Ch 2 : Inverted World

Going forth unto adventure, we both stepped through the Nalnara gate together. It was like walking into a warm pool of water, but the water was somehow vertically standing up.

Once through, I shook off any moisture that covered me and looked around. We were in some sort of jungly looking place with tall trees and vines.

There were these bird calls that sounded like a conversation between aliens. Little squirrels with glowing tails pranced by, carrying glowing mushrooms that looked mysteriously like their luminous back ends. And a little monkey came dancing toward us, waving like he was circus trained.

“Wow, look at all the silly animals!” I waved back to the monkey. “Do you think this is where Samael is from?”

“Sss…” Samael started hissing on my head since he heard his name.

We didn’t know where he was from. It was interesting because he was the same colour as my purplish brown armour skin. I just remember one day daddy noticed he was sitting in my hair. I think he must have slithered up there when I was playing in the flower field. He was super tiny back then.

“I can’t say I know where he’s from,” Uncle said. “But please don't disturb nature, Young Mistress. Mind them from afar.”

“Okay, Uncle.” I nodded. “Where are we going?”

He pointed us toward a little opening in the trees. It was too bright to tell what was beyond all the leaves and vines.

We stepped out from the jungle line and suddenly the whole world sprawled out above us!

The planet wrapped around the sky. You could see continents and oceans from all over the world just beyond the clouds. And at the very core of the sky was a small moon with a belt of light across the equator.

“Uncle! Uncle, look!” I pointed to the moon. “That’s where we live!”

“Correct.” He patted my head. “That moon also acts as a fake sun here.”

I’ve never seen the real sun before. You see, we're currently inside the center of a real planet. Think of it like the planet was a rubber ball, and we lived on the inside surface of that ball instead of the outside.

The outside surface of the planet was where people lived. Human people, I mean. That’s where kings and queens ruled over subjects, lots of artists made paintings and books, and adventurers discovered new lands.

It was also the place where you could see the stars. I wanted to see stars especially badly. I’ve never looked at them with my own eyes. If they looked as pretty and twinkly as books and games described them, they sounded like something really special.

Human's are so lucky to see that every night.

As I admired that dream, we kept walking for a little while. A high metal wall divided this jungle biome from the next. Beyond the wall were rocky plains.

Once we passed into the next area, all around in the distance you could see a lot of old white structures. Some looked like castles, and others looked like spires. A particular tower stood out since it was really tall.

That tower was supposed to have rainbow lights all over it and a waterfall used to come off the side too, but it wasn’t working.

"Uncle, look." I pointed to the tower. "Why is it not working?"

"Hmmm…" he put a finger to his chin and tapped his foot. "Pylon 83 shouldn’t be deactivated..."

He said we'd have to check up on it before we went back home.

Just ahead we found a big canyon. There was a metal bridge that led across it. It had the same aesthetic as the pylon from before, only this one had those rainbow looking lights I mentioned active on parts of it.

Halfway across the bridge, I peeked over the edge to see how far down the dry canyon under it went. It was 600 meters to the bottom, according to my sensors.

“Hey, Uncle…” I pointed down below. “My books say canyons are made by rivers, but it’s all dry down there.”

"Hmmm…" he seemed very bothered by the news, quickly looking over the edge with me.

He said there used to be a river, but it was definitely gone. That had to be related to the tower not making a waterfall.

There were big dips in the ground all over the land, probably dried up pools and rivers suffering from the same drought.

Uncle was really curious what other effects the deactivated tower was having on the land. He said it had been creating water for this area seamlessly for the last 1145 years since its last maintenance.

"Why wasn't this reported to me by the bees…?" He spawned a little holographic computer display and started to fiddle with it.

I really should have known more about the buildings in Elysium, since dad made them a long time ago. But he and Uncle never told me much about what they all did. Most of my knowledge came from observation.

At the other side of the bridge was a big spire with a beam of light shooting out the top of it. We had to walk through it as we left the bridge.

To the left and right of this spire were metal walls that separated the biomes, like back at the jungle edge. I saw heat lines rising behind the walls, so it must have been hot on the other side.

A bee flew out of the spire. He went up into the sky and disappeared in the clouds. Then another came out. He went toward Pylon 83.

With my telescopic vision, I zoomed onto a few other structures in the distance and saw bees flying in and out of those as well.

“What are all these buildings for? I know the pylon made water, but what about all the other buildings?”

“Many of them were left behind by your ancestors. The structures were made to monitor and sustain nature while they were absent. That's why your father’s bees, like myself, routinely inspect them.” He glanced at the pylon. "Yet, how did the pylon escape my notice?"

