Chapter 306: It’s not much, but it’s got a great view (Patreon)

Time is a funny thing.

To Kaitlynn, the trial seems unending. Eternal. An endless parade of ‘witnesses’ are called to the stand where they are asked a strange mix of questions, ranging from the vague, seemingly irrelevant, to the strangely confrontational, to the downright ludicrous.

‘Did Lyrack properly maintain the hedges bordering your property?’ they asked his former neighbour with the otter-like host.

‘Why did you never report Lyrack’s depression, his deep-seated existential ennui, to the authorities?’ they asked his personal assistant.

‘When did you first notice the secret messages hidden in Lyrack’s stand-up?’ they asked the stage manager of the Prismatic Theatre.

The fact that Lyrack is long gone, dead and never even mourned for, somehow makes seeing the parade of people who actually knew him go up there and tell obvious, rehearsed lies, all the sadder.

A part of Kaitlynn wants to do nothing more than fly up there and yell at them that they clearly never knew him.

But then, neither did she.

And frankly, her crystal is very much stuck in the autonomous Darksteel construction that somehow drains away her Qi to maintain the gravity cage around her, so the only way she could fly up there would be by bursting out of her crystal, revealing her spiritform for all to see.

It’s for the greater good. Endure it.

And she knows she will, because she has to. There’s too much at stake, her friends, her family, the whole damn planet, even.

When she’s finally called up for questioning, she doesn’t lash out, she doesn’t make a scene. She simply plays the part of the fearful accused, as well as she can.

The Peilor equivalent of a prosecutor starts by projecting videos of Lyrack sneaking out of clandestine meetings, and whispering rebellious things to crystals whose cuts have been blurred out to protect their privacy.

Of course, since all the ‘footage’ is produced with Espir, there’s really no telling if any part of it is even real.

Either way, she answers his sharp, accusatory questions with a level of fear and bewilderment that’s only partially feigned, denying everything and proclaiming her innocence.

Her own attorney makes a token effort to present evidence of Lyrack’s good moral standing and the value of his successful comedy show, but it’s clear they’re going through the motions, perfectly aware that at the end of the day, the Starshade Agents waiting on the side of the room will be escorting ‘Lyrack’ to the Starlight Palace.

The trial becomes an exhausting blur that stretches on and on, seemingly into infinity. All while the crystal projecting the Peilinor standard time mocks her, seeming to drag out every second, and to practically stand still in between the moments she pays it any attention.

Then, all of a sudden, it’s over.

The judge chimes that she’s heard enough, and has made her decision. A split-second later, the Crystal of Judgement lodged into the top of the hall lights up in a bright orange.

Guilty, it radiates, announcing her verdict both in and outside the building.

Despite the fact that this was the expected, intended outcome, that this isn’t even really ‘her’ trial, a sour feeling comes over Kaitlynn.

When this is all over, we need to make a memorial for Lyrack or something, set the record straight...

However, Kaitlynn barely has time to think about it, as things suddenly start moving at a frightening speed.

She barely has a chance to thank her attorney before the spooky agents start moving her Darksteel gravity cage towards the exit.

According to the clearly broken time-keeping crystal, all in all, the trial lasted a bit over two hours. It’s a little longer than expected, and Kaitlynn can only hope the delay won’t cause any issues for the mission into the Voidcannon.

As she’s brought outside by her grey-clad, silent escort, she turns her attention to the massive military installation. Except, it’s nowhere to be seen.

For a moment, she’s seized by a surge of panic. Then she remembers that the Voidcannon’s outer defences create a ton of empty space around it, effectively shrinking the Voidcannon down to outside viewers.

They’re inside then. Thank goodness...

Kaitlynn spares a worried thought for her girlfriend, then banishes it.

Emma will be fine. Though she’s not quite as invincible as she seems to think she is... she doesn’t need Kaitlynn worrying over her right now.

Rather, she should really be worrying about her own role in the plan.

