by Will Wight
He hesitated and glanced down at himself. “…although I guess it is, isn’t it?”
With a heavy sigh, he pushed through the bubble and into the sea, his cloak billowing behind him. The faded symbol on the back reminded Lindon of spread wings this time.
“You could learn from him,” Orthos said, eyes blazing red. “He has the spirit of a dragon.”
“I’m not sure he would take that as a compliment.”
An instant later, a green script-circle bloomed above Ziel’s head. It was big enough to swallow his body, but then the ring expanded. And expanded again.
A second later, it exploded. Water rushed up in a violent column from his hammer, carrying most of the Diamondscale swarm with it. The bubble-wall of the habitat rippled with the force.
The other strings of blue lights converged on Ziel in an instant, but Lindon and the others had already ducked into the water.
The ocean of Ghostwater was a chaos of blood and dust, with nearby impacts shaking the ground. They pushed forward, guided by a purple light projected by Dross. Occasionally scales flashed silver or blue lights shone in front of them, but none of the Drakes attacked them.
Lindon’s lungs were starting to ache by the time the water cleared, and then the new habitat was already in view. It was a dome of bright light packed with green; it looked like a slice of a jungle transplanted to the bottom of the ocean.
He hung onto Orthos’ shell as the turtle swam toward it, but after a moment he felt a spike of battle-hunger from his contracted partner. The sacred beast turned, cycling Blackflame.
A pair of blue lights headed toward them out of the darkness.
The Burning Cloak had let Lindon down the last time he tried it underwater, the aura and the water dampening his movements. Now, he was a Highgold, and his body had been reinforced by weeks more of feeding on sacred beast meat. And this time, he had a new technique.
The Soul Cloak swirled around him, and he kicked forward, joining Orthos in battle.
~~~
Ziel waited until the last moment to use his gatekey.
Unlike a gatestone, the gatekey could be used without breaking it. The key was many times more valuable than the stone, but once he had been able to afford these things. Now he had to rely on his patron.
One moment he was using the last of his madra to swing his hammer in the face of a Sea Drake, and the next he was dripping water all over the grass, staring that patron in the face.
The Beast King sat on a log, tearing a hunk of meat between his teeth, grease sliding down his unkempt beard. A campfire crackled in front of him, casting long shadows. He showed no surprise at Ziel’s appearance. Silver eyes looked the Truegold up and down as he took another bite.
“Lot of blood in that water,” the Herald observed. “Do I have the Lord of the Dawnwing Sect back with me once again?”
Without his Enforcer technique active, Ziel’s hammer was too heavy for him. He let it sag to the ground, where its weight pushed into the soil. “The Spirit Well didn’t work,” he said, his hammer digging a furrow behind him as he walked to sit against the Vastwood Mammoth that lay across the landscape like a hairy hill.
The wall of fur gave a welcoming trumpet as Ziel leaned against it. He patted the sacred beast, though he doubted the mammoth could feel it. It would be like a human feeling the touch of a single ant’s leg.
The Beast King had seen through the state of his spirit with a single glance. He shrugged, speaking through a mouthful of roasted meat. “It was a long bet. We can still try it in the form of an elixir. How much did you bring me?”
Ziel tossed him a bottle, which he caught balanced on one finger. Silver eyes moved from the bottle to Ziel. “One? Had the Well run dry?”
“No.” Ziel leaned his head back, resting against the mammoth’s hair. The sacred beast smelled like warm fur, and he found it comforting. The stars glittered overhead, distant and uncaring.
The Herald grunted as though he understood, and the bottle of water vanished into his void key. “How long does the pocket world have?”
“Three weeks, maybe less.”
“Shame. Built by Northstrider, and it’s gone so quickly.” He shrugged, tearing the rest of the meat away and tossing the bone behind him.
Ziel could hear the dogs fighting over it:
“You got it last time!”
“Ah, but you forget about the squirrel that you did not share with me.”
“A squirrel’s bones are tiny and snap easily. It is hardly the same.”
