Where we make our stand

Dear journal,
 
I won't give a quote for this entry, if that shocks, it's because putting stupid quotes at the beginning of each entry was one of the few things that I still do, compared to some distant time not so many months ago, when the world was still here.
 
Well, it's not like the world is not here anymore, but it's slipping away. Has been for some time. Has been for maybe hundreds of years, slowly and subtly. But now suddenly and violently. I feel ready now, ready to defend the world, ready to grab it and pull, stop it from slipping into destruction...
 
I look around, at this dark, but surprisingly calm sunset, at these pale rays of light that can still pierce the thick and black cover of clouds, and I can't feel down, no matter how much those red lightning bolts which pain the sky red try. Their sound is annoying, but so is this whole war. And "Xantinya may cover the skies, but she cannot extinguish the flame of the Sun". Heh.
 
These past few days have been so hectic. We tried our best to hurry up. I look back at the last journal and I see I have skipped so many things myself. But I barely find time to place some semblance of order in my thoughts. I never was an orderly one, but now it's getting worse. All the extra memories do not help, either...
 
I talked about this with Verfy a while ago. After she asked me about Lullaby, back in xy, about how she is unaffected by Balan when she takes care of Lullaby, while I am... She wanted to address this without panicking me, but I realized already. I don't know what sick games Balan is playing, but I don't care anymore. The bad thing was that I could see through Verfy, right into her fears... I told her back then that I could sense her fear of making people even more miserable then they were by trying to speak to them.
 
It's kind of my fault, too. I never truly thanked Verfy for always being there, putting up with my stupidity, with everyone's stupidities, really. I've been a bad friend to most of them, to all of them, really, while she has been great to everyone. Her fear is unfounded, obviously. We may all feel cranky when she tries to get to us, but I'm sure we all secretly love her for doing it. I mean I do. But I'm a tough Nut to crack, I don't like intrusions. Our captain is even worse (remember I assigned her the walnut when I assigned fruits to everyone in the party).
 
Well, now there's little time left to reconcile with our feelings anyway. God, do I even realize what is going on? I try to take a break, walk around, think about it, but I can't still take it all in. We're currently home, in the Continent, at that, and I'm still confused over it, hah. We made quite a few wonderful things, didn't we? I'm pretty proud of ourselves. I'll explain in a jippy.
 
So, after the funeral, we were supposed to check up on the DImension of Magic by travelling through the gate, to see who was left on the other side. Lullaby was adamant that she wanted to come herself to see. After all, we were probably going to use the gate to get her army across, right? It was quite unclear, because, well... how can you reach the Continent from the Haunted Marshes with 300,000 troops? Still, we went to check. And there we were met with a big surprise... In the ruins of the SAI fortress we met an entire army of humans, who had come there specifically. They were called Orkmaaians and their leader spoke Gavan. Yes, Gavan! He learned it in Tei Rolod. When I heard the name I remembered that old kingdom to the west of Gava, in fact there were two kingdoms, Tei and Jes Rolod, both rich and powerful. They still exist!
 
I was so glad. Over a seemingly small thing. But you see we all thought those kingdoms might've died out with Gava, absorbed by the same desolation. But no! This Orkmaaian revealed to us that many lands still are inhabitable west of the Desolation. All of Gava's western neighbours, to be more exact. That was such good news!
 
But the real shock was their reason for being there. They were basically trying to invalidate a prophecy which announced the world would end, as the Gods would release the giant sea creature holding together the waters surrounding the world. They had set out to find the Voice of humans that apparently would begin all this Apocalypse, because they believed this Voice was going to stop it, not just announce it. They did so with a huge globe of Star Essence, which they had gathered, over the years, by laying offerings by the rocky edges of none other than the Sapphire Fountain!
 
And when they saw Lullaby among us, they immediately knelt and then they revealed a flag, it seems a flag with a fish on it. Lullaby was that Voice, and they had come to fight under her. They immediately felt she was the Voice, though, no questions asked. Based on what, other than feeling? Nothing. They had no idea whom they were seeking. But they just knew. I smiled widely. These people had come from the distant North to fight the End and they didn't need much to understand it. Of course, our message helped. Bless Nixie and Verfy for having this idea, I swear. Bless them a thousand times.
 