If all is going according to plan, the crew inside the Voidcannon will have spotted the orange light declaring her guilt, and should now be preparing to activate the Voidcannon. If not, then she’ll have to stall for her very life. And possibly everyone else’s.

Naturally, she’s been preparing for that very task practically every last waking moment, but much of her ideas and tactics are based on conjecture about Starmother, with little basis in known facts.

Just gotta keep my cool... She must be bored enough to play with her food; all I have to do is keep her interest for however long it takes them to deploy that pocket dimension.

The journey up from the courthouse takes her past the Gleaming Firmament, where the Lustrous Tier have their magnificent estates and despite herself, Kaitlynn marvels at the sheer opulence.

As possible last views go, it’s not the worst.

That feeling lasts about until the Starshade Agents escorting her come to a halt in front of a massive pair of gleaming black doors. From up this close, it’s clear that, despite its facetted appearance, Starlight Palace is actually not made of obsidian or anything like it, but built entirely out of Darksteel. Or covered in it, at least. Crystals embedded in the imposing walls glow in shades of blue, pink, and purple, casting the whole structure in an unearthly light.

The Starshade Agents bring her cage to a halt in front of it, and then... retreat. Seconds tick by as they disappear in the distance, quite literally leaving her hanging. Just when Kaitlynn is starting to doubt whether anything is going to happen, the doors creak open, revealing a dark hallway. A mild gravitational pull comes forth, and starts inexorably drawing her in.

Ten points for creepiness, I guess...

The cage holding her floats through silent hall after silent hall. Crystals in the walls occasionally provide a weak gravitational pull to bring her to a halt and steer her up or around a corner.

While she’s not as preternaturally adept as Emma at sensing Espir, Kaitlynn can still tell they’re not sentient, not pieces of Starmother’s suspected hive mind. She has no doubt she’s being watched through them, however, so she plays the part, calling out ‘hello?’ and other things in Lyrack’s voice.

Her attempts to make contact fall on deaf ears, as her cage inexorably moves up and forward, deeper into the palace.

Honestly though, she’s in no rush.

If she offers me a last request, maybe I can ask for another lap of the palace! A nice and slow one.

Anything to keep the clock ticking.

There’s no way she’d miss the storm of Spatial Energy required to establish a pocket dimension big enough to trap the entirety of Starlight Palace. The only question is if it’ll happen in time.

Of course, all good things must come to an end, and indeed, eventually, Kaitlynn’s cage comes to a halt in front of another set of doors, this one a gleaming white.

They open slowly, revealing a large circular room covered entirely by a black dome. A room that’s full of crystals.

And not small, lifeless ones embedded into the walls, no. Big ones, in all shapes and colours, resting on pedestals arrayed into a shape like the stands of an amphitheatre. And more importantly, they’re watching her; Kaitlynn can feel it.

This is Starmother.

Kaitlynn steels herself even as she floats into the room, and the moment the door closes behind her, she fires her opening salvo.

“So it’s true then,” she chimes, affecting Lyrack’s voice with a tone of stunned awe. “Your Highness really is a hive mind!”

While waiting for Starmother to speak first might have won her precious seconds, it would have been too risky. Imagine if Starmother had started with a Command for her to be quiet? She’d have lost before she’d ever gotten to make a move.

Better to set the tone, control the pace from the start.

“My oh my,” Starmother chimes, her honey-slick voice seeming to come from everywhere at once. “I’ve seen my share of reactions to the truth of my majestic being, but this is a new one. Tell me, darling, where did you come upon such knowledge?”

Of course, there’s no way Kaitlynn is giving up that particular bit of information just yet.

She hums, pretending to think about it. “How about this: I’ll answer one of your questions, if you answer one of mine.”

Laughter echoes out around the room, a multitude of the same voice overlapping and interweaving with itself in a way that would have made Kaitlynn’s hair stand on end, if she’d had any.

“You’re a courageous one, aren’t you?” Starmother chimes amusedly. “You must be, if you think you can negotiate with me.”

