Mana Mutation Menace (Journey to Chaos Book 3)

by Brian Wilkerson

  By evening, he appeared to be himself again. He spoke in a measured tone instead of spacy non-sequiturs. He opened doors for the ladies in the group. He requested pants and a shirt to wear under the lab coat, and specifically the Heleti livery he had left near the pit. Once clothed like a noble, he examined his horn with an academic’s curiosity instead of a child’s. It was at the point where Nunnal was considering Nolien’s discharge that a wind gusted through the facility.

  It blew open every door and every window. It covered every surface from floor to ceiling. Then it gathered into a funnel and took a humanoid shape. Ultimately, it became a woman with brown hair and griffin wings. She was dressed like a soldier in a lab, or a scientist in a battlefield. In either case, her clothes rustled as if in a constant breeze.

  “Greetings, Grandchildren of Chaos! I have heard the prayer of one among you and…” She spotted Nolien, fully dressed and sapient, and slouched. “I can see the future and I’m still not on time. Nolien Heleti, I came to assist with your rebirth but, apparently, I’m too late.”

  “No need to apologize, Wiol,” he said with a bow of his head. “I’m honored that you came in person to aid a mere mortal like myself.”

  “Don’t be so modest. I’m fond of your family.” She jerked her head towards Tiza, who hadn’t left his side since his rebirth. “Is she part of it yet?”

  Tiza blushed and shook her head, but still didn’t leave his side.

  “No. We are not engaged, but she is my jukispiawe.”

  “Wonderful!”

  “Hey, what does jukipatoto whatever mean?”

  “It’s an orc word that translates to ‘the one who watches my back,’” Wiol explained. “Depending on the context, it can mean ‘second-in-command,’ ‘partner,’ ‘best friend,’ and/or ‘spouse.’ Is it true?”

  Tiza blushed deeper. “The first three are…”

  Wiol leaned next to Eric and covered her mouth with her hand. “The last one will be true in about five years,” she whispered. “If you bring a hang-glider, forty hardback books, and a great deal of salt, then the ceremony will go smoother.”

  What does any of that have to do with a wedding?

  “Nunnal, darling, please send your flunkies to floor 15, room 5 within three minutes or the mutant killer wombats will get out.”

  “Trickster! T-Z guys! Jump to it!”

  The seven elves grabbed their weapons and rushed to the elevator. As soon as the door closed, Wiol scratched her head.

  “Or was it three years?” She shrugged.

  “S-guy, don’t just stand there! If Wiol is here, then Hacen is just outside. You should go out and welcome him.”

  He sighed. “Yes, Director.”

  The other aides approached Wiol, recited a standard prayer, and asked if Nunnal would ever remember their names. She sidestepped the question by saying she had chaotic business to discuss with Eric, Kallen, and Annala, so all prayers had to wait until later. Then she blew out with them in tow.

  The wind carried them through Dnnac Ledo and to the Courtyard of Elemental Worship. It deposited them at the Shrine to Wiol. Her main aspect was a griffin statue painted sky blue and cloud white. A windmill arose from its back. Beneath it and around it in a circle were flowers commonly found on Griffin Mountain in Anich.

  “Will my mom ever remember their names?”

  “No. Now on to more important things! Tasio tells me you want to kill an ordercrafter and you need my power to help you do it. So I’m here to test if you’re worthy of such power.”

  Eric simpered. “If you can see the future, then don’t you know if I'll pass it?”

  A gusty hand smacked him from behind.

  “Our world is based on Chaos and so there are countless ways that the future could unfold. Some things are more certain than others, but it’s basically wide open. For instance, Tiza and Nolien will marry in this lifetime, but there are variables. These include when, how long, and whether or not it will be public license or courtly secret. There is at least one future where they stay platonic teammates but pretend to be married for a mission, and another where they mentor a kid who considers them to be his parents. I can see a Heleti boy in the far future composing a family tree and claiming they were married based on historical documents such as the one stating that she’s an ‘honorary member of the household’ and the fact that her spider fang sword is enshrined in the Heleti Hall of Honor.”