The Beast King leaned closer to Ziel, ignoring the dogs. “Since you seem so willing to help others, I have something to occupy your time. I put a couple of Golds on a task for me, and they seem to have gotten themselves stuck. How about you swing by and un-stick them.”
Ziel had just gotten comfortable.
He reached a hand out to his hammer and gave a long sigh. “Where?”
“Under the gold dragons. I’ll send you close.” He snapped his fingers as though something had just occurred to him. “Oh, and there might be an Underlord in the mix.”
Ziel heaved himself to his feet an inch at a time, like an old man. “Then maybe I’ll die.”
~~~
Lindon walked through the outer wall of the new habitat hauling the corpse of a Diamondscale Sea Drake behind him. He held one fang in his Remnant hand, dragging the serpent’s long, silver body behind him as he walked. The blue-and-white light of the Soul Cloak still drifted through and around him.
Orthos followed, roaring with laughter. “You’ll need to eat a dragon’s portion of this one. It’ll put some scales on you, that’s for sure.”
Lindon’s stomach twisted at the thought as he pulled the Drake the last few feet and released it. Each bite of the Sea Drake’s flesh had been a new exercise in agony, and it had required his full willpower and not a little bit of madra to avoid vomiting up every meal he’d ever made of the sacred beast. At least it showed results.
“What we have here is the refiner's garden,” Dross said from the gem in Lindon's pocket. “They tried to refine an elixir, from rare plants and the blood of certain sacred beasts, that would make a mental breakthrough in the same way people make spiritual breakthroughs. They kept all the rare plants on hand here, but uh...according to our records, it's not supposed to be this much of a mess.”
If this was a garden, it was one that had been abandoned for years and then infested by monsters. Flowers that glowed like full moons were trampled by diseased, frog-like creatures the size of cows. Two hideous insects bigger than dogs wrestled in a patch of grass, surrounded by a pile of bones arranged into a nest. Whispers, cries, and twisted laughter rose in the distance, as did a pillar of smoke.
In his spiritual perception, the powers of life and blood reigned in equal measure, all infected by a poison that reminded him of the Desolate Wilds. As he looked closer, he saw black spots on nearby trees.
As soon as he noticed, he returned his attention to the giant frogs with patches of wet rot on their skin. They were dozens of yards away, but their stench carried.
“Dreadbeasts,” Lindon said at last.
“They kept a few samples safely imprisoned in this habitat,” Dross said. “Not quite safely enough, as it turns out.”
Orthos growled, and Lindon let the Soul Cloak drop to switch to his Blackflame core. “Which way to the portal?”
“Life Well first,” Lindon reminded.
Dross slipped out of his gem and bobbed in front of Lindon. “To our good luck, it's on the way.”
Lindon and Orthos marched forward. Without discussion, they burned more dreadbeasts away.
“The Life Well was really just a side effect of their work here. It bolsters the line of life aura inside everyone's body, and can even restore youth to the elderly. This was the most rare and expensive of all the water; you'd be lucky to get a spoonful after a successful project.” He flashed bright light in Lindon's face. “I used the word 'spoon' correctly there. Just thought you ought
to notice.”
After the Spirit Well, Lindon was looking forward to this one. What could the Life Well do? Could it bring back youth? Heal injuries? Whatever it did, he could find some use to it.
Lindon and Orthos destroyed the remaining dreadbeasts on their way to the Life Well, though Orthos had to use a Ruler technique to quash a few fires that they started in the process.
This time, the Life Well facility was actually a building. It was the size of a large barn, its walls iron-gray. The huge door on the front was decorated with a skeleton cupping its hands; he recognized the pattern on the skeleton's palms from the previous keyholes.
Dross slid into the keyhole without instruction, and slowly the door began to grind open, spilling green light.
“Where is the portal?” Lindon asked, while the door slid from one wall to the other.
“Right below us,” Dross said, zipping back into his gem. “Good thing that the ground hasn't caved in here, or we'd be falling right now. There's a shaft inside that leads down to his quarters, but it's a one-way trip.”
“How did he make it up?”
“He was a Monarch. He jumped.”
