Chapter 26

  2 days later.

  The Spires of Joatsu were just as jagged and steep up close as they were from a distance. Several tall peaks stood above an avalanche of rocks that littered the path through its valley. Boulders of all shapes and sizes gathered at the base of each peak, creating an encumbering ramp of loose rocks until it met a spire. The ground rumbled slightly as if to say hello, as a few stones tumbled down from above.

  The peaks themselves had long symmetrical, geometric grooves racing all the way to their pointed summits. They reminded Kopius of the Devils Tower monument in Wyoming, with all its strange but precise vertical columns. Joatsu was an exaggerated version of that place, with multiple peaks, narrow walkways and columns wide enough that Kopius felt he could spider-walk them if needed… or do some extreme parkour. Neither option was enticing.

  About the time they had reached the beginnings of Joatsu, his map had cleared enough to show not just the entire mountain range but also the marked location of the C.O.M.A. Kopius might have suggested going around the range had the Blur on his map not cleared away. Somewhere within the spires, towards the western edge, a purple X waited to be uncovered.

  Kopius had tried to zoom in on the small mountain range to locate a path to the item but he found it blurry when he got close. A brief word with Cici and he had explained that he, Kopius, could see Joatsu because he could see the range—as a whole—now. The finer details—like paths through, caves, water sources, etc—would only be displayed by actually seeing them first hand.

  “That sucks,” Kopius complained. “I mean, it makes sense. But still…” There wasn’t really any room to complain. The real question was how had that adventurer been so close to the other half of the C.O.M.A. to just sell the other piece off.

  “They said he was mangled, lad,” Cici remembered.

  “I don’t know, man,” Kopius shook his head. He twirled his throwing knife, doing his best impression of spinning a six-shooter, but often dropping the knife. “I got pretty mangled and all I lost was my tooth.” He pulled his cheek back to show the empty space.

  “Not everyone has your ring or potions,” Cici pointed out. “Nor my cooking.” He added with a laugh.

  “People just go out questing without healing… stuff?” Kopius asked for clarity.

  “They bring supplies,” Cici replied. “Not everyone is a fool… mostly. But the potions you have are potent and that ring of yours recharges on its own. If you are ever short on coin… ” The big guy gestured and nodded at the healing ring. Kopius inadvertently spun it on his finger. It had come in handy on every occasion except that time he couldn’t move his hand. Young adventures will stumble, he recalled Oh-jin saying.

  “I’m short on coin right now,” Kopius admitted.

  “That you are, lad,” Cici said as he gazed out at the peaks. “That you are.”

  “Okay,” Kopius said flatly, unsure where to go with that. “So what’s the game plan here?”

  “The only game here is to make it to the other side in one piece” The big man started to do some light stretching.

  “Are we going to be running?” Kopius asked, as he started to stretch as well.

  “Some running, some jumping, some crawling; a little bit of everything.”

  “Are we climbing anything?” Kopius asked anxiously, as he wondered what tight, cramped, claustrophobic space he would be forced to squeeze through.

  “Actually, no. Not that.” Cici corrected himself. “Unless things get drastic, that is.”

  “Does ‘drastic’ have a definition,” Kopius inquired, his nerves and stomach starting negotiations. “Or like a range of sorts?”

  “Mostly large boulders trying to crush us,” Cic answered after a brief reflection. “They don’t tumble in a direct path and that does make things a bit tricky.” He gestured up a hill of rocks and pretended to point at a boulder falling and taking random directions. “The good of it though is that they make a terrible racket. So, at least we can hear them coming.”

  “Just boulders then?” Kopius asked with a ‘that’s it’ gesture. He would have sworn Lydian had said something about monsters.

  “Mostly,” Cici admitted. “Some creepy-crawlers here and there. No more dangerous than Escher Pass.”

  “You must be talking about a different Escher Pass.”

  “No, no.” Cici protested. “The very same one!”

  “I meant it was pretty dangerous. I had my ass handed to me several times,” Kopius clarified plainly. “Is that what I should expect here? Is that Proxima thingy ready?”

  “Slow down, lad. Slow down,” Cici spoke like was talking someone away from a ledge. “I have yet to come across any redwhips, or know anyone that has had to fight one for that matter.”

