For how much that last chapter was apparently about a giant robot, I sure spent a lot of time talking about my feelings and thoughts and whatnot. Iâll try and rectify that a bit going forwards, especially because introspection is cringe. Itâs easy to get lost in all the memories and all the experiences, and trying to convey the magnitude of everything, in terms of how I understood it, is hard without talking about those kinds of internal things. I understand it might not always make for the most exciting bits of a story though, so Iâll crack on.
I needed to understand more of this, as Iâve discussed, and as it got closer, I thought I saw my opportunity. Some of those bumps and protrusions Iâd seen on the legs looked like they could be stood on, stupid as it sounds, and I had a trick in one of my pockets for climbing just such things. I sat down and scrambled out of my boots as fast as I could, barely considering that if I got stuck in this procedure I was at risk of getting squashed. Trying to take boots off quickly, like doing anything else where your main concern is âspeedâ, puts you at risk of taking longer than you have to because youâre not doing it properly, and there was a fair amount of that here. Still, it was mission success, and whilst I was still sitting down I pulled my socks off, threw one in each boot, and then tied them both to my bag. The wet air and wet earth had my toes immediately curling with cold, but I needed bare feet for this particular bit of magic.
Taking another small wooden bead in my hand from a pocket, I channelled the familiar energy down into it, and felt myself rewarded by the squelch of mud under me as I was slightly pulled down onto firm ground. It was a handy spell this â designed for getting up sheer surfaces like this one. It wasnât really âclimbingâ or âmaking your feet stickyâ. Instead it changed how gravity worked for you, making it relate to whatever plane your feet were on. It had the bonus effect of making everything incredibly wobbly since âflatâ ground was never as flat as you thought it was, but it was much more practical than trying to climb anything. If all it did was make my feet sticky; then Iâd still be trying to walk up a wall, which would hardly work. My poor body would just flop back down to earth, held up by sticky feet. The moments of transition were always the worst, the point where up and down no longer meant what they did half a second ago and your inner ear screamed for mercy. Iâll accept a bit of dizziness as the price for something like this, though. That and the cold feet â the magic only relates to whatever your actual feet are touching, so footwear gets in the way.
Step 2 was now to actually put the plan into motion, and I meant that literally. The others were fanning out ahead of me, clearly deciding to put themselves out of the way of the titanâs footfalls, and that gave me a window. I wanted to give myself as much of a run up as I could, beyond where they were now, so that I could adjust my speed as needed, and already be moving at full speed if I suddenly needed to dodge.
With that in mind, and clammy sweats breaking out across my body as I considered that I was about to run at something this big, I slowly clambered out of the crater and into the kneeling position of a sprinter on the blocks. All 3 of my ârealâ extremities were shaking slightly where they touched the floor â some mixture of the cold and the emotions. My prosthetic hand, curled around the PDS like it was a baton, remained steady though. It didnât have to feel cold I guess, and either way I couldnât pass as much information back and forth between it and my brain. It was great for stability like that, and at this moment it let me centre myself, provide the resolution I needed to push off from the ground and add one more to my tally of stupid decisions.
As soon as I started moving, I started jangling, so I knew that other lot were hearing me. I deliberately kept my eyes locked ahead, letting them fade into my peripheral vision, but I still caught glimpses of them turning towards me. âWait!â, I heard one of them â not sure which â yell.
âSorry,â I called back breathlessly, ânot stopping!â There were general clamouring noises but I was already past them when I heard Eoin roar. âEveryone! After them!â Iâm sure I donât have to tell you that I dug a little deeper at that, pushing my legs for all they were worth. My bag had rarely felt heavier, and Iâd have left it behind if I had any certainty Iâd see it again. The spell was keeping the horizon wobbly, every different pitch in the ground counting as a different floor, and I was getting nice and dizzy as a result.
I was close enough now that the bulk of the titan reached far above the top of my vision. As far upwards as I could see, there it was, unending. The gigantic foot and shin in front of me were much more immediate things, however. I was aiming for its left foot â my right-hand side as I ran towards it. No real reason, just how the timing worked out. When that foot came down it did so only about 10 metres or so in front of me, and I was nearly blown clean off my feet. The sound of the impact hit me like a solid wall, leaving my ears ringing for at least a few minutes. The footfalls over the ages were so regularly spaced that there was practically no earth left to compact, so luckily there weren't huge chunks of earth to be thrown everywhere, but it also meant the sound was more like a solid surface than a soft one, and hardly muffled at all.