By then, the door had opened enough for Lindon to see the Life Well. It reminded him of a laundry tub more than an actual well, and though it released bright emerald light, it wasn't nearly as large as the other two wells.
The reek of decay wafted out of the door, and Lindon waited with his hand over his nose until he figured out what he was seeing inside. The green light revealed tall, cylindrical tanks lining either side of the room; they contained bloated corpses of every species and description. There must have been two dozen of them along each wall, and the subjects ranged from hand-sized fish to coiled serpents that barely fit in their tanks. None of them had survived.
The tanks were surely airtight; the stench came from the ones that had broken. Three or four of the glass tanks had been shattered from the inside, shards scattered on the floor, covered by the rotting remainders of their former inhabitants.
Lindon caught a new whiff of something dead, and at first he wondered if something had died recently. By the time he realized the sensation was coming from his spirit rather than his nose, Orthos had already turned and let out a roar, the Burning Cloak springing up around his shell.
Yan Shoumei stood there, hair falling in front of her face like a veil, Blood Shadow clutched around her like a cloak. Her eyes, barely visible through the black locks, glistened with hatred.
“You even followed me to another world,” she hissed. “Tell Anagi that he was too late! I have everything I need.”
Lindon glanced down at Orthos to see if he had followed that, but the turtle had already unleashed his dragon's breath.
The flow of black-and-red flame streamed from his mouth, but Shoumei punched out with a fist covered in a globe of crimson force. Orthos' Striker technique hit the globe around her hand and split apart, sending fingers of Blackflame splashing into the undergrowth. Tongues of fire licked up immediately.
She gave a wild laugh, withdrawing a stoppered bottle and waving it at them. “You were days too slow! I have all the blood I need! I look forward to seeing your bodies buried beneath Hearthway!”
Still laughing, she crushed a gatestone in her hand and vanished in a blue flash.
Surrounded by burning undergrowth, Lindon turned to Orthos again. “Do you think she had the wrong people?”
“I think she should have stayed and fought us,” Orthos said, taking a mouthful of undergrowth. “But yes, as they say, she was crazier than a nest full of squirrels.”
Dross piped up curiously, “So Anagi didn't send you?”
“Do you know who that is?” Lindon asked.
“I don't know anything that didn't take place inside this pocket world. But I do wish she hadn't done that.”
Where Shoumei had once stood now waited a web of cracks. Falling leaves, passing through that space, were effortlessly sliced in half by nothing more than the weight of their fall.
Slowly, the cracks expanded. It wasn't obvious, but if he looked closely, Lindon could see them inching forward.
“Let's hurry,” Lindon suggested.
Back at the Life Well, Lindon cupped his hands and drew out a mouthful to take a sip. It had a faint taste like a very weak tea, and he could feel it spreading to his body without his encouragement.
But unlike the meat of the Silverfang Carp or the Diamondscale Drake, this didn't carry with it a burning sense of strength. Lindon felt a little more relaxed, a little refreshed, but otherwise he didn't notice much of a difference.
Well, his expectations of the Life Well hadn't been high to begin with. He started to open his void key when Orthos dipped his head in for a drink.
Pain shot through their spiritual bond, and the turtle bellowed in agony.
His legs collapsed immediately, shell slamming to the ground, and his head curled back into his shell. His eyes rolled into his skull, showing all black.
“Tell me what's happening,” Lindon demanded of Dross, lowering the Sylvan Riverseed from his shoulder. Little Blue hopped over, placing both hands on Orthos' neck, letting her power flood into him. She gave a little cheep of distress almost immediately; whatever was wrong with him, it wasn't in his spirit.
“The water of the Life Well can have...more of an impact on older subjects,” Dross said. “Usually it's very healthy for them. Very healthy. Only in a small percentage of cases do they lapse into a coma and die.”
Green light oozed from Orthos' skin. It beamed like a beacon from the crack in his shell, shone from his mouth, and spilled from beneath his belly. Lindon readied his arm; if this was excess power overflowing from the Well's power, maybe his Remnant binding could devour it.
