Universe's End

Chapter 267: Pit Stop

“Huh, they weren’t joking,” Rory muttered as he and Zoey left the teleportation chamber of the Reverse Mountains, Eia deciding to wait within the chamber itself.

The once lonely halls of the Reverse Mountain workshop were bustling with people coming and going. While outside the protective walls of the volcano were still incredibly dangerous to anyone below tier six, inside work had been done to ensure anyone could walk about safely, the latent pneuma now constantly filtered and drawn into specialized pneuma crushers that were then directed elsewhere, innovations that had been prepared in the past leading up to the Bird’s assault on Ehkorrus.

With those innovations in place and Ehkorrus’s growth surging, plus the small-scale exodus from Ehkorrus as travel was incentivized, the Reverse Mountain workshop was beginning to grow into its own proper city as well. There was still much work to be done, given his own tunneling had only been with himself in mind, and burrowing through tough stone was harder than chopping trees. Still, the increase in the number of people living here would ensure the work was done.

“Planning to meet with anyone while we wait?” Zoey asked, as the three of them were forced to wait until the chamber was ready to send them back to Ehkorrus itself, a safety precaution given the teleportation made use of oblivion energy.

“Not really,” Rory said. Thankfully, the people who had come to the Reverse Mountain workshop had come to work, and so many of the people they saw were on a constant move, barely glancing their way.

“What do you think the current population is here?” Zoey asked, finding herself curious.

“Hard to say, as the tiers drop, it becomes harder and harder to separate them from the background,” Rory said honestly. “Given it’s been almost a year since the last wave? I’d guess upward to a thousand.”

“So, what do you intend to do?”

“Maybe visit the whirlpool workshop, see if Jinn is around,” Rory answered. With most people entering the Reverse Mountains through the teleportation chamber, the whirpool workshop had slowly lost its status as the ‘main entrance,’ now only used as just another side entrance into and out of the actual workshop itself. Even then, it was reserved for the higher-status blacksmiths. Years and decades of Jinn the World Ichor elemental living within the lava whirlpool that gave the whirpool workshop its name had slowly converted the whirlpool into world ichor, far, far hotter than ordinary lava.

While Jinn ordinarily was a high enough tier to be sensed at this point, being a world ichor elemental, he also tended to blend into the environmental aura, meaning if he wanted to check if the cheeky elemental was here, he would have to do it directly.

“Sure, count me in,” Zoey said as she grabbed his shoulder. “Okay, ready.”

“What am I, your taxi?” Rory asked.

“Ehh, would you prefer if I called you a limo?”

“What’s the point of being the prestigious Architect if I’m not treated as such?”

“You’re only prestigious to those who don’t know you as I do,” Zoey snorted as the two suddenly vanished, reappearing elsewhere.

The whirlpool workshop was empty, quiet save for the sound of magma slowly pouring and refreshing the whirlpool forge. Stepping forward, Rory stood at the lip of the rotating pool of world ichor and put his hands on his hips.

“Jinn, you here?”

For several seconds, nothing happened until, from the center, ripples seemed to spread outward as something slowly began to emerge. It would have been almost impressive had the thing emerging not looked like someone had taken Godzilla and reduced it to plushy form.

“Trying to be dramatic?” Rory asked after a moment, as Jinn fully emerged, the world-ichor elemental still remaining in the form of a ghostly cherubic dragon-spirit-thing.

“Normally, everyone has a face of awe when they see me do that,” Jinn said, his reptilian mouth spreading into a smile. “Welcome back.”

“Only for a bit,” Rory said with a nod. It had felt like only yesterday the elemental had been ‘hatched,’ and now he was on the verge of tier eight as well.

“Oh, boo,” Jinn sighed. “Hi, Ms. Zoey!”

“Hello Jinn,” Zoey said with a wide grin as she knelt down next to the whirlpool, reaching out to rub Jinn’s head. As she did, her hand briefly transformed, turning into the same stuff Jinn was made of. “How have you been?”

“Good!” Jinn said. While he was no longer the completely childlike being, to call him a truly ‘matured’ existence would be like calling a young teenager an adult. “Lots more people now. Heart Boss is happy about that, by the way.”

“Heart boss. You mean the one at the center?”

“Yep!”

Zoey glanced at Rory, who only shrugged.

“Hey, it’s on the to-do list,” Rory finally sighed when her gaze remained unfaltering. “I’ll make sure you get to tag along since we handled the Queen and King together.”

“Baller,” Zoey nodded. “That aside, I see you’re almost tier eight.”

“Close!” Jinn nodded enthusiastically. “If it wasn’t for Heart Boss, I’d probably still be stuck back a tier or maybe even two! I already gobble up any other elementals that form around the inside of this mountain. Still, until my form is stabilized, I can’t leave the flows for very long.”

