Chapter 38 - Mysticae, That Nature Knoweth Not - The Unforgettables: A ZeroYear litRPG

  Laetilia finished activating all the probes while snapping the last photos of the monolith atop Cernutos, grumbling mentally about the communication latency with everyone down below. A gust of cold wind messed up her long black hair, throwing it against the probes and ruining the last shot. She tried to control the blowing strands with one hand, exasperated: “Why so much wind up here?”

  As if nature responded to her plea, the wind ceased suddenly. She smiled, confident in her luck, and took one last photo; however, this time she had to turn on the illumination to compensate for the lack of light.

  “It got dark… Hey! Wait a minute, wasn’t Petra going to leave that torch lit?” Laetilia said to herself, as the flash of light seemed to partially pass through the monolith. Tension rose when she realized all communications with her friends went unanswered, including the mental ones. Absolute silence took over the place as the knight took slow steps to the edge of the tower to see what was happening.

  Looking down, she discovered she was completely alone; not a sign of the ship or the aircar. The landscape, still full of snow, wasn’t even the same as moments before. Stunned, Laetilia wondered what could be happening and what she should do now.

  “Is this some kind of spatial distortion?” the knight thought, beginning to meditate deeply, trying to remember her training: “Beni didn’t tell me much about the Tempus route; did I forget something…”

  Laetilia was suddenly pulled from her meditation, startled, certain that someone was watching her from her side, feeling the harsh noise and warmth of breath on her neck.

  “Who’s there?” Laetilia spun in a martial pivot, unsheathing Kalis and darkening the entire region even further, but there was no one; the muffled sound of the energy emanating from her sword dominated the place for long moments.

  Laetilia realized that the monolith sealing the tower’s top had gone, and that a cave with matte, dark walls had revealed itself, descending in a gentle ramp into the tower. The spiral’s first counter-clockwise turn was barely visible, its leftward bend veiling the ancestral secrets held within.

  Laetilia turned on her visual sensors and walked toward the entrance, Kalis in hand. Arriving at the gap where moments ago a monolith stood, she spoke to her sword, trying to replace fear with curiosity: “Yes, it's decided, we’re going in! But you could rather work like Petra’s stuff and light our way down,” the knight grumbled.

  As soon as she entered the tower, she felt the temperature rise considerably. The walls offered low specular reflection, and the surfaces were as abrasive as weathered bone. She descended with some caution because the cave was almost circular, with no paved path or flat floor. Her path was a study in caution; she measured each step along the cave’s keeled floor, her blade leading the way as a cold vanguard into the gloom.

  The way down didn’t seem long; little more than two spiral turns were enough to lead the knight to a constant white light illuminating the matte wall on her right. Laetilia hesitated upon realizing there was no way to advance further without being seen; she stood for a while trying to hear something, but there was nothing.

  Laetilia slowly poked her head close to the right wall of the cave, trying to catch a glimpse of the light source. To some relief, she found no one, just an organically shaped expansion of the cave. In front of her, she saw a teardrop-shaped room, but this time the floor had what seemed to be soft soil. In the middle of this room was an elevated mound of earth with a robust-rooted tree breaking through the ground, resembling a walnut tree, and from each nut came the white light she had noticed a couple of steps ago.

  “Hmmm, is this tree alive?” she commented in a low voice to herself. “But what is this?”

  Laetilia realized the tree bore dozens of nuts in various stages of ripening simultaneously; however, some of them seemed frozen in time, floating in the air as if they were falling. She also noticed some of the nuts already fallen on the ground, but these no longer emitted any light.

  Before getting closer to the walnut tree, Laetilia scouted the room’s walls and discovered there was no other passage leading out of there, except the one she entered through, nor footprints other than her own, nor any sign that anyone had ever passed through there.

  After a few minutes investigating the tree with her probes from a safe distance, Laetilia realized that, actually, the nuts were indeed falling, but at a very slow speed. She made a questioning face, picked up a random clod of dirt from the ground, and tossed the pebble near the tree. It hit a nut and fell normally, as every stone should.

