An insecure Soal free-fell down the straight drop of the Riverift. He considered drawing his sword, but refrained from doing so, seeing as it would give his drop an uncomfortable angle and that he would probably inadvertently let go of the sword ways down. The shaft was also extending far beyond the point at which it often concluded, causing Soal to fall for minutes on end without a sign of reaching 2020, making him even uneasier.
In due time, he could somehow sense a presence approaching somewhere above him, dropping at a greater speed than his own. This spurred him to finally unsheath his sword and shakily position himself so that he would fall in the same orientation, and that he did not accidentally stab himself along the way.
A fearsome battle cry sounded itself in the vicinity, and Soal did his best to look up, only to somehow lean out of the way to avoid being impaled by the rampaging Ivel's katana. Ivel somehow matched his falling speed to Soal's, and was within moments face-to-face inches from the semi-Master Bringer, provoking a desperate battle. Soal was already aware that Ivel was alive somewhere and was slowly losing his mind without a Vorren -- but this was already even worse than his level of aggression last time. Each swipe of Soal's sword felt like he was using the Pure Light Sword all over again: the pressure applied by falling made every move less mobile, and clashed with Ivel's katana every time.
But as the bright illumination laying at the bottom of the shaft approached, much to his relief (?), Ivel, despite lacking a Vorren, somehow accessed a single Sulukridger ability deep within him: to physically bend the Riverift. Instantly, Soal felt their path suddenly switching directions, creating a fork in the Riverift that just avoided the exit point. Wordlessly, Soal knew that Ivel was cheating, but that this battle could not continue onwards forever. When Ivel grew relatively exhausted, he finally allowed them both to slip into the eventual end of the time-travelers' tunnel.
Soal found himself immediately conscious, almost precisely where -- but not when -- he had been when he returned home from Hendera the first time after the Time-Bound Thief incident: lying on the silky green grass of his backyard, his sword at his side. Immediately, he took it in hand, and slid his sheath back into place on his back. It was the middle of the night once again, which was clearly not when he had departed. He supposed it had been at least a few days since Hemingway and Moth dragged Alice and himself into the midst of a situation in Counter's Hall when the Ambassador first spoke to him of "wormholes or plot holes".
Regardless of this, Soal scanned the windows into the backyard. Among them, one of the windows into the kitchen had foolishly been left open overnight; a poor decision on Theodore's part, or perhaps that of the twins. Through this window, Soal could also infer that the alarm had not yet been turned on -- another silly mistake by one of the three of them, as the key on the wall that would turn it off was clearly inactive. Soal, glad to discover that he could easily infiltrate his own home if he lacked a key, slipped through the window, the household alarm declining to trigger, as he had deciphered. Shutting and locking the window behind him, he was barely relieved to be returning to a home without a mother in a potential cover-up by Hemingway and the authorities of Counter's Hall. Most importantly, Ivel could be anywhere at the moment -- even right behind him, the thought of which made Soal quiver in the anticipation of Ivel hurting not only him and the property within the house, but his family and his neighbors as well.
He sauntered over to the edge of the kitchen, vaguely and dimly lit by the blue-hued light of the outdoors, where a pad of small sticky notes was located on the counter. Setting down his sword on the tabletop, he began to scribble a note to Theodore and the twins:
To Theodore (not "Teddy"!), Addison and Ashley,
It's about time I explain what this big ruckus is about when it comes to Alice and I, To begin with, when
This documentation was abruptly put to an end when Soal realized that the end of a sharply forged blade was prodding the back of his neck, at which point he put the unfinished note back onto the counter as collectively as possible, and in a flash, he reached for his sword and avoided the sudden jab of Ivel's ruthless onslaught, each wave of the katana -- always countered by Soal's own sword -- toppling tabletop objects, from unclean plates and treasured family photographs to the doors of the wall-mounted cabinets and glasses of water, almost all of them shattering into shards of torn memories. Such vandalism -- in Soal's house, nonetheless! -- drove his determination to further lengths. Ivel had always been something of a madman, but this was taking it much too far.
Only when Ivel had chased Soal out of the kitchen into the living room that his movements faltered, giving Soal a chance to strike his chest twice in a row -- which, even when in armor, seemed to be the true final blow to an overly persistent Ivel. He himself tripped after being stabbed and collapsed to the tiled floor at the other end of the kitchen, his dirty leathery brown armor quickly turning maroon.
"Don't do it," Ivel spluttered, which made Soal pause prior to going for the killing blow. "I... I have some adv-vice to give you. I know a S-s-ulukridger when... I see one. Neither you... nor h-her... have any reason to th-th-th-ink... think you'r-re any more special than... than anyone else... or th-that the pseud-d-d-do Sulukridger... was tr-truth-f-f-f-ful."
"I'm not a Sulukridger?" Soal murmured, somehow suspecting that the words of Hemingway were untrue after multiple falsehoods. "Then... is there a Master Bringer?"
"You... will see," Ivel hacked. "As I... l-lose my humanity... I want-t you to e-e-end my suffering... and to t-t-take my... truths to heart. I d-deserve to be punished."
Soal bid Ivel farewell with a strained smile as he dropped his own sword and took Ivel's own katana from his hands, before plunging it into the former Commander's chest one more time. It seemed that he had actually died just before the impact, rather than following it. The era of the Crusade had passed over into something much more terrifying: now that there was only Hendera and the ragtag remnants of an order of Sulukridgers, the reality of failure on 9101 was more real than ever.
Soal eventually completed the note he had begun, but the fact that there was a dead, bloody body, two swords, and a plethora of shattered relics on the kitchen floor, was certain to make Theodore furious when the sun rose.
YOU ARE READING
The Sketch Rift: The Eternal Crusade
Fantasía{Book Two in the Sketch Rift Trilogy} Samuel Lawrence, or Soal, is revolted by the mere premise of returning to the bleak metropolis of Hendera. But these hopes are laid to rest when sentinels of the enigmatic Charles Hemingway draw his reentr...
