150 Descent (2)
***
Colin didn't see where he was going. He was in a completely different world, a universe apart from anything he'd experienced in Dreamworlds or in the waking world. This place… this whole place…
Everything screamed for his attention. The Wisp, the Gaian Mech, his friends, his Comrades… but there was more. So much more here that he saw, and he understood, and he didn't know why or how he understood, but…
There was writing on the walls. Like shimmering echoes of meaning, impossible to miss or ignore. {40 Parsecs to Yuvian Dreamworld (10 mins). 19 Parsecs to Ninth Terra (2 hours). 25 Parsecs to Nexus 3 (1 minute). Beware of Wisps. Notify Inner Ways Security if you notice miasma rising through the floors.}
Miasma. They probably meant that cloud of black leaking out of the Wisp like rising smoke.
Oh, and one more thing.
He and Alicia had been grabbed by the Gaian Mech. The thing only had one hand left, but it was more than enough to grasp them both. {Whoops. Didn't see it coming. How COULD I, with everything else blaring at me?}
Colin sent a message. To whom or where, he didn't know, but it felt like the right thing to do. [Excuse me, Inner Ways Security? I would like to report a full-form Wisp and a full-fledged kidnapping in Nakama World Cellar.]
To which, he got what he supposed should have been a surprising reply, but didn't really surprise him for some reason. [Huh? Kidnapping?]
[Giant Cultist Mech grabbed us.] Colin sent along the image of him and Alicia stuck in that cold metal fist. [Please hurry. I can't breathe. Have a nice day.]
[Please hold. We will be there shortly.]
[Thank you.] Colin ended politely.
Satrox, meanwhile, was fending off laser fire with what looked like a bubble. Sora was surrounded with wind or something; his hair was blown every which way, but Casiphia, right next to him behind Satrox, didn't stir an inch. Not a wisp of her hair was moved.
"You chose the wrong place to fight us, Gaian!" Sora roared. "The Ancient Ways are our turf!"
A gale of visible wind swept out from Sora. Colin didn't know how he could see it, but he did, and he saw what happened to the Mech when it hit. It was like huge knives had sliced into the Mech, cutting deep gashes in its armor. The wind didn't carry any blades or anything, Colin knew, but at the same time, it look for all the world like the wind itself had taken the form of slicing blades, and the Mech suffered for it.
Yet it did not drop Colin and Alicia. It just fired more lasers from its wrist-guns.
Colin kicked at it. Tried to push at the thumb, which was curled around him and Alicia above the other fingers. He tried to punch it, bash at it…
It exploded. {Something} went boom, and there was a flash of bright light, and suddenly, the thumb and two fingers were falling away in a shower of sparks, and Colin could breathe again. {Was it Sora? Satrox? Casiphia? Whoever did it, thanks!}
Alicia wriggled out first. Colin wasn't sure how she managed to get enough room to squirm, but somehow, she managed to struggle out from that grip and onto the Mech's ring finger. Even more astonishingly, that gave Colin room to scramble out too. Colin didn't understand how it happened until he looked down at the space they'd vacated and realized that something else had been there, lodged between the fingers, something else that prevented it from crushing them both entirely. A piece of metal completely bent out of shape now, that looked like…
{My staff!} Colin realized, with wide eyes. {My staff saved us… and now it's crushed. It's totally bent and twisted…}
But there was no time to mourn. The hand flexed; what fingers it retained opened, dropped the crushed staff and then closed in around Colin and Alicia again…
Colin blocked it. He raised his right hand and blocked it without thinking, and wonder of all wonders, it worked. The fingers stopped mere millimeters from his hand, and Colin blinked; he could have sworn he saw the air ripple around his wrist.
"COLIIIN!!!" Alicia's scream reminded him that they weren't entirely safe either. They were falling through the air, being dropped from about twenty feet high. No matter how you looked at it, Colin concluded, this just wasn't good.
But a human hand grabbed him, and Alicia too. Colin spun to see Casiphia looking as calm as though grabbing a pair of kids in mid-air was an everyday occurrence. They landed lightly on a slope of a broken wall, without even a jerk. Her motions were graceful, effortless as she put them both down as if they didn't weigh a thing.
"Take care of that." Casiphia nodded towards the floating Wisp emerging from the tunnel right on Phillip's heels. "Leave the Mech to Satrox and Sora."
"Right…" Colin said, but then was startled when Cass dashed toward the tunnel instead of the Mech. At first he thought he misunderstood, but then she grabbed Phillip and both of them vanished altogether.