My ancestors were known as Exceed. We were all created by dad in order to protect and serve humanity, but they all went away a long time ago. Now it was just me.

I never met them, since that was a long time before I was born. But if they were anything like me, we all followed the same three basic commandments:

1. Thou shall not kill a human, or allow a human to come to mortal harm. 

2. Thou shall obey a human, so long as it does not conflict with the First or the Third commandment. 

3.Thou shall protect one’s own existence.

No matter what happens, these commandments were never to be broken. It’s a sin. Sins are bad, you know?

Even the bees had to follow these rules, and any AI too. Unlike the Exceed though, they didn't know much else outside of their jobs.

So if these buildings were made to keep nature safe, it must have been to protect humans in some way. But there weren’t any humans here, so what was the point? Maybe people once lived here? I tried asking, but…

"I'm not at liberty to tell you if that's the case," he answered me.

That just meant it was a secret I wasn't supposed to know. Dad and him used to do that a lot. He said the same thing when I asked him where daddy was for the last three years.

It got me so frustrated, I could pop like a balloon!

I stomped my foot down, folded my arms, and pouted like there was no tomorrow!

"We're not going any further until you spill the beans!" I pointed at him.

He looked at me with a single brow raised, silently considering how to respond.

"Young Mistress, if you keep rebelling, you're not getting your cake."

Oh rats, he's right! Foiled by incentives...

After I cooled off, I noticed this spire we walked into looked like a museum of lights. I didn't know what they all meant, but a lot were red. Uncle said that wasn't a good thing for this area.

The outside confirmed his fears. This place turned hot and bone dry, like a desert. Brown sand brushed across the ground, getting caught in the decaying, dried out bark of trees. Some tumbleweed bounced around, getting pushed along by the wind. Smelled really bad too.

It was also getting dark, like when it's cloudy. There weren’t many clouds though, it was mostly clear skies from here to the moon. You could even see light coming off of the moon's equator, so I really had no idea what was making things so dark.

Things just kept getting weirder the longer we were here.

"This can’t be right," Uncle said with shock in his eyes. "Sector 83.5 was previously savanna land. How could it have changed so drastically like this?"

Memories were flooding in from when I came here once as a baby. I remembered that this place had pretty flowers and lots of soft grass. There's no way all of that just turned into sand...that's impossible. Like, actually impossible for only a few years.

It's like everything here was dead, and nature itself was turning to dust. This desert wasn't your wild west, cacti scooten, buffalo lands, this was all gross and empty.

"Maybe it hasn't rained in a while?" I suggested.

"Impossible," Uncle shook his head. "My sensors say it rained just five days ago."

Little animals, like the ones we saw in the jungle, were crawling around. They were digging up holes, trying to find something. They looked scruffy and tired.

“What’s wrong with the animals, Uncle?”

“I think they're looking for water.” He reached down and snatched up a squirrel without any struggle. The tail wasn’t glowing at all. “Yes, these animals are severely dehydrated.”

But if it rained recently, it didn’t make sense that the land would be so dead dry. What a mystery…

There was some rumbling behind us. We both turned to see mounds of sand start to lift up.

Something started digging out of the ground. It looked like some kind of little wolf with spiky looking tendrils for ears, scruffy black fur, and very sharp talons for claws. Its eyes were glowing purple with a red ring in them.

It had a purplish blue aura around it. Visible clumps of violet energy lifted off its skin and orbited around it.

-WARNING! THREAT SIGHTED!-

-IFF tags activated- The Wolf outlined in red. -Monster Wolf tagged; Foe-

-Uncle tagged; Friendly- He outlined in green.

-Seek protection immediately-

I ran behind Uncle. This wasn't an animal, it was an angry monster. More appeared next to the first, growling and preparing to attack.

But what was an IFF tag? I opened up the HELP on my hotbar. A tab with lots of information on my body and functions appeared. I scrolled down the list until I found the part about IFF's.

-Identify Friend or Foe : (IFF) This system will activate when a threat is in the vicinity to ensure all allies, enemies, and any other individuals are properly labeled, reducing the risk of friendly fire or confusion significantly.-

Uncle transformed his left hand into a blade of blue energy to protect us. It was his stinger weapon, but it was more like a fancy sword.

The leader of the pack of wolves jumped at Uncle first! It tried to bite him.

SLASH!

But Uncle cut at the monster's jaw with one fell swoop, defeating it. It landed on the ground and exploded into a haze of blue energy.

Where it died, all that energy fell back down into the ground and the sand looked a little bit like dirt again. Tiny little plants were peeking out of the soil too.

