What had previously been rocky fields and outcrops had turned into sheer, flat planes of nothingness. The ground was still made of rock, but it was perfectly flat, with not a single bump in it. Where there had once been trees, there were now tall, black cylinders that stood unmoving in eerie grids. Shadows of confused Zonta dotted the landscape, unsure what to make of their new habitat.
“Why have we slowed down?” Ct’Era asked from the back of the truck. “It is no longer bumpy.”
Verlais was busy concentrating on the path ahead and didn’t answer the Banikan’s question. Every so often, their vehicle would slide, as if the ground beneath them was moving.
“I think the tyres have lost their grip. If we go too fast, we’ll skid and crash.”
“Into what though, Arksi?” Kindyna tutted. “Some Zonta? Who cares?”
“You don’t want to gum up the engine with body parts, Kindyna. It’ll just slow us down later on.”
“Later on?”
The vehicle came to a halt. Verlais turned to face Kindyna. “You really think this Stasis being will let us just walk out of here? After all, we are trying to save an aspect of time from its imprisonment.”
Kindyna gulped. “I guess…”
Verlais sighed, then started driving again, only for him to immediately hit something. The vehicle shook violently and rolled backwards, as if it had just driven into a wall of rubber. The engine then switched itself off, despite being in gear.
Having no idea what had just happened, Verlais put the truck back into neutral and started the engine. He then let the truck roll forward, only for the same thing to happen.
“Huh. Magic barriers.”
“We need to get through that…” Arksi sighed as he undid his seatbelt and got out of the truck, going round the back to pick up some weapons and supplies. Their unexpected stop would surely attract Zonta.
Ct’Era also wriggled her way out of the truck. But rather than grabbing weapons, she walked up to the invisible wall and tried to poke it. Rather than bounce away like the truck, her hand went straight through. She then put more of her hand through, only for Arksi to pull her away.
“You don’t know what’s behind there,” he warned, holding a heavy, silver sword in one hand.
“We won’t know until we try,” Ct’Era countered. But her seriousness was replaced by a snicker, as she saw how cute Arksi looked in the armour he’d put on. “You look silly.”
Arksi glanced down at his armour. It was a very basic chest and stomach piece, with pauldrons and gauntlets on his arms. “This is standard Threan-type armour? What’s so funny?”
“Looks out of place. A child in a play thing.”
“Well, it’s not my fault that us Threan-types are small and stupid-looking compared to the menacing masses of normal Rethavok,” Arksi grunted then changed the subject. “Kindyna, Verlais, what do you think of walking through this wall?”
“We can’t drive though it,” Kindyna grinned. “And Ct’Era’s totally right about you. You look so adorable and silly in that!”
“Better to look silly and be protected than look good and be dead,” Verlais simply shrugged as he dropped a pile of weapons and supplies by their feet. “But Kindyna is right. The north pole is still a good twenty kilometres away and this wall is only stopping the vehicle from getting there, not us.”
“We should turn the truck round first though,” Kindyna suggested. “Assuming we’ll be coming back the same way, right?”
Verlais nodded in agreement and climbed back into the vehicle. This three point turn wasn’t as impressive as his driving antics from before.
Meanwhile, Ct’Era and Kindyna had picked out some items from the pile of supplies Verlais had dropped. Ct’Era had chosen the largest weapon there, an axe normally used by Thanatian fighters, and strapped some spiked armour to her shoulders. Kindyna though just filled her skimpy belt with daggers, pistols and energy bars.
“You should all probably take a gun as well,” Kindyna suggested as she vacantly pointed one at the wall before stuffing it between her cleavage.
“Already have,” Arksi replied, revealing a small pistol he’d put in his own belt, before strapping a shield to his left arm. “I prefer laser rifles but these will do. I’ve got as many food bars as I can carry. This shield should come in handy too.”
Once Ct’Era finished tying her armour, she then started stuffing as many bars of food into her pouch as possible. Verlais finally finished sorting out the truck, picked up whatever remained and grabbed Arksi’s and Kindyna’s hands.