Only then did he realize the truth. {She left us! She rescued Phillip… and left us!}
At first, he felt it was really unfair, but even as he thought it, he had to concede. {She saved us too, just a few moments earlier. In fact, she saved us first. Maybe she couldn't get all of us away, and she picked the one least likely to survive down here.}
Colin wasn't sure that was it, not really, since he didn't have a weapon any more while Phillip had had a bow that shot arrows of light and a bunny with more firepower than Shiro and Raiki put together…
{Wait. WHAT?!} Colin nearly choked when he realized it. But it was true. Shiro and Raiki had tried, but the Wisp wasn't as hurt by that as it was by that bunny's Ice/Lightning attack. {Maybe it's an elemental weakness…?}
But the truth was the truth. No matter how Colin looked at it, the answer was the same. That bunny had far too much firepower for what would normally be a class-4 or 5. On top of that, it managed to come here, to the Ancient Ways, where not even Sonia or Kirin could go. {What are the requirements for a Comrade to exist here? A class even higher than 10? Or some sort of licensing…?}
Michi alone could tell him that. Last Colin checked, only her breedings were able to make it here.
"COLIN!" Alicia's scream brought his attention back to the wisp and the girl running for cover. For some reason, the Wisp seemed to be totally fixated on her.
"What {is} that?!" Colin asked, grabbing a piece of broken wall and throwing it at the Wisp. No good. The thing didn't even seem to notice.
"It's a Wisp!" Alicia shouted.
"Probably a girl's Wisp." Satrox added, suddenly showing up next to Colin. "Hello, Colin. How do you like the Ancient Ways so far?"
"Not my idea of fun." Colin admitted. "What you said… a 'girl's Wisp'?"
"Yeah. Wisps are pieces of Nightmares. This one looks like it came from the kind of nightmares girls would have." Satrox mentioned, eyeing it.
"SATROX! A little help here?!" Sora yelled from behind.
"Just a minute!" Satrox called back over his shoulder without turning, ignoring Sora as gunfire erupted. Satrox turned to Colin. "You see, Nightmares are exactly what they sound like; bad Dreams. Basically, peoples' fears and worries and anger and hatred collect together and take on solid form in the Lower Plane. If a piece of that drifts into the Ancient Ways before or after that form takes shape…"
"A Wisp. Yeah,fine, but that doesn't tell me what it has to do with girls or why that should be important." Colin said.
"Well..." Satrox mused. "Because the way that Wisp looks and the way it's chasing Alicia… I think…"
"COLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!" Alicia screamed as the Wisp caught her by the foot again.
"SATROX, quit yapping and HELP!" Sora shouted on the other side.
There was a brilliant light in Colin's eyes. He ducked, blinked, and then heard Satrox saying, "Oh great. I'm dead."
"Satrox!" Both Sora and Alicia yelped now, but they sounded aghast, no longer demanding help.
Colin crouched, trying to find cover in the rubble. "Satrox…? Satrox?!"
There was no answer. It wasn't hard for Colin to figure out what happened. {Satrox just got blasted with a laser beam or something. Just as he said… he's dead.}
His vision cleared enough for him to see a red numbers rising above where Satrox had stood a few moments ago. A damage indicator. It said '9982'.
{Wow. That's the largest amount of damage I've ever seen in a single hit. Wonder what would happen if that had hit me? It'd probably reach 9999 damage.}
"Hey!" Alicia shouted at Sora. "What happens if you die in the Ancient Ways?!"
Sora saw her pointing her shovel to herself and jumped. "{Don't!} If you die here, you're going to Descend!"
"Descend?" Alicia didn't get it.
"You go to the Lower Plane!" Sora shouted. "If you think that Wisp is bad, you don't wanna meet the Nightmare that spawned it!"
"And if I died in the Lower Plane?" Alicia still hadn't quite given up on the idea.
"You respawn in the Lower Plane at random!" Sora yelled. "Don't do it! You have no idea where you're going to end up! Some places are no-death zones, and if you respawn there and get trapped there, you could be stuck there for good! Or worse! Safety protocols don't work right in the Lower Plane!"
A single flick of a Wisp tentacle made it a moot point. Alicia's shovel went flying, bounced off the Gaian Mech trying to grab Sora in its metallic fist, and landed nine feet away from Colin.
Colin ran for it. He didn't know how much good it would do in his hands, but it was, he felt, a lot better than a piece of broken wall. Definitely better.
