Anything ~ 58 - Epilogue!

A fist erupted through the baked earth, sending flakes of muck and cooked pumpkin flying away to release a *hiss* as the pressure equalized between the two spaces. An angry voice shouted, “No, no, no! Ahhh! Oh, we aren’t burning. Luke! What if it had still been on fire up there?”

“I was bored just sitting here.” Luke’s head popped out of the earth, and he craned his neck, searching for any sign of creatures still moving around. Unfortunately, the entire space was utterly cave-dark. “Fresh air. That’s nice.”

“That’s another thing!” Zed’s voice was muffled, something Luke greatly appreciated after being trapped in the small space with him for the last few hours. They hadn’t wanted to leave until the walls of their gourd were cool to the touch. “We’ve been down here for most of the day at this point, and you haven’t had any good air. Even if you can breathe poison for some reason, how have you not suffocated?”

“My body can sustain itself on mana alone. Poison heals me. That’s why I didn’t bleed out all over you.” Luke pulled himself out of the hole he had made and offered Zed a hand up, not that the man could see it. Luke ended up feeling around until he caught Zed’s clothes, then yanked him up and out.

“You have a Skill that lets you breathe poison and live on your mana regen?” Zed simply couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“To be fair…” Luke paused as he tried to look around the space again. For some reason, he thought that there should absolutely be light here.

Zed couldn’t let the silence stretch after the first few seconds. “Go on. I can’t wait to hear what you consider fair in this context.”

“They are different Skills.” Luke finished his thought, and Zed threw his arms into the air dramatically, slapping against charcoal and yelping in surprise at the unexpected pain. “I think part of the Dragon fell on us. Follow.”

Luke equipped his mana-made sword and started slicing upward. Each swing caused dust to scatter into the air, and a sharp metal-on-stone sound rang out. On the fifth strike, shifting light filtered through a hole, and Luke wasted no time in chucking Cookie up through the space. She blasted a way out for him, then took a sharp turn and slammed into the head of the deceased Dragon, as though gravity had tripled.

Luke hadn't seen her land, but the unexpected sound caused both of the humans to go very still. Activating his Soul Brand, he tried to call Cookie back. For the first time since he had used the Skill, nothing happened. Cookie didn’t come back. He jumped up, following her original trajectory, and squinted around in the blinding triplet of light that shone throughout the cavern. “That’s why I felt there should be light. Cookie wasn’t glowing? Cookie! Where are you?”

Now that they were in the main chamber and his eyes had adjusted, the light of the Earthen Node far above revealed the shattered remains of the much-reduced space. Huge sections of the cavern had caved in, signifying a massive shift in terrain. He had no doubt, after taking the wreckage in, that the only reason they hadn’t been crushed was that the Earthen Node had done something strange to the surrounding stone, reinforcing or controlling it so it would stay stable.

“Wow… look at this place.” Zed whistled in wonder as he extricated himself from the corpse. “Luke, we should have died at least, I don’t know, six times there? How did an unassembled pumpkin pie keep us alive under all of that?”

“Druid trickery,” Luke distractedly muttered. “Cookie? Cookie! Where’d you go?”

The corpse under their feet shifted slightly, and Zed let out a high-pitched scream. A thick stench of fried vegetables filled the air as a small section of the remaining metal ‘skin’ of the Dragon was pulled away. A new source of light bloomed into existence, and Luke raced toward it. He found Cookie half-submerged in the metal as it flowed into her like water falling over a cliff, simply touching her edge and vanishing.

Just as he arrived, the process finished. He studied Cookie carefully, finding that her hue had darkened from bright-blue to a deep sapphire. He reached over and picked her up, grunting in surprise at the massive weight increase. “What have you been eating, Cookie? You’ve gotta be nine hundred pounds!”

“How can you even lift that thing if it’s so heavy?” Zed blatantly insulted her, right in front of Luke! “Oh, look! A gem!”

“She’s… I’ll admit, right on the edge of my physical output. I can do four hundred and fifteen kilos—also known as nine hundred and fourteen pounds—before it’ll really mess with me.” Luke let her drop, also releasing a hidden gasp of relief. “I’ll be able to hit so much harder when I get used to this increase. Since I have no upper limit to natural training in Murder World, the more I use her, the stronger I’ll get. She’s just being helpful.”

“Pretty sure your bone just ate a chunk of Dragon, man. You should be careful; who knows what else that thing can do?” Zed lifted a glittering stone the size of his head that appeared to be the same color as Cookie, though it didn’t shine from internal light. “Look at this. Okay, it’ll be harder for the two of us to survive without being found by the Kingdom, but whenever we do get caught, we can pull this bad boy out and say we were bringing a gift to the King.”