  “Well, it doesn’t seem to be gravity,” Laetilia whispered, slowly approaching the tree, holding back Kalis with her left hand. Laetilia slowly stretched her right hand toward one of the nuts suspended in the air.

  As soon as the knight touched the nut, she felt her hand numb and trembling, realizing only now that the old Suma fingers had been meagerly connected to the rest of her body, keeping sensitivity to a minimum to give the sensation that everything was in good condition. Laetilia lamented mentally: “Kaskas, I’m gonna…”

  There was no time to finish the sentence. Laetilia was enveloped by a flash of extreme light that made her shut her eyes. When her vision returned, she realized she was sitting on the floor and leaning against one of the room’s walls, her back aching. But to her surprise, she noticed a copy of herself, frozen in time, with her arm outstretched, trying to grab one of the nuts.

  Laetilia stood up. She was exactly as before, but she couldn’t find Kalis anywhere, except in her frozen copy in front of her. Fear consumed her when she realized a black shadow was slowly approaching through the only corridor leading to this room.

  Laetilia huddled in a corner, preparing to use her technique. She waited through a few minutes of silent tension, pondering if it wouldn’t be a good idea to try rescuing Kalis from her glowing copy. But before she could decide, another copy of herself entered the room, replicating almost perfectly what she had done before touching the nut.

  Laetilia immediately realized that her new copy didn’t see any of them; only the slightly different position of the slowly falling nuts seemed different to the new copy that had just entered, causing the shadows in the room to change. Laetilia advanced and passed right through her copy as if she were a ghost; nothing seemed to interfere with the almost algorithmic actions being replicated, but Laetilia could perceive what both her new copies were thinking. She hesitated and simply watched her copy bend down to pick up a small stone from the floor and throw it at the walnut tree. She tried to deflect the stone, but in doing so, she ended up creating two stones: one following the normal trajectory as if she didn’t exist, and another identical one that she clung to with a frantic intensity, which her new copy didn’t perceive at all.

  “No! No, you idiot! Don’t touch that nut!” she shouted, but without success, and watched the image of her past touch another nut, slightly to the side of the one she had touched, now creating two glowing copies of herself, one next to the other, after a flash of light took over the room once again.

  “OK, something changed after all!” Laetilia resigned herself, realizing that now, after the flash, there were two copies of herself holding two Kalises and trapped in time near the walnut tree. But she also noticed a third copy of herself leaning against one of the walls, getting up, without Kalis, and repeating everything she had just done. Then she realized there was another copy of her, the fourth besides the original, entering the room again, and the copy from the wall panicking and repeating the whole cycle until calling herself an idiot. Unfortunately, as she imagined, she, the original, couldn’t interact with any of the other copies of herself, so she waited.

  When her newest copy entered the room, Laetilia realized her mind was beginning to fry; her identity modules started to overload even for an experienced Oioi, because she now realized that all the copies in front of her only appeared not to communicate with each other. She, the original, could perceive all the others as active copies, accumulating a tangle of lines of thought. Without time to shut down the connections, Laetilia used all her strength at the limit of her consciousness, unleashing her knight technique against her copies that were touching the walnut tree.

  The idea was brilliant, but to Laetilia’s despair, her strike passed through her copies as if they were merely images of a consummated past. Once again, the new copy followed its fateful path and touched a third nut, increasing the number of Laetilias in a new flash of light. The knight’s mind dissolved, laughing at herself in catharsis, as her last chains of rationality flerting with the idea that her copies were growing like a Fibonacci series, questioning if she hadn’t been unconscious during one of the early cycles, or if it was something even more bizarre. But as soon as the next “wave” with three more new copies entered the room, she could no longer maintain her sanity to reason.

  “Laetilia!” Frank shouted at the top of his lungs in despair. He paced back and forth atop the tower, circling the entrance, thinking that perhaps if he returned to the ground far below, the door wouldn’t open again. Perplexed, he lowered his head and noticed a long strand of black hair on the ground, standing out against the snow.

