A Chance of Success - A Fan Fiction by TGRF

[TGRF]

Chapter Eight

Spoiler Alert!

_____It took Mijiek all of five seconds to realize two things: firstly, we needed a different craft. With a specific one to find, the soulborgs would track us across Valhalla. Secondly, we needed to land. The soulborgs would expect us to run, so landing was the obvious choice. I had to admit it was helpful having someone who knew the enemy’s playbook flawlessly.
_____We had been over a lake when Garokna freed us, so Mijiek flew north. Soon, we were skimming the tops of dark pines. We had arrived in Upper Bleakwood. Mijiek slowed the craft and set us down in a valley between two high hills. There was plenty of cover from the trees, and once the soulborgs had moved on in their search for us, we could backtrack – another thing they wouldn’t suspect – and find another craft.
_____It took Mijiek a few minutes to find the valley and fly there. In that time, I went to Garokna, and asked if he was injured. I remembered how he had been lying on the floor while Mijiek was battling the last soulborg.
_____“Winded only,” he replied when I asked. “The soulborgs pack quite the punch.”
_____“Thank you, by the way,” I said, checking him over just to be sure. “For freeing us.”
_____“Yes, thank you.” Seraga had come up behind us.
_____Garokna looked up at her. “You’re welcome,” he said.
_____“I have one question though,” Seraga said, kneeling down so she was level with Garokna. “Why? Why would you agree to help the soulborgs, and then free us?”
_____Garokna shrugged. “I’d had enough. I said I would help give them the ability to mindshackle. Not that I would help them hunt down innocent people who did them no wrong.” He got up. “They crossed a line.” He pushed past us and made his way to the cockpit, leaving me and Seraga to puzzle over his actions.
_____“There’s more to it,” Seraga said, still watching him. “That’s not why he turned on them.”
_____I agreed. Something about him felt off, like he was hiding something. “Did you two know each other? Before, I mean?” I asked. I remembered how she had said ‘please’ over and over to Garokna. I realized now that she must have been asking him to free her. To betray the soulborgs.
_____“No,” Seraga said, still watching Garokna. “The first time I saw him was on this ship. But I could tell he was undecided. Every time he looked in my direction, I could feel him wavering. I don’t know why he betrayed the soulborgs, but he was the weak link. I exploited it.”
_____An idea struck me. “Do you think… maybe he did it for you?”
_____Seraga finally looked at me. “For me? Betray the soulborgs for me?” I could tell her entire perception of Garokna had just changed. “Perhaps.” She looked back at Garokna. “Perhaps. But there’s something else… something different.”
_____She continued watching Garokna, a puzzled look on her face, but I knew the conversation was over. A moment later, Mijiek announced that we were landing. There was a bump, and then the door slid open to reveal a small valley, covered with small trees and dense bushes.
_____We left the craft – just in case the soulborgs spotted it – and hid a short distance away. Mijiek said the soulborgs would arrive within minutes.
_____He directed me to an especially thick patch of trees at the foot of one of the hills. After pushing through several layers of branches, I stopped and lay down on my stomach. Green was all around me. I could just see the craft through the bushes, mostly hidden. I glanced to the right and saw Mijiek for a moment – before his skin blossomed into plumes of green. He had taken on the appearance of a bush. It took me a moment to get used to it. There was no turning back now: he was definitely a soulborg.
_____I waited. I was a lot calmer than I had been the previous night. I still needed to find Andrew, but I had finally resigned myself to the fact that it would take some time. There would be a lot of dodging soulborgs, hiding, and waiting. I figured I had better get used to it.
_____Several minutes passed. I was just thinking that maybe the soulborgs weren’t as interested in finding us as Mijiek thought, when I heard the familiar distant hum of an engine. Another hum joined it – two engines.
_____The soulborgs were coming from the south. The sound of their engines increased steadily, growing louder and louder until they became a roar, and then two soulborg crafts burst into view over the far hill, speeding through the air.
_____They were different than what I had seen. These were more triangular, and much flatter – more adapted to maneuvering than what we had been in. Our craft most accurately resembled a large brick atop an engine. It was designed to get people somewhere quickly. The crafts that now hovered above us were designed for stealth, surveillance, and capture. I could tell just by looking at them.
_____The two crafts crisscrossed us in the air, going back and forth, scanning the whole area. I held my breath every time one of them flew over me – as if they could hear me breathing and I might give us away. I was sure they would spot the craft we had landed in, and I was right. After a moment, the two crafts hovered, and then began descending slowly.
_____They didn’t glide down. They simply sank towards the ground, as if they were falling in slow motion. Their descent was perfectly straight and controlled. It was unnatural. Out of everything going on, it was a silly thing to notice, but the sight made me nervous. These soulborgs knew what they were doing. There was no guessing involved in their actions. They would either find us… or they wouldn’t. All we could do was wait.
_____The two ships landed. Several soulborgs got out, five total. One went to the craft, and a moment later its engines powered up, lifting its bulky shape out of the forest, and away back to Kinsland. A few more days had just been added onto our journey to find Andrew.
_____The soulborgs then clustered together where the craft had been, each facing outwards in a different direction. They didn’t move. I couldn’t guess what they were doing, until it occurred to me that they were simply scanning the forest. There was no need to go stumbling through trees searching for us. They had all the tools they needed in their eyes. Or sensors. Or whatever they were.
_____The soulborgs turned slowly, scanning the entire area. They looked up and down, side to side. Several times they looked straight at me, and I was sure I had been found, but every time they moved on. I had to force myself not to hold my breath too long. My heart was beating frantically against my chest. My eyes were stinging from not blinking, but I was afraid the movement might be seen. I had never been so still in my life. Every muscle in my body ached.
_____Finally, the soulborgs completed a full circle. For a moment they stood still, but then they split up, going back to their crafts. They got in, powered up the engines, and took off. I followed them with my eyes as they rose slowly out of the trees, and then hovered in place. Were we safe? Were they leaving?
_____They weren’t. The crafts slowly circled, still scanning the trees. They each passed over me twice, and I had to force myself to keep looking straight ahead. I expected the soulborgs to find me at any moment, but they always passed over me, moving on slowly, their engines humming with a rhythmic rise and fall. I could have gone to sleep to the sound if I wasn’t so tense.
_____The two crafts finally met back up in the middle, directly over the spot where we had landed. They hung motionless, nose to nose, as if they were speaking to each other in some sort of silent language.
_____Then, without warning, one rose above the other, turning to face the same direction, and they both jetted away, heading north. The sudden roar of their engines faded quickly, and then it was gone. The only sound was the rustling of the pines in the faint breeze left in their wake.

