Building Up

The memories helped anchor Zach, Time slowed down, and in a moment he experienced the entire age he had spent in his prison, and more. He did not feel the weight of it, no, what he remembered the most were the things he thought about. The powers that he gained. That he understood.

In the real world, he found himself in a forest, unable to sense anyone around him. He couldn’t find Naha, or any sign of a presence. He knew that to be wrong. It wasn’t a mental effect, he was certain of that, those didn’t work on him.

Time flowed here, only differently. He could feel something… as if there was a wall against which a portion of Time crashed. A place where the wave hit and vanished, died as if it was its time to end. It was unnerving, and it was impossible. Yet he knew it to be true, he understood that this place was a reminder of what would happen. That even Time would eventually end.

But not now, not today. He used his armor as a conduit, and reached out fully to his Aspect. Something opposed him. This place felt isolated, as if it was cut off from all Aspect Planes. But Zach wasn’t just anyone. He was the hand of the Aspect of Time, its shaper, the will behind the river. He pushed, leaning on the world around him with his will and intent. And he pierced through. Time surged through, answering his call. With Time filling him, he focused on his perk and then he opened his mouth and shouted.

Rift Shout blasted out of him and hit the fabric of this world. This place was at the end of Time, but with his Aspect he broke through, reaching across the River of Time to find another plane that existed before. Opening a second hole in the reality of this forest.

A crack in space opened, and Wind surged through. His constant companion, an Aspect that he knew as well as any other, that had been by his side for almost as long as Zach remembered.

He purged Time from his armor, and let Wind in. Then he called to it, with his perks with his abilities, with his will. He moved and it moved with him. He leaned his will on his skills, infusing Wind into them, evolving his Perfect Tireless Body: My Body, Under My Will and Perfect Wind Control: My Steps, Carry the Wind to Of Body and Wind, and then beyond.

With |I Moved, and Wind Followed With My Will| Zach brought Wind to this world. And with his Will he sent it out through the forest, searching for Naha, for the others, for his foe.

Ra’azel’s arm was in agony. He had reattached it, but the piece of his Soul was still gone, he couldn’t move his fingers, his wrist, the hand was dead until his Soul regenerated. If it even would. His Soul was powerful, he knew that, but what the Scythe had done was to attack the very concept of his existence.

He rolled to his feet, his head pulsing with pain of getting hit straight in the forehead with a staff that he was pretty sure had the mass of a mountain. If he was still in his old body, his head would’ve been paste.

He rolled just in time, as the Reaper and Scythe moved to attack him again. He growled at them, a sound of frustration and rage burrowing out of his chest. He carved a rune, triggering a string he had already prepared on his Soul, a card to be used only for most dire of circumstances.

A wave of the most destructive Essences he knew washed out of him. Runes on his Soul burned like brands, consuming pieces of him whole. Uru—Destruction was born as his Soul was swallowed, Essences around him breaking apart and causing a cascading line of explosions. Aru—Annihilation blooming from the destruction, bolstering the force by breaking even the pieces that were left. Finally, came Vish—Obliteration, the utter erasure of everything. Essence burst in a violent shower, consuming itself utterly to cause an explosion that would obliterate anything it touched, or try to at least.

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It expanded out of him in a wave, a spherical release that forced his enemies to flee lest they be consumed. Still, his attack was quick, it caught both the Aspects of True Death with its edge. He saw pieces of their bodies crumbling, a shoulder for the Reaper, a piece of the thigh for the Scythe.

Insufficient to kill, but enough. He had consumed too much of himself, he knew. His Soul was vast, greater than any he had encountered since his escape from imprisonment. But he had strained even that great vastness. He didn’t have much more in him before he went over the line of no return. Thankfully, he didn’t need to use his Soul for every rune.

He raised his hand, carving a rune and letting it sink into Space, he could feel the fabric of this realm bending, soon, he would be able to break free.

Then, he heard it. The whistle through the trees. Wind arrived in a world where none was there before.

