Last Command of the Witheld Arc 1: Rebirth

SARAH AVERY VASILIAS, GREAT HOUSE SCION, REBORN LVL 5

CATACLYSM MOUNTAINS, KILDARI FEDERATION

Sarah and Kimi-Lim hunkered down in a cracked, dusty clearing that had all the charm of an irradiated wasteland. Other than a pitted, dusty stony ground that provided no comfortable spot to rest, there were a couple of waist-high boulders that did nothing to break the wind since the wind could—and did—suddenly kick up choking dust storms with near-hurricane force from any direction. At least the boulders gave them something to lean against.

Sunspot had busied himself by sniffing every rock he could get to within five meters of them and it was going to take him a long time. Kimi-Lim reached into their BOTI bag and pulled out a little packet of nuts, munching on a little handful before passing them over to Sarah. They ate in silence and then pulled out sleeping bags as they prepared to camp for the night.

They’d talked throughout most of their hike, and Sarah had begun to feel the need to withdraw. She was out in the world. Not in a magical computer-generated simulation of the world. The real thing. For a given value of real. She had a hard time believing that any of what she now took for normal was real.

How old am I now? She wondered. Am I thirty…something? God how old am I?! It hurt to think about, so she shied away from the thought.

She stretched out on her sleeping bag, not bothering to go through the normal stretches and exercises that Gammon’s training had drilled into her. She was too tired, and it had been way too weird a day. She drifted off to sleep staring into the sky as alien constellations began twinkling into existence.

“BLAAAAAaaaaaaaAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!”

Sarah screamed herself awake as the weird, deep call resonated and echoed thunderously in the little valley. She scrambled up out of her sleeping bag and stared bug-eyed at the source of the noise. Kimi-Lim was already awake and standing calmly nearby. But it was no mystery where it’d come from: there was a horse-sized black goat perched on a small boulder nearby. It was ripping at one of the thorny brown plants that was growing out of a crack in the boulder. An orange-skinned woman was riding the creature, complete with saddle and bridle. She had leveled an enormous gun at them, but Sarah was stuck on the goat thing she was riding.

Sarah connected the word “goat” with the animal bleating at her because it matched a lot of the features that ascribed goatness…but not all. It was too big for one. Goats didn’t generally grow to be 300+ kg. Then there were the eyes. They had the horizontally slit pupil that Earth goats did, but she counted at least six of them blinking at her from its large head with four horns; two curled down and two curled up and back.

There were other differences, but those were the primary ones, and they stood out somewhat for Sarah. She edged over to Kimi-Lim, and the elf’s hand found hers, squeezing reassuringly. At the same moment, she became aware of the skin-prickling sensation of someone else’s anima closing around her like a net. Her anima was still withdrawn inside her, and she swore caustically as she thought, What did Gammon always keep trying to drive into my head? Anima discipline: and this is why!

“Sarah, this is a hobgoblin scout,” Kimi-Lim said calmly into the tense silence, “probably a member of a toh-yeh of the orcwallah here in the mountains. I don’t see any distinctive markings, so I don’t know what cell she’s in.

“Would you mind filling me in?” She called over to the rider.

The scout didn’t answer, squinting slightly at each of them, giving each side plenty of time to study the other.

The rider was a tall muscular woman in dark umber armor casually pointing a futuristic-looking rifle at them both that looked like it had seen a lot of hard use. She wasn’t human, though she resembled a human closely enough that Captain Kirk would’ve had no trouble buying her a drink. She was two meters tall, had dark vermilion skin, and jet-black hair that was intricately braided and tied up with bells and charms and other small decorations.

The woman was built like someone who could rip your arms out of their sockets with features that Sarah found arresting. Her eyes were large and tilted with orange irises; she had high cheekbones that had intricate, abstract tattoos drawn along them down to her neck; a long, wide nose with a silver chain that dangled from one nostril to her right ear which came to a short but severe point studded with jewelry; and a wide mouth with lips that were so dark red they looked black.

“Who are you and how did you get here?” She demanded flatly.

