Joroboros
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[YF] Chapter 245: Defender
🕑 Added 2024-11-24 09:29:51 +0000 UTCLeal and I hurry to sketch the last of our respective inscriptions. The both of us could remain here for weeks and there would probably still be parts to copy, but we’ve already filled all of her notebooks. Besides, we should already have all the important parts.
I pass Leal my notes along with the pencil I didn’t end up using. She, for some reason, glares at the small drawing tool. Ignoring her antics, I glance back to the obelisk. It would be nice to stay around and try to figure out more of the intricacies that hold the Anatla back, but there’s not much more we can do without pushing further than I’m willing to. This place suppresses the Anatla’s power; the last thing I want to do is damage its capability to continue doing such.
We’ve been gone long enough; its about time I returned to my elders.
But first, we will investigate that moving island. After checking the position of the surrounding pyramids, both Leal and I are pretty confident that it is the island that moved, not us. Shifting from west to north, it is not particularly something I would have expected. My first thought is another ancient vessel, like the chthonic’s. Considering how far it is away from us, we decide to finish up here before investigating.
Once Leal has sorted her books away in her pouches, I twist my flames around her and Anoures. In moments, we’re racing through the sky towards the round, ridged island. If we were anywhere else, I would find the lack of vegetation and any form of life clambering over the smooth rock surface to be odd, but none of the pillars rising from the depths to hold the pyramids hold any sort of life. Not moss, not trees, and not animals.
The large island is an enigma. I don't know how none of us noticed until now, but it slowly shifts to our right to block the sight of a pyramid it passes. Now that I look, it moves at almost ten metres each second… and yet the water doesn’t so much as ripple. Considering the lack of reference point nearby, it is hard to tell its moving at all, but there’s no denying now that it is.
Along the sides, the island is perfectly smooth stone — shining with the eternal inferno’s reflection — but the further it rises out of the water, it points into ridges with sharp, tooth-like points that carry along in parallel. At a bit over a kilometre wide and a few hundred metres tall, it is smaller than the chthonic’s island. To the left, the rock ridges taper into a narrow bridge that trails behind the main mass only a few metres above the surface.
As we get closer, the pyramids grow dull. Lacking the hyle flowing through them of the central structures. “Hey,” I say. “There probably won’t be any problem if we take a sample of the pyramids with us, right?”
“I don’t… think so,” Leal says, after considering. “I’m guessing they’ve already served their purpose. Go for it; it might reveal something of their inscribing process that we could have missed with the inscriptions alone.”
I fall to the pyramid and carefully pass my fire into the pyramid. First, only the ethereal flame to search for any safeguards that might still be in place, then raising the temperature and burning into reality to carve out a section of the pyramid step etched with long-dead lines. The slate is a little heavy, but on top of my two passengers, it isn’t all that much more.
We wait, just in case some part of the pyramid responds, but everything remains quiet.
I breathe a sigh of relief and carry us through the air again, intent on discovering just what the island is. It soon becomes apparent the path the island takes is the wide gap between the array of pyramids. The island moves right down the middle. It’s like it is part of the inscription itself. That explains how it can move through this mess of pyramids without being blocked by any.
“What do you think it is?” I ask.
“A big crab,” Anoures jokes, but I ignore her.
“Solvei,” Leal says. “Drop me down into the water for a second.”
I glance at her, before shifting my sight to the dark depths below. “Why?”
“I… I’m curious about something.”
Still reluctant, I bring us down to hover a couple metres above the water. Leal leaps in. No hesitance. I don’t like this; how can I pull her from the waves if something happens. As concerned as I am looking for creatures hiding in the depths that I am certain are there, I almost miss the strangeness that follows her splash into the water. Usually, water would ripple from such an impact, but besides the initial splash that I go to great effort to avoid, the water returns to stillness far too quickly. Leal barely has time to activate the glowing markings across her body before the surface has already become flat and motionless.
She doesn’t notice the oddity. Instead, her glowing eyes focus towards the island. Unlike my wishes, Leal doesn’t rise immediately. She lingers for far longer than I’m comfortable. I start to see the shadows shift, and I’m not sure if I’m seeing things or her presence has actually attracted some beast.
“Chill,” Anoures awkwardly pats my swirling flames. “If something happens I’ll dive down there for her, yeah?”
Well, I probably would have done that anyway — not that I tell her that — but her declaration does surprise me. This coming from a heqet? I didn’t think their kind could understand kindness.
Maybe I’ve been too harsh to her…
I nod in thanks, before the realisation that she’s probably just excited to brawl with whatever monster comes to take a bite out of Leal. No, stop thinking the worse of them. She’s already proven she’s broken past the heqet’s natural desire to slaughter. Even if she still has that desire, she’s been able to suppress it far better than Sylvan. My hatred of slavery still holds me from liking her, but the least I can do is be civil.
Soon, water spins around Leal and lifts her out. I curl my flames around her shoulders, and tug her from the liquid without touching any of it myself. Once we’re high over the water again, I find that I certainly wasn’t seeing things. The number of shadows shifting beneath us is unnerving.
“Solvei… lets not get any closer.”
