NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 4: All You Have To Do Is…
“You know, I half-expected him to say the PIMP was in Fallen Reach,” Hiral said as Dr. Benza went back to pacing.
“Me too,” Seena agreed.
“At this point, I need to explain how we captured the Fallen and got Fallen Reach into the sky in the midst of the war. It was a bloody, brutal two years of work, but we…” Dr. Benza’s image vanished as another violent flash erupted from the crack in the floor. Solar smoke vented into the air, sizzling on the stone where it touched, and everybody quickly backed away.
Long seconds passed as the raw solar energy pitted the stone in a thick cloud before finally fading, spent. Then, as if that were a cue, another third of the light within the dome on the right side of the room blinked out of existence.
Hiral held up a hand to Seena before she could even say his name, then swept a wave of Rejection over the area just to be sure. That done, he carefully approached the crack… and blew out a breath at what he saw from a safe distance.
“Second bar is gone,” he said. “Just the one left now, and I don’t know how long it’ll last.”
“Can you fix the other two?” Seeyela asked.
“Don’t think it would matter,” Hiral said, pointing at the wall while he stared at the remaining crystal bar, noting how it glowed like a molten sun. “I think when the other two bars blew up, they created some kind of feedback, damaging the larger system. Once that last third of the wall fades, we’re out of power. The interface will die. At least, that’s my best guess.”
“Can we power it with our own solar energy?” Seena asked.
“Never known Benza to be brief,” Seeyela said.
“Is there anything you can do, Hiral?” Seena said. “Anything we can do?”
Hiral squinted at the crystal bar before answering, “We need to hurry. Even without the projection, the energy is damaging the bar. Turn it back on. Turn it back on now.”
Thankfully, Yanily didn’t hesitate, waving his hand over the interface.
When Dr. Benza reappeared, he wasn’t in the same position as when he’d left, and he held a cup in one of his hands.
“… and so, that is how we captured the Fallen, despite their power and advantages, and got Fallen Reach into the sky to circle the world—even though I still hate that name. The lives it cost will never be forgotten, but those deaths gave us a chance. Gave us the Fallen trapped on the island, and provided us with the solar energy we needed to power the PIMP.”
“Huh?” Seena said as Dr. Benza took a sip from his cup and let out a breath like he’d just told a very long story. “Did we just skip something super important?”
“Seems that way,” Hiral said, glancing at the crystal bar. It was almost too bright to even look at. “We should probably thank him… or… the PIMP. Did it do this, knowing we’re short on time?”
“You probably have two questions,” Dr. Benza said. “We don’t have time for more than those. Apparently, the recording is getting close to the limit of what an Asylum interface can handle. No, Fenil, it’s not because I talk too much! Ahem. Anyway, back to what I suspect your questions are.
“One, why did we need the Fallen trapped in Fallen Reach? Easy. Their bodies, once bonded with the Enemy, were tremendous, rechargeable solar batteries. Each of them could process more solar energy than hundreds—no, thousands—of people. By using them to collect solar energy to be sent down to the surface, we solved the PIMP’s power needs.” He then took another sip from his cup.
“Down to the surface?” Hiral asked, and then something clicked in his head. “The pulses!”
“What about them?” Yanily asked.
“The pulses, the ones every hour, those are the energy being sent down to the PIMP. There must be something in the EnSath River that collects the energy and feeds it underground. That’s why Fallen Reach goes around and around, chasing the sun—because it is the power source for our PIMs.”
“That’s great and all,” Seena said, obviously thinking about something else, “but if they have the Fallen captured somewhere on Fallen Reach, why didn’t the war end there?”
“Your second question is probably why the war continued even after we’d managed to capture the Fallen,” Dr. Benza said at that moment.
Seena just thumbed at the image and shook her head, but Hiral glanced at the glowing crystal bar in the crack. At where parts of it dripped off to sizzle below. It’s not going to hold much longer.
“The answer is simple: The Fallen were dangerous, but they weren’t the only threat. By that time, the doorway to the Enemy’s realm was as tall as a building, and only getting bigger. Time seemed to slow around it, and it sucked some of the life out of those who got too close, making it almost impossible for us to try and close. Meanwhile, more and more of the squids were coming through every day, their rains spreading across the world. They’d expanded past the boundaries of our land and begun invading other… kingdoms. The death toll wasn’t just rising; it was multiplying.
“We knew we couldn’t match them, so we did the only thing we could: We played the long game. We set the stage so that people like you would have the power to one day stand up to the Enemy in a way we never could.” Dr. Benza put his cup down, and the item vanished from the image.
“Except, if you’re seeing this, the Fallen’s seals are weakened. Our models suggest one will awaken first, with the others naturally stirring within a few years, unless the first manages to wake them as well. All is not lost, though. With what I’m about to tell you, there is a way to make sure they stay asleep. It’s a bit complicated, but listen closely.
“First, you’ll need to…”
ZZZZAAAAAAAPPP! FWAAAAAASH! A gout of solar smoke shot from the crack in the floor all the way to the ceiling, like a volcano blowing its top. At the same time, the last red light within the right wall completely vanished, leaving the venting energy as the only illumination.
Even the light from the roots had faded, and it almost would’ve been pretty, had it not been dropping deadly, scorching gas from above. Hiral threw out a wave of Rejection while the whole party dashed away from the interface.
Bamf! Seeyela got to the doorway first, but the others weren’t far behind, and they all scrambled into the tunnel, then turned to watch the cloud settle on the ground. As soon as the first wisps of solar energy touched the stone, a soft hissing and popping began, quickly escalating as more and more of the deadly gas spread across the floor. Even at a distance, Hiral saw small holes forming in the stone, the pitting spreading almost as quickly as the raw energy.