  “Tiza doesn’t have a spider fang sword,” Eric said.

  “She will; trust me. The way she obtained it will be a story worthy of an epic ballad. I’d tell it to you, but time waits for no one, especially me. So! Are you ready?”

  “Yes, I am,” Eric said.

  Wiol raised her right hand above her head. A funnel cloud appeared around Eric and carried him high above the village and into the clouds. There he could see the world at a glance.

  Everything around the world was visible here. It was similar to his experience with Eaol, but a different perspective. Instead of earthy intimacy, this was far away and breezily impersonal. The landscape below him may as well have been a tactical map. Before his eyes, it began to move; move but not change. While the creatures lived their lives, the world itself refused to change. It was a simple matter to recall what he learned in Eaol’s trial and bring himself a closer view.

  Then he was there, hovering above their heads and watching them work. It was only now that he realized what he truly saw; he wasn’t just watching them work, but how they would work and could work. The possibilities overlaid in his sight to see all at once. If a man flipped a coin, he saw both outcomes every time. The mystery of Schrodinger’s Cat was not a mystery to him.

  I want to tighten my focus. Show me a future where Nolien Heleti the fifth and Tiza Aranid the first do not marry.

  The world around him whirled and then came to a stop. He was in an alley in Roalt’s warrior district. Wretched sobs and heavy breathing dominated the area. Nolien was halfway transformed, naked, and leaning over someone else. It was Tiza, who was naked, injured, and sobbing.

  Knights blocked off both sides of the street and more overlooked it from the rooftops of homes and businesses. They were fully armored and equipped with devastating weapons. One of them stepped forward and declared, “Lord Nolien Heleti, you are hereby under arrest for the murder of the Heleti family and household. You will be charged with sexual assault of the first order as soon as I tell the Knight of Justice about what I see here. Please come quietly.”

  Nolien growled at him, eyes fully red.

  “Lord Heleti, please don’t make me destroy you.”

  Nolien charged his horn.

  “So be it. FIRE!”

  Archers and mages fired from every direction. The sheer volume of projectiles overcame the monster’s defenses and stuck it full of both cold iron and disabling spells. While weakened, it was still alive and attacking. It fired randomly in the heavily populated area. The knights ran forward and ran it through many times over. Even then, it healed. Its power amplified by its magical horn made it elf-like in recovery ability. To overcome this, they hacked off its horn and roasted it in a blazing fire for a solid minute and then ran it through many times more.

  Once they were sure it was dead, the team’s medic examined Tiza. She confirmed their suspicions and wrapped a blanket around her while the knight squad escorted her to her parents’ home. On the way there, she tore a ring off her ring finger and tossed it into the trash.

  Eric was left standing in the alley; eyes wide, mouth open, and mind reeling. Wiol appeared next to him and waited for him to speak.

  "That...that could really happen?"

  "Yes, it could. Nolien is not like you. His mind is split between his noble human personality and feral monster instincts. There is conflict beneath the surface. Believe it or not, this isn’t the worst thing that could happen.”

  “I have to see the worst, don’t I?”

  “Yes. To accept my power, you have to look unflinchingly at the fut
ure. You’ve experienced the distant past and magnitude of the scale of the present, but you still have to come to terms with the endless branches of the future.”

  “Alright. Let’s do it.”

  One future after another scrolled through his mind. A hundred years played out in ten thousand ways was just the beginning. Everything from the heartrendingly tragic to the heartwarmingly triumphant to the hilariously ironic, and the just plain weird. In the end, he fell to his knees and threw up while his body and mind ached.

  “We’re not done yet,” Wiol said. “Are you?”

  Eric’s eyes slitted. His mind was clear and focused, and somewhat empty. Nothing was missing, nothing was forgotten, but it became comparatively empty in the endless chaos of a monster’s mind. He stood up and tall without shaking or weakness.

  “No.”

  “Good! Then let’s play a visual novel.”

