The Eternal: A Boxed Set (World of Ga'em Book 6)

by Dhayaa Anbajagane

  “Seems pretty spooky,” Raffyr said.

  “It seems abandoned,” Viola added, her voice soft.

  “Well, my past-self did say people don’t use it much,” I said. “All the more better for a bunch of time travelers wanting to avoid the folk here, right?”

  “That’s true,” Freya said. “Still, we need to be careful.”

  She dropped down from her Volcanic bear and walked to the cavern. Acnologia strode by her side, and gazed at the cavern opening as he did. The two of them stood under the entrance, and looked into the darkness.

  “This place goes in pretty deep,” Freya said loudly.

  “Well, it’s supposed to pass under the whole mountain so of course it’s deep.” I jumped down from my bear and walked up to them.

  The Dragon looked around. “I think I can fit in here quite easily,” he said, and strode further inside.

  All of a sudden, a shrieking sound exploded from the cave, and a line of runes emerged on the mountain wall, outlining the entrance. An earthquake shook the surface, throwing all of us down to the ground. I fell off my Volcanic bear, and rolled over the surface before I came to a stop.

  I heard a loud thud and my fallen form glanced up, just in time to see a massive boulder break off from the ceiling, and hurl down to the floor.

  A small form lay collapsed underneath it.

  Freya.

  ***

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “Zoran!”

  A voice called out to me. It seemed distant, but its tone was warm, as though the voice that spoke it was laced with nectar and honey.

  My eyes slowly opened, and a fuzzy sight emerged before me. Soft locks brushed my face, and a hand gently caressed my forehead. I blinked a few times, and gazed at eyes of moon-silver, at a worried elven assassin staring down at me.

  “Thank god,” Freya sighed. Her ball of light hovered next to her head and lit up the area.

  “What?” I blinked again. I gazed past the elf, and saw a dark ceiling standing above us, with sleets of solid rock embedded into the surface.

  “So you’re finally awake,” Nyx spoke.

  Yeah. I sat myself up. What just happened?

  “You saved Freya from the falling rocks,” a voice said. Two eyes of blood-red emerged from behind the elf, and I knew instantly that Acnologia was in here as well.

  “It was quite a heroic sight,” Nyx chuckled. “You rushed to her before she could react, and pushed her into the cavern.”

  “It was impressive speed,” the Dragon said. “Even I had not been able to move at such a pace.”

  “Youth is a wonderful thing.”

  I rolled my eyes. Shut up. I turned around, and saw that there no longer stood an entrance to this cavern. Instead, a heavy pile of rocks had plugged the gap, and sealed it completely. Damn, I thought. That’s unfortunate.

  Freya touched my arm. “How do you feel?”

  “I think I’m okay.” I folded out my legs and lifted myself back onto my feet. “I don’t think there’s anything that—”

  A shrieking pain shot up my leg and I dropped to the floor, gasping. I held my shin, careful not to apply any kind of pressure to it.

  “Looks like you fractured your bone,” Nyx said.

  What the heck? I breathed heavy. When did that even happen?

  “A stray rock must have hit you when you went to save Freya.”

  I looked up and saw the elf gazing down at me, and pain was written all over her face. Uh oh, I thought.

  “I’m sorry.” Her voice was quiet. “If it weren’t for me your leg would still be…”

  “It’s not really a big deal,” I said. “Eternals heal pretty fast anyway. I should be okay in a few hours at the most.”

  “That sounds about right,” Nyx said.

  “Still.” Freya fidgeted. “I could have prevented this whole thing from happening if I’d just been a bit more careful.”

  “Stuff happens,” I chuckled. “You can’t really find a way out of it sometimes.”

  I could tell with a look at her face that I had not convinced her one bit. “So,” I looked at her, ready to change the topic. “Where are the others?”

  “Stuck on the other side of the wall,” she said. “Viola and Raffyr messaged me a few seconds ago. I told them we were trapped in here, and they said they’d try to find us a way out.”

  “I could probably get us out of here,” I said.

  “You could?”

  I held out my hand, and Freya gripped it, pulling me up. I ceased putting any effort onto my fractured leg and stood entirely on my good one, leaning a fair amount of body weight onto the elf as well.

  “Where are you going?” she asked, and let me grab her shoulder to support myself.

  “The rock pile,” I said, and we walked up to it.

  “What are you doing, Diablo?” Acnologia asked.

  Just an idea. I felt the jagged rocks that made the structure, and ran my hands along their grainy surfaces.

  I calmed my thoughts, and focused on my inner energy, channeling it straight into my hand. I laid all my body weight onto my good leg and let go of Freya’s shoulder. My fingers curled into a fist, and I sent it at wall, smashing into the rocks.

  But nothing happened.

  The structure vibrated for a moment, and then the tremors settled down, as if I hadn’t even attacked it in the first place.

  DING!

  Congratulations! You have advanced a ‘Hand combat’ special move:

  Meteor fist Level 2!

  Time to send more ‘meteors’ hurtling down to your enemies. They won’t know what hit them. Strength increased by +1% for every critical hit landed. Effect lasts fifteen minutes.

