Looming Shadow: Journey to Chaos book 2 (3 page)

“If I didn't do what I
did, exactly the way in which I did it, then you wouldn't have been able to do
what needed to be done. Fortunately, I didn't, you did, and the old fossil was
done.”

“Excuse me, but what?
”
Emily asked.

“It's a long story,” Eric
said, then laughed.
Trickster that was fun to say.

When Eric arrived in
Tariatla, he was ignorant of it. Even the most elementary things needed to be
explained to him. Often, he would be told
X
was a “long story” because
there was too much background to go into. The phrase made him feel ashamed and
angry. Worst of all, it made him feel like an outsider. This time, things were
different.
I'm not the new kid anymore.

“Then you should
understand how she feels,” Kallen said.

“H-huh? How did you do
that?”

“You should explain it
to her.”

 “It's...too cold out
here!”

“I have a place in town,”
Kallen said. “We can talk as we walk.”

“It would be rude to
leave Earthmover –”

“We don’t mind,” the badger
couple said.

“Any more objections?”
Kallen asked.

Eric sighed and shook
his head.

“Oh, before we leave, I
should warn you about the mana storm about an hour ago,” Mrs. Earthmover said.
“The monster population will be larger than usual.”

“Monsters!?” Emily
shrieked.

“I saw that one,” Kallen
said. “I came out here to look for research samples.”

“What about monsters!?”
Emily asked again.

“Don’t worry about
them.” Kallen smiled reassuringly at Emily. “If we run into any, I’ll
definitely protect you.”

Emily looked away and
pulled her hood closer around her face. “Th-thanks.”

“Okay, Eric; explain yourself
for the new kid.”

He took a deep breath
and began his story, starting with his blank request for help and Tasio's
reply. Kallen guided him and Emily down the mountain and towards a path. It was
marked out by Kallen’s own footprints. The trio trudged down its bends and
slopes while Eric continued his story. By the time he reached his first
mission, he was interrupted by a blood-curling scream. Kallen raced to its
source, away from the path, and up a hill. Eric chased after her with Emily
close behind.

The trio entered a glen
transformed into a crater ten feet deep and five feet wide. Trees for another
three yards had been ripped apart or transformed into something else. The
surrounding snow was, as oxymoron as it sounded, a fertile wasteland. Plants were
growing here when there were none elsewhere, but at the same time, they
appeared toxic.

Kallen approached the
edge and looked over. At the bottom was a creature sparking with mana; half
human and half something else. It was he who had screamed.

“Hello, down there! Are
you still sapient?”

The man raised his head
and showed her his face; it too was only half-human and becoming less so by the
second.

“– Lumberson, please
help me. I’m Patrick Lumberson, please help me. I’m Patrick Lumberson…” A large
mana arch sparked over his head and he screamed again.
“Please help me!”

Eric pointed his staff
at Patrick and chanted, “Just like a wooden boat –”

“Stop!” Kallen said. “It’s
too late! Save your mana for offensive spells!”

The transformation
completed a second later. The creature lying in the pit now was a hairless mole-like
creature with thick muscle and hide like leather. It was about six feet tall
with its weight evenly distributed along its body. Ice crystals grew in various
parts of its body, from its head to its arms and back and belly. It was
equipped with grinding teeth and four sets of serrated claws. Patrick Lumberson
was now a Fizger; a monster known to trawl cold regions.

It sniffed the air and
detected warm bodies. Rising to its feet, it jumped clear out of the hole and
charged the trio without preamble. Emily ducked behind Eric and Kallen moved in
front of him.

Kallen deflected the
blows from its fore claws with her mage spear while dodging the strikes from
its hind claws and jaws and, all the while, she chanted, “Invisible assassin,
come to my aid! Be my hope and be my blade! Ice Daggers!”

Five clumps of snow
arose around the vicious monster. Instantly, they melted and refroze into
blades. By her will, they hovered into position over the monster’s vulnerable
spots.

“Strike!”

They flew into her
target. Propelled by her magical power, they punctured its hide and through its
muscle to pierce internal organs. It died on its feet and then slumped at
Kallen’s, but none of its blood blemished her appearance. Her personal barrier
repelled it. She stabbed it a few more times to make sure it was dead, then
took out a small dagger and began cutting it up.

