Chapter IV - Simultaneousness

Author's Comment

Ah. I know I was going to write something about this one. ... Lets just do stupid facts instead:



This chapter was written while listening to: Barenaked Ladies/The Calling/Evanescence.



Fun fact: A section of this chapter is devoted to one of the group making a bed for himself. Reason why? Result of writing at 3am.

Fun fact II: Mihndrid and Silvan were paired together simply 'cause she requested that he not be killed in the finale. Brantax got the chop.

Fun fact III: If Brantax and Mihndrid ever meet, I'll be sure to mention Fun fact II to him. He will promptly drop kick Mihndrid off a cliff.



That's a bit of Hmm: Where's Shandor?



Chapter IV – Simultaneousness



“So see you when you’re forty, lost and all alone,

Being comforted by strangers, you’ll never need to know.”

~ Dido, ‘See You When You’re Forty’



Rue was falling. Falling down a rock face. It was painful. Quite painful. After a few, unimaginably long, seconds, she came to a halt. Groaning, she lifted her head, expecting to see the others in a similar state. She didn’t see anyone. The sky was completely blotted out by light grey clouds. She appeared to be on a mountain. Considering this was a rather odd place to be, she looked around and confirmed that she was, indeed, on a mountain. She was about half-way down and all of the rock was a cold grey. All around her, she could see mountains and nothing else. And there appeared to be no-one anywhere that she could see.



Silvan was very still. Pretending to be dead, or asleep, or invisible. The portal had thrown him out... somewhere. Within ten seconds, he heard explosions and screaming, so he ducked under a tumbled wall, and that’s where he was now.

Mihndrid had done a more sensible thing, she looked up at the dark sky just in time to see a large chunk of rock crash into the remains of a tower block. The rest of the block began to cave in. She got a safe distance away before she saw Silvan under a collapsed wall with chunks of rock falling everywhere around him. That boy was starting to annoy her.

Quickly and carefully, she dashed forward, dodging the rock until she reached Silvan. She prodded him with her foot, ‘Move!’

Silvan proceeded to cry. Quite like a baby. But less mature.



Lesharn crashed into a barrel and slid onto the wooden floor. The room he had landed in – with no-one else, one should add – was rather small, filled with barrels and various salted meats. One side of it had a gentle curve. It was also swaying. Lesharn waited a minute, then realised that he wasn’t dizzy and hadn’t smacked his head. He crawled over to the curved wall, and peaked through a small round window. All he could see was ocean. He was on a boat. He sat down and wondered for a few minutes. Where was everyone else? Why, exactly, did he have to end up on a boat? He hated sea travel. Ever since the last boat he was on was attacked by sea serpents. Oh how he longed to be back in Torindal court. Even if they didn’t except him, it was better than this.

He stood up slowly and decided that he would have to fend for himself. He was in the pantry. The task seemed simple.

‘Phew,’ he said at last, ‘Well, I could do with a break for some food.’ He climbed up collected a few pieces of salted meat and munched them quietly.

As the last piece of his selection disappeared down his gullet, he heard footsteps outside. They were getting louder. He quickly snuck behind some barrels.

A tall, plump man barged in, he was weaving a menacing butchers knife. He looked around the room, then towards the barrels.

‘There you are,’ he growled, stalking towards them, ‘I ruddy ‘ate stowaways, every one of ‘em deserves to be minced up and put in a stew. That’s right, including you.’

Lesharn shivered, and tried not to whimper. The man was nearly at the barrels. He raised the knife.



‘I-I’m c-cold.’ Alril shivered.

Cyria looked at him in mock surprise.

Kalypse said, ‘It’s understandable.’

Cyria nodded, ‘All I can see is ice and snow. Do you think there’s even a town here?’

‘I don’t know. Where’s everyone else?’

‘I’m not sure. How’d I end up with you two? You were in a different group.’

‘Not a clue.’

‘This is useful. We need to find a way to keep warm and get to life.’

‘How d-do we kn-kn-know there’s even l-life here? F-for all we know, we’re all alone! On a-an ice planet!’



‘Ow.’

‘That was…’

‘Like… ten feet in the air.’

‘I hit my head.’

‘Good thing the floor is soft.’

‘Soft?! Ha! I hit a root.’ Varadrion complained, rubbing his head ruefully.

‘What about me?’ Santhorpe whined pitifully. At this moment in time, he was stuck on a branch about twenty feet in the air.

‘Calm down, we’ll come get you. And by that, I mean Varadrion.’ Shivayon said.

‘Or that will.’ Varadrion said, unnerved, pointing at a creature moving swiftly towards Santhorpe.

This creature had four legs, a tail, four wings, a bird-like beak with several rows of worryingly-sharp teeth.



