Kanin Fyre: Chapter 41 - Jailbreak

Half of our void goes in my Inventory. We remove it almost instantly—an inch away from my fingers, on the other side of the barrier.

[You have been subjected to a Time Dilation spell.]

Pressure immediately presses at my mind. I’ve split my attention multiple ways before with Ink to help, but this is different. It feels like something has grabbed my mind from either side and is straining to pull it apart. Stretched almost to the breaking point. Like trying to pull a boot out of deep, thick mud. Ink winces as well, just as unsettled as me.

The half of our void that’s in the barrier is now operating under the time compression that the Traveler in the bubble is also being subjected to. That is, half of our void, and so half of our mind, is moving sixty times slower than the half of us that’s outside the barrier. This is not a comfortable sensation.

I’m starting to understand the initial sensation I felt when passing through the portal; transitioning between the threshold of two different times is probably not good for your health. I wonder if that’s why the gods don’t visit the mortal realm very often. Though, something as minor as this shouldn’t deter a god, should it?

The half of us inside the barrier can see the version of us outside; the small movements we make, Noli turning to glance at us, it all seems to happen like a video on fast-forward, people blinking and moving around. It hasn’t even been a second inside the barrier—which means it’s been almost a minute outside. Which means we can’t afford to take all day. A second in here is a minute out there, which is an hour out in reality. That’s a concerning thought.

We react immediately, engulfing Hans in a volume of void. At the same time, the half of us outside the barrier watches the void unfurl in slow motion, slowly growing and spreading like a drop of dye dissolving in a glass of water.

“Are you okay?” Noli asks, noting my hunched stance.

“Mostly,” I say, shaking my head as if that would alleviate the mental strain. “It’s the time bubble inside of the barrier. My mind is moving at two different speeds at once.”

Noli makes a face. “I might not be a healer like Rezira, but I don’t think that’s good for you.”

I give a strained laugh. “Never would have thought.”

After about a minute, the void as nearly completely wrapped around Hans, who is just starting to react, his head turning to the side. Fyre lands at my side, watching the scene unfolding inside the barrier.

“There’s thirty-two other Travelers,” she reports. “At least in this area. It’s impossible to say if there are other rooms like this one, where more Travelers might be held.”

“We can go looking for more if we have time,” I say.

Fyre grimaces. “I’m not sure if time is something we have on our side.”

No kidding. “If I do this thirty-two more times, that’s at least thirty two hours back in Lusio.”

“Probably more,” Fyre says, frowning at Hans and our void. “It’s been over two minutes since we left you. Even ignoring the time it would take you to move between the cubes and ready yourself for another spell, that’s almost three days in real time. I doubt the pantheon will wait that long to respond.”

That’s true—if someone on the outside decides to check the Sanctum after one day in the real world, that means we have less than twenty minutes before they show up here. Crap, this time dilation is even worse than I first thought.

“Then we multitask,” I say. We won’t have the time or means to coral everyone and try to answer all their questions once we remove them from the barrier, anyway. “Do them all at once.”

Fyre looks worried. “Are you capable of that? Such coordination…”

“Ink helps with dividing my attention,” I tell her. “I can split our void thirty-two different ways and then try to free as many as I can simultaneously.”

It’s not going to be exactly instantaneous; I have a limited range around my core where I can add and remove items from my Inventory. Which means I’ll have to add void to each barrier as fast as I can move between them, Displace each Traveler through, and then do another lap to retrieve all the void I’ve left inside the barriers.

Sure. Easy.

Fyre doesn’t ask me if I’m sure about this plan; I think she understands that this is really our only shot at freeing everyone before someone stumbles upon us.

“Okay,” Fyre says. “Ollie and I will get a head start and start opening each of the blocks—”

[Ollie: ON IT!]

The dragon zips off before Fyre has even finished, appearing to have far too much fun pouncing on and opening each of the cubes. “Hopefully that will allow you to reach them all faster,” she finishes.

“Sounds…” Before I can say ‘good,’ the portion of my mind in the barrier begins to realize it’s ready. It hasn’t even completed the thought, but I can tell where it’s going. Within a millisecond of our void engulfing the trapped Traveler, we activate a Displace.

The young man falls out of our void, stumbling down to his hands and knees with a startled yelp. He looks around wildly. “What was that? What’s going on? Where am I?”

Noli gestures for him to be settle down, kneeling at his level and giving him a reassuring I pull my translator out of my Inventory, leave some glass behind, and then I’m off.

I race to the first open box; inside of it is an older looking halfling woman. I don’t even take the time to Check her, I just add a portion of my void to the barrier, and then rush to the next one.

“Activate translation,” I tell Hans through my translator. He stares at the talking rock like he’s… well, like he’s just heard a rock speak. Oh for the love of…

Fyre also crouches at his side. “We need to be quiet,” she tells him. “I’m going to send you a message through the System.”

He looks at her in awe. “Are you an angel?”

Fyre covers her mouth with a hand as she stifles a laugh.

[Group message request received from Fyre,] Echo says. [Participants include: Fyre, Kanin, Ollie, Hans.]

I accept the request, adding another portion of void to a different bubble. By the time I finish, the first bit of void should be ready to activate Displace. But with each successive barrier, my mind feels stretched tighter and tighter, finally starting to resolve into actual pain.

[Sanity level,] Echo speaks up. [98%]

Of course. That figures.

[Group chat initiated]

[Fyre: Can you see this, Hans?]

[Hans: oh what the fuck?!]

[Ollie: HE SAID A BAD WORD!]

[Fyre: Please try to keep your language PG.]

[Kanin: Yeah, this is exactly what I need in my head right now.]