“Speaking of which, do you need anything for that?” Rory asked.

“No… not yet,” Jinn mimicked, sighing, given as an elemental, he didn’t have any real lungs. “It’s going to be a real process, that’s all I know.”

Elementals were… weird. Quite weird. Even though Rory was technically the father of all elementals, and Jinn was the first son, Rory didn’t actually understand all that much about them. They could essentially pop into existence as long as the base requirements were met, which was usually the concentration of a large amount of latent aspected pneuma. What sort of aspect was almost secondary. Elemental pneuma was the most clean-cut, but he’d seen a few instances of weird elementals like ‘Melting Elementals’ or the like. Elementals also tended to be completely mindless, drawn to their origin aspect, and otherwise behaved like any other monster might, just less focused on killing flesh and blood things and more on other elementals.

This tale has been pilfered from NovelBin. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

One thing that had been discovered was that elementals could ‘stabilize’ their form, granting greater power, freedom, and intelligence. He’d only seen basic elemental variants with stabilized forms, though, leading Rory to believe that the more potent the aspect the elemental was born of, the more involved the process was.

Meaning Jinn, as a World Ichor elemental, was one of the most advanced forms of ‘elemental’ aspects out there.

“Well, whatever you need, I’ll be happy to help make it more streamlined,” Rory said.

“Oh, one other thing!” Jinn said, sticking his stubby hand up.

“Yeah?”

“That Astra is weird,” Jinn said, making a face.

“Astra was here?” Rory asked, genuinely surprised.

“Uh-huh, not too long ago. She showed up, tried to nibble on me, got smacked down by Heart Boss, and then exploded.”

“She tried to nibble on you?”

“Just a little,” Jinn said as if it wasn’t that big of a deal. “But what is she? She feels like me, but also not like me.”

“She divereged from the elemental path, is probably the easiest way to explain it,” Rory sighed.

“Oh…. She was really pretty.” Jinn suddenly looked aside, looking bashful, or as bashful as a cherubic lizard-spirit elemental could.

“Oh, that’s so cute,” Zoey said, almost cooing as Rory sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Why do you say that?”

“She is really hot,” Jinn said, to which Rory assumed he was being literal.

“Well, she is basically a star, so that adds up,” Rory said with a nod as if it made sense at least. “Is she still around?”

“No, after Heart Boss smacked her, she went poof into bright light and dust.”

Ahh, that’s what he meant by ‘exploded’, he was being literal.

From what it sounded like, whatever this ‘Heart Boss’ was, it hadn’t taken kindly to Astra ‘nibbling’ on Jinn. With one strike, it had literally exploded her, which could have been pretty bad, if not for the fact that much like Apostolos, she would reform on ‘death’ so long as she left her stellar core behind.

Putting aside the fact that this ‘Heart Boss’ can one-shot a tier eight…

“Anything else fun happen?” Zoey asked.

“Uhh…. Not much. Not many people interact with me; they just whisper in awe when I show up. Only a few behave normally, like Mr. Ron.”

Ron was the mute blacksmith who had been part of the first group to ever come to the Reverse Mountains, so it was nice to hear he was still doing well and even interacted with Jinn.

“Well, as my thanks, you tell Ron next time you see him, if he wants, he can make a request, assuming it’s nothing too major, of me for assistance on a project of his choosing,” Rory said after a moment. He’d made sure to add the caveat, as he wasn’t about to bind himself to some promise that would take years of his time.

“Will do!” Jinn saluted with his stubby arm, as Zoey made a face of delight.

It’s probably her fault that Jinn decided to retain that form, with how she dotes on him.

“Okay, I need to go now, though. Mr. Heart Boss and I were playing a game, I just left to say hi!”

With that, Jinn dove back into the whirlpool as the workshop returned to silence.

“He’s such a delightful little stinker,” Zoey said, wiping away a non-existent tear from her eye. “They grow up so fast.”

“And he’s always dropping hints about the Heart,” Rory said, looking contemplative for a moment.

“What’s on your mind?” Zoey asked.

“Astra was forced to semi-evolve to tier eight. And this Heart Boss, with just a ‘smack’, was able to one-shot her. She has the stellar core that she respawns from back in Ehkorrus, so I’m not worried about that-”

“But a tier eight being one shot so casually speaks volumes about the ‘Heart Boss’ Jinn loves to mention.”

“Exactly.”

“Problem for a different problem,” Zoey said with her arms crossed.

“Pretty sure it’s a problem for a different day,” Rory corrected.