Kimi-Lim smiled and raised her empty hands up in a universal gesture of surrender. Sarah, glancing over her shoulder at Kimi-Lim did likewise. “I’m Kimi-Lim Uilui, Light Mage of Hanfuon. This is Sarah Avery. We were teleported here in a magical accident,” Kimi-Lim responded carefully. “We were making our way to the ooze pits in the hopes that we’d run into a toh-yeh. We don’t mean any harm and we don’t have any ill intent to the orcwallah. Do we, Sarah?”

Sarah shook her head, not speaking yet. She had no idea just what kind of danger they were in, but Kimi-Lim had not described exactly rosy relations between humanity and what she’d called the ‘orcwallah’. Besides, the scout hadn’t lowered that huge rifle even a little bit.

“A magical. Accident.” The woman narrowed her eyes at them. “I’m going to take out my Systablo and get a closer look at you. If you move, I’ll kill you.” She said it so matter-of-factly that Sarah had no trouble believing her.

Still, it was taking everything she had to keep her hands up. She did not like being on the defensive here. The goat the scout was riding leaned its neck down and pulled a tough weed out of the sandstone, chewing meditatively and watching…everywhere with its profusion of eyes.

The hobgoblin woman reached down to her belt and took out a small black tablet that reminded Sarah of nothing so much as a large smartphone. She pointed the back of it at them briefly, still holding the large gun easily with one hand, then considered it. The woman’s anima was clenched tightly around Sarah in a way that she could feel but couldn’t imitate. It was like being covered in plastic wrap.

“You’re Kimi-Lim Uilui, Light Mage from Hanfuon just like you say. And you’re an integration architect!” She looked up in surprise at Kimi-Lim. “Are you looking for work?”

She didn’t wait for an answer, just waving her hand in dismissal, “Don’t answer that now, you’ll just have to repeat yourself when Arath gets here.”

She glanced back down at the tablet, frowning at what she saw, and looked back up at Sarah, “But you…You didn’t give me your whole name, did you, Sarah Avery Vasilias?” Her orange eyes now locked on Sarah’s with fierce intensity, “The only reason you’re not dead right now is because you’re more valuable as a prisoner than as a corpse. Slightly.” Her mouth quirked a little, “Must be our lucky day.”

She put her fingers to her mouth and whistled sharply. Her goat mount flicked an ear and bleated again.

“The legendary hospitality of the orcwallah is somewhat lacking these days,” Kimi-Lim said drily. “Weren’t you just asking me if I was looking for a job? This is my friend, and we were involved in a magical accident—we didn’t journey here to trespass!”

“And yet, you managed to do it despite all your intentions against it,” the rider said.

“So…” Sarah said, her hands still held up, “you know our names, what’s yours?”

The woman grinned and Sarah saw that her teeth were large and sharp, “My name is Kaelle. I can respect a prisoner who wishes to know her captors, even if she is a disgusting genocidal scavenger.”

“I’m sorry, the fuck you say?” Sarah said, her heart thumping in her chest. She felt heat rise in her face, “You better back the hell off. Now.”

Kaelle grinned insolently, “Oh, did I touch a nerve? Haven’t murdered enough hobgoblin children to assuage your conscience yet? Or maybe you think you can command me, so far from your Empire?” Her mouth was clenched tightly, tendons standing out on her neck, “The border’s a long way away, imp. Give me an excuse! Just one!”

The barrel of the rifle in Kaelle’s hands shook slightly. Sarah started an angry retort but quieted as Kimi-Lim smacked her lightly on the back of the head.

“Stand down, Kaelle!” A deep voice boomed with thunderous force from another goat rider.

The rider was heavily armored and had a wide-brimmed hat and a dark grey cloak so she couldn’t make out their features. Feeling increasingly closed-in, she craned her neck all around, trying to see if any more riders were going to sneak up on them.

There were two more goat riders spread out on the barrens and Sarah got a very uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her stomach. The other riders were too far away right now for her to be able to make out any details, but they had all started converging on their camp.

“I said don’t fucking move!” Kaelle yelled and Sarah felt the anima that had enveloped her turn suddenly spiky like it was covered in barbed wire.

The sensation was awful, arresting her movement entirely. She had no idea how Kaelle was making her anima do that, but she resolved to learn it if she lived through this.

