1.36 – This Time, We Prepare

It was evening when Rika finally awoke in her room at the Canyon Falls inn. The smell of stew and fresh bread drifted upstairs from the kitchen below. She got out of bed and threw on her spare clothes, thanking her past self for having the presence of mind to pack them. When she came down the stairs into the inn commons, Addy was busy in the kitchen, and the innkeep, a burly man named Lorant, stood behind the bar. Lorant gave her a nod as she took a seat near the hearth.

“You must be hungry,” Addy said when she bustled over with a platter full of stew and bread and cheese and beer. “Saving the town and all, after fighting through the night and then sleeping all the next day. Here, you eat this up and don’t think a thing of it, dear. It’s the least I can do after what you’ve done for us.”

Too tired to properly argue, Rika slid a couple of coins across the table. “Just take them,” she said.

Addy made a bit of a sour face, but tucked the coins away, regardless. “Let me know if you need aught else.”

The stew was flavorful and hearty. The bread fresh, and the cheese sharp. After Rika washed the entire meal down with the tankard of beer they’d given her, she stood and went outside. She wandered over to the low stone wall between the inn and the main road leading through Canyon Falls and providing easy access to the mine and bloomeries at the back of the canyon. For a moment she just sat there, enjoying the cool air and the sound of the stream running through town as night properly fell over Canyon Falls once more.

After some time, she turned to Chryson. “What happened back there?” she asked.

The Oracle bobbed around on invisible currents until he floated directly in front of her, right about arm’s length. The cosmic expanse of his iris swirled with a thousand thousand points of light and vast clouds of barely-seen colors she had a difficult time naming. The void at the center peered at her as his four tentacles idly swished below him.

“Would you care to clarify exactly what you mean?” he asked. The hesitation in his words wasn’t as noticeable as it had been back during the fight to defend the town, but it was still there.

Recalling how upset he’d seemed, Rika frowned. “The sun. The way it stopped moving. And the fact that it got replaced with a giant eye.” She left purposefully out that the eye had somewhat resembled an Oracle.

Chryson remained silent for some time. “Would you be so kind as to tell me what you saw, exactly? When… when you were gone.” All the hesitation that she’d heard in his normally cosmic and near-infinite voice had returned. That something could upset him like this didn’t sit well with her.

She detailed what had happened. The sudden falling away of the entire world. The giant eye that had replaced the setting sun, blazing with the red flames of the cosmos as the void of its gaze fixed on her alone. She described the figures that had replaced the land and the town, their hollow faces like empty pits all turned to her, and how their bodies seemed crafted of ash. As she spoke, she felt some small measure of that presence return, scratching at the back of her mind.

Rika spoke of the presence. The impression of a massive figure in the sky, so vast that she could only grasp at its furthest edges. The throne, the skull, the crown. Three symbols that reflected some minor aspect of whatever had arrived to witness her deeds. She recounted how it had bid her fight, and how the vision—if that’s what it had truly been—had fallen away. How it had left her as suddenly as it had come, but how the vast impression of a skull remained through the night, fading only as the goblins fled.

Chryson remained silent as she spoke. He remained silent for some time after, too. “I am of the first generation of Oracles,” he said when he finally spoke again. “I have borne witness to countless lives over countless thousands of years. Never have I experienced what I did last night, and never has one I served spoken of the things you’ve seen.”

Questions reeled in Rika’s mind at what she’d just been told. “What did you experience?” she asked. That seemed as good a place as any to start.

“For a moment, it was as if creation itself ceased its motion,” he began, his voice unusually somber in her thoughts and ears. “For an instant, everything just stopped. While Oracles perceive the flow of time far differently than you do, this was impossibly strange even for me. And in that moment when time stood still, you were gone. At least, in the sense of my connection to you.”

“What do you mean by that?” she asked. Something about the way Chryson had phrased it stuck out to her.

“I am, in a manner, connected to all things. It is a necessary component of how I can serve you. I must know a goblin’s level, for example, to provide that information to you. Everything I feed you, from your own status to any information about the world around you, is information I must first pull from the well of infinities that makes up the Watchers’ creation.