“Nah, because that insinuates it’s a one-day thing.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Rory rolled his eyes. At least the Heart Boss seemed to be a friendly entity, as long as one wasn’t doing something stupid like trying to nibble on Jinn, apparently.

“What do you make of that stabilization stuff?” Zoey suddenly asked.

“I figure it’s a bit like what Astra went through in her early tiers, when she was fed so much material it allowed her to diverge from the standard elemental pathway. I can’t really make any other predictions because there is so little to work with.”

“But it sounds reasonable,” Zoey noted.

“It does.”

The two were silent for several seconds before Rory side-eyed Zoey, something clearly on her mind.

“What?” Rory asked, already suspecting it was about to be something he would regret asking.

“Do… do you think little Jinn will look different when he stabilizes his form? My cute little Jinn?”

“Cripes,” Rory rolled his eyes. “Knew it was going to be something stupid.”

“It’s not stupid, it’s very important to me,” Zoey said defensively, crossing her arms.

“It’s stupid. You’re like that parent or pet owner who never wants their puppy or kid to grow up. It’s called life.”

“Well, aren’t you just a debbie down?” Zoey grumbled as she flipped him the bird.

“What, are you going to suddenly stop liking Jinn if he looked different?”

“No!” Zoey nearly shouted. “Not my dear little Jinn… I’d just miss his cute lil stubby arms.”

“Maybe he will evolve into some form of T. rex. Big head, small arms.”

Zoey snorted, unable to completely stifle the quivering at the corner of her lips from a barely contained giggle.

“See, you’re laughing.”

“I’m not laughing.”

“Am not.”

“You totally are,” Rory said.

“Is that what really matters right now?” Zoey asked before changing the subject. “You think the teleportation chamber is ready?”

“Probably. Send and receives aren’t too bad on the cooldown time; it’s when they try to send multiple outgoing groups in clusters that the chamber tends to risk issues.”

“So why did we need to wait?”

“Caution,” Rory said with a shrug. “You break it, you buy it.”

“Does that really count when you own Ehkorrus and this place?”

“Semantics,” Rory snorted. “Either way, we can probably head back now.”

Grabbing Zoey’s shoulder this time around, the two of them flickered away, reappearing within the chamber.

“Have fun?” Eia asked, coiled around a pylon like a serpent guarding an important treasure.

“Yes, yes, we did, since you like being anti-social,” Rory said.

“You are not one to talk,” Eia shot back.

“Lord Founder, Lady Ascendress,” someone called out as a woman rushed forward, wearing a cut-off t-shirt that showed off her impressive biceps.

“Oh, uhh….”

“Jamie,” the woman said. “I’m currently the operator on shift. I just wanted to inform you that the chamber is ready to go for a direct line back to Ehkorrus.”

“And there are non-direct lines?” Rory questioned.

“Yes, actually. Based on the season and even the time of day, we discovered we can alter the parameters slightly, extending the trip across the void, which ironically reduces the cost and mechanical strain.”

“Interesting discovery,” Rory said with a curious expression on his face. “I’ll have to get those notes at some point, but for now, more pressing matters.”

“Is something wrong back at Ehkorrus?” Jamie questioned.

“Hmmm, no, not directly,” Rory said, deciding it best not to explain further.

“Oh, well, that’s a relief. My boyfriend still lives back there. I was worried for a moment.”

“Yep, everything is totally chill,” Zoey cut in, glancing at Rory with a look that clearly said to shut the fuck up before he stressed the poor woman out without trying.

“Alright, well, good to hear. I’ll just, uh, get this bad boy fired up.”

“You do that,” Rory nodded awkwardly as she scurried off to the control room.

“You’re an idiot,” Zoey sighed.

“What? What did I do?”

“Oh, I don’t know. ‘Hmmmm, no, not directly.’ You could not be more alarming if you tried, I swear.”

“But I didn’t say anything wrong!”

“That’s textbook 101 for ‘something is totally wrong, but I’m trying not to panic people, but I also don’t want to lie to them either.’”

“Oh, whatever, not all of us were the daughter of a politician.”

“I swear, even my little sister could have managed better,” Zoey snorted.

Before Rory had a chance to snap back a winning retort that he was totally ready for and wasn’t just some childish remark, the frame powered up as the pathway back to Ehkorrus opened up.

“Finally,” Eia sighed. “I was beginning to fall asleep listening to your bickering.”

“You sure it wasn’t because that pylon is warm and full of dangerous energy?”

“That too.”

Rolling his eyes, Rory simply waved the two women forward as serpent and shield passed through, leaving just Rory behind.

Well, time to get this over with.

With the final temporary pitstop out of the way, it was time to finally prepare for meeting the others.