Chapter 25: Pulling a Lazarus
“Riley,” Tobias struggled, pulling ether from the environment to reach for their inventory, a potion appearing in his hand.
Gently, he knelt, setting it on the floor before thudding heavily against the wall and pulling Riley into his lap.
“You’re a mess,” he winced. The fur was off her paws, exposing blackened digits underneath, marred and mangled, blood mixed with carbon dripped on the floor, though the wounds were mostly cauterized.
“You’ve got to learn to think before you act, or I’m going to lose you,” he shuddered, tilting her head and working the potion beside her teeth.
“You’re right. I’m sorry; I’ll do better,” she moaned, feeling the healing energies suffuse through her body. The pain ebbed, but the world still felt strangely tingly.
The strange sound of flesh knitting mixed with a building itchiness that smacked into her like a wave, causing her to shoot from Tobias’ lap.
“Still tender… Ow.. ow…” She jerked and juked on forepaws rapidly healing, the carbonized fur falling out, replaced with a mottled brown and white.
“I feel like I licked an electrical outlet, the kind they plug clothes dryers into,” She stumbled left, shaking her head.
“Riley, go easy,” Tobias urged, stroking her ears back.
“I don't know if the page has that kind of time,” moving a bit drunkenly forward, Riley moved in a wavering line toward the spot in the wall from which he hung, with Tobias close behind, all as the castle began to tremble.
With a swipe of his sword, the chains broke and fell away; the unconscious page slumped into Tobias’ arms.
Carefully, he laid him out on the floor and pressed his fingers against his neck.
“He's dead,” Tobias said, looking down with bewilderment, “we weren't fast enough.”
“Maybe we were... Pull out the spine,” Riley asked more than ordered.
Tobias looked towards her with a nod and yanked out the spine. It came loose with a pop, the spines biting more into the sternum before being pulled away.
“He's small for eighteen, and look at those scars,” Riley wondered as she set her paws over the wound on his chest and pulled ether from the environment.
The sigil flashed in and out of her vision before glowing white gold underneath her, centered on the page.
Sparky appeared as the sigil for Life One glowed to life underneath them.
“Come on,” Riley coaxed, pushing mana into the spell. Tobias set his hand on her back in support.
Silver light suffused into Page Westphalia until his entire body began to radiate with light.
“You're too young; Death can’t have you yet... You deserve a life. Come on, kid! Come on!" Riley shouted. Tobias watched with awe as the wound began to close and the color began to return to his face.
Suddenly, he coughed, his eyes fluttered open, staring up towards the ceiling, all as his eyes locked in on Riley while he sucked in air.
"Why couldn’t you have left me dead?” He said mournfully, setting his head down with a sigh.
“What?” Riley exclaimed, looking up at Tobias with bewilderment just as the castle began to quake.
Venosimoor pitched and rolled, its walls becoming ephemeral before snapping back to full corporeality with a cacophonous bang.
"Where’d all the lava go?" Riley boggled.
Tobias raced for the crystal, “It's coming untethered. Come on, Riley, we need to set up the crystals to fully unmoor it,”
Page Westphalia was staring down at his hands, bewildered, tears streaming quietly down his face as he looked towards Riley with eyes full of rage.
“Uh, Kid, um, Page Westphalia?” Riley queried when another savage tremor shook the castle, sending her tumbling.
Westphalia just sat there, rocking with the movement, hardly moving on his own, content to be rocked and slammed around like he was still in deep shock.
"Riley! I might need you to drain this thing; the tremors keep disrupting the array!” She scurried towards him as he called out, only to see three large mana crystals set in a rough triangle.
For a moment, they pulsed white until another tremor sent them scattering off.
“This is damned impossible,” Tobias swore. A stone came unmoored from the ceiling, falling through the air, coming right for Riley.
Tobias dove, impacting her like a linebacker, tucking her close to his chest as they both tumbled and spun, smacking into a now empty lava pool.
“That was way too close,” Riley felt her fur stand on end.
The tremors increased, and more stones fell, their impacts ringing out like gunshots, while the walls again turned translucent.
“Tobias, I think we need to go,” Riley prompted, trying to hold herself steady while the world pitched and rocked.
