Kanin Fyre: Chapter 42 - God of Light

Rinviu’s companion is not subtle. Every inch of her skin emits a soft, glowing light. Her eyes are a solid white, and her clothes are likewise bleached of all color. She carries no weapons, but we know better than to think she’s unarmed.

Several Travelers let out a startled yelp at the appearance of the gods. Rinviu looks their way, apparently surprised to see a group of people suddenly gathered outside of their cells, but the God log Light glances over them with mild indifference. Instead, her gaze lands on us. And the moment it does, a memory surfaces from the deepest depths of our mind.

It rises like a bubble through mud, an uncomfortable pressure clawing its way toward the surface—until it pops.

Things are arrayed before us—matter. Objects. (People, we now understand, though we hadn’t then.) They are emitting vibrations in the matter around them. (Yelling to each other, scared and fierce.) It bothers us. We grab some of the resonating matter and still it. This only makes other matter vibrate more. (“Hold the line!” a young woman cries, tears streaming down her face as others scream and flee from the carnage. “Hold!”) Energy leaks from the matter, so we consume it, because that is what we do. That is what we are. (The woman’s lips are peeled back in a terrified, determined sneer, teeth clenched shut as she draws the spell before her. Even without the glow coming from her skin and eyes, we recognize her.)

The fractured memory ends just as abruptly as it began, and a staticky dread crawls through our soul. We Check the same woman standing before us now.

[Name: Lorata]

[Title: God]

[Class: Luminary]

[Level: 100]

[Mana: 5,926]

[HP: 10,000/10,000]

[Role: The Seer]

Lorata. The head of the pantheon. The most powerful of all gods.

And we can feel the pull of a remnant within her.

[Your magic has been identified.]

“Kanin,” she says. We’re frozen beneath her gaze, still trying to make sense of the memory we just experienced. We’ve fought before, a long, long time ago. Only now we understand what she is—who she is—and we are far less than we once were. Her very presence presses down on us like gravity. Unable to flee, unwilling to look away, all we can do is stare. “I’ve been looking for you.”

From the frown on her face, we have a feeling this greeting is not going to be as friendly as Shirasil’s.

She looks us up and down, apparently in no hurry. Without even glancing their way, Lorata gestures toward the group of Travelers, and Rinviu moves toward them.

“You are not what I expected.” Lorata’s voice is strong, like the one in our memory, though this one feels leeched of warmth. “And yet, precisely what I feared. What a shame.” She lifts a hand.

We snap out of our brief state of shock, shelving our thoughts and worries about the intrusive memory. Time to sort through all that later. Right now, all that matters is survival.

“Wait, wait, wait!” I sign, backing up on the platform I’m crouched on.

And to my surprise, the god actually pauses.

Ink swirls through my mind in agitation. It doesn’t like that I just took back control. We should be fleeing. Fighting! We are too weak when separated.

Just wait, I tell Ink as well, my mind racing. We can’t win a fight against the head of the pantheon, but maybe we can talk our way out of this. And I’m good at talking, right?

“You are coherent,” Lorata signs. She had to lower her rather threatening hand to make the signs, but I’m not given much of a chance to relax as she begins drifting my way.

“Yes,” I sign, straightening up. While I’m at it, I try to rearrange some of my glass back into a more humanoid shape.

She stares at me with white, unblinking eyes. “Yet your remnant is uncontained.”

Ink paces faster, more anxious, the closer the god gets.

“We’ve, uh, reached an understanding.”

Lorata steps onto the other end of our platform, and I can’t help but edge back.

“And I suppose that is why you have broken into my domain?” she asks.

“That’s all on me,” I sign. “These people are my responsibility, and I can’t let them be imprisoned like this.”

“Ah.” Lorata begins to stroll toward me; slow, but inevitable. “I see. You are a Traveler, too. Now it begins to make sense; you are the reason for all this trouble.”

Ink is starting to freak out a bit in my mind, reaching for control. And honestly, I can’t blame it, with the way Lorata is doing the slow villain walk in my direction. The Travelers, I tell it. Don’t stop Displacing. Focus on them.

Nervously, Ink agrees, shifting a portion of its attention back over to a few of the time bubbles. It Displaces two more Travelers up to the platform with Noli. Fyre attempts to fly my way, but Rinviu moves between us, blocking her path.

[Fyre: Kanin, are you alright?]