I should also say that the style for this particular fan fiction was heavily inspired by the writings of D. J. MacHale. His SYLO Chronicles are some of the best twist-heavy novels I've ever read, and I would highly recommend them.

~TGRF.

[TGRF]

Chapter Nine

Spoiler Alert!

_____I remained motionless. I didn’t know if the soulborgs would come back, and I didn’t want to move if they did. Mijiek didn’t move or drop his disguise either, so I figured it was the right decision. I couldn’t see either of the marro at all.
_____Five minutes passed. Ten. The muscles in my abdomen were aching from lying on the uneven ground for so long. My neck was stiff from holding my head in the same position. I didn’t move. I didn’t even shift my weight to ease my aching muscles. I waited, breathing slowly, listening for any sound from the sky above.
_____I was just starting to lose track of time when Mijiek’s disguise flickered, and then melted back into his skin, almost as if I was watching plants grow backwards, back into the ground. The colors melted into a dull gray, and that too slowly disappeared, allowing the metal beneath to be seen.
_____Mijiek stood and walked to where I was. He looked strange as a soulborg, thin and short. I suppose he needed to be thin to allow room for all the various disguises to cover him.
_____“They’re gone,” he said, offering me a metal hand. “They would have come back by now if they were just scouting out the area.”
_____I took the hand, and Mijiek lifted me to my feet. I tried to stretch my muscles slowly so I wouldn’t pull anything. “Do you think they saw us, and are just waiting for backup?” I asked. It was a thought which hadn’t occurred to me until then.
_____“I doubt it,” Mijiek said, turning and signaling across the valley. The two marro rose from a dense patch of bushes. “They would want to keep tabs on us if that were the case. They wouldn’t just leave. Still, we need to be cautious. They’ll still be scanning this area with satellites; we should be fine as long as we stick to the trees, but just to be sure we should stay in this valley a while longer.”
_____I nodded, trying to rub the feeling back into my arms. I realized that I was hungry. I hadn’t eaten anything since last night. “Do you think there’s any food here?” I asked. “Berries? Anything like that?”
_____Mijiek smiled. “We’ll find food, Laura. We have me, you – a caster – and two marro. We’ll be fine, if it comes to living off of the land. But I doubt it will come to that. There’s a soulborg base just a few miles north; we’ll find an SATV there. They’re always kept stocked.”
_____“An SATV?” I repeated.
_____“Soulborg Aerial Transport Vehicle,” Mijiek said. “It’s what we were flying in. It’s the standard means of transportation for soulborgs.”
_____I nodded again. I was only just beginning to realize that we had escaped from the soulborgs. That was supposed to be impossible. No one could evade them, but we had. I had to admit that without Mijiek, we would probably be back on another SATV by now, flying to whatever the soulborgs had in store for us. I was starting to trust him again. I told myself I needed to be more cautious, but I couldn’t help it; I didn’t see how he could be anything other than what he claimed.
_____The marro joined us, and Garokna started asking Mijiek questions about the soulborgs, but I noticed something a short distance away. To my right, the trees grew especially thick, forming a long barrier of dense branches. Right in the middle of them a small space had been cleared, and I could see a few flat, overgrown stones lying on the ground. A path.
_____If there was anything there, the soulborgs would have investigated, so I knew there was no threat. Curious, I went to the trees and took a closer look.
_____There was a path leading into them. Its stones were cracked and covered by moss, but enough of it remained to be seen. The trees had grown thick and close around it, branches cutting it off from sight the instant it went below them.
_____I moved forward, pushing branches out of the way, and stepping over roots which had cracked the path further. It was faint, but I could still see it. Who would put a path here? Everyone avoided Bleakwood if they could; the tales of the shades ambushing travelers were all too common. Unless that traveler was a caster. Then things usually happened differently.
_____The path wasn’t wide; it was only about three feet across. The perfect width for one person. Had someone actually lived here? That seemed unlikely. No sooner had I formed the thought though, than I rounded a large tree and found myself in a small clearing. The remains of a small house sat in the middle, perfectly hidden by the trees.
_____The clearing had obviously been a lot larger. Small trees surrounded the house, and some of the larger ones had sent their branches through its windows and over its roof. The back of the house had fallen, but the front was still intact.
_____It seemed to be a kyrie home. I recognized the open layout, designed to let fresh air in. I decided it was probably built before the war, in a time when the surrounding woods were peaceful. It was close to the lake – maybe children once swam in it on summer days.
_____There was no chance of being spotted from above – the trees were too thick – so I crossed the clearing and entered the house. The door had long since fallen away, leaving only the strong wooden frame. The floor was covered with dirt, but the layer of moss growing on it almost felt like a thick carpet. The walls were green with lichen, the soft half-light playing gently across them. Everything was silent, save for the rustle of branches outside.
_____It was a small house. To my left was a kitchen, the window looking out to the path. A table, somehow still standing, was further in. I could almost see the family of kyrie eating at it. To my right was a medium-sized room, square and bare of furnishings. A few boxes were visible in the shadows. I guessed it was a storeroom.
_____Directly in front of me was a short hall, ending in two bedrooms. One was where the roof had collapsed. It was impossible to tell what had been there. The other was still mostly intact though, and I was able to make out three small beds, overgrown with bushes and vines.
