Tutorial's End

Excerpt from Anagor's Anthology

Enter wrath's iris and feel his gaze. Form from your soul an aegis and hold fast.

Eternity beckons with her grim smile, certain in your eventual defeat.

Infinity suffers no equals.

Willow

The High Garden, Vesheen City, Shee

Staring at the large, imperious, dour, and unwelcoming building, Willow was entirely unsure as to why it was called 'The High Garden.'

From her shoulder Piper helpfully pointed out, "We're definitely going to be murdered if we go in there!"

"Nah, it'd be too cliche."

"Are we assuming you're the main character?"

Forcing her gaze to break from the intimidating building looming above, Willow frowned at the little woman standing on her shoulder. Piper was staring up at the imposing structure much the same as she had been, "Of course!"

"Then wouldn't you surviving an obviously dangerous place be more cliche?" Piper asked, turning her head to meet one of Willow's eyes with both of her tin-prick peepers.

"Why'd I let Slyth convince me to improve your ability to reason?" Willing grumbled.

Speaking of Slyth, she almost regretted not asking him to come with. Instead, he'd said he would go in search of a job while she made her way here to learn more about why Tather 'attacked' them. It made sense to split up, considering both of them were pretty much beggared at this point. Not to say they were really desperate, Willow still had some items from the rift she could probably sell for a fair amount. It just so happened those things were objects she'd prefer to keep.

Let's see… The Sheerna fruit, and the stasis-bag thing they're stored in would probably go for a lot. There's that little sword that turns stuff it stabs into some weird kind of crystal, the cheese grater of doom…

"So are we going somewhere else, or should I begin writing my last will and testament?" Piper pressed.

Grumbling, Willow answered by taking a step toward the building. Then another. She continued until the massive double doors were less than an arm's length from her. They were even more intimidating up close. Red wood banded in iron gone slightly to rust. Long, sharp, spikes protruded evenly across its surface. Each spike had a slightly greenish tip, as if hinting they were coated in some kind of toxin and shouldn't be touched. Not that one needed too much encouragement not to touch super-sharp looking spikes the size of their head.

Unfortunately, there wasn't a knocker or doorbell. "So… How do you think we're supposed to announce ourselves? I don't think my hand can even fit between the pointy bits…"

Perking up, Piper hopped in place on her shoulder, "We could leave instead! I'd LOOOVE to live a bit longer! There's so much I wanna do! Like… Uhm… Hm… Can you give me more baseline knowledge for tonight's session? I feel like I should know what I could possibly want to do."

Deciding that, if someone designed a door which only had one single reasonable method for interacting with them then the owner couldn't be too upset at someone for using that method, Willow reached to the only un-spiked section of door. The large brass handle. "Sure, that's not a bad idea. Maybe I can infuse some optimism back into you too, you seem way too negative after last night's 'improvements'."

"Urhhhhhhhg! I can't help it if thinking critically makes everything seem so BAD! Will giving me optimism make me stupider, I wonder?"

"Being optimistic isn't stupid." Willow argued as she turned and carefully pulled. The door swung open silently, the well-maintained hinges seemingly at odds with the ominous presentation. She'd definitely expected creaking metal and groaning wood.

Once the door had opened enough for Willow to comfortably fit through the gap, she slipped through. Glancing at the back side of the door, she was comforted to find a fairly normal, if large, non-violence shaped door. Reaching behind herself, she pulled the door closed before taking stock of the entryway to this 'garden.'

Piper's reply was whispered, "Isn't it stupid to actively ignore the obvious conclusion of analytical thought in favor of hopeful optimism?"

"Maybe if the 'analytical thought' is unquestionably flawless, but that's not really a thing. There's always a missing variable or something, somewhere." Willow answered in an equally quiet voice.

The entrance was massive, easily large enough to have parked a dozen cars with room to spare. Some kind of polished white stone, or maybe ivory, tiles did their best to combat the oppressive atmosphere of the over-scaled entry hall. Directly in front of the entrance was a wide arched doorway, large enough to drive one of the aforementioned cars through.

On either side of the archway were staircases which both lead up to the same railed platform looking down on the entryway. The entire place was unfurnished. No empty suits of armor, no large portraits of nobility, no impractically heavy vases, not a single thing that Willow would have expected in such a grandiose foyer.

Taking a deep breath, Willow called out, "Hello? I was hoping to meet with Skeeth?"

"Skathareek" Piper gently corrected.

"Huh? How do you know her name better than me? Weren't you just, like, a blob when we met her last?"

"Cuz I listen to people? Slyth has corrected you at least twice that I remember. Probably more. Why are you so bad with names?"

Willow felt the blow directly connect with her honor, wounding it deeply, "Hey, I've gotten better!"