  Frank perked up and immediately picked up the strand, holding it close to his face, almost smelling Laetilia’s scent. He clenched his fists and concluded to himself: “She passed through here. Ah, screw it, I’m going in!”

  Frank descended the tunnel clumsily, realizing too late that there was no flat surface in the monolithic tunnel. He stumbled in his hurried descent through the darkness, quickly reaching the white light at the end. Without time for anything but cursing himself, he got up and saw Laetilia enveloped in white light, paralyzed beside a tree.

  “Laetilia! Can’t you hear me?” he shouted as he abruptly entered the room, intending to physically pull his friendout of there. He extended his hand toward Laetilia’s left arm, that is holdingKalis, but was suddenly stopped by something gripping him firmly by the shoulders.

  Frank started and spun around immediately, coming face-to-face with a figure vaguely resembling a person clad in full armor made of completely black, matte metal. Terror seized his being immediately; he recoiled as soon as his gaze crossed with this figure, whose face was covered by an open helmet adorned with immense antlers similar to a stag’s, reminding Frank of some of his worst nightmares during Earth’s long winter nights. The mysterious knight’s face could be seen inside his helmet, but that made the situation even worse: it was as if thousands of caleidoscopic faces of the same person looked back at Frank, all of the same person but with different expressions simultaneously. It appeared to be a middle-aged human, somewhat resembling Frank but with a voluminous beard; most of his expressions were worry, and most seemed to try to shake their head 'no' upon looking at Frank.

  Frank drew his Flexoclava in panic, his voice still attempting some clumsy intimidation: “Who are you? What did you do to Laetilia?”

  The figure opened its mouth without producing any sound; the thousands of expressions also failed to reach a consensus. The figure pointed to an emblem resembling a crescent moon painted on an armor plate on its chest, and positioned itself between Frank and Laetilia.

  “I have no idea what you are, but one thing is certain: Laetilia is coming back with me now!” Frank said, brandishing his Flexoclava while thinking of a strategy to get out of there quickly.

  The figure stepped back to assume a bizarre combat stance. With some difficulty, the armored knight drew from its cloak a completely rusted metal sword, larger than itself if not for the antlers. Its face was completely confused and seemed to scream several things in silence, making it even more threatening. The place became alternately dark, in a struggle between the knight’s shadows and the light from the walnut tree. Despite the apparent confusion on its faces, the knight kept his position, preventing Frank from advancing.

  “OK, are you by chance one of the visitors who was after Adarian and got stuck in here?” Frank asked, with neither certainty nor answers in his monologue. “Look, I can’t waste any more time with you; I just want to take her back. Do you understand me?”

  The knight held its immense sword by the scabbard with one hand and by the base of the blade with the other, but didn’t move or respond.

  Frank, a bit hesitant, tried to control his strength and simply shove his opponent aside with his Flexoclava. But to his surprise, his opponent blocked his strike with great ease. He then took the opportunity to try a more direct approach: he activated the Flexoclava and locked the enormous weapons, intending to lift and trample through his opponent.

  Unlike the expected result, the enemy deflected Frank’s force with its own bare strength and struck Frank with the hilt of its sword, releasing its hand from the blade at the end of the strike’s arc, pushing Frank to the ground with uncanny force and disarming him.

  Frank realized his opponent was much stronger than it seemed, but something didn’t make sense with his assumptions. If it were an Alpha, it wouldn’t have responded with just a shove. But before any answer, his opponent advanced, a multiplicity of aggressive flicking faces, visibly furious, raising its weapon threateningly.

  “Wrong answer!” Frank concluded, deciding to charge at his opponent with everything he had. He ignored his Flexoclava and rushed against the knight’s raised arms with all his strength, forcing his opponent to drop its weapon back to hold Frank’s arms in response.

  Both opponents grappled unarmed, one trying to immobilize the other purely with physical strength. But what Frank thought would be a victory proved incredibly complicated. The monolithic floor began to make cracking noises under the titanic forces at play while the horned knight held Frank’s arms like a puppet, forcing him back up the tunnel through which he had entered.