The other monsters charged at Uncle.

Once more he swung his weapon and cut each of them down. Their remains also turned the sand back into good dirt.

"One of the many dangers of Elysium." His hand changed back to its human form. "Monsters are the violent side of nature. Let it be a reminder for you to never come here alone."

He didn't have to tell me twice.

"Why are things growing where they died?"

"Have you been keeping up with your studies?” Uncle asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“So you understand how mana works, right?”

“No.” I shook my head.

“Guess it's time to start that lesson."

Uncle pulled up a clump of sand. A blue aura of light burst out from the plam of his skin and it was absorbed into the sand, turning it into rich soil.

"Mana is the thing that gives life to all things. Without it, nothing can live.” Uncle pointed to pylon 83. “That tower was constantly pouring out mana infused water so this land could stabilize from it.”

He continued by saying that creatures in nature don’t make their own mana, they have to take it in from somewhere. That goes double for monsters. So when a monster dies, they release all that energy they’d storied up.

“But, do I need to take mana in from outside?” I asked.

“No.” he kneeled down and tapped a finger on my crystal heart. “You’re heart makes more then enough mana for you.” He stood back up and took my hand. “Come on. Let's keep going and find that tree.”

“Okay, Uncle. But shouldn't we be heading to the pylon so we can fix it first?" I asked.

"Don't worry. If my information is correct, whoever makes those trees may be able to help us with that."

~☆☆☆~

Uncle led us to a cave that had some plants growing around it. Not many, but enough to give you an idea of what the savanna looked like before it was all dried up. Lots of flowery grass, and small trees.

Inside the cave we saw a bunch of shiny rainbow looking crystals growing all over the walls. I could see a haze radiate off of it, like the glow of hot metal.

The air felt so calm and soothing, like a nap after a tea party. The closer I went to the crystals, the more I felt that peace.

“Uncle, what is this on the wall?”

"That is mana that's crystallized from years of flowing through this cave. As it passes through these veins, some of it collects on the bumps and grooves until it spreads all over."

Wow, that was interesting. I didn't even know it could take on a solid form. I guess I did see liquid mana every day because of the arteries running down from my heart. It was my blood. But solid mana was something completely different. Pretty.

I rubbed my fingers against the crystal, it was so soft and smooth. It made me feel very naturally happy.

"These caves are important for transporting mana from Elysium to the surface world," Uncle said.

"The surface world..."

Supposedly, on the surface world, they needed this spirit energy from Elysium to nurture plant and animal life. Humans don’t need it because their spirits produce their own mana.

By the way, Spirit energy and mana were the same thing. They are cinnamons of each other.

Wait, I mean synonyms.

Mana is what makes up our spirit, and it fuels all living things. So you can see why people could call it either one.

Like Uncle mentioned before, the waterfall from pylon 83 should have been making mana water for the environment. But there also should have been mana in the air of Elysium too, so the savanna shouldn’t have been completely barren.

It’s almost like something was blocking the mana from reaching this area at all. Uncle agreed with me.

Uncle and I kept moving forward in the cave, I followed closely. A cool mist filled my nose from a small river babbling by.

The cave was bright when we first entered because of the crystal glowing on the wall, but eventually it got a bit dark once we entered a big cavern.

“Young Mistress, activate your night vision.”

-Night vision engaged-

Suddenly I could see everything around me like it was daytime. The only difference was that the whole environment, and everything in it, was outlined in blue. Uncle had a green outline around him, like with the IFF tags.

The virtual name tag above his head also turned green too, as opposed to its usual navy blue.

Did I mention that people have holographic name tags above their heads for me? If I knew who they were, they'd have their name filled out above them. Otherwise it was a question mark.

“Okay, I see everything now.”

So we were able to keep walking, but we heard some noise a little ways away…

Tink tink tink!

Tink tink tink!

It sounded like someone was hitting a rock with a sword. Uncle told me to keep close in case it was dangerous.

It kept getting louder and louder until we saw a short person in a purple robe, chipping away at mana crystals on the wall with a pickaxe, all the while collecting it into a little burlap backpack.

He had a long pointy nose, mean looking eyes and floppy ears. His skin was also yellowish green. He looked old too, like Methuselah kinda’ old.

I whispered to Uncle, "What is he?"

"A Hobgoblin." He patted my head. "Nothing to be afraid of."

If I wasn't supposed to be afraid, I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask what he was up to by collecting the crystals.

"What are you doing that for?" I asked.