Mihndrid and Silvan waited for the rubble to stop falling. The tower they were next to was gone. Silvan was blubbering now. A bolt of energy whipped past and crashed into the ground a bit behind, spraying dirt high into the air. ‘Go! Now!’ Mihndrid shouted, half-hauling Silvan to his feet. The two sprinted in a random direction away from where the bolt had come. They came to a stop behind a ruined wall.

‘What… Is going on?’ Silvan asked, shivering.

‘Does it look like I know!?’ Mihndrid shouted incredulously.

At that moment, a dozen or so armour-clad humanoids ran past, ignoring the two, screeching war cries.

‘We need to get to somewhere safer.’ Mihndrid said, surveying the area. Nowhere looked particularly safe. She peaked out from behind the wall. Beyond the ruins of the tower were plenty more ruins, then there was what appeared to be a bridge over a river. The dozen warriors were there. For about three seconds. A bolt struck the bridge and obliterated it, sending chunks of the armour (and, disgustingly, Mihndrid noticed, flesh) into the air. The flesh hit the ground with a wet thud. Beyond the river, there were many more warriors, but wearing different armour. They were all wielding swords and axes. Behind them, there was a row of archers, then there were two odd constructs that were hurling the bolts of energy about quite haphazardly. They were in the middle of a war. Mihndrid grabbed Silvan’s hand and left the wall, going deeper into the ruined city.

About fifty or so soldiers charged past them towards the front line. There were several sounds of screaming and things exploding. Mihndrid didn’t look back.



Rue had been trudging around for a few hours. She had found a natural walkway, but it wasn’t really proving useful. The wind hit her like daggers, slicing to the bone. It was only sped on with more fury due to the walkway, which took her down a very steep and narrow valley.

For two days it dragged on. The wind never surrendered to time, never even slowed a little. The walkway seemed of infinite length. Rue was weary now, lack of food was starting to take its toll. She tried to remember when she had a good meal last.

‘Ha!’ she laughed to herself, ‘Haven’t had a *good* meal in decades.’

On the fifth night, Rue, still in the walkway, wondered why she should continue. The wind was much colder now. Her hands and feet were numb and she felt continually dazed. She slumped down onto the walkway floor, curled up and wondered if she should bother opening her eyes tomorrow.



‘’Allo, miss?’ A gruff, heavily-accented voice said.

Rue blinked her eyes open and saw a tall, burly man towering over her.

‘Ar you quite alright? Wot’cha bin doin’ out here? Ain’t a very sensible ting ta do.’

‘I got lost.’ Rue muttered feebly. She was okay now, if he was here, it meant that there was a town, or a village, or anything, nearby. She’d be okay.

She would’ve been okay, if the contents of the man’s head hadn’t splattered over her. A obscenely large arrow was protruding from the back of his head.

Rue was pinned under him, someone was moving towards her.

She wasn’t okay.



‘That fire went well.’ Cyria complained bitterly.

‘Don’t look at me.’ Kalypse said defensively, ‘I’m doing the best I can, but I have no resources and magic fires can’t just run on nothing.’

‘Stop shouting at each other!’ Alril whined, ‘Just stop it. We’ve got to get out of here.’

‘Where’s Rilnae?’ Kalypse asked.

‘Maybe we can’t see her in this dimension.’

‘Maybe she’s not even looking for us.’ Alril stated quietly.

‘You just stop that.’ Kalypse said, ‘We’ll be okay.’

The Narrator would point out that, to date, every person who has insinuated that they would be okay, was never okay. He would, but he believes something else is about to prove that point.

The ice began to quake.

‘What’s that?’ Alril said, looking completely panicked.

‘Don’t worry, I’m sure it’s… Well, I’m sure it’s nothing.’

The ice began to crack. Kalypse grabbed Alril, hauled him to his feet and the three of them began to run away.

Suddenly, a long, large serpent with a slightly pointed head broke through the ice, jaws grinding in anticipation of food. The serpent was roughly one hundred times taller than Kalypse, and she felt, rightly so, intimidated by it. It was, after all, considering the three of them as dinner.

The serpent went up in a narrow arc. At the pinnacle, it tilted its head towards the three and for a brief second appeared to be grinning.



The four legged, four winged creature continued towards Santhorpe in a mixture of jumping from branches and flying. Santhorpe was squirming slightly, still stuck, dangling twenty feet in the air. The creature reached out with one of its paws to swipe at Santhorpe when the leg disappeared. The Narrator said disappeared, but he meant it suddenly ceased to be part of the rest of the creature and fell to the ground. Confused and enduring an overwhelming pain, it didn’t even notice it had flown into the tree-trunk until it fell from the sky.

