Chapter 15: The things that should have been common knowledge.
“And so we find ourselves face to face with a set of stairs once again. Will we be traversing yet another dungeon? Only time will tell.”
“And very short time at that.”
“My God, they need to… fire some janitors or something, because this place is a mess.”
“Don’t you start too. And YOU… YOU need to stop stealing lines from other LPs!”
“I’ll steal my lines wherever I damn well please. And it’s called a ‘homage’. Now stop breaking the fourth wall and get back to the game.”
“Homage my lumpy foot. It’s theft and you know it.”
“That fourth wall is crumbling faster than this place.”
“Point taken. Mieu, just let it rest. We need to go.”
“OK, fine!”
“And we have upside down bats once again, hanging around in seemingly nothing but this weird… something.”
“Two of them even look like they’re about to throw up.”
“How would you know that?”
“They’re green in the face. See?”
“I just… never mind. Someone is obviously not right in the head.”
“And someone got enlightened about Wren’s mental state. Surprisingly quick, even.”
“So, what’s the street value of Lacon stuff nowadays?”
“It almost sounds like ‘Laconic’. As in, ‘we make stuff for when you have no time to waste’.”
“Get to the point in a flash with your own Laconic Sword.”
“Laconic Band, it keeps you on a short leash.”
“Laconic gear? Gimme. Now!”
“And that’s how you ask for it.”
“More Laconic stuff. Anyone want?”
“Yesplz.”
“OK, now we’re just overdoing it.”
“Orly?”
“STOP THAT!”
“Score! Aero parts for Wren.”
“Noooooohooohooohoooooo.”
“What’s wrong, buddy? These parts will be REALLY useful.”
“I know! But…. but….”
“Now this I gotta see.”
“Well, time to blow this popstand.”
“With our ship.”
“So quick to claim ownership…. ownership, get it? Oh ha ha ha ha…”
“…..”
“Hey, don’t look at me. I didn’t program him to be like that.”
“I know. I’d be tempted to blame your grandfather, but it’s most likely the long stay in that moldy, square-ish cave.”
“Do I even want to know?”
“No!”
“At any rate, it’ll be good to see the ol’ homestead again. All seven of them.”
“And to think we only started out with three.”
“Alrighty, then. Time to find ourselves an airstrip. This is going to be good!”
*sigh*
“What’s wrong, Wren? Chin up, my friend, because you are going to fly!”
“And that’s what I’m afraid of.”
“Oh hey, there’s one right outside of town. We’re even spared the trouble of having to go look for one. Sweet.”
“Speak for yourself.”
“Wren, seriously… you’ve been complaining about this since we got the Aero Parts…”
“Since before that, actually.”
“Before, after, whatever. Point is, you’re being a huge child over this. I mean… how bad can it be?”
“Um… wow. OK, I… uh… never mind, I guess.”
“I VAAANT TO SAAHK YAR BLAAAHD!” *giggle*
“Damn it, Mieu. You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Hee hee, guilty as charged.”
“That is an… impressive cape, Wren.”
“So, what the hell are we supposed to do? Climb onto his back?”
“Wait, what? Oh, HELL no, you’re not.”
“Guess again.”
“I believe I can flyyyyy.”
“Stop that, or I’ll drop you off right now.”
“Well, I suppose we won’t be able to traverse across domes in this form. Land there, Wren, so that we can head over.”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
“Well, fun’s over for now. Time to hit that ol’ cave and get ourselves across as fast as possible.”
“What? But…”
“It won’t be much fun, of course, but if we just march quickly over without thinking too much about it, it’ll probably feel much shorter.”
“Crys, weren’t you listening? We don’t have to…”
“Later, Mieu. Don’t break my train of thought. Or, should I say, NON-thought. Pure tunneling zen, baby.”
“OK, fine. Have it your way.”
“That’s my girl.”
“Urgh, that was NOT fun.”
“What happened to the zen master?”
“Oh, he’s all down now, and he will be even further down when I remind him that we could just have travelled via temples and saved ourselves all that trouble.”
“Fffffff….”
“Oh well. Wren, you know what to do.”
“Yes, but I don’t waaahaaant tooo.”
“Is it a bird?”
“Is it a plane?”
“STOP IT!”
“An underwater temple. It’s a good thing we didn’t teleport there. That would bring us all to a quick and humid end.”
“Hey, an airstrip. Let’s land.”
“Wren, it’s in the middle of nowhere.”
“But we could walk back.”
“We could, but we are not going to. Now stop being a lazy bum and get those wings working.”
“OK, let’s do the temples this time. I wouldn’t want you all to get sore feet or something. Or even worse, FLAT feet.”
“You just forgot last time. Admit it!”
“I will do no such thing.”
“I’m starting to get used to this ‘darkness’ thing.”
“Yep. This throat-choking, eye-searing darkness that just yanks us from one place to another. Nothing bad should happen if we repeatedly use that, right?”
“Would you rather use the caves again, Mieu?”
“Oh, heavens, no. They’re all probably filled with rocks now anyway.”
“Well, that was a fun little hop, skip and jump.”
“If by ‘hop’, you mean ‘force Wren to publically embarrass himself again’, then yes…. very much fun.”
“Ah, frozen hell, we meet again. What else do you have to show us, hmm?”
“Oh, yes, an airstrip. Just what I was looking for.”
“NO! NO MORE!”
*sigh* “Well, at least it was a short flight.”
“See? That wasn’t so bad, now was it?”
“Don’t you get me started.”
“I just had a frightening thought.”
“Hoo boy.”
“And what would that be?”
“What if Batman sues?”
“PLEASE DO! I mean… I’ll even represent him.”
“Well, either him or Dracula.”
“It’s a good thing that neither of them live on this world, then.”
“Now why’d you go and get my hopes up like that, you evil, evil people?”