But when he took his first step forward, he noticed that the wound in Orthos' shell was closing.
The verdant light dimmed slowly over several minutes, and by the time it did, Orthos had gone through a clear transformation. His skin was less of a worn gray and more of a glossy black. The edges of his shell now glowed bright red, and when his eyes snapped open, they were bright.
Orthos' voice was recognizable, but deeper. Smoother. Younger. “I...I feel...”
He laughed, bounding to his feet and running in a circle like a puppy. Lindon had heard more laughter out of him since coming to Ghostwater than in the last year.
He galloped away, leaping and kicking off a wall, then backflipping and landing with surprising grace.
Orthos turned back to Lindon, mouth open as though to say something. But he only laughed again and bounded out the door. Going to hunt some dreadbeasts, Lindon assumed.
Lindon looked down at Little Blue, who had tumbled onto the ground while Orthos frolicked. He picked her up and glanced at Dross, who brightened.
“I'd like some of that,” Dross said hopefully.
Lindon absorbed him into his core.
Over the rest of the day and into the night, Lindon cycled the fire and destruction aura released from the burning undergrowth, using Dream Well water to stay awake and cycling power from the Life Well to Dross.
Though the Spirit Well had taken him weeks to absorb, this started to change the construct immediately. He cheered as he spun inside Lindon’s core.
Orthos still hadn't returned, but the roars in the distance and the satisfaction radiating from his soul told Lindon the turtle was having a good time.
This place had been at least as much of a blessing for Orthos as it had been for Lindon. Not only had it helped heal some of the damage that Blackflame had done to his spirit, but it had sharpened his mind and now restored his body.
“Dross,” Lindon asked, “If this place existed while the Blackflame family was in charge of the Empire, why didn't they use it?”
“Oh, they did. They used to buy as much Well water as Northstrider would allow them. It was one of the ways this facility maintained itself.” Dross squirmed inside Lindon's core, absorbing some more green water. He was becoming opaque, as
though he were growing skin.
“It was more an issue of quantity. A single cup from the Spirit Well cost a fortune, and it was the cheapest of the three. You’ve been drinking a fifty-year stockpile. And you really dove into it headfirst, too. You should bow down in gratitude for every mouthful.”
Absently, Lindon took another sip of the green water. “It will all go to waste when the world collapses.”
“Yeah, that's...yes. It will.” Dross' words were distant. “You know, I spent a long time in the Dream Well. And now I won't get to go back ever again.” He was quiet for a moment. “What do you call this feeling?”
“Sadness,” Lindon said, sitting against the Life Well.
“It feels a lot like grief,” Dross observed. “I don't like it.”
“It's not my favorite either.” He spun quietly for a while, processing the water. “Here’s some better news: I only needed a taste of this well. I’m coming alive by the second! How does that make me feel? Excited!”
A sudden sound, like a distant clink of metal on metal, drew Lindon's attention to a rounded hatch in the floor opposite him. The clink came again, and again, louder as it continued.
Lindon pointed to it. “What's that?”
“The way down. We shouldn't go yet. There are some spirit-fruits in here that I think you'd really enjoy.”
Lindon rose to his feet, cycling Blackflame. The ringing sounded like a bell-tower now. “I'm not worried about going down. I'm worried about what's coming up.”
“There's nothing down there,” Dross said confidently. “It's been sealed for decades. You'd need an Eye of the Deep.”
“An Eye of the Deep?” Lindon asked.
“You didn't think there was only one key to this place, did you?”
With a sound like a ringing gong, the hatch crashed open. Darkness spilled out, shadows oozing from the entrance.
Lindon pushed Dross out. “Go get Orthos.”
Dross spun as he emerged from Lindon's palm, blinking in the light. Blinking. “I have an eye!” he exclaimed.
This time, Dross' evolution was even more pronounced. He was covered in what looked like purple skin, with one huge eye in the center of his body. He was speaking with an actual mouth now, which Lindon could see was lined with tiny teeth. He looked like a very advanced Remnant, or a cross between a spirit and a sacred beast.