The Orkmaaians, 2,000 in number, all pledged their fealty to Lullaby and declared they would fight in the war to come. Lullaby was so taken aback she didn't know what to say other than thanking them for being there, for coming, really. They had endured a long voyage, including journeying down the Road of Storms, fighting Fatorarkians and even dragons. And they still made it. With the blessing of the little Sylphs in the Fountain, who had given them small pieces of Star Essence for so long... Now, it was ours.....
 
I wasn't sure how to treat this wonderful treasure. But soon we would find a perfect use for such a gift. You see, journal, the Orkmaaians also knew something about the Continent. They were aware of it and wanted to reach it too, because that was the place of the pure elements of the world, closest to the pure world of the Gods. We then realized that, indeed, the Continent may have a strong link to the Primordial World, but how?
 
Magic was always more... fluid, there. Elementals themselves are fluid in their magical essence, interacting with the elements that compose the world. We soon came to the realization that the Continent was probably a place closer to the other Dimensions than the rest. Like you have 9 planes, you have 9 dimensions one parallel to each other, and there's places where these lines almost converge. Why, I can't tell, maybe that's how the world rearranged after being broken in 9. But the proof was there. The Continent was special, that was obvious, and this explanation really covered it well.
 
I wanted to hug those Orkmaaians. They came at exactly the right time. I could see we were far from being alone. YOu know, after those lonely months at sea, through the Desolation, after this incredible adventure in xy, we got the feeling that we were the only ones moving around, the only ones trying. But, parallel to us, there are so many others. Each trying their best to round up for this war. The Orkmaaians were just some of them. And they brought us so much help, it's insane.
 
I was very mesmerised to hear about the rune that the Orkmaaian leader tattooed on his forehead. The Orkmaaians use a different rune system to the Gavan one. They tattoo runes to the skin, or draw them on shields or swords, and these runes instead of using the specificities of magic to order magic in a way so as to give a certain effect... these runes are spiritual symbols that work with the wearer directly, so that magic is ordered according to the will inscribed in that rune. For example, the shields of the Orkmaaians were inscribed with a rune which indicates resilience, so that they become tougher. Their feeling of resilience and steadfastness, concentrated in this symbol, orders the magic within them so that it expresses itself in the physical world as actual resilience. So they don't have to pour magical essence into the rune. It's.... completely different, and amazing.
 
And this leader had a special rune on his forehead. It symbolized a journey to an end and back from that end. It was a summary, really, of the Apoocalypse we were facing. A journey to an end. But that end was not really an end. You would return from it. I felt that. We had gone to the very beginnings. To that black hole. The symbol of End. Death itself, this Golgot. And we came back and fight for life. If I could, I would try to shape this rune on an armor somehow, and wear it. But I'm blind, alas...
 
We quickly decided on some logistics. I won't delve too much into them, basically we were trying to see how we could integrate the Orkmaaians in the overall forces we would send to the Continent. But now we had a new innovative idea. We wanted to actually BUILD an interdimensional gate! Using our knowledge of the Continent as closest to the other dimensions, our supply of star essence and Lullaby as a spirit-bender, we could do it!
 
A few months ago I would've laughed off such ideas as arrogant and stupid. But now they seem almost logical, natural, really. It's not our own strength, not just that, anyway, it's that we are in tune with this war, and we finally carry this flag of God that we need to keep upright against the armies of evil.
 
Or maybe that's just arrogance getting to me. You know, I sometimes wonder, why is it so effective to get their hopes up, before destroying them in one fell swoop. I have been thinking of it. It's not the first time it's happening. I am sometimes afraid this is just like Legondol. We win, we get some wonderful messages across... then we lose everything. Just like that.
 
God, it's so effective, you could rule a soul like that.
 
So we prepared a way in which to actually build a gate. But first, we had to go back to the Dimension of Spirit, where Lullaby had to prepare the army and get the approval of their Assembly to wage war on Xantinya. You see, in their land you can't wage war if this Parliament of representatives of the people does not approve it. That's nice. I was kind of mad Nixie didn't like it. She said something like "That's why it's easier with the Orshag". Yea, and when the consequences of unleashing all that knowledge in that dictatorship will finally come to bite you back, how will it be...?
 