“I wonder if they have a proper inn with a fireplace in this frozen hellhole.”
“Ooooor maybe the whole freaking place is green, which makes absolutely no sense.”
“Maybe we could scope out some weapons here? I could really use a second slicer, you know.”
“In fact, I do believe all out equipment might be sorely out of date.”
“Yes, yes, let’s just see what they have here.”
“Hoooly…. that is hellishly expensive.”
“Well, at least we can afford one claw for me. That’s a good start. We can always just go out and fight enemies for the rest.”
“Go for the grind, huh? Sounds like a blast.”
“That’s my department. And anything not involving flying is fine with me.”
“Hmmm. What do we have here?”
“Looks like the older gentleman’s club. Either that, or it’s a gangster family.”
“Judging by their absent-minded stares, I’m guessing the former.”
“I don’t like the way they’re looking at us, though. It’s almost as if they’re just waiting for someone to come up and talk to them.”
“Well, in that case, there’s only one thing to do.”
“Leave?”
“No, talk to them.”
“Oh, you’ve been waiting for a thousand years, have you?”
“I have a hard time believing that, seeing as none of them are androids. They’re old, but they’re not THAT old.”
“Cryogenic sleep?”
“If that’s the case, then wouldn’t at least some of them be somewhat younger? Instead we have a gathering of seven old men, none of which are robotic. If that’s not freaky, I’d like to know what is.”
“…well, that’s a good start.”
“‘Dark Force’. Now there’s a name that leaves few options when presented with the question: ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?'”
“And he was waiting a thousand years too, which is good, because if he had waited less than that, I guess we’d all be screwed.”
“I notice that ‘fighting him’ wasn’t an option on your list there, even when preparation time was included.”
“Well, maybe they expected a woman to wash ashore on the beaches of Landen, only to be kidnapped by a dragon, which would send a prince out searching for her. Later, he would find her, of course, and they would have a son, only for war to start up, which would send said son out to find the cause, which would eventually lead him up to one of the ship’s artificial moons, where he would fight another android and then immediately get married, after which war would strike again once twenty new years had passed, forcing the now prince to head out in a very roundabout fashion, which would first lead him to Laya’s similarly named sister before heading off for the moon to meet up with Lune, whose daughter would immediately join up, so that they could head down into the cellar of said artificial sattelite and find some parts that would let their android fly to the airstrip close to this town and just so happen to wander into this town with a desire for an earful of backstory.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. What would be the odds of THAT happening.”
“…..”
“I have a headache and need to lie down for a little while.”
“DEAR GOD THAT’S A HUGE LASER!”
“Um… I think it was just a badly animated exlosion. For some reason, they always go sideways.”
“Must be because of the vacuum in space.”
“Yeeeees, I’m suuuuure.”
“Yes, what with the explosion going off in only two directions, it’s not unlikely that all ships avoided destruction. You were kind of lucky in that regard.”
“And absolutely no shrapnel from a blown up planet either. That’s doubly lucky.”
“Or maybe the planet just collapsed because you scoped out gigantic circular slices for your ship’s domes.”
“Escape it… trap it… what happened to ‘stab it until it stops moving’?”
“I guess nobody considered that option.”
“Out of four hundred? That little bugger is industreous, isn’t he?”
“They should’ve made that other ship Face Palm instead.”
“But if they faced Palm, they would probably go blind due to the huge explosion, even if it just went sideways.”
“No, that’s not what I was trying to… oh, never mind.”
“They already did. And yes, we know.”
“Yes, thank you, exposition town, resting some ways off the beaten path for all of us to find.”
“Oh well, no reason to lounge about in this place. Now when we’re got airstrips to find and places to fly.”
“Couldn’t… couldn’t we take a boat this time? For old times’ sake?”
“Wren, I’ve never been in a boat before. Nor do we need to, now that you can fly everywhere.”
“But a change in scenery is always nice, isn’t it?”
“Wren, the lakes in this world are all frozen over.”
“Well, a couple of Foi’s would have fixed that. Or, better yet, if it’s frozen, we can WALK on it.”
“No, Wren, we are flying and that’s final.”
“Boooo.”
“Well… I hope you are happy!”
“I am. Now, fly, you fool.”
“We’ve got… something… coming up, captain.”
“Did someone leave a game of Jenga Advanced just floating mid-air over this frozen lake? Why would anyone want to do that?”
“Who cares? This bears investigating.”
“Wren, no, wait!”
“Well, this sure looks like… satellite interiors?”
“Only on Alisia III.” *sigh*
“And there are robots here too.”
“Well, let’s talk to them, then.”
“I bet it’s going to be something about not getting a lot of human visitors or something.”
“At least it makes sense in this case, though.”
“Um… yes, we are glad to be in… not-quite-ambigiously-named castle.”
“And hey, these guys have only waited a couple of centuries. What’s that? Too lazy to wait the full millennium?”
“And they have frozen gardens here. Wh… why do they have frozen gardens? Is green going out of style or something?”
“Yes, and ‘straight paths’ don’t seem to be gaining any popularity either.”
“Yes, this sure beats out soaring over the lands and oceans in our very own Wrenplane. Sure miss that right now.”
“Now you’re just being mean.”
“So, what are we supposed to do here?”
“Dunno. But now that we’re here, we might as well just see this through to the end. Who knows what is waiting for us far yonder.”
Can it be that our heroes are closing in on this Dark Force, a force so powerful that it brought 398 huge worldships to ruin? And can it be that said ships didn’t make it because they wouldn’t go for the plan involving weapons and stabbing motions? As they walked, Crys and his companions’ thoughts returned to the aforementioned ‘masters’.
“Yep, it’s another group of people just standing lined up and waiting for someone to drop by.”
“I smell another lecture coming up.”