_____I felt a soft breeze at my back, flowing in through the doorway. It instantly brought back memories of a different time, when I had been younger. Andrew and Dave and I had loved going to kyrie homes like this one in the summer; the design enticed air in, cooling off the interior while making you feel like you were still outside. Not even the elves had mastered how it was done.
_____I stood in the bedroom and turned, trying to visualize the place as it had once been. I could see the children in the bedroom, playing, watching birds outside the window, or hiding from their mother when it was bedtime. I could see them all sitting at the table in the kitchen, laughing and eating. What adventures did the children have in the forest? Or at the lake, so nearby? Did they climb the hills, pretending to be explorers? Did they try to scale the tallest pines? Did they fly above the forest, soaking up the sunlight with their wings?
_____I closed my eyes. After the tension of the morning, I needed some peace. The home was full of it. I could feel it wafting about me, like a warm scent on the air. I breathed deeply.
_____And then I had the breath knocked out of me.
_____Something slammed into my side from the right, knocking me to the floor. Disoriented, I tried to pull myself away, but I couldn’t convince my arms to hold me. My mind was locked, focused on my empty lungs.
_____I heard sounds behind me. Something crashed. There was a faint whirring. Something mechanical. That wasn’t good.
_____I forced myself to turn and see what had hit me. I finally took a huge gulp of air, and surged to my feet, staggering backwards. It was a soulborg.
_____I hit the wall. The door! Where was the door? The soulborg moved towards me. It was moving slowly, like it was as disoriented as I felt, but there was no mistaking its intention. A long gun was mounted on its shoulder, the barrel pointed straight at my head. The soulborg’s arms seemed disproportionally thick compared to the rest of its body, and its fists were curled into perfect balls the size of an infant’s head.
_____My groping hand finally found the doorway, and I whipped around, running through it. I had almost reached the front door when a dark shape loomed up in front of me, cutting off the light: Mijiek. I ducked to the side just as a stream of fire flew towards the soulborg.
_____Oddly, it seemed unaffected by it. It paused for a moment, but then kept coming, gathering speed. Mijiek backed out of the house and into the daylight, keeping the soulborg in his sights. It went right past me as I crouched in the shadows of the storeroom, and exited the house.
_____What was I doing? I was a caster. I stood up and stepped into the doorway. The soulborg was bearing down on Mijiek, who was still slowly backing up, as if luring him onwards. I focused on the magic about me, and, feeling the energy about the soulborg, began to make it go faster and faster, too fast to stay in the metal frame. It had to flee to my magic. But it didn’t.
_____The soulborg didn’t stop. If anything, it sped up, charging towards Mijiek. What I was doing wasn’t working. I changed tactics.
_____For all their power, there aren’t a lot of destructive things that casters can do. Most of their abilities are better suited to maintaining and improving, rather than destroying. I did have a few options, however. I could summon an explosion of energy, knocking the soulborg off its feet. That was how most casters fought. The problem was that the soulborg was too close to Mijiek by now. Summoning energy wasn’t a precise process; I could easily hit Mijiek as well.
_____I could do what I had already tried, and keep draining energy from the soulborg. It should work, causing it to collapse, unable to move. However, that clearly wasn’t working, though I couldn’t say why. My only remaining option was to disintegrate the soulborg.
_____Disintegration was slow, difficult, and draining, but it was very precise. There was no threat to Mijiek or anyone else. It was my only option, but I knew I didn’t have enough time. All I could hope for was that the soulborg would turn towards me, allowing Mijiek to attack.
_____I locked my magic with the soulborg itself, weaving magic through matter. Magic and matter coexist, but they can’t exist in the same place. Not for long, anyway. As I merged my magic with the mater of the soulborg, it started to disappear, simply becoming nonexistent.
_____It wasn’t easy.
_____And it wasn’t fast, either. I had to go molecule by molecule, fusing my magic with each one. To me, it looked like scratches were appearing on the soulborg’s armor. I focused harder. I had to go faster.
_____The soulborg swung at Mijiek. Mijiek ducked beneath the blow casually, and then delivered one of his own to the soulborg’s ribcage. I didn’t know what I had expected. These were soulborgs. Their combat was usually more… advanced.
_____I focused on the joints, trying to go after the things that were holding the soulborg together. I was definitely having an effect, but it was taking too long.
_____Garokna leapt from the trees, his bladed arms angled downwards. Instantly, the soulborg stepped to the side, away from Mijiek, and caught Garokna in the air, throwing him far. The marro landed hard on the ground, and did not get up.
_____Mijiek took advantage of the soulborg’s distraction, and stepped forward, somehow tangling their legs. I saw a push, a pull to the side, and the robot fell over, its knees buckling. Mijiek landed on top of it, pinning it down with his arm.
_____“Laura!” he gasped. “The sensors. Take out the sensors!”
_____I instantly turned my attention to the soulborgs head, where a cluster of three red lights shone. The effect was instantaneous.
_____I only needed to focus my magic on the sensors for a few seconds before the glass burst, and the lights died. The soulborg was blind. Mijiek leapt off of it, evading the blow that followed him, and struck the soulborg in the head. Hard. He pulled back, and struck again. And again. Something snapped in the soulborg’s neck, and it went limp.
_____I pulled my magic away from the metal figure, just as Seraga appeared between the trees, clutching a large rock. There was a moment of silence as we all stared at the soulborg. We were all thinking the same thing:
_____The soulborgs knew we were here.

~TGRF.

[William099]

Well apparently can't stay peaceful for long around here lol. Great job with the imagery of the Kyrie house!

