Medio: Meanwhile, in the border

It may be a consequence of the end of the world, but why does every place we go to collapse almost immediately?

Raz’s logic was quite simple. All the exits from the city were welded shut to the walls themselves, by how deep they had been embedded in, it would be easier to push through the rock than to make the entrances open. Of course she could not do that either, so the key was to find the most vulnerable exit point available, and then figure out the rest when they actually knew what they had to work with.

Unfortunately, the best place they found was the door towards the top of the walls. The locks were useless, but if they managed to break them, they would be one step closer to escaping. That was when Herm came through. Although they could not find a tool sturdy enough to break the chains of the prisoners, they found out that the crowbards thet used to open the wine barrels were good enough to open the guard doors.

When they got on top of the tower, the second problem arose. The city was embedded into the cliff, so without counting the abyss on the side, the lowest fall they were facing was a whole fifteen meters to the ground. Raz looked down for a moment and immediately concluded that jumping was out of the question.

“No, this is not going to work at all.”

She looked back at the city and the situation seemed to have taken a sharp turn to the worst ever since they started moving, as the city fell into darkness and the bonfire started revealing a dark figure coming out of it.

“If this is how the beasts are born I’ll be damned. I never wanted to see this. How steep is the fall?” Asked Herm, looking slightly tipsy, but getting his bearings enough to look down the wall.

“At least ten meters, is too high.” Responded Raz.

The people from below the wall were mostly asleep, but the few that were awake were looking at them. They were not screaming anymore, seemingly having given up on getting any help from the people inside.

“I mean, jumping down headfirst right now would be a solution, but I don’t think that’s what we want right now.” Said Herm, getting back from the wall and walking back to the door.

“Have I ever told you that you become insufferable when you drink?” Said Raz, too tired to deal with him at the moment.

“Everytime. But if I had not been drinking, I would not have met our dear friend who we stole this little thing from, right?”

Herm came back with the contraption they had been preparing ever since they planned to escape Medio. A thick mantle, the ones they were using to move the wine barrels, tied with a long enough rope to lower them one by one from the wall. Of course… except for the last person, who has to lower the rest down. That was the final hurdle Raz hadn’t managed to figure out.

“Let’s bring down Yke first, you already made sure it’s safe right?” Asked Raz, deeply insecure after what she felt had been a string of failures on her part.

“Of course, of course. I saw someone pushing around an enormous barrel of kykeon using one of these, and believe me, those things are far heavier than any kid.” Said Raz, dismissing her, simply pulling the contraption in place.

Yke was looking terrified, letting the two of them push him around just as they had done on Sueño. In the distance, the enormous telchine was waiting in the central square, not looking at them, but that could change at any moment.

Unbeknownst to them, just down from the wall, the people that were dancing away from the plaza, some of them starting to wake up from their collective choreomania, were now on the borders of the city. Some of them were on the border near the view, but most of them were now on the entrance that led down the mountain. Confusion started to reign, not really dispersing, the darkness that covered the entire city dissuading them from moving.

Meanwhile, Raz was for once starting to bless her own luck. The wall had several protuberances embedded in the rock, some of them for things like boiling cauldrons to throw oil on top of any invaders, but also some designed to pull a rope all the way down. Maybe a remnant of the wall’s construction or a way to deliver objects from the bottom to the top, these small indentations allowed Herm to lower Yke safely down to the ground.

The few people who were awake outside of the city looked intrigued by what seemed to be a surprise delivery. A couple of them even went there to see what came down, but a scream quickly followed:

“Every single one of you bastards better stay away from that kid or I’ll kick you all down the mountain as soon as I get down from here!” Screamed Herm, alerting everyone of their presence on both sides of the wall.

“What the hell is going on up there!” Screamed one of the people down the wall, from the side inside the city.

“You all shut up too, I can also go down and quick your ass too!” Screamed back Herm.

“Great, are you one of those people that gets grumpy when they drink?” Asked Raz, annoyed, after she hit Herm in the shoulder to make him stop.

Ignoring her, and satisfied when he saw that the people were not approaching Yke down there, he pulled the rope back up.

“Your turn, Raz.” He said, preparing the contraption in position to pull it back down again.

“And how are we going to get you down?” Asked her again, unsure about leaving him alone in the city.

“I’ll manage, don’t worry about me. Besides, I’ll have it a lot easier once I don’t have to worry about you being in danger again.”

Without any other word, he directed her to the contraption. He thought for a second about just raising her and putting her in, but it sounded like a very bad idea to do that to a pregnant woman.

“Take care of Ike, I’ll see you outside just in a moment.” He said, trying to reassure her.

Raz was still unsure about what to do, but without any better ideas and with Yke outside, she had no more choice than to let Herm pull her down too. It was a very slow, delicate process. Both of them concentrated in getting Raz down safe, while ignoring the noise coming from inside the city.

Suddenly, a strange wave of energy went through both of them, causing them to feel extremely weak for just a moment. Raz freefell for a moment, but Herm managed to catch her again before she hit the ground. Immediately after, a second wave hit, causing them to feel increasingly drowsy. It took Herm his entire concentration not to let Raz fall.

After a rougher landing than planned, Raz finally got to the ground safely.

Herm could only sigh with relief, turning back to see what was going on. While a moment ago the giant telchine was simply standing still in the central square, it was now running towards them at full speed. Where it was before, was a forcefield of undulating colors that threw shockwaves all the way outside the city. The center of the field seemed to be growing, and anything in its radius was falling apart.

Somehow, that was worse than Perdida, hell, they were out from the center of the chaos but it surely did look worse than Sueño. At the very least he only needed to get himself out of there, even if that meant abandoning all the people who were now banging at the welded door, trying to escape.

It never became easy, but if the world had taught him a lesson at this point is that you can’t save everyone, and when a situation is this grim, trying to help can make things infinitely worse.

With that rationalization, a flimsy attempt of convincing himself to look away from it, he finally noticed the figure the enormous telchine was following. It was dark, but there was only one person who would carry such an enormous mask in their head.

“Brother!” Screamed Herm, a mix of emotions that he couldn’t quite put in order starting to boil inside him.

Ases heard the scream and snapped out of his fit of fear. He had been running almost blinded, without looking ahead, and now was about to bring that enormous monster to the place everyone in the city had run towards.