  Wiol spread her arms out and the world reconfigured into a setting with characters. For the final challenge, Eric was to enter this setting and become one of these characters. His decisions would trigger events that would lead to certain endings. Wiol informed him of the premise, which she wrote, and told him the initial conflict. It was up to him to find the path to the Golden Ending. If he could do that, then she would grant him her blessing.

  It wasn’t easy. The first several tries were nothing but him stumbling around trying to figure out what was going on and who was who and how to influence the setting and the chain of events. Before he knew it, he was at a bad end.

  He tried again and reached a decent ending, but Wiol shook her head, so he tried again. After trial and error, much pondering and planning, and a few counter-intuitive decisions, he arrived at the solution. This resolved the conflict in the best manner possible, but Wiol still said he wasn’t done yet.

  “You can restart here, but all who live in time only have one chance. The likelihood of someone reaching this particular ending is poor. If there was someone to guide them, or if there were fewer branches, the chances would be higher.”

  “True. That’s possible. I know a lot of people who would like that kind of security.”

  “Are you one of them?”

  “No. I used to be and I can still understand why someone would want that restriction; it’s guidance and peace of mind.”

  “What changed?”

  “I met a boy named ‘Aio’ who challenged me to find something more than simple stability. Following a strategy guide makes a game less fun. Also, I might find a good bad bug and do something the guide says is impossible. Finally, I might disagree with the guide on which ending is the Golden Ending.”

  He clapped his hands together and withdrew his mage’s spear. The soiléir gleamed with the light of his grey-black spirit light and the three elemental ones that circled it.

  “For instance, I could decide I don’t want to play your game and jab you with this instead. I’ll steal your power and use it to create my own future.”

  Wiol clapped. “Congratulations!”

  She touched the crystal and a sky blue light took its place in orbit around the dark grey, opposite the brown and between the red and sea blue. All five shone brilliantly and blinded Eric. Suddenly, he was back in the Courtyard of Elemental Worship, and next to Wiol’s shrine. He ritualistically thanked the goddess and held her gift above his head.

  Kallen clapped. “Congratulations.”

  Annala clapped. “Congratulations.”

  Tiza clapped. “Congratulations.”

  Nolien clapped. “Congratulations.”

  Emily clapped. “Congratulations.”

  Tasio clapped. “Congratulations.”

  Eric collapsed the staff and said, “Thanks, everyone. Tasio, what are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to join the shout out to New Beginning Angel, also known as something else that the author may or may not be allowed to name.”

  “Do you say nonsense because you’re a trickster or just to annoy me?”

  Tasio smirked and disappeared.

  “Anyway, how long was I gone?”

  “Not long,” Annala said. “A couple hours.”

  “Hours, huh?” Eric scratched the back of his neck. He wasn’t sure how to approach this next topic. His human memories yielded nothing and his monster instincts were baffled that the same person could be both threat and family.

  “Say…Nolien, how are you feeling?”

  “In good spirits, thank you. However, I’ve noticed some minor side-effects.”

  Threat... Eric shook his head. “Such as?”

  Nolien held up his left hand. “This hand wanders when I’m not using it for something. Fortunately, it has an exclusive area of interest and so it is simple to cope.”

  He was standing on Tiza’s left. Eric dearly hoped coping would be that simple. As one future among countless, it was easy to dismiss as fringe or unlikely, but it was nonetheless possible. Once it came to pass, it was fact; unchangeable history. He saw futures where he dabbled in time magic to reverse a bad future and in most of those he either set up the bad future or created a worse one. Forging a chosen future was tricky with or without time travel, but the latter was the harder of the two. Even a friendly warning could inadvertently cause the future he sought to prevent. In the end, he could only watch as the budding couple went on a private stroll.

  “So,” Kallen began, “how do we defeat Nulso?”

  Eric grinned. “That’s what I like about you, Kallen. You didn’t ask ‘if.’”

  Kallen flipped her hair. “Of course I didn’t. Our victory is assured; one of those guaranteed things that Wiol talked about. The only uncertainties are the details.”

