Chapter 308: Weighing anchor (Patreon)

The black, owl-shaped whistle feels cool to Kaitlynn’s lips as she blows on it. The shrill sound it produces in no way resembles the cry of an actual owl, but that probably doesn’t matter anyway.

What matters is the tangible wave of Espir that erupts from the whistle, spreading in every direction, seen and unseen.

“You have a lot of nerve, missy,” Starmother chimes, low and dangerous, once the sound dies out. “You came here on purpose, didn’t you? You knew my darling stars were going to be attacked; give me one good reason not to crush you like the ant you are.”

“Because you have more important matters to attend to?” Kaitlynn asks weakly, instinctively making herself small as her heart hammers in her chest.

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

“Like me,” Goddess replies. The room seems to darken as she appears, stepping out of a dark, swirling portal, her owlish visage looking sharp and terrible, predatory. “Hello, Mara. My, what a lovely home you have here. Though some might call it a little... derivative.”

Suddenly, all of Starmother’s crystals lift off of their pedestals and start to coalesce in the centre of the room. Next, a pink glow emerges, forming a vaguely humanoid outline around it. “Well well, as I glow and glimmer. Ghothys herself, visiting my humble little home. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I’m afraid this isn’t a social visit, Mara.”

As the two immensely powerful beings continue to exchange pleasantries, Kaitlynn quietly moves to behind the dark portal, and conjures a pair of scissors. A moment of concentration and a small, excruciatingly painful snip later, she’s once more free from her mortal coil.

With that done, she takes to staring at the back of the still-swirling portal in full concentration. Honestly, standing this close to it, she can’t deny the temptation. A single step would bring her to the Realm of Imagination, to safety... But she has a job to do, and there’s a lot more than just her safety at stake.

Just then, a pair of azure eyes on stalks emerge from the swirling darkness

Glancing around one last time, Kaitlynn sticks up her thumb at Trisha. The eyes pull back, and a moment later, are replaced by a deep-blue snout.

“Whiskers!” Kaitlynn whispers, tears stinging the corners of her eyes. “Come on out, boy, quickly now!”

The jungle cat obeys, quietly padding out into the Aether of the Yin-Yang Realm, revealing the bags he’s got slung over his back.

The way he looks around with his ears folded back, makes it clear that—even if he doesn’t really understand what’s going on—he understands that it’s serious business, and Kaitlynn just about melts with pride.

Sal comes out next, carrying similar bags, followed by Woolly, Spikes, and finally, Shelly.

Thankfully, none of them make a peep, and they quietly follow Kaitlynn as she beckons them to float after her, passing down through the floor into the hallway beneath. In fact, it’s a bit eerie how quiet they are, and how difficult it is to feel their presences, even when hovering right in front of them.

“Good jooob,” Kaitlynn coos at them once they’re all there, no longer able to contain herself. “My cuties are all so stealthy! Yes you are, yes you are!”

Deep down she of course knows that these creatures were all once ruthless predators who stood at the top of their personally tailored food chain, and that there’s really no reason to question their stealth capabilities, but... well, that’s no longer who they are now, and praise should be given where praise is due.

“Now watch closely,” Kaitlynn bids her silent-yet-enthusiastic audience, before opening up one of Whiskers' bags, and pulling out a chain made of blue glass with what looks like a massive fishing hook at the end. “We’re going to take these anchors, and attach them to something, all right? Like this.”

Kaitlynn flies to a nearby chandelier, and hooks the blue glass anchor around one of its arms. She doesn’t immediately let go, however, instead giving two sharp yanks on the chain. A moment later, it pulls taut, as the raptor on the other end starts pulling. Only when the force holds the hook firmly in place does she let go.

“Everyone got that?”

A soft chorus of yips, barks and meows affirms that they do.

“Then spread out and go go go! But remember to be careful!”

Her cuties scatter, with the exception of Shelly, who’s formed a seat of vines above her head, and is looking at Kaitlynn expectantly.

“You’re going to look after me, huh?” Kaitlynn asks fondly. “Did Emma tell you to do that?”

“Yes,” Shelly responds softly. “Em-ma.”

“All right then,” Kaitlynn says, flying over and taking a seat. “Let’s head straight down; there’s a lot of ground to cover there, okay?”

“Oh-kay.”

Shelly turns out to be an anchor-hanging machine. At first, Kaitlynn considers if she should leave the safety of her seat to help speed up the process, but seeing Shelly’s vines stretch out every which way, hanging anchor after anchor as they sink through floors and speed through hallways, she realises it really wouldn’t make a difference.

This explains why she appears to be carrying half the bags of anchors.

The only thing that hinders their pace a little, is the variety of the anchors. Some are straightforward things like grappling hooks, but there are also things like red cactus spikes that need to be driven into something, and more outlandish things like suction cups and strips of adhesive material.

Most clearly belong to a raptor, but there are many that are more ambiguous in origin, which could very well belong to one of the Hangspire residents helping out.

To be honest, the number of anchors they’re distributing amounts only to a very small portion of the total. These few thousand anchors, belonging to only the strongest raptors, are mainly meant to direct Elysia to the inside of the pocket dimension, rather than the outside.

Meanwhile, the majority of the over 1.2 million anchors, have been conglomerated into a couple of massive hooks that should be getting attached to the outside of the pocket dimension right now.

Such massive collections would stand out far too much in here, as well as provide far too easy a target for Starmother to dislodge.

That’s not to say the current anchors are completely safe...

A deafening screech rings out from right behind Kaitlynn, as Goddess comes swooping in through a wall, shaped like a massive owl, talons stretched forward.