  Mana Cost

  20

  Casting Time

  0.1 Seconds

  Cooldown Time

  1 minute

  Range

  N/A

  Effect 1

  At least +2% Attack for every 5 kills

  That was a sweet upgrade, but I had no use for it given I was still stuck in this chamber. The rocks had not only retained their structure, but they hadn’t even budged. My attack had simply been too weak to move them.

  “Well, to be perfectly fair,” Nyx said. “This wall was caused by a part of the mountain collapsing. I don’t know if I’d have expected you to break apart an entire section of the mountain with your strength.”

  “Especially one as large as this,” Acnologia added.

  “Is your leg okay?” Freya asked, and let me lean onto her again. “That was probably not a move you should have used.”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “I just thought I’d be able to get out of here that way.”

  “Wait. That’s what you were trying to do? I thought you were going to use your Shadow Travel skill to get us out of here.”

  “Oh,” I blinked. “That does make more sense.”

  “You idiot,” Nyx chuckled.

  Shut up. I put my hand in the air, and summoned the skill. “Hiestia,” I said.

  Darkness immediately sprung up from the floor, and covered me, the elf, and the Dragon in complete black. And then something else happened.

  I felt my body vibrate, and heat passed through my very nerves. In seconds, the blackness ripped away, like cheap cloth, and melted back into the air, as though I had never summoned it in the first place.

  “What just happened?” Freya looked around.

  “I’m…not sure,” I blinked. We definitely hadn’t gone anywhere else, but I’d used my Shadow Travel skill, so it didn’t make any sense that we hadn’t.

  “Spell negation,” Acnologia said.

  What? I asked.

  “There must be a force here that is negating the use of spells. That is the only explanation that I have.”

  You realize Freya’s ball of light spell is working, I said. Like, right now. In front of us.

  “While that may be true,” he said. “I still think it is easier to believe something negated the use of your sp
ell rather than think it was something completely random.”

  “Also,” Nyx said. “It’s possible your negation was a unique case — meaning only certain spells are being negated.”

  Is there something in here that’s after me then? I looked into the darkness.

  “Zoran.” Freya touched my wrist. “Is everything okay?”

  “Not really,” I said. “Looks like something negated my spell.”

  “I figured. That isn’t good.”

  “No, it is not,” I sighed. “How are we supposed to get out of here now?”

  “I’ll ask Raffyr and Viola if they made any progress on their end.”

  “Alright,” I nodded. It was nice to see that the elf was not shying away from her old companions now. Maybe she’d finally talked to them about her identity.

  DING!

  A screen emerged in front of Freya and I looked at it. Viola was the one who was messaging her.

  Wow okay, that’s very odd. If you can’t find any way to get out of here then how about we try to meet each other on the other side of the mountain? We can try to look for other pathways. Surely there should be another not-so-hard way of passing through these mountains.

  “That sounds reasonable,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Freya nodded. “I’ll tell her to go along with that idea.”

  “That’s fine. Plus, that’s honestly the only option we have right now.”

  The elf finished sending her message in a few seconds, and in that time, I tried moving my leg, curious to see how much it had healed. Much to my surprise the fracture had closed a lot more than I’d expected. It was still quite broken of course, but in the last few minutes the main sections of bone seem to have mended themselves a bit. I could place a little more weight on the limb now, and that was a good sign. Hobbling through these tunnels was not something I was eager to do.

  “Okay, I’m done.” Freya closed her screen.

  I nodded, and turned toward the Shadow Dragon.

  “I am ready,” he said.

  “Let’s get going then.” We moved forward, deeper into the darkness, with Freya’s ball of light illuminating the rocks around us as we traveled.

  Strands of wind ran along the tunnel, sending vibrations through the walls. I found it odd that there was a breeze in a place like this but I did not question it.

  How long to the exit, Nyx? I asked.

  “On it,” the spirit said.

  DING!

  A map popped up in front of me, and on it was the image of a long tunnel path, meandering under the mountain. I could see a blue dot and green dot — Freya and — moving forward through it. But most of all, I could tell it wouldn’t take us more than a few hours to get to the other side.

  “This is a really fast route,” I realized once again.

  “Past-you was nice to tell us of this,” Freya said.

  “Yeah,” I nodded.

  “How’s your leg?”

  “It’s much better,” I said. “Apparently I heal much quicker than I’d expected.”

  “I can see that,” she smiled.

  And just as she said that, I stumbled, and a sharp pain hit my leg once more, not from something breaking again, but from my not-so-completely-healed leg taking too much blunt force at once.

  “Easy there,” Freya grabbed onto my waist, hoisting me up and making my put my arm around her shoulder. She pulled be close to her, giving me even more support than before.

  “She feels guilty about this, Eternal,” Acnologia said. “The poor elf was distraught when you saved her and nearly had the rocks crush your limbs.”

  I know, I thought. “I’ll be fine soon, Freya. Don’t worry about it.”

  She looked at me. “Either way, you should be resting that leg a little more.”

  “I know, I know,” I said. “I just wish Irmeia was here as well. Having another Eternal with us would have been good right about now. Especially since my spells don’t seem to be working for some reason.”

