by Eddie Patin
"Goddamn—my head's really fruking killing me!" Riley shouted from inside.
Shit.
"Riley!" Jason exclaimed, rushing into the living room. "Can you check something with your cybernetic vision for me real quick?"
The soldier came out of Jason's parents' old bedroom—currently where Riley and Gliath were staying—holding his head with both hands. He had the necromancer's flying disc slung over one side. On his back was his latest Gauss rifle. He must have decided to swap guns.
"What's the matter?" Jason asked.
"It's the cubes, dude," Riley replied. "There's no air in there. They're fruking airtight. Morgana and I have been breathing our own CO2 for ... quite a while now. We're gonna have to hurry back if you wanna save your girlfriend."
Girlfriend, Jason thought. He liked the sound of that. Then, the thought of Morgana being in even worse shape than Riley—sweating and choking with a splitting headache—broke Jason's heart.
"Alright. Let's fucking get back there!"
"What'd you want me to do with my vision?" Riley asked.
Jason felt a spike of cold fear run up his back.
"Oh yeah," he said, looking at the back door. "The last time I had to prune the troll, it—"
"Prune the troll...?"
"Yeah," Jason replied quickly. "I've been here several days trying to save you guys. Time travel and all. Also, I had to spend some time in the Wilderlands because the damned ettins impaled my leg with a spear. Every time I come back here, the troll's head has regenerated some, and it's been trying to get out of the case through the holes in the sides. So, I ... you know ... had to prune the troll."
Riley made a disgusted face. "What the fruk, man?"
"Anyway," Jason went on, "the last time I did that, I might have ... dropped a piece in the backyard. I couldn't find it. You don't think it'll grow into a full-sized troll, do you?"
"Didn't you turn on the inhibitor?"
Jason paused.
"What inhibitor?"
Riley smirked and scratched his beard. He looked sick; almost like he was severely hungover.
"Alright. Let's check the backyard real quick-like, then free the others, okay?"
"Okay."
They went into the backyard. Riley squinted painfully against the sun, which was not far above the peak of the house. Jason checked the time. It was three-o'clock. He was so goddamned out of sync with this universe that he had no concept of time at all.
"Where...?"
"It can be anywhere from the rift to the Wilderlands to around the side of the house by the small door to the garage!"
Riley put his hands on his hips. A soft, cold winter breeze blew through them and tossed around the bottom of his duster jacket. After scanning around for a minute, the cyborg slowly walked around the back corner of the house and toward the side door to the garage...
"Ah!" Riley exclaimed. "Here it is," he said. He reached down into the dead grass and pulled up what looked like a long lump of pale, green modeling clay then carried it over.
The fucking thing was as long as Jason's forearm. It had tiny knobs sticking out of each side, wriggling like little worms. It was actually moving while in Riley's grip...
Jason felt a flush a cold dread that punched him in the stomach and almost made him vomit.
It was there! He'd missed it! God—if Riley hadn't checked, then that thing would have gotten away, and his world would have had a freaking troll loose in the mountains and neighborhoods of Ridgeview. A troll had to be a lot worse than Nargog!
"Oh my God!" Jason exclaimed.
"Yep," Riley replied, tossing the weird, wriggling lump of flesh onto the concrete patio. "Nasty fruker, huh? Good thing you had me check."
With that, he expertly whipped out his blaster, shot once, and set the thing on fire. It burned and bubbled, smelling like a mix of burning rubber and something more chemical-like. It eventually stopped moving and degraded into a gross, melted mess.
That would leave a stain.
"Now," Jason said, rushing through the doorway back into the house and beckoning for Riley to follow. "What can we do? What's your idea, Riley? I can't go back in time anymore to anywhere I've been. Not really."
"No need," Riley said. "So, I reckon that Gliath's mostly fine, and Morgana's probably in pretty bad shape, but she'll last at least another hour or two."
More time in the Wilderlands, Jason thought. He wondered briefly if the Vitality Element of the place could restore asphyxiation damage. Could it heal brain damage?
"Okay, so what do you want to do?!"
"We can't fight the giant, Jason," Riley said, leaning against the kitchen counter and scratching his beard. Jason was about to explode with frantic energy. He couldn't believe how Riley could be so calm; as cool as a cucumber. "But I learned something from another merc who was trapped in there too."
