"Too cute for words.""What"s cute? One of them"s a spider."
"Temporarily, silly. Don"t you think seeing the three brothers snuggled up in sleep like this is adorable?"
"Creepy. I wouldn"t hug your arm in my sleep."
"Liar. You held my hand when we slept."
"Did not."
"Did to."
"Um, you know I"m awake. I can hear you." I groaned to the sounds of Lita and Wilfred"s voices.
My eyes fluttered open to the sight of a lantern room.
How?
"Think it was perchance of your dumb luck that got us out of a pinch." Wilfred"s voice interrupted the quiet of my left ear.
"Really?" I sat up and saw the twins next to me.
Their wounds were either healed or covered with a salving wet patch.
I glanced around and noticed Forneas working on Brystagg"s back.
Lyra sat against the wall. She was lost to her own thoughts.
Buru was asleep. His arm was connected to a saline drip. He had salving patches over most of his wounds.
Colin was sitting next to Wilfred with a weird smile on his face.
"Yah awake Famisto." War yawned. He released his hold on my arm to sit up.
He grumbled when I had almost knocked him back down with a bear hug.
"Too cute," Lita whispered behind the back of her hand.
"Shuddup." War and I said in unison, which made matters worse.
She squealed with girly delight.
I released War with a sigh.
"She"s a bizarre one this girl." Death"s voice chased away the remaining grogginess from my mind.
"Me don"t like females, but me like this Freend." Small Cap"s friendly voice was soothing.
I saw his spider body perched on my shoulder.
"I"m relieved to see you both well." I gently patted the tiny cap-tuft.
"How"d we get here?" I asked as I tried to form an answer myself.
I remembered seeing the walls and floors rea.s.sembling around us then my memory went blank.
Wilfred filled in the blanks.
Basically, I had pa.s.sed out from blood loss due to the slash wound on my arm. The rebuilding black and red mortar was pushing the floor area we sat on upwards. Until we were almost in reach of a pivot landing.
Saku had used his force magic to push us onto the landing before the tunnel entrance could move us away.
War had carried me and Lita (who had also been unconscious) to the landing"s entrance corridor.
Saku and Ryoko were able to a.s.sist the others off the platform in the nick of time.
The landing was soon destroyed by a mighty crash of tunnel debris. It had broken it to pieces.
We were in for more luck. The landing corridor was for the medical units in the South Wing.
"Where"s Saku and Ryoko?" I asked and was answered with a brief quake and sounds of distant fighting.
"They"re fighting to hold back the escaping prisoners and demons in the South and West Wings. They"re with Jensen and the rest of the Orion Squad." Forneas answered in his usual machine-friendly voice. His metal mouse head twitched a forced smile.
I glanced to Lyra with a frown.
Ryoko would have known who she was. Why didn"t Lyra stop her from going? Surely, she knew that it could be the last time she saw her daughter alive.
"What"s with your burning stare?" Lyra nonchalantly asked me.
"Ryoko"s your daughter you know. Aren"t you worried?" I answered with the same tone of voice.
"I know who she is. Of course, I"m worried. Every day I worry about her. Now I know she"s been capable of looking after herself. She can get the job done. She"s a knight, isn"t she?" Her eyes darted to Lita.
She smirked. "I figured out why you were so sweet on me earlier."
Lita gulped nervously.
"Relax girl. I"m not going to be that interfering mother-in-law."
Lyra groaned when she gingerly stood and made her way to our side. She sat down next to Lita.
"I didn"t think Ryoko would swing that way. Still, she"s picked well." Lyra"s smile became welcoming. "Please continue to take care of my daughter."
"Yes." Lita returned her smile.
"Welcome to the family I guess." Wilfred interrupted the moment. He suffered a finger flick to his forehead for it.
"Don"t interrupt the mood. Shorty." Lyra grumbled.
"Shorty?! I"m taller than Lita. At least by fifty centimeters." He justified his shortness with his and Lita"s disparate heights.
"Pfft." Lyra chuckled.
She wrapped her arms around both of them. "You kids are adorable."
"Ugh!" Wilfred groaned as he wiggled out of her hug.
He smoothed down his navy vest and hair, realigned his round gla.s.ses and the rest of his image back to being stoic.
"Can we get to the Lotus Bridge from here?" Brystagg"s voice broke through the light conversation.
"Normally, yes. However, it"s not where it should be. It may have been destroyed." Wilfred"s voice was calm, but the reflected light on his irises revealed his fear.
"No. It"s in a dimension slip twenty years in our past, on this very day." I corrected Wilfred"s a.s.sumptions.
"Dimension Slip. Wow. That"s some dedication," he muttered to himself.
"I think I know of that hiruda causing all of this. I"m hoping I"m wrong. If it"s who I think it is. Stopping this demon would be next to impossible." Brystagg groaned as he pushed himself up and out of Forneas"s back ma.s.sage.
"That thing that stole Death"s body. You know it?"
Brystagg sighed. "Its name is Moralta. It was once He. Symian Moralta used to be a human magis specialist on various force magic skills. His notable claim to fame was his renowned knowledge and obsession with Zyon."
He further explained on Moralta"s back story.
The man was born a magical genius to extremely affluent parents who had business connections with Brystagg"s parents.
