Chapter 53: Moon Gate Drifters

Elated and distraught simultaneously, Azwold scrabbled at the door latch. But it was futile.

Spying inside the laboratory window, we saw the dull silvers and metallic greens of Azwold’s Gremlin mount, but dissected, segmented, and hooked up to an array of machines. A panoply of parts and wires and gears.

There were two conspicuous spirit mages among the lab technicians. While the workers toiled with their laser welders and diagnostic tablets, the mages carried in an amethyst geode encircled with circuits and gadgets. They placed the geode into a waiting control panel receptacle.

“No,” said Azwold. “No, that has to stop. We gotta get in. Help!”

“Um,” Relja hesitated. “I’m pretty sure some moon gates only stay open while the moon’s glow is hidden. Like right now.”

“The moon gate is our only known passage to the next quest objective,” said Vick5. “Time is of the essence.”

“But what’re they gonna do to her?” he said, bottling up panic.

“If Gnarlroot_The_Eld’s story is known to them—that the Gremlin mount spontaneously adopted the [Hive Scepter]’s coding—then it stands to reason they would create experiments to study the phenomenon.”

“They’re learning what makes her tick,” said DarkNeon, squinting at the moon gate. “Which is definitely a fascinating topic, but… are those door glyphs getting dimmer?”

Azwold produced his own [Burglar Gizmoid] from his inventory, performing activation procedures. “You wouldn’t leave if they were slicing up the llama. Or the strider.”

“Azwold,” I said, covering the device with my hand. “I will send my bees to rectify this as soon as some return to me. I shall send them on a quest of their own, alright?”

He shivered with disgust at the right decision.

“We must continue,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” said Relja, putting a hand on Azwold’s shoulder.

He lowered his head and strode toward the moon gate while it was still open. We followed, and I imagined walking through gloom clouds in his wake. The walkway was darker than most, and the fluorescent hue of the scenery behind us faded the further along we went. My vision wisps would fade soon, too. The cloying gloom was far from imaginary. All I could see was the ring of glyphs hanging in the tenebrous air.

“We don’t even have time to rest and heal, do we?” said DarkNeon.

The scrapes and bruises from our scuffle remained untended. Gritty tooth dust still peppered my mandibles.

“My experience with portals suggests impermanence,” said Vick5.

“They don’t stay open long?” said Relja. “Yeah, we know.”

“We didn’t abandon my baby for nothing,” said Azwold, giving me a helpful shove.

I envisioned passing through a giant bubble ring, blown on by some lunar titan, orbiting far above the silver-grey dust of moonscape, floating like a breeze-blown mote, from one moon gate portal to another.

I drifted along in this way for a while…

Until my drifting ended.

I stepped out into a dank cavernscape. The opalescent portal behind me rippled a vertical puddle wiggle.

A long dashed line of dim light bulbs dotted a stone corridor, tunneling toward a bright center point as the dots converged down to distances unseeable.

We made our way in, discovering pod-shaped glass capsules at regular intervals and in varying sizes. Most were opaque, and most were occupied. Telemoon must be collecting a complete bestiary; every type of creature existing in game. I wondered if they could capture us.

“Do you think…” I began to say.

“What’re you doing?” said DarkNeon. She shouldered Vick5 over to keep an eye on his tinkering.

“Do not mistrust,” said Vick5. “I have located what I believe to be a neutral creature. I am experimenting with the capsule controls. If I successfully release this captured Rock Bunny...”

The glass of the pod shifted toward translucency as Vick5 slid his finger up an adjustment screen next to it on the wall. We saw a nervous Cinder Hare twitching at his lack of room to bound away. The cells seemed to be only twice their captive’s size.

“I guess these small cages are efficient?” asked Relja unhappily.

“Affirmative,” said Vick5. “And unfortunately, without detailed information describing each captive’s ongoing experiments, it is impossible to determine whether freeing them is logical.”

“Where’s the master release?” said DarkNeon. “I’ll pull it. Zero qualms.”

“Nope,” said Azwold. “We’ll come back later. Just like we did for my Gremlin. We must get this quest done first.”

“Agreed,” I said. “Releasing test subjects en masse could cause more problems than it solves. Keep on task and we will return.”

“I’m coming back later to save all these critters either way,” said Relja. “You can’t stop me.”

“Me too,” said DarkNeon. “But yeah, first things first. Vic knows how to look inside the pods now, so let’s find us a goddess.”

“What do you think she looks like?” said Relja.

“We’ll know when we see,” said Azwold. He was already ahead several capsules, lowering each cell’s opacity as he went.

He gasped. “Come quick, Eld. Look who I found.”

“Dude,” said DarkNeon, skidding to a dash halt, “why’d you get me excited over an old kobold?”

I peered inside the creature’s capsule. She was sleeping and hunched, floating in a substance somewhere between water and clear-blue gel; the kobold Shaman. There were tubes and wires hooked to her and life support monitors on a panel screen next to her pod.

“We have time to save this prisoner,” I said.

Azwold nodded.

“Am I to understand this is the kobold from your Stonesthrow Island story?” asked Vick5.

“The same,” I said. “Her primitive gem craft gear is distinctive.”

“I expended all known options to release the Cinder Hare,” said Vick5. “Unsuccessfully.”

“Uh, glass plus brick equals freedom?” said DarkNeon, searching her inventory for hard objects.

“Telemoon has developed several micro-alloys and metallic glasses,” said Vick5. “If this kobold shaman is a high priority, the glass is unlikely to break.”

“And you can’t crack the key code?” asked Azwold. “What about lockpicking or gizmoids or...?”

“The lack of guards in this hallway tells me they are confident in their material sciences,” I said. “And their key code technology. So what do we do?”