  “That’s because they are probably dead,” Kopius noted mid-lunge. “Do we even know what they look like?”

  “I’ve seen a dead one, long rotted though.” Cici stopped his stretching to find a proper stick on the ground. Happy with his selection, the big man–as best he could–drew a redwhip in the dirt. It had an elongated body with three legs. Scratch that, six legs; three to each side. Cici, for all of his Barding, could use some art lessons. Not that Kopius’s stick figures were one to talk.

  When it was all said and done Cici had drawn a creature that strongly resembled a scorpion. There were some subtle differences, if the drawing were to be believed. The thing had the traditional tail with stinger and a Cici confirmed hard exo-skeleton. Instead of two claws, it had a singular, forward facing pincer that resembled a mace at the end but without the spikes. The feet looked web-shape instead of pointed and it had a long slit where the face should be.

  “Is that the mouth?” Kopius asked, pointing to the slit.

  “No, that’s the eye there,” Cici replied, admiring his work. “They don’t have teeth, exactly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They live off of the optical-quartz, lad.” Cici said it like it was common knowledge. “Can’t feast on stones with sharp teeth.”

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  “Do they pound them to dust or something?”

  “Nah, they melt it down.”

  “Magic?”

  “Acid.”

  “Again?”

  “These guys don’t shit it out like the moonshots,” Cici said with a laugh and waved his hand. “It comes from their mouth. See this here,” he pointed to the mauling shaped forward pincer. “They use that to get at the rock. They pound and pound until they find their prizes, stuff it in their acidic yap, and then start anew.”

  “And that's a stinger, right?”

  “That it is, my friend,” the big guy replied with a hint of respect. “You never see the redwhip strike, they say. One moment it hangs in the air, the next moment; you’re hanging in the air–boiling alive.”

  “Ummm, how big are these things?” Kopiu asked hesitantly.

  Cici gave it some thought and then looked around their setting. After some consideration he answered. “Most will be like that rock there.” He pointed to a boulder about the same size as a red 1979 Honda Civic hatchback; the three-speed, manual model. Kopius had to walk over to be sure they were looking at the same rock.

  “Does this include the height of the tail,” he asked hopefully.

  “No, that’s just their bodies,” Cici explained. “Their tails vary in length.”

  “That’s not reassuring.”

  “The good of it all,” Cici responded, patting Kopius on the shoulder. “They eat rock, optical-quartz specifically. Steer away from those deposits and we should only have the falling rock to worry on.”

  “Are any of those deposits on the way to that Hall place?”

  “Not to my mind, but it’s been a while. Things can change, you know?”

  “Alright,” Kopius announced in an attempt to pump himself up. “Fuck it, let’s do it.”

  “Yes!” Cici shouted, taking it to another level. “Let’s fuck!”

  The beginning of their journey through the Spires of Joatsu was filled with tiny tremors, small falling boulders, and a more in depth breakdown of how to apply the F word. Most of the time the sound of a lone boulder, clacking its way down one pile of rocks or another was all that was heard. Other times it sounded like a South American rainstick being pumped through loudspeakers. Kopius had expected more echoes but they were mostly dull and distant.

  A few hours into their walk, when the terrain took a change, the two stopped for a bite to eat. The way beyond had no discernible path. The entire ground was covered in jagged stone shards ranging in both size and sharpness. Where the path behind them had been lightly littered with stone obstacles, the path forward would be like walking across an uneven sea of sharp, rickety rocks.

  “Rickety rocks,” Kopius said under his breath as he gazed across the spikey terrain.

  “Yes, indeed,” Cici confirmed. “Lots of instability beyond this point.”

  Kopius slightly shook his head. He was unwilling to explain that blurting out random thoughts was a coping mechanism for an ever present anxiety. Not that Kopius was aware that this was the reason, he just knew he tended to do it when his nerves spoke up.

  As he pushed that feeling down he noticed an elevated boulder in the river of sharp rocks. It was a flat, unsharpened stone with an even surface. Shaped roughly in the direction of a small patio or a wide diving board.

  Too bad there aren't more of those, Kopius ranted internally.

