Ch 3 : Darker Days

Oddly enough, it was Grandpa Goblin who started us on our journey to the tower. We left the cave and made our way down a metal road with him leading.

We got out of the desert and into a more livelier area. Maybe lively wasn’t a good word, since it looked like all the tree leaves were turning brown…but hey, it was still more life than that desert.

Grandpa Goblin had to take us this way because it looked like big hills had moved over the metal roads and blocked the path there.

“What happened here?” Uncle asked him.

“Because of the mana drought, we’ve been needin’ to mine out new caves to find underground pockets of mana. This is where we’ve been dumpin’ the dirt and rock.”

He wanted us to avoid all the little mountains they made everywhere to save time and not get lost in the process.

He was being pretty nice in his own way, maybe he wasn’t such a mean grandpa after all.

Funny thing, we definitely wouldn't have gotten lost without him. We have an E.P.S (Elysium Positioning System) that would show us where we were inside the planet. We didn't say anything about it because Grandpa Goblin insisted on taking us.

Once we got to the tower, he bid us goodbye and goodluck. I learned his name was Poppel. I decided to call him Mr. Pops from then on. His virtual nametag changed to match that.

“Good bye, Mr. Pops! Thanks for the help!”

He turned back and sighed, giving us a weak wave.

I didn't mind him anymore. He was a tough guy on the outside, but soft on the inside. I had to wonder why he didn't like the Exceed. We were nothing but good guys.

Anyways, there was a big door at the front of the tower. It was so tall and wide! Seven glowing symbols were on it. Each of these symbols were inside of a different coloured circle and looked fancy.

Those symbols were part of a complicated puzzle to open the door. A control panel on the right side had a math equation appear as we approached it.

“Young Mistress, would you like to solve this puzzle?”

“Okay.”

I could probably do it, especially since I was pretty good at puzzles back home.

My head started to interface with the control panel, and I saw the whole math puzzle come up in my vision.

There were seven sequences of numbers. Each went something like 1,2,4,8...and so on.

The symbols from the door were randomly distributed to spots in each sequence. So you just needed to figure out what the missing number would be.

That part was easy. Once you figure out each of the numbers, you have to put them into a big equation that looked like an alphanumerical soup.

Okay...so I suck at math.

The math puzzle got really complicated for me, nothing like the fun jigsaw and sudoku puzzles back home.

The more I was thinking about it, the more it seemed like I was just confusing myself. It was like a bunch of tangled cords getting getting messy in my mind.

“Uncle, I don’t think I can do this.” I gave up.

“It’s alright.” He assured me. “I didn’t expect you to. This complicated math is beyond your current skill.”

Math stinks. You’d think someone with a computer in her head would be able to figure this out. Oh well. Guess I still had studying to do.

Uncle solved the whole puzzle in seconds. The symbols on the door lit up. Once they were all glowing, the door started to open.

"You knew all the answers!" He had to have cheated.

"The tower AI changes the puzzle every day. How could I have known what it would be?"

He made it look so easy, but it wasn’t. Man, I really wanted to be that smart.

Once the door was open, we looked inside. Everything was lit up red. That wasn’t a good thing. It meant that something really bad was malfunctioning.

Uncle wirelessly deactivated the emergency power. That got the normal lights working again, but he couldn’t guarantee they’d stay on forever unless we repaired whatever was wrong with the pylon tower.

A diagnostic showed that something was wrong with the main mana collection system, so we had to head up a few floors.

We took an elevator took the elevator up. A nasty surprise waited for us when the door parted open…

There was blood all over the walls.

~☆☆☆~

Strange symbols were written all over the walls in what looked like blood. Mostly five sided stars.

“Is that blood?” I shivered, praying it wasn’t.

He scanned it and shook his head.

“It’s ink. Red ink, like in pens.”

What a relief. I would've hated to see a bloody mess all over the place.

There were weird glyphs on the walls that were written inside of the stars. They looked similar to the ones outside, but they were from a completely different language. I couldn't read them either.

“Uncle…” I clenched his coat tightly, scrunching up myself close to him, “I don’t like this place…”

“Neither do I.” He started pushing me toward the elevator door. “Someone’s here that shouldn't be. I'll alert The Hive. We'll have a swarm deal with this.”