Varadrion said, ‘What the hell did that?’

Shivayon looked around for an explanation. They were in a slight hollow, and couldn’t see much around them.

They did, however, see a dog-like creature fly through the air and crash into a tree, a large boulder being responsible. The boulder, unfortunately, didn’t notice that the dog-like creature had stopped at the tree and crushed it.

Shivayon slammed her eyes shut and looked away.

Varadrion just had a surprised look on his face.

The thing that threw the boulder, a twelve-foot creature that looked like a gorilla-horse hybrid trotted over the ridge. He saw the two in the hollow. He promptly tore two seconds of root up and began spinning them in circles as he approached the two.

‘Run.’ Varadrion said calmly.

‘Sounds good.’ Shivayon replied, taking off at a sprint.

Varadrion followed as quickly. Both seem to have forgotten the self-hating human that was dangling in the tree.

Shivayon, in her frantic running, hit a root and tripped over. That is to say, as she fell, she, acting out of surprise, grabbed Varadrion by the shoulder. The resulting effect of Shivayon’s fall is that it disorientated Varadrion and caused him to run into a tree.



The tall, plump man swung the knife down. Lesharn clamped a hand over his mouth and bit down on it, trying not to scream.

The knife hit its target. Right on the head.

A small rat’s existence just came to an abrupt, violent end. ‘Got’cha. Ha, wee blighter.’

Grinning gleefully, the man picked the rat up by its tail, and brought it over to him. This action caused a trickle of blood to hit Lesharn’s forehead. He was too frightened to move to wipe it off in case the man noticed. He felt nauseated as the blood slowly flowed down his cheek.

The man turned away and left the room.

Lesharn collapsed.

When he came to, Lesharn noticed from the porthole that it was night time. From the looks of the store, some more people had been in, but none had noticed him.

As much as he didn’t want to leave the relative safety of the enclosed area, he knew that he should have a look for any of the group. Besides, he reasoned, it was night. Most people were probably asleep.

He slipped from behind the barrels and approached the door, quivering. His hand missed the handle twice it was shaking so much. When he finally grabbed it, he gently opened it and peaked through the minute crack created. A long corridor, but claustrophobic in its height and width. There were several small hollows along it, near the bottom. Lesharn could only guess what their purpose was, but they could make hiding spots. He opened the door a bit more and crept out. The corridor was lit by… Well, Lesharn didn’t know what they were, but they weren’t torches and they were not flames. He continued along until he reached a ladder at the end. There had been several doors along his journey, but he had ignored them. He slowly ascended the ladder and pushed gently on the cover. It bobbed up a little allowing him to peak out. The main deck of the ship. It was a nice, starry night, tonight. Lesharn wondered which star was where Earth was. The whole thought process had put him in the mood to write a poem, but he decided against it based on current situations.

After descending the stairs, he went to the closest door and peaked through the nearest door – it was quite dark, but he could see some areas thanks to the moonlight streaming in through the porthole. It appeared to be a bedroom. The thought of a nice warm bed back home brought a smile to the halfling’s lips. And delicious meals. How he longed for the fine cuisine, or the cooking festivals.

He opened the door slowly and shuffled to the bed. Two pillows. I’m sure no-one will miss one… Lesharn thought, grabbing it greedily. He also found a spare blanket and retreated quietly to the store room again. Instead of setting up a bed behind the barrels, he investigated the room a bit further. He found that there was a gap between the wall of the room and the wall of the next room. Carefully, he found a loose plank and moved it slightly, creating a gap for him to squeeze through. There appeared to be some sort of maintenance walkways, but it had been a long time since they had seen use. After wrapping himself up in the blanket, he replaced the plank and put his head down onto the soft, fluffy pillow.

He slowly drifted off into a gentle, peaceful slumber.



The sea-serpent dived at Kalypse, Alril and Cyria.

Alril screamed, shielding his eyes.

Kalypse tried to drag him out of the path of the serpent.

The serpent hit the ice. Cyria was thrown away and crashed into the frozen surface a dozen feet from where she had been. She lay there, dazed, for about a minute. Finally, she moved. She spun around. The water had begun to freeze over again. There were no signs of Kalypse. Alril lay, still, a few yards away from where the serpent had plunged back into the depths. Cyria gulped, expecting the worse.



Shivayon hauled herself to her feet. The creature was dangerously close now. She grabbed Varadrion by the shoulder and began to drag him away. After a moment, he groaned and came two. Instantly remembering his position - although, not, apparently, Santhorpe stuck in the tree – he took off at a run with Shiva. The two split up slightly, although still going in the same general direction. Shiva took off down a slope to a cavern floor below. Varadrion, who ended up at the edge of it, instead of near the slope, looked rather concerned. That is, until he turned around and received a flying root to the head.