“But the crystal, something doesn’t make sense. It’s supposed to anchor the space in conjunction with the anchor monster,” Tobias countered while stones and dust fell like rain as he held his left arm over his head, the ethereal kite shield flashing to life, ablating stone and debris, his arm bucking down under the occasional plink of stone.
"It’s not just about us. We’ve got to help the kid. Superhero rule number 1,” Riley intoned.
“Get the civvies out,” He fuzzled her ears before turning, “Page Westphalia, can you move?”
“Leave me here,” he said, his voice a thousand miles away, seemingly unconcerned with the danger surrounding him.
“Page Westphalia, on your feet, and follow me!” Tobias bellowed, channeling Cid.
Robotic routines from a lifetime of rote practice kicked in. The page stood up stiffly before saluting, falling in behind Riley and Tobias while they stumbled and ran for the door.
“Back to the shadow room?” Riley wondered.
Tobias threw open the door, “Unless you have any better ideas?”
Racing in, with the page behind them, they found a large and empty stone room littered with debris.
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For a moment, they were suspended in the air, only to fall while the castle regained definition, landing on the walls; the world had gone topsy turvy as if the castle had been flipped on its side.
"Is this the kitchen? Why does it have a kitchen?” Riley wondered; pots and pans were scattered everywhere, littered around a large central fireplace with a cooking spit set across its center.
“There's all kinds of things you’ll find in these places," Westphalia said, finally showing signs of life, though his voice was flat and dead.
Distantly, a screaming choir drifted through the walls as the sounds of thousands of beings lost to rage echoed.
Another pulse rocketed through the castle, and suddenly, all was blackness; then came the stomach-tightening sensation of falling.
A strange stretching and tearing noise filled Riley’s ears. The creaking gave way to a sickening bang.
Riley splayed out her paws, only to smack hard into the floor, with the castle right side up.
"Come on! We don’t have much time!” Tobias urged, racing for the doors and throwing them open to find the parade ground waiting, with the portcullis bent and twisted, offering a narrow passage through.
"You go first, move, move, move!” Tobias barked like Cid at the page, staying close on his heels, with Riley moving beside, her heart pounding with fear.
Page Westphalia worked his way through the tiny opening between the portcullis in the wall, his grey cloak tearing on the spined metal as he did so. Still, he kept pushing while fear and regret danced in his eyes.
"You next, I’m going to zip right through,” Riley insisted.
Tobias opened his mouth to argue and instead shrugged, sliding through with Riley close behind him, exiting out, stumbling back into Avalon.
You have left Venosimoor, a hostile realm.
Welcome to Avalon, a dimensional membrane that exists between Calaria and the Greater Astral. This mysterious realm forms the headwaters of the magic that powers your reality! Be warned, magic is more powerful here and has greater and more devastating effects! This is a realm of possibility more than physical law. You stand on the shores of a vast eternity. Good luck!
“So you survived,” Ranger Haley said, pushing off from a rock she had been leaning off of, “And Page Westphalia, too.”
Venosimoor vanished, contracting in on itself, leaving nothing in its wake.
A com crystal appeared in her hand, “Reporting successful mission. Venosimoor has been unmoored, returning for debrief.”
"Why are you here?" Riley wondered.
“General Ecbert never said how we’d return," Tobias observed.
"We’re on her route. She’s been checking our location multiple times a day,” Westphalia explained.
"And five others. You’re my first successful candidates today, well, some of you at least. Gather round; I don’t have all day,” She beckoned.
Tobias and Riley shared a look before stalking forward, with Westphalia following closely behind. His shoulders drooped with a sigh.
Reality warped and distorted around them. The world devolved into a blur of light and color before giving way to the most profound blackness Riley had ever known.
With a pop, the world returned, existence bowing at the edges like they were trapped in a giant bubble before everything normalized, revealing a nondescript room in Castle Cinder, with six chairs lining each wall.
“Have a seat; the General will be with you shortly. Goodbye,” With a flash, she was gone.
"I’m going to miss her. Such a conversationalist,” Riley snarked.
"You two are most odd," Page Westphalia remarked. He dragged himself over towards a chair and sat down in it miserably.
