Threadbare

They looked at each other in the shattered remnants of the Emperor's terracotta heaven.

“You. Elf. Was dere a point you was going to mention dis to us?” Zuula asked Midian.

“I just did,” Midian said. “You all have waystones. They will not work in the tower. They will work from here. If you want to leave, you can, if you go now. However, I cannot promise I will succeed if I go alone.”

“I am going,” Threadbare said, after thinking it over. “But I might have a way to come back. I'm not certain.”

“I'm going,” said LivingDeadGrrl. “I feel like I let Rich down, let the kid face shit alone by dying too early last time. I need to go fix it if I can, this time around.”

“My path is predestined, my course chosen long ago,” said Aunarox. “This is my best chance at returning home.”

“Well, it's to go and save everything, now isn't it?” Karen Mousewife rubbed her paws together. “Bless me, I don't see how I can't NOT go.”

“I have a question,” Chase said, staring up at Midian, eyes full of regret. “If we do this, then Thomasi gets to go back home?”

“I think so,” Midian said. “The divinations get strange. We're dealing with multiple worlds here. But I think he will. I think everyone will, who wishes to go back.”

“Then I'm going.” Chase said and reached for Renny.

“I'm going too, then,” Renny said.

Chase turned her head to stare at the fox draped across her shoulders. “There's no reason you should have to doom yourself forever, not because of me. You have immortality. Don't waste it!”

“Immortality is useless without friends,” Renny said, and his tail thumped against her back. “And besides, it might not be doom. There might be a way back. It's just nobody found it yet. Or maybe Midian can teach us all to be Chronomancers, and we'll do time shenanigans.”

“I can't say there isn't another way back,” Midian said. “I was only there for a short time before I died and reverted back to my former self. But the Tower... I can't explain it.”

“It'll be an adventure, either way,” Chase sighed and scratched Renny behind the ears. He leaned into it, tail thumping her back with an irregular rhythm. “Poor Greta. Emperor, if I leave a note with you, will you get it to her?”

“Leave it with me,” Madeline said. “I'm staying.”

Threadbare nodded. “I thought you would. You are married.”

“Oh yah. Thah's no way I'm leaving Garon alone. Sahrry, but that's how it is. Any othah reason I'd be theah with you all. But... I pramised to shah a life with him. I gatta keep that pramise.”

“Zuula respect dat.” The little green doll sighed and paced back and forth, shaking her head. Then she stopped. “Shamans be dealing wit' de world. Not weird stuff between worlds. Dat part of her say no, stay here, do what you need to, kick all de asses here.”

“And the other part?” Threadbare asked.

“De odder part of her, say dis a problem only be fixed by going between worlds, 'cause fucking dragons done messed it up dere. Besides, maybe she get to kick some god ass. Gods need asses kicked more. Den maybe dey stop being fuckups. And...” Zuula stared forlornly at Madeline. “Zuula ain't married no more. Got notin' to lose. No one left behind who won't get over it.”

“That's not true,” Threadbare protested. “You have your family. You have your children. You have everyone you helped and the friends we're leaving here.”

“And if Zuula weren't a toy, den dey might be mourning her already. No, dis is well. If she die here, good death. Maybe see Mordecai again, hey?”

There was no arguing with that. The Emperor quietly went and fetched calligraphy supplies, and they took some time and wrote letters to those they were leaving behind. Then they gave them, one by one, to Madeline.

Threadbare was the last one done. He had a shenanigan to try, so he wasn't sure if he needed letters. But shenanigans were fickle things, so he erred on the side of caution. He might hurt someone if he didn't succeed, after all.

Midway through, he looked up to find Madeline standing over him, staring down at him, pensively.

He left the letter where it was and hugged her. She nuzzled his ears with the side of her cheek, bending down to do so.

“I'm sahrry,” she told him. “I can't leave Garon alone. That's all theah is to it.”

“I know.”

“I'm going to try to find a way to get them back,” he told her. “If there is one.”

“Ah... I remembah when I found you. You remembah that? Spooked ya little gahl off that naht, then came by the campfaiah and we talked? Well, I talked, you listened. That whole 'no mouth' thing.”