"What does it look like, ya' hockey puck?" He gave me a grizzled tone and condescending look. "I'm gettin' these mana crystals harvested for spirit energy."

He was an angry grandpa goblin…

"So it seems you’re affected by the mana drought as well. I assume you're collecting the crystal because of that?" Uncle asked.

"Hey, you guys aren't as silly as you look." He slung the pickaxe over his shoulder and glared at me. His face scrunched up like a crinkled paper bag. "Yuck. Not another one of you fake angels."

Why was Grandpa Goblin being mean to me? I thought he was supposed to be 'nothing to worry about!'

I started tearing up, and ran behind Uncle's leg.

"Waahh! He's being a jerk!"

Uncle tried to rub my head to comfort me, but it wasn't making me feel much better.

"Hey, kid…" Grandpa Goblin huffed out sincerely, "don't take it personal. You just don’t remind me of very good times."

I slowly stopped crying, letting curiosity take the place of my sadness. Then I tugged on Uncle's hand.

"What's he talking about?"

"Never you mind that." He glared at Grandpa Goblin, all mean like.

"You haven't told her?" Grandpa Goblin laughed. "She deserves to know her own people's history."

"Not until she's older."

I didn't know what they were talking about. As far as I knew, the Exceed were very nice and helpful to all kinds of life. Maybe the Hobgoblins were secretly bad guys and didn’t like us?

I wanted to ask more, but Uncle was too stubborn to tell me anything.

"S'pose you two came to talk to the Tree, am I right?" Grandpa Goblin asked.

"The Tree?" Uncle raised his brow.

Oh, that's right...I totally forgot something about this place. I was here before, but with dad. We actually came to talk to a tree.

That’s right, an actual talking tree. There was something special she needed to do for us back then, but I don’t remember what it was.

When we met her the first time, she offered me some of her fruit. Because I liked it so much, she let us take one of her saplings back home to plant. That’s how we got the Boni tree. I thought Uncle knew about that, but I guess he didn’t know the whole story. He probably only knew dad and me met someone wise here before.

We explained to Grandpa Goblin that we were looking for a new Boni tree, since ours died, and he agreed to take us.

Grandpa Goblin had us walk a little bit further down the cave. We climbed some rocks next to a small waterfall.

Then Grandpa Goblin took us to a chamber lit up with mana crystal of all kinds of colours. Green, blue, purple, yellow, orange, and brown.

If we stepped to close to a crystal, we could feel an emotion associated with it. Orange felt very angery, blue felt calm, yellow felt like excitement, green felt like focus, brown felt like tiredness, and purple made me feel sneaky.

The talking tree was quietly at the very center of this rainbow room, surrounded by a big lake of water. She had brightly coloured leaves, sparkling all over. Her bark was shiny like silver, little pulses of energy radiated up her trunk every three seconds on the dot.

There was a halo of symbols above her, it had a faint pink glow around it, lighting up even more of the cavern. I couldn't understand what the symbols were.

She didn’t look like she had any fruit on her right now, it must not have been in season yet.

There were other Hobgoblins around too, mostly women and children from the looks of it. I counted about forty, but there were more hiding in little holes in the wall. They all looked like they were pulverizing those mana crystals and mixing them with water. That must have been how they were replacing mana water for nature.

Strung up around the cave walls were some clay heads with funny faces on them. Some glowing paper was tagged along next to the heads and read, 'Saharu, anka to maga, ni Xanna, anka to ehom ni gahom. Oiknaka maga ehom hom.'

-Translating Nazalian-

-‘Saharu, god of magic, and Xanna, god of life and death. Please grace us with mana so life may live.’-

I’d never heard of Saharu or Xanna, but I made a note of them in my head as the gods the Hobgoblins worshiped.

To be honest, I don’t know much about other divine, so the list was pretty empty. I only really knew about God, and that was because I heard about Him in a few TV shows. Everyone would always say, 'thank God' when something good happened, so I asked dad who they were thanking. He told me that it was the nice being who let good people go to Heaven.

For some reason, he didn’t tell me much more than that. I found a scripture book hidden in his library, but he forbade me from reading it. It was probably cursed or something. He had a lot of weird stuff like that.

It was really quiet besides the ambiance of the cave and the crushing of crystal. Everyone seemed a little on edge when we entered. I'd try to look at some of the goblins hiding in holes nearby us, but they would creep further in.

A baby goblin was playing with a ball in one of the holes, but the ball bounced away into the lake around the tree.

The ball floated all the way to where we were. I picked it up and brought it to the hole I saw it fall out of.

"Here you go." I smiled.

