V.

  “Madoka,” Audrey’s urgent voice pushed through her vision. The bright light began to dissipate; now the scene before Madoka was replaced with the same miserable darkness and oppressive atmosphere. Somehow things felt calmer without those dreadful humans around, but she reluctantly opened her eyes fully. When the princess realized she was awake, her eyes softened. “You really gotta stop passing out, Madoka. You’re worrying me sick I tell you!”

  “I have been doing that a lot lately,” Madoka chuckled, propping herself up and taking a look at the Princess. Nothing seemed wrong with her. The cold aura the girl exuded made Eena, who was silently watching the exchange between them, shiver. When the Noble caught Madoka’s glance, she looked away. Were the colors of her skin changing to red? “Those humans…”

  “Snapped out of existence,” Audrey sighed. After scanning the girl for a moment, Madoka noticed that faint traces of guilt rested underneath her eyes. Did she feel bad for harming those creatures since she used to be one? “I guess the Statue of that god destroyed them before, well, I could. Saves me the trouble… and my feelings.”

  Written from Tomorrows, Madoka mused. The princess scoffed, trailing at the end of her opinion on the matter. As a Royal, she probably was used to servants and people beneath her dying all the time. Humans could have easily provoked memories from her past life, but it did not seem like it should affect Audrey whether or not if they died, right? Madoka could not be certain.

  “What now?” She asked, wiping herself up as she stood up. Audrey hesitated and did not speak for a long while, but Madoka noticed that the area was slowly becoming brighter.

  The Obelisk was indeed tall, stretching further up into the “sky.” It seemed that this beast was so large that clouds somehow formed inside of it. She was not an expert in the ways of the heavens, even less so now, so she did not bother looking for an explanation. Madoka could make out metallic spires jutting out through the clouds after squinting hard at it, suggesting that there was a roof above them.

  The pumping and swishing noises from those M-Particle fluids continued to flow steadily into the Obelisk. Light from below them suddenly distracted her from the statue. While Madoka and Audrey were on some kind of natural rocky bridge connected to the Obelisk, she learned that there was a bowl shaped incline lying just underneath them. It was actually like the pool of light she found upon arriving here, but now she could see it clearly. The bowl was a window of sorts, revealing the top of a grey overcast sky stretching infinitely; at least the wet and gloomy blanket blocked the surface from their drama up here, wherever here was. She looked at Audrey expectantly, but worried if she was busy daydreaming instead of hearing what Her Highness had to say. The girl sat there, waiting patiently for Madoka to come to her senses. She was always so unpredictable, even now in this dangerous place.

  “I’m, ah, just as lost as you are,” Audrey sighed. “I want to say we should get outta here first since being in a giant-dead dragon-slash-space-station isn’t all the hype they said it would be.”

  Madoka scoffed. Whoever they were to Audrey were most definitely wrong and fixin’ for a beating, she thought. Another thought gripped her. She was getting more and more accustomed to the princess’s strange phrases to the point where their meaning extended beyond the implications in her tone. She had to come to terms that whatever that Link did to her, was beneficial in reaching better communications with Audrey.

  “The space station stayed, for some reason. It would be worth exploring a bit now that those pesky humans aren’t around to shoot us. Though, I’m not really reliable in all things Sky-related,” Audrey alternated between a guilty look and a sheepish smile. “They also left their guns!”

  That information unsettled Madoka much more deeply than any of the other excuses. Instinctively, she felt the storage talisman hanging from her Adventurer Tag’s necklace. Images of those deadly laser guns flashed within her mind, seizing her with a slight terror and an immense guilt. Four of those laser rifles were currently resting inside of the storage portal, taunting her and ready to be used. Audrey perked up again and waved dismissively at the talisman.

  “Oh, and you can keep that thing. I don’t want to lug around inventory all the time.”

  “I’m… Sworn to carry all your burdens,” Madoka sighed. Her purple, sharp eyes clashed with the princess’s blue and softening eyes.

  “Aw, don’t look at me like that,” Audrey pouted and pointed at the small stone tablet. “Look, it even changed its size for you. If anything, it decided you should be its owner. It’s fate and it’s super overpowered.”

  Fate. The face of Gechick’s warm and smiling face flashed in her eyes, making her feel that sense of bittersweet nostalgia. If she was the Witch or that Princess in the visions, then she was long gone, was she not? Were they even helping by restoring these Links for her? This place, slowly becoming illuminated by the grey’s morning light, revealed the landscape around her. There was the usual tangles of pines and withered black roots, which seemed to be inactive now in the coming hour. Jutting out of the forest and the surrounding odd buildings were odd cubes stacked high in the air on top of each other. Knotting strands seemed to connect the stack of boxes together, but Audrey cleared her throat before Madoka could process the view of the Uracksheegal.