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Feeling like Iâd just taken a frying pan to the face, I did my best to shake off the double-vision and sort myself out. There were only 20 seconds or so between each stomp and Iâd probably already spent nearly half that already. I dashed the last few metres, took a deep breath, and leapt. Mercifully the foot part was sloped gently, like a shoe, but there was still a horrifying moment of weightlessness. Normally a short jump wouldnât have that feeling, but that magic I was using? It had taken one look at both my feet leaving the floor, and decided to try and do the magical equivalent of dividing by 0. I honestly donât understand the way it all works or why it felt horrible, but in short, it was trying to square âthere is definitely gravityâ with âthereâs nothing telling me where the gravity is coming fromâ. Horrible.
I landed in a stumble on the cold brass boot, my horizon stabilised, and I took a moment to breathe. I had landed it. Holy shit.
Smooth metal was ironically a bit easier to stand on than the floor, since it had fewer irregularities. I had faith in the magic to keep me grounded, but it was still nerve-wracking. I looked up, trying to catalogue the protrusions I could get to, and what they were each for, when the foot I was on lifted. The sensation was like being in a plane during takeoff. Each step looked ponderous, but this thing was so big that the sheer distance gave it speed, and I was practically slammed against the floor, unprepared for that sensation.
Seeing what was coming next, I scrambled to my feet and sprinted forwards, following the ramp as its foot blended into an ankle, and then a shin. I made it just in time as the leg jerked forward, and I was again pressed down relative to where I was standing. Down was coming next, and I once again raced ahead so I was on the underside of one of these platforms, standing upside-down and waiting for the stomach-dropping descent. I didnât have to wait long, and letâs just say itâs a good thing Iâd made it above the ankle as the shock absorbers soaked up enough of the impact to stop me feeling like Iâd just fallen the 70 or so feet Iâd moved from top to bottom. I was still thrown to the âfloorâ in a sprawling and undignified fashion â again.
Whilst I had been up on my perch, hanging like a bat, I could see everyone else on the ground as I went overhead. It was too high and too fast to catch their expressions, but Iâd like to think it was stunned, awestruck incomprehension at my dazzling bravery, cunning, and magical prowess.
{Tove here â We were surprised, sure, but⦠weâd seen lots of weird things by that point in our lives. It mostly seemed kind of stupid and reckless. My main thought was that now sheâd done it, I knew there were a few of my friends who would feel like they had to go up there as well, so I was going to have to help, and get dragged along, and look after everyone. To sum up, my thinking was âYou have caused me work and problems.â I still didnât even know who she was by then, but that is not a thought that ever really went away after this.}
Clearly their stunned-ness didnât last very long though, because I could suddenly see them sprinting towards me, obviously aiming to get to the foot when it came down. As I said, I was laid out sprawling (although upside-down) from the impact, but as soon as everything stopped shaking I was up again, flipping to the top of this platform, and just catching a disappearing glimpse of all of them gathered around on the floor. I had no idea what they were doing, and I wasnât going to stick around for it either.
Conveniently, there seemed to be one of these hatches immediately on top of this platform. Maybe it had once been a maintenance access or something. The annoying part was it was Gnome-sized, and even as vertically challenged as I am, thatâs a bit cosy. There didnât seem to be hinges on the outside, so I assumed it swung inwards, and pushed. No movement. I had been expecting that though â either this thing would have been locked, or it had just seized shut through the ages. I knew some lockpicking from my last job, but it didnât matter either way since I was in a hurry for a few reasons. First was these people who I was trying to ignore, but second and more importantly was because this magic I was using to be up here didnât stay on forever, and I didnât want to wait for it to wear off.
Grinning only a little bit, I took a wooden bead from a pocket, and slipped it into the open mouth of the dragon at the end of the PDSâs barrel. Grabbing the staff end of it, I pushed the magic down my arm, felt the tingle where it left my flesh into the prosthetic, and then felt again as that minute part of my soul was whisked away along the grooves in the wood designed to funnel it. There was a brief and awesome moment as the dragonâs eyes flashed white (a slightly wasteful cosmetic addition Iâd tacked on) before a sound like the loudest cymbals in the world erupted from the barrel. A concussive wall of âloudâ, but also of solid force, slammed into the door Iâd put the PDSâs mouth flat against, all the force being funneled into it from point blank. The sound would probably have been deafening if the noises of the titan werenât taking that role already.
I was rewarded as the ancient metal buckled immediately, blasted clean off whatever hinges it once had. That shockwave was normally distributed over a wider area, but as I was learning, it made a very effective tool for breaking and entering. I briefly thought about the fact that if the door had withstood that, then it would at the very least probably have reflected into my PDS (destroying it utterly) or me (throwing me off the platform). Those thoughts were already leaving my head though as I crouched, practically kneeling, and shuffled through the hatch.