. This time, she moved her hands as if she were executing a swing and manifested the weapon mid-movement. The golden light followed and until it came into existence completely, the light simply cut a swath through the chain like it was. Yet even with that, they would need hours to cut through it.

Tharia suddenly wrapped her arms around Annabelle and held her cheek up towards her. She pointed at it.

“Kiss me!”

Not one to deny the invitation, she leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on the cheek. And following a sudden impulse, she placed another one on the neck too. Only then did it occur to her, that this was a rather odd turn of events.

“Any particular reason?” Annabelle asked afterward.

“Because I’m a genius, silly. There’s no need to cut all of it. We cut in regular intervals until we can just more or less climb up. Like a ladder”

In retrospect, it seemed simple and obvious. Annabelle went about creating a variety of stepping grooves using the blade of the scythe. She still had to do a lot of weapon summoning and after about an hour, she noticed fine sweat on her skin. The difficult part was making the grooves large enough to step in, so she had to do many smaller cuts right next to each other. At some point, she started using the already made grooves to get further up. It was tiring but it worked.

Getting over it proved easy now, albeit it also ended up demeaning for Tharia. Her lower half didn’t quite agree with the large leg movements necessary to climb. After she fell down twice, because the pain got too strong, they started to use a system where Annabelle had to pull her up to the next groove. Going like this was dreadfully slow but it was only seven meters in the end. They repeated a variant of the process on the other side and had all in all lost about two hours for a blasted piece of chain. Half-way through it had become a matter of principle. Sure they could walk back and go through the other gate – but that would mean losing to a damned piece of metal.

Once they were down on the other side, they made their way inside. The difference to the temple district above was glaring. The passage was littered with cages hanging from the ceiling. Skeletons sat inside those cages and Annabelle had a sneaking suspicion they had died of hunger when the city fell.

“Everyone for themselves”, Tharia said.

There was no need to react. Annabelle thought it a fitting statement for their surroundings. The passage itself was maybe fifty meters in length and the way was clear. With the cages dangling above, it took her a while to notice that it was strange how much light there was. She searched her surroundings until she found patches of white light growing on the wall. Tharia had noticed them too and moved closer until she was about two meters away from them.

“Fungus. It’s a sort of Funghi from what I can tell. It’s hard to see really but I’m not about to rub my nose into it. Right? Only idiots would push their face into something potentially dangerous they’ve never seen before. Glowing mushrooms. Sure, why not”

Closer to the massive second gate, more of the mushrooms had grown. They formed a cover on the floor, the walls. The air had a weird scent, it was somewhat sweet mixed with a touch of seawater – even though that combination made no sense. Especially the seawater part this deep inland.

“We probably shouldn’t be inhaling this”, Tharia said and then placed down her bag. She reached for the bandages and then tore off a lengthy piece of them, one for Annabelle and one for herself. Annabelle quickly wrapped it around her mouth and nose and saw Tharia do the same. This quickly proved a smart idea as they had taken but a few steps when Tharia suddenly made a weird sound. She pointed directly at Annabelle’s chest. The goddess looked down and saw that her clothes had started to give off a subtle glow where colonies of spores clung to.

“Let’s hope there aren’t too many of those”, Tharia’s voice came muffled through the bandage. More of their clothes had started to glow on their own. There was something absurd about how they both looked like walking lanterns now. Something of her amusement must have shown on her face since Tharia raised a finger – it too was covered in glowing spores.

“Is this funny to you?”

“Yes”

“Good, it’s funny to me too”, Tharia said and winked at her. They proceeded towards the gate at the end. This one still had all chains attached but white mold had started to grow through the cracks. Annabelle moved towards the massive lever construction that would move the gate when Tharia suddenly put a hand on her shoulder.

“Before we proceed, let’s make sure we can deal with the spores”, she said. Holding up her hand, it was now covered entirely in the white light. It was a subtle glow but the sheer amount of it made it difficult to look at either way. First Tharia started to brush off the spores. This had middling success. Mostly, the spores just got everywhere else but at least they could be brushed off. Annabelle then felt the spark within Tharia start to grow erratic. It buzzed about for a few breaths before calming down again.

“Some of it already got inside of us. This stuff is dangerous but I think I can out-heal the damage for us both. We really shouldn’t be inhaling a lot of it however and perhaps prevent skin contact as much as possible”

Next, she saw Tharia pour some of their precious water on her hands. This helped wonders in getting the spores off her skin. Tharia then quickly wrapped bandages around her hands until not one bit of skin could be seen. Annabelle examined her own leather gloves, in that regard, she had been lucky.