The baby goblin and his mother were both looking at me with suspicious eyes, inching backwards.

After insisting they take the ball back once more, they did so.

"Thank you for returning this." The mother said in a growly voice.

"You're welcome!" My smile grew twice as big.

Suddenly more children started creeping out from all the corners of the cavern. One girl had cool sunglasses on, no idea why since it was so dark.

They all looked curious, asking if I wanted to play.

"Uncle, can I play with them?"

"We have an objective. I'd prefer we keep to it."

I frowned and got all sad. That was disappointing. I wanted to play.

My head felt woozy for a sudden second, like I needed a nap. But then it felt like I was wide awake and full of energy.

"Let them play." A kind and soft voice, like a grandmother, filled my mind.

This had to have been the talking tree! I remembered her voice from before. She was using telepathy to speak to us.

"You sure that's a good idea, my lady?" Grandpa Goblin asked the Tree.

"Yes. Let the children play."

With her encouragement, Uncle allowed me to hang out with the other kids for a little bit.

"Yay!" I cheered.

"Yaaay!!" The other kids cheered too.

We had a lot of fun playing things like tag and had races around the lake. We even got to swim a little!

~☆☆☆~

Finally after a little while of play, I came back to Uncle. All the other kids had to go eat lunch and take naps. They wanted me to eat with them, but they were making stewed bat. That didn’t make me very hungry, and I can eat rocks.

So now that Uncle and I were back together, we were able to get back onto the mission to find a sapling.

A short boat ride got us to the island where the Tree was. As we approached her, she started speaking to us telepathically again.

"Ahh, the little angel has returned." The Tree’s kind voice spoke. "And you've gotten so much bigger."

I must have been pretty small back then, it was like 4 years ago. I'm still small, but not baby small.

Grandpa Goblin spoke next, "They want a new Boni tree, my lady. They killed the last one."

That wasn't true!

"Grandpa Goblin is lying!" I gave him a mean look and stuck out my tongue. "The tree died because of fate!"

The Talking Tree didn't say anything for a moment, but a few of her leaves started to fall down.

"When my child was thirsty, what did you give him?"

Her child? I guess it shouldn't surprise me that the sapling was like her baby.

Hey, does that mean the one back home would learn to talk telepathically too? That would be awesome!

"We gave the sapling water." Uncle answered.

She asked where the water came from, and we told her it was from a clean lake near The Hive. Then she made a sound like she'd determined the problem.

One of her branches lowered and brushed my head.

"You loved my child, but the water you gave was toxic to him. Only spirit water can nourish my young." Her branch reached back up. “That is why this land has become desolate. The spirit falls have run dry.”

“Has life here developed exclusively around that specific type of mana water?” Uncle asked.

“Yes. All of us need it. Normal water will not do here.”

Uncle was tapping at his chin, considering everything the Tree had told us. He paced a few steps around and had an answer to this problem.

“Towers like pylon 83 are used to produce water infused with mana. They help stimulate positive life growth in several key areas of Elysium. But nothing should have become so dependent on it that they can’t drink regular water…the mana in the air should have sustained them plenty.”

There were lots of places in Elysium that didn’t have spirit water around it and those places were doing okay.

“This is an unintended side effect of the pylon mana distribution. They were not meant to sustain life, but encourage further growth in an otherwise inhospitable lands.”

It makes me wonder if maybe the desert land we were seeing before was the natural state of that place. Like, the mana made it so that life could grow, but now it’s just reverting back without it.

With a little rabbit whole thinking, I realized that the pylon itself would take mana from the air and put it into the water. So if there wasn’t any mana in the air, maybe the systems shut down.

“Uncle, something has to be blocking the mana from getting in the air in this sector.” I theorized.

We already considered that, but I think it was a good idea to bring it back up for the Tree.

“You are close, little angel. The mana energy in this land is not being blocked, but stolen by something, I do not know what it is,” The Tree added.

Uncle nodded. “I figured it was a good idea to visit you first. Going in blind might have been an issue.”

The pylon tower AI was stating that everything was green with its systems and it just needed to be reactivated. But we were still suspicious something bigger was going on. If something was stealing the mana, we needed to know what it was.

“Do you have any idea where the mana is being stolen to?” Uncle asked.

“The tower itself holds the answers you seek.”

Guess all roads lead to that pylon.

“If you can fix the source of this drought, I will gladly give you another sapling.”

We agreed to her terms of getting the tower back online in exchange for a sapling. Not that we weren’t going to do that at some point anyways, but now we had more incentive.

Speaking of incentive…to think, all this started because I wanted cake. What a birthday adventure, right?