Dawn of the Void - Chapter 143: Bifrost

James rose cautiously to his feet, gaze darting about the large cavern in search of potential danger.

Other than Crimson Hydra, however, all was still.

The cavern was a series of subtly compartmentalized segments, each distinguished from the rest by columns or curtains of stone that intruded just enough to give a sense of separation. Thick fur rugs were thrown over the polished stone floor, and vividly painted landscapes and portraits hung in heavy gilt frames from the walls. The ceiling was high above, and combined with the sparse furnishings gave the place an airy sense of tranquility and stillness.

“This, like, his pad?” asked Yadriel, shifting down to his human form.

“Caveman-chic,” said Denzel, tone approving. “Look at the size of that bed. He couldn’t live here alone.”

The last room housed a bed big enough for six. But James saw no signs of other people living here. No clutter. No dishes – no kitchen, for that matter. The place was stark and beautiful, but it felt more like a mountain temple than a home.

“Look at that view,” breathed Miriam, moving to the edge of the open wall to stare out over the jungle far below. “Oh – is that a dinosaur?”

Everybody moved to joined her. Amongst the mist-wreathed trees moved great saurian beasts, their necks long, heads tiny like brontosauruses. A hooting cry rang out from their number, a strange, feral trumpeting, and as one the herd of huge beasts turned to head along a different track.

“What is this, Jurassic Park?” asked Jason quietly.

James moved to crouch beside the dead angel and froze. The massively muscled, Conan-like figure had disappeared to be replaced by a vaguely octopoidal creature. It’s purple head was rubbery, bald, and heavily wrinkled, and its mouth was a powerful beak. Black silk clothed the rest of its body which seemed to be a mess of boneless limbs.

“Jesus,” breathed Serenity, moving up alongside him. “Is this…?”

“It’s in the same spot,” said James. “Everyone, take a look.”

The crew tore themselves away from the edge to startle at the angel’s new appearance.

“Is that what it really looked like all along?” asked Miriam, hand going to her mouth. Jason slid his arm around her shoulders.

“If so…” Kerim crouched before the dead creature. “It would seem that the angels are illusions crafted to meet our expectations. Illusions that disappear upon their deaths.”

“But this bitch died when he was hit by a black ball, yo,” said Yadriel. “So that was a fake death?”

“Fake death,” agreed Denzel. “Fake as hell. More like he got tagged out of the game.”

“And he was – what?” Olaf moved up to stare in fascination at the dead creature. “Coming back here to relax?”

“Could be, yeah.” James moved closer, half -expecting the creature to jerk back to life at any point. “He was powerful enough to be an Archangel, but not more than that. When he tagged out he opened up a portal to this place. Maybe to relax until he was summoned again?”

“James, set that device on the floor so I can scan it,” asked Jessica.

James examined the wand in his hand. It was heavy, solidly built, but the spherical head was clearly intricately mobile, the hundreds of rune-inscribed keys meant to be depressed, with four bands of gold which could spin about them all.

Jessica’s Omni hovered over the staff and emitted a blue light over the device.

“So, aliens?” asked Serenity. “These the creatures running this show?”

“Might be,” said James. “But this guy wasn’t running much of anything.”

Miriam and Jason had moved off together, slowly inspecting the room’s contents. “Hey,” said Jason. “Look, this is him, here.” He took up a framed photograph and raised it for them to see.

It showed a group of nine octopoidal people underwater, their limbs intertwined, each of a subtly different color. They ranged from dark jade to light aquamarine to golden yellow, but the figure in the center was clearly their guy. The purple skin and distinctive black sports along the side of his head gave him away.

Miriam took the picture, studied it, then stepped back and looked at the walls. “Some of these people are in these paintings.”

James pivoted around on the balls of his feet. The heavy gilt frames held portraits of other octopoids, he saw. Each was a solo portrait, the figure floating in blue waters, vividly painted and distinct.

“Nine,” said Jason. “Just like us.”

“A crew of nine?” Serenity walked over and took the picture. “You think maybe his world was hit like ours was?”

“Who knows?” Jason ran his hands over his buzz cut hair. “But if so, this is where he ended up. Why? Did he fail to get to the bottom? Or was this his reward? To play-act as an angel in another species’ trial?”

“Right till we showed up,” said Serenity softly, handing the picture back. “And ruined his day.”

“Perhaps…” Kerim rubbed at his goatee. “Perhaps this was his reward? It’s almost useless to speculate, but his belonging to a group of nine is highly suggestive. As an Archangel he was powerful, but not overwhelmingly so. Perhaps he didn’t reach the bottom of the Pits, but still did well enough to be rewarded?”

“Or forced to work for the demons,” spat Yadriel.

“The demons work for someone else,” said Kerim. “Remember? It’s possible they’re not even demons but beings like this forced to wear an illusion for our sake.”

“That’s fucked.” Yadriel scowled. “To go through all this and then be forced to fuck with another world as a reward?”

Kerim smiled. “Whomever is running this show has yet to demonstrate an ounce of interest in concepts such as fairness or commensurate rewards.”

