Mark 2.0

by Prax Venter

  She just rolled her large eyes.

  “So… you’re saying you all relive the same day?” Sasha asked, and Mark felt a fresh wave of anxiety from both her and Jezebel. He’d grown familiar with this particular flavor of worry from them. It was about what happened to the Other Mark, and it was past time to have a very serious talk about that. But the person they called Detrious stepped up to the group, and his thoughts on the subject were shelved for later.

  “Welcome to Sanctuary!” the newcomer said, and Mark felt unbridled excitement coming from him. He was sharply dressed in a violet doublet and black pants, the latter of which were soaked to the knees from his path through the river. The clothes had gold and silver embroidery and coupled with the onyx gemstone amulet he wore around his neck, Mark got the impression that this dark-haired man held great power. Some sort of mage, or wizard.

  “Do you notice anything… interesting about the four of them?” Meegon asked, raising his eyebrows.

  Detrious rubbed his chin as his sharp eyes passed over Mark and his Enthralled. Then after a moment he dropped his hand and his brown eyes opened wide.

  “You’re them! Astounding. You honestly couldn’t have found a better place to seek refuge from the decree delivered so dramatically by that unheard-of being calling herself Maliah. I have so many questions for you!”

  “Can we leave?” Sasha said abruptly, stepping one of her hooves forward and snapping her tail, twice.

  “Visitors can leave anytime they want,” he said with a slow nod. “We each have many questions, I’m sure. But I deign to impose upon you four so soon after your first morning. A tour and a thorough orientation is in order. Good thing we have eternity at our disposal.” He clasped his hands together and turned to the other two. “Would either of you be so kind as to attend to the Doc as I show them around?”

  “I’ll go get him set up for the cycle,” Chorra said. “I’m sure I’ll see you wanted fugitives later.”

  With a wave of her feather-draped arm, the attractive birdwoman launched into the air sending a strong gust of wind against the ground. Mark watched as she beat her wings up into the bright-blue sky before descending on the other side of the crashed airship.

  The strange swirling movement of two dark-blue clouds in an otherwise-empty sky caught his eye and when he focused on them, a wave of utterly erotic pleasure struck his emotional antenna so hard it almost made him cum in his pants.

  “What is that?” Mark asked, all other questions taking a back seat as he pointed to the strange aerial phenomenon.

  Detrious kept his focus on Mark, while Meegon looked up at what he was talking about. A chuckle escaped his cheerful face before he turned back to answer.

  “Not what, who. Visitors. They are a pair of air elementals that entered Sanctuary some time ago. They- um, prefer to be alone.”

  “They prefer sexual stimulation,” Abby corrected, and Mark realized that his reaction must have echoed through their bond. He looked over to see the abyssal horror staring at him hungrily.

  “You’re a Lover,” Detrious said, rubbing his stubble-covered chin again. “All these millennia and we finally have a Visitor with healing capabilities.” He appeared to want to say something else but thought better of it. “Come,” he continued, holding out his arm to follow as he began walking toward the front of the crashed air ship. “I’ll introduce you to the other Visitors and the Repeaters.”

  “Repeaters?” Jezebel said, her curiosity about the history of this place quickly overtaking caution as it appeared no one was going to start attacking them.

  Everyone began following Detrious as he spoke.

  “The Repeaters are the ones who survived the crash of the Gilded Breeze. Unlike the Visitors, the Repeaters retain no memories of previous cycles and are locked repeating the same 9 hours of post-crash trauma - possibly forever. It’s why I linger here, and I’ve spent the last several thousand years attempting to ascertain the nature of this temporal anomaly. I hope to find a way to break the curse… one of these cycles. It just feels like the right thing to do.”

  “Kiv is an example of a Repeater,” Meegon offered, “and I’ve been living here for several decades longer than Detrious. He and I both know the curse is unbreakable and some of us would be very upset if he somehow succeeded. This is our home. Our Sanctuary.”