  “Anyways, our Noble friend here has something to say, right?” Audrey narrowed an eye at the quiet Eena standing to the side, though the Noble had shrunk into her muted self again. Was it because she did not trust Audrey? Madoka suppressed a sigh. That was obvious in hindsight. There was a brief hint of hostility, but Madoka recognized that look. She herself must have given Arudite that jealous disdain many times before.

  “Others,” Eena pointed in a direction. A trail of purple thought-needles gathered underneath her finger, aiming at another facility. The magic of the Cuckoo seemed to slowly integrate itself within her as well, coming into focus like the Knotting magic strands if she allowed it. “I saw many people carried inside those fortresses.”

  “They also might have a way out of here,” Audrey noted. “Though our investigation with the Truth Guild doesn’t really seem like we’re going to find any survivors in there.”

  “You sound like you know what you’re doing,” Madoka grumbled, but received a hmph in response.

  The detachment in Audrey’s voice made Madoka feel uneasy, but she still stood up, avoiding the sight of the clouds way beneath the glass bowl beneath them. They have been on this natural bridge for who knows how long. Extending a hand to Her Highness, she had no other choice but to explore this alien place. Audrey seemed to know where they were going even without Eena’s help, but after seeing the Noble Sovos’s reassuring gaze Madoka sensed they must have communicated while she was out so she decided to remain on guard. The roots were less imposing in the artificial gloomy morning light, yet did not budge. Audrey looked at the towering wall of thorns infused with bodies and shuddered. Eena pursed her lips, but Madoka could see traces of an embedded stone structure hidden within the shrouded vines. The princess gasped when Madoka moved closer to inspect it, but held back with an unspoken trust.

  Oddly enough, the Crystal in her hummed as she placed a hand on the exposed surface. It was one of the boxy stones that she spotted before. Her hand immediately started to glow the moment she touched its cold cracks and patterns. Madoka held Audrey back with a tight grip, sensing the cubes returning a strange signal back to her. Under the cracks, golden Knotting magic rushed out like biting and lashing snakes uncoiling. She flinched, but suddenly she heard a voice in her head.

  HEAR YE, HEAR YE

  TODAY THE HOLY ONE ARRIVES

  OUR CHORUS WITNESSES THEE

  THE SYSTEM RESONATES LIKE THUNDER

  HEAVEN TO EARTH, HEAVEN TO EARTH

  THY TRUE FORM STILL REQUIRES

  MORE ABSOLUTION AND AUTHORIZATION

  Despite the artifact’s esoteric heralding, the cube under her palm suddenly broke free from its dark prison and pushed her back away a few steps. Madoka watched it float in the air, as more cracking noises came from the black roots. More cubes launched themselves from the wall, yet when she attempted to shield Audrey from the shards of the broken thorns the pain never came. Instead, those shattered roots dissolved and became swallowed by the floating stone’s Knotting magic’s golden light. The boxes rotated and shifted in odd patterns as more of them joined the formations, eventually culminating into a tower before stabbing into the ground. A soft hum emitted from the stack of cubes, while Audrey stood bewildered.

  “Okay, so that’s a thing,” she breathed.

  “Whoa,” Eena let out a dejected sigh, matching Her Highness’s exasperation.

  Madoka turned tentatively to face them only to see their pale faces. She suddenly felt embarrassed, but the path was open. They needed to get to the Processing Bay and things were still quite dangerous with the Witch’s presence still lingering here. So she nodded to them both and gestured them to continue onward as the only maid-like thing she could do at the current time.

  “Did you hear that voice?” Madoka asked them. The two women exchanged glances that all but confirmed to her that they did not. “It sounded like the… Nevermind.”

  “So you are Godtouched,” Eena softly spoke in reverence, making her feel embarrassed. The woman was a silent observer of their conversations, but still held Madoka in some kind of light. She dared not admit felt the same for Eena after recalling the intense moments they shared together while escaping the humans.

  “Godtouched, eh? She is god to me,” Audrey muttered. Madoka wanted to scold her over the blasphemy, but in the end they most likely both were not accurate in the fullness of their comprehension of the term. Madoka herself only had vague assumptions about it, but since a Noble who presumably knew more about the world outside their Palace was present Madoka knew Her Highness could use the knowledge. Eena contemplated for a moment as if she was trying to reconcile the pair with some other preconceived notion about them. They traveled through the thick woods, avoiding every roots.

  “Forgive me,” Eena barely spoke above a whisper. “I- I’ve lived a quiet life. I do not dare to speak on a God’s behalf, but I can see how much more powerful your magic is than my own, Madoka.”