  Disbelieving his opponent’s strength, Frank tried to resist but realized it would be impossible. He thought about changing strategy and using his willpower to escape as soon as he had an opportunity. They began moving up the tunnel when something happened at the tree. Both heard a small explosion coming from where Laetilia was, followed by a bluish glow. Frank took advantage of this distraction to brace his feet against the tunnel ceiling, gaining leverage, and sliding under his opponent’s legs, finally breaking free and running toward Laetilia.

  Meanwhile, a spark of electricity exploded on Laetilia’s wrist. After some time, the fingers of the improvised right hand showed that, fortunately for the knight, cats usually aren’t good engineers, nor doctors. Her hand disconnected from the rest of her body for a few moments before the residual regeneration power took effect, enough to break the cycle. Laetilia collapsed to her knees on the floor, projecting herself away from the tree, completely dizzy and still trying to understand what just happened. She reflexively took off her glove and stared at the skeletal fingers of her marginally functional Suma hand; a smile of relief took over her soul.

  Without any time to recover, Laetilia heard someone coming toward her through the tunnel. She despaired, thinking, “No, no no, no no. Here comes another copy.” As soon as she realized it was actually Frank rolling into the room in a somersault, she broke into a smile, but still with great difficulty doing anything. She could barely stay upright and fell again, leaning against one of the walls.

  “OK, let’s get out of here, but we’ve got company, and it’s a strong one! You OK?” Frank asked, running to Laetilia’s side to serve as support.

  Laetilia just hugged her friend, shedding tears of happiness, without understanding much of what he was saying.

  Frank wasted no time. He held Laetilia with one arm while retrieving his Flexoclava with the other at super-speed. He retreated sideways to look through the passage: “He’s coming… He’s coming!”

  Laetilia tried to see anything in the passage, but there was nothing. She asked, puzzled: “Where, Frank?”

  Frank no longer saw his opponent anywhere. He said: “It’s not possible; he was right here, a guy in full armor with antlers on his helmet… The sword! A huge, completely rusted sword is right there at the foot of the tree,” Frank pointed, but to his surprise, there was nothing.

  “Are you sure it wasn’t a copy of you? Although…” Laetilia asked, intoxicated by her experience.

  “Me?" After a brief silence, Frank ventures: "There were some similarities, and he was really strong; maybe some future version of me?”

  “Well, I am not sure if there are such things as future versions. For that to happen, we’d have to have died, and something revived us in the future; anyway, it wouldn’t be the real you,” Laetilia conjectured, already recovering while checking if everything was okay with her sword.

  “A version of me from another universe? Or from a past multiverse, maybe?” Frank commented, now relieved and able to observe the place better.

  “Maybe, but keep your distance from that tree; it has some kind of dangerous temporal distortion. I just experienced a forced coexistence with a crowd of myself, and I’m not really sure what actually happened to me,” Laetilia recalled, now observing her hands more closely.

  “OK, shall we get out of here?” Frank hurried.

  “Yes, I guess...” Laetilia said, looking at both hands while heading toward the tunnel, bothered.

  “That skeleton hand looks pretty badass,” Frank said with a smile, positioning himself beside Laetilia.

  “Not that one!” Laetilia said, focusing on her left hand. “Wait a minute, I don’t remember this thing here.”

  “This what?” Frank asked, half-hurried, half-curious.

  “There’s a seed inside my hand, look!” Laetilia showed him, illuminating her hand with her eyes.

  “Well, we can remove that when we rejoin Silas. Besides, we need to figure out how to get back; the place has completely changed,” Frank remembered.

  “I think…” Laetilia replied while continuing to walk out. “I think I grabbed the nut with the other hand, not this one, and then… No, it can’t be!”

  “So, you arrived and went straight to grab one of those floating nuts? Was that it?” Frank said with some surprise.

  “No, first I investigated the place, threw a pebble to see if gravity was the problem…” she recalled.

  “Pebble? I only see a bunch of fallen nuts,” Frank concluded as he began to climb back up.

