Presumed Dead

Never assume an end will ever be as clean as it appears at first glance, that is a skill I have learned with age, which the five companions clearly did not know.

*Sqirk*

Unfortunately, the five had failed to notice some rather important details in relation to the creature they recklessly assumed dead. Or perhaps more appropriately, the ground underneath it.

*Sqruich*

Said ground was now writhing continuously, with a tentacle or two popping out before going back underground.

*Myrrrk*

It had been roughly half an hour since the five had left, and it seemed the creature had found a way to cheat death. It was no demigod, so it couldn’t necessarily repair anything that was lost. It’s skin was, without question, gone. But, a reader may notice a caveat of sorts, an ability the creature had which made this weakness moot.

*Nlasddd*

It could not repair what was destroyed, but it could create something new, more accurately, it could create a seemingly infinite amount of tentacles.

*Neeee*

So, when Ithicos began to get closer, the creature began a process of moving all that could not be replaced as far away from its body as it could. Namely, it’s organs and brain.

*Heeeee*

It forced them through one by one, through the tentacle on it’s foot, into the network of tentacles it had created underground.

*Heeeeeheeeeee*

This was no minor procedure, as mentioned above, it could not repair, only replace. And even then all it could replace were those tentacles.

*Heeeeeeheeeeeeheeee*

But, for an abominable creature such as that, such things did not matter. As long as its organs were safe, as long as it had tentacles, as long as it could destroy and terrorize, it did not likely care.

*HEEEHEEEHEEEHEEEHEEEEHEEEEHEEE*

So, with that being said, its tentacles began to emerge from the ground, one by one, as they did so, they curled and wrapped around each other until eventually there was a mass of writhing tentacles, each twitching and moving through the mass at their own speeds. Within that mass, within those tentacles, were its organs, each in a different location, protected by the writhing mass, perhaps its squid-like nature gave it a talent for flexible parts? To act as a crescendo for this horrifying display, the writhing mass began to sprout multiple eyes, each eye sprouting from the ends or sides of some tentacles like flowers. By the end, the creature was no longer recognizable, it was a sort of horrific perhaps unsurprising of its kind, but surprising to what it may have once been.

“Maaaaa… tiiiiiiiiillllll… daaaaaaa, wheeeeeerrrrreeee… aaaaaaarrrrreeeee… yooooooouuuuu?”

In its last show of mortality, it asked a lone question, before slowly but surely pulling itself in the direction of the five who took away its precious skin.

It did not care for morality, nor fear. It was a creature born to oppose the world in totality, a beast of madness and horror opposed by all, yet seen by few. Even blue signals could not tolerate the existence of other blue signals. It was darkness, it was horror, it was death, it was a living testament to the ode 'nobody's perfect’ not even the world itself, after all, there was no chance this being was created by anyone purposely or was formed naturally. It was a living mistake. And yet despite its incomprehensible nature, it had now gained a target, a target for its destruction, a target for its perversions against nature, a target for revenge.

Perhaps, deep inside, the one corrupted resented the one who took the last vestiges of its mortality?

Or perhaps there was some grander goal, giving the creature a good excuse to enact its grudge. Against the five who had harmed it so.

Said five had just arrived at the cave, made an agreement to work together, and were now planning out their next move.

“Honorable elder sister, I have begun to set the flare call as you asked!”

“Thanks Shari! We’ll wait until the sun comes, and then we’ll contact those in the floating isles, who may have a greater understanding of this matter.”

“I guess even ol’ Shari don’t know all eh? Even when it comes to dragons.”

“Please do not call me old, I am in no mood for such jokes!”

“Oh? Embarrassed you accidentally treated a mortal with respect?”

“It is nothing so brazen.”

“Yeah yeah, I get it. Just don’t make the same mistake as LAST century.”

“That is in the past.”

“Only a week ago fer us.”

Shari chuckled a bit, before continuing.

“Well be that as it may, this is certainly a week filled with surprises.”

“Ha! First we actually find mana, then we find out the ‘painful plains’ haven’t existed fer a thousand years!”

Mairi scratched her head, looking guilty.

“I still am truly sorry about that, if I was aware what you were looking for I would have told you beforehand.”

“Ha! Don’t remind me, ya wanted ta go back then and there to inform the fake empire!”

“Please do not call it that…”

What does that even mean, and who is that guy anyway?

Much to Miyo and Ithicos’ confusion, there was a man of rather impressively tall stature speaking to Shari and Mairi. He had a set of horns on his head, and with it a rather red complexion.