“It was a very strange time. But that was a good part of it. And we had troubles after that, but we sorted them out, I think,” Threadbare said.

“We did,” she said. Then she drew her neck up. He let her go, and she stepped back. “All right. Gaht a few othah goodbyes to say. Good luck.”

“Good luck,” he told her.

Finally, it was all done, and Madeline had filled her merchant's pack with letters. The Emperor stood watching, as they sorted themselves and gathered around the rift, the eight who remained.

“One too many to combine parties,” Chase said. “That's a pity.”

“Two too many, actually,” Threadbare said. “I'm keeping a golem in the group.”

“Why?”

“It's part of a shenanigan. Are we ready?”

“Give Zuula a second,” said the Shaman, as she stretched out her arms. “Beast Shape 10! Dragon Form!”

She clattered and grew, taking on a form that was almost a mirror image of Madeline.

“New skill?” Madeline asked, looking her over.

“Level forty Shaman trick,” Zuula grinned, with her new maw full of chompy teeth. “Anyone who don't got flying, get on.”

“Okay. One last thing before we go,” LivingDeadGrrl said, “If you're too close to the thing in the rift, it hurts your sanity to see it, so I'm gonna call up some ice and snow when we get that close, to block that effect off.”

“We still don't have a way of dealing with it, do we?” Chase asked.

“Maybe,” Threadbare said.

“All right. If worse comes to worse, I can try drawing cards. From what I've gathered they're a fundamental force across worlds, so maybe they'll work.”

With hopes but no firm plans, they arranged themselves and leaped into the void.

Threadbare and the Mousewife took spots on Zuula's back. Aunarox conjured a flying cloud for Chase and Renny. And Midian and LivingDeadGrrl flew under their own power.

It was cold there, in the space between worlds. Threadbare wondered how his breathing friends would fare, but a careful study of their faces showed that they seemed to be drawing in air just fine. The stars were all about them, and as they left the rift behind, it faded into the velvety darkness and disappeared. Either they'd moved out of sight of it or the Emperor had closed it, as he said he would.

Regardless, they would not be coming back through it.

There were things in the void, and Threadbare's darkvision revealed all of them that were within range of his sight. Drifting statues, stony rocks, things which looked like they had once had shape but had been melted and twisted into odd angles. Bubbling masses of liquid that roiled even in the cold of this unending space.

And the thing ahead of them.

A mass something like a cross between an endless tree and a squid, with something like a trunk but far too many drifting, tentacle-like protrusions. There was a light beyond it, reddish and liminal and outlining the mass, making it resemble a bug trapped against the surface of a narrowed red eye.

But as they got closer and the stars crept past them at speeds incalculable, the mass grew and grew. It was no bug. And Threadbare could see very well why LivingDeadGrrl had told them there was no fighting it.

In what seemed like an eternity of travel but simultaneously far too little time to prepare, LivingDeadGrrl called back. “We're at the edge of it! Gonna call the storm now! Howling Storm!”

The void filled with shrieking winds though Threadbare could see that the effect had clear edges to it. Perhaps a few miles and Zuula flapped her wings harder, to keep the storm between herself and the sightlines to the creature.

And then it spoke.

“Back so soon? And with more friends. How amusing.”

“Please let us through,” said Midian. “We have no quarrel with you. We're trying to fix things to free you from this trap.”

“Fix... heh. This is why you're amusing. To think that anything you can comprehend, anything you touch, can be fixed. Everything ends; everything is in a constant state of ending. That which you call entropy eats that which you call a universe, one atom at a time, unending, and there is nothing you can do to “fix” that.”

“If that's so,” Midian said, “then what harm is there to letting us past you? We'll go we'll strive futilely, and you'll gain more amusement from our failure.”

“Now why should I move for you? You are dust, arranged into interesting shapes. Do you move for dust?”

“If dust asked me to move aside and said please, I rather think I would,” said Threadbare. “Could you please let us through?”