"There was another? Who?"
"A man named Callam Malax. He's probably dead now. Anyway, from what I've figured out, his team was there looking for a troll's head, same as us, and they ran into some trouble with the ettins. There's a village nearby, apparently."
"I've been there a few times."
"Okay," Riley said. "So, the ettins killed some of the group, ate some of them, and gave the last two to the giant."
"His name is Vorealus, by the way. Ate them? Shit..."
"Vorealus. Whatever." Riley sighed. "Well, this group, the 'Void Drifters' he said, is one of those groups that travel dimensions using Wayfinders. You know—those specialists that we totally don't need because of you? They were using a piece of tech called a Riftgate—kind of like our portable gate—and the gate was damaged in the ettin attack. It 'went on the fritz' as Callam said. That's a weird fruking saying. Anyway, when the giant swooped in and picked up Callam and the other guy to make them pets, he took that broken Riftgate too, and it looks like he made it into a fruking necklace. Every time that dark storm comes, that necklace starts flaring red like goddamned lizard shet after it eats a frackle."
"Lizard ... what...?"
Riley stared at Jason like he was stupid, then shook his head and smirked. "The necklace starts going crazy whenever that dark storm comes."
"Vorealus makes the storms," Jason said. "I'm sure of it. And he sends those will-o-wisps down like scouts or something."
"Okay. That shet doesn't matter right now. I'm talking about the necklace."
Voro the broken god, Jason thought. Could it be so simple? What if ... what if the primordial giant was some sort of being so full of crazy elemental energy that...?
"You think this 'Riftgate necklace' and broken god are related?" Jason asked.
"Zappo!" Riley exclaimed with a broad smile. He clapped Jason on one shoulder.
"How?" Jason asked.
"Well, the way I reckon," Riley said, scratching his beard, "a Riftgate is a piece of tech that—most versions I've seen, anyway—creates a kind of bubble around a Merc team, taking them to the universe that their Wayfinder has chosen. You follow?"
"Yeah..."
"Most of 'em work by electricity. Powered by fusion cores, mostly. Now, that giant..." he paused. "Did you say broken god? What the fruk is that?!"
"The ettins and trolls call him Voro the broken god," Jason replied. "A troll I ran into after we cut the head off of the other one said that he was their 'broken god' and that they call the area 'the Shattered Swamp'. It said that their god broke it, and that the swamp wasn't always broken. What's a Riftgate and its fusion core have to do with Voro making the storms?"
Riley shook his head and continued. "Not the fusion core, really. Instead, the huge amounts of electrical power that runs the Riftgate. I suppose ... and this is a far shot ... that the giant is some kind of powerful elemental being, yeah? He's got lightning and shet flying off of him all the time. What if the Riftgate being broken, and the giant wearing it on his skin, is somehow giving it huge fruking surges of power—"
"Like throwing it into overdrive or something?" Jason added. H
e stared at Morgana's new Lake Granby magnet on the fridge. If he was understanding Riley correctly, if using a Riftgate to open a 'bubble' for a team was kind of like Jason opening a rift to another universe, what would happen if the Riftgate was malfunctioning and opening some kind of bubble around the giant all the time? Or, at least, every once and a while, like the frequency of the black storms? "You think the Riftgate is opening rifts around the giant every time there's a black storm?" Jason asked. "What if it's messing with his head? Driving him crazy?"
"What if it's got the giant all fruked up and he's using his magical creation powers to make those crazy storms?"
"Voro the broken god..." Jason muttered. What an insane concept. Truly, a mad titan...
Riley smirked. "Like I said, it's a far shot." He stopped and adjusted how he was leaning against the counter. Then, he looked at Jason again, cocking his head. "Since when have you been talking with ettins and trolls?"
Jason raised one of his hands; the one wearing the Ring of Comprehension under his glove.
"It's one of the rings!" Jason exclaimed. "It lets me understand and communicate with creatures speaking other languages. I've been understanding the ettins, the trolls, and the giant this whole time!"
"What the fruk are you—?!" Riley scoffed and shook his head. "Eh. Never mind. Well, here's my idea: We go back. I use my disc to fly around and make it really hard for the giant to hit me. And I'll use my Gauss rifle here—" Riley patted the rifle sling on his chest "—to shoot the bastard's necklace. Maybe if I can destroy the Riftgate...?"
