“Well this is great…” Kinisis rolled her eyes as she watched the rivers slowly drain away. “Completely block me out, why don’t you?”
The Lady of the Cycle turned to face one of her servants, who had just entered the room.
“Kinisis…”
“Is it good news?” she immediately snapped. “Otherwise I don’t want to know.”
The Veth sighed. “No.”
“Then fuck off. And tell Istoria to get her fat arse in here.”
Hiding their anger, the Veth darted off. Hopefully to find Istoria. Istoria was one of the oldest Veth Kinisis had these days. Normally she’d be off in some little corner writing down important events, but lately, Kinisis had no idea where she was.
After a little bit of waiting, Istoria appeared, carrying a large notepad and a pencil.
“Where have you been?” Kinisis growled.
“In my library, trying to work out what is going on,” Istoria tutted. “More than what you’ve been doing, most likely.”
Kinisis wanted to slap Istoria for that comment, but she was running low on Veth. About twenty of them were stuck inside the massive time-wall that was now surrounding Kinigi, and five more had ripped body parts off themselves in order to break free. The limbs all grew back but that wasn’t the point.
“Well, have you come up with anything?”
“No…” Istoria’s smugness quickly faded. “All I can say is that most of this is the Whenvern’s doing. Channelling power from Stasis to freeze time around us. But just around us. Like a wall. Or something.”
Kinisis growled and walked off, following one river down to the beach. The lack of water, and thus souls, meant that the beach extended out way further than normal. Istoria hesitated, then decided to follow. She had some ideas that she had been hesitant to share. Now was probably a good time to do so.
“I think we could try some things though. Like exiting from the other end of the river and trying to break the wall from the other side, maybe?” Istoria suggested. “Or causing some sort of massive catastrophe, so huge that the dead souls break the wall and flood in? Like blowing up a couple of stars or something?”
Kinisis stopped in her tracks. She turned slowly back towards Istoria. The Veth had never said anything like that before.
“Are you well, Istoria?”
“Yes, why?” Istoria blinked.
“You just suggested genocide as a solution to our problems.”
Istoria blinked and paused. “I… I guess I did…”
“You’re not well…” Kinisis sighed. “None of us are. I fear that being trapped in here, we’re all going a little bit crazy… But as much as I want to kill things right now, I don’t think genocide is our best move.”
Istoria crossed something off her notepad. “There are other ideas. But I don’t think any of them will work. We are… kinda at the Whenvern’s mercy.”
With another sigh, Kinisis stared off into the distance. “I never liked it when those two worked together, always felt uneasy… Now I know why I always felt like that. Do you have any other ideas?”
“Kinda…” Istoria hesitated. “I did think though, what if we created some sort of danger here in Kinigi, something that would force Stasis and Kairos to drop their shield to deal with?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know…” Istoria trailed off.
Kinisis shrugged her shoulders, then started walking again. It was weird walking around and not having rivers of souls flowing around her. Istoria followed, only to abruptly stop.
“KINISIS!”
“What?”
“Where is Arkay?”
“Oooh!” Kinisis smiled for the first time since this mess started. “I’d forgotten about Arkay! He never came home after that mission I sent him on. Must mean he’s still in the main universe…”
“Then we can use that!” Istoria exclaimed. “Maybe we can get a message out to him or something. He’s probably enjoying himself without your influence, but he knows that this is all wrong too!”
“We’ll work something out. Start writing…” Kinisis paused, staring into the distance again. There was something wrong. Not Kairos-blocking-Kinigi wrong. Something far, far worse.
With a flash of panic in her eyes, Kinisis grabbed Istoria and rushed back home. She needed to contact Kairos and Stasis, urgently.