"What, did you just call everyone 'Fred' before?" Piper asked in a mocking tone.

"…How do you know the name 'Fred', we've never met anyone with that name."

"No idea! You imbued me, so you must have included it somehow!"

The two's conversation had started quiet, but they'd both quickly forgotten to remain respectful of the oppressive silence. Their voices echoed and bounced as they spoke, striking walls and returning repeatedly.

"ECHO!" Piper suddenly shouted.

Willow's hand shot up to her shoulder, quickly pressing a finger across the pink pixie's entire face, "Shhh, weren't YOU the one saying we were gonna get killed?"

Shoving the offending finger away, Piper confirmed, "Yep! Can't get anymore dead than dead, so might as well have some fun! Let's go see what's upstairs!"

"We should go through the arch." Willow disagreed, "Upstairs is probably just bedrooms and studies. Private areas."

Following her own advice, Willow forced herself forward. Each footfall echoed through the room with a dull "thwack" as the soft soles of her shoes connected with the hard tiles. Peeking through the archway, Willow found it lead to a hallway which split three ways. Straight forward, left, and right.

Continuing on straight, she and Piper quickly found themselves in am abandoned kitchen. Backtracking and taking each of the other routes available, they mapped out the weird mansion-fortress mix.

The left path had ended in an empty barracks, rows and rows of bunk beds with chests at either end filling the football field sized room. Going right had been more interesting, as it lead to a series of rooms split off on either side rather than just one big one. There were three cleansing rooms of various degrees of 'fancy', with the one furthest down being exceptionally utilitarian. There were also rooms which Willow suspected were intended for various household chores. One was a workshop that had a few bits and bobs of random stuff with enchanting scribbles partially inscribed or painted on them, another was a janitorial closet, a room with a huge clearly enchanted device in the center, and so on. This section of the building was obviously not intended for guests.

"Guess I was wrong about the top floor being for private areas. Clearly all of this is more private. Weird that there's not a door to a backyard or something. Surely there's an actual garden here somewhere?" Willow half asked, half complained.

Piper patted the top of her ear with a tiny hand, "It must be tough being wrong so often."

"Shut up, you're like two weeks old. What do you know?"

Piper staggered, hand going to her breast as if she'd been shot. She fell flat on her back atop Willow's shoulder. Slain by the vicious verbal attack.

Backtracking, the duo made their way upstairs and continued their exploration. "What do you think the chances are that we were given bad instructions and we've broken into some rich person's abandoned summer house?" Willow mused.

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"Not too high. The elf that told us where to go mentioned the spiked doorway. There's no way that's super common. Besides, even if everything is super empty, it's also all very clean."

Piper made a good point. Willow hadn't noticed so much as a speck of dust the entire time they'd been here. "Wouldn't it take an army of housekeeping staff to keep things this sparkling clean?"

"Maybe if you're a dumb more-than-two-week-old and forget about magic being a thing. Someone's probably got an insight like, 'cleanliness is next to godliness' that lets them walk into a room, say a prayer, and POOF, all clean!" Willow answered from her supine position.

The top of the house was pretty much what Willow had expected, a ton of bedrooms. Each bedroom had an attached cleansing room, which itself had an adjoining small closet containing only a single mirror each. They also found a study, as Willow predicted, though it was as empty as everything else.

Finally, after searching most of the rest of the building, they found a semi-hidden staircase. It was actually technically visible from the entrance, as it was located at the back of the second floor directly in front of the doorway. Though it was easy enough to miss, considering the entire thing was colored exactly like the wall behind it. The stairs, railing, even fixtures, were all colored the same shade of yellow-ish white. Without being directly in front of the staircase it really wasn't easy to spot.

"I bet this would be super obvious if there was any light in here." Piper noted as they examined the 'invisible' staircase.

Willow nodded, "Yeah, the shadows would have made it move obvious. I haven't seen any light switches or activation runes, or anything like that anywhere though. Have you?"

"Nope! It's super weird. I have seen brackets for torch sconces, though."

"Wait, really?"

"Yeah! They're all over. You REALLY don't pay attention, do you?! I'm starting to feel ashamed to call you my mother!" Piper pouted. By this point she had transferred over to Willow's left shoulder and was sitting down with her legs hanging partially down. Her heels drummed against Willow without her really noticing as she kicked her feet.

Turning to glare at her guide, Willow spoke very clearly, "First of all, I'm not your mother. You're a blob of goo that I gave pseudo-life to-"

"-Right! Like a mama giving life to their baby! They start out as little egg-blobs! Though, you didn't do the dirty with anyone to have me so… OOOoh does that make me girl-Jesus?! I bet-" Piper's interruption was, in turn, interrupted as Willow blew directly in her face. Causing the little woman to gasp and stop speaking involuntarily.