  Madoka did not know whether to thank her or compliment her back, feeling a bit flustered. Audrey cleared her throat, quickly curtailing any word that could escape. After contacting several more stacks of those odd cubes, she noticed that the Knotting magic formed runes on their surfaces that resembled strangely familiar imagery. Golden pictures of the glowing white flowers they have seen before and more terrifying to her, pictures of the glowing white bird she’s encountered. They chanted choruses over her arrival, heralding her as the Holy One, yet Madoka could not figure out for the life of her about that strange title. Was she not a simple slave to a strange princess? What was she truly? That heavenly voice that Kane spoke to even said she was somehow different from the rest of her kind— set apart from the other Narms in some way.

  “Those cubes,” Madoka hesitated to ask Audrey. “Are you certain you cannot see the magic coursing through them?”

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  Audrey rose a finger to her lips in deep contemplation.

  “I can’t see it,” she began, but she began to run her hands over her arms underneath her sleeves. “But I can certainly feel it. Every time you touch one, the energy makes my skin feels all tingly.”

  Energy, she guessed was Audrey’s way of describing the magic. She has mentioned it before, but Madoka could not tell the different. Eena pointed silently ahead. The thorny and roots covered the ground and made it treacherous, but faint traces of a lost road lead to a shattered building ahead. Madoka could read the labels on it.

  “Processing, huh,” she muttered. Audrey caught her gaze at the sign, making a new connection.

  “You can read it?” Audrey looked amazed. She then stuck her hand on the door’s security pad in an attempt to unlock it. “I got this. I’ve pushed a very heavy King Slime core out of a hole before, lifted a heavy bag of gold coins before, worked out all summer long! A simple—“

  “ACCESS DENIED. Begone, O Abaddon. Begone, leave, leave— all of your presence is not worthy. You disgrace the HOLY ONE by standing near her.”

  “Eep!” Audrey cowered by Madoka when the door gave a resounding resistant announcement. It was clear that while she did not seem to understand the words, but could tell the door was mad at her. “Madoka! It’s yelling at me and being mean!”

  Madoka sighed and rolled up her sleeves. A door that does not want to open for Her Highness was simply not worthy of being a door, then. The thought-shards refocused into view, their purple and gloomy glowing needles pricked into the doorway like a ruffled up tapestry.

  Plucking one, Madoka caught a vision of someone watching in fear as the door slid open, with many shadow-covered humans with those guns dragging their unconscious and dead friends into it. The cruel face of one of the humans slowly made his way to the thought’s owner, grinning widely as he slashed at them. The glint of the knife in his hand made Madoka snap out of it, but also caused her to exert her strength in anger. Golden knots solidified into a furious hum, ripping the door asunder. Madoka clapped her hands together, satisfied with her work. The connected hallway seemed more destroyed now that all the humans were gone. There was nothing but the dim glow of morning grey clouds filling its silence. She entered first, ignoring the stares of the Nobles. The sound of droplets of water plopping on the floor echoed in the distance, along with sloshing liquid flowing nearby as if they were next to a river. No signs of life in the hall. A hand pointed from behind her and Madoka looked towards its direction. Pipes? There were two sets of pipes, each with a flow of different colored liquids. The dazzling white river flushing in a direction outside of the building. The other set was a sickly green fluids flowing into a network that branched to various blocked off rooms. She expected resistance upon entering the hall, yet all that awaited them was hollowness. Just the remnants of a long abandoned place, like the forlorn and alien ruins in the forest.

  “Those pipes,” Audrey’s hand aimed back and forth between both of the separated sets. “That white stuff— heh— seems to match the same as the fluids outside, right?”

  Madoka nodded. Six rooms, six pipes going into them, and then the six pipes leaving. She suspected whatever was flowing into the rooms exited as the sparkling white stuff inside those outside pipes. There was a slight issue, however. She did not know what that meant. Audrey looked troubled, but spoke up when Madoka looked at her.

  “This system, if what you said about humans kidnapping the people on the surface is true…” Audrey hesitated.

  “System?”

  “M-Particles, silicate compounds and melted down into purified fluids is extracted by these humans somehow. I’m guessing that green goo is what breaks the people— ugh— down into…” Audrey slowly said, as if approaching the truth any faster would cause a catastrophe. The realization dawned on Madoka, making her gasp. “Then wouldn’t the white stuff in the pipe be those victims that were… Processed? Those rooms are full of dead people.”