The sight made Emily
throw up. Eric knelt to support her and rub her back. She smiled appreciatively
at him, but the sounds of Kallen cutting bone made her shudder.

“What…what was that?
What
happened!?
”

Kallen finished sawing
off an arm and put it off to the side. “Eric, explain.”

“What you just
witnessed is known as ‘mana mutation.’ It’s the process where high
concentrations of mana transform the local matter at the molecular level. If it
happens to sapient creatures, their minds are scrambled, and they turn into
monsters.”

“Is that going to
happen to me!? This is too high and what about contagion? Will –”

“Emily!”

Kallen separated
another limb from the main body and put it aside.

“It won’t happen to you
as long as you stay away from mana storms. This guy was unlucky enough to be
caught in one.”

“…Is that it? The end?
Boom-monster?”

“Yes,” Kallen said
while cutting through the monster’s neck. “As of today, there is no method
known to humans that can restore a victim’s sanity, but I’m working on that.”

“You are? You’re a
doctor?”

Kallen paused. “What’s
a doctor? Eric, is that the Threan word for ‘researcher’?”

Eric cast a waterball
for Emily wash to the vomit taste from her mouth. She was too surprised that he
could generate clean water to register that she was drinking out of his hands.

“Technically, it’s the
name of the highest academic degree that someone can be awarded, but the most
commonly known is the ‘Doctorate of Medicine.’”

“Oh, so it’s kind of
like ‘Sage of Healing’?”

Eric nodded and Kallen
resumed cutting.

“In any case, I’m not a
doctor. I’m a field agent for the International Community Dedicated to Mana
Mutation. I do the dangerous grunt work that makes their boring grunt work
possible.”

By now, she was flaying
the belly into smaller chunks.

“In the near future, we
hope to restore people like Patrick Lumberson to normal. Until then, we capture
them and dissect them for experimentation.”

With the monster in
pieces, she placed them all in containers and placed those containers into the
pack she carried on her back. It was half the size of the Fizger. Emily started
blabbering about police boxes that were bigger on the inside, so Kallen cut her
off again. It was just a bag enchanted by elfin tech. That calmed Emily down
immediately.

“‘Elfin tech’?” Emily
asked. “You mean elves are
real
in this world?”

Eric was suddenly pale
as the snow.

“Yeah, why do
you…ohhhhh…”

“We’ve spent enough
time out here,” Eric said. “It’s cold, it’s windy, and there could be another
monster attack at any time. Further Q&A should be reserved for when we are
warm and safe.”

Emily’s frosty glare
guaranteed he would be neither warm nor safe.

At the base of the
mountain was a small town but, with walls and watchtowers, it looked like a
fortress. All human settlements in Tariatla possessed such defenses because of
monsters like the Fizger. It was not the only one they encountered on their way
down nor the only species. Eric would feel much better once he and Emily were inside
those walls. A new change of clothes would be nice too.

Kallen knocked on the
main gate and a window opened. She exchanged pleasantries with the gatekeeper
and, seconds later, the gate opened. The crack was barely wide enough for them
to squeeze through. After all, the gatekeeper didn't want to let the warm air
out.

 Emily was shocked to
feel it, but Eric wasn't. He'd seen a similar set up in the chiefdom of Kyraa,
where a tower was connected to its walls by beams of mana. This magical canopy
allowed the user to influence the immediate temperature. For Kyraa, a desert,
heat was removed; for a tundra like Mambi, heat was retained. It was still
chilly, but he sweated under the bear pelt.

Together with the
simple town layout and architecture, it resembled the medieval fantasy novel he
mistook it for when he arrived the first time. Emily looked from the sword-bearing
guards to the simple wooden houses to the bipedal bears. He knew she had come
to the same conclusion. Even the local convenience store was closer to a rustic
general store. He prepared himself for the expected comparison when instead she
said the one thing he didn't want to hear.

“Eric, we are warm and
safe. Now tell me about elves.”

“They have their own
hidden cities and rarely talk about their society to humans so –”

“Eric, you know what I
mean. You made drawings of a female elf; dozens of them. At the time, I
accepted your ‘imagination’ line, but if elves are real, then you must have
known her.”