The thing chuckled and shook the void. It filled their minds, and shuddered them to the core. “I will not move. I am pushing into your world's... tower, now. Yes, that is how you see it. I am growing into the space that is there, and once I have done that, I will be your tower. Just as I have become the tower of many worlds before you and will replace the reality of many worlds after this. I am the herald of that at the center of all, who will one day return the things that have strayed from him to oblivion. I will not move. But you may come through. I shall embrace you as you pass and absorb all that you are. And in doing so, you will join me in the dance of oblivion and carry me into the realm of your gods.”

“Zuula be saying no to dat,” said the Shaman. “Gonna need you to move.”

“Well, I am Nial'https, the Crawling CASE, and I shall not. You move.”

“Old one!” Chase shouted. “If you leave us no choice, we WILL oppose you.”

“Mmm. You should ask your friend—”

LivingDeadGrrl stopped.

She shuddered, ahead of them, and turned to look at them. And her face was a roiling mass of shadows. Lips formed on the inky surface, white lips, like chalk lines on a board. “—just how well that goes.”

LivingDeadGrrl has left your party!

And with a wave of her hand, she dropped the storm, and the old one was so very close, and more real than anything around it.

You have gazed upon the Crawling CASE!

You have taken 11 points of sanity damage!

Screams rose from around the group, and Threadbare turned to see blue numbers rising from their heads and disappearing into the void. Big ones, too. He'd taken less, for whatever reason, perhaps his defenses were stronger on that front, but this situation wasn't tenable.

Fortunately, Chase saw that, too. “Renny! Illusory wall!”

Renny did his thing, and a solid brick wall sprung up between them...

...but the shuddering thing that had been LivingDeadGrrl drifted over to them, passing through the wall, and raising her spear. It spoke in the thing's voice, not as overwhelming, but still wrong in a fundamental way.

“I do not think you understand what you are dealing with. I am fleeting sentience that exists to accelerate entropy. I am the madness that is the truth of everything which experiments with thought, as it realizes the futility of what it calls existence. I am consuming one of your gods; I will consume the rest shortly. I will devour the framework that exists to make your gods possible, and I will rewrite the fundamental rules of your world to bring it to my master. To quote a particularly foolish creature of your sort, I am inevitable.”

“And I am a Hand of Fate,” said Chase. “Draw.”

And overlaying the entirety of the void, an image bigger than most planets flashed into existence. It showed a group of adventurers touching a waystone, and just the sight of it filled Threadbare with relief.

Chase's “The Bind Point” prevents any pool from reaching zero!

The image started pulsing, fading in and out, slowly getting faster with each tick. It was clear it couldn't last.

The thing that had been LivingDeadGrrl slowed and halted. “Well. You've bought some time. No point in killing you until that's done.”

“Then let's discuss something else,” Threadbare said. “You said you were a herald?”

“I am.”

“Where is your employer?”

“Not here. Once this place becomes me, it shall be within his reach once more.”

“So, you'd have to go and get him if we wanted to see him.”

“I would have to bring you to him. He cannot spread without my aid.”

Threadbare turned to Renny. “Could you drop the wall, please?”

“Sir? Are you sure about this?”

“I think so. Karen? He has a manager.”

“Oh? Oh! Oh, very well then!” Karen Mousewife said, tail wagging as she stood up on Zuula's back.

And as the wall dropped, and the hideous form of the creature was revealed once more, she happily squeaked, “I want to speak with your manager!”

The thing paused.

“WHAT?”

The others buried their faces and looked away from it. And the Mousewife quivered. “Sorry sir, he resisted it.”

“It's all right, please try again,” Threadbare told her.

“I want to speak to your manager.”

Then she straightened up, and cheered, and in the party status screen Threadbare saw her job change.

It went from Karen 17, to Karen 25.

“You have GOT to be fucking kidding me.” said the Crawling Case. “Well I guess we're off to go see ASA-Thoth, then. Come on, off we go. Unbelievable.”

Threadbare watched, though it gnawed at his sanity, as the thing withdrew protrusions and protuberances, as tentacles withdrew from the red light, and the aperture slowly started to close, whatever wound it was carving into space slowly mending.