[TGRF]

Originally Posted by William099

Well apparently can't stay peaceful for long around here lol. Great job with the imagery of the Kyrie house!

Glad you liked it! And now on with the tale...

Chapter Ten

Spoiler Alert!

_____Mijiek knelt on the ground and flipped the soulborg over. “We need to get out of here,” he said. “The soulborgs can see everything the D10 saw.”
_____“D10?” Seraga repeated, coming closer and looking down at the soulborg. Garokna came up behind her. Apparently the soulborg had only knocked out his breath for a moment.
_____Mijiek looked up. “It’s a robot. Pure machine. It’s a D10 type, so that’s what we call it. It’s designed for one thing only: capture.” He started pulling at the armor plates on the D10’s back. They came off one by one, and he started moving wires around, worming his hand further into the back of the robot.
_____“What… What are you doing?” I asked.
_____“The soulborgs know we’re here, so hiding won’t work. They’ll keep looking until they find us. Our only chance is to get out of here fast and hide somewhere else. And for that, we need… this.”
_____Mijiek plunged his hand deep within the robot, yanked a few times, and finally pulled out an unremarkable rectangle of metal. “The D10’s log,” he explained. “It flew here in something. It might be cramped, but that ship can fly us out. All I need to do is find it.”
_____Mijiek placed his hand on the metal rectangle. Nothing happened. He must have somehow accessed it however, because a moment later he said, “North. One hundred sixty-two meters. Go.”
_____Without waiting, he leapt to his feet, rounded the abandoned house behind us, and started crashing through the trees. We looked at each other for a moment, and then followed, running in the path Mijiek had created for us.
_____I ducked under low branches and leapt over bushes, twigs and leaves scratching my skin and pulling at my hair. The sensations snapped me into fully realizing what had happened. The soulborgs would be back. We were being hunted once more. I moved faster, trying to catch up to Mijiek.
_____We found the craft on the other side of the hill. It was small. Extremely small. We couldn’t stand up in it; we had to sit on the metal benches that went around the walls. There was just enough room for five people: one in the cockpit and four in the room behind it. The dual engines were directly behind the benches, which meant that the metal frame rattled and shook when Mijiek fired them up.
_____The entire craft was low to the ground. It was shaped like an arrow, thin at the front, wider at the back, with two flat wings stretching out from either side. Mijiek kept it close to the ground as we flew, skimming the grassy field beneath us. We were going down a hill, farther and farther, until… we hit water.
_____Instead of leveling out, Mijiek kept us pointed downwards. The craft penetrated the surface easily, sliding into the same lake we had flown over just minutes before. This craft had windows. I could see bubbles rising off of it as we dove deeper and deeper. The sun’s light grew fainter with every second, until it was just a dark blue smudge in the midnight blackness about us. Only then, at the bottom of the lake, did Mijiek level the craft out.
_____“Nothing can track us here,” he said, exiting the cockpit and turning to face us, crouched beneath the low ceiling. “This is an SRV – Soulborg Recon Vessel. It sends out counter signals which jam anything trying to track it. It’s virtually undetectable. If we can avoid running into any soulborgs, this craft should be able to get us to the Thaelink a lot faster than I had thought – we’ll be able to fly right under the soulborg’s sensors.”
_____Garokna did not appear to be enjoying the craft. He was the tallest of us, and even with sitting, he had to bend his neck. “So why aren’t we on our way there then?” he said.
_____“Because the soulborgs are looking for us,” Mijiek said. “They’re sweeping the whole area with satellites. The SRV might be untraceable, but it’s not invisible. We have to wait here for a while. Then we can move out.”
_____Something creaked behind me, startling me. We all turned to look, but all we could see was the wall. I realized that the SRV must have a lot of pressure on it from the water. “How long can this thing stay under water?” I asked.
_____“About five hours,” Mijiek said. “After that, the pressure in the engines is too low and they flood. Don’t worry,” he added. “It’s small, but the SRVs are built to survive a lot more than water pressure.”
_____“So now we wait,” Seraga said, “and then what? We just go straight to the Thaelink?”
_____“More or less,” Mijiek said, nodding. “We’ll have to take a few detours to avoid the most soulborgs. We’ll want to avoid Anund for sure, and if their plan was successful, they’ve overrun Nastralund. We might have to cross Upper Bleakwood and reach the Thaelink through Laur. There is… another option though.”
_____Everyone turned to him.
_____“I know how to hide. I could find a place where the soulborgs will never find you, and you could stay there, until this is over. You would be safe, and you would never have to worry about being found. I’m going to find my daughter. But for the rest of you… it is an option.”
_____After what I had seen in the valley, I didn’t doubt that Mijiek could keep us hidden. I wanted to say that I was going with him, that I was going to find Andrew, but I remembered the house I had seen, and the peace I had felt. Here was a chance, a real chance, to have that. To just walk away from all the fear. It could be mine. All I had to do was say the word.
_____I sighed. That wouldn’t be any kind of peace. I couldn’t leave Andrew behind. I couldn’t leave anyone behind for that matter. I never could. It just wasn’t in my DNA. Here was a chance to stop fearing the soulborgs, to stop watching the sky and listening for the hum of an engine. I wanted it. And I would have it. I would. But not without Andrew.
_____“I’m going to the Thaelink,” I announced.
_____“Are you sure?” Mijiek said, turning to me. “You need to know what will happen. You’ve been on the soulborgs’ radar for less than twenty-four hours. In that time you’ve been attacked by a robot and captured twice. Are you sure you want to know what the soulborgs can do over a few days?”
_____I could tell he wasn’t trying to change my mind. He just wanted to make sure I knew what I was getting myself into. I hadn’t until then. Again the house popped into my mind. That peace could be mine…
_____Mijiek spoke again. “There is no way we all make it out of this alive. Unless we hide, the soulborgs will keep coming. Nothing is going to stop them. If we go, we could be incinerated the moment we exit this lake. I can’t predict every move they’ll make, but one thing is certain: we aren’t going to succeed without some sort of losses. You need to consider that.”
_____I did. I needed to find Andrew, and I was willing to risk the soulborgs chasing me to do it. But if what Mijiek said was true, then continuing might get us all killed. And I wouldn’t be much help to Andrew then. The logical thing would be to hide; to wait and form a plan. The logical thing would be to survive.
_____“No,” I said. “I’m going to the Thaelink. There’s a chance I won’t be able to help Andrew if the soulborgs find us, but we certainly won’t be able to if we never try. I’m going.”
_____Mijiek nodded and turned to the marro. “What about you?” he said.
_____“A choice between possible death and certain safety?” Garokna said. “Seems fairly simple to me.”
_____Seraga tilted her head, looking at Mijiek. “I’ll go with you,” she said. I was surprised by her words; I could tell she didn’t trust Mijiek.
_____Garokna glanced up at her, surprise on his face as well. “What? Why?”
_____Seraga shrugged. “They have a noble cause. I’d rather do something than wait for the soulborgs to take over the world. I’ll go.”
_____I wondered if that was really the reason. Seraga didn’t trust Mijiek. That much was obvious. Was she going just so she didn’t have to put her safety in his hands?
_____Garokna looked torn for a moment, but then said, “Fine, I’ll come too.”
_____Seraga looked sideways at him. “Why? I thought you were all for safety. This is your chance.”
_____Garokna sighed. “Noble cause and all that. What you said.”
_____Seraga glanced at me for a moment before turning away. We both knew why Garokna was staying.
_____“If that’s your decision then,” Mijiek said. “Get comfortable. We’ll wait one hour, and then be on our way.”
_____I nodded. We were going to the Thaelink. We were going to find Andrew.