A swarm of bees was exactly what you’d think. They’d rush in and destroy or clean up a problem very quickly.

“Wait, I'm not able to reach The Hive," Uncle said. "My signal is being jammed...?!”

The door to the elevator slammed shut and sealed with red lights before we got in. They looked like angry eyes, staring at us like an evil monster.

Now I was trembling. I closed my eyes and immediately tried to access the doors emergency override system, but something with higher administrative power was denying me access.

“Master Control Override initiated,” Uncle announced, but even with that authority he couldn't get the door open. “Impossible!” Uncle shouted. “No one should have a higher priority than either of us!”

We heard footsteps on a balcony above. There was a person up there with long, graying black hair, and he had a fancy red and gold robe with a big hood over his head.

Was he a human? Something about him was jamming my sensors. I couldn’t detect who or what he was.

“Welcome.” He lifted his arms as a greeting to us. “I figured someone would come to see my handiwork.”

Uncle hid me behind him. His posture was stiff and aggressive.

“Who are you? Why have you come to this place?”

“I am...the name's Janus.” He suddenly started to speak with two voices. “I've come to bring eternal night across all of Elysium. And after that, all of the surface World.” He snickered with a head twitch.

He took a few steps forward, leaping off the ledge with confidence. As he fell, bat like wings erupted out of his back and sent out a gust of wind.

Woosh!

He landed on the ground. His wings vanished, and he lifted up his red eyes to look at both of us.

“Why would you do such an awful thing?!” I shouted, shaking my fist at this villain.

“The World is too bright, kid. People are blinded to the true ugliness in them. Good things only go skin deep. But If we blanket the World in darkness, then we’ll see what people really look like under their beautiful two-faced facades.”

Two-faced? Everyone I knew in my life were good people, even Mr. Pops! He might have looked mean and been super grumpy, but he sure was nice deep down!

If Janus blanketed the World in darkness, that meant Mr. Pops, the Talking Tree, and anyone else like us who weren’t bad people would have to live without ever being able to see again. We had to stop him!

"You're a bad person!" I shouted. "You're stupid too. How are you going to see in the dark?"

Yeah! He definitely wouldn't have night vision like me. This is why bad guys fail. They don't plan very far ahead.

"Looks like you're the stupid one who doesn't understand. Think of my plan like this…demons don't walk in the light, they control people from the shadows. I’m just giving them a whole new playground.”

Demons...I'd never seen one, and I don't think I wanted to. Those were the creepy red horned pitchfork guys from Heck, right? They were the bad guys in cartoons. I never liked them.

Uncle's hand suddenly turned bright blue and warped into his blue light blade.

“Your weapon!” I said with fear.

-WARNING! THREAT SIGHTED!-

-IFF tags active! : Janus tagged; Foe-

Uh-oh! this was going to be a real fight with another person, like the ones in movies and stuff! I was so scared. Stories always made them seem cool and action packed, but this was real life. People could actually get hurt! Who knows what would happen?

Fighting a monster was one thing…but a real person? I didn’t know how to feel about all this.

“Young Mistress, take shelter behind me. I'll deal with this man myself.”

The evil Janus chuckled with a reverberated tone. His arms raised, then his eyes glowed red and his palm lit up with dark magical energy.

WOOSH!

The red stars and symbols around the room started to glow. A black flame erupted at the center of the main star and grew into a wide sheet of darkness.

Arms stretched out from the darkness, a monster head peeked into the room.

“Maybe you should have the kid fight too,” Janus exclaimed. "I've got a friend helping me out."

Suddenly a creature, half goat, and half man, leaped into the room with a titanic crash!

“AAAHHHH!”

He loudly screamed into the air! I had to cover my ears!

-WARNING! DEMON SIGHTED!-

-Krampus type demon tagged; Foe-

Oh no! A demon!

The Krampus demon charged at Uncle, not even giving him a moment to process what was going on. His horns slammed into him and bashed him into the wall!

I barely got out of the way in time, but Janus was staring at me with a shocked expression.