“Should we move back more?” Yanily asked, his spear pointed at the cloud like it would actually do something.
“No, I can cover a small area like the entrance,” Hiral said, feeding solar energy into his Rune of Rejection. The heavy fog naturally resisted the push slightly, but nothing he couldn’t overcome. It gradually slowed, then stopped a few feet out in a semicircle around the doorway.
“That was bad timing,” Seena said. “He was just about to tell us how to save the island.”
“Worse, we don’t even know where the Fallen are sealed,” Seeyela said before turning to Hiral. “Unless they’re just on display right out in the open.”
“Uh…” Hiral said, looking at his doubles.
They both gave him a nod, like they were thinking what he was. Then again, since they were him, they were probably doing exactly that.
“That might actually be true, Seeyela,” Hiral said, doing a quick check on the corrosive solar smoke before continuing. Less seemed to be venting out of the crack in the floor, and the spread had slowed, but it still wasn’t anywhere close to safe in the room. “Remember when I told you we had towers named after the Fallen?”
“You use them for time or something, right?” Seena asked, though she was nodding along.
“Yeah, they flash every hour. Sound familiar?”
“Like the pulses,” Seena said, catching on. “Are they connected?”
Hiral nodded. “I think so. At the top of each of the eleven towers is a large crystal. One that looks, now that I think about it, remarkably similar to…”
“The seal we used on the Urn of Ur’Thul?” Seeyela asked.
“Got it in one,” Hiral said, pointing at the older sister.
“Odi did say something about that seal only physically stopping the Urn, and not doing anything about its energy,” Seena said.
“Exactly,” Hiral said. “They must’ve somehow captured the Fallen and put them at the tops of the towers—the highest points in the city—to collect solar energy. Then, every hour, the system drains one of them of the energy they’d stored up, and shoots it down to the surface.”
“Feeding the PIMP, and in turn, our PIMs,” Seena said, nodding along.
“How are they even still alive?” Yanily asked. “It’s been a long, long time since Dr. Benza built the island, right?”
“That’s a really good question,” Hiral said.
“Are they undead?” Seena suggested. “Or maybe they just live a really long time because of the Enemy attached to them?”
“Or the seal does more than just hold them physically,” Left suggested. “Hiral has runes of time; it’s possible there is a concept like that at play here.”
“Either way, it doesn’t matter,” Hiral said. “We have to assume they’re alive, and when this one wakes up, it’s going to be angry. And, now that I’m thinking about it, it might even be worse than that…”
“Of course it is,” Seena said flatly. “Well, out with it.”
“Okay, look, nobody has ever really been sure how Fallen Reach stays in the sky, but it’s always been assumed solar energy plays a part in it. My guess, now, is that it’s using runes, and yes, they’re powered by solar energy. That energy is probably coming through the Fallen. If they’re so efficient at absorbing it, they’re probably sending energy down to the surface and keeping the whole island up.
“This means two, equally bad things,” Hiral went on, holding up a finger. “The first is that they’re probably somehow connected to the runes… and maybe every other solar energy system on Fallen Reach.”
“Do you think they can control those systems?” Seeyela asked. “And, if they can, how bad is it?”
“No idea to either of those questions, but I bet really cold showers won’t be the worst of it,” Hiral said.
“Cold showers?” Yanily mouthed to Right.
“What’s the second thing?” Seena said. “Is it worse?”
Hiral held up a second finger and nodded. “I don’t know if the island needs all eleven to stay in the sky, or if the PIMP does.”
Seena rubbed the bridge of her nose. “You’re saying if this Fallen wakes up and escapes, that might be enough to crash the island?”
“Might be,” Hiral said with a shrug. “But, if the Fallen wakes up and stays connected to the system, it could be even worse. If they can control the systems on the island, they could force it to the ground, or shut off the magic keeping the weather at bay. The more I think about it, the more I think leaving an awake Fallen connected is worse.”
“If we had to, could we knock one of the towers down?” Seeyela asked. “Break it to break the connection?”
Hiral shook his head. “Over the years, we’ve been careful not to damage the island, since we don’t know how to fix it if something major breaks. But accidents do happen from time to time. We’ve learned a bit about which structures stand up to damage better than others.”
“And the towers stand up to it pretty well, I’m guessing,” Seena said.
“Practically indestructible,” Hiral said. “There’s an old record of a pair of B-Rank Shapers throwing down in the market. One of them accidently punched the tower there. Rang like a gong from one end of the island to the other, but didn’t even scratch the stone.”
“Great, so we really need to make sure this Fallen doesn’t wake up,” Seena said, looking past Hiral into the central Asylum room. “Looks clear. What do you think?”
Seena was right. The deadly smoke had vanished, though the floor looked practically porous, and Hiral pushed a wave of Rejection through the room just to be sure.
“Let’s see if there’s something we can do to get the rest of his message,” he said, cautiously leading the others out of the tunnel. “Uh… we’re going to need some kind of light. Looks like there are still some roots in the side rooms, but… this is dark.”
“I’ve got you covered,” Seena said, lifting her right hand into the air. Flames burst to life, coating her arm down to her elbow like a glove.
“That’s… handy,” Yanily said, and Seeyela punched him in the shoulder.
“Terrible, Yan, terrible,” she said.
Hiral forced himself not to grin at the pun—it wasn’t that bad—then moved further into the room with Seena beside him. His boots didn’t melt as soon as he stepped past the semi-circular divide where he’d blocked off the gas—Good sign—and he walked up to the interface. Like the floor, the stone and crystal of it looked like they’d been devoured by the bites of several thousand insects.
“Think it’s still going to work?” Yanily asked, doubt in his voice.
“Only one way to find out,” Hiral said, passing his hand over the interface crystal.
Nothing. No reaction. Not even a flicker.