James couldn’t tear his gaze from the octopoidal corpse. What had it been through? What had it suffered? Were the others in the portraits alive or dead? He thought… dead. There was something celebratory about the paintings, something sad. They looked idealized in a way he couldn’t quite pinpoint, as if the light were ennobling them. Had it suffered as they were suffering now? Been visited by their own apocalypse and forced to fight against ever more extreme odds till at last he had ended up… here?

James regarded the cavernous apartments once more. “You’d think he’d want to relax underwater.”

“Maybe they didn’t want him getting too comfortable,” said Kerim. “Or perhaps these are work apartments? He gets to go home after our apocalypse wraps up?”

“Not anymore he don’t,” said Yadriel with a grin.

“Interesting.” Jessica turned off her scanner and rose up. “This is a piece of incredibly sophisticated machinery. Far beyond anything we have ever dreamed of back home. Its core is incredibly dense. I’m talking center of the sun dense, or even black hole dense. The keys are a means to control the power within it, but I can’t tell more than that without access to my Mechanicus and lab back home.”

“He must have used it to open the portal to this place,” said James. “Right?”

“It’s entirely possible, yes. Which means that it could be used to open portals to all manner of places. But I can’t tell from here.”

“So we go home?” Serenity raised an eyebrow. “Can you teleport us back from here?”

“Should be able to, yeah,” said James.

“Will that put us back on the map for the bad guys?” asked Serenity.

“I mean…” James trailed off and spread his hands. “Yeah. Probably. But what are they going to do? We’ve got ten days or so of time purchased from beating the Pit thus far. They could always fast forward things again, but at that point their whole pretense about their being a system at all will collapse.”

“At that point that might as well just come find and kill us,” said Jason.

“I could see that,” said Serenity.

“This tool is our ticket out of here,” said James, picking it up warily. “If we can unlock it and figure out how to use it, we can jump right to the bottom of the Pit. Skip everything. Then we have ourselves one big fight to defeat whatever’s down there and see what happens next.”

Olaf frowned. “Then we go into last fight with no more levels.”

“Big man’s got a point,” said Yadriel. “We ain’t got no more XP yet because shit’s been easy. But Level 19 and on are meant to make us work, right? Stands to reason we’d start leveling. We jump right to Level 27 we might be underpowered.”

“But we’d all be together,” said Serenity. “Unless you forgot what that demon punk kid said, how we’re all supposed to die permanently before getting there so only James arrives?”

“Point,” said Yadriel.

“That and I don’t want to do anything we’re supposed to,” said James. “Fuck them all. No more grinding, no more trying to level up the way we’re meant to. I say we research this tool, figure it out, then cut to the chase and confront whoever’s running this. What do you all think?”

“I’m down,” said Serenity.

“Same,” said Jason, and Miriam nodded with him.

“Yes.” Kerim took off his spectacles with a sigh and rubbed them on his sweater. “At the very least we get to satisfy our curiosity before we’re killed.”

“Nice,” complained Denzel, shoulder bumping him. “Super cheerful. Love it.”

Kerim put the spectacles back on and shrugged. “There are forces at play beyond our comprehension. Say that tool has a black hole contained within its core. After what I saw upon digesting the Reservoir Cube, I’d not be surprised. And we’re supposed to out-maneuver whomever designed it? Unlikely.”

“That means we’re in,” said Denzel apologetically to James.

“In,” agreed Olaf. “I say we name it the Bifrost. The rainbow bridge to Valhalla.”

“It’s gold, not rainbow,” protested Yadriel. “Makes more sense to call it the One Ring.”

“I like Bifrost,” said Jessica.

Olaf beamed. “Jessica is woman of culture.”

“Fine, I’m in, too,” sighed Yadriel. “Though under protest, you’d best believe. If we die because we show up to Level 27 like a bunch of weak-ass punks, I’ll be pissed.”

“You’ll be dead,” said Denzel.

“And pissed,” insisted Yadriel.

“Then lets head back.” James resisted the urge to thwack the Bifrost into his palm like the head of a heavy wrench. “Take one last look through this place to see if we find anything else of value and then we’ll get going.”

They split up, poking around, but the bare bones nature of the place made for a quick search. Miriam pulled a weird sensory board out from under the bed that looked like a mass of carved pockets filled with different oils, but nobody could make sense of it. One of the drawers was filled with heavily salted fish jerky, but nobody felt like tasting it.

“All right then,” said James. “The fact that nobody’s come busting in here after us means this’ll be a safe place to return to if we need.”

“We should dispose of the body,” said Jason grimly. “If somebody does come in, there’s a chance they’ll not notice anything off if the corpse is gone.”

“Oh look,” said Yadriel. “A huge fucking hole in the wall. How convenient.”

James nodded and knelt by the corpse. “Whomever you were, I’m sorry.” He tried to think of anything else to say, then sighed, grasped the creature by its black silk shirt, stood, and hurled it out the missing wall.

The body flew out some forty yards, the silk uniform surprisingly tough, and then it fell away from sight and was gone.

“Happy eating, T-Rexes!” shouted Yadriel.

“Dude,” said Jason. “Try to show some class.”

“Fuck class,” said Yadriel. “I am who I am.”

