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402. Unknowable
🕑 Added 2025-05-24 14:00:09 +0000 UTCTo tell the truth, even Ike didn’t know if Brightbriar had done the right thing or not by killing the Pillar of the World, the greater being. All he knew were the facts—the truth that Brightbriar had killed him, but not Brightbriar’s motivation or purpose. He didn’t care. It was irrelevant to him what had happened between Brightbriar and the Pillar of the World all those years ago. Who was right, who was wrong; it didn’t matter. It had happened so long ago that it was irrelevant to anyone but a few very, very long-lived beings, and to be honest, Ike was pretty sure Mont didn’t care, either, being a mountain who had seen many things come and go. Even if it had been a paradise, a utopia, back then, would it still have been a utopia if things had continued like that until today? If it had been hellishly awful, would it have remained that way until this day? As a mage who’d barely lived longer than two decades—if he even had, he lost some track of time during the King’s trial and his time in Shopkeep’s city—it seemed supremely irrelevant to him. Even if mages had lived in a utopia, would it be that way for mortals? No… he simply didn’t care. Whatever the world had been like, it had probably been good and bad in ways that were different than today, but asking him to care, to feel anything about that, was asking him to pass judgement on something he had so little understanding of, so little context for, that he simply couldn’t fathom it.
And why should he have to? He was himself. He wasn’t the greater being or the Pillar of the World. Maybe he was a fragment of that person, but he was a fragment who had made his own path for himself. He wasn’t the Pillar of the World anymore; no, he’d never been that person.
It was totally irrelevant to him, but it wasn’t to Brightbriar… which meant he could tease the hell out of the man about it. Ike grinned. He thought back a few moments ago, and the memories he’d been shown. Did the Pillar of the World deserve to get couped? If he was anything like me, then probably.
Puppets rushed him from all sides, while Brightbriar himself retreated, controlling them from afar. Ike brandished the scepter, pulling in the energies around him more powerfully. His core filled up with aether, but he didn’t release it yet. More. More.
The puppets reached him. Ike jumped out of their grasp onto the top of a nearby vial, dodging their straightforward lunge. He cracked one open and drew out its mana, adding it to his own stores of aether. Jumping from vial-top to vial-top, he ran back toward the start of this area. Brightbriar had brought him here via portal, but it was a Wizard’s Tower, even if it was a moving type. That meant he was still within the confines of the city, which meant the underground stores of lesser puppets couldn’t be far.
He reached the wall and drew back the Hungry Sword. Putting a good chunk of aether into it, he forcibly activated it, then slammed the sword into the wall. The sword’s mouth gnawed into the wall, while its fang-scales chewed away at it. Dust flew. The puppets scrambled up the vial, climbing up to reach him, while others scaled along the wall or clambered over the second story to drop down on him. They smacked him, clawed him, hit him, but he ignored their blows, able to regenerate the damage they did. Ike yanked the sword back and slammed it in again, and again, and on the third time, the weakened wall gave way. Sunlight shone through, and Ike stepped onto the edge of the place they stood.
A tower. A tall, tall tower, with a sheer wall racing so straight down below him that he felt a faint sway of vertigo. And directly below him, he saw exactly what he wanted to see: the faint black smoke from where he, Wisp, and Mag had burned all those puppets.
Ike thrust the King’s scepter forth. The black smoke swirled, then rushed up toward him, swirling into his core. His core was already full to bursting, and this, now, was enough to push it to its absolute limits.
Ike grinned. He thrust forward his empty hand, calling on the Prince’s skill and his own skill at the same time. A tornado flickering with lightning shot forth and swept through the massed puppets. They were yanked into the air, smashed into the walls, blown apart from fierce lightning strikes, and he didn’t stop there. A second, a third, until the tower was clogged with tornadoes, sweeping everything in all directions. Porcelain shards whirled through the air, cutting open the walls, other puppets, everything. Ike narrowed his eyes and pointed the scepter at one of the tornadoes, and with some effort, took control of it. He pointed the tornado at Brightbriar, whipping those razor-sharp shards directly at the man.
Brightbriar scowled. He waved his hand, dismissing the tornado. “You think you can overwhelm me with cheap tricks I’ve seen before? I taught my sons those techniques.”
“Worked well enough against your cheap puppets,” Ike pointed out. He turned out the hole. “Wisp! Mag! The hell’s holding you up?”
“We’re coming! Hey, fly straight, idiot!”
“You’re heavy! Shut up, or climb on your own!”
Ike nodded. Those two were doing fine. They’d get up here sooner or later.
“You dare look away?”
Without looking back, Ike leaped aside. Brightbriar lunged past him, toward the gap. As he passed, Brightbriar clawed ahold of Ike’s robes, dragging Ike after him into the sky.
“Wisp! Maaaag!” Ike shouted, as he and Brightbriar plunged toward the ground far, far below.