This genius was known for his strong psychic abilities and cunning charm. It had won him popularity with his peers.
His wealthy status had also placed him in a favorable eye of his community. In short, he was heavily admired. A boy who could do no wrong, so got way with his wrong doing. It seemed that admiration got to his head by the time he had come of age at fifteen.
He became obsessed with gathering knowledge of Zyon (the demon world) and anything on ancient power. Testing everything he had learned on poor, unfortunate creatures.
"When I was a student in the Caldera Academy. I had heard a lot of rumors about girls he had dated being unwitting test subjects. Of course, I never saw any of those girls. He was careful to practice on those no one would miss." Brystagg"s voice trembled.
The rumors must have been horrific to make his voice quiver. He didn"t elaborate. I was glad for it.
Moralta"s first public achievement at the age of twenty.
His Zyon Demonica dissertations were ground breaking. He had discovered evidence of the Demonica magic book, which was Zyon"s form of the Sacred Word.
"The foundation practices for necromancy is said to have originated from Moralta." Death"s voice soberly interrupted my listening.
"Do you know of him Death?" I asked out loud.
"Of him, yes. He"s listed as a contributor for anti-moral practices within the Magism Code of Conduct and Consequence," Death answered.
"An abridged version told of Moralta"s obsession with demonic power granting immortality after his mother had pa.s.sed away. A lot of conservative scholars disagreed on his views, naturally, and reported him to be nothing more than a power thirsty boy with a G.o.d complex."
I rephrased Death"s comments for everyone else.
"Not good for us," said War.
"Yeah. We"re dealing with a demon who has insights of a human being and knowledge of ages." Wilfred commented.
"He also has an agenda to become a G.o.d." Lita added.
"Now he"s got a chance to be one." Lyra threw in her tidbit with a troubled sigh.
The mood became pessimistic.
"Ha. Look at you lot with your stupid sad faces. If you could see yourselves in a mirror, you"d know what I"m on about," I said with as much of an upbeat voice as possible.
"Famine. We"re dealing with a demon who has the power and human wisdom to destroy h.e.l.l"s Labyrinth," said Lita.
"Destroy h.e.l.l"s Labyrinth equal to destroying the world. Yes, yes, understand that we"re up against a big six boss type with firepower, smarts and skills of an absolute genius to wipe humanity from the face of Sol. Anytime now." I recapped with perky enthusiasm.
"Oh, and we have no plan to counter attack! Basically, we"re totally screwed." I rea.s.sured everyone"s jaw dropping shock with a cheesy grin.
"Whaddah.e.l.l yah happy about yah git?!" War cursed as he whacked the back of my head.
"It"s better than being all gloomy and down in the dumps like you guys." I grumbled, rubbing the egg on my head.
"Besides, we have a trump card I don"t think Mr. Moralta Hiruda is expecting." I smugly pointed to Small Cap.
"I think he"d be expecting me Famine. He"s psychic remember?" Death corrected my thinking.
"Semantics, Death! The fact is. While we"re all here healing up and talking, we have a chance to save the day." I cheered the gloomy faces before me.
I sighed with relief when I saw their earlier sadness transform into something of hope.
"Ha. Good going kid!" Buru spoke for the first time.
I warmly greeted the minotaur who was able to sit up una.s.sisted. He had recovered a lot of his health thanks to the healing potion from the drip.
"You"re up Buru." Lyra coolly said, pretending not to care or be relieved. "Shut it Famine."
"I didn"t say anything." I grinned at her endearment for the beast.
"Your goofy face says it all," she said. And turned her conversation to War. "How do you live with this nut job?"
"Well..." War recounted a few stories that had lightened the mood.
Forneas added to the hilarity when he recounted my first, embarra.s.sing, experience with the washlet basin. It was the clincher for roaring laughter.
"Yeah. Yeah. b.u.t.t in the air. Very funny. Can we move on to pressing matters now? Like how we"re going to get to and in that Lotus Bridge." I frowned with thought.
"I can help with that. And with the psychic issue too." Brystagg said and looked to Colin. "I need your bidea a.s.sistance."
Colin nodded with understanding. He signed that he could also call upon a spell as the Light Grimoire that could extrapolate an entry point to the bridge.
Brystagg talked through the plan of action we would take that had everyone nodding their heads.
"It"s risky, but it"s the best plan we have so far," he concluded.
Sounds of a fierce explosion and jarring vibrations stopped our conversations.
"Is everyone ready to move out?" Brystagg said after the floor had stopped trembling.
I smiled and nodded my head. It was a relief to see him take the lead.
Everyone confirmed with their own nods.
Forneas disconnected drips, redressed wounds—so they could last a lot longer—and handed everyone a round of pills to ease with the pain.
We rechecked our weapons then stood to leave.
"May luck be on your side. My masters and mistresses," Forneas said.
I thought I saw a sad expression on his usual cheerful face. It was gone before I could be sure.
"Forneas. I"m the carrier of dumb luck. We"re going to be fine." I rea.s.sured the animachine with a thumbs up.
"Of course, Master Famine." He acknowledged, in his typical friendly manner.
Expelling a deep breath, I followed the others out of the lantern room.