“The way I see it, I don’t have anything left to lose,” Kaitlynn chimes, shooting for failed nonchalance, as it wouldn’t do to sound too confident. Under the circumstances, it’s not hard to get a bit of a tremor in her voice. “Might as well try to satiate my curiosity while I still can. And I imagine Your Highness might... appreciate the opportunity to speak frankly about it, for once.”

Silence reigns for a long moment.

“The chance to brag, you mean?” Starmother finally chimes, dry as vermouth. “You’re a little rascal, aren’t you? Well, at least you haven’t lost your manners. You wouldn’t believe the kind of filth I’ve had slung at me in these halls.” She lets out a melodramatic sigh. “Well, I suppose I could humour you for a bit. Go ahead, darling, ask away.”

“Hmm...” Kaitlynn chimes, again pretending to take a moment to think about it. Of course, she can’t afford to let Starmother get impatient, so she keeps her pause brief. “Could I ask... why does Your Highness do this? Why absorb your kin like this?”

The room seems to grow a little colder. “Is that really what you wish to ask, darling? Are my motives not obvious?”

“Well no,” Kaitlynn quickly chimes. “The benefits are indeed obvious, considering My Lady’s legendary accomplishments. What I mean to ask is... what’s the point of gathering all this power?”

When it comes down to it, even beings who commit atrocities like Starmother must somehow believe they’re doing the right thing, doing good.

Otherwise, how could she live with herself, right?

“Oh, I see,” Starmother chimes with a sigh that seems to force back the cold a little. “The point... Tell me, darling, do you know what this Realm was like before I founded Peilinor? You wouldn’t, right; you’re pretty young, judging by your spirit.”

“Indeed I do not, My Lady.”

“Well, things were quite different back then,” Starmother chimes, almost wistfully, before a wave of Espir causes a scene to burst to life in the centre of the room, showing a massive whale-like creature floating through space with a huge crystal in its forehead. “Back then, Peilor used to roam in packs,” she narrates as the whale is joined by other similarly massive creatures. “They found and tamed the biggest and strongest hosts they could, and if they came across another pack of Peilor, well, that often ended in a fight to the death.”

A terrifying battle erupts in the floating scene, as the whale and the other hosts are ambushed by a group of giant apes and birds with serrated beaks. Despite herself, Kaitlynn can’t help but get dragged into it a little.

“You see, back then, we Peilor would absorb the energies of other Peilor, in an attempt to grow ourselves larger. More energy means more power, after all. However, not all folks lived like this.”

The scene shifts, showing a motley collection of buildings and statues, shaped out of stone on the side of a mountain.

“More peace-minded Peilor wished to do something more meaningful than endlessly hunt, kill, and grow. We wanted to create, to build. But whenever we came together to try, well, our efforts would end up being destroyed in another pointless squabble.”

The body of the whale from before suddenly enters the picture again, smashing into the small town and crushing half of it under its sheer weight.

“The damage weren’t limited to that, neither,” Starmother continues. “Whole species got hunted to extinction, the landmasses they lived on usually destroyed in the process, just so other Peilor couldn’t use them as hosts. Half the creatures I’m showing you right now no longer exist.”

The scene shifts again, showing a familiar mushroom.

“Then... the Carriage of Dreams was discovered. Some Peilor’s host ate one, and its spirit got whisked away, only to return a little later. Eventually, a Peilor whose name got lost to the ages figured out a way to follow it, and discovered something amazing.”

Dawn breaks in the image, a ball of fire that rises through clouds.

“It became our new hope. A land of peace, ruled with an iron fist. A place where Peilor could safely meet to talk, to try and find common ground. I even created an Espir technique of my own, the Blank Space Technique, to help bring younger Peilor like yourself into the Realm, the ones still too weak to stand on their own. But of course, even this beautiful dreamland eventually got ruined, by the bastards who wanted nothing but to grow more powerful...”

The scene turns grey, then rapidly darkens until it disappears entirely. Kaitlynn is almost shocked when she finds herself once more surrounded by the most powerful being in the Realm.