“I’ve got no idea what this stuff does. It’s probably not the greatest idea to proceed but it’s not like we have any other choice. My brother is somewhere deeper in the city and you will need to find the Dreamreaper soon. Let’s just be careful”

Annabelle felt her lips sneak a smile. It was an odd feeling to have the muscles move that way but the warmth inside her chest and the accelerated pace of her heart, whenever she looked at her little fairy, were pleasant sensations. It’s true, somewhere along the way her friend had become a dependable ally. It was a far cry from the frail girl that had forced herself into her company at the beginning. These days felt like ages ago, yet they were but a few weeks in the past. Annabelle shook her head and finally activated the gate mechanism.

Loud rumbling thundered through the passage as ancient mechanisms clanked into place. The huge gate started to swing open when Tharia suddenly let out a groan.

“These gates make no bloody sense. Why would the mechanism be on this side? Congratulations invaders, you’ve bested the outer gate, so here is the key to the inner? Which idiot build this? Maybe it was retrofitted”

More metalling clanking and thumping came from underneath their feet. It felt like titans woken from their slumber to continue an ancient task most menial: To pull a chain. With loud creaking, the Gate finally swung open enough to allow a view into the fourth ring. A bright blinding light made it impossible to see anything. Annabelle held a hand in front of her face and squinted through her fingers. It took a while for her eyes to adjust. When they stepped through and into the fourth district, it was like they entered a different world.

Sure there were still the usual houses. These had a mixture of styles, some were painted with images, others had buttresses, others offered roofs made of reed and all of this blended together to make for one chaotic entrance to the fourth. Other than that, everything was wrong. A massive lake had formed in the lower parts of the ring. Mushrooms almost as large as the fortification wall towered above the houses. It was an odd sensation to look at them as they too glowed – but the sources of light were in motion. A patch of white light ran down a huge mushroom, only to be followed by a purple patch of light.

The centerpiece to the weirdness was a dead creature. This beast had been ginormous in life. All that remained was a decaying corpse and an outstretched wing several kilometers long. In theory and practice, the wing completely blocked out the sun, but the glowing mushrooms had taken up the task to shine a merciless light on the part of the fourth ring they could see.

“It looks like a sort of dragon. Well, maybe not with the hundred legs this thing has. But otherwise, a slightly reptilian muzzle, huge wings and a thick body. The way it died, I bet the tail took out most of the third fortification wall”

Annabelle let her gaze wander along the full length of the beast, it took entirely too long. Nothing should be this absurdly large. While the spread out wing was the largest part of it, the main body still blocked out large paces of land. An endless stream of spores rained out of dried up wounds larger than houses. The two girls paced deeper into the strange place. With the number of spores in the air, everything glittered in odd and constantly moving waves of light.

“This is doing my head in”, Tharia said and not even the cloth covering her mouth could hide the frown. Annabelle gently patted a hand on her back. A cloud of particles ejected from her friend, leaving behind a Tharia shaped impression in the air. This time Annabelle really couldn’t help it. She started laughing.

“Annie? Are you alright?” Tharia asked with a look of confused concern.

“I’m fine”, Annabelle said inbetween yelping for air and the laughing.

“You sure? Are you making fun of me?” Tharia asked with her head leaned to the side. Despite the bandage, it was obvious she had pushed her lower lip forward in a cute pout. This made Annabelle’s laughing fit so much worse. Tharia was right: The pout changed everything.

Kraftsmin Road

District of Artisans, Fourth ring

For Annabelle, the Mushrooms had already outlived their novelty and now got on her nerves. A few minutes down the road and a regular forest of these things had started to grow on the houses to either side. Thin strands of something organic connected both sides and proved surprisingly hard. She had to use a lot of strength just to cut through with her scythe. Tharia too gave her best with her long axe but she had been tired out after a few swings already.

Worst of all, she felt the spores creep underneath her clothes. They slipped into every place they could find and worked their way onto her skin, where they started to itch with a fierce vengeance. A strange sound made her stop. Something rumbled nearby and suddenly bounced into view with ludicrous speed. It looked roughly like a large wolf, maybe two meters in height, that was covered head to toe in glow mushrooms with the stuff growing out in odd angles. The beast shot them a passing glance and then smashed straight through the next house. Not even one breath later, something else rushed past it.

This thing Annabelle hadn’t seen properly, it was just a black blur that buzzed by far too fast. A loud yowl marked the wolf's end. Shadowy limbs tore out gibs and pieces and send them flying in every direction. The goddess waved a hand towards Tharia and her little fairy nodded. She quickly closed up and together, they quietly made their way forward. This time around, they had moved to the side of the road and stuck to the few shadows left. The cover of mushrooms soaked up any step they could make. For a while, the gruesome sounds of the nearby feast sparked the imagination. Annabelle saw the glint of water in the not that far distance. A sidearm of the massive lake had flooded the houses up to their first level not too far ahead.

Yet no matter how silent they thought they were, Annabelle suddenly became aware of being watched. A pair of flat eyes looked directly at her from a wall. It was just a painting. Except this one suddenly moved. As if struggling to break free from its bounds, the thing jumped out of the image. This beast was a mixture of a massive chicken with long claws and a serpentine tail. It looked at Annabelle and suddenly charged. Annabelle dodged sideways and felt the impact of wind push her aside.