[Kanin: Fucking peachy.]

[Fyre: Hang in there. We’re working on something up here.]

“Not intentionally.” I keep my focus on Lorata; Noli and Fyre can handle themselves, and it looks like Rinviu is just there to keep everyone corralled in place for now. I’ve got my hands full enough as it is. “I never wanted any of this. It was a mistake.”

“The motivation is irrelevant.” Lorata is still moving toward me. And maybe it’s some sort of optical illusion, or just the weight of her presence, but she seems to be taller than I previously thought. “All I am concerned with are the consequences.”

I hold up my hands in a sign of surrender. “Fair enough. And I accept the blame. So I’m the only one who should be punished, right? The other Travelers are innocent.”

To my great relief, she stops, regarding me. It’s hard to figure out what she’s thinking with her impassive expression, but I think she tilts her head at me.

Run, Ink is urging me. Run, or fight, or flee, or attack—

“You are willing to hand yourself over?” the god asks.

I hesitate. Is that what I’m offering? Am I willing to give myself up for the freedom of the other Travelers?

Ink rears with anger. No. We will not surrender without a fight! We will not be imprisoned again. Never, ever, ever—

“I’d prefer to talk things through,” I sign. Maybe it’s just selfishness. Maybe it’s Ink’s influence. Maybe it’s the fact that I have Anika and her remnant in my Inventory, and I still need to find a way to free her. Whatever the reason, I don’t want to give up. Not while I can still help people. “I’m sure there’s some compromise we could reach.”

Lorata shakes her head, stepping forward once more. “There is nothing to talk about. You have a remnant; it needs to be contained.”

“But it isn’t a threat!” I object. I step off the platform, and Ink grabs our void as I grab out glass. We hover there, drifting back. “It listens to me! It works with me, now. We’re—we’re friends. Please trust me—”

“Trust?” Lorata laughs, and the regret and bitterness in that tone sound sends a chill through my soul. “A remnant cannot be trusted—nor can a soul that’s tied to one. You may even believe the words you speak, but a remnant’s influence can be subtle. No, I cannot allow the fate of the world to be staked on something as insubstantial as trust. But if you truly wish to take amends, then you will not fight me on this.”

Once more, the god lifts a hand.

Danger.

Ink wraps around me before I have a chance to react. It flings us back, her hand passing through the air where we had just been. Fear lances through us as we bolt away, throwing our body behind a block. She has a refiner. We need to get away!

With a flash of light, Lorata appears before us. It takes everything we have to skid to a mid-air stop and backpedal, narrowly avoiding the small black marble in her outstretched hand.

“As I suspected,” she says in clear disappointment. “Attempting to flee will only draw this out.”

An arrow twangs off Lorata’s hand and ricochets deeper into the room. Lorata glances up at Noli with a faintly annoyed expression. It seems like she’s ready to dismiss the elf again when she pauses, narrowing her eyes at Noli. “What’s this?”

Rinviu makes a sharp, dismissive gesture, and the rest of Noli’s arrows lift from her quiver and throw themselves over the side of her platform.

We use the brief distraction to GTFO. Lorata doesn’t stop us—she probably knows she can just follow our void to find us again. Or, that’s what she thinks.

We still have bits of void in a dozen different time bubbles. We take the rest of our void that isn’t being used to draw the new Planar Linkage spell and Displace Travelers, and we split it another dozen ways, scattering them off throughout the room. At the same time, we unChain and Sculpt parts of our glass, likewise flinging them away from us.

[Refraction spell activated.]

Not a moment too soon; Lorata appears in front of us the second the spell goes up. We freeze, clinging to the side of a cube. Lorata’s gaze roams over the surface, and our anxiety mounts. She’ll be able to see straight through it, won’t she? We have the smallest amount of void on us, just enough to cast Refraction over our core, but since there’s any at all, she might be able to sense it. Lorata frowns, drifting closer, refiner raised.

We move our some of our glass and void, causing it to dash between two cubes off to Lorata’s right. The god’s head whips to the side and blinks away, giving chase to the decoy.

Holy shit. That actually worked. Not so all-knowing after all, are we?

Okay, yeah, I know, bad time to tempt fate. But she probably hasn’t even considered the possibility that a bunch of mortals could dupe her, and we’re going to use that arrogance to our advantage. It may be the only thing we’ve got.

