Shff

Shff

Shff

Shff

Shff

Sh-thunk

"Finally," groaned Orton as he began to unearth the heavy oak chest. Scowling, he looked over at the others. "You know, I could use a little help here."

"Yeah, not so much," responded Enna, still prone and panting a few yards away. "Whatever you made me do to get us here tapped me out but good, Orton. I can barely stand up, especially after you made us hike two miles in pitch-black freezing cold AND swim across a lake. You're lucky I'm even talking to you right now."

"Okay, fine, maybe you've got a good excuse, but not so much our third party member." Orton leveled a glare at Jiann.

"Hey now, holdin' the light while some other sucker does the hard work is a time-honored tradition for the elderly." Jiann made no attempt to disguise his glee at Orton's discomfort. "'Sides, ain't like you ain't got this comin, white boy. I done enough o' your biddin' to last me a while longer, I reckon."

Orton groaned, sighed, and continued digging. "Someday, someone will appreciate me."

"Well, it probably ain't gonna be today," Jiann responded imperturbably.

"Yeah, and tomorrow's not looking good either," managed Enna with a weak grin. In spite of himself, Orton grinned back.

Eventually, the work was done -- the chest was unearthed and it only took him about nine blows to strike off the ancient lock so heavy with rust that would have probably given him tetanus to even examine it, let alone try to pick it. Satisfied, he bent down and opened the lid of the box, revealing the inner contents.

"Ahh, now we're talkin," crowed Jiann approvingly. "Ain't much worth a midnight cross-country slog, but I reckon that there will do it." Reaching into the box, he lifted the cloudy glass bottle out triumphantly.

"You'd better be careful with that," admonished Orton as he fluffed the straw that filled the rest of the box primly. "That's quite possibly the most valuable bottle of whiskey in the whole world."

Enna sat up, incredulous. "You drug us all this way for liquor?! Orton, we must have passed a dozen all-night liquor stores!!"

"Before you get too wound up," interrupted Orton placidly, "you might want to inspect the bottle's aura."

Enna blinked, then squinted, letting her eyes unfocus and her attention wander; instantly, she jerked away at the glare of explosive brightness which erupted at the edges of her vision. "Oh shit. What is it?"

"That," said Orton, with audible pride in his voice, "is the very first bottle of English whiskey ever created -- aged in a cask made from the wood of Merlin's tree, and part of a shipment bound for the king of Wales when it was stolen by brigands and buried here for later retrieval. Unfortunately, they died of the plague before they could come back to get it, so finder's keepers now." He took the bottle from Jiann and began to carefully pick at the wax seal around the cork. "Made using secret techniques from Merlin's notes, it predates whiskey elsewhere in Europe by almost three hundred years, and England didn't have aged whiskey again until the early 1800s. When I say this is legendary hooch, I'm being extremely literal." Jiann snorted, but did not object.

"How on earth did you know that was here?" protested Enna in amazement.

"Divinations. Lots of divinations. This is usually something I dig up around 2015 for a ritual, but we're well into the 'improvise or die' stage of things at this point, so here we are." Finally cracking the seal, he handed the open bottle to Enna. "One swig. Don't try for two, you'll regret it."

Enna took the bottle and brought it to her nose, and nearly gagged -- it smelled like a mixture of spinach and turpentine. "You know, every time I think I've reached the end of regretting my life choices, you one-up yourself." Closing her eyes, she took a long drink from the bottle, then immediately went into a coughing fit as the thick, tarry liquor burned its way down her esophagus. Christ, I might die, she thought miserably.

"It's cute how you think that's not going to get immeasurably worse," commented Orton breezily as he took the bottle back from her twitching hands. Downing roughly half the remaining amount and letting out a pleased sigh, he handed the mostly-empty bottle to Jiann. "Make sure you get the congealed bits at the bottom. You don't have tastebuds anymore, so they'll be easier for you to consume than for us."

Jiann raised the bottle mockingly, then emptied it down his gullet; despite his best efforts, trickles of it remained in his beard even after he'd wiped his mouth twice. "Ain't a lot of times I'm glad to be dead, Orton, but this here's one of 'em." The revenant shuddered. "Damn, I cain't even taste it, and I know that's foul."

Orton nodded, putting the glass bottle reverently back in the straw-filled box. "Yeah, it's nasty all right. But it's got more power in it than virtually anything else consumable by humans on this planet that I'm aware of right now, although it's a huge waste to just drink it rather than using it properly. But we're down to our last few cards, so we'd better play them." He began burying the box again with smooth, confident strokes of his shovel. "You should start feeling pretty amazing in a couple of seconds."

Enna, who had been flopping around in the dirt and choking rather animatedly up to this point, suddenly gasped; energy flooded her violently, filling her up to the point of bursting. It was like she'd drunk an entire gallon of Red Bull and chased it with a whole thermos of Five-Hour Energy; this must be what cocaine feels like, she thought dizzily. She wanted to do a hundred push-ups, run ten miles, and have sex all at once.