  “I can take care of myself just fine, thank you.” Freya’s voice was ice cold. “We don’t need Irmeia here.”

  Whoa, I thought. “Is everything okay?”

  “Why would it not be okay?” She raised an eyebrow. “You just got close to a lady without learning anything about her. Surely there is no obvious problem with that.”

  Nyx sighed. “Well, you’ve gone and done it now, Eternal.”

  “Wait,” I blinked. “You have a problem with Irmeia?”

  “Of course I do!” she said, in a very I-can’t-believe-you-haven’t-noticed tone.

  “Why?”

  “I literally just said it. You know absolutely nothing about her. What if she’s an Eternal who’s working for the Dark Lord? Have you ever considered that? It was only after her body started glowing back at Ikarius that everything began. Did you not consider for a single moment that this lady could be the enemy?”

  “I did not. And do you want to know why I didn’t do that?” My tone changed. “Because back when I was a lone Eternal, back when I was confused about what was happening to me, a lone elf called Freya believed in who I was, even though everyone else thought I was the enemy.”

  She looked at me. “Irmeia is nothing like you.”

  “We’re both Eternals who woke up with pretty much no clue of who we were, or what we were doing there in the first place. That sounds like quite a big thing to have in common.”

  “Fine.” She looked away.

  “Listen,” I said. “I see myself in this Eternal. I see her going through the exact same things that I was going through. She’s lost, unaware of who she is, or what she needs to be doing. I know those feelings. I struggled through them myself. Do you want me to look at a situation I know is hard to get through, a situation I know I empathize with, and then just leave it alone?”

  The elf said nothing. I sighed, and let it go.

  She remained silent as we walked through the tunnel, and I did not speak to her either. The atmosphere was tense, but even then, she still helped me move around with my injured foot.

  “You know,” Nyx said. “That thing back there was unnecessary.”

  “It was necessary.” Acnologia disagreed almost instantly.

  She’s been off for quite a while now, I said. We had to talk about it sometime. Right?

  “Maybe,” the spirit said. “But I don’t think it was ever a good idea to do this when you two were trapped in a confined space with hours of walking ahead of you.”

  I don’t really care, I said. It bothered me that every time Irmeia and I had a conversation, Freya would not seem too thrilled about it.

  “It seems like she was not at all for having the Eternal as a fellow adventurer,” Acnologia said.

  Yeah, that’s what I felt too, I sighed.

  “Honestly to me it just sounds like she wanted you to be more suspicious,” Nyx said. “And I have to agree, you’re currently quite unnecessarily trusting. Although I do understand your emotional reasoning for it.”

  Wait, now YOU’RE disagreeing with me too? I asked.

  “No, no,” Nyx said. “I understand your side a lot better. Irmeia IS in a situation that is very similar to what we had gone through before.”

  Exactly, I said.

  The wind ahead of us picked up, interrupting the conversation, and all of a sudden, the tunnel filled with the sounds of howling gales rushing past us. Dust and debris broke from the roof, but didn’t drop down, and flied away into the wind instead.

  “What’s going on?” I pushed forward.

  “I have no clue.” Freya’s yelling voice was barely audible over the loud gales.

  I quickly turned around, looking back at the entrance that had been blocked. There were no gaps in that surface, and yet the winds blew through this tunnel at high speeds.

  I frowned. That doesn’t make sense.

  “Zoran, be careful,” Acnologia said.

  A few seconds in, the wind immediately stopped, as though it ran only through one segment of th
e tunnel.

  The elf brushed strands of hair off her face. “Well, that was odd.”

  I looked ahead of us, and noticed that the tunnel had expanded out. The walls rose high into the air, and the curved structure sharpened up to look more rectangular now. There was something a few yards ahead of us and I trudged toward it, still leaning on the elf for support.

  I stepped into where the tunnel opened up, and realized we were in some kind of chamber. Freya’s ball of light lit up the place, illuminating everything within it. The roof stood more than a hundred yards high and was made of some kind of mineral rock. Its rough surface glittered in rainbow colors as the white light shone onto it.

  I looked before me and saw a tall pillar of stone stand up from the ground, rising to about a yard above my head. I didn’t touch it, but instead gazed at its surface, trying to see if there was any clue as to what it was.

  “Zoran,” Acnologia said as he entered. “I sense something.”

  Freya’s ball of light instantly cut off, leaving us with nothing but the dull light of the mineral roof above.

  “What the heck?” the elf said. “My spell just got cut off as well.”

  My shoulder’s tightened. “Just like what happened to me before.”

  A roar thundered through the chamber, and the walls vibrated from the sheer force of the call. All of a sudden, light emerged into the room, illuminating the place. Runes of pure white glowed brightly, and were painted onto every part of the chamber — the floor, the walls, the pillar. Everything.

  A dull hum propagated through the air, and increased in intensity in a mere second, turning into a shrieking cry.

  Suddenly ropes of light shot out of the runes, heading right for me. The chains wrapped around my body before I could even flinch, and a searing heat spread through my limbs, numbing my body and shutting down my mind. The sounds before me quickly disappeared as I collapsed to the floor, with sensation running away from my world.

  And for once — instead of the darkness — I succumbed to the light.

  ***