Yet, we’re stung with regret. We just wish it hadn’t come to this. We’d been warned Lorata couldn’t be reasoned with on this matter. Both Shirasil and Blair had told us she would not compromise when it came to remnants. But a part of us had continued to hope.

It is what it is. No time for sappiness now.

Keeping our Refraction spell on, we dodge around the room, jumping our core from barrier to barrier as we use more void and glass to mislead Lorata. Each time our core lands on a bubble, we retrieve our trapped void as quickly as we can. Simultaneously, we Displace the last few Travelers up to the platform with Fyre and Noli.

It’s barely even been a minute since Lorata appeared, but every second feels like an hour—which isn’t terribly far off for the bits of us still left in the time bubbles. At any moment, we’re expecting Lorata to catch on and find us. At any moment, she’ll realize where our core is. At any moment, she’ll tear our soul from our body and imprison us in that refiner.

A message from Fyre abruptly appears in our mind.

[Fyre: We have thirty-one Travelers on the platform. Is that it? I thought there was one more.]

We think about Yedzaquib.

[K̶a̵n̷i̶n̸: no that’s all of them]

[Fyre: Alright, then. You focus on the spell circle—I’ll handle Lorata from here.]

Handle? Good luck with that. But if she thinks she can buy us some time, I’m not going to stop her. All we have to do now is collect the rest of our void.

Pain lances through us, and we panic, pressing what little glass and void we have around our core. But it’s unscathed—the pain came from our body, which has just shattered under one of Lorata’s spells.

“Lorata,” Fyre calls. She tries to lift off the platform, but Rinviu stops her.

We dash to the next bubble, withdrawing more void, and drawing out more lines of the spell circle, working as fast as we’re able.

“It’s me you want,” Fyre continues to call. “Or has it been so long that you’ve forgotten what you did to my city?”

That catches Lorata’s attention. “Fyreneth?”

The god gestures for Rinviu to let her through, and Fyre takes flight, quickly drifting away from the Travelers. This has the unfortunate effect of putting Lorata in-between Fyre and the Travelers, but the god's back is to them, at least.

Lorata finishes floating up to Fyre’s level, and her eyes narrow at the harpy. “No. Merely an impersonator.”

While Lorata deals with Fyre, Rinviu lands on the platform with the Travelers. Noli throws a hand out to the side, as if she could protect them all.

Rinviu frowns. “Lay down your weapon.”

Instead, Noli draws her bow. We feel a strange tug at our magic.

“I know who I am, and I am no fraud,” Fyre says, shoulders back and chin lifted in defiance. “I am Fyre, co-ruler of Fyreneth’s Fortress, heir to her spirit, enactor of her will. And in her name, I will stand as patron to anyone forsaken by the gods, be that Fyrethians, or Travelers.”

Lorata scoffs. “Forsaken? The stories you all tell yourselves to justify your resentment. Fyreneth buried her own kingdom. Do you really think I would kill thousands of innocents when it is only one I am after?” She sweeps her arm to the side, gesturing to the room. “If I were interested in death, I would not be protecting these Travelers.”

As we finish drawing our void from the last few bubbles, the strain in our mind finally abates. With Lorata distracted, we send most of our void to Noli’s platform, working faster to trace out the spell circle beneath their feet. The crowded platform helps to disguise the spell that’s forming on its surface.

Rinviu shakes their head in pity at Noli’s defiance. “I am the god of wind. Arrows can do nothing against me.”

But Noli doesn’t have an arrow nocked. In fact, there’s nothing at all strung on her bow. Even so, she stands there, expression fierce, weapon drawn against the god.

“Protecting?” Fyre repeats, heat rising in her tone. “Imprisonment is never protection.”

“Never is a confident claim.” Lorata glances back at the crowd of Travelers huddled on the platform. Some speak in hushed, worried tones to one another, while others are crying out for loved ones. Some are even huddled on the ground, arms wrapped around themselves. “These people are lost. Confused. Some of them being driven mad by their broken Roles. Containment is a mercy.”

“If that’s true, then they deserve the choice,” Fyre says. “Who are you to decide their fate?”

Lorata flares with blinding light like a miniature sun. “Who am I? I am the Seer. Head of the pantheon. You have no idea what horrors I have seen—what threats I have faced. And everything, everything I have done has been for the sake of my world. Who are you to question my actions? You know nothing of our history.”