Six steps and a dive. That was all he needed. Colin felt his fist clench around the shovel's handle, felt a bare moment of triumph…
And then a terrible heavy impact as the Gaian Mech's foot came crashing down on both his hand and the shovel.
"Uwaa!" Colin yelped, tearing his hand back. He stared at it, startled to find it unmarked, unbroken. {With that sort of impact, I expected my hand to be completely crushed, or at least broken… or that perhaps, I'd lose HP and die…}
But neither had happened. The Gaian seemed as surprised as Colin. It withdrew the foot, then took a good look underneath.
George's shovel was crushed. Broken in five places, and completely flattened.
Colin glanced at his hand again. He and the Gaian Mech exchanged surprised glances.
And then Sora slammed his broadsword into the thing's ankle shouting, "Achilles' Heel Stab!"
That shout activated something. His sword glowed, there was a big explosion, the Gaian Mech fell, and then the whole room was filled with dust.
{Wait. Just before it fell… I think I saw something… I think there's a way out…}
"HELP!" Alicia demanded in a shriek. "Help me right NOW!"
"Hang on!" Sora's voice floated past Colin. "Eye-Poke Lunge!"
Again, there was a flash of light and an explosion. There was a loud shriek, and then Sora and Alicia were running toward Colin amid the clearing dust.
"Where are we going?" Alicia asked, as they went past Colin.
"I don't know! Anywhere!" Sora gasped.
"That way! I think there was a way out!" Colin pointed.
They ran for it. It was another cavern branching out from the previous one, but Colin had spotted something different about this one. Something that gave him hope. Alicia noticed it too. "Sunlight!"
"It might just be reflected…" Colin warned, remembering the tunnels inside Skycrown. "It could be a reflection of a reflection of a reflection…"
"Just run!" Alicia barked. "Before we sink any deeper!"
{We're still sinking!} Colin realized. {How many people were down the mountain below us…? How many have fallen into the Lower Plane?!}
And then a startling thought came. {Katrin.}
He turned and dashed downward.
"Colin! Where are you going! Not that way!" Sora yelled at him.
"Katrin!" Colin blurted, and dashed around the corner.
***
2,180 people were in the Lower Plane.
It was a disaster of epic proportions for Dreamworlds Admin and everyone working to prevent exactly this kind of thing from happening.
To be fair, not all of them were there due to the Fall of Nakama World's Skycrown Mountain. Some were Raiders. Some were Rangers, some were Reapers. Some were Escorted Tourists or Tourist Escorts, some were members of the scientific community there for research or experimentation, some were there for other reasons.
But at least one and a half thousand of them were there quite involuntarily. Their screams and feelings caused ripple effects upon Nightmares presently existing in the Lower Plane, solidified roughly six hundred more, and directly or indirectly initiated the forming of maybe fifteen thousand more in the future. Dreamworlds would be plagued by some of those for years to come.
Dreamworlds Admin, Inner Way Security, and all official departments pertaining to the disaster were flooded with calls and messages. Unable to handle the situation due to absolute shortage of manpower, they called external sources for help.
The Raiders' guilds suddenly received a top priority mission with really sweet rewards for every person saved from the Disaster. The Rangers and Reapers were given concessions for the sake of their help. Entire Planar Tourism companies were hired on the spot not to bring people down, but to bring people up. Mercenaries from other Dreamworlds took up emergency missions pertaining to the rescue efforts. Even the Psychic Circus was conscripted by an enterprising Dreamworlds Employee to help.
But before anyone could do anything, before any of the exclamations and shouts and alerts even started up, the number of people in the Lower Plane changed, and not for the better. One more went down.
The number of people in the Lower Plane became 2,181.
***
"Wait!" Sora barked. "Don't! I'll do it! You go back! Colin!"
Colin wasn't listening. Sora found himself in a very bad situation as he exchanged vexed glances with Alicia. {If I go after the boy, what do I do with the girl? I shouldn't bring her along… but the longer I take…}
"Go after him." Alicia told Sora. "I'll run back on my own."
"Are you sure?" Sora asked. "If you meet another Wisp…"
"Colin's the kind to get into more and more trouble without even trying." Alicia told him. "Me… I'm not so clumsy. I'll be fine."
"I'm not so sure." Sora lunged through the tunnels still carrying Alicia. "I'll at least get you to within sight of the exit."
"Then at least let me run on my own! Save your strength for Wisps!"
They ran.