"We’re odd? You’re acting like getting your get-out-of-death-free card was a curse. What’s wrong? Do you want to talk about it?” Riley asked, hopping over towards him as Tobias sat down beside.
"It was a curse. I failed. I had to be rescued. I’m less than nothing now,” his breath shook as he stared down at the floor, bewildered.
"You're alive. Things will work out,” Riley spoke gently, her ears down in confusion.
“They're going to fit me for a bronze torc! I’ll never leave the castle, never live up to the legacy I trained for my entire life. I’ll be nothing but a servant for the rest of my days. My life is over, even though you brought me back,” his chest heaved with rage while he launched to his feet.
Tobias went white with shock, “Like the Valenheim academy or Ranger Central if you fail your trial...”
“You're a nothing,” Westphalia said, finishing his sentence.
Tobias boggled as he felt his heart freeze like it was moored in ice while memories of some of his worst nightmares rose like specters within the dark corners of his mind. His breath caught while his mouth opened and closed, struggling to find the right words.
Slowly, he rose and set his hand on the young page’s shoulder, “You won’t be nothing to us.”
He shrugged it off before slamming his hands into his chest and pushing Tobias away. “I don’t want your pity! If you wanted to help me, you’d have brought me back in a coffin!”
“And to think, if you’d have shown that much fire, you might have passed your trial. Page Westphalia, you have failed. You are to take this paper to the Bronze barracks and report for assignment,” General Ecbert said coldly, leaning against the doorpost.
Westphalia stood and saluted before leaving the room with his head hung low.
“You two, with me,” Ecbert pointed to Riley and Tobias before disappearing back into his office.
“Honestly, sir, the kid deserves another chance. It wasn’t a fair trial; we were cut off from our magic inside,” Tobias began without preamble while he and Riley each took a seat.
“You managed. He didn’t. Don’t be soft-hearted. The strong rule and the weak serve. Trials weed out who is who,” General Ecbert shrugged.
“There is such a thing as mitigating circumstances. If the trial wasn’t a fair test...” Riley began.
“I have reached the end of my indulgence. If you want to go off and be nursemaids, then you can follow behind the failed page!” Ecbert roared.
Tobias and Riley both stiffened.
"I didn’t think so, now,” he opened a desk drawer, rummaging through papers, pulling one out, and began writing, “This is a standard requisition authorization. Report to the quartermaster when we’re done, and they’ll see you properly supplied.”
He passed over the paper with all the pomp and ceremony of a career bureaucrat and then reached into another drawer, removing two crystal torcs.
Tobias looked at them with disdain as Riley secreted away everything in their inventory.
“Now, Ranger Tobias, report,” Ecbert snapped.
“At least he’s not calling us pets anymore,” Riley glowered over their soul connection.
Tobias stood at attention and saluted, “General, sir, we proceeded into Venosimoor to find our magic suppressed and Venosicipher active but not physically present, projecting via voice and controlling the castle remotely. We made our way to the throne room and destroyed the anchor monster, an undead red forest war dragon. We found Page Westphalia dead after the fight, but Riley was able to revive them with her healing abilities. The dimensional space was growing unstable, preventing us from draining the magivarum crystal.”
“Ah, you resurrected him. Well, he is a resource, I suppose. At ease, take your seat. That all sounds routine,” Ecbert replied with a wave of his hand.
“Permission to speak freely, sir?” Tobias asked.
Ecbert looked up, considering, “Go ahead.”
“We were unable to drain the crystal in time. I don't like it, sir. We took down anchor monsters as black blades, and we always had to destabilize the portals with mana crystals,” Tobias explained.
Ecbert scratched at the scar running across his face, “What matters is that Venosimoor is gone. Avalon doesn’t follow the rules; you completed your objective and brought back Westphalia alive. Now, is that all?" Ecbert looked at the two expectantly.
“With respect, sir, Venosicipher presented a major threat to the Kingdom. If this was somehow part of his plan,” Tobias began.
“Then the First Tier Rangers, you two included, will handle it. Your unease is not my concern, Ranger, now dismissed.” Ecbert snapped, shooing them with his hand towards the door.
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