"You think it might 'fix' him? Dispel the magic?"
Riley scrunched up his brow. "It's not magic, Jason. If my hunch is right, then it's rifting technology that's malfunctioning, likely exacerbated by the giant's natural energy since it's touching his chest. That necklace of his is somehow messing with the borders between that universe and another. It's probably cooking his egg."
Jason stared at the cyborg, pondering it all.
Riley's idea actually made a lot of sense.
"That's really smart, Riley."
Riley smirked. "I know. Now, let's get a move on. Chances are, however, that the giant will fruking knock me out and make me fall asleep while I'm flying around him—now that's magic, Jason—and I'll fail to destroy the Riftgate. But hey—if I'm still wearing my home key, and I buy you some time to rift Gliath and Morgana out of there, then you can come back and get me again when the giant cubes me, yeah?"
That was a chilling idea. The second time Vorealus had violently encountered Jason, he just cast whatever that weird freaking spell was that transported him into that mind-fuck maze realm. Jason doubted that if the giant managed to get a hold of Riley, that the cyborg would just end up in a cube again.
But maybe there was another way...
"Hang on," Jason said. "I don't like that."
"It's a strong plan, Jason," Riley countered. "You get the others while I distract the bastard."
"Yeah, I know. I just don't want to put you in such a risky spot." Jason paused, thinking of how ridiculously easy it had been for Vorealus to take out the rest of his team. "There's something else going on. Somehow, all this time, I've been resistant or immune to the giant's sleep attack."
Riley scratched his beard. "That's true. I saw you stay up just fine after he dropped Gliath back in the courtyard. How's that?"
"Well, that's not the first time, either," Jason said. "I resisted it the first time, back when you were all captured in the first place. I've resisted it ... two times more, I think, since then. Come to think of it, Gliath was warning me about the harpies controlling my mind, and that didn't happen either."
Riley smirked. "Are you wearing the other ring from the necromancer, Jason?"
Jason immediately reached down and fingered the second ring through the fabric of his glove. That had to be it! Either that, or it was one of the colorful stones...
"Yes!" Jason exclaimed, tearing his glove off. He immediately showed Riley the brushed steel ring with the tiny ruby. "That's the answer, Riley! I mean—it might be something that we're totally not thinking of, but yeah; I'd say chances are pretty good that it's one of the other magical items. You take it!"
Jason pulled the unidentified ring off of his finger. He looked at it in the light of the kitchen. Its metal surface was plain, and the ruby in the center was very modest. Slightly fashionable. Could it be some sort of ring of mind protection?
"What the fruk are you doing wearing those things?!" Riley exclaimed, frowning. "Don't you know how dangerous that is?! How long have you been—?"
"Since before this troll bounty started!" Jason replied, shoving the ring into Riley's gloved hands. "Take it, Riley!" he said. "It has to be this ... or..." Jason went for his belt pouches, pulled the zipper of the one with the stones, then fished out the strange gems from the necromancer's. One was plum purple, and the other was carrot orange. They were both smooth and gleamed in the light. "It could be one of these. Take these too!"
"No way!" Riley replied. "We don't know what—"
"It doesn't matter now, Riley!" Jason said. "A second ago, you were okay with the idea that the giant would probably knock you out of the sky. He might put you in another cube, but he'll probably just squash you flat like he tried to do to me! Now, I've been carrying all three of these things, along with the comprehension ring, since before we set foot into that swamp, and I'm not dead yet ... or cursed!"
"As far as you know..."
"For someone who loves 'magic shet' so much, Riley," Jason said, "you sure are scared of it."
The cyborg narrowed his dark eyes. He took the three items, glaring at Jason the entire time.
"You're a smart guy, Jason, playing to my pride as a tough guy. You're also really fruking lucky, playing around with unknown magical items from a totally different universe than your own. Maybe that necromancer had some weird organ that you don't have, and one of these things affected that organ and it would have poisoned you in a weird way that none of your world's medicines could fix!"
Jason paused. "Point taken," he said. "But Morgana's world was within 95% compatibility of Earth's."