“No.” Luke looked upward, where Cookie was pointing. There had been a flicker of stronger light on her surface that caught his attention, and he knew her well enough to know that something important must be going on.

Zed followed his gaze, and both looked up at the Earthen Node as a hairline crack appeared in the new crystal surface surrounding it. A moment later, two bodies dropped out of the stone, and the fracture vanished as if it had never existed. Luke and Zed watched the bodies fall, making no effort to catch them. Lightning shot down and struck the falling people just as they hit the ground.

Luke trudged toward his fallen friends, dragging Cookie along behind him. Zed coughed at the dust that kicked up, giving the Murderhobo a glare that he couldn’t see. The Bard snarled lightly and hurried to walk in front of the taller man, “Neanderthal.”

They stood over the unmoving bodies of their friends for a long moment. Andre looked ragged, his plant-fiber clothes reduced to nothing, body covered in soot and blood. Taylor looked unsurprisingly perfect, and Luke could tell that her Cleanse or Purify spells had stayed active until the end.

“Should we… burn them? Bury them?” Zed offered with a small, teary voice. “We never asked them what they’d want, but… I feel like Andre would want to be buried, and Taylor burned. Maybe burned, then buried, and tossed into the swill over there to become fertilizer for plants? You know what…? Let’s cut them up first so that their corpses are easier to dissolve.”

“Celestial feces, Zed, what’s the matter with you?” Andre’s concerned voice rang out, halting Luke’s mana-blade in mid-motion as he went to cut up the bodies.

“Oh, I don’t know?” Zed snorted as Taylor and Andre both started moving gingerly. “Maybe I felt like we should get revenge on people that were playing dead so they could hear the teary farewells of their friends?”

“You were going to cut us up, Luke? Like… right then?” Taylor coughed a few times, and burned petals fell from her nostrils. “What the abyss?”

Luke shrugged and jabbed his thumb at Zed. “He made good sense. Easier to convert smaller chunks. Glad you’re alive; confused as to how.”

“Feces.” Andre stood and felt his head, where all his hair had been burned away. “No clothes and no hair. Now I know why Luke comes back naked every time he goes for a swim in his world. We’re alive for only one reason: the World isn’t done with us. It still needs our help. My help. It knew I wouldn’t continue on if it took Taylor from me, so-”

“My clothes are unaffected by mana water.” Luke informed the Druid. There was a momentary pause as Andre worked out that he said that Luke ‘came back naked’, but he didn’t get a chance to correct his words before Luke’s face tightened; and he turned to Taylor. “You. Where’s my satchel?”

“Taylor… we-” Andre took a step toward Taylor and reached out, but The Mage dodged away, causing the Druid to freeze in confusion. Hurt filled his eyes, but still she didn’t look directly at him.

“Andre, I’d prefer to have a conversation with you privately about what our relationship looks like moving forward, but not here, and not while you’re very, very naked,” Taylor managed to rasp out as the others looked on. “Thank goodness I only got to the edge of the Node… Andre, my senses are so high that right now all I can smell around you is burned hair, and all I can see is… never mind.”

A moment later, Andre was surrounded by a ‘firefly’. As a seeming afterthought, it swirled around the others in rapid succession. Luke immediately smelled the surroundings at full strength once more, and he grimaced. “Thanks for that. I had gone nose-blind, but now I get to take in rotting Dragon flesh and steamed cesspit again. Where’s my satchel?”

“This spell is constantly active for me.” A small smile creeped up on Taylor’s face. “I either smell everything perfectly, or not at all. Trust me, I feel your pain. At least you get to lose your sense of smell after a few minutes.”

“She’s smiling; are we surrounded by Inquisitors again or something?” Zed peered around nervously, getting a forced chuckle from the Mage.

“Dying and then getting my heart restarted by the planet gave me some… perspective.” Taylor shuddered at the memory of so much power pumping into her. Forcing her to watch in silence as Andre gave up on life, due to her actions. Keeping her heart beating, her eyes open, and her mouth sealed as the Druid went still and floated around the Earthen Node. “I can’t keep doing what I’ve been doing. From now on, Andre is the team leader. What he decides is what we do.”

“Not a chance.” Andre shook his head and crossed his arms. “I have no desire to be the one that needs to make hard choices like that.”

“I’ll do it,” Zed intoned solemnly. “Please listen to my wisdom carefully.”

Everyone ignored the Bard as Luke stepped forward and put his hand on Taylor’s shoulder. “I think the mark of a good leader is someone that does the right thing, especially when no one is watching. You never asked us to go in and die for you. But you were ready to do it for us. You’ve got my trust back, if that matters to you.”