“This is what I was talking about when I said you need to let me do the talking!” Kimi-Lim scolded. She stepped forward, in front of Sarah and said, “Sarah isn’t an Imperial, despite her name!”

Kaelle scoffed and kept her rifle trained on them both. “What, are you two fucking?” She thrust her hips in the saddle suggestively making her mount shift uncomfortably. “I’d heard humans had a thing for elves, but I didn’t know the reverse was true!” She spat, “That’s the only possible—"

“Kaelle!” The cloaked figure on the other goat roared again, now much closer. Kaelle shot a murderous look over at them but didn’t continue.

The other rider was almost entirely covered in armor, a thick grey garment that Sarah realized was more a sarape or poncho than a cloak. He was also not a human. He had dark green skin, a wide mouth with short tusks peeking out of his lower lips, and a full but neatly trimmed beard. His eyes were blood-red and squinted against the sun; to Sarah, they looked like eyes that didn’t miss much if anything. He wore a black, wide-brimmed, flat-crowned hat with a hat band made of large beast teeth which he tipped back on his head as he glared at the little tableau.

“Arrath, this elf has clearly been captured—” Kaelle started, but the big green man—Arrath, apparently—cut in, much quieter now.

“I said stand down, Kaelle, not rile ‘em up!” Arath’s voice was deep and had a country twang that gave Sarah a terrible moment of homesickness.

She hadn’t heard that accent in person since she’d left home before college and despite herself, she found herself wanting to like him. He maneuvered his goat to the other side of the camp opposite Kaelle and looked at Kimi-Lim and Sarah impassively.

“Toss any weapons on you over here—nice ‘n easy, mind!—and keep your anima withdrawn,” he said to them, his tone brooking no argument. “As you can see, me ‘n my toh-yeh here’ve got ya surrounded.”

“Arrath, the Imperial’s a Great House Scion! Of House Vasilias!” Kaelle hissed.

Arrath did an actual double take, making Sarah almost lose her cool and laugh. He grunted, looking her frankly up and down, “She’s not even Stone-rank, I’d bet my left nut on it,” he hocked and spat a gob to the side, then leaned over his saddle and scratched his goat mount’s neck affectionately.

“Now I ain’t callin’ you a liar, Kaelle, but somethin’ ain’t addin’ up. Why would House Vasilias—not a Great House last I checked, by the way—plop their Great House Scion in the middle of the Cataclysm Mountains, right in the patrol route of a toh-yeh? It don’t make no sense, which you’d see if you’d open yer eyes from hate for a half squeak.

“Now as fer you two,” he leaned back in his saddle and addressed Sarah and Kimi-Lim again, “I ain’t gonna ask twice.” He nodded at the ground in front of them.

Sarah looked over at Kimi-Lim, who nodded encouragingly, and Sarah fished her InfiniBow out of her pocket and tossed it on the ground. She then withdrew her anima into herself, feeling weirdly cut off from the rest of the world. Even when it wasn’t in an active configuration, you could get some passive sensory input from your anima, and she was missing that now in a way she hadn’t in a long time.

The others in the group—the toh-yeh—had drawn closer during their conversation with Arrath and Kaelle.

There was a woman who was equal parts muscle and fat who must’ve stood nearly ten feet tall and rode astride an equally large ram with shaggy grey hair and eight reddish-crazed eyes. It bleated in two voices, high and very low-pitched. The woman was proportioned so that her head seemed to fuse directly into her neck. Her eyes were small for her head, but they kind of bugged out a bit like a pug’s eyes and she had a shock of purple hair that she wore in a mullet. Her mouth seemed to take up her entire lower face and she had full, red lips.

The race she belonged to had amphibious origins judging from her pale green-and-brown mottled skin covered in a thin sheen of slime, though she didn’t seem troubled at all by the dry air of the mountains. She wore an elaborately crafted and heavy suit of blood-red armor with a horned helmet resting on the pommel of her utun’s saddle. The woman was one of the most disturbing humanoids Sarah had ever seen and she had to repress a very real urge to shudder as the huge woman’s bug-eyes considered her.