  Mark’s emotional antennae provided insight into these two men and their centuries-long arguments over the matter. Yet such an unfathomable stretch of time had passed that all resentment had long since been reduced to familiar kinship.

  “Who maintains the wooden sign outside the anomaly?” Jezebel asked.

  “There’s a sign?” the balding man asked, his eyes wide. “What does it say?”

  “We’ll give you one guess,” Abby said, repeating Sasha’s words from before.

  Mark looked over to his loyal succubus and saw her staring off into the valley, lost in her own thoughts. He followed her gaze and saw a picturesque waterfall cascading down multiple tiers of sandstone outcroppings and marveled at how much closer it was when compared to the dark emptiness from the stormy night before. Time and water had apparently teamed up to cut away a substantial amount of the future landscape.

  “Find eternal comfort ye who enter?” Meegon answered.

  “Incorrect,” Abby said.

  Mark pulled his eyes off Sasha. “It says ‘Sanctuary’.”

  “A Visitor who left must have started some type of tradition,” Detrious offered, rubbing his chin.

  “You think it was Karnabal?” Meegon suggested, looking to the well-dressed man for his opinion.

  “Doesn’t really matter,” Detrious said finally, angling them toward the river. “I would expect more Visitors, yet the only thing that truly matters is breaking the time loop.”

  The group approached the leading edge of the crashed airship, and Mark caught sight of the large Repeater, Kiv, harassing another group of individuals standing there near the bank on the other side.

  There was a red-skinned man with black horns that was so round he had to weigh over 600 pounds, a short human kid who wore a silver bellhop outfit who couldn’t be older than nineteen, and a fish-woman wearing a tight red dress over iridescent scales.

  The hippo man in the tight shorts was pointing down river and trying to convince them to follow his lead, but the others didn’t seem to be any more receptive than anyone else.

  “I apologize,” Detrious said, looking over his shoulder as they approached the crystal-clear waters running over a sandy riverbed. “I would so love to fashion a bridge over The Serpent, yet nothing remains come tomorrow. Now, if you’ll wade through with me, we can continue the introductions.”

  Mark shot a glance toward Jezebel thinking she would switch on her simple wing shapes, but he caught a sharp flash from her regarding the need for caution. She did not want to show all their cards right away, just in case, and Mark silently agreed.

  Meegon gave them a wide smile as he hiked up his robes. “Also, the ship’s larder spilled its contents over on the starboard side. Infinitely replenishing foodstuffs!”

  “How many Visitors and Repeaters are in here?” Jezebel continued her line of questioning as they all moved to wade through the crisp, cool waters of the river they called The Serpent.

  The dark-haired man answered without looking back. “Counting you four, ten Visitors and six Repeaters.”

  Mark’s internal debate about whether he should take his boots off was interrupted when Abby jumped up on his back and wrapped her long arms around his chest and neck.

  “Move, Copy,” she whispered close by his ear. Although he knew she was only trying to be cute by repeating what she’d said to him on his back during her rescue from the Vulpath mountaintop, it only reminded him that he needed to have a serious conversation with Jezebel and Sasha. The brief, unconscious flash of negative emotion caused Abby to inhale swiftly.

  She bent her head close, pressed her lips softly against his ear, and saturated their bond w
ith remorse and self-admonishment. He rubbed one of her constricting tentacles and sent back strong feelings of love and calm as he carried her through the water.

  “Is that the exit?” Sasha said and Mark followed her gaze to a glowing white rectangle near the edge of the forest. It held the same dimensions from the magical doorway they’d used to enter, and its position looked to be the same in relation to the wreck.

  A zap of intense longing and desire struck Mark in his sightless eye from Detrious, but it faded away swiftly.

  “Yes,” the man in purple said. “Perhaps one day everyone here will be released from the curse and free to continue living. It’s a bizarre sort of torture- to exist forever yet forget every sunrise that you are even trapped.”

  Sasha came to a dead stop in the middle of the river as a horrible shiver of self-loathing echoed through her body. Mark was going to say something, but Jezebel was closer and instead stopped to take her hand.