  “Okay, I saw the many ways it could happen, but I can’t tell you any of them.”

  “What’s the point of seeing the future if you can’t act on it?”

  “Acting on knowledge of the future will change the future because you have introduced a new variable. Also, if I told you then it would cause a paradox because the knowledge I would impart to you came from myself in the future, who only knew it because I learned from a vision of myself from the future. Making it worse, in some of those futures, the future me only knew it because the future you explained to him. Those paradoxes never ended well, or rather, they won’t end well. We have to do this the long way.”

  “‘I really freakin’ hate time travel,’” Annala said. “That was a quote from the Book of Wort and Mort, spoken by Arthur the Squirrel. I’m siding with Eric on this one.”

  He pecked her check in thanks. Then he turned his attention back to Kallen.

  “To get things rolling, I’m going to ask, ‘Can you teach me how to use Chaotic Starlight’?”

  Kallen shook her head. “I don’t know how to do it. I was hoping you did, and I know that you do but aren’t telling me.”

  Eric smirked. It was similar to the one Tasio gave to him moments ago. Kallen noticed this and it pleased her. Annala was more ambivalent.

  “Really? But you have that Chaotic-Zen-Trance thing.” He waved his arms about in a deliberately hammy fashion. “How could you not know it?”

  Kallen huffed. “River of Chaos Enlightenment involves bypassing the surface layers of reality to reach the inner chaos and return things to the Sea of Chaos. I don’t know how to turn things into Chaos. Many elves consider it blasphemy and the rest consider it prohibitively dangerous considering what happened to Dengel.”

  At this, Eric’s face became more gleeful than ever. It became expectant and giddy. “What happened to Dengel?”

  Kallen groaned. “That can get annoying. What if I started feigning ignorance to important top...” She trailed off because Eric was mouthing her. “Fine. I guess he didn’t tell you because it was the most embarrassing moment of his life and likely the scariest.”

  Annala smirked. “Big sister, I think we should show him.”

  Kallen smirked. “Marvelous idea, little sister.”

  “Then let’s go!” Eric said eagerly.

&n
bsp; He was so excited it was hard not to run ahead of them. After all, he wasn’t supposed to know what they were talking about. In the original timeline, they led him to the place and it was a shock to him. Now it wasn’t going to be a shock because it was already a shock for the him that watched the vision just as it was for the him that was in the vision. In that way, the emotional aspect of this part of the timeline had already come to pass. However, they still needed to show him the way.

  So he followed the two girls towards a corner of the village where a cluster of trees stood outside the border. Here, a secondary ring protruded from the main line like a pimple. Unlike the main line, the trees pointed their weapons inwards. Whatever was in their circle was considered more dangerous than anything outside. Hordes of mortals, armies of ordercrafters, even Order himself; it didn't matter because the true enemy was inside their ring.

  Eric was both nervous and excited as he walked over their giant roots and ducked under their giant branches. The way they linked up with each other, they resembled prisons bars. In some of the futures he watched, they attacked him. In some of those futures, he died here. Regardless of the risk, it was worth it to see their prisoner.

  It was a statue of Dengel.

  In many ways, it resembled the one in the Dragon's Lair: a stone figure of an adult elf carrying a staff in one hand and a bottle in the other. It was so skillfully made Eric could see the individual strands of hair. The difference was in the treatment. While the one at the Dragon’s Lair was kept polished, this one had graffiti and poop smeared over it. There was also a plaque at its feet. Eric approached with due reverence and spat on it.

  "I've wanted to do that for a long time."

  Kallen leaned against one of the guard trees, arms crossed. "I thought you might. What you've been doing for months, elves all over the world have been doing for millennia."

  Yes, I recall being quite the villain in my pursuit of knowledge, Grey Dengel said. I regret nothing, of course. It was due to my actions that I reached the level of acclaim that I enjoy today. I acquired the means to reach the Third Level of Chaotic Enlightenment; the Chaotic Starlight! My instruction manuals are read all over the world. No elf can compare with me.