“Ah, is he an oni?”

Ithicos motioned to Miyo to ask for an explanation.

“From my home… there are things known as Oni, they were only legends as far as I knew though. But… I guess if elves are real, there is no reason to believe those legends weren’t based on something real too.”

Makes sense… I mean, given I’m a dragon reincarnated from a dead guy, I don’t have any room to talk about what is and isn’t abnormal.

“So I’m a ‘legend’ from your home huh?”

Both Ithicos and Miyo jumped, as the mysterious man appeared before them.

Did we not notice him approaching, or was he so fast he got close before we could notice?!

Miyo almost immediately got excited about the possibilities of their new comrade as she walked left and right to look at him from various angles.

“Ha! Kid’s got spirit! I like that! What about you Ithicos? You got something you want to see?”

The oni began flexing and showing off his muscles, much to Miyo’s continued awe, and Ithicos’ slight confusion and sadness.

I miss having a normal body…

Shari noticed Ithicos’ expression, and walked over to try and smooth things over.

“Don’t mind Armos too much Ithicos, I can say many… many things of his personality, but when it comes to strength, I can guarantee his abilities.”

“Ha! You’ll make me blush!”

“Are you certain that it isn't blood you forgot to wash out?”

The two had a laugh at this exchange.

“Well, I’m glad you both know him now, at any rate.”

It was Mairi’s turn to walk over, she looked a bit pensive at the prospect.

“But I should probably tell you what we’re actually doing here, if we will be working together for the foreseeable future.”

I guess that makes sense? Given I’m so huge now, I kinda doubt it’d be easy for me to lay low and figure this world’s rules out on my own.

“The three of us are here on a mission to hunt down a ‘Blue signal’. I doubt you’ve heard of them? As expected… Do you remember that strange abomination we fought earlier? The one with the tentacles? Well yes Miyo, I get we didn’t see anything other than that, I was just confirming. Point is, that thing was known as a ‘signal symptom’. They are creatures created when a living being is corrupted by a Blue signal. A Blue signal itself is a creature naturally at odds with the order of this world. They are that which we cannot understand, that which destroys and twists. They are born of chaos, created by none, yet all work towards the same goal, domination over the laws of creation. You have actually seen some of the effects of those who succeeded at this, such as aurora’s, the color blue and the Elarn Matero. Hmmm? You truly don’t know what that is? That’s a bit hard to believe, but I suppose it’s not entirely mad if you truly are from a world unlike this one. How could the color blue be created by a signal? Well that’s actually a bit of a funny story, you see not many blue signals have been born throughout the existence of this world, but they were simply scene as merely strange monsters with strange but frankly weak abilities, who were stopped before they could do anything. Until one day, a blue signal with a strange unfathomable quality showed up, it shared some of the same qualities of other blue signals, such as being much too weak to properly do anything of note, but those who looked directly at it found themselves not fainting and having headaches, but instead feeling a bizarre sense of wrongness. This led to the signal living a life of simple day by day hunting and terror, until it was caught by a wizard of unimaginable strength! Apparently, wishing to research this unfathomable quality, the wizard cared for and examined the blue signal, and due to its weak strength, it did not do much. Until one day, an experiment caused the signal to seemingly disappear. The wizard was saddened at first, for losing his subject, until he noticed something, that unfathomable quality the signal had, was now seemingly all over various objects, including himself! At first the wizard found himself trying to get rid of all this strange quality by washing it out and getting rid of that which had it, until he noticed two things, firstly the quality no longer caused him headaches, and secondly many found themselves not even noticing the new quality, acting as though they had always seen it. The wizard was eventually able to find others who noticed the change, and they realized exactly what the creature and its kind could do! Using this information, they took to naming the color after the name of the species, and this name caught on and stuck to this day! Well okay, that last part is probably bullshit, because various languages have their own names for blue, but it is strange how every language calls these creatures ‘Their word for blue’ plus ‘Their word for signal’ so maybe the blue signal somehow modified people's minds so that the naming scheme would work properly? That sounds too humorous? Miyo, you would be shocked by how petty some blue signals truly are. Huh… that’s a good point Ithicos, in a sense, I suppose that signal managed to ensure it would forever be the foremost symbol of its species, despite its weakness. I’m sorry, have we gotten off topic? The point is, the world is lucky that as far as we know, with one exception the only blue signals to succeed are those who wish to rewrite the universe in innocuous ways. That is in many way’s thanks to the fact that blue signals which wish for greater changes require greater amounts of work to succeed, after all, adding a new color is much easier than reversing gravity. But frankly? They are so rare and weak that most aren’t even considered a large scale threat, the most dangerous aspects are their ability to corrupt but even that is usually dealt with easilly… So I suppose that makes the strength of this particular blue signal all the more concerning. The blue signal we are searching for was released during the recent schism of the floating isles, when a rogue island used a strange weapon which fired a wave of pure and powerful light, capable of hitting entire islands, which left all hit by it burned and blind. It used this weapon to attack and severely weaken the surrounding isles, and then ransack them. The weapon was also used to knock anything it the air out, making the isle seemingly impenetrable. Until… one day, the weapon stopped being fired, and the denizens from the rogue isle seemingly stopped trying to contact the surrounding isles. After a few years, a search party was formed to check on the isle. It was discovered that all on the island had been killed, with their corpses dragged into the lake in the middle of the isle. At first, this was met with some amount of joy, perhaps divine karma had hit, and killed the transgressors? Yes, we did investigate it quite thoroughly, yet no records could be found on the isle itself to recount what had happened, not so much as a note, not so little as a blood stain, all that could be seen were the corpses at the bottom of the now red lake, and even that couldn’t be accessed, due to the sea monsters which lived within. This led to the main investigators leaving, with only a small detachment to start the rebuilding staying behind. The isle itself was not a particularly desired location at this point, for the aforementioned corpse related reasons, plus the isle itself now being so dark and filled with shadow that it was difficult to even do anything while there, to the point that many decided it would be best to simply leave it be as a strange place in a remote corner of the world, with many outright forgetting the incident even occurred. But then… the isle started moving strangely. All of the floating isles have a predetermined course throughout the sky, which is agreed upon and stuck to every fifty years, and all islanders are honorbound to not change said course, even the rogue isle kept to this course, despite all that they did, but nonetheless, the course started to change, and once more, contact with those on the isle ceased. More parties were formed to investigate the isle, yet now none ever returned. The rogue isle, now seen as a ghastly dark cloud from afar, began approaching another isle… it got closer… and closer… and… and it…”