I will also say that if any of my viewers are interested in reading more excellent writing, you should give TAF's The Moon has Wings a look. He can do things with writing that I can't, and he really deserves a few comments on his thread.

~TGRF, hijacking his own thread (which by definition isn't hijacking, so...)

[TheAverageFan]

I appreciate the pity shoutout, TGRF. You're certainly doing something interesting with the Marro in this story. I have a feeling they have a bigger part to play in this yet. But we'll see.

~TAF, off to upload a chapter of his own

[TGRF]

I'm gone for 1.5 days and TAF posts two chapters? What is this devilry? Quick, TGRF, answer with chapter 11!

We're now getting very close to the midway point: chapter thirteen. Thirteen is when things really start cooking, so to steal from the competition, stay tuned!

(Actually it was Bro-man who came up with that line...)

Chapter Eleven

Spoiler Alert!

_____Magic is a hard thing to explain. It’s the same on all the worlds. Feylund and Valhalla share it, and Earth did too, in its early days.
_____Everybody has a body and a spirit. The body is physical, but the spirit is something else. It’s what makes you you. Without it you aren’t self-aware. It’s what separates you from the animals.
_____Spirit is the base for all magic. Just like the world is made up out of space and time, each making up a separate dimension, spirit has its own dimension. It’s by accessing that dimension that casters can use spirit.
_____There’s one very important thing that casters can do. Because everybody has a spirit, some part of everybody exists in the spirit dimension. With some practice, a caster can separate their spirit from their body, and enter the spirit dimension fully. This allows them to find and communicate with other spirits.
_____Other spirits, like Andrew.
_____The one disadvantage is that with the spirit gone from the body, you can’t do anything should you be in danger. That was why I hadn’t tried contacting Andrew yet. It was a long process, and I couldn’t risk being unable to fight if the soulborgs found us.
_____But now, surrounded by friends, in a craft that couldn’t be found, with a long journey ahead of us… now was the perfect time. After eating some of the tasteless food we found onboard, I told Mijiek what I planned to do, and then settled myself as comfortably as possible on one of the benches.
_____Sleep was the way into the spirit dimension. Your mind had to be calm. I had heard of some who could calm themselves sufficiently while awake, but… honestly I could never do that. Constantly worrying about Andrew’s safety probably had something to do with it.
_____Sleep took its time finding me. The gravity of what we were doing wasn’t lost on me. We were flying straight into the soulborgs’ arms and hoping they would miss us. It was little better than a suicide mission. The fact that they couldn’t see us was little comfort when I remembered all they could do. I tried to force the thought from my mind and focus on Andrew instead. We would find him. We would be together again.
_____Sleep found me eventually. With your physical mind resting, your spirit starts to focus on the things about you. For most people, that results in dreams. For casters, it results in awareness.
_____The first thing I noted in the blackness that surrounded me was motion. The water against the SRV. I couldn’t see anything. My spirit was no longer in the physical dimension, where sight and the other senses existed. I was simply aware of everything around me, the same way you get a feeling when someone is behind you.
_____I could feel Mijiek in the cockpit, bent on our mission, running countless scenarios through his head. Garokna and Seraga were sitting across from me. I could feel their minds, probing each other. Seraga seemed curious, cautiously feeling Garokna’s mind. Garokna was entirely focused on her; I felt nothing else from him.
_____I pushed, moving my spirit beyond where I was. I was no longer tied to space, so I didn’t enter the water or the forest beyond. I simply started becoming aware of other spirits. There was no telling how far away they were. They might have been on other planets for all I knew.
_____The first spirits I saw were those with the most action. They were easier to feel, easier to find. It was like listening to a room full of people. It’s easier to focus on those that are shouting than those that are whispering.
_____The first spirits I encountered were in pain. I sensed mourning parents, frightened victims, and vengeful protectors. The source of their pain wasn’t hard to guess: the soulborgs.
_____I pushed past them, trying to focus on the less obvious spirits. Things got worse. I saw defeat. I felt hope flicker a thousand times, and then die in a thousand minds. Confusion was all about me. No one knew what was going on. Why were they being captured by the soulborgs? Was all of Valhalla overrun? Where was Jandar? Where were any of the Valkyrie?
_____It was getting more and more difficult to sense the spirits. The first ones I had sensed were like suns, preventing me from seeing the stars behind them. I struggled to sense the furthest spirits, until I ran into something I had not expected.
_____Soulborgs.
_____Millions upon millions of soulborgs. A person was a single defined spirit, but the soulborgs merged, becoming one mind. Their spirits had no definable boundaries; they all joined and flowed together. It was like a solid wall of gray.
_____The soulborgs were calm, methodical, and completely unaware of me. They couldn’t access the spirit dimension. They had no way to know that a caster was watching them. It made me realize that if they ever were able to wield magic like they wanted, they would be unstoppable. No one could hide from them. Ever.
_____About the soulborgs were thousands of spirits living in fear. I watched as huge swathes of them were wiped out of existence; the soulborgs exterminating those that stood against them. There was no flicker of emotion, no hint that the soulborgs were sorry for what they were doing. But I also saw something else. I saw the soulborgs caring. Caring for parents, caring for children. I saw them love, hate, sorrow, and find joy. They seemed human. They were human. And yet they were so different…
_____I pushed further. I had to find Andrew. I should have found him by now, but perhaps he was asleep. Beyond the soulborgs were only the dimmest of spirits. These had no hope. They were near death, waiting only for the inevitable end. And beyond them… nothing. Only the faintest trace of spirits.
_____Spirits never died, so what I sensed now were ghosts. But ghosts were barely there. I could hardly sense anything from them. A snatch of conversation, a powerful emotion that refused to die, all else was silence. People had gone mad trying to find their loved ones among the ghosts. It was like trying to sift through a beach to find a single grain of sand.
_____Where was Andrew? Why hadn’t I found him? I knew his feel well. I went back, flying through the spirits, looking, feeling for his familiar presence. It wasn’t there. You have to keep your spirit calm in order to observe others, but I couldn’t keep a trickle of worry from seeping into my mind. Where was he?
_____I suddenly came across something that I hadn’t felt before: a void. An area with no spirits. It was simply… cut off from me. I couldn’t get past it, or see through it. Was Andrew in there? There were billions of spirits about me, but I should have found him by now. We were never far apart in this place.
_____One of the bright spirits suddenly flared, catching my attention. It grew and grew, blotting out the others beside it. I could feel the intensity of it, like the heat of a large fire. Revenge. It was a thirst for revenge, and it was powerful. Images bombarded me, memories that were not my own. The spirit flared brighter still… and then died. Instantly.
_____In a moment of time, it had dimmed and become a ghost. About it, other spirits dimmed as well. Hundreds fell. I brushed several, and it didn’t take long to figure out who had killed their bodies: soulborgs.
_____A great battle had just been lost somewhere. That meant that some were still fighting. I pressed against the ghosts, trying to learn more before they faded completely. The ghosts were connected by a common drive; they all felt one thing with intensity. It was foremost in their minds. And there were many more, still alive, still fighting. They were all tied together by the same thing: resistance.
_____I had found an army.

[TGRF]

Chapter Twelve

Spoiler Alert!