  As he scanned the area again another flat elevated rock practically materialized right in front of him. He chuckled and looked some more. After a few passes and focal point adjustments, more began to appear. It was like he was looking at a real life 3d illusion puzzle and he had to adjust his focus to see the whole picture. For the first time in a while, Kopius didn’t flinch when a notification window popped in his field of vision.

  {NX: Traceroute IV}

  After everything came into focus, Kopius could see a path through the area that wouldn’t require them to cautiously navigate the stone barbed floor. The platforms were not evenly spaced out and distances ranged from a few feet to more than ten feet apart. Whether it be a hop, skip or a jump, the path weaved off into the distance until disappearing behind a bend. When Kopius finally turned to face Cici, the big man had returned to stretching as one might before doing some light parkour.

  To reach the closest platform both men had to carefully wade into the sea of rocks and walk through. The trick was to only put partial weight on the next rock, test its wobbliness, and then move to the next one. A few times Kopius had stumbled or fell slightly and had to grab a sharp edge to stop his falling. By the time he reached the flat surface and got atop it, part of his new pants had a rip as well as a cut just below the elbow. Cici came out unscathed.

  “Can you see the way forward?” Cici asked.

  Kopius nodded but the big guy still went through the progression of pointing each one out. From their new angle it was easy to make out each platform, the flat surfaces contrasting against the uneven ground. A tremor rolled through the area making a shelf of shale type stone slide down hill. The sound of rock sliding on rock scratched at Kopius’s brain. It wasn’t metal sliding on cement but it still tried to engrave on him.

  “Does it end after we make that turn way up there?” Kopius asked.

  “A bit after, yes.”

  “After you then?” Kopius asked.

  “It’s worked out well for us so far.”

  The going was slow but not as slow had they chosen to walk. Kopius was of the mind that he might die by a thousand cuts if he had to navigate the sharp rocks on the ground. Instead of being sliced to death over the course of the day, the two men engaged in what can best be described as a variation of the game-the floor is lava. No one platform was the same shape or height. A few required Cici to move to the next one before Kopius could advance. It reminded the latter of trying to stay dry while creek walking.

  Halfway to the bend and the flat surfaces became more spread out. Where they had to mostly skip before, now they had to jump. It wasn’t hard. The distances were short for the most part, standing jumps were sufficient. A few times Kopius had botched the landing but Cici had been there to keep him from falling off the edge. One time Kopius had to rush a jump to pull Cici back from oblivion. The falls would have been short but the way the rocks spiked up guaranteed serious injury at the minimum.

  After turning the corner the two had to start their jumps from a running start. A particularly tricky length of path practically had Kopius doing a triple-jump, lest he lose momentum and get stuck in the muck of razor rocks. From start to finish, it took them almost two hours to make it to the end. When they did get there, Cici stood on the elevated space hands on hips in confusion, disappointment, or both.

  Beyond the ledge the two were standing on was a wide chasm. The distance to the other side was easily twice as far as any jump they had performed that day. The bottom, though deep, might not be deep enough to kill someone. They’d certainly break most of their bones and want to die, so there is that. It was thirty to forty feet to the bottom by Kopius’s best guess. His lack of confidence in the distance made him briefly wonder where his Measure Once skill had limitations.

  “Well now,” Cici said with a bit of wonder. “This is new.”

  “Which part?” Kopius asked as he looked around.

  “This pit here was no more than a crack before,” Cici pointed at the wide crevasse that blocked their way forward. It was about twenty feet to the other side and at a downward angle from where they stood now.

  “You don’t think we jump this?” Kopius asked, unsure if they could.

  He looked up both steep inclines on both sides but imagined hiking up those unstable hills was just as unsafe as falling in this pit. As if the Universe wanted to ‘show instead of tell,’ a tremor dislodged a few sharp stones and they shattered like glass when they hit the bottom of the pit.

  From their elevated position, the jump looked doable but the implications of miscalculating made his butthole pucker. He didn’t have a fear of heights per se, but the longer he looked down at the abyss the more vertigo he experienced.

  “Maybe,” was all Cici managed to say as the big man went through his own internal calculations. The more the two looked around the more obvious the decision became.

  “Are we heading back?” Kopius eventually asked.

  Cici nodded in disappointment.