The other one who arrived rode on a large black goat and was hunched in intricate and heavily decorated robes. The robes had been decorated with a clear spider motif, and the tattooed head that peeked up out of the robe was an emaciated cousin to the huge woman’s—perhaps they were the same species? Sarah reckoned if that were the case, then the woman had indulged every want while the hunched man had denied every want. It was a weird dichotomy, especially when paired with the angry hobgoblin woman and the drawling, cowboy-hat-wearing orc.

“Are these the ones you sensed yesterday, Creepy?” Arrath asked the tall, emaciated man.

Now that’s an appropriate name if I’ve ever heard one, Sarah thought. This guy is creepy as fuck!

He oozed menace.

Creepy urged his goat forward a little until it was standing just a meter away from Sarah and Kimi-Lim. Sarah was immediately struck by his fashion sense. His robes were made of a sumptuous, silky material in royal blues grading to midnight purples and blacks and had incredibly fine stitching in thread-of-gold in spidery motifs of webs and arachnids.

Close-up, his inhumanity was even more apparent; where his skin was visible, it was a moist-looking amphibious shade of greenish grey, covered in tattoos. His bugged-out eyes had some kind of weird mutation where one side of his face had a profusion of eyes (five of them) while the other had a milky white orb with a bizarre black starburst in place for a retina. Creepy’s wide mouth had thin lips which he hardened into a line as he narrowed his cluster of eyes at the group in concentration. His other large eye stared off in another direction, its starburst shape wandering freely around the area.

Creepy held one hand toward the group, and Sarah noted that it had eight long, multi-knuckled digits. That’s way too many damn fingers, she thought trying to keep her distaste from showing on her face.

She had no idea if she succeeded, but Creepy didn’t seem to be looking at her anyway; his many eyes were scanning something only he could see. She felt his anima surround her and sink into her and if she thought his appearance was creepy, his anima was truly disturbing.

It felt like slimy, cold water filled with creepy crawly things seeping into every fiber of her. It only lasted for a few seconds, but that was more than enough for Sarah. She shivered unconsciously and had to resist the urge to vomit.

Creepy’s expression returned to the present and he said, “The magical signature is linked to the human and the elf, but it does not originate with them. It was System generated, though I can’t tell by what means.” Creepy’s voice fit his appearance: he sounded like Vincent Price but turned down an octave.

“Ain’t they a bit shrimpy to be a fuggin’ world-shakin’ magus?” The huge woman asked, her voice shockingly melodious and sultry, “They don’t look like much more’n nibbles t’me.”

Arrath spat again and said, “An’ a rocklicker don’t look like much neither, do they, Ma Maw?” The big woman chuckled and grinned, her enormous mouth nearly splitting her head in half. She had what looked like hundreds of shark-like teeth in her mouth.

“A rocklicker might be more’n a match for a runt like you, Arrath, but for me ‘n Kaelle, they’s just a snack. Ain’t that right Kaelle?” She called over to the hobgoblin woman who still had her rifle trained on Sarah and Kimi-Lim.

“Wouldn’t eat an Imp,” she said, spitting out the pejorative, “get stuck in my throat.” Her jaw was clamped tight as she spoke, so her words came out more as a growl than a sentence.

Kimi-Lim had placed their Silverstaff on the ground next to Sarah’s InfiniBow and was waiting patiently with Sunspot laying meekly at their side. Arrath nodded over to Kaelle and said, “Kaelle, secure the prisoners…gently, mind you! There’s a helluva ride ahead. We gotta bring these prisoners back to Aquma.”

“They’re clearly spies!” Kaelle protested. “I don’t care what rank they are, we should kill them and stake their bodies out for the monsters!” The tip of her rifle began to glow with a chaotic rainbow of colors, but Arrath snapped his anima at Kaelle, and the glow subsided as she lowered her rifle, muttering under her breath.

Kaelle jumped down from her mount and walked over to Sarah, her movements quick and businesslike. She used a surge of tensa and an autoinjector appeared in her hand. Sarah started to ask what it was and flinched away, but Kaelle was already pressing the injector into her neck. The barren valley faded away from Sarah’s vision as unconsciousness crashed in on her with shocking suddenness. She never saw what happened to Kimi-Lim or Sunspot.