“After we were banished... why, I almost lost hope. However, then I discovered a second use for my Blank Space Technique. Can you guess what it is?”

Oh boy, I don’t like where this is going... But she’ll still want to know where I learned her secrets, right? Better keep her curiosity piqued. “Your Highness uses it to clone herself within another’s Core somehow, I believe.”

“Correct!” Starmother chimes, as if praising a particularly clever dog. “My, you really are suspiciously well-informed... Anyway, I indeed discovered that I could, with the help of some simple Commands, force a being to grow their Blank Space to a critical point, and then take it over. It’s actually quite a straightforward process. Of course, your question was why I do it, not how. Well, I think you can take a guess by now.”

“Your Highness was inspired by the Realm of Imagination,” Kaitlynn chimes after a moment. “And wanted to create her own land of peace, ruled by an iron fist?”

“That’s right, hon,” Starmother replies. “Yes, that’s exactly what I did. I took over Peilor after Peilor, keeping my method hidden so no one could copy it, until I was powerful enough to make a difference. Powerful enough to make the Twinstar, and Big Bortha, my beautiful daughters.”

At that moment, the black glass the dome is made of starts to turn transparent, showing off a magnificent view of the rest of the palace below, and more importantly, of the gargantuan stars in the distance.

A streak of lightning crawls slowly from the bluish-white to the reddish-orange sphere that make up the Twinstar, underscoring the massive scale of the weapons.

“With their might, I united the roaming Peilor, brought down all who opposed me, and ended all that pointless fighting. That, is the point. Now, I’ve answered your question, so how about you tell me how it is that you know all of—”

Right at that moment, however, a deep, powerful ripple of Spatial Energy washes over Kaitlynn. Despite knowing what’s about to happen, it feels almost impossible, when the Twinstar... disappears.

One major issue their plan faced was the possibility that Starmother might use her ultimate weapons to destroy the Voidcannon in order to escape. In the end, they decided to solve that problem by being proactive about it.

Which is why the Warptunnels that just swallowed the two massive spheres that together form the Twinstar, deposit their contents... deep in the cracks of Big Bortha.

The crackling lightning storm erupting on one side actually doesn’t do much to Big Bortha, as both Cold and Lightning are Yin. However, the sphere of Heat on the other side is less compatible.

While much of their creation and structure is shrouded in mystery, one thing that’s known is that at their core, Starmother’s creations are mainly massive Energy Crystals. They’re actually far beyond critical mass, only held together by whatever complex energy structures Starmother wrought to stabilise them.

And when one brings an Energy Crystal into contact with an overdose of energy from the opposite type, it ‘violently destabilises,’ as Suri calls it.

As far as Kaitlynn can tell, the orange sphere is the first to go, bursting apart, and instantly swelling into a massive conflagration as the incredible amount of released Heat turns all the surrounding Aether into Astreum. Big Bortha follows only a fraction of a second later, the Cold released from its crystal core flash-freezing the nearby Aether into a mass of Boreum that expands in the opposite direction. Finally, judging by the blinding bolt of lightning that speeds off into the distance, the Twinstar’s other half doesn’t survive the violence for long either.

“What in the Realm...” Starmother chimes in bafflement.

All of a sudden, their view of the cosmic violence is cut off by a second, massive ripple of Spatial Energy, that forms a pocket dimension that encloses the entire palace.

Acting fast, Kaitlynn pulls the whistle out of her Core, and jumps out of Lyrack’s crystal. While the gravity cage still holds the yellow gem in check, it’s thankfully easy enough to overcome that force with her spiritform.

The instant she’s out, she lifts the whistle to her lips.

“Wait, you?” Starmother manages to chime. “What—”

Before she can bring out another word, Kaitlynn blows the whistle.

Author's note:

Writing from Kaitlynn's POV was an interesting challenge! ^^

I ended up doing quite a bit of editing on this chapter, which is part of why it got so long, and why I didn't manage to post it yesterday after all, despite finding some time to work at the airport. :p

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed the result, and either way, thanks for reading! ^^