Rising Shards

Lillia Cadence had asked me a few times if I had needed any study help, but I’d been too scared to actually take her up on her offer. She was intimidatingly smart, and I felt like I’d be wasting her time if she had to go over basic stuff for me. Aira didn’t have that worry, and Lillia apparently had agreed to help us search for Eio as long as it contributed to our schoolwork. It looked like Aira and Lillia were fighting in the lounge, so I wasn’t sure what was going on there.

“Now we just need Caya Kilander,” I said. “Should we just...go to her office?”

“No,” Oka said. “I know where she is.”

Oka led us to a place on school grounds I hadn’t been to yet. It was just past the fields, but it felt much farther away. At first look it was like a quarry in a valley. There were rocks around, but also remains of what looked like a failed building project. It was all like wrecked concrete with those big metal screw things sticking out. Above that was a big metal playground looking thing that I had to assume was industrial art, especially after the cube incident. It was black and gold and looked like a lot of beams connected by long and thin metal sheets that looked like ribbons.

“Caya’s the one Kilander I respect,” Oka said.

“Not your dad?” I asked.

“Yeah, him too, whatever.” Oka said. “Actually, Grandma Kilander is pretty cool too, all things considered. Berin is third.”

“What is this place?” Aira asked. “It looks like a big jungle gym.”

Lillia scoffed.

“It’s an advanced training area,” Lillia said. “For Cani looking for a more intense training session.”

“Yeppers,” Oka said. “Caya goes here to train a lot. I assume when the Kilanders drive her up a wall.”

I wondered about Caya. She was never on the Kilander show so I never had any impression of her from that. But her husband, Aki Kilander, was a real doofus. I had no idea what she’d see in him.

“Hey, Caya!” Oka called out.

The only response for a moment was Oka’s voice echoing. I heard a distant thudding noise, and some grunts. A blur flashed along the side of the ribbons, and Caya landed before us, looking only a bit winded. It was weird to see her in workout gear, I was so used to her usual military looking clothes.

“Hello, Oka,” Caya said, wiping her forehead. “What brings you all here?”

“We need your help.” Oka said.

Full group in hand, we returned to Dr. Diast. Oka barely had to explain our situation to Caya before she agreed to help.

“Lillia! Excellent!” Diast said when she saw her. “Oh, you are going to destroy him at his own idiotic game. I can’t wait.”

Caya strode up to the front of our group.

“Were you worried before?” Caya asked. “We’ve played against Razmus before.”

“O-oh, well. I guess,” Diast said, apparently not realizing until she spoke that we actually did get Caya. “Playing against him and winning are vastly different. So they managed to convince you too?”

“Oka could have a career in advertising,” Caya said.

Dr. Diast laughed a bit too loudly and a bit too much, and I felt like I related to her more for it.

A quick trip to the void entry temple and some fang scraping and we were off to Node 232*. It had the asterisk because of the weird situation where it wasn’t technically a void node, but it still kinda was. It made me wonder how the Unrequited Harmony would be classified. It was kind of its own node, right? The explanations I got from Jeans kind of sounded like what Oka and Aira were saying about Razmus Marne’s place.

Upon landing, we followed a path through a forest. The sunlight sprinkled down through the space between the leaves, and the air was crisp and refreshing.

“Hey, Lillia,” I said when we were both falling a bit behind the others.

“Yes?” Lillia asked.

“Why did you agree to come with?” I asked.

Lillia adjusted her glasses.

“I’m sure you heard me discussing with Aira in the girls’ lounge,” Lillia said.

I nodded. If a full-on shouting match counted as discussing.

“I made a deal with her,” Lillia said. “I couldn’t turn her down when she told me she lost her pet, but I also can’t have her slacking off at her leisure. It’s disrespectful to this academy.”

The slight bite to her tone almost made it sound like she was accusing me as well.

“I also am curious to see another node,” Lillia said. “My club is off today, so I actually am available for the adventure.”

I couldn’t imagine Lillia having much free time. I assumed she was in every club already and did extra homework voluntarily in addition to tutoring.

“What club are you in?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine Lillia having much free time. I assumed she was in every club already and did extra homework voluntarily in addition to tutoring.

“I perform in the theater club,” Lillia said. “We only meet three times a week now, but it’ll increase as we get closer to our first performance this semester.”

“Oh, cool!” I said. “My sister wants to act too; she was in all the plays at her school.”

Lillia brightened up a bit talking about plays. I was surprised at how much she knew about theater, and felt grateful for the plays I had to see Stella act in. I didn’t even realize how long we’d been walking as we went over all the plays we knew.

“Alright, main event of the ‘Weird Zone’ coming up,” Diast said.

“Is this place safe?” Lillia asked.

“Well, it’s called the Weird Zone, not the Unsafe Zone.” Diast said.

“I suppose I should have studied a bit more about this,” Lillia said. “It feels like there’s so much about the void nodes we can’t know.”

“You’ll feel like you know even less after this,” Diast said. “Trust me.”

Aira seemed thrilled to be out with the group.

“I’ve daydreamed a lot about going on an adventure like this,” Aira said. “I have stickers if we need a path back home! We could put them on trees, or rocks! I’ve tried using them during practice in the flower field but they’re not too helpful there since it’s pretty hard to get lost. ”

“I know where we’re going, save your stickers for something more valuable,” Diast said. “Just letting you know now, you’re better off just searching for your cat on your own. Just be prepared to not win against Razmus.”

“What exactly is this game?” Lillia asked.

“He’ll explain it when we get there,” Diast said. “He changes a lot of the rules each time, but generally you get seven people, and you need to have at least two at the end of the game. And then you get secrets.”

“What did you ask for when you played?” I asked.

“I’ve never won…” Diast said.

“Not true, she asked for the secret ingredient of the Big Boy at Ultra Taco.” Caya said.

“Hey!” Dr. Diast said as Caya laughed. Which was weird. Caya was actually seeming like a normal person. Which I guess made sense, she was a normal person, but the combo of stern teacher plus her army stuff added some layers of mystique to her.

“OK, but you’re going to tell us the Big Boy secret ingredient right?” Kalei asked.

“She tried making her own, but somehow Ultra Taco found out and gave her a cease and desist,” Caya said.

“Alright, that’s not fair, I was betrayed by that Fanlen guy,” Diast said. “He cried to his dad about it who was an executive at Ultra Taco. But oh, I had the last laugh.”

“How?” I asked.

“Well. I’m still working on that part. I will have the last laugh.” Dr. Diast said.

“That’s enough vague threats to fast food companies,” Caya said. “We’re here.”

We entered a big field that offered a beautiful view of the mountains in the distance, much like the mountains surrounding the field of flowers in node 509. There was a small farmhouse that had a fenced off area for some kind of weird animal I didn’t recognize. They were purple, but then they turned pink, then back to purple.

“Brace yourselves.” Diast said.

We all felt suddenly off stepping into the clearing. The front door of the farmhouse opened, and a tornado made of fire burst out. A cloaked figure sat at the top of the tornado with his arms spread out. A booming, yet shrill voice rattled around us.

“I am Razmus Marne, the Test Man!” Razmus said.