Jiann, meanwhile, was flexing and testing his joints. "Damn, Orton. I mean, damn."

Orton nodded. "It should last you a long while, too -- that's roughly the equivalent of ten years of power storage for a standard mage. Whatever your innate magic capacity storage is, it's full to the brim -- and for a revenant, I'd imagine that's quite a lot." He finished burying the box, threw the shovel into the lake, and sat down.

"Hey, how come you aren't all hopped up?" asked Enna, trying and failing to hold still as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other incessantly. "I feel like I'm about to jump out of my skin."

Orton smiled serenely, folding his limbs into a lotus position. "You could say I've had a lot of practice recently integrating my spirit and my body. I'm able to convert a lot more of the energy into pure magical power than you can right now -- your body is trying desperately to shift the overflow into metabolic energy, so you're going to want to drink a lot of water."

Enna tossed her head in irritation. "That's going to be difficult out here." She looked out over the lake's surface, squinting. "And why is it always night? Shouldn't we have seen a sunrise by now?"

Orton shook his head. "Time's funny for us at this level of Fade, unfortunately. We experience the nights as subjectively longer, and we'll get sleepy at dawn and wakeful at dusk. Before too much longer, you'll have to expend power to even go out in the sun. Time to start loving the nightlife."

"Well, I do love to boogie." Enna flopped down next to Orton, trying not to jitter. Breathe, she told herself, trying to concentrate and still her mind and body. Visualizing the glowing, swooping geometries of some thought-forms she hoped might help, she tried to channel the power into them, and was surprised when she was rewarded with a warm glow of pneuma behind her belly and a soothing, cooling sensation of energy rushing out of her.

Orton nodded approvingly. "Nice work. You picked that up quickly."

"Thanks. I had a great teacher." She stretched, smirking.

Orton blinked. "Did... did you just compliment me?"

"You? Fuck no. I meant Jiann." Her smirk widened into a mocking grin as she rocked back from him, laughing.

Jiann's croaking laughter joined in as Orton rolled his eyes and sighed. "Buncha savages in this town." But, despite himself, he found his mouth quirking up in a smile. Well, at least we can still laugh.

As her merriment subsided, Enna looked around in anticipation. "So, what's next? Another long, boring walk?"

Orton shook his head. "I wish. It's another eighty-plus miles to our next destination." He pondered. "I guess we could try to steal a car, but our chances at that aren't nearly as good in this country as they would be in America. And we'd still be out in the open a lot more than I'd like."

"You gonna teleport us, then?" asked Jiann. "I figure you're all topped up with power, now."

"I could, but..." Orton pursed his lips. "Ah, heck with it. We'll have to do this eventually anyway, and doing it now will save us some time. Come over here."

Enna and Jiann dutifully came closer; Orton pressed his left thumb against Enna's forehead and his right thumb against Jiann's, then brought both his fists together with his thumbs sticking up. Plunging both thumbs down against his palms, he snapped his index and middle fingers up into a mudra, then began to slowly pull his fists apart.

Enna gasped as a bowing, warping surge of power began to ripple outwards from between Orton's hands; it looked a bit like some manner of heat distortion, but it was as thick and palpable as a rubber sheet and seemed to peel back the substance of the air as it raced past them into the distance. At first, it seemed as though nothing had happened, but then she began to notice that the colors of everything had faintly changed; looking up, she realized why. "Um. Orton? Would you care to explain why the moon is red?"

"Because the sun is red here, and the moon reflects the light of the sun," responded Orton nonchalantly. "You'll get used to it."

"Boy, I ain't capable o' sweatin', but I would be if I could," commented Jiann with visible nervousness. "Where'n th' hell are we, exactly?"

Orton tapped his nose with his index finger. "Got it in one."

It took a moment for the others to catch on, but when they did, Enna grabbed Orton's lapels and pulled his face up against hers. Very quietly and calmly, she asked, "Orton? Am I hearing you correctly, and am therefore to understand..." -- she brought her nose into contact with his -- "...that you have literally teleported us into Hell?!"

"Well, yes and no," replied Orton placidly. "This place isn't technically Hell in the way that you're probably thinking... and, to boot, we're not really actually here. Or rather, we are, but we're also in the real world at the same time. Would you like me to explain, or are you going to bite my nose off or something?" His gaze bored back into hers without the slightest concern.

Daunted, Enna shivered a little, and released him. "Talk. Talk fast." She couldn't help but notice that Jiann was now suddenly holding a pistol, too.

Orton nodded. "To start with, this place isn't what you would call 'real' in the traditional sense. We're occupying a halfway state between the real world and a conceptual realm. This one has many names, but most of them mean 'the Forgotten Place'."

Jiann nodded, relaxing a little but still hefting his revolver. "Think I've heard o' this one. Patala, right?"