I guess I'm just a Nut for nice-sounding systems of government. I'm Ionolian, after all. We are an oddity among the humans of our world. We kept the old 30 Peoples' tradition of representative governing bodies. The Republics of old. Then again, Damaschini is also a fan, since he helped build the Alomirese Union. But I always thought Elves are not in love with tyrannical regimes. Nixie really enjoys them for some reason.
 
No time to ponder on that, though. Anywhoo, as we were preparing to leave, Nixie suddenly remembered Anevys was left behind in the chest! With the branch of the Primordial Tree! We all instantly panicked, because the chest was, well, acting very differently when brought into its home dimension. Nixie immediately asked Miyun to go retrieve Anevys and the branch, as "Kataria princess". So Miyun jumped in. Then Nixie and the rest grabbed the chest and we left the dimension and......
 
Why did we do that??? A couple of minutes into entering the Dimension of Spirit, Damaschini decided to enter the chest himself to search for poor Miyun. He finally found her, unconscious, and we had to use our medical knowledge to get her back on her feet. She wasn't breathing at first.... We all got a good scare... Seems she was caught in a special room when the dimensions switched and all went black and no air was left... Horrid, to have the entire world around you disappear like that.... I can't imagine what poor Miyun went through.
 
Nixie felt bad for sending Miyun like that, and she surely wanted to get her revenge. But the cunning little Kataria princess decided to instead extract from Nixie that the chest belongs to her. Nixie tried to go around it, tried to phrase it in any other way... but finally half-heartedly admitted it... And all it took was almost killing Miyun! Hah! We are a funny bunch of people.
 
On our way, we also spent a lot of time discussing what we should do next. Build the gate, that much is clear, but then what? Send armies to the Continent? We were also worried about Lullaby joining us. Our worries became even more poignant when she suddenly collapsed and threw up. She is feeling very ill, and her due date might come at any time, as we'd later find out. So should we take her with us, or not?
 
Poor Lullaby could only say that she wanted to help us, but not encumber us. She wanted to come, too, because she wanted to help in the war, and she wanted to lead her army, not cower behind the gate. She couldn't expect others to die if she didn't put her own life on the line as well. There was something else, too. Dillen pointed out that Lullaby giving birth was a good moment for the immortal Elves to try to kill her without drawing too much attention. They could make it look like an incident at birth, especially since Lullaby is so weakened. Even if dying in childbirth is incredibly rare in this dimension, it's still a possibility... The very idea shook me. I hadn't given a lot of thought, but the idea of Lullaby giving birth anywhere suddenly makes me anxious. She could be attacked. We should be able to defend her...
 
Nixie and Verfy were staunchly against Lullaby coming with us. To them, it felt that it would invalidate all our efforts to save her and Rafil till now, especially the opening of xy. Well, it's not the same, I mean Rafil was going to die, for sure, 100%, because of Xantinya, now it's just a risk that Lullaby's taking, to come with us. As Lullaby put it, if we lose this, we will all die and all is in vain. Our decision to open xy paid off the moment Lullaby saved Rafil, in my opinion. It's a decision we will have to live with, whatever happens. Lullaby sure knows that. She blames herself for the immortal Elves... And now simply wants to make amends.
 
So she said she'd do what we wanted her to do. But we couldn't even decide on it. In the end, we kind of decided she's coming only to send a message to the other interdimensionals. You see, there were other interdimensionals, the ones that followed Sikorki's apprentice and who wanted to police the world and control who had access to plane manipulations. They were kind of our enemies, but Lullaby wanted to try to sway them on our side. After one of them tried to kill her, that was nice. No one said it's idiotic, like Zarkuz. Hm. Voices scream in me that it's all because we're desperate, not because we understand anything about letting go of personal hurts. But I won't believe these voices.
 
We also debated whether we should march to war in the first place. Maybe just send in the armies, while we go somewhere else? You see, Tallion had a very unnerving theory about the purpose of Xantinya and the immortal Elves. They went to each dimension because each dimension has a tower linked with Hell. Golgot served as "tower" in xy. And they would all do something in the same time, probably on solstice day. That is in a couple of days....... What could they do, other than, maybe... Collapse the 9 dimensions back into one? Reverse the Almighty's decision? Do the ultimate "justice"? It made sense, but then what could they gain from it? Lullaby had a theory. Maybe it's so they can control us. A world collapsed back into the primordial world would probably be a mess, a world of chaos, where there might not even be your conventional reality anymore. And in that chaos and desperation, of losing sense of all reality, our souls could be forever imprisoned. I could see that work. Devilish, symbolic and fitting. I am almost pleased with the art of it. It would be gorgeous.
 
