I fell for a good distance. I am not sure of how far but I was in the air long enough to wonder if the fall was going to kill me, just before I hit the water. It hurt a lot. I would have cursed but the impact knocked the wind out of me and then on reflex, I inhaled… two lungs full of water.

  So, drowning was just awful. I tried to cough out the water, but each forced exhale was followed by another reflexive inhale. This was a vicious cycle that hurt quite badly. The other issue was the water wasn’t still. It was flowing with a swift and strong current that seemed to take joy in smashing me into rocks.

  I nearly panicked but then remembered, I was overpowered.

  I stopped tumbling as the water around me solidified into a shape vaguely similar to a row boat. I had made a big one that could hold my bulk. The ice rose up like a cork. Not only had it manifested suddenly, but it was also substantially less dense than the water it was submerged in. The boat and I burst through the surface of the water. I then coughed up the water in my lungs. That stopped the Drowning Condition.

  This was forward progress but only just. Like I said the water was moving. I was riding violent rapids leading down into the Dark. This was not what I wanted. I looked back and saw the hole leading back to the surface. It was disheartenedly far away. The distance quickly grew even further.

  Everyone else was fighting a battle with horrifying monsters and I was stuck in a shitty splash mountain knock off. To punctuate this errant thought a large explosion on the surface burst into view as it shook the tunnels.

  A couple of problems quickly became apparent with my new Ice Boat. The first was it was full of water and that caused it to barely float so it kinda bobbed along the surface and didn’t really sail in a way I could control. The second big issue was I didn’t know dick about boat making and my ice boat was clearly flawed on the conceptual level. It really wanted to roll. Me leaning hard was stopping that currently, but this was not a real solution. The last issue was the visible waterfall I was heading towards. It was probably some sort of subterranean cliff. It was a deep one too. I could see dry land about twenty feet past the edge of the water.

  I decided to jump the gap. The trouble was, standing caused the boat to roll immediately. I was able to get it to…recapsize…decapsize?... be right way up… but the fall was getting close. There wasn’t time to do that again.

  I saw a thick, sturdy, and most importantly solid tree root hanging down from the top of the tunnel, poking out from between two large rocks. I didn’t have a better idea so I grabbed it. The boat stopped as my arm pulled tight. The root held my weight… for a brief moment. The root pulled down and a tremendous stone fell from the ceiling in front of the boat. It almost crushed me.

  The root kept pulling free and rocks kept falling around me. The boat and I reached the edge and I went over it. That was when the root pulled taught again and I with the ice boat swung across the gap. I made a snap decision and at the height of the swing let go of the root. Me and my ice boat sailed through the open air. This lasted for like three seconds before the boat and then me crashed down hard on the ground. My foot had hooked under one of the benches when the boat rolled and now momentum levered my leg hard against the bench. It hurt profoundly but the boat broke before I did.

  That is my way of telling you my boat crashed and then I face planted into the boat. I ate ship.

  I got to my feet and brushed dirt and ice crystals off of me. I cleared the gap and was on solid ground. That beat the hell out of falling into the Deep. I frowned at the flowing water. It wasn’t ebbing. I looked up at the ceiling. Yep, that was definitely tons of dirt and rock.

  Could I craft a tunnel back up?

  Another massive rock fell. It made a hell of a noise and I was splashed pretty good. I blinked the mud out of my eyes. “Holy shit.”

  The roof wasn’t just blank rock. Above me was… pictographs.

  The first showed a world in flames. The second showed Earth not in flames. The third showed the Earth surrounded by eyes. There were so many at first I thought they were stars. The fourth showed the world surrounded by great beings. One of the figures resembled the depictions of Lola on the Mandir. Others looked angelic and a few resembled the devils I saw beyond the veil. They were the Divine Scale players. The fifth showed the world and the gods with it held by two hands one shadowed and one shining. The shadowed hand was a right hand. That was the Titan. The sixth showed the Earth surrounded by a fang filled maw. The gods were gone and the hands had let go of the world. There were words carved next to this. Even as I read them I knew the letters were some alien and unknown language, at least to humans. They read: Wait. This is when we strike. This is when we take everything. The pictographs were arranged in a great circle around an intricate carving of twisted fish men. The sixth icon led back to the world on fire.