“Good luck keeping your mind together, though, little thing. And once that's gone, I'll be right back to take care of your friends.”

“Sir... this could be a problem,” the Mousewife told him. “The Karen job don't give me much sanity.”

And indeed, he could see she was running low, even though she'd just leveled up.

So he handed her the Mana-Mana battery, and an assortment of pens. “Just keep drawing. You won't have to do this long.”

She set to sketching with a will, even as LivingDeadGrrl floated over and picked her up, then drifted off into the void, following the slowly disappearing bulk of the elder god.

“Hold on,” Chase said, watching her go. “We're just letting her go to her death or worse?”

“No. Just wait,” Threadbare said. “But we need to get to the end of things before I can save her. Midian?”

“I'm just waiting for it to withdraw far enough...” said the Chronomancer, shielding her eyes and marking the progress. Then she nodded. “Okay. We're clear. Follow me, fast!”

They hurtled through the void, towards the sealing red wound, and through.

The void vanished, giving way to a new land.

The air was hot here.

The ground was sand, barren and red.

A massive black dragon whose scales were dotted with white stars, comets, and other celestial things lay crumpled in the waste.

And from the sand rose a tower, stony and covered in runes.

No sooner had they dipped through when Zuula dropped, swearing a stream of curses, barely managing to get them to the ground just in front of the tower. Behind them, Threadbare heard the others land, some gently, others with cries of pain.

And then he realized his party status view was fading from his eyes.

“Ow ow ow fuckity ow!” Zuula yelled, feet smoking as she galloped across the desert, not stopping until she reached the flagstones of the tower. “De sand burns.”

“It's not sand,” Midian whispered, as she touched down next to them.

The others made their way onto the fringe of stones just before one of the massive archways into the structure, and once they were accounted for, Threadbare looked up to Midian. “Do you think the old one is far enough away by now?”

Midian pursed her lips and looked back the way they'd come. “Calculations say... give it a few minutes. There's no visual sign, but at the rate the entryway was closing, he'll be out of range to return in about four hundred seconds. Assuming equal chronological flow.”

“Is time flowing properly?”

“I think so. Let me...” She closed her eyes. “Yes. Yes, at the heart of it, I am still my creator's child.”

“Good, please tell me when the time is up.”

The light beat down from above, but there was no sun in the sky.

In the distance, the impossibly large dragon lay as still as death, sunken into the sands up to its neck, with spine and wings and two legs jutting out.

And eventually, Midian nodded. “Time is up.”

“Good. Call Golem. Mousewife, come here—” He stopped. “Call Golem?”

“Uh-oh,” Chase said. “Foresight?”

Nothing happened.

The group went silent.

“It'll work once get inside the dungeon,” Midian said, pointing into the archway and a darker patch of shadow, that seemed to open into a space under the tower. “Come on, there's nothing for us out here.”

“Of course, there's a dungeon,” Chase muttered, following after them as the group headed down the slope, and the world flickered around them.

They found themselves in a village in a swamp, with thatched mud huts in a loose circle. The dwellings were halven size and appeared quite empty.

In any case, there was no obvious threat. So Threadbare tried again.

“Call Golem.”

And with a pop, the large doll materialized, scribbling furiously on the Mana Mana battery.

“Karen?” Threadbare asked.

She paused, glanced up, then did a double take and dropped the battery, throwing her arms around him. “Oh sir! That was scary!”

“I'm sorry you went through that. I'm sorry I asked you to go through that,” he told her.

“Hey,” Zuula said, poking her wooden snout over Karen Mousewife's shoulder. “Any ting you can do for LivingDeadGrrl?”

“No. I'm sorry. I don't know what will happen with her,” he told Zuula. “She dropped out of the party as if she died, so maybe she did. That might be the best outcome. We know she might be able to come back, and this will keep her from being a part of the old one forever if she does. I think.”

“Let's hope you right,” Zuula said. “She deserved better den...” Zuula trailed off and looked up.

Threadbare looked up as well, then back, turning as a great, green head parted the mists, and a dragon looked down upon them.

“Hello Agnezsharron,” said Midian. “Are you ready to end all of this?”