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(Vol 5) Chapter 13: Your Chariot Awaits, Queen
🕑 Added 2024-05-04 15:27:06 +0000 UTCImmediately upon the transition along the bridge, Marjorie gasped loudly enough that Sammy turned around. Her mother was wide-eyed as a hand was gripped to the hand railing, as if lightheaded.
Sammy rushed over to steady her. “Are you alright?!”
Marjorie’s face was white with shock, and her eyes watered. She nodded quickly, then swallowed and collected herself. Finally, she said, “Sorry… there is a large difference between this and…” Her eyes shifted down and to the side, almost looking behind her, but not quite. She shook her head and gazed back at Samantha. She tried a smile. “I’m fine. It’s nothing. A good thing.”
Sammy kept a hold of her mother’s arm as she straightened, frowning. “You felt more… dead in the Mazes?”
Marjorie squinted in consideration. “You could put it that way. It is more that this… Heaven of yours… well, it feels like I am truly on a journey to a heaven! I feel a bright relief and hope filling me. A warmth. The Maze was cold in comparison. And less real.” She looked around at the strange, multicolored madhouse of shapes in every direction. “Strange as this particular vision is, I can tell apart reality from unreality after living in the latter for so long.”
“Interesting. You know, Marjorie, you are going to end up with one of the most unique perspectives in history. Born a human, killed and put in a comfy — if cold — Maze, took a trip to visit Heaven, then got reborn into a tree.”
The smile in response was a bit wan at first but warmed quickly as she chuckled. “Yes, I do hope it ends up being a useful one to you, my dear goddess. Or should I say, that it ‘bears fruit?’ ”
Returning the smile and laughing at the quip, Sammy took her mother’s hand. “You’re one of us already. Shall we?”
“Yes. Please. We should move on.”
Mr. Perfect whined and woofed vehement agreement.
The strangeness of the landscape faded in leaps and bounds for every step they took. In less than a minute, it disappeared into the fog of Limbo. This too cleared almost as soon as it began, as the cloudy sky of Heaven spawned.
As it always did, the City itself waited until all was clear before clouds parted to reveal it in its full, gleaming glory, down a straight bridge only slightly angled upward.
Marjorie gasped once more, this time in sheer wonder. “It’s beautiful… Samantha… you made all of that? We’re really going there?”
Grinning in pride and pleasure, Sammy nodded. “Yep! Thanks to the [Pneuma] Domain. A bit of work, but mostly a lot of fun. I’ve come an awful long way from having a hissy fit and throwing down my crown as if to reject it all. Big girl britches from now on, huh?”
“You’ve adapted well, young lady. So congratulations. And I am so very pleased I got to see this. I had better become your Follower down there, hmm? So I can return when I die again someday.”
Sammy turned to affect her mother with a stern gaze. “Don’t even with that, Momma! You’re going to live forever, now. I’ll make sure of that.”
Marjorie had a small smile as she nodded in obvious indulgence to her daughter’s hopes. “Of course.”
They walked the rest of the way to the city, which took far less time than it appeared it would from a distance. Inwardly, Sammy sent a few choice mental commands to prepare for once they were inside…
Hehehe.
The bridge led to a different gate than the primary. Wide doors swung inward and they passed under an arch into the city proper and its gold-paved roads. Nearby were storefronts with people coming and going. They waved, and Sammy and Marjorie waved back.
“It is so lively!” Marjorie exclaimed. “These can’t be dead people, right? It hasn’t been long enough.”
“Nope. They’re all like weak Servitors, essentially. They’re not exactly soulless, but more like phantasms made out of ambient soulstuff. Fully interactable. Basically alive…”
And now introducing… wait for it…
Suddenly, a flying silver convertible — a corvette-like magitech vehicle — lowered down in front of them. Inside were three figures, two slightly more luminous and ‘warped’ at the edges, different from anything else in Heaven due to being projections.
From the driver’s seat, Tashome — somehow in a Hawaiian shirt he must’ve procured — wore a satisfied smile as he quirked an eyebrow at them. In an exaggerated, overly deep voice, he asked, “Need a lift up, ladies?”
From the passenger seat, Orswyth coughed in something between amusement and embarrassment for his friend. “Excuse him, please. Lady Marjorie, it is truly an honor to make your acquaintance. I’m Hierophant Orswyth Maglion, this is Mystagogue Tashome of Yanpur, and in the back is the Angel Uriel.”
Uriel waved shyly from the backseat.
The bewildered Marjorie managed to curtsy. “Ah, well! The pleasure is mine, Hierophant. Mystagogue. Angel. I suppose a ride is… feasible. It doesn’t… spin, does it?”
Smirking, Sammy patted her on the back. “You can’t hurt yourself falling in the Metropolis of Progress! But you can see that Uriel and Orswyth are being extra safe and strapped in, unlike the fool driving.”
“What can I say,” Tashome ‘bragged.’ “I like to live Afterlife on the wild side. I even drank a bubbling sugar cola earlier.”
Marjorie nodded to this slowly with a dubious expression that said she could not decide precisely how to respond.
Sammy opened the door for Marjorie and ushered her into the car. “Enjoy your time in Heaven for a while! They can show you around as long-time veterans.”
“Yes, we’re very knowledgeable,” Orswyth offered sarcastically. “So knowledgeable, two out of three present here had to find out the hard way about the slow-falling effect.”