“I didn’t ‘know’ her
because we were only classmates.”

“‘Classmates!?’ Were
you afraid I wouldn’t believe ‘friend’?”

“Apparently, you don’t
believe either.”

“Why did you ask me out
in the first place!?”

“I have a theory,”
Kallen's voice cut in. “It was to prove a point to Tasio.”

Emily stared directly
at Eric, and while it wasn’t Evil Eye, he froze nonetheless. He
did
initially ask her out to prove a point; not to Tasio, but to himself. Before
his adventures in Tariatla, he'd been too timid to talk to anyone, most of all
his crush. He asked her out to prove to himself that the weak and shy Eric was
gone. He knew that leaving Threa meant leaving Emily, but he had no idea when
or if that would happen, so he decided to be the best boyfriend he could until
then. He never imagined that Emily would come with him.

You're laughing at
me, aren't you, Tasio!?

“It wasn't like that. I
really liked you.”

Emily scowled. “‘Liked’?”

“Uh-oh...” Kallen said.

“When I asked you out,
I swore to myself I would never leave you. Unless I found a portal, ‘cause, you
know, those things don't stay open long and –”

Emily crossed her arms.
“So what you're saying is that I'm second place.”

“Uh-oh!” Kallen said,
clearly enjoying herself.

“I was miserable, you
must understand!” Eric pleaded. “I missed my friends, my guild, my–”

“Precious elf girl.”

“UH-OH!”

“Shut up!” Eric shouted
at her.

“That's it! It's over!
We’re
over! I'm finding that pointy-eared weirdo and making him send me home!”

She marched toward the
town square and the eyes of locals followed her. The domestic dispute and bear
clothing attracted their attention. The first time she shouted “Tasio,” fear
filled every face and they dogpiled her before she was halfway through a second
shout. One of them gagged her with a scarf and another bound her hands behind
her back so she couldn't remove it. Naturally, she thrashed like a snared
animal, so they hogtied her like one.

One pulled up her chin
and said, “If our water pipes break tonight, it's your fault.”

“Hmmmm!?”

Kallen cackled. Eric
face-palmed. He trudged over, but Kallen stopped him. She went forward herself
and the locals stepped back. Interacting with The Trickster’s favorite
followers could be as bad as The Trickster himself. Kallen knelt and grasped
Emily's chin to make sure she had the girl's attention.

“The Trickster won't
help you if you call him just like that. He will prank you, prank the people
around you, and then disappear. Before I take this gag out, you have to promise
me you won't say that name so carelessly. Okay?”

Emily nodded.

“Good.” Kallen untied
the knot and handed it back to its owner.

Without anger, fear
swept into its place and tears stung Emily's eyes.

“Then what can I do? This
world is bizarre and I’m all alone! My ex-boyfriend is an asshole; doesn’t
count! I’m going to starve if I don’t freeze to death or these people string me
up and…”

Kallen undid the hogtie
and untied the ropes on Emily’s ankles. “I know what it's like to be pulled
away from a home you love,” she said with tenderness. “It's rough, confusing,
and you feel powerless.” She freed Emily's arms. “Wanna crash with me tonight?”

Emily glomped her.

“What about
me?
”
Eric asked.

Suddenly horribly
embarrassed, Emily jumped away from Kallen. She stumbled in the bear pelt and
sprawled into the snow. Then she stayed there to hide her blush.

“A heartbreaker like
you?” Kallen replied.

“That's…Tas – Tricks...alright;
I'll find an inn.”

Eric pulled his pelt
tighter and walked away. He had enough gold for a few nights. In the morning,
he could look for a way to Roalt.

“You know, Emily,”
Kallen began, “if my ex bought me a new outfit, I might forgive him.”

“It would be a step in
the right direction,” Emily agreed. “But I'd have to go with, to make sure he
buys the right things.”

“What do ya say, Eric?”
Kallen asked. “Willing to be a cash cow and pack mule?”

Eric stopped and looked
into his pack. His unminted gold shined in the faint light. He planned to do
other things with it than buy his ex a new wardrobe, but it was his fault she
needed one. After getting his gold appraised and exchanged for currency, he
waited patiently in the local department store while Emily tried on one outfit
after another.