  Wordlessly, his sympathetic satyr encouraged his loyal succubus onto the soft grasses that bordered the swift-moving river. A glint of a reflection caught Mark’s good eye beyond the two horned beauties and saw what he guessed was a broken robot face-down in the sand. By its fleshy peach of an ass pointing up in the air, the thing reminded him of a sex bot from his own world.

  “You people!” the obese, red-skinned devil-creature said as they drew close. “I must know if any of your wisperstones function?”

  “Sorry, Fedik,” Meegon said with his palms up. “We don’t have any wisperstones.”

  He grunted as his yellow glowing eyes looked down at the man’s simple wet robes. “No, I wouldn’t imagine you would.”

  “I don’t remember seeing any of you onboard,” the fish-woman said with a sneer, crossing her arms and looking directly at Mark. “And you certainly don’t look like servants. Security then?” A small curved appendage extended from her forehead that ended in a ball of white light, and Mark could not help but find it mesmerizing. She reminded him of an attractive angler fish. He pulled his gaze from the entrancing light to her aqueous azure eyes and inadvertently initiated a deep dive into her mind.

  She was a stage entertainer and the Gilded Breeze had been a pleasure cruise catering to rich and famous patrons. She loathed the excessively wealthy creature next to her but was betting that if she stayed by his side during these trying times, she would have the opportunity to get close to him and the lavish lifestyle she craved more than anything.

  “Not exactly,” Mark murmured as Abby hopped off his back.

  “No matter,” the demonic-looking man said and waved a dismissive hand. It was then that Mark noticed the considerable amount of jewelry he wore. “Rescue craft are no doubt already on the way.”

  “Without a doubt,” Detrious lied. “We’re going to start taking stock of the food situation. Fedik, Mora, why don’t you two relax.” He then turned to the young man in the bellhop outfit. “Jelwin, why don’t you come with us?”

  The kid’s eyebrows rose. “Me? How do you know my name? I-I’d uh, rather…” he stammered as his green eyes bounced around looking for an excuse to stay where he was but always came back to the fish-woman in the tight red dress. Even without Mark’s abilities, it was obvious he was infatuated with her.

  This depressing eternal love triangle repeating every morning moved Mark to understand Detrious’s motivations. They’d of course offer to help break the curse, but not before they took at least a few days in here to rest and dole out the pile of essence they had at their fingertips. Both within him and the heart shards Jezebel carried.

  Mora the fish-woman turned to the young man then bent over slightly and batted her eyelids at him.

  “Be a love and find me a bag of dried flies among the broken crates, won’t you?”

  “Y-yes ma’am. Immediately,” Jelwin the bellhop said, his eyes crossed and focused on her glowing “lure” before quickly spinning on his heels and dashing off toward a pile of wreckage to the right.

  “And I require sausage and several eggs!” Fedik yelled out after him. He then turned to the others. “It would be a great tragedy to both wake up falling out of the sky and miss a hearty breakfast.”

  “Really?” Mark said, holding his hand out to a frog-like creature that appeared to be cut in half only a few feet away. “You could have woken up dead.”

  At that, the large black-horned man laughed so hard his chins jiggled.

  “Preposterous! One cannot wake up if one is dead, fool. Now go and secure the perimeter- or whatever it is someone in your position ought to be doing.”

  Mark shared a gaze with his Enthralled and reevaluated whether some of these people deserved saving.

  “We’ll get right on that,” Meegon said with a wide smile while Detrious only nodded and led them away from the opulently dressed couple.

  “He’s boisterous but ultimately harmless,” their guide continued when they were far enough away.

  Jezebel nodded. “I assume wisperstones are some type of enchanted communication device.”

  “You’d be correct. No magic constructs that allow communication or travel will function from within the anomaly.”

  As they swung wide around more lifeless bodies and chunks of broken hull, the bird-woman they’d met before came into view. She was kneeling by a human male with a full white beard, and by the way he was seated with one leg bent at an odd angle, it was clear he was badly injured in the crash.