The weird bird creature smashed into the wall of another building, yet strangely did no damage to it, safe for a splotch of color. Even more curious, it had left traces of actual ink in its path. Something shapeless slithered along the wall until it found another painting. This one showed a reptile through and through, a lizard about a meter in size. Like before, the thing struggled with the wall as if it was bound and then suddenly broke free. This time around, it wore the painting of the lizard. It moved with purpose but luckily none of the speed from before.

She saw Tharia point her pistol at it, yet her friend was hesitant. Annabelle understood why. One loud sound and whatever else was nearby would come snacking. So it was up to her. She grabbed the Scythe in her left and then brought out one of the war-fans. Annabelle left it closed and started swinging it like a morning star. Woosh, woosh. The lizard dripped ink with each step, it carefully observed the war-fan, ready for its attack. This is what Annabelle had counted on. She let go of the war-fan and it took off in a wide arc. The lizard lept after it by instinct, before it realized it had been fooled. Annabelle was already on the attack. One step forward, stable stance. She opted for a wide sideways slash for which she grabbed the weapon with both hands.

The blade cut straight through the lizard as if it was made out of paper. Momentarily, she saw a black pearl at its core but then the thing simply disappeared in a splotch of ink on the mushroom covered ground. Like before, a formless shape slithered back and forth.

“The water”, Tharia suddenly said, “Neither spore nor monster goes near the water”

That either meant it was even more dangerous or that the beasts couldn’t stand it. Annabelle had to make a decision and she had to make it fast.

“Water”, she said.

They both took off towards the water with the shapeless thing in pursuit. Then the thing was gone. When next they saw it, it wielded the painting of a giant in heavy armor. With steps heavy enough to send tremors through the ground, it gave pursuit. It looked cumbersome and slow but due to the sheer size, it quickly gained on the two women. She shot a look to her side and saw that not that far away, the strange shadowy creature was still tearing into the wolf.

While running, Annabelle brought out another war-fan and then came to a skittering stop, she used it as a sling, only letting go once it had sufficient speed. The fan darted off towards the giant but missed by more than an arm’s length. The goddess was already running again. Just a few more meters. Hopefully, the water really was a sanctuary from the beasts.

Yet before they got there, the giant had closed in on them. Annabelle whirled around and looked up at the monstrosity. Up close, it was a really odd sight. Like a painting, it had contours with thick lines on the body, yet the presence was quite real. There was no possible way to block or parry something this large. She tried to buy time for Tharia by making herself an obstacle. She constantly stayed in motion, a step here, a dash there. Two loud thunders suddenly tore apart the head of the inky giant, just as it was about to smash a fist into the ground. The fist came either way. Annabelle tried to jump back and narrowly dodged the fist, yet the sheer wind pressure sent her flying.

She made contact with the ground just a few steps away from Tharia. A dull pain throbbed inside the goddesses body, some of which was from the day before. She didn’t know how she got them, that black light Tharia mentioned must have done something with her memory. Annabelle looked at her fairy and then snapped.

“Are you insane? The noise will draw even more!”

Annabelle was right about that. A large creature with a fur that was pitch-black and oddly free of spores smashed straight into the giant. While the earlier shot had weakened it, the black furred beast turned it into a mist of colors. The new creature looked like an oversized ape with horns on the head and ridges along the four arms. There was still blood from when it had torn apart the wolf-like thing. One of the four arms suddenly shot forwards and snatched a small marble out of the air. Something crunched and just like that, the remaining paint slushed to the ground, leaving behind a giant shaped smudge.

With that, it changed attention towards Tharia an Annabelle. The water was close-by now. This was all or nothing. She got back onto her legs and darted off towards the edge of the water. A few steps away, Annabelle grabbed onto Tharia and simply dragged her along. The girl would never be fast enough on her own. She saw the pain this brought her friend and pushed aside the feeling of guilt. This was for both of them.

Her foot touched the street where no spore dared to go and just like that, the large six-limbed monster stopped. It snarled but kept its distance. She let go of Tharia and pressed a hand against her chest. The heart thumped violently. There was little breath to go around.

“I’m sorry, luring the second beast close was a good idea”, Annabelle said, “and so was the water”

It had gotten easier to talk with Tharia around. She quite appreciated that, although she still occasionally stumbled over her own words. Annabelle looked around. The water-edge ran straight through the houses nearby. Wherever the flood had come from, it was enough to fill this part of the fourth ring to this level. She heard a splash of water behind her.

“Are you okay, little fairy?” she asked and looked over her shoulder. All the silver-haired woman saw, was a Tharia shaped mess of spores on the water surface.

"Tharia!?"

End: The domain of Ill-Luminance | Coming up: Places beneath obsidian skies