“Mine too,” Andre joined in, though Taylor still shied away when he tried for a hug. “Luke, over there. I see a part of your bag poking out from under that rock.”

“Yeah, yeah, everything’s wonderful,” Zed grumbled in annoyance as the Murderhobo shambled over to a huge boulder and started punching it. “I coulda been an awesome leader. Go make pants for yourself; we can all see exactly how happy you are to have Taylor in charge again.”

The Druid turned and made a rude gesture at the Bard, freezing in place as he stared the man down. The mood slowly became uncomfortable as the gesture remained, hovering all but forgotten under the Druid’s shocked expression. As Zed started to shuffle over to the Murderhobo, Andre finally spoke, albeit in a hushed tone. “Zed. What is that you’re carrying?”

Zed looked down at the massive gem, then tried to hide it behind his back. “Nothing. Stand away, nudist.”

“What is it, Andre?” Taylor interjected as the naked man slowly started drifting toward the Bard.

“I got a new Ability,” Andre responded dazedly, “when I was trying to fix that Earthen Node. It’s called ‘Call of Nature’. It’s Tier nine. Not only does it let me understand natural things really well, it also lets me commune with nature in a really powerful way; I can use power directly from ley lines or Nodes to power my other Abilities. There’s a drawback, if you can really call it that. I need to listen when nature tells me something, or I’ll lose the Ability. Right now, I was just told that I need to raise that seed.”

“Raise it? Not grow it?” Luke questioned absently as he reached into his satchel and moved something around. The Druid held his breath as Zed reluctantly handed him the shimmering rock; eyes brimming with emotion, he reached out and ran his hand over the orb. “It’s a seed. You grow seeds. You raise animals.”

“Yeah… but this has two paths in front of it.” The Druid rubbed the sapphire gem lovingly, and it began shining in reaction to his mana. “I can either grow it now, and tether it to myself as a Nature Dragon-”

“Yes. Do that,” Luke commanded without hesitation as Zed nodded enthusiastically. The Murderhobo pointed at the charred remains of the Corrupted Nature Dragon. “I want that on my side, without the whole ‘destroy the world’ thing going on for it.”

“Guys. Stop.” Taylor slipped in next to Andre, searching his face as he stared into the depths of the seed. “What else could it become, Andre?”

“It could become a world.” Andre’s voice broke as tears of joy ran down his face. He hugged the crystalline seed to his chest and cradled it like a baby. “When I’m powerful enough, I could plant this in the void and generate a new Plane of existence.”

“So… it’s a world seed?” Taylor prodded him.

“It’s whatever we could ever want, Taylor.” Andre’s eyes turned and locked with hers, the passion in his gaze warming her to the core. “This could become… Anything.”

“Question for you both,” Luke called, bringing the group’s attention to a familiar feeling of mana congregating. “Why did you only use the top layer of powder when you fixed the Node? I thought you wanted to be sure it’d work.”

Zed leaned over and peeked into the satchel, where over a dozen packets of unicorn horn powder remained beautifully arranged where they had been hidden under a sectioned-off fold of leather. “You know, I think this is going to be the start of a great vacation, guys.”

“Just wait until you see what I’m gonna turn this cavern into.” Andre admired what was about to become his second underground Grove. “This place is a real fixer-upper, but I have a few ideas you all might like.”

Taylor dropped to a knee as her Sigil began blazing with light, and the others followed a moment later. Luke looked skyward, ready to be annoyed, but a grin appeared unbidden as he saw Etheric Xenograft Potentia pouring in like a river. He looked around at the shell-shocked faces of his teammates, and jumped to his feet, then into the air with a wild whoop. “Let’s do that again!”

~ Epilogue ~

Zed stood from his seat in the tavern, wiping away a foam mustache after he quaffed the final dregs of his drink. He scanned the utterly silent room, peering into the eyes of the myriad people reliving his experiences, and once more privately marveled at the power of his Masteries. “Hundreds of years of life, and I’m still in awe of what I can do for people. Well… I’m guessing it’s about time.”

The True Bard masterfully glided past the patrons of the tavern, careful not to jostle them too hard. He wanted them to feel the emotion of the story, to understand the truth of what he had imparted in their minds. Even so, he needed to hurry. He didn’t want anyone listening to his stories to get hurt, after all. He reached the door, took a deep breath, then pulled it open and strolled outside confidently.

“Hello, there! Which unit did they send this time?” Zed cheerfully called to the wall of not only Inquisitors, but elite troops from the much expanded not-so-Hollow-anymore-Kingdom. “Don’t you ever tire of this little game we play?”

The person in charge didn’t answer with words, instead silently dropping their hand. Spells, arrows, and a smattering of knives were projected at the Bard, reaching him just as a wall of troops charged at him and launched they could to turn the Bard into mincemeat. Dozens of people who had crowded around the tavern listening to the tale of the Bard were reduced to mere stains in an instant.