Shiva watched in a mixture of confusion and horror as Varadrion tipped over the edge and fell fifteen feet onto rocks below. The creature moved to the top of the slope and began to gallop towards Shiva, twirling the remaining chunk of root.

Meanwhile, Santhorpe’s branch decided to snap.



Rue looked around, she couldn’t see who had shot the man with the arrow. All she did know is that his blood was flooding onto her and it was making her sick. She couldn’t move from under him. She heard footsteps and tried to get a look at whoever it was.

There were several of them, wearing some sort of uniform. The closest one, a tall, thin male, crouched down beside Rue and the corpse, drew a dagger, and prodded the corpse with his boot. The others drew their weapons and looked around cautiously.



Mihndrid and Silvan left the wall and trekked deeper into the war-torn city. They came upon what appeared to be a theatre. It looked a little worse for wear, but seemed in good condition. They broke a window and climbed inside. No-one else seemed to be in there. They crept about the corridors, a growing curiosity on their minds. It seemed like a good place to go. A focal point for survivors. Why was no-one here?

‘Maybe there’s an official point and it isn’t here.’ Silvan suggested.

‘Possible. It’ll do us though. At least until we get our bearings.’ Mihndrid nodded, opening a door which led to behind the stage. She snuck inside with Silvan following until they were standing on the stage.

‘Wow.’ Silvan said, gazing out at the sea of empty seats, the sheer size of the room was overwhelming.

‘Wow indeed. It would be a lot of fun to play here.’ Mihndrid said, thinking ruefully of her instruments that had probably been destroyed in the frenzy. Again.

A bolt of energy, which had been waiting patiently for Mihndrid and Silvan to finish their conversation, chose this moment to explode through at the opposite end of the hall and crash into walkways above the stage.

‘Watch out!’ Mihndrid shouted, shoving Silvan out of the way of falling debris.

The stage-entrance to the room also exploded.

‘I think I know why people aren’t here.’ Mihndrid commented dryly. She grabbed Silvan by the hand and jumped off the stage, running towards one of the public-entrances.

They had just reached one such entrance when it took its turn to explode, throwing the two backwards. Mihndrid hit the back of a chair and knocked herself out. Silvan crashed into the main aisle and was lying on his back.

Silvan groaned, unable to move, just staring at the ornate ceiling. The ceiling that crumbled under more bolt blasts. The ceiling which started falling towards Silvan.

Silvan began screaming.



Lesharn shuffled in his sleep. He had wondered, earlier, what had happened to his lute and assumed that it was in someone’s backpack. Either that or it had been used to attack a beast with very little effect. He was tossing and turning in his sleep. His dreams were odd, to say the least. The sky was burning and there was so much fighting going on – it deafened him. He saw familiar faces, those of the group – but not all of the group. He saw Rue, Mihndrid, there were two he didn’t recognise, but he only saw the back of them. There was someone behind him. They looked terrified. He was running, as fast as his little Halfling legs could take him. Something, he knew, was chasing them, and it was going to kill him. The person directly behind him wasn’t the killer.

Before he had a chance to see how the dream ended, he snapped awake, his foot jerked and hit a plank on the side of the maintenance tunnel that didn’t belong to the pantry.

Unfortunately for Lesharn, someone had been reading in bed, his head right next to the tunnel. The noise disturbed him. It was the same man who had killed that rat. ‘Wot’s’is? Another ratty? Mmm.’ The man grabbed his knife off the chest of drawers and shoved his bed out of the way.

Lesharn heard the noises and began to shuffle away. The man grabbed the candle that he had been using to read and hit the knife into the gap between two planks. He used it as a pivot to pop one plank out. Lesharn just managed to scoot out of the way – but he had left his blanket and pillow.

‘Wot’s’is?’ The man repeated, illuminating the bedclothes. He stuck his head into the tunnel along with his hand holding the candle. He spotted Lesharn instantly. ‘Well well, a nice stowaway for the plank.’

Lesharn yelped, jumped to his feet and charged, blindly into the darkness away from the man, who was shouting the great news.



Kalypse couldn’t breathe, the ice-cold water was crushing her. Her arms felt like tonne weights. She struggled to lift one and hit the ice. The serpent had missed her, but she had slid into the water. Then the water had frozen over. She saw Cyria briefly. Her hand tried to thump the ice. Cyria couldn’t hear her. Kalypse opened her mouth, trying to scream, trying to do anything to attract Cyria’s attention, but it was too cold. She looked pleadingly at the back of Cyria’s head as her hand fell. Her eyes shut as she began to sink.