  “Geez. Well, but it seems OK,” Laetilia smiled, putting her gloves back on.

  “And what does it do?” Frank asked, worried.

  “I don’t know; it seems like nothing,” the knight concluded. Frank just looked sideways in disbelief.

  “Does anyone know what’s going on in this place, by any chance?” Frank revolted.

  “Before the cataclysm, maybe. Today, nop! We’re relearning, the hard way.” Laetilia said, using Frank for support.

  “Well, seems like a good idea to be alive to learn anything.” Frank held his master by the arms to finally exit the cave, returning to the top of the tower.

  As soon as both exited, the monolith reappeared, blocking the entrance again, as if someone were just waiting for them to leave to close the door. Communication channels with the rest of the group returned in turmoil. They realized only a few seconds had passed. Liora immediately joined them at the top of the tower.

  “So, what’s going on here, Frank?” Liora responded mentally as Silas flew in, still with a coil of wire on his arm. He said, “Probes give a lot of trouble up here on the tower. Everyone okay?”

  “Yeah, more or less. The tower was open, and we ended up going in,” Laetilia said.

  “Went in? What do you mean? It’s already closed?” Liora was impressed.

  “Time didn’t pass out here!” Frank concluded.

  “We shouldn’t have separated at first place, we loosened our guard,” Silas said, landing beside both with a medical scanner while Petra joined everyone in silence.

  “When time stopped, it was like we were in another place; there were no ship parts, nor any trace of you guys. We didn’t even know if we’d manage to get back; it’s a relief to see your faces again!” Frank said, smiling at Petra.

  “I knew this place was trouble as soon as I set foot here,” Petra grumbled.

  “Laetilia is 100%, same as before,” Silas concluded, while now scanning Frank.

  “Are you sure that probe is OK, Silas? Don’t want to measure down there again? She has a nut embedded in the middle of her hand!” Frank replied.

  While Laetilia took off her glove, Petra concluded: “Great idea! How about I open a portal, and we finally go back to our ship?” she said, pointing both index fingers downward.

  “Well, whatever it was, the seed vanished, it seems…” Laetilia said, looking at her hands and still finding something strange, but taking flight and descending.

  Petra almost pushed everyone away; they finished packing everything in moments and departed via portal. Memel was inside the aircar, grooming himself and noticing nothing of what had happened. Liora asked if everything was really OK.

  Frank ventured an answer while Laetilia was meditative: “It was all pretty weird. There was a tree in there; Laetilia said she found a bunch of copies of herself, and I found a guy as strong as me, maybe a version of me from another universe.”

  Petra shouted from another room: "Two Franks?"

  “Well, I’m going to need a night to settle my thoughts,” Laetilia said upon returning to the ship, petting Kaskas as soon as she met her.

  “Tomorrow we talk over coffee,” Petra got excited. “Today, finally, I’m going to sleep like a rock!”

  “It’s good to be back. But we spent much more time out than planned,” Liora said while helping Silas organize the material from Adarian’s ship.

  “Yes, we wasted a lot of time with the security on this thing,” Silas grumbled, looking at the warp communicator in Liora’s hands. “And I don’t even know if it was worth it. In any case, I ended up running parallel projects; I think in weeks we’ll have news.”

  “My training techniques also advanced quite a bit. It′s just me, or are you feeling a funny estrangement?” Liora mused, looking at the bridge as if seeking a place to stay.

  “I was noticing that; it’s like we were each in a different place. Even though we were together almost all the time, every day we spent in that place, I became more focused on my own projects. It’s almost a relief now that we are out,” Silas smiled.

  Liora nodded in agreement and noticed the humans had already gone to sleep, but they remained in their old quarters on the ship, not in the dojo. She stopped in front of the pilot’s chair, pensive.

  “I’ll also stay here on the bridge, if you don’t mind, Liora.” Silas sat on the probes and reflexively connected some terminals.

  “Of course not, I already missed our all-night conversations!”, she replied with a smile, lifting her head and resting her eyes.

  And the ship continued breaking the silence of the night, at full speed toward the unknown.