  The words bore its full weight on both of them. The purple shards on the ground glared at her, silent granting her visions of the dead’s screams after whatever those “processing” bastards did to them. Madoka felt a little detached from it all at first, but that nagging guilt plucked at her heart. Audrey looked a little shaken, but unsurprised. Eena, on the other hand, still waited for the two to make a move. Madoka nearly forgot she was also in the presence of another Noble, but simply continued her attention to Audrey. The overcast light filtered over her face, revealing more of the overgrown and twisted state of the interior. One of the pipes was wrapped tightly by the black roots, with more thicker roots blocking off the first couple of rooms. More of those peculiar cubes were exposed in their tangles, humming as they drew closer. Based off Audrey’s disturbed reaction when Madoka approached it, she could tell that there was probably death waiting behind the roots should she dare remove the roots. She did not need to check after bumping into a larger thought shard, that revealed rows of eyes, teeth and spines dissolving in a vat containing the green acid. The body parts bobbed in the liquid before sinking completely, like a macabre meat stew, with the eyes locked in a final pleading expression. Suddenly, a gasp interrupted her silent inspection of the surroundings.

  “That tube, right there,” Audrey knelt down over brush and inspected a pipe that Madoka overlooked. The opposite tube to it did not seem active, instead, it was punctured by a root and blocked the foul green liquid from flowing continuously and presumably towards a chamber ahead of them. “It’s empty.”

  The pair looked at each other with a sudden epiphany. If the liquid got to those prisoners, then they were good as dead, right? The lights began to flicker even though Madoka had not realized they were on. Whatever was inside this room must want the truth to not spill outside. A foreign thought entered her mind, though she knew exactly who it was. The Witch had Her attention upon them! The black roots shuddered, though the ashen bodies inside of them did not become animated. Instead, eyes began to open all along their gnarled surfaces and glared at them.

  “Your interference hurts me deeply. Why do you not wish to see Tomorrow?”

  “Come, Lady Eena,” Madoka turned and grabbed her arm. The jolting Knotting magic lept down from Madoka’s arm to the Noble, waking her from the petrifying feeling of terror washing over her. “We must hurry!”

  Even Audrey did not have time to be selfish, instead she broke into a sprint to the door. Madoka ran along, dragging Eena with her. Whether she could keep up with her or not was an issue that she would clean up later! Her foot stepped in something moist, making a squishy sound beneath her boot. An eye opened on a root’s exposed knot, glaring at her. As the lights flickered, she sensed that the Witch was watching them and controlling more of the roots towards them with Her dark magic.

  “Tomorrow, join us in our gaze to Tomorrow, Child.”

  Get out of my head, Madoka gritted her teeth. Her mind began to swell with more visions of eyes and the deaths of Gladeban’s villagers. Eena suddenly began to struggle in her grasp, seemingly out of control over herself and succumbing to the Witch’s pressure. Madoka had no choice but to scoop her up again amidst her screaming.

  “Here!” Audrey shouted. Her eyes were also blood red and her hands were shaking as if they were resisting some kind of urge. Her cheeks were scratched from her own nails! Madoka worried, but the task of escaping was greater than any rescue, was it not? The Witch’s presence here should have been a give away. Audrey gripped a metal railing so hard that it began to groan under her hidden strength, but that only worried the maid even more. When her eyes met the Princess’s, she realized that despite the chaos wreaking havoc in Her Highness’s mind she still had a fleeting control and lucidity over her actions. “We have to get this open— then get out of here, okay?”

  “Got it,” Madoka ignored the Noble slung over her shoulders pounding uselessly against her back. Still, she spoke softly to her. “I’ll put you down when I’m done with my duty, milady.”

  Inspecting over the eye-covered branch, each blinking at her in both a welcoming temptation and disturbing silence she finally found an exposed corner of a chipped cube. No time to wonder why you’re even here, please clear the roots! She begged the cubes in her mind as she rose her arms to pull Knotting Strands to it. The chains danced enthusiastically in the air in the same path as Madoka’s pulling arms, finally connecting with the cubes as they have before. They became agitated, whirring as more cubes emerged and purified both eyes and dark roots blocking the room.

  HEAR YE, HEAR YE.

  HOLY ONE—

  THE SYSTEM RESONATES LIKE THUNDER

  DOTH THOU HEARETH ITS CALL?

  DOTH THOU WEIGHT

  CARRIED WITHIN THEE DISTINGUISH

  TODAYS AND TOMORROWS?

  As the cubes broke the eyes and the vines down while in their wake for freedom, Madoka heard a sudden gushing noise come from the entrance of the hall. Kind gods, she realized by clearing the roots, she must have allowed the green dangerous acid a passageway to flow once more by removing the rotten root blocking the pipe. As if she was not worried enough through the Witch’s taunts, the heavenly voice she heard time and time again here finally announced the consequences wrought on from what she did.