  Mark hurried his pace to a jog and the others followed.

  “More survivors,” the man said through clenched teeth. “Good to see more.”

  “This is Doctor Cordin,” Chorra said, as they all approached. “Doc’s the only one of the Repeaters to have both survived and suffered a terrible wound.”

  The white-haired man cocked his head at the bird woman. “Repeaters? Whatever do you mean?”

  Mark held out his hand toward the man’s snapped femur currently poking out through his blood-stained cloth pants. Hoping that he and his party wouldn’t need healing in the next few minutes, he sent the power of his Truth Seeing eye into the dreadful wound and began the process of undoing the damage.

  “Ah!” The man they called Doc sucked in a breath as a cascading light began to fall over his leg. Mark wasn’t as emotionally invested in this man as he was his three loves, but the thought of this seemingly kind person reliving a day of excruciating pain for eternity provided all the emotional fuel he needed to blast him with his restorative energies.

  After a much brighter flash of light centered on his exposed skeleton, the man was fully healed.

  “Oh, thank you so very much…” he said as he examined his leg with the expertise of a trained physician. He turned his light-blue eyes up to Mark and once the connection was established, he was assaulted with images from this man’s life. There was time to stop it, but he wanted to know more about this situation, so he let the Doc’s past wash over him.

  Cordin was indeed a kind man who’d spent his whole life dedicated to healing others. Even in a world with magical abilities around every corner, he was just an ordinary human who detested seeing suffering of any kind. And it all started with his mother, a self-taught herbalist in a small town on the outskirts of a sprawling dungeon. Her attentive bedside manner and empathy was usually well-rewarded, and the young Doc idolized her.

  He spent his formative years crafting potions, antidotes, and treated bandages for Collectors and adventurers coming back from their deep dives for essence and/or loot. The coin and experience gained there helped propel him into universities which offered a more comprehensive and formal education. The study of medicine continued to dominate his life from there.

  He never knew his father, and suspected he had to be one of the many Fighter Classes that frequented-

  Mark shook off the connection. He’d seen enough and offered his hand to the older man.

  “My pleasure. The name’s Mark.”

  Old Doc Cordin grasped it firmly, welcoming the assistance to his feet. T
he vibrant bird-woman stood with him, her wide beak hanging open slightly revealing a small pink tongue within.

  “Mark,” he repeated with a nod, turning their clasped hands from help-up to handshake. “An empathic Lover with your ability will be invaluable during a tragedy like this. Our first step should be to set up a triage… perhaps within the shade of the hull by the flowing river.”

  The older man was feeling himself again now that searing pain wasn’t saturating his mind and his blue eyes held the intensity of intelligence as he pointed out the spot he’d suggested. But the man wearing the onyx necklace reached out and pushed his arm down.

  “Doctor Cordin, my old friend. The situation is not what you think it is and there are no more wounded here that you can help. But you may be able to help in a much more substantial way if you are willing to listen with an open mind.”

  “I- what?” the white-bearded man said, confusion darkening his face. “Do I know you, sir?”

  Detrious shook his head. “Not yet, but we know a great deal about you. Please be patient and everything will be made clear.” He then turned to Chorra again. “Would you mind running the Doc through his script while I chat with our new Visitors for a moment?”

  Chorra nodded then put her arm on Cordin’s shoulder. “Please come with me, Doctor. We have a lot to discuss.”

  The confused old man let himself be led off toward the river and Meegon spoke up quietly when they were out of earshot.

  “It’s not going to matter. The curse can’t be broken.” Despite the confidence in his words, he was more nervous than he led on.

  “Regardless,” Detrious said, resting his hand on Mark’s shoulder with a sideways grin on his face. “This confirms my suspicions. What kind of death-bringer would spontaneously heal a wounded stranger without reward or request?”

  Meegon let out a short chuckle and waved his hand dismissively. “They never struck me as death bringers. I can spot a sour fruit from a sizable distance. People shouldn’t listen to mysterious floating heads that claim to be the creators of the universe. Even I knew something was off about that.”