Zach listened to the Wind, with every step it spread farther and farther, searching. And then it found what Zach was looking for. He took off, and with every step the Wind carried him further, until he was flying along with gale.

Quickly, he arrived and landed on the ground.

“Hey,” he said, just before Naha jumped in his arms. She squeezed him once, then took a step back.

“Your hand,” she said, looking at what remained of it.

He grimaced, the injury Kael had inflicted was like a red hot rod jammed inside of his head, but he put the pain into a box, and pushed it far away.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Do you know what is happening?”

Naha shook her head. “No, but I can’t feel my Aspect here, not fully.”

Zach nodded, he had felt the same. Though now he couldn’t even check. The drawback of his new skill was that he could only use powers related to the Wind for a while. Not the worst of drawbacks. “This place is separate somehow.”

“Shadows are… they feel old. And there is much Fear and Horror clinging to everything around us. Terror.”

Zach looked around, seeing the bare trees that covered the sky, the cold white ground. It was a strange place.

“Come,” he said. “Let’s look for others.”

With that he let the Wind spread again, searching.

The Wind came, and in an instant it went from a breeze to a gale. Ra’azel stumbled then formations on his scales flickered to life and the wind parted around him.

A shadow rose from the ground trying to grab his legs and the power of the formations on his body pulsed, scattering the shadowy grip.

He raised his eyes and saw five people standing across from him, surrounding him.

“Ra’azel,” Zacharia spoke. “It is over. I released you from your prison, offering you a chance to start a new life. You spent ages alone, and the first thing you did upon being released is treat the lives of others as if they were yours to play with, to spend. You took from others in the same way others took from you. There are no more chances.”

“No more chances?” Ra’azel whispered.

“YOU END,” the Reaper added, its red eyes glaring at him from behind its mask. Heralding the advent of True Death, his True Death. The others were ready, their power at the tips of their fingers, about to unleash on him.

“My end?” Ra’azel looked from one to another, his breath was coming in slowly. In and then out, frosting in the cold of this place. The forest loomed above him, oppressive, it was pushing on his mind, he realized. It wanted him to feel the desperation, to know that his time in life was over.

His life flashed before his eyes, memories. Some long forgotten, others never far from his mind. He bound an Ocean, he bound the Winds, and the Rivers, and the Mountains. He bound the World entire.

He had invented strings of runes capable of curing all illnesses, he fixed ever deformity. He had diverted rivers and turned wastelands into bountiful land. He had saved his people. He had taught them, he had protected them, he elevated them to heights they never would’ve been able to achieve on their own.

He was going to prove to the Dealmaker that the Yeti kind was worth it to be chosen. To subvert the design of the ultimate creators themselves. To be the arbiter of his own fate.

And then he was betrayed. His daughter, his jewel. The one who understood his craft the most. Whom he had dreamed about surpassing him some day, being his heir. How he wished that things had gone differently.

Instead, she stabbed him in the back.

So much of his life he’d spent trying to improve everything around him. He had compromised, he knew that, but the world was a cruel place, and he had always planned on creating a peaceful world. A protected world.

He’d been scrambling since his escape from Felltower. He had been so focused on learning about this version of the Framework, on gaining access, on mastering new ways of growing power, that he had lost sight of what he was even trying to accomplish.

To prove what he had set out to prove in the first place? That his kind was worthy? No, his kind had failed the moment they stabbed him in the back. There was only him now.

So, to prove that he was worthy? To spit in the face of those who had looked down on him? Was that what motivated him now? Or was it as simple as survival, as power to be free.

He looked back at his opponents, and he knew their strength. He was weakened, he was unfamiliar with his new body, but he was a Ra.

He was Ra’azel Equinar. No titles, no famous names. Just Ra’azel Equinar, a name that everyone would know. That would echo through the history of this world until the end!

Yes, that was a good goal. To make the entire Infinite Realm, the puppeteers behind the curtain, the creators themselves in the beyond, understand his name.

“No,” Ra’azel whispered, a grin spreading over his unfamiliar face, showing sharp teeth. “This is not my end.”