She’s talking about the creatures in the depths. Of course she’d be able to see them. I nod, relieved that she’s not willing to dive down below again.
“It’s a Titan,” she continues, freezing me in mid nod
“What?”
“The island.” She points. “Its got a dozen legs stretching down below what I can see. I think its some sort of crustacean.”
My attention snaps forward to inspect what I’d thought was an island. The smooth stone and ridged top does look a bit too natural. If we were a bit further to the east, the island would probably look symmetrical, what with the trio of ridges crossing over the top. I focus on the trailing length of stone to the left; it is hard to see, but now that I look, there’s nothing supporting it.
It isn’t rock. It’s carapace.
I twist on Anoures, glaring at her. She knew.
“Hey,” she raises her hands in defence. “I was joking. I thought it looked a bit like a crab, not that it actually was.”
My immediate reaction is to take us as far away as possible. As if the revelation that its a Titan will be enough to attract its attention. I’m expelling a great deal of energy to keep these two afloat, and my memory of Charybdis is enough to fear sudden retaliation of our presence alone.
But it doesn’t come.
Whether because we are too small to be noticed, or it simply thinks us not worth the effort, it doesn’t attack. All the Titan does is continue its slow trek through the gap between pyramids.
It is silent. The air doesn’t shake. My flames don’t writhe in terror. By all means, I refuse to believe it is actually a Titan. Titans are disasters. Their motions alone are enough to destroy mountains, push the rules of the world to their limits, and end countless lives.
It is a Titan, and yet there is no tsunami following its steps. I can hardly believe it.
“Do you think it was here before the inscription, and they built around it,” Leal questions, not realising the sheer danger their kind can pose. “Or did it come along after and carve this path through the inscription itself.”
Leal may not know the true threat of these beings, but her calmness is quick to settle me. I realise I am overreacting. Well, I don’t think there’s such a thing as overreacting when it comes to Titans or Anatla, but it hasn’t shifted into any major, disaster-creating motions, so we’re probably fine for now.
Why is it here? Is it aware of the presence of the Anatla and the inscription that keeps it at bay, or is it simply happenstance? This is two Titans already lingering near where the Anatla try to breach into our world, so I’m inclined to believe there is a reason its here. The pillars the pyramids rest upon are mostly intact, both on the inner and outer edges of the gap. If the Titan often changed its path, or had less than favourable intentions for the inscription, then that wouldn’t be the case. I’m sure that if the Titan wanted it, this whole place could be nothing but rubble at the bottom of the ocean.
I suddenly remember how the path carved away from the Void Fog had stopped suddenly upon reaching the gap. Only there, had there been evidence of damage to the pillars. The Titan fought off the Void Fog. So it is here to protect the inscription then? To hold off outside forces from destroying the inscription that blocks the Anatla.
Does this Titan not care to attack the breaching point? Charybdis seemed all too ready to devour the link between the Anatla’s world and ours. Can this one not do the same? It may not be as large as Charybdis, but it is still a mighty Titan.
So much do I wish I could dunk my head under the water and look myself. See what the Titan might be doing beneath the still ocean.
Actually, no, I don't really want to do that.
“Are the Titans aware of Armageddon?” I ask aloud. “Is it possible they are trying to stop it?”
“They have been active in the past years, so even if they’re not directly related, they can feel it coming,” Leal says. “But for them to stop it… do they even have such comprehension? They are forces of nature. If anything, I’d be more inclined to think they are aspects of Armageddon rather than any opposition to it.”
As nice as the thought that such immense beings could be working to stop Armageddon, it’s probably just as likely they are reacting to the invasion of outside beings encroaching on their domain. Regardless of the Titans’ motivations, their growing activity is just as concerning as the collapse of the Alps. The inhabited lands have avoided the worst of the titan’s presence, but will that last?
Nothing is sure.
“We should take these inscriptions back and see if anyone can make any sense of them,” I say. “How likely do you think it’ll be to get the nations to shift all their focus on reverse engineering it into something usable?”
“Actually,” Leal says. “I think we might be better taking it to Riparia. It’ll be easy enough get New Vetus’ inscription engineers on it, but with our current understanding, I struggle to see us making significant progress. I believe only Riparia could deconstruct the inscription without it taking a decade. Only problem… is that it is impossibly difficult to get in. They refuse to even talk to most outsiders.”
“Oh, there’s no need to worry about that,” I say, to Leal’s raised eyebrows. “There was a riparian back in the war. I was invited.”
“What!?” the word comes out as a squeak. “You what!?”
I can no longer suppress my smirk. “Well, it wasn’t said so specifically, but I know how to get an invitation. You see, I know where one of their treasures is buried.” Assuming it wasn’t destroyed by Kalma’s attack… but Leal doesn’t need to know that.
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Today, I had to take down the first book of YF from Royalraod, which is sad. but, it must be done. Amazon launch soon.
We're essentially done with this side section exploring the Warring Isles now. It's been a bit slow recently, but i felt it important for the pacing. You'll see why this part had to be relaxed once the final arc truly starts >:D
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Summer Coff
During Armageddon, it's important to sometimes have a girls' trip to research the end of the world in a place of eternal war and slavery.
