"What is a Wiper doing here, in the Shadow Dimension?" Asked Aida. The Wiper smiled, and sat down on the wooden floor. He passed cups of coacoa around.
"I arrived in the Shadow Dimension many decades ago," explained the Wiper, "I have not returned to Earth since. I dare not. You see, I came here along with many other sorcerers, though there were few other Wipers. In fact, if memory serves, there were only three of us."
"What happened to the others?" Asked Lifei.
"Dead," said the Wiper, sadly, "All except for Oculi, who I saw escape back to the portal. She brought us here, you see. She sensed something about this world."
"But... if Oculi was here here... then you must have been part of-" said Aida.
"Project Shade, yes," agreed the Wiper.
"Project Shade?" Asked Shanae, "That's the worst name I've ever heard."
"We thought so too," agreed the Wiper, "Wipers are not the mindless robots everyone thinks they are. We do have thoughts and emotions, but the emotions are kept to a bare minimum, and the thoughts are shared by all of us. The scientists of the Academia were interested to see how we threw Wipers would act in another dimension, away from the bulk of the Wipers."
"What happened?" asked Lifei, "Did you guys go crazy and kill everyone?"
Ana slapped Lifei's wrist, "That's enough out of you, young lady."
"I can see that you have not endeared yourselves to the rest of my kind," said the Wiper, smiling. Then, he frowned, "As to what happened, well... Nothing happened. Not at first. We entered this very city. And we were massacred."
"By the soldiers?" asked Aida, frowning.
The Wiper snorted. "By these soldiers? Not likely. The soldiers are little more than pets compared to their master, and their master is little more than a pet compared to his master. Once the two joined the battle, we stood no chance,"
"Ruspard," said Aida. The Wiper nodded, "And his master. I don't know his name. No one does, except maybe Ruspard himself. In fact, except for a few of Ruspard's guards, no one is supposed to know."
"Then how do you know?" asked Anna, suspiciously.
"Hypnosis. Wine. Beer. Anything that gets the guards talking," said the Wiper, "Also, I saw the master with my own eyes, when we were attacked. 'Course, I didn't know who he was at the time, but I do now. We were just walking through the streets, and everybody was looking at us as if we were dead men, and we were on high alert, then this bloody ten foot tall man steps out of an alley. He's dressed in silver armor, and he's got a sword a meter and a half long. His face looked like a night sky full of stars, and his eyes shone. His sword flashes, and the team leader lost his head and his life. Bad deal, in my opinion. We Wipers, we tried to hypnotize him, but he crushed the other two's minds with psychic power like I've never seen before. I barely jumped out of his head in time. Then, we started to attack. Even without the team leader we held together." There was pride in the Wiper's eyes. Then it vanished, "Not that it mattered. Another man came out, or at least I think it was a man. He wore a long brown cloak, and he held this enormous silver spear. Nothing we did could harm him. Fire flowed off him like water. Lightning danced around him. Beams of energy faded. But when a sword slashed toward his neck, what would have been a fatal blow, the big man protected him with his sword. That's when we knew that only a physical blade could end him. The big man was worse. He clicked his fingers and a spear of shadows slashed through one of us. He flicked his wrist and a blast of lightning turned another man to dust. I fled." The Wiper hung his head, "There was nought I could do. That any of us could do. We scattered. Ran for our lives. Every man for them self."
"None of the others survived? Not a one?" Asked Ana.
"Nobody. They would have found me- or vice versa, long before now," said the Wiper.
"Why don't you try to get back? They don't have great security. You could probably reach the portal," said Cassandra.
"That I could. And I wanted to. But I was heavily injured. I crawled into a ditch to hide. And when I woke up, hours later, I realized that I wasn't connected to the other Wipers anymore. I realized that I enjoyed my independence, my emotions. And I realized that if I went back... I may become connected to the others again. I... didn't want that. And I owed it to the others, to the rest of the team, to stay. To see this through. To kill Ruspard, at the very least," said the Wiper.
Aida explained how the rest of the Wipers had become traitors and been killed. When the Wiper heard this, he was silent for a while. Then, "I... I can go home." He whispered. A tear flowed down his cheek. He smiled slightly.
"The man," said Aida, "The ten foot tall one. Is he still alive?"
"He... is rumored to be... preserved. Nobody knows who he is, but he comes and goes, all mysterious. He came one night, told Ruspard that his soul was going somewhere and to take care of his body while his soul was gone. Now is the best time for me to attack, but I can't beat him alone," said the Wiper. He looked at us imploringly.
"Why not?" Said Aida, calmly.
Anna and Ana looked at her. "We have a dead line," reminded Anna.
"45 hours left," said Ana.
"Our job is to find Exitium's body," whispered Aida, wary of outside listeners, "And the man that this Wiper speaks of must be him. Ten feet tall? Skin like a night sky? Who else could it be?"
The two sisters looked at each other. "Makes sense," admitted Ana.
"What are the chances? That the girl chose the very reality that contains him?" Asked Anna.
"What do you mean?" Asked Lifei.
"We knew that Exitium was in one of the realities, but did not know which one. When we arrived, we decided to just use our tracers and get as close to Exitium as possible, then get back to the original reality that we arrived in, where we assumed he was. Yet he is here. And apparently, has ruled here for centuries," said Ana.
"The girl shares his blood. I believe that Exitium took control of this world. He controls everything, the air, the water, everything. She knew, in her subconscious, which world he was in. He must have ordered Ruspard to take care of his body, then sent his soul to meet Umbra," said Aida.
"Wait. What's to stop Exitium from leaving his body again when he's back on Earth?" Asked Shanae.
"He can't. Not until he reaches full strength. When he is reunited with his body, he will begin to regain power," said Ana.
"Where would Exitium's body be stored?" Asked Anna, talking to the Wiper.
"In the palace," said the Wiper, "But where in the palace, I don't know."
Ana, Anna and Aida looked at each other. Aida looked at the three children present.
"What do you three think? Do we help him?" she asked. Cassandra realized that this was the first time that Aida, or any of the older sorcerers, asked for their opinion. Treated her as an equal. She knew why it was difficult for a lot of them. The second generation, her parents, has been born during the great empire of Rome, which was why their names were Latin. To most of them, she was less than an infant. Inexperienced. A blink of an eye compared to their centuries of experience.
In short, it took her off guard.
"I... um..." she said.
"Of course!" Said Lifei, as usual the first to respond, "We break in to the palace, dump Exitium's body in a sack, and kick Ruspard's ass on the way out! What could go wrong?"