“At least let me try,” said DarkNeon. “Stand back!”

Then she cast [Spell: Prismatic Daggers II], hurling rapid fire, rainbow colored daggers at the pod glass. But every one ricochetted away, splattering the hallway in a spectrum mess and forcing everyone to run and duck. When the spell was done, it looked like a fed up artist had thrown a dozen paint pallet frisbees at it.

“Do you carry a squeegee for that spell?” asked Relja.

“Funny.” DarkNeon sighed. “Can you hose the prismatic stuff offa there Vic?”

“Negative,” he said, untying a rag he had knotted around his elbow, tourniquet-style. He swiftly wiped away a window, then retied it on his arm. “Alternate solution partially successful.”

The Shaman was looking at me now from behind her smudgy porthole of rainbow splatter. A glimmer of recognition graced her withered countenance.

“She is awake,” I said.

Her knuckly hands were bound to prevent spell casting, I assumed. She was struggling to reach up toward her amulets. I thought it strange that Telemoon had not confiscated magical items from her. Further evidence of their overconfidence, I imagined. But no, she was firmly trussed and could make no spell craft in her state.

I wanted to utilize my special monster interaction abilities, but had no way to breach the pod and gel medium to speak. She wanted to communicate, too. I could tell. Perhaps to have me entwine her talisman like I had done with the skeletal kobold.

“She wants our help,” said Azwold. “We gotta figure this out. Can you try the controls again, Vic? I hate all this failure-is-not-an-option stuff. If we can’t fail, why do they make the quest impossible?”

“Oh, you know what,” said Relja. “I have like half of this portal potion still. What if we finger painted a little bit on the glass?”

“Say no more,” said Azwold, pulling on a [Serpent Hide Glove]. “I’ll draw a circle. Hopefully the glove keeps my hand from getting warped away.”

“Allow me,” said Vick5. “Your other glove, please.” Azwold gave him a glove, and he shoved it over his elbow stump.

“Nice,” said DarkNeon. “No hand to lose. Safety first, right?”

Relja popped the cork of her orange potion and tipped out a single drop onto Vick5’s green rubber finger. The mini wormhole appeared instantaneously, and Vick5 moved to apply the thick liquid in a circular shape on the pod glass.

The glove, a hole of metallic glass, and a quantity of the kobold shaman’s capsule goo, whirlpooled into the potion’s portal void. And then it shrank and disappeared. The shaman slumped at the lack of fluid to keep her afloat and Azwold and Vick5 rushed to detach her life support devices and usher her out into the hallway with us.

She wretched, spilling more of the clear-blue goop onto the floor. Gasping and acclimating, the shaman clutched at me with her scaly paw, wiry grey fuzz matted in jelly.

Sooner than seemed wise given her state, she was tugging me to follow deeper down the test subject corridor, dripping as she hobbled.

“Hey, were these dots flashing before?” said Relja, inspecting a control panel to a random, empty pod.

“We have triggered a silent alarm,” said Vick5.

“More alarms?” DarkNeon groaned. “Hurry, hurry, plagued by hurrying. Does your pruney friend here know we’re about to have swarms of baddies down our necks?”

Concerned, I noticed the Shaman’s healthbar was not as full as I remembered it being minutes before.

“We cannot move at her pace,” I said.

“Well, alright,” said Azwold. He bent to pick her up, lifting her to ride on his back like a child. She did not resist, but perked up instead. We had taken an action she wanted but could not ask for.

She pointed down the hallway and we set off at a brisker pace. Soon we came to a capsule like any other, and she gripped down on Azwold’s shoulder with her claws.

Again, she pointed and nodded at the cell. Vick5 increased the transparency of the glass... and then we saw her.

“This is her?” said DarkNeon, head tilted.

“I expected more, didn’t you?” said Relja.

A young woman was curled into a fetal position, draped in leafy robes; hooked to tubes and wires like the kobold had been. Floating and unmoving.

“Alright, then,” said Relja, uncorking the orange potion again. “Who wants to wear the other glove? You do have a second one, right?”

Azwold nodded, producing his other [Serpent Hide Glove].

The kobold leapt from Azwold’s back and slapped the glove to the ground. She made a raspy hiss, shaking her head. Then she entered into a sort of pantomime.

I remembered this. She brought her hand to under her chin, uncurled her fingers outward, as if guiding a word from her muzzle and out into the air. We all saw it. An unreadable symbol lingered in the air, wispy and tenuous, then dissipated like candle smoke.

But she clawed at the air, feverishly, and her health dipped lower as she did; down into the yellow and dripping toward orange.

Her word glyph reformed impossibly, like un-mixing paint colors, and then she blew it at me, directing it at my ectoplasmic animation source. It seeped into me.

[Gnarlroot The Eld has learned [Spell: Wish]]

“Oh, wow,” said Relja. “I thought only NPCs could do wish spells.”

“Me too,” said DarkNeon.

“You must phrase your wish as perfectly as possible,” said Vick5. “Though I do not comprehend, admittedly, how a wish spell could work within the context of game rules, I know enough to advise specificity.”

And then the kobold shaman fell to her knees, then to the ground. Her health drained away, and she became a pile of bones. Flashing and fading, she was gone.

“First a sphinx and a vow,” said Azwold, “now a shaman and a wish? Words can’t express how weird your questline has gotten, Eld. She gave herself up to help us.”

“She was a lesson,” I said. “What happens if we unplug others?”

“They call it ‘life support’ for a reason,” said DarkNeon.

“But the kobold will respawn back on Stonesthrow Island, won’t she?” asked Relja. “Won’t she?”

I heaved a deep, airless breath where no bees stirred. My bees had left me. I had only myself and my party. What words could we speak to set things right?