“It’s always voices,” he says, glancing around the room, clearly distressed. “Why is it always more voices?”

“It’s okay,” Noli signs, giving him a gentle smile. She reaches out and squeezes his hand. He appears to relax a little, and he briefly gives a worried smile back, but he watches her sign in puzzlement.

[Fyre: Hans, please listen. I know this is overwhelming. You see Noli, here? When Echo prompts you to activate translation, select ‘yes.’]

[Hans: holy shit. How did I do that? What’s going on?]

[Ollie: OMG HE DID IT AGAIN]

[Kanin: We’re breaking you out of the Heavens. You’re welcome.]

I jump to another cube, reaching in toward the figure below. Then, I stop.

The barrier contains a white arachnoid, one I’m intimately familiar with.

Yedzaquib.

He no longer appears furious, face contorted with rage, but he does look like he’s focusing intently on the barrier, a web of light woven between his fingers. The black blood on his torso, from where he’d jammed Anika’s refiner into his chest, is still there, streaking down his robes.

I back out, close the face of the cube, and move on to the next one.

Hans is starting to hyperventilate, though Noli is doing her best to calm him down.

[Hans: Heaven? Did I die?]

[Fyre: No.]

[Kanin: Yes]

[Fyre: It’s complicated.]

[Kanin: You died, your soul got shunted to this planet, you got a new body, at some point a god snatched you, and now we’re snatching you back. It’s not that complicated.]

[Hans: What the hell]

[Kanin: Look, we’ll have time to explain everything later, but right now we’re in a bit of a time crunch. What we need from you is to keep quiet and follow whatever orders Noli or Fyre give you. Unless you want to spend another few months in that bubble.]

[Hans: Months? What? But it’s only been an hour or two. Is this actually real?]

[Fyre: The time dilation, Kanin. The effect is exponential for nested bubbles. If he was caught right when he came to this world, then it’s only been a little over an hour for him.]

Holy shit. I didn’t even think about that. I’d assumed everyone here would be happy to be released and eager to follow us back to safety—but they won’t even know what’s going on. Will they have even learned how to use their Echoes yet? Do they know about their Roles? Crap, we’re going to be starting from square one with all these guys.

That will have to be a tomorrow problem. Right now, we just need to get these guys out, shunt them through the portal, and rush everyone inside the protection of Fyre’s city without a god stopping us at any point along the way.

Easy.

I’m only about halfway through adding my void to all the time bubbles, but we can feel that the first one we did is nearly ready for our Displace. I’m racing through the room, and it’s still taking longer than I’d like.

“More incoming,” I sign to Noli with a pair of hands I left behind.

“What the fuck,” Hans says.

“Can you take care of them?”

“I’ll try,” she signs. “Thirty is a lot to handle. Where do I need to take them?”

“Just keep them on the platform,” I reply. “I’ll re-open the Planar Linkage spell there.”

I don’t even know if any of them have even discovered Echo’s translation ability, yet. Hopefully Fyre can help. But Noli’s right; thirty is a lot for us to handle. It’s about to get very crowded and hectic in here.

“Here comes the next one,” I sign.

We activate Displace on the Traveler that our void has finally finished wrapping around. The halfling woman staggers out the other side of our void, onto the same platform as Hans and Noli. Noli steadies her as the old woman looks around.

Another element to this plan I hadn’t thought all the way through; void can’t Displace itself, it can only Displace things through it, which means each bit of void I’ve left in those bubbles is stuck there until I come back around and get close enough that I can add it back to my Inventory. Not a huge problem—just another delay we don’t need.

Ollie and Fyre have finished opening all the cubes for me, and they’re back on the main platform, attending to the Travelers that are starting to appear, one by one.

Finally, I add void to the last bubble—and it’s a good thing that’s the last, too. I’ve barely got enough left out here to complete the Displace spells. I fly back to the first, relieved to finally be reclaiming a bit of my sanity. Our void is spread across thirty-one different time bubbles, and it’s more than a little painful and disorienting. Even with Ink’s ability to split its attention as many ways as it wants, being split between two different operating speeds is something else.

I reach the first empty bubble and put my hands to the surface; the void passes back within my storage range, so I add it to my Inventory, then remove it once more, this time on the outside of the barrier. One down, thirty to go.

As I focus on what I need to get done, I slip back in synch with Ink. We need to set up the Planar Linkage spell circle to get out of here, too. The original plan had been to open the portal back to the place where we’d first opened it, but it could be swarming with champions—or even gods—by now. We need to get as close to the city as possible. Inside it, if we can.

The more void we recover, the more void we send to the platform where everyone is gathering, and begin to draw out a spell circle beneath their feet.

We send a private message just to Fyre.

[K̶a̵n̷i̶n̸: where can we open the portal?]

Fyre’s response comes a few seconds later. She and Noli seem to be juggling quite a lot up there.

[Fyre: I’ve been thinking about that, too. I have an item you can use as the focus that should bring us within the Fortress.]

There’s a pause, and at first, we think she’s done.

[Fyre: There is a risk, though, that it might throw us into the middle of danger. A small risk, but it’s possible.]

[K̶a̵n̷i̶n̸: how?]

[Fyre: It should take us to Mirzayael. She should be safe within the city walls… If she didn’t leave to come after me.]

That sounds like more than just a small risk. But it’s probably not much worse than anywhere we could open the portal.

[K̶a̵n̷i̶n̸: it’s fine. we’ll do it]

[Fyre: Copy. We’ll be ready for you.]

[K̶a̵n̷i̶n̸: just one more minute]

We fly by another empty barrier, grabbing the void from that one, too. Just ten more Travelers to free.

Which is when the wall nearest to us opens, and the god Rinviu steps back through. And this time, they’re not alone.