“Alright. We all go through together.”
Everyone nodded, and slowly stepped through the wall.
…
The other side was mostly dark. There was still ground, but it was no longer rock, more of a metallic, golden colour. The sky was pitch black, with no signs of stars, suns or even clouds. There was just enough ambient light for the four beings to see. In the distance, a large, golden structure stood, surrounded by large, equally golden spikes.
“That must be the place…” Kindyna muttered as the four of them started walking. “It looks scary…”
“Can’t be that bad. Anyone confused as to why our weapons didn’t all bounce away and break?” Arksi asked.
Verlais pulled out one of his pistols, turned the safety off, put a silencer on it and tried to fire it, but no bullets came out.
“I guess that field just disables technology…”
“Explains why there is nothing here,” Ct’Era growled. “Most rely on technology to fight.”
Suddenly, the ground started to shake. A blinding light shined out of the structure, before fading away, being replaced by an ear-splitting screech. From the centre of the structure, a large, draconic being with several pairs of wings attempted to fly away, only to be pulled back down to the ground via large, gold and black chains. Its impact caused the ground to shake further, until it abruptly stopped, making everything deathly silent once more.
Verlais glanced at his friends. “Well, that looks like the being we must rescue…”
Arksi nodded and started running towards the structure, only for Ct’Era and Kindyna to easily skip past him. Verlais smiled as he overtook Arksi, and Arksi loudly cursed about his shorter legs.
As they approached the structure, it became more apparent what was going on. At least, in a way. The golden structure seemed to be a large, flat-topped pyramid shape. Large, black spikes poked outwards, covered in a fine, silver web that had trapped and entangled unlucky creatures that had stumbled through. What the unlucky creatures were, none of them were sure, but they looked like Thraki, the draconian sub-species of Thanatians. A few of them looked like the Veth that they’d encountered at the space port. Past the walls of the golden pyramid was the large being.
There was something else though, some sort of chanting, only just audible past the pained growls of the large, draconic being.
“This is a lot like what that God Deitic was doing…” Kindyna whispered as they stopped just outside the spiked, webbed outer parts of the structure.
“What do you mean, Kindyna?”
“Wasn’t he wrapping people up in goo to experiment on them?”
Verlais shivered. “I hope not. I hope they’re just stuck there. But we need to cut them out, free them as well. Arksi, do you think you could fly up and get a better view of what’s inside?”
“Sure.”
Arksi kicked himself off the ground and slowly floated into the air, just above the black spikes. He floated for several seconds, before quickly falling back down.
“What did you see?” Ct’Era asked, noticing the concerned look on Arksi’s face.
“Well… Our friend Kairos, the Whenvern, is definitely in there. Chained up. He’s also surrounded by an Anexartan and about fifty Zonta. The big, scary ones, not the little ones we saw out there. There’s also a large, antlered creature, but it teleported away, I only saw it for a moment, but I don’t think it saw me.”
“That’s probably the Stasis creature that Death mentioned,” Kindyna suggested.
“I think so. The only thing that’s holding the Whenvern down are these giant chains, but I bet that we could break them easily. Bit of telekinetic force and some leverage. Maybe even Ct’Era’s tail could do it.”
“All Death said we had to do was free the Whenvern and get out of here, right?” Verlais smiled. “Seems pretty obvious what we should do. Ct’Era and I distract the big Zonta, Arksi breaks those chains and Kindyna covers Arksi while he does that.”
“What about everyone out here?” Kindyna interrupted.
Verlais worried for a moment, having forgotten about them. “Ah, yeah. We’ll free them first. Get them out of here. If they want to stick around and help, they can.”
“What if Stasis returns?” Ct’Era asked.
Verlais’s smile turned into a frown. “There’s not much we can do about that. But as long as we work fast, hopefully we won’t see him. If we do… Well…”
Kindyna looked at her friends, then grinned. “We’ve made it this far. I’m not going to let some bastard Deitic stop us from fixing time! Come on, friends, let’s go!”