  “System blockage has been mitigated. Flow rate has been reduced by 96%, but the M-Processing-Acid pipelines have been restored, increasing to 3 cubic meters per second.”

  “Shit!”

  Both Audrey and Madoka swore. With Her Highness’s intelligence on the Humans and their technology combined with Madoka’s growing information coming from this place, fhe two came to a mutual conclusion on what that heavenly voice just told them. The hallway became shaded in green, casting a nauseating glow over the roots and the sickly, unblinking eyes. The green glow was sneaking upon them like a lashing snake! The door behind the roots became exposed with a gap as wide as finger, but someone had to figure out how to stop the flow of the acid! With a serious and commanding look from Audrey, Madoka knew she had to go inside. There was no way the princess could rip the door open, but she had plans for stopping the acid from getting into the room. With one last glance exchanged between the two, Madoka gritted her teeth and placed a hand on the cold steel. In the distance, Audrey’s footsteps made the floor clank as she sprinted further away out of Madoka’s control once again.

  “You will never save them. Tomorrow comes for Us all.”

  “What about today?” Madoka growled to no one in particular. Eena lay slumped across her shoulder, evidently passed out from the shock from the Witch’s powers. “They deserve to live Today AND get to see Tomorrow!”

  Her burst of bravado fell when she tore the metal door apart and saw the scene before her. The villagers were suspended in a massive transparent container of glass, thrown in without any regard for space; their bodies lying on each other like discarded loaves of bread in a basket. On one side, she saw the pipe labeled M-Processing-Acid attached to the top of it, aimed like a tea kettle ready to pour. It was then she noticed the bottom of the container was like a sieve, ready to filter the M-Particles from the death of real people. The liquid filtered out began to drain presumably to the other network, as hinted by a pool of nasty brown goo resting underneath the entire setup. The brutality of this strange place made her so angry that even her mind shut out the Witch’s invasive taunts. Wait, no, Madoka’s cheat began to ache as well. Heat?

  Before Madoka could even begin to formulate a plan to rescue those unconscious people, the room suddenly began to become illuminated by a swirl of many colors. The red, blue, and purple thought-shards dotted the walls, and the peculiar golden glow blotting out the damn white walls with its unapologetic incandescence. She realized the source came from the center of her chest. The Crystal! It launched out of her Core then situated itself by floating just beneath the vat of people and above the pool of gross brown liquid, spinning without a care.

  Multiple grey boxes whooshed in from behind her, joining the Crystal in a dizzying dance with their own rapid movements. This time, the strange cubes did not say anything nor did the Crystal. The choice was before her, seemingly asking her if she wanted something about Todays or Tomorrows. Madoka did not care. Instead, she simply bowed deeply, taking the unconscious Eena down with her. The Noble was light as a feather, so Madoka did not care.

  “Please,” she begged the strange array of artifactd. All of them, including the Crystal, ceased their rotations as if waiting for her earnest plea. “Take them out of here, back to their homes, safe and sound. Please!”

  The boxes began to stiffen then suddenly they vibrated violently, shifting and shimmering in the air forming new configurations. The cubes alternated between their formations, as if they were choosing something silently. Knotting magic strands became entangled between them, pulsating like a rope constantly loosening and snapping tautly at arbitrary ends. Eventually, the golden magic spread to the vat of people, completely enveloping it within a blinding light so bright she averted her gaze. Something slammed into Madoka’s chest, making her feel incredibly energized. Still, she heard something amidst the chaos break open and the sound of the roaring winds blasted in her ears.

  “Daughter, why do you not wish for me to see Tomorrow?”

  Daughter? Who? It was only then when Madoka noticed that the floor beneath had opened, releasing the nasty pool’s contents into the blanket of clouds. The white and fluffy tops of them remained undisturbed by the splashing brown water, causing her to lose her balance. Shit! She was falling out of here! Glancing at the vat and the shifting cubes, she noticed that they were finally locked into place. The people were gone! Madoka could only resist so long before the sharp winds swept her completely off.

  Before Madoka could resist, Eena suddenly flung into the Sky below her, leaving the maid stunned as she watched the Noble’s body shrink to a tiny dot before disappearing completely. Madoka swore, then another time, and then thrice for good measure. She had enough of this evil place already, but her annoyance did not blind her to the fact that she had enough Knotting magic to fly home. She had to rescue Eena! As soon as she lept into the open air, it just occurred to her that she forgot Audrey was still on board the Uracksheegal somewhere.

  That was when a fourth curse word escaped the maid’s mouth followed by a slap to her forehead.