Now is your time in paradise. All you can do is waste it.

Apex

2 Hours Later (Darkhome Time) - Cyan - Indigo Crystal Tunnel

“So, I’m at the pub, when Elm runs in. He’s in a tizzy, says gnomes are dropping in everywhere. Guys we haven’t in decades, beat to shit and confused as fuck. Which checks out, cause I ain’t seen Elm in twenty odd years and he’s all smashed up.”

We’re sitting in an alcove of purple crystal. It’s been carved into benches and a table, so it’s actually quite comfy. Maple’s explaining how he got to Darkhome while I compare Dad’s sacred text with the one I started on Helhome. Trying to fill in some blanks. It’s slow going. Maple’s a mess, so is Dad’s text, and the lighting in Darkhome is shit for bookkeeping.

“I guess they were in Lighthome and got t-boned by Wrecker’s lads. Big battle. They retreated to Lowgarden, or got beat there, or died and woke up there, or the fuck knows. Doesn’t matter. They were back and Wrecker’s bastards were right behind them.”

Honestly, how the fuck are you supposed to read here? The light shining through the crystal is fairly bright, but it’s all backlight. Maple and Dad are just silhouettes across from me. The texts are black rectangles on a glowing purple table. If I lean close and squint I can make out most words, but it’s tough.

“Then we see smoke rising from over yonder at the Kindergarten. Well that won’t do. Me and the boys from the bar head over to send a clear message. But we got there too late. It was a grim scene. Blood and gore. Somehow the kiddies got a sword and a couple crossbows. Wrecker’s lads weren’t expecting that and got all dead and decapitated.”

I give reading a break. Look around. The crystal surrounding us is so clear, I can see through it for miles. Thousands of silhouettes around, above, and below us. Dark elves going about their business. Maybe an orc in there somewhere.

Moans echo up the tunnel, grunting and swearing. Sounds like battle, or sex, or worse. Nobody about seems concerned. Darkhome is a labyrinth of confusion. The crystal distorts perspective. The tunnels connect at random. The silhouettes that seem close could take months of hard travel to reach. Distant silhouettes could be right around the corner. A panopticon of madness.

Echoes travel in a similar fashion. The sounds we hear could be happening now, or they may be from weeks or months ago. Words don’t die in Darkhome. You can still sometimes hear Iggy’s infamous poetry.

“So we gather the kiddies and get to scheming. How do we kick a hole in these Wreckhole bastards? Then some big flappy lightning fuckers show up, and we’re outclassed, and we got to go.”

I strain my eyes to read Dad’s text. It’s got a copy of the first pages from my old text and a lot of our shared history. It’s painful to read, and not just because my eyes hurt. Was I naive when I wrote this? Or deluded? Why wasn’t I happy in Lowgarden? Because it wasn’t perfect? Because it wouldn’t last forever? Bah. I should have been grateful for what I had.

“We can’t outrun them in Lowgarden, and Lighthome seems like a poor choice, and nowhere else seems smart, so we end up here.” Maple shakes his head. “Or, at least I do. Must have botched the jump, cause it takes weeks for me to remember why I’m here. By then, I’m all alone, and don’t know why.”

I leaf through our shared history. Life was far from perfect, but why did I think I could fix it? I should have acknowledged my own limits. Instead, I made everything worse.

“I was just making a plan when you guys showed up. And, I guess you guys lost Copycat, so we got lots of people to find. Yeah, so how do we do that?”

I start reading about our battles with The Silence. The text becomes completely illegible as my eyes water. Fuck this, I need some light.

A spark of flame snaps from my fingers and illuminates our alcove. Maple and Dad squint and lean back. It’s not much light, but it shines brightly in this dim environment. The silhouettes around us freeze, and the tunnel starts to rumble. From deep below us, a huge shadow stirs. Growing larger, spiraling through the dark crystal. A stain of smog that stretches, and spreads, and accelerates towards us.

Presto snaps, and my spark goes out. The rumbling stops, and the dark stain slows and shrinks. “That’s probably enough light for now.” Dad turns to Maple. “As for finding people, maybe we should start a tavern? Eventually they get thirsty, and bang, we got’em.”

“I don’t think that will work in Darkhome. There’s plenty of bars here. We’re in one right now.”

“Are we?” A young dark elf sashays over and drops a round of drinks. “Oh, thank you lassie.”

She gives a flouncy nod and drops a few green glowing pebbles on my book. Hey, I can read. Wonderful.

I flip through Dad’s text. There’s a lot here, but not a lot I need. My old text was written for a different person. My history is obvious, or painful, or obsolete. It’ll come back to me or it won’t. Either way I’m not writing it all down. Can’t be arsed to even read it.

At the back of Dad’s book, I find a copy of my sister’s sacred text. It’s written in a shaky version of Dad’s handwriting. Maybe it’s not a copy. Maybe it’s Dad’s best guess.

Dear gods. What a thing to carry around. No wonder Dad’s tired. I discreetly claw the pages out. Tuck them in the back of my book. Flip to the front. Write a few lines:

Be grateful for what you have Try to help your friends You don’t know anything

I jot down a few friends and what help they may need. Good enough. I zone in on the old guy’s planning session. They’re fixing to investigate sources of resources to create a probability map of gnomic migration patterns.

“Sounds like you’re planning a pub crawl.”

“It’s not a pub crawl.” says Presto. “They can hide anywhere, but there’s a limited number of places where they can get food and drink. It makes sense to find where they’re provisioning, to narrow down our search. It’s just a coincidence that these places are pubs.”

“But you will be drinking at these pubs.”

“We don’t want to raise suspicions.”

“Good thinking. Can’t be too careful.” A pair of silhouettes blunder into our alcove. A dwarf in robes and a halfling with a glaive. “Pardon us, we overheard your dilemma, and also know how hard it is to find people. We’d like to help with your search. We’re on a pub crawl anyway.”

“Sure.” Presto shrugs. “Why not?”