Again, we feel something pull at our magic. And this time we understand what it is. We let go of our mana. No—we feed the pull, pouring even more magic into the instinct. Green light begins to flicker around Noli’s bow.

We open a private chat with Ollie.

[K̶a̵n̷i̶n̸: hey, we need your help]

We can practically feel alarm radiate through the interface.

[Ollie: UM, FYRE SAYS I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO TALK TO STRANGERS.]

[K̶a̵n̷i̶n̸: what? we’re not a stranger. we’re kan—ink—we’re the glass guy]

[Ollie: OH! SORRY. I DIDN’T RECOGNIZE YOU, YOUR VOICE SOUNDS WEIRD.]

How can he even hear our text conversation? You know what, never mind. It doesn’t matter.

[K̶a̵n̷i̶n̸: fyre will need help getting out of here]

[Ollie: YES, SHE’S IN DANGER. ECHO KEEPS TELLING ME.]

Must be the Role requirement Fyre mentioned. Well, if anything, our plan should help alleviate that.

[K̶a̵n̷i̶n̸: timing will be important. don’t move until i tell you.]

We lay out the plan as we maneuver our core through the room, collecting the rest of our glass and void back on the platform.

Somehow, Fyre has managed to keep Lorata talking. We’d be offended by how little she sees us as a threat if it didn’t work to our advantage.

Okay, we’re still offended.

“If you were sincere about wanting what’s best for us, you wouldn’t need to resort to theatrics,” Fyre is saying. We slowly crawl down the side of a cube that’s floating above Fyre and wait, biding our time.

Instead of getting angrier, Lorata’s light display actually simmers down. “What is best for all is not necessarily what is best for an individual,” she says. “For the wellbeing of our planet, some will need to be incarcerated. Surely you can understand this?”

“I can,” Fyre says. “Yet, I am not sure I agree with you in this instance. You are talking about the remnants, aren’t you?”

Lorata frowns. “If you understand the nature of the remnants, then you must understand why we cannot risk them falling into the wrong hands.”

“Perhaps,” Fyre says. “But what of the ones that have fallen into the hands of those who would use them for good? Surely those are not a threat to your order?”

She shakes her hand. “No matter the intent, anyone with a remnant will inevitably succumb to its influence. And with these entities, it is best to be proactive.”

Heh. Yeah. Proactive. More magic is building within Noli’s grasp, a ghostly green impression of an arrow whirling about her bow.

“It seems that is more of an opinion than statement of act,” Fyre remarks. “It’s my understanding that not all gods are in agreement on this point.”

Lorata gives her a sharp look. “And which gods are these?”

Fyre smiles tightly. “I’m afraid that would be a betrayal of trust.”

Lorata returns the smile with a thin one of her own. “And I’m afraid I wasn’t asking.” She begins to drift forward.

Game over. Fyre did a great job of buying us time, but now we have to get out of here.

We send a message to Fyre.

[K̶a̵n̷i̶n̸: don’t react]

[Fyre: React to what?]

Rinviu sighs in disappointment. “We did warn you.” They reach for Noli.

We push another wave of mana along our link just as Noli releases the string.

Green light explodes from her bow, engulfing Rinviu in an instant. At the same moment, we activate a Lightbeam. Lorata notices the moment both spells goes off, turning toward the source of magic—and gets a laser beam straight to the face.

[K̶a̵n̷i̶n̸: that]

We drop from our hiding spot, falling behind Fyre and latching onto her back. She doesn’t even flinch.

[Fyre: Is that you?]

[K̶a̵n̷i̶n̸: yes. you have the focus?]

[Fyre: Got it.]

Lorata snarls, dismissing our attack with a wave of her hand. The glass funneling our Lightbeam cracks and shatters, and the spell falls apart. Green lightning is crackling around Noli’s bow, but Rinviu is nowhere to be seen. Lorata spins back to Fyre, furious, but uninjured.

“Resisting was a mistake. But you will answer all my questions once subjected to Quimalad’s mind magic.”

Yeah, no thanks.

We activate the Planar Linkage spell. Lorata spins in the direction of the Travelers as the magic lights beneath their feet.

[K̶a̵n̷i̶n̸: the focus!]

Fyre slips a hand behind her back, and we take the bracelet from her, activating the Locate spell. Lorata starts toward the Travelers.

[K̶a̵n̷i̶n̸: ollie, now!]