Uriel raised his hand and added the obvious. “I, uh, am the one that didn’t fall. Wings are handy.”
Marjorie smiled and nodded politely as she made her way into the car seat, the beagle hopping in almost simultaneously. “I would be honored to see a few sites with you gentlemen, certainly!”
Mr. Perfect woofed as he jumped on Uriel and began licking him immediately, to which the Angel laughed and responded by giving him vigorous head and ear scratches.
Closing the door of the car, Sammy added, “I’m going to notify Constance about you being here. I know she’d want to meet you. Just fair warning, though: she’s a handful and she’ll probably want to be your child within minutes. On that note, I’m going to spare you Dart this time around. One of those two is enough.”
“I see. Well, the more the merrier!” She grinned, still somewhat bewildered by all that was happening. But she patted Sammy on the hand and waved. “Until we meet again below, dear!”
Sammy nodded and waved as they took off, with the doggo running around everywhere and barking over the edges, tail wagging in excitement.
I’m glad you like it, Mr. Perfect. I hope you won’t miss her too much. Maybe you’ll be our greeter here, hmm? A little comfort for souls overcome with all the grandeur and oddity. We all have our role, after all, and you’re Man’s Best Friend!
Blum and Tinny were out at sea right then, but she would likely move over the other Maze residents as well due to the potential for all-around more happiness, ease of communication, and longer duration. Whatever they liked about their prior afterlife, she’d just replicate, and it wouldn’t seem much different from life, in contrast.
Things she adjusted and improved such as the ocean ecosystem would have more potential benefit to others than just one or two. She could also more easily obtain aid in design from Redberry for her specialties. Or others.
Interesting how something so horrifying on the surface can be used to such constructive and creative ends. It’s all in how one uses a tool.
She felt a sudden communication on the prayer vector. Marjorie! “Goddess? Is this… working? Orswyth suggested I try it.”
Sammy was overjoyed. The sending was crystal clear. “It is! You’re my first dead person to do this, I think! Er, sorry. I didn’t mean…”
Amusement came through the link. “Quite alright. Not much longer, anyway. I’m so glad there is a two-way method out of the Maze! And, ah… do you think… Would it work, if you sent the query? For the Follower agreement.”
“Oh, well, dead folk can’t be… hmm. Actually, I think it is just a status change, isn’t it? Followers die and can’t provide FE, but they are tied to me nonetheless to come here. If placed back in the world somehow, they should re-become Followers. Huh. Let’s try it!”
She sent the mental ping to Marjorie…
Follower conversion successful. The Follower is dead.
The bodiless soul ‘Marjorie’ is requesting status as a Resident of The City of Tomorrow Afterlife, from a ‘guest’ status. The new status is currently legal despite an abnormal vector. Spend 1 FE to upgrade her status?
Pausing deliberately in her response that wanted to bubble up, Sammy said, “Er, hold up, System. I’m currently arranging a ritual to resurrect her. Would this affect the ritual?”
It would require your authorization or the effect would be resisted. Otherwise, there are no base restrictions to Resident transfers.
“In that case, make her the first Resident of Heaven! However briefly.”
Acknowledged, User Sammy. 1 FE deducted.
“It worked, Momma!” Sammy sent to Marjorie, brimming with joy.
“It certainly did!” Marjorie replied, equally ecstatic. “It feels… like I was a broken vase somehow put back together whole, then filled. Wrongness made right.”
“For me, we’re halfway. But we’re getting there!”
“Yes… oh! It seems Redberry is contacting me… oh my…”
“It isn’t time yet. She must want to introduce herself and prepare you. But enjoy the chat!”
“Thank you!”
Grinning to herself, Sammy turned and flashed back over to the Mazes, and specifically to the contorted routes that led to the Bridge of Edges. It was time to navigate them as a Pneumamancer and begin experimenting with the theories she had about it.
She found herself back in that strange space of many overlapping layers of crystal kaleidoscopes, semi-transparent and, in any natural sense, utterly mind-bending. Many curling arches branched in every direction as she was in the very central point of it all. Everything was angled, whether tiny and almost imperceptible or at blatant right angles.
An infinitude of directions. Most lead nowhere in particular.
When she reached out with [Pneumamancer]... she did nothing more than grasp an immovable structure. The structure was utterly impermeable. She could as much shape it as shape the borders of the universe. Something told her doing it at all would be very bad even if she could.
“Right… moving along from that idea, then…”
Her perceptions when reaching out were very fine, at least, and her movement was swift and intuitive. When she took a step, it was more of a bound. She did not need to think about navigation through the tunnel-like cavities and winding corkscrews, she could just see ahead what paths led through the maze — a natural maze, she realized. Dead ends were due to the randomness of the structure, not because it was designed by an asshole.
She made her way down the prior way she’d gone with Azure to get to the palace underbelly, and quickly found the spot Azure had paused at. However, the Lightstone she had left was not there.
Sammy frowned and looked around. She was sure she was in the right spot, intuitively.
Whatever. I don’t know the rules here.
She began looking around for what Azure described, when something at the edge of her perception made her snap her head back.
In viewing or ‘perceiving’ the exact spot where the Lightstone had been, she had a unique angle. From that angle, she could see something strange. Like a gossamer thread extending further out and away at that angle. She stared and squinted, drifting intuitively to get a better angle… and she realized what it was.
A tiny little crack.
What the fuck?!
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