Mairi was choking back sweat at this point, from the long held nightmare she witnessed, only a few years earlier. To help her friend, Shari took up the slack.

“It crashed into honorable elder sister’s home island, she was the only survivor, as she was near the floating point of the isle, and drifted slowly to the lesser moon instead of falling to her death. A few years after that, a full army was formed, and we were able to ransack and destroy the rogue isle.”

Miyo chose to interject once more.

“But hold on… what happened to all the other’s who got onto the island before, were they all just killed, with no chance of escape?”

Armos answered next, his voice gruff and dark.

“They were corrupted, made into twisted servants of the signal… I wouldn’t be shocked if that tentacled friend of yours was one of those poor bastards.”

“Wait… why are you unsure?”

“Ha! It’s embarrassing, but none of us ever actually saw what they looked like!”

“H-HOW?!”

“It was real dark, and they were real fast.”

Ithicos looked up a bit, considering Armos’ words.

It sounds kinda silly, but thinking about it? That’s kinda terrifying.

“Yes, it truly was!”

Did she read my mind?!

Unaware of his shock over her strange case of inexplicable telekinesis, Shari continued explaining.

“We were awoken at a rather late stage, so we were admittedly unaware of the true horror the signal could unleash. I’d never even heard of them in much more than passing. When we arrived, the few uncorrupted around us were sliced to shreds one by one, in hindsight it was probably with those tentacles that symptom used against us… and we were barely able to get deeper in, if it weren’t for Armos digging his way to the Isles central crystal and one of our friends using his specialty too blast the them apart from under the island.”

Mairi had recovered at this point, and took a turn explaining.

“Unfortunately, he was unable to destroy the entire thing, and the rogue isle merely floated down to earth like the remnants of my isle.”

Shari quickly interjected to explain more.

“After we escaped, I had a vision of the future, or perhaps more accurately, two visions intertwined into one future. The first was of that blue signal, which caused such pain, surviving its crash due to it hitting the water, and making its way to this area… and the second was a feeling, a vague feeling, connected to something… unfathomably large, I wish not to describe it, not yet anyway.”

Then Mairi returned to speaking once more.