“I’m sad to see how little you care for the citizens that trust in you. You know, Mirror Moment as a Mastery has no charge up or cooldown time like it does as a spell. Well, not at this Tier. Mages are so funny sometimes,” Zed called a few minutes later. The entire unit blinked as one, finding that none of them had moved. Even the commander’s arm was still raised in the air, waiting to send the signal to attack. “I was just telling the story of the rebirth of the Rocco Nature Preserve. You know what I’m talking about, right?”

At that, the commander did show emotion: rage. Again the troop charged; this time holding nothing back as they did everything in their power to inflict damage on this renegade Ascender.

“So you do know.” Again, the scene was reset as soon as Zed started talking. Everyone was clearly exhausted; even the raised arm of the commander was shaking with fatigue from remaining in place for so long. “Now, now. It wasn’t our choice to be treated like criminals and chased into the desert. It isn’t our fault that the Kingdom demanded the World Seed from Andre. Who would have guessed that the Sigils could tattle on us like that when great treasures were found?”

The troops charged, and once more, Zed let them tire themselves out before pulling them out of their mental illusion.

“Was it so wrong for us to stay there as long as we were able, taking the time we needed to heal that area? Helping the population that came to farm? Increasing the potency of the entire Kingdom’s future generations in one fell swoop?” Zed laughed mirthlessly as the commander struggled to kill him all on his own, but was never able to place a jab within meters of his body. “What upset you so personally? Was it the fact that Andre gifted that area to nature itself, and not the Hollow Kingdom, that got your undergarments in a twist?”

Again and again, the troops tried, until even the most elite among them slunk to their knees in the exact spot they had held since Zed had walked outside. “That was probably it. Andre once told me something about kingdoms only caring for their natural resources when they could exploit them.”

“War criminal Zed the Mindbender. You are… under arrest for crimes against humanity,” the commander of the Inquisitors wheezed in the metallic voice that escaped all helmets of that variety. “Under authority of the united world government, I am here to take you in for justice.”

“Oh? You and what army?” Zed smirked as he regarded the literal army that had attempted to attack him. “Certainly not this one. Besides, how am I the criminal here? I know exactly how many times you killed me.”

“Your puppets were merely your tools for evading justice.” The commander struggled to remain upright on his knees and not directly fall over. “We’ve found you. The real you. Every Ascender with ties to the Dynasty will be here by tomorrow.”

“What perfect timing.” Zed’s nonsequitur, or perhaps his smile, caught the commander off-guard. “You know, every Zed that walks this plane… when they die, I get a copy of their memories. I know you know this, since you tried so many times to break my mind by proxy. A little secret for you… it’s a copy. Like a book. I just read it; their experiences never become things I need to live through. A second little tidbit: the Zeds I send out are in each location for good reason; especially the ones that you were allowed to find.”

“Allowed…?” The Commander’s eyes widened in horror. “There were more than that?”

“My dear Bartholomew.” Zed chuckled as the Commander realized that Zed knew his name. “I could make one a week when I first got the Mastery. As a Domain Mastery? I’m sure I could remember how much of this world’s actual population is me if I tried, but let’s just call it… five percent?”

“No.” The whisper was so dramatic that even Zed had to lightly applaud. “You alone are a skinwalker infestation…?”

“Look here, child. As you can see by the very fact that you still live, I have no interest in hurting you.” The Bard sighed as he slowly stopped clapping. “Your King, Vir, just wants me to stop telling people the truth regarding how he killed his father in the middle of a war in an unrepentant power grab. He wants me to tell him how to control the Dryad, so that he can double the size of his seat of power. Or perhaps it’s more simple than that, and he wants an accounting from the war with the Dynasty of Dogs?”

At that, Bartholomew’s eyes, the only thing visible through his helmet, grew wide. Zed nodded and motioned toward the tavern. “Feel free to join us, for that is the story I shall speak of upon the morrow. The tale of the Archmage, and how three people Ascended in a single moment. Against all agreements. Fully knowing what it would do to the world, and having the world’s agreement to do it.”

“All I’ve been authorized to ask you if captured…” Bartholomew’s eyes flicked around at the gathered troops as he gulped audibly. “What did you do with the Queen?”

Once again, Zed waved at the door to the tavern. “Come in for a drink tomorrow, pay the tab for all attendees, and any questions you have shall be answered.”

“You swear? Anything I need to know?”

“Of course.” Zed’s eyes gleamed as he nodded solemnly at the commander, who suddenly seemed so very, very young. “I’m going inside now. Until we meet again… just yell if you need Anything.”