The passing of her wings alone disintegrates several anchors. A split second later, the massive constellation of crystals that is Starmother pops into being in front of Goddess, and an arc of pink lightning erupts from her, straight at her foe.

The resulting flash of light is all-encompassing, and it instantly burns away a portion of Kaitlynn’s spiritform. She blindly pulls on Shelly’s vines, the ones she’s using as reins, directing her pet through a wall.

Moments later, she sees Goddess falling through the same wall, further down, followed by Starmother, who actually just smashes through it.

“Did you really think you could defeat me in this Realm, Ghothys?” Starmother drawls mockingly. “Actually trapping me in my own palace, only to get your butt handed to you; how sad!”

Rather than speaking, Goddess retaliates with a wave of black flames.

A portion of them washes in Kaitlynn’s direction, causing her heart to skip a beat. Then Shelly blooms up, growing a small canopy in the blink of an eye.

A bone-chilling wave of cold filters through the protective layer as the ‘flames’ wash over it, flash-freezing much of the vegetation, but the defence did its job.

Kaitlynn quickly directs Shelly down through the floor, away from the battle, and this time it doesn’t chase her, moving up instead, judging from the powerful Espir fluctuations.

To be honest, though, the most frightening part of the engagement she just witnessed wasn’t the attacks spilling over. It was the fact that Starmother seemed to be winning.

“More anchors, Shelly, quickly!” Kaitlynn exclaims with renewed urgency.

They rush down hallway after hallway, placing anchors wherever they go, until Kaitlynn has lost all sense of direction.

Thankfully, it quickly ceases to matter.

With a great rumbling, water comes spilling into the hallway they’re in, rapidly filling it from top to bottom.

Water. Not Hydrum.

It’s followed by a steadily growing, familiar feeling.

Elysia! We did it! I guess we must be down in the lake somewhere...

That’s... less than ideal, as the lake is in the centre of the big arena, and supposed to be the place where Goddess and Starmother duke it out.

A distant light that seems to shine down through everything betrays the direction of ‘up.’ However, when Kaitlynn tries to steer Shelly that way in order to leave the water and get their bearings, they hit upon an unexpected problem.

They can no longer pass through the ceiling.

Oh, that’s right, the laws are in that strange state of superposition now!

Espir can actually affect physical matter now, and vice versa.

Well, if we can’t just pass through it...

While the outside of the palace might be covered in Darksteel, the inside is clearly a kind of dark rock.

“Hey girl,” Kaitlynn croons at Shelly, scratching her head. “You think you can break through this ceiling for me?”

“Break!” comes the reply.

Shelly’s vines stretch out, before coming together into a big viny club. She swings it around once, twice, gathering speed, and slings it towards the ceiling.

Looking at the action, Kaitlynn can’t help but expect the vines to just bounce off anticlimactically. But the measure of power isn’t so clearcut when it comes to Espir. Not only does the active use of Willpower play a big role, the Espir density of Shelly’s spiritform is not to be trifled with.

Shelly’s makeshift club hits the ceiling with a resounding crack, smashing it open like it’s made of Styrofoam, the rock clearly no match for the force brought to bear.

Wow! Kaitlynn thinks as they swim on up, passing through the large massive opening. That was almost a little too easy...

That thought turns out to be prophetic, when not even half a second later, a massive dark wing cuts the hallway they’re in in half. A wave of pressure washes over them, sending Shelly tumbling head over heels before she stabilises. In the silence that follows, the cut in the hallway widens further and further, until Kaitlynn is petrified to discover that it extends across most of the palace.

Then, what’s left of the palace starts to rumble. Cracks spread from the unnaturally clean cut, snaking through the hallway and webbing across the stone until, all of a sudden, the entire structure seems to come apart.

An alarming amount of rock starts sinking down through the water towards them, with sizes ranging from that of a grain of rice to that of a school bus.

Shelly is quickly forced to dodge around the biggest ones as she deflects the smaller pieces with her vines, somehow managing to swim steadily upwards regardless.

As they rise, Kaitlynn frantically looks around for the rest of her cuties, but visibility in the water right now is terrible, and she sees nothing but sinking rocks.

A tense minute or so later, they reach the surface, through which pieces of rock are still raining down.

“Really now, Ghothys?” the pink-glowing vortex of crystals that makes up Starmother asks exasperatedly from where she hovers up in the air. “My whole palace?”

In front of her hovers a black owl of massive proportions, with familiar white feathers accentuating her face. “You will have no need of it once I am done with you anyway.”

“You actually believe you can kill me?” Starmother chimes with no small amount of amusement. “You and what ar...”

At that moment, as the last of the rock comes raining down and the rumbling of the collapsing palace sinks below the waves, Kaitlynn becomes aware of a distant roaring.

And when moments later, the dust at last clears, she sees the stands. All around the lake, balcony after shining black balcony, filled to the rafters with raptors and citizens from Hangspire. And between her and them, a massive glass dome.

“I don’t know about you, folks, but I am stoked!” a familiar raptor roars, his voice echoing across the lake. “We are about to witness perhaps the greatest battle that ever was and ever will be!”

“It’s weird how for once, I feel like you might actually not be exaggerating, Zee,” Cece growls in reply.

“So weird!” Zee agrees. “But I’m loving it!”

As they speak, to Kaitlynn’s enormous relief, one after another, four more heads pop up around Shelly.

“Oh, thank Goddess you’re all here!” she whispers at them. “Come one, we need to get through that gate in the dome, and then we’ll be safe!”

At least, that’s what the tell-tale ripples along the dome suggest. The shield created by the audience’s collective Imagination should block Starmother and any attacks from passing through.

They just need to get past it.

Author's note:

Thanks for reading! ^^