Orton nodded. "More or less. Conceptual realms aren't exactly the same as the places described in lore or religion, but there's usually some basis of truth in them -- although whether the realms come from our imaginations, or the other way around, nobody knows." He grinned.

Enna sat down heavily. "Jesus, Orton, could you maybe limit yourself to blowing my mind once per day?! In the last twenty-four hours, I've learned that I can teleport us, that we experience time weird, that Merlin was real, that we've been asleep for nine years, and now that we're in Hell, and now I have to also acknowledge that religion might be real?! What next, are you going to tell me that we have to fight God, or something?"

"Gentry's not really God, no matter how much I'm sure he'd like to lay claim to the title," Orton demurred. He patted her on the head condescendingly. "Don't worry, little apprentice. Your day isn't even remotely over." Enna groaned and clambered to her feet.

"So, what sorta trouble can we expect here?" Jiann began checking the cylinders of his guns. "Demons, I reckon?"

Orton shook his head. "Monsters, maybe -- but the spirits of the dead, definitely. This realm is where secrets go when they're lost -- including the secrets people take to their graves. It's a fantastic place to do research, but not a good place to build a summer house."

He began to walk in a direction Enna was pretty sure was south; she noticed with interest that the water in the lake they had swum across to get here was now frozen solid, despite the air being so warm that she was starting to sweat. She joined in beside him, looking around nervously. "So, where are we going, exactly? Or are we just taking a scenic constitutional through Hell for the life experience?"

"Like I said before, we're not actually here as such. Think of it more like... a shared hallucination, or something. In the real world, we're walking around and marveling at things other people can't see, which won't do us too many favors if we go near populated areas. So when you're Between like this, you generally want to stay away from civilization -- or, at least, from places where people take notice if you're acting strangely."

"Heh. So we wanna be stickin' to the bad districts, then." Jiann's face stretched in an unnaturally wide grin.

Orton nodded. "We're heading to a place called Raglan, in Wales -- not exactly a metropolis. But traveling while partially in this realm has other advantages, too -- we're not fully in the real world, so Gentry will have a hard time tracking and divining us, and we'll be moving through places that also aren't fully real, which should cut down on our travel time a bit. There are downsides, though."

"Downsides?" Enna didn't like the sound of that. "Like what?"

"Like those." Orton pointed up ahead.

What she had originally taken for a copse of windblown trees began to draw closer, and Enna jerked back in surprise; the creatures were dogs, huge dogs the size of horses, and there were nearly two dozen of them. They had massive, slavering maws full of six-inch fangs, and did not look friendly. "Um. We can defend ourselves here, right?" She stretched her hands nervously. "I don't really want to end up a hellhound's dinner if I don't have to."

"Oh, by all means. And it should go without saying that injuries you receive here are very real -- you're half in the real world, too, so your body will suffer exactly the same damage in both realms." Orton rubbed his chin contemplatively. "I've never managed to figure out exactly how the injuries get duplicated -- maybe you stab yourself on a branch in the real world, or fall into a wood chipper, or something?" He shrugged, seeming unconcerned as the giant beasts drew nearer. "I feel like it's kind of academic."

Jiann was the first to strike; when the lead hound came within fifty yards, his revolvers suddenly appeared in his hands and began to thunder mightily. The first hound took three bullets in the chest and another three to the face, but kept coming without even slowing down; Jiann had to empty both revolvers into it before finally managing to get it to drop to the dirt, panting and moaning. "Damn, but these things ain't fragile!" the revenant roared as he began reloading his firearms.

Enna stretched out a finger at another hound and gathered her power, shouting "Enkavma!" A wreath of scorching, red-orange flames engulfed the beast, but it rapidly threw itself into the dirt and rolled about; the flames were extinguished almost immediately, and the beast rose up with a baleful expression in its eyes. Enna gulped. "Shit. Uh... Orton, I really hope you have a plan."

"Hm? Well, I don't know if you could call it a plan." Orton stepped forward a little, moving about three yards in front of the others. His right hand rose up, moving back over his left shoulder and curling around apparently nothing in particular.

To Enna, what happened next was impressive as hell but somewhat difficult to understand; Orton seemed to gesture rather powerfully, drawing his empty hand sharply across to the right in a tight sweeping motion so rapid that she felt as though it all took place in the blink of an eye. For Jiann, on the other hand, it was downright unbelievable; through what limited astral senses he possessed he watched, very clearly, as Orton took hold of the platonic ideal of severance itself and swung it like a sword. The effect was clean, forceful, and instantaneous.

The entire pack of hounds -- easily four tons of raging, high-velocity ferocity -- simply parted horizontally all at once in a single fluid action. The edges of the cuts were all as smooth as glass, and it took nearly two seconds for several of the hounds to realize what had happened as their bodies slithered and tumbled apart, falling all over each other in a silent collapse which carried forward for nearly another ten yards before their momentum was exhausted. Jiann and Enna stared, mouths agape.

"You know," Orton commented as he stretched languorously, "I have really, really missed being fourth-tier."