Can you imagine it? NO, that's the beauty. Nothingnesses can never imagine what they haven't already seen. When they will see the impossible, when they will all collapse one into the other, they will never be able to recover. Their minds will break, like a soft fruit, revealing the seed of their soul inside......
 
Sorry, ,Anevys, I'm going mad again. Scratch that part, please. Ah, I know you never do. You just write everything I say, don't you? Oh well, there you go, mad Eve.
 
Finally, we decided to march into the Continent with the army, and see if we could help immediately, if Xantinya was there, if we could find the other interdimensionals or other clues. If not, then we would go find a tower and stop at least in one place the Change they were planning.
 
We also sent Lullaby to her doctors. We were going to visit her later. Going back to the Gate-building, we got Lullaby's help with materials (stones, basically), while she went back to Radov to try to get the Parliament to vote for the war tomorrow. She said that's very fast for them, but she'll try. Since the Parliament was "in session" that should've been possible. In the meanwhile we would build a gate. But how to build a gate? Poppy-Eve wondered, and Axe-Eve laughed. And if we wanna reach the Continent, shouldn't we build the gate in its equivalent area in this dimension? Which is... the bottom of the sea, apparently? Because their central sea looks a bit like the Continent.
 
Alas, we had a way to go about it. Nixie's feelings for her home, the Continent, could serve as the guiding principle for the gate. I swear, I love the dimension of Spirit. It's much more fun than magic. And it's surprisingly complex. Spirit manipulation is not really a manipulation as much as it's using the path of the Spirit plane. Nixie could travel through the Spirit plane all the way to the place in this dimension which was closest to the target of her feelings: a certain lake in the Continent, where she shared many fun afternoons with her fiance. I found that very nice.
 
Without delving too much into technical details, we had to build a gate using the star essence which would act as our link to the Primordial world, which invalidated the differences between dimensions. We had Nixie as our guide to link the place on the planes where we were building our gate to the place we wanted to reach in the Continent. We then needed a mechanism that could make the gate work, and a philosophy for how it works. We chose to go with "it's not two separate places the gate links, but the same place, in an alternative plane". So we created a symmetrical structure, which... damn! Looked like the symbol for quartz, which is the alchemic material used to conduce magic...... I mean.... How it all comes together! I feel so privileged for being able to pry into these things. The world truly is a beautiful place. I feel that whenever I understand one more ounce of its rules and regulations.
 
We built the gate, one pillar in the middle and two slabs opposite to it, on each side, like mirrors. The slabs and pillar were made of stone in which Damaschini had infused all the star essence. I think the essence will slowly consume over time as the Gate gets used, because plane manipulations like this tend to have the effect of garbage, that is, lost material. It's the rule of entropy, as Kelly explained it. After all, our gate was not a perfect gate, but a gate for us, Nothingnesses, hah!
 
We then had to draw the path, which we did by dreaming the same dream, and following Nixie. Oh, God, the dream. By this point, we had rejoined with Lullaby, who had delivered a speech to the world about the need to join the war. I won't delve into details, but I recorded it on another paper. She was feeling slightly better, but was still weak. She was in a weird state. It seems she could enter into labour at any point, so we had to be extra careful. All those months of letargy didn't help her body, which was so weak and incapable of supporting both her and Rafil. She was struggling to keep up with the immense pressure around her, the war, the speech, the army, the everything. On top of her own feelings, which she keeps repressing just so she can move forward. You know, she hasn't smiled once since she woke up. She did smile once, just as we had arrived in the Dimension of Spirit... when Verfy called me to play a game with Lullaby, and I smiled, and then she smiled back at me! It was such a beautiful smile. The smile of a person who really needed one. But I'm afraid it's going to be an outlier. Lullaby doesn't smile now. She's all dressed in black, almost running everyhwere, even though she shouldn't, but really there's so much to do!! If only I could carry her around, I swear I would... But she would never let me anyway. Stubborn one. Even more than me, and that says something.
 