_____An army. We weren’t alone. People were resisting the soulborgs. I had to tell the others.
_____Easier said than done. With the spirit gone, the body falls into a deep calm. The heart rate slows and the mind virtually shuts off. Waking it up again was a slow process. I had to increase the activity in my brain back up to a level where my spirit could inhabit it again, and that meant sending more blood to it by increasing my heart rate.
_____No one said being a caster was simple.
_____Even I can’t explain how one can increase their heart rate from outside their own body. You just do. It took a few minutes, but eventually I was able to reenter my body, and slowly wake up.
_____“Mijiek,” I called as soon as I could open my mouth. “An army. There’s an army out there, resisting the soulborgs.”
_____Mijiek was still in the cockpit, but turned towards me. “An army? Where?” Being a soulborg, he knew how the spirit dimension worked, even if he couldn’t sense it the way I could. The soulborgs had files on everything.
_____I realized I didn’t know where the army was. “I’m not sure,” I said. “But they’re fighting the soulborgs. They might be able to help us reach the Thaelink.”
_____“It’s possible,” Mijiek said, speaking half to himself. “But we won’t do much better than this craft. Anything else would be seen from miles away.”
_____“There’s something else,” I said, eager to get his opinion on it. “I felt a void in there; a region with no spirit. I couldn’t get close to it. Do you know what it might have been?”
_____I didn’t expect him to, but Mijiek nodded his head slowly. “The soulborgs have some sort of device which can separate spirit. It creates its own isolated pocket of spirit, inaccessible to the others. I can’t be sure if they ever got it to work, but it sounds like you found it to me.”
_____“Could… Could Andrew be in there?” I asked, hardly daring to hope.
_____“Possibly,” Mijiek said. “But there’s no way to know. If the soulborgs perfected their device, there’s no way you can get past it.”
_____“I can try,” I said, lying back down. If Andrew was in that void, I wasn’t about to give up. I could reach him. I knew it.
_____I plunged back into the spirit dimension, and, ignoring the spirits about me, flew straight to the void. Now that I took the time to feel it properly, I realized how big it was. Not that it actually had any physical size. The only measurement in the spirit dimension was strength of thought, and the void could hold a lot.
_____I pushed against it. Nothing. I tried going around it, but there was no way in. I tried to slam into it, and… Everything plunged into darkness. I would have woken up if my heart rate hadn’t been so low. As it was, I had still gone back to sensing only Mijiek and the two marro about me. Confused, I stretched my spirit out once more, and approached the void more slowly. There had to be a way through it.
_____I felt it cautiously. What was it? What made it up? Bleak, cold, and empty. There was simply nothing there, and nothing could be there. It was like I was staring at a rift in the fabric of existence; nothing could exist within that rift, meaning nothing could get in the void. Or out of it, for that matter. It might be a prison for all I knew.
_____A thought struck me: soulborgs. The soulborgs would know what had happened to Andrew. They remembered everything. All I had to do was sift through them until I found a mention of him. The only problem was… the soulborgs remembered everything. Every little detail about every possible outcome. How would I ever find Andrew?
_____I turned to the gray cloud that was the soulborgs, and started looking closely, sensing their spirit with mine. Flashes of memory appeared before my eyes. None of it was my own, but I quickly realized something. The soulborgs were so connected that I only needed to sense one to sense them all.
_____I focused, turning my thoughts to Andrew. I pictured his face as he boarded the soulborg transport, happy, waving at me. Had that really only been a day ago? Soulborg thoughts sped past me, growing more and more relevant as I focused. Images flashed by. The inside of a transport. A wall. A strange machine. Snatches of broken conversations began to reach my ears.
_____“…going to help us…”
_____“…set up to prevent interference…”
_____“…he’ll save us…”
_____“…doing the best he can…”
_____And then, so suddenly that it startled me, pure, unbroken thought entered my mind. I had broken into the spirit of another soulborg completely. I was reading her mind. I could see everything she saw, feel everything she felt. But best of all, I could hear her thoughts, reverberating in my own mind.
_____“He just needs more time. More time, that’s all. He’s promised us magic, and I believe he’ll give it to us. He just needs to figure out how. Time. It’s all just a matter of time…”
_____I pulled back, confused. What the soulborg said made no sense. Another mind drifted in front of me, offering its thoughts.
_____“We’ve already made so much progress. Without him, we would be nowhere. He’s not a machine, like us. He needs rest. Let him sleep. You know nothing will keep him from his goal.”
_____My confusion grew. Another mind drifted by.
_____“He’s helping us. I never thought I would see it: a caster willingly giving us magic. He’s one of a kind.”
_____What I was hearing couldn’t be right. I dug into the minds about me, searching for any hint of Andrew. At first there was nothing, but then a flood of images assailed me: Andrew bent over a machine; Andrew concentrating on something; Andrew summoning light with magic; Andrew working on the metal arm of a soulborg; Andrew bent over, thinking; Andrew with the soulborgs, discussing something; Andrew in some sort of chamber, turning dials on a control panel; Andrew sitting back and observing his work…
_____I flew away from the soulborgs, my mind reeling. What had I just seen? A mind never lied. It couldn’t. It knew the truth, and it couldn’t hide it from itself. It was all there, waiting to be seen by someone. Someone like me.
_____I had seen Andrew helping the soulborgs. I had seen him giving them magic, or at least trying to. But, as I tried to make sense of it all, I slowly began to realize the worst truth of it all:
_____Andrew was helping the soulborgs willingly.

[TGRF]

And now the chapter we've been waiting for...

Chapter Thirteen

Spoiler Alert!