“We all ready?” James spent an Aeviternum to summon his teleportation circle. This time Fortuna didn’t save the point, bringing him down to 14. “Let’s go. I’ll take us in somewhere quiet and we can assess from there.”

As one they passed through and emerged a moment later in the penthouse apartment of the Marriott Hotel. The living room with its grand central fireplace and assorted armchairs was exactly as they’d left it; the lights were all off but for an embedded spotlight above the bar, and the city outside their windows was still dark and without power.

But it all felt so much more real. The chill of the air, the familiar scents, the empty glasses left on the bar, the muted color tones, their world, Earth.

On some level that James couldn’t understand his mind and body intuited that they’d returned home, to their own plane of existence, a subtle tension they’d been carrying finally left.

“I gotta use the head,” said Yadriel, breaking away hurriedly.

“I will check on Kimmie,” said Olaf, following after.

“Drinks!” Serenity made a beeline for the bar.

James pulled up his status window.

Protect the Divine Heart for 5 Hours 31 Minutes

To Unlock the Next Level

“Looks like the countdown is still working,” he said to no-one in particular. “Guessing it’s for the next level whose name we never caught.”

Miriam blinked. “What happens if we’re not there and the Heart gets taken?”

James made a face and then slowly shrugged.

“We bought Earth about ten days,” said Jessica carefully. “Though now the new levels have been accelerated to 6 hour cycles. Failure to defend the Heart could result in time lost? Or… I’m not sure, really. I’d best get to examining the Bifrost.”

James extended the wand. “Can you carry this?”

The Omni floated over. A small panel slid aside so that an articulated claw could emerge, its three fingers closing around the Bifrost’s shaft. “I’ll be quick.”

And she zipped to the front door. “Someone get this for me? I don’t want to have to destroy it.”

Miriam ran over and opened the door. Jessica disappeared.

“I don’t like this,” said Jason. “Times we don’t understand, consequences that could affect the whole world.”

“Um, Jason? Could I have a word?” asked Miriam timidly. “In private?”

“Um? Oh. Yeah. For sure.” The pair of them hurried down the hall and stepped into one of the bedrooms, closing the door firmly behind them.

“Fuck, I think we should have a conversation, too,” said Denzel. “Kerim?”

“Hmm? About what?”

“About, you know.” Denzel made a face. “I’ve got questions. About what it’s like to be a secular Muslim.”

“Oh? Oh! Oh.” Kerim flushed and nervously adjusted his spectacles before glancing around at the others. “Well, sure. We’ve a little time, don’t we James?”

James grinned. “Plenty. If anybody else wants to go screw their brains out, now’s the time.”

Kerim opened his mouth, mortified, but Denzel just grabbed him by the hand and hauled him away.

Yadriel grimaced. “I don’t believe it. I’m the most fucking eligible bachelor in the world and I’m not banging? Who does that make any sense?”

Serenity poured out three fingers of Scotch. “The world’s full of mysteries, babe.”

“Hey, Serenity. Girl.” Yadriel eased up to the bar and clucked his tongue. “I ever tell you that you’re a fine-ass piece of meat? Girl, your legs go from here to tomorrow, and that ass?” He winced as if in pain. “That ass. Should be the official logo of the state of Georgia. How ‘bout you and me go find some place quiet and…” He trailed off, eyebrows raising hopefully as Serenity leaned forward, elbow on the bar, chin on the palm of her hand.

“No, keep going,” she said. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this. What’s your closer?”

“Closer?” He grabbed himself between the legs, “this is my closer right here.”

Serenity frowned. “Man, you were so close.”

Yadriel pouted. “That a no?”

“Sorry hon. A million times over.”

He scowled. “Fuck. Maybe I’ll have better luck downstairs.”

“You gonna go find a hook up?” Serenity laughed. “Now?”

“When’s better?” He moved to the front door. “If demons or angels or shit show up, tell ‘em to give me three hours. That’s all I get going.”

“Peace, hon,” laughed Serenity again, straightening as James moved to sit at the bar. “Talk about hope springing eternal. Though on some level, I can’t believe it took him this long to hit on me.”

“He’s a man of respect,” said James, sitting down with a sigh. “A man of culture.”

“Why you sitting down?” asked Serenity.

James froze. “You’re pouring drinks?”

“Drink, solo. You got places to be.”

“I do?”

“Jessica’s down there in the basement. You should go check on her, see how she’s doing.”

“I… should?”

Serenity raised an eyebrow at him.

James flushed. “Oh. Yeah. Sure. I should.”

“Good man. Knew you’d get there eventually.”

James stood, tugged at his clothing, and turned to the front door.

“Oh, and James?”

He looked back at her.

“You’re a grown-ass man. Don’t forget that. Women like confidence. Assertiveness. Tell her what you want, and if she wants it, too, well. Enjoy.”

James took a ragged breath. “Thanks, coach.”

“Just don’t take too long. This ain’t the time for the Kama sutra, yeah? She’s got a Bifrost to figure out.”

“Copy.” James’s heart was pounding. With the power out he’d have to take the stairs.

Or not.

He opened a teleportation ring to the underground parking lot, gave Serenity a two-finger salute, and stepped through.