“Then they came down to look for it, they were able to track the crystals that allow our isles to float, but they accidentally followed the crystals of my isle, and as a result I was finally found and rescued after two hundred or so years. After a bit of trouble communicating (I had been separated from civilization for a while) they brought me back to their home base on a floating isle.”

“HA! You were convinced we were gonna fall to our deaths on the backs of our gryphons, crying till we landed! Well, actually you were still cryin’ even after gettin’ on the isle.”

“That's! Well… I don’t wish to speak of it further, understand!?”

“Yeah, yeah, I get’s you loud and clear.”

Even after all of that, all that we have been through I still feel such debilitating fear… Why must I continue to be a coward?

“Finally, we locked into the location of the actual rogue isle and followed it. I agreed to help these two since the blue signal was responsible for killing those I cared for, and they agreed to my help due to my experience with the lesser moon.”

After this statement, all simply looked around awkwardly for a few moments, before Mairi cleared her throat.

“Shari, did you bring out the expanse?”

“AH! I apologize honorable elder sister, I had yet to do that!”

“Armos, could you help her get that thing out? I don’t want to have to reassemble it again.”

“Do I gotta? Or do ya just want rid of me? HA!”

“Seeing as I was put in charge of this mission, yes you ‘gotta’.”

“HA! Good one.”

Armos followed Shari into the cave, leaving Ithicos, Miyo, Mairi and the little one all alone.

“Do you and Armos not like eachother much?”

Miyo tried to be delicate as she said this, but she unfortunately had the tone of a gossiper instead.

“Well… when I met them both, it had been… years, since my last meeting with my countrymen, I was fortunate to not be entirely mad.”

“But you were still messy?”

“Yes… that is a good term for it, I had spent a large part of my life fearing on the mountainside, I even grew from a little girl to an adult there.”

“You weren’t seriously stuck on that mountain top for two hundred years right?”

“Ah maybe not, maybe so… likely more than I could imagine, not that I know the exact number.”

“Oh, so you were… how old when you were marooned there?”

“Ah, I assume you think I was still considered a young girl at the age of fifty or something?”

“Y-yes?!”

Miyo got more excited than ever before, the idea of long lived races being a fantasy she was very curious about.

“No. I was seven as a little girl, I have no clue how old I am now though. Probably around two hundred and fifty? You see, while us elves age slower than the average mortal, we start out at roughly the same growth rate, until we reach our mid twenties.”

Hmm? But Shari said it was only a few years, does her kind just have a different definition of a few?

Not able to share this question, Ithicos simply watched on as the two spoke to each other, unsure what to do.

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t think too much about it.”

?!

““?””

Much to Ithicos’ shock, and Mairi and Miyo’s confusion, Shari interjected.

“Honorable elder sister, we have brought it out, would you like to conduct the full ceremony?”

“I will! Just give me a moment and I’ll get right on that!”

“Of course.”

Shari turned around and took a stroll towards the expanse; it was not particularly visible because of the night sky, but its various more eccentric aspects could still be noticed at a distance.

Why does it have so many sticks poking out of it? It looks like a punctured fruit.

As Ithicos contemplated the powerful device, Mairi and Miyo continued chatting, both happy to speak to someone on a different, but strangely enjoyable wavelength.

“So what does this expanse thing do, anyway?”

Miyo seemed more excited than ever before by the prospect of this mysterious device, even when speaking to Mairi, she had kept an eye on it.

“It is a relic capable of sending a signal towards its sister. It is one of a kind and admittedly, other than how it is used, I am entirely in the blank on how it actually functions. Shari, Armos, were either of you alive when it was being built?”

Armos laughed while Shari simply shrugged.

“I was unfortunately asleep when it was created, though I did meet the man who did.”

““Really?!””

Both Miyo and Mairi rushed Shari excitedly. Though their excitement was for different reasons.

“Why didn’t you tell me you knew such a legendary figure?!”

“So what does it do?!”

Shari was left rather confused by the whole affair, unsure of whom to answer first. A fact Miyo fortunately picked up on before too much time was wasted.

“You could answer Miyo first, I would learn a thing or two from hearing that anyway.”

Shari smiled thankfully for the assistance, and launched a quick explanation on the relic’s workings.

“I can only tell you what I learned from its creator a few millennium ago, as he explained its prototype to me in passing… What I remember is that this relic effectively forms a string made up of mana with its sister, this string cannot be destroyed or cut under any circumstances, and admittedly isn’t actually capable of doing much. However, when either the relic or its sister are activated, it sends a small amount of mana down the string, when this mana hit’s the sister, it causes the relic receiving mana to spin.”