_____Far away, Andrew stood, a frown upon his face. He had failed. Again. And this time he had caused damage.
_____Andrew stood at the center of a massive spherical chamber. It was constructed entirely out of steel frames, the metal glinting dully in the floodlights that shone on it from all angles. The ceiling extended high above Andrew, the height of a small hill. The floor dropped down far below him, the depth of a valley. Everything was massive. The steel frames cast dark shadows in every direction, throwing some areas in the deepest of darkness, with the floodlights revealing the rest in painful brilliance.
_____Andrew stood in the very middle of this structure, the walls surrounding him, rising high and powerful wherever he looked. They stretched all around him, covering every angle. Nowhere was there a door, nowhere was there a window or an opening of any kind. Only massive walls, shutting him in.
_____Andrew stood in a smaller sphere, the top curving in around him, just a few feet above his head. This sphere, too, was constructed out of a steel frame, allowing a full view between the beams, with nothing but a small circular wire frame floor for Andrew to stand on.
_____All about him, metal groaned, alarms blared, lights flashed, and steam hissed. The tiny sphere he was in shook and rattled, the steel frames shaking as the entire outer structure groaned with strain.
_____Andrew took a deep breath. Far below him, a line of soulborgs marched, crossing the bottom of the outer sphere. They were repairing the supports, realigning coils of wire. They were fixing the damage. The damage he had caused.
_____Something stirred in Andrew’s memory. Another procession, another long line of people, trying to fix something he had broken. Those people hadn’t been able to repair the damage. No one could, for the damage had been inside. It had rested within those that made up the line, scarring their hearts and their memories. Nothing could repair that kind of damage.
_____“Maybe I shouldn’t do this,” Andrew said, speaking mostly to himself.
_____“Why not?”
_____The voice was that of Heler. She was a soulborg. She was there to help him.
_____Andrew turned to her. He was glad Heler was on his side, because he would not like to have met her in battle. She was solid metal, wires and cords twisting through her body. Armor plates covered every inch of her, gleaming in the floodlights. Her head was a helmet of armor, her two red eyes glaring out from beneath an especially thick plate. Even her posture was foreboding: her weight distributed evenly, her legs slightly bent, as ready to take a blow as give one. She was built for combat. She was built to protect Andrew.
_____“Why not?” she repeated. “We have made progress.”
_____Andrew shrugged, and then looked up, startled, as one of the steel beams above him gave off an especially loud groan. Heler didn’t react. Keeping an eye on the beam, Andrew said, “I don’t know. It’s just… this is the future, I know it is, but… sometimes I just feel like it isn’t the right thing to do.”
_____Heler wasn’t a robot. She had feelings. She sighed. “Why do you doubt, Andrew?” she said. “What we have done, what we are doing… it’s not for nothing.”
_____Andrew looked back at the slow procession of soulborgs far below. Again the same memory stirred in his mind. “I know,” he said. “It’s just… I meddled in the lives of others before.”
_____“Moira,” Heler said. It was a simple statement.
_____“Moira,” Andrew repeated, answering the unspoken question. The last time he had heard that name had been when Laura was trying to keep him from leaving.
_____“What happened wasn’t your fault.”
_____Andrew turned to Heler. “It was. It was all my fault. Without me playing in their minds, encouraging them, those men wouldn’t have gone to battle. Without me, they wouldn’t have died.”
_____Heler’s voice softened. “They would have died someday, Andrew. And you didn’t kill them. The orcs did. What you can do with magic is a gift. You can inspire those about you to greater heights. You gave those men the courage to fight.”
_____“And to die,” Andrew muttered, still watching the procession. “If I had just not interfered, they might still be alive. Their families would still be together. Their children would be happy, instead of starved… or dead.” A wave of anger washed over him as he uttered the words. Anger at himself, and what he had done.
_____“You can’t blame yourself for Moira.”
_____Andrew turned to her. “Of course I can!” he shouted. His voice was lost in a thousand echoes. “If I hadn’t sent her father to his death, her mother wouldn’t have died out of grief. If her parents hadn’t been torn apart by my magic, she would have had someone in her life to keep her from the path she went down.”
_____“She had you,” Heler said quietly.
_____“Not enough,” Andrew said, his voice still full of anger. “Not enough. I meddled in her life when I shouldn’t have, and left her alone when she needed me. There’s no one to blame but me.”