“Wait a minute…you’re a…” claws split out of Janus’s hands, they were shadowy and purple. His eyes were lighting up red again. “I know more than a few people back home who’d like to meet you.”

He was sprinting at me, clearing the distance between us quickly!

Oh no! He was going to kidnap me!

“Uncle help!”

Uncle was pinned on the wall by the krampus demon, but he used his hand energy blade to cut off one of the arms of the demon and free himself.

At incredible speeds, Uncle met Janus’s claw with his energy blade.

CHINK!

Sparks flew the moment they clashed. Uncle and Janus locked weapons and glared into each other's eyes.

“Smothering the World with darkness has nothing to do with stealing a child.” Uncle argued.

“Relax, would you?” He frowned, struggling to hold back Uncle. “I won’t hurt the kid, I’m just taking her back so she can meet some important people.”

“I can’t let you do that!”

They kept exchanging blows until the krampus demon charged in and struck them both down.

Janus’s hood fell off when he hit the ground, and his head was revealed…he had two faces! One on the front of his head, and one on the back.

The front face was pale and sickly, almost translucent. He looked like a teenager, but one who melted a little, like he was made of wax. And the other face looked a bit plastic and dead pan, but very young. Kinda’ like those marble statues of angels.

What sort of creature was he? Something about him felt familiar in a way…I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not though. Was he a human?

“Idiot!” Janus yelled with both his voices at the demon. “I summoned you here, you're loyal to me! Grab the girl!”

The demon tilted its beady red eyes toward me. He pawed his hooves at the ground, then it let out another terrible scream.

“AAAAHHHH!”

He charged at me!

I screamed and ran for cover in a crevice on the wall. I snuck right in because I was so small.

BAM!

The demon struck the wall, hitting horns first! He couldn't fit into the crevice.

It was so ugly and scary, staring at me angrily. I cried so loudly to try and drown out all its snarling and crazy noises.

Samael slithered around my head and started hissing at the demon, baring his tiny fangs. He must have been trying to protect me!

Uncle came up from behind the demon and stabbed his energy blade into its back, then he suplexed it with all his strength!

SLAM!

He recovered faster than the demon, but had to dodge to avoid a slash from Janus.

A swing and a miss!

Uncle retaliated by clashing weapons once more, but the demon now recovered and struck him down with his horns.

One of the horns jabbed into him, and when it pulled out, shattered shards of crystal fell out from Uncle.

“Uncle!” I screamed, knowing he must have been in bad pain!

“I’m fine!” He yelled back.

The demon turned to me and started charging forward, but Uncle got ahead of him and held him by the horns, halting his rampage.

He quickly twisted the demon's head all the way around, breaking it!

SNAP!

“Yeah!” I cheered. “Get em’!”

“Yalda, don't celebrate violence!” Uncle growled out.

But I was excited though, we might win this after all!

Breaking the demon's neck didn’t take it down, unfortunately…but it was acting all stunned and wobbled around.

In a surprise attack, Janus once more struck Uncle, they locked weapons again and tried to force one another down.

“I assume you stole all of that mana to power yourself up and summon that demon.”

“Yeah. We stole more than enough to make that big guy.”

“Might I ask how you managed to do all of this under my nose?”

“That’s a secret. Speaking of which…” he shoved Uncle and leaped back up to the ledge above, using his wings to carry him there. “I have some preparations to make. In the meantime, enjoy fighting that demon!”

Even though Janus walked away, his other face was smirking down on us all creepy like.

The demon was all that was left, and he immediately focused on Uncle. I guess he wasn't stunned anymore.

Uncle managed to get a slash across the demon's chest, tearing away tufts of shadowy gunk!

The demon countered uncle by letting out a screech and backhanding him! Uncle caught himself before hitting the wall, retaliating with a swift strike of his stinger.

Uncle tried to disarm the demon by slashing at its remaining hand, cutting away at his fingers one by one. He managed to get two fingers of the demons six. One thumb and one index finger, but it wasn’t enough.

The demon wasn’t making this easy, he was swinging his horns around wildly, like a bull seeing red.

In the frenzy of the demon, Uncle took advantage of its lack of coordination, cutting off the whole left arm.