“That’s all?”

Miyo looked a tad disappointed by the explanation, prompting Mairi to speak.

“It essentially allows us to tell those on the floating isles when we are in need of assistance, and since these two relics are connected, they can use the mana string to find us.”

Ithicos walked towards the relic and continued examining it, curious about its various functions.

“HA! I like yer curiosity, kid! But be careful, this thing is two of a kind, and some parts can’t be fixed!”

Ithicos jumped back a bit upon hearing this important fact, which arguably only put it in more danger.

Only two of them remain? That sounds kind of absurd, how could only two of these fantastic devices be built?

As Ithicos questioned this strange conundrum, Shari and Mairi walked towards the device, and began fiddling with various pieces of metal and string, until all of the various parts sticking out were facing the same direction. After this was done, Mairi opened a small compartment under the relic, which Shari stepped into tenderly.

“In five minutes, it should be fully prepared to fire the signal.”

“Lot less time than last huh?”

Armos sighed a bit in relief.

“We’re fortunate, at this time of day, the isle Farados must be closer.”

“Why are you unsure?”

Miyo asked inquisitively, expecting the residents of this world to understand exactly how it worked was admittedly naive of her.

“Many of our records are… obsolete. As it turns out, we have not been to these lands in a long time.”

“Why?”

Miyo turned her head a little, unsure of what to expect.

“We… were under the impression this land was dead.”

Ithicos and Miyo looked at each other for a moment. Not sure quite what to make of such an answer.

“Millenia ago, these lands were believed to be a lost cause, with the natives destroying what was left. So… the floating isles and other realms abandoned it. Even mana abandoned this place, making travel to and from this place near impossible. After the calamity was sent here for a few years? It was assumed whatever may have remained, if it were not already destroyed, was now long gone, making for a world of death.”

Shari chimed in.

“I remember being quite pleased as we approached, I was under the impression that the range of my mana siphoning was greater than I thought… then I realized the mana wasn’t coming from the isles.”

As I was not there when Shari first arrived on those grounds, I cannot entirely explain what occurred from a firsthand perspective… but I can look through her mind to an extent. And doing this, I can certainly verify a timeline. First she was confused. Then she was in shock and awe. Then she assumed they were somehow under some sort of illusion spell and being attacked. And finally she realized the whole truth. I will truly bemoan not being able to witness what occurred personally. It may be the single greatest regret of all ages.

“I remember seeing how shocked you two were when you found me, I guess you were both still reeling from the discovery huh?”

“HA! You got that right! We thought your crashed isle was responsible for a teensy bit but… that was pretty much impossible.”

“So all of you have about as much understanding of this place as we do?”

“In a sense, I suppose that is true, though we do have some records from before the separation. And honorable elder sister at least knows how to survive here.”

Well whatever the case, I hope the separation was a peaceful one.

Ithicos lackadaisically joked to himself as he heard their situation.

In all seriousness, it’s weird knowing only slightly less than them about this place. I guess it’s easy to take being consistently informed on the situation for granted. And if I’m being honest with myself here… I kind of let my views on stories paint my view of how things would go here… Even all those purposely subversive stories usually let the protagonist known where they are.

This peaceful moment was by all accounts, rather uneventful, but I have always felt such events are rather fascinating depending on their timing or context. For example, does the seemingly innocuous moment precede or succeed a moment of great importance? If it does, then this innocuous event is no longer a moment of mere peace, but an important measuring stick of normalcy, and a general indicator for how those involved react to moments of stress after the fact.

Was this innocuous event connected in some direct way responsible for the more exciting event? Or was it merely coincidence that one followed the other?

Was the innocuous event in some way a grim mirror of the exciting event? Or was it a random act only motivated by third party factors?

As the writer of these tales, it is my job to record and, for lack of a better term, judge whether various moments are important enough to record. For example, I could have mentioned that, while riding towards the cave, Mairi made a comment about Shari not eating enough, to which Shari admitted she was not yet used to the meat and food of this world, nor did I mention Miyo throwing up on the way due to motion sickness, but these events would not be particularly interesting or telling of the situation, nor did they lead anywhere in particular.

In this case, I chose to write of these rather unimpressive minutes because I had a certain suspicion, and this suspicion was proven true in mere moments.

For in those minutes, the signal symptom had finally reached the six of them, and immediately went on the attack.