"How do you even know about Jesus? Did I include that? I wasn't thinking about religion or… Y'know what, nevermind. SECOND OF ALL…" She raised her voice to drown out whatever Piper was trying to sneak in, "I was too busy looking for any people or signs of life to worry about sconce brackets! What do those even look like, anyway?"

Looking grumpy at not being allowed to speak, Piper just pointed - with her middle finger - directly in front of them, to the right of the staircase a bit. Mounted to the wall which the stairs were semi-hidden behind was an off-silver plate with two empty bolt holes.

"Oh. How do you know those are sconce brackets? I definitely don't know that, so how would you?"

"Cuz I'm smarter, apparently. Smarter than my…" She thought about it, "Originator? What am I supposed to call you, if you're not my mom? Also, I can't believe you'd deprive me of a parental connection! I'm so impressionable! I'll probably get into drinking guns and shooting alcohol because of you!"

"Shooting alcohol is a thing, your 'joke' doesn't work."

Willow took a deep breath to center herself, then began walking up the staircase. Each time they'd entered a new area of the building she'd been as unnerved as the last. Big empty buildings were just weirdly disconcerting like that.

"You got it, so the joke worked."

"I'll try to add a better sense of humor tonight, too."

"Noooo! I love my sense of humor! I'm perfect!"

Willow stopped at the top of the staircase, which seemed to end at a solid wall.

"Huh?"

Both women quieted as the stared at the flat stonework. Reaching out, Willow pressed a hand against the brick and pressed with a bit of strength. It held.

"What the…"

"Oh! Oh! Push the third stone from the floor, on the left."

"This one?"

"No, one over. Yeah! That one!"

Following her guide's advice, Willow pressed her toe against the brick. It slide a centimeter or so in, then stopped. Nothing else happened. She turned questioning eyes on Piper, who was looking at the wall with narrowed eyes.

=="I we h==ad light, it'd be way easier."

"Just be lucky we don't have base-human senses, or we'd be blind as bats."

"That'd be better! Then I could use supersonic screeches to find secret passages and stuff! Okay, now push the brick in the very center in. Yeah, that one."

Like the last, the center brick slid slightly back with a bit of pressure.

"Last one should be that one you shoved when we got up here."

Trusting Piper's apparent expertise, Willow pressed the last brick back in. Once all three had been set, a soft 'click' announced a change. The entire wall swung outward away from them, revealing - the garden.

I KNEW there had to be a real garden somewhere in here!

The garden was as empty of people as the rest of the house had been, but was blessedly lit. Sunlight radiated evenly from the ceiling, gently illuminating the entire floor. The garden was gorgeous. At first glance, everything seemed wild, overgrown, and planted without a care.

Once she'd looked more carefully, though, Willow realized it couldn't be entirely unplanned. Winding paths allowed access throughout the entire floor, the paths themselves were simple dirt affairs. Yet, not a single weed or vine dared grow up from the presumably fertile soil of the demarcated path.

Furthermore, while plenty of small trees, large shrubs, and vines grew above the pathway none of them obstructed it. The path was entirely clear and easily traversed from the floor to about four meters up. Beyond that, the foliage stopped respecting whatever barrier warded them off.

The garden itself seemed to somehow be twice the size of the two previous floors. "Do you think it's possible this floor's space has been stretched out?" Willow mused.

Humming softly, Piper clarified, "Like, it's bigger on the inside? It has more space than the walls should logically contain?"

"Yeah. I haven't seen anything like that, outside of Sheerna, but it seems like it should be possible with magic."

"Could be. It could also just be a feeling because the rest of the house is entirely empty and almost every inch up here is covered. Having to take a specific path could make it feel way bigger than it is. Too bad you haven't given me wings yet, I could fly up and check."

"Okay, okay, there are too many things on the list. Wings tonight, or baseline knowledge?"

"Why would you make me chose between two equally critical things?!" Piper complained. "Without knowledge, how will I know when to use my wings?! Without wings, how will I possibly apply my knowledge?!"

"Knowledge it is."

"No! Wings! Wings are so much much cooler!"

Both girls snickering, they didn't immediately notice the break in the garden. Fortunately, it was impossible to miss for long. They'd reached a section of brick wall which wasn't covered in ivy or moss. Instead, a plain metal door hung. The industrial style steel looked extremely out of place between lush patches of green, blue, pink, and red flowers.

"Maybe we finally found where Skeetharek is?"

"Skathareek."

"Urgh, why can't she have a normal name? Like, Penelope. Penelope would be a wonderful name for a fae lady."