“Yes!” I cheered.

But this wasn’t the end. The demon summoned more arms from his back that looked misshapen, and decaying, like a zombie. Really gross.

Suddenly, the demon stopped using pure brute force and struck with flat palms and chops. As he moved, his fleshy bone arms started to look more muscular and complete.

Wherever he hit, a puff of black looking powder exploded and caught fire. It smelled like coal.

Uncle was really having a hard time now. His energy blade hand was doing wonders at protecting from the demon's attacks, but he couldn’t hold out much longer. At this rate, we would lose!

I tried to think of a way to help him, but I didn’t have anything that could be used against the demon. Or did I?

Maybe there was something in my programming that I could use. I started to search my systems for any sort of way to fight. Even if it was something small, we might be able to turn the tides.

I wondered if I had laser eyes or something...wouldn't that be cool?

-Searching for combat protocol…-

-…-

-Combat protocol systems found- -Access restricted-

-Theta Drive systems found- -Access denied-

I snapped my fingers in frustration. I had combat systems, but they had a bunch of restrictions that kept me from using most of it. I couldn’t even bypass the restrictions as an administrator of my own body because they were locked by the Master User, which was dad.

Then I looked at the Theta Drive. The prerequisites for that were even more complicated…so much that they were encrypted behind a really weird programming language that I’d never seen before. That one was completely out of the question for now.

Within the combat systems, I found one thing I did have access to. It was called stardust.

-Anti Demon Attack/Defense Systems : Active-

-Unpacking Stardust Information-

-…-

-Unpack complete! You may now use Stardust!-

That sounded cool, but what was it?

I noticed a small icon flashing on my right side hotbar, just above the HELP icon. It looked like a sparkly group of stars.

Was the sparkly icon related to stardust? I think it was supposed to be a list of powers, but it was all blank.

Oh! I found a message from daddy in the HELP menu on what stardust was…

-Dear Yalda, stardust is one of your most versatile and powerful tools against darkness and demons. It gathers the power of the sun and stars and turns it into crystal energy that you can use against them. Let your creativity shape how you wield it.-

This was really good! Stardust was made to defeat demons!

Out of instinct, my body knew what to do to summon the power, so I let my heart take control for me.

Warmth exploded in my chest, like a baby sun had suddenly been born in me. The heat traveled around my body, giving me tingles all over.

My crystal heart sparkled. With each beat of light, a glittery glow traveled down my mana arteries and lit up my whole body. My skin was glowing. It felt good.

That light in me started to gather under the skin of my hand, then it rose up from below and hovered above my palm like a sparkly white haze.

It kept spiraling in my hand, not taking any shape until I pictured something in my mind. Something sharp...something with reach though, that way I didn't have to be close to the demon.

The gas suddenly collapsed in on itself, and formed into a strange looking stick made of pure crystal. It kinda’ looked like a little spear, but it was misshapen.

“Wow!”

This was incredible! I made something appear out of thin air. It was so pretty, and sparkly too.

As Uncle and the demon were fighting, they both immediately stopped the moment the little crystal spear formed.

“She figured that out…” Uncle uttered in shock, “...all on her own?”

He had a determined smile. The good news gave him a boost of confidence that we could win this battle.

The demon’s red eyes sank into its head once it saw the stardust. It winced out a cry and took a step back before being paralyzed with fright.

"Yalda, give me that!" Uncle ordered.

I tossed the little spear to Uncle without even thinking. He caught it mid air.

He took the spear and stuck it through the heart of the cowering demon! It let out a horrible screech of pain!

"EEHHHHHAAAAH!"

Its body was cracking apart with white lines, almost as sparkly as the stardust. Bursts of energy split him apart.

BOOM!

The demon couldn't keep together and exploded! Bits of it flew all over the place, painting the walls black with gunk. Uncle jumped in front of me just in time to make a bubble shield that protected us from getting hit by any of it.

"Are you alright?" Uncle asked, powering down the shield.

"Yeah." I nodded. "I can use super cool stardust!"

He smiled. He must have been really proud of me. I know I was! We just beat a demon, and I played a big role. This felt like some of the crazy cool stuff a superhero in an anime would do.