The Sketch Rift: The Seal of Demons

Kernels in the Stove

An hour of silence passed too soon. Soal resumed his contemplation against the quaking, wailing wall after Moth departed to his throne, only for a disruption in his train of thought to occur: Moth said Sulukrita might want the Reacsoa Hand, his eyes widened, his legs extending to offer him a place at the same altitude as his peers. As if to reflect such an altitude, the temblors of the solid sky above the Catacombs intensified and demanded that he halt such hypotheses at once. Soal recalled not Hemingway's truth regarding the Reacsoa Hand, but his Blessing did not guard him against going from oak to log.

[Author's note: Insomnia, Kyueb. Fiction is objective.]

He bypassed the throne at the core of the tunnels. "Moth, you have to follow me. I have a plan. A real plan!"

"Getting yourself to the Hand should be an issue enough," the Ambassador groused of Soal's stubbornness. "The Catacombs are winding enough alone. You will find your way back here, and I am certain you will be emptyhanded. But things aren't bad enough yet."

"They will be soon," Soal lamented in a manner that supposed he had already given in to Moth's attempts at shooing away the semi-Master Bringer's propositions. "This is no time to be so... inflexible!"

Moth grunted. "Sure, I'm steadfast. But can an inflexible person also be alive right now? If anything, General Soal, an inciting incident would be favorable right now, as much as it defies the fact that we are currently undergoing one of the multiple climaxes. Go without me. For now, that is."

"If you really say so..." Soal acquiesced, and in little time he had spurted off into a similar, ivy-coated corridor, one he had never seen before, and one whose possession of the Reacsoa Hand was unconfirmed. He had, in fact, only entered one arm of the Catacombs, but they all seemed identical at first glance, and Soal had not the time to glance (or so he felt).

Each of these branches merged at a common distance with their neighbors, which he realized promptly after his first three tunnels. Every one was individually inspected thrice and once as a single structure, but without respect for Soal's hopes. Therefore, he returned to Moth.

"You know where it is. You asked me to wait. Please; Moth, we have to use it as soon as possible!"

"There is no means by which you may Bless others or Bless objects, even sacred ones, with the ownership of the utmost weapon in our arsenal," the Ambassador yawned. "Not even emerging dust from nasal passages has that power. But as you wish, in your Blessing, it is the responsibility of Sigjire and your lackeys of progression to aid you. Messenger!"

Reverberations of "we know, Ambassador" floated into their gashed ears, each repetition grinding to a slower and slower standstill around the gravitationally variable Reacsoa Hand their gloved hands dragged decalescent configurations of elongated bars to hale. Eeaacchh ffoooottsstteepp wwwaaasss lllloooonnnnggggeeeerrrr ttttthhhhhaaaaannnnnnnnn

"The last!" Moth routed the lethargy of what from some angles may have appeared to be an embellished death march. "It would be good if we could wake up sooner or later." With this unexplained cue they were released from such a languid pose and continued to toil at an ordinary speed, Moth impatiently hopping down after Soal and adding another two hands to the effort following his predecessor's two, although the rate at which the Hand arrived at the center of the chamber was still sluggish at best.

Soal's hand hovered above mine. "It's... lukewarm," he described. "I'm not certain about its specific temperature, but it's not warm."

"So long as it isn't deadly, you and Reacsoa are on good terms," Moth grunted before trailing off in his careless disclosure of his master's opinions -- truisms. "Nothing you have done is a grievance to him. Perhaps because you have done noth..."