Not hesitating this time, Willow approached the door and pulled it open. Most of her expected to find aforementioned fae lady within. Exactly zero percent of her expected to find a massive wall of computer monitors displaying hundreds of different viewpoints.

"Uhh… Is Penelope spying on everyone on the planet?" Willow asked rhetorically as she watched the cameras slowly cycle. Given none of the monitors ever seemed to cycle to a feed shown by another, there had to be thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of feeds being monitored here.

She recognized the alchemist fields, a view of Shandy's Cups' dining room, the first platform, and several other areas. Didn't she say something about her job being to see things coming? Is she just some kind of massive voyeur? Or maybe like a mall security guard but on a planetary scale?

Watching the feeds cycle, there was absolutely no way Willow would ever manage to monitor more than maybe five or six screens at a time. The entire setup seemed insane.

Glancing around the rest of the room, it was clear that whoever designed this place hadn't done so with the intention of a single being responsible for keeping tabs. Many couches and chairs were scattered haphazardly throughout the entire room, all of differing styles and materials. Most were positioned to face the wall of monitors, thought some were facing other seats.

"This is fucking weird." Piper stated flatly.

"Language!" Willow corrected sharply.

Piper chirped with faux contrition, "Okay, mom!"

Skathareek

The High Garden, Vesheen City, Shee

Skathareek's entire party was exhausted. They'd been awaiting the arrival of Shivna for nearly two days. The queen had sent her summons, and no fae noble, no matter how out of favor they might be, would ever dare delay to execute an order from the queen.

Thankfully, Shivna had sent a UICI message to Skathareek directly this morning explaining the situation. She'd apparently been delayed on her way at one of her stops: an intermediary planet. Shee was a minor enough planet that only a handful of teleportation hubs even included it in their rotation. As it turned out, the hub Skathareek had decided to use had a delay due to some legend throwing a fit and breaking things. As a result, Shivna would arrive in the next two or three days at the earliest.

The stress of awaiting her cousin's arrival for two days straight had taken its toll on everyone. The waiting station was hardly equipped properly for nobility. The station was plated entirely in metal, without a single hint of nature. Beyond that, the seating available were synthetic monstrosities. Plastic frames clad in unidentifiable processed fabrics.

The memory of waiting in the near-torturous environment was enough that bark began slowly growing over the top layer of her skin. Her man-servant had spent almost the entire time carefully removing the unconscionable growth from her pristine inner-skin.

Had she known about the delay earlier, Skathareek could have spent the extra time continuing her search for mentions on the local planet's record keeping system for the 'Tather' person the human monster had mentioned. If she was able to present more information to Shivna when she arrived, surely she'd appreciate the effort and speak well of her to the queen upon reporting to their mutual sovereign.

"M'lady, shall I open a portal to the garden?" One of the orcs who had remained as part of the world governor's guard detail asked. The chipper tone grated on Skathareek. She'd assumed the grueling experience had worn on her entire retinue just as horribly as it had upon herself, yet a quick moment of observation revealed none of the orcs appeared fatigued in the slightest. Unlike Skathareek and her man-servant, the orcs were somehow no worse for wear.

She inclined her head to the orc who'd posed the question. She'd remain sharp, despite her exhaustion. Perhaps this was the day the orcs finally showed their true colors and executed the coup they surely had plotted. If they had no desire to overthrow her and take the planet back for their O.F.F. masters, why would they have remained to 'guard' her rather than leave with their former charge?

Yes, this would surely be the moment they struck and she would- A perfect portal shimmered into existence before them. She could see the other side clearly. It lead directly to the end of the garden's maze, near the observation lab. The cunning orc had picked up on her habit of spending time watching the planet from that room. Somehow, the monitors mounted along the walls seemed to strengthen her seer abilities. As much as she hated the entirely manufactured room, her abilities were also amplified greatly within.

Nodding her thanks politely to the conniving orc who was, clearly, still biding his time, she stepped through the portal and strode toward the observation lab's door. Throwing it open and walking in, she froze.

The human monster was there, looking up at the monitors with a ponderous expression. She appeared deep in thought, likely having found the screen's ability to amplify a seer's ability. Surely, with how powerful her powers of sight were, this room would make her unstoppable. She would strip away every illusion and plot as easily as drawing breath!

Turning around, Willow flashed her teeth and spoke, "Finally. I've been watching you for a while, I thought you'd get here sooner. I hope your foot's okay."

Skathareek swallowed and curtsied shallowly, "Of course, my lady. Thank you for your concern."

This was bad. She hadn't wanted another contest of wits with this master of manipulation until her cousin arrived. With Shivna by her side, maybe, maybe, they'd stand a chance united. Unfortunately, she'd once again been outplayed.