“In that moment, the one you said you spent in that vision, you were gone. I could see you, in the same way I can turn my gaze above and see the stars upon the firmament. But I had no access to you. It was as if, for however brief a time, you had been removed from creation itself.”

Rika tried as best she could to ignore the chill that ran through her, and the growing sense of unease that gripped her as Chryson spoke. Removed from creation? She’d certainly had something happen to her, but that was absurd. “What of the presence in the sky?” she asked. “The skull atop the throne, wearing a crown? Then what of the presence once I’d returned? Surely you noticed it?”

“I had not. Just like when you came back to me and I had no access to what you’d experienced, I saw no skull covering the night sky. Even now, that portion of your memories is like a locked vault to me. This, I must stress, should not be.”

Creeping apprehension warred with dread as Rika tried to wrap her thoughts around everything that had happened, and everything Chryson had told her. “Is there anything in that vast store of knowledge you have access to that might at least give me a clue?”

“There is one thing,” he said. Once again, hesitation crept into his words. “I suspect what you may have witnessed was—”

Silence. Then a sort of tremor ran through the world. It felt almost like those times when Rika lay in bed, on the very edge of sleep. When the sudden sensation of falling jolted her awake.

“I’m sorry,” Chryson said. “Even now, that portion of your memories is like a locked vault to me. This, I must stress, should not be.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“I see,” Rika said, noting well the repeated phrase. “Thanks anyway. Hopefully, it doesn’t repeat.” If Chryson hadn’t noticed what had just happened, she thought it best not to bring it up. Whatever it was, it had felt like the touch of something far beyond what she was willing to contend with.

“I hope so as well,” Chryson said.

The next morning, Rika found Erik waiting for her outside the inn after she’d taken breakfast. Addy had once again tried to insist Rika didn’t pay. This time, Rika insisted back. A brief and mostly friendly argument followed, with Addy claiming the town owed them their lives, and Rika claiming she owed them their livelihoods. Eventually Addy’s husband Lorant settled the issue, saying Rika could pay for her meal, and that her earlier stay while she recovered from her fever was on the house. While Rika had fully intended to pay for that as well, she could see this was the only compromise that would satisfy Addy, and that Lorant had far more experience dealing with his wife than Rika did.

“To the guild hall?” Erik asked when Rika sauntered up to him. He’d taken a seat on the same wall she’d had her talk with Chryson the night prior.

“Waited for me to turn in part two?” she asked with a lopsided grin.

“I can’t turn it in. You’re the party leader.”

“Oops. Sorry about that,” she said. Erik hopped down from the wall and fell in beside her as they walked toward the canyon entrance.

“Its fine. You’re probably better suited for it anyway,” he mumbled.

“The party leader is just a formality,” Chryson said, unprompted. “They’re responsible for adding and removing party members, along with accepting and turning in quests. Aside from these responsibilities, the role is largely informal.”

At least Chryson seemed to be back to his usual, if a bit stuffy, self. Rika definitely preferred this version of him over the nervous and uncertain one she’d seen the previous night.

As they made their way toward the guild hall, Rika took in the town. It was much as she’d seen it the first day. A stream ran through the center, spanned by bridges connecting the homes and workshops on either side. Pine trees grew along the edges of the canyon, and the scent of burning coke remained inescapable. Even as they neared the canyon mouth, Rika could still hear the calls of the miners and bloomery workers at the far end.

In front of the guild, Rika couldn’t find a scrap of evidence from her battle just two nights before. The bodies were gone, at least mostly. Out of curiosity, she peered over the lower falls and caught sight of a few dead goblins in the ravine below. But other than that, the whole road was in as pristine condition as when she’d first arrived. Even the carts she’d used as barricades had been repaired—although she noticed a few gouges that were too deep to completely cover.

“Marieta helped with the cleanup and restoration,” Erik said. “I did, too, but the townspeople did most of the work.”

When Rika pushed open the door to the Adventuring Guild, she caught glances from a group of seasoned looking freebooters sitting off to the side. They had leaned in close and were discussing something amongst themselves. One of them noticed Rika looking and gave her a curt but respectful nod of acknowledgment. Another raised his tankard to her before knocking it back.

As they made their way to the counter, Rika leaned in to Erik. “What was that about?”

“People have been talking,” he said.

Well, that was answer enough, she supposed.