_____“Others were involved. What happened wasn’t your fault.”
_____“Yes, others were involved. But she wouldn’t have met any of them if it weren’t for me. She wouldn’t have listened to them if I had been there. I started her down that path, and then abandoned her to her fate. And she wouldn’t be dead right now if I had just listened to my common sense in the first place. I knew it was wrong to encourage those men. I knew it, and I did it anyway. I meddled in their lives, and I caused a lot of pain and suffering because of it. And I can’t help but wonder… how is what I’m doing right now any different? The only difference is that I’m meddling in everyone’s lives, instead of just a few.”
_____Heler had waited for Andrew to finish. It was a common tactic of hers: let the opposition wear themselves out, and then win unimpeded. Andrew wanted her to win. He wanted her to somehow convince him that Moira wasn’t his fault. But he knew she couldn’t, because it was true. Moira was his fault.
_____“If you’re asking if your actions will have consequences,” Heler said slowly, “then the answer is yes. Everything you do has a result. Some are good, some are bad. Considering what might happen is good. But you must choose. Doing nothing is far worse than doing the wrong thing.”
_____“Is it?” Andrew asked bleakly. He didn’t believe it for a second.
_____“Yes,” Heler said. Andrew could sense the conviction in her voice. “Yes, it is. Progress in any direction gives you the information you need to make better choices in the future. This is something you need to do, Andrew.” Heler gestured about her, at the massive spherical chamber. It was where Andrew had been testing magic, trying over and over to find a way the soulborgs could wield it. “Trust me. We’ve thought this through for years. What you are doing is right. Don’t doubt yourself. Moira’s death was tragic, but it was necessary. I’m sorry for how that sounds, but it’s true. It has led you to where you are now: determined to make sure the same mistakes never happen again.”
_____Andrew shook his head. Heler could be very convincing in an argument. A little too convincing sometimes. But this was one she wouldn’t be able to win. She didn’t understand. No one here did. The only one who had ever understood was Laura.
_____Laura knew. She had been there, after all. Without her, things might have been much worse. She was the only one who truly understood.
_____Andrew looked around at the damaged structure. His last attempt to give the soulborgs magic had produced highly explosive results. Yes, he had made some progress, but he couldn’t put the final pieces in play. Nothing worked. He needed Laura. She always made things work. But she wasn’t with him, not anymore.
_____“Andrew?” Heler asked.
_____He turned to her. “Laura,” he said. “I need Laura. She can make this work. I know she can.”
_____“We can give you anything you need,” Heler said.
_____“No, I need Laura. No piece of machinery can take her place. She makes everything better. I think if she were here, working with me… I think this would work.”
_____“You know bringing her here isn’t possible right now.”
_____“Please,” Andrew said. “I know it won’t be easy, but with her here, I can’t fail. I need her.”
_____Heler looked at Andrew for a moment, as if she were contemplating something.
_____He couldn’t tell if she was about to agree or refuse.

It is a generally accepted rule of writing that you don't switch persons. Switching from first to third is particularly jarring, but it's something the story required. Theoretically, after the initial shock, the reader should accept the brief change and move on. Subsequent switches won't be as much of a shock. I would be interested in hearing your reactions to the person shift. Obviously it is jarring, but were you able to keep reading after the first few paragraphs, or did the different person completely ruin things?

~TGRF.

[TheAverageFan]

Originally Posted by The Grim Reaper's Friend

Obviously it is jarring, but were you able to keep reading after the first few paragraphs, or did the different person completely ruin things?

It completely ruined everything. Goodbye.

~TAF

[TheAverageFan]

Actually on second thought it was more jarring to have a 1st Person narrator to begin with than it was to return to the usual around here.

~TAF

[TGRF]

Originally Posted by TheAverageFan

Actually on second thought it was more jarring to have a 1st Person narrator to begin with than it was to return to the usual around here.

~TAF

Well yes, when the norm is 3rd person. But as an author I can't assume that (if this were a real novel, there wouldn't be a 'norm'), and 1st person is what worked for this story. The first person resumes in the next chapter.

~TGRF, doing what had to be done.

[William099]

This isn't the first novel that I've read that switched tenses so it didn't even phase me. I must say I totally called it that Andrew was going to be complicit.