Going back to the dream, I thought it would be fun, but it really wasn't. The dream was very weird, because we saw things we hadn't necessarily seen before, it was not a dream made of memories. Our spirit was basically out of our bodies and travelling through a world that existed, but not for our eyes, so we kind of distorted the reality we were seeing, like a lot. It was a very weird alternative world. And then, there was Nixie, who was in no mood to be a real guide and instead got lost, her, of all of us!!!!!!!! We had to dream twice in order to finish our journey... But we did. We had to go underwater and follow some fish. It was nice, overall, and very weird, but by God can't Nixie just swim down! She always wanted back up and I was getting frustrated. Still, she found a golden staff on the ocean floor and pushed it in and managed to get to the other side, which was the lake she was thinking about. Then we woke up and saw the pillar of the gate glimmer. We had done it.... We had done it!
 
We couldn't contain our amazement. We almost immediately rushed in, and teleported on the shore of this lake, where I still am now... The shock when we saw how it actually worked... And the realization that we were there, in the Continent... I looked at the sky, as I look now, I hate it, but I love that I can finally see it. We are where we should be.
 
From there, we decided to split so we could cover more ground. Lullaby, Nixie and Kelly went back to prepare the army. Lullaby's speech was a resounding success, and the Parliament had voted to join the war against Xantinya. Now, we just had to prepare the army. Verfy, Marc and Isbel bravely decided to go north to find the army of the Continent. You see, we have met a local, a Pomenian (earth-elemental) who told us the army may be north. In the meanwhile, Damaschini and Miyun flew south-west to find more about the Orcish attacks in the region.
 
The rest of us remained at the gate, near this ravaged city in Pomenia called Detrino. The Orcs had laid waste to it... In the night we could hear the howling of wolves. Goblins... I for one tried to use my time to swing that sword of mine better. Now in the dimension of magic it felt so easy, so... natural to wield it. A delight!
 
I showed it to Bart. He was very impressed. He also asked me about my overall state, and I couldn't hide it anymore. I wanted to tell him, but I'm again held back by my fear of losing him... But, that's not how it works. I'm his fiance now, his soon-to-be-wife. I can't just hide stuff from him. I told him everything, everything about my stupid state and my demonic thoughts and memories. He, as always, never judges, never gets angry. He told me he can help me by being there, listening to me tell him about these thoughts and memories... It did help a little, yes. Telling them to someone else helps me separate them from my other thoughts... Makes me feel them for the dirty demonic thoughts they truly are...
 
Sometimes, though, I wish Bart would just slap me or something. Beat me up. I deserve a beating. I don't have energy to waste on demonic thoughts. A big war is coming. Very very big. Until now we had lost a few battles. We need to win. There's no more ground to lose. If we lose now, we are truly lost...
 
I feel it. As we sit here, waiting for the rest to return, and for Lullaby's Redochian and Orkmaaian army to come through the gate. We are soon to go to a war bigger than everything, and of course I'm afraid. I'm afraid we're not strong enough. I'm afraid I'm not strong enough to make any difference... I'm afraid for us all, for Bart, for Nixie, for Verfy, Tallion, Damaschini, Miyun, Xixi, Drenizek, Dillen, Kelly, Vas, Marc, Isbel, Iz even. I'm afraid for Lullaby, who's about to give birth but still does everything in her power to continue the fight, and for her son.
 
But if being afraid does any good, it's that it reminds me of the immense love i bear to so many people. I used to love only a couple. Now I feel I love more, with more power, more stability, more.. trueness in it.... Maybe that's our salvation. We all love more now.
 
We are all marching for this love, against the hate brought against the world. I know it's common and kind of worn out to say it, but Good always prevails. Because God is Good, and Evil is just an absence, a hole in the sky.
 
We have chosen the Continent to make our stand. Our last stand. Our steps were ours to make, but they all lead us here. All our choices converge, and now it's about time we face the consequences. Are we able to to this? I don't know. That's the magic of faith. YOu don't have to know. You believe.
 
And hope is the weapon we'll use to slash into this Evil.
 
May the Almighty give us strength, and may we prevail.