"A lot can happen in 5%," Riley said. "But you're right. Fine. Whatever. Let's rock." He pulled off one glove and violently shoved the ring onto a finger. The man was clearly tense but trying to hide it. Then, he put the glove back on and slipped the two colorful stones into a belt pouch. "But this only makes sense since I was about to just get myself killed."
"Fair enough."
They both took a deep breath.
"This changes things," Riley said. "If I'm actually immune to the giant's sleep attack now, then I'll probably be able to shoot the Riftgate ... unless he has some other fruking trick up his sleeve."
He definitely might, Jason thought.
"It also means that I won't be immune anymore," Jason replied. "So you'll need to get it done. If he makes me fall asleep, then if your theory's wrong, we'll be stuck there."
"No we won't," Riley said. "If he doesn't kill you, and puts you in a cube instead, you can just rift home."
"Oh, yeah," Jason replied, crossing his arms. Then, he looked up and met Riley's eyes again. "You have those extra focus key blanks?"
"Yep," Riley replied. "They're in the room. What are you thinking?"
"Let's put the other half of your home key back in the tool cabinet; keep it as backup. Then, let's use a fresh blank to fast travel." Jason looked over Riley's armor and saw his radio still hooked onto his belt. "We can find the castle fast with you using the flying disc. You head to a good rendezvous point, radio me, then I'll rift to you."
Riley smiled. His brown eyes brightened. "We can do that to get into the castle, too. I like what you're thinking, Jason. Let's go. Get ready."
"Okay."
Jason topped off his magazines and made sure that everything was in the right place as Riley grabbed a few blank focus keys from his and Gliath's stash of gear. He badly wanted a shower and a beer and to sit and veg out
for a while, but first things first. He had to save Morgana and Gliath. Gliath was a good man ... er ... Krulax. Jason couldn't bear the idea of the noble leopardwere warrior meeting his end in Vorealus's cube cage. And Jason couldn't even imagine Morgana dying in there. He'd just found her, rescued her, and was extremely fond of her. The idea of her suffering in her prison hurt his heart terribly. It felt like a vice made of black lead was squeezing his heart whenever he imagined her in her cube.
Now to fix this.
When Jason and Riley met in the garage, and Jason was holding the troll claw, prepared to rift back, he was surprised when Riley suddenly strode over to the sink and heaved the big metal case out of it with one hand. The soldier set it onto the stainless steel table. Water poured from the holes.
"Oh shit! I almost forgot about that!" Jason exclaimed.
Riley pointed at the metal canister with the strange tubes extending into the case. Then, he pointed at the chunky metal switch on the side next to an off LED light. The switch was orange.
"Don't you remember Skinner's instructions?" Riley asked.
Then, he dramatically flipped the switch with one hand with a loud click, and the light came on.
"An inhibitor," Jason said, feeling totally stupid.
"Yep." Riley replied. "You know, Jason? I'm getting pretty tired of rainbow stuff trying to kill us."
That was random.
"What?"
Riley sighed. "Jason, before you were ... part of this, there was this guy; a member of the Reality Rifters named Goran. Goran the Slayer. There was also Artemis Rain. They were both part of Jason 113's team, and Jason 47's before him."
"Okay."
"Well, Goran was a very good man. He was also a very big man, and a total badass. He loved to fight with a fruking laser Gatling gun that he'd modified and named Starfire. Goran had very ... ah ... simple appreciations."
"He was ... not very smart?" Jason asked.
"Oh, no. He was smart, alright," Riley said. "But his love of life was very basic and pure. And that asshole really loved rainbows! There was one time that he let a strange alien give him something to eat in the Market, and he fruking ate it, because he trusted the entity since it was visible to us as rainbow light!" The cyborg leaned against the stainless steel table next to the troll's head case and chuckled as if drunk. "Well, it was that rainbow crystalline world on universe 1240 that killed Goran. The air turned into goddamned crystallized matter and it transformed him, Artemis, and Jason 113 into fruking crystals from the inside out because they breathed it. Goran was made into a fruking rainbow shaped like a man, and he broke into pieces. Horrible shet. Now, this Vorealus has rainbow hair like Skinner, and is always surrounded by that rainbow fruking fire stuff. I'm getting pretty damned tired of rainbows..."