  I followed the loop again, and then again. I stared at the world in the mouth of something. One of the first prompts I ever read proclaimed that Titanic Scale was the second highest rank on the Scale of Existence. Was this a prophecy? If so we were at stage four. A second hand meant a second Titan right?

  I was the Left Hand of the Titan…

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  “Oh fuck you guys,” I don’t know if I said that to Elijah and the Ictheys or to the Narrators and the Audience… probably both. I needed to get back to the surface.

  I looked around and there was a snow lion, because of fucking course there was. The evil cat glared at me just before it pounced. Its feet left the ground. I wasn’t going to react in time. The damned kitty was going to knock me down the damn hole. It was at the exact moment I mentally began to complain something unexpected happened. Something good actually happened.

  A spear-like beak of a large mechanical bird impaled the snow lion. Then a steel mecha-foot clawed the cat. Between the talons and the beak the snow lion split open horrifically and died. I gazed at the tremendous metal bird that gazed down at me. It looked like a heavy metal crane, the bird one not the construction equipment. I understand the confusion. They both have long necks. This was a great big war machine bird. The bladed and armored bird was also hot pink. That didn’t dial down the intimidation factor much. That isn’t to say this creature scared me. It was obviously a righteous creature of justice. It had murdered a snow lion.

  “Are you a Mechana-Beast?” I asked the big bird.

  It nodded its head and with a foot grabbed the snow lion's body and tossed it off the cliff.

  “I take it you are Gisele’s…partner?” I asked.

  It tilted its head. It clearly wanted to know more about Gisele.

  “She has the pink coin,” I explained.

  The big bird liked that. It danced a jig before hopping around in excitement.

  I pointed up the tunnel, “Can you get me out of here? My friends are in a fight with these things called ictheys.”

  The bird quit dancing. It gave me a meaningful look. It then lowered its body to the ground.

  “Do you want me to ride you?” I asked not yet approaching.

  It nodded again.

  I climbed up on it, “Just wanted to be sure. Certain things require consent.” Why did I say that?

  The bird kept nodding. The robotic bird was a proponent for informed consent, or it was too polite to call me on my awkward dumbassery. Your guess is as good as mine. It swung its head around and pointed with its beak to a hand hold. When I grab the handle. It nodded and then swiveled its head before standing.

  “What’s the plan?” I asked the last part of my question was drown out by the sound of jet thrusters

  The crane was about the same rough size as a pickup truck, but it was a lot longer and more narrow. It also knew how to swim. That is the term I am going to use for the Mechana-Beast hopping the gap and skimming across the water like a jetski. As we got further upstream the tunnels widened. The bird spread its wings and we took off.

  This world I woke up in was violent, confusing, upsetting, and so often disappointing. That said for one brief moment I got to enjoy the wonder, thrill and joy of flight. Then we started going faster. Things got sketchy on my end when we pulled up and began to fly straight up like a rocket.

  I had to hold on tight. I may have shouted in sheer adrenaline, or it may have been in fear. Fear of falling hundreds of yards to the ground. We were so high up! The Mechana-Beast must’ve assumed I was doing a battle cry, because it let loose a robotic sound “Caw!” and began to dive toward the fight.

  Elijah turned its battered and burnt face toward us. Maybe shouting loudly to announce our presence before attacking was a bad strategy. I could tell it was charging up another beam attack.

  Just as Elijah fired my feathered friend and/or conveyance juked hard. The pillar of light lit up the sky, and thankfully missed us. I really should have asked this bird's name. I am going to go with Pinky. Pinky took me on a wild ride. We wove past several of the giant lighting and jellyfish Elijah’s beam followed us the whole way.

  That somehow worked out to be a good thing. It pulled Elijah’s focus completely away from the goblins. It also caused the lantern-eyed horror to mystically nuke several of the big jellyfish. The creatures ruptured like water balloons. The primordial ooze splattered on the ground and began to drift toward Elijah.

  The doom beam cut off as Elijah roared in pain and rage. Celeste hit the big ugly again. She punched through its head like a large caliber bullet through the head of a nameless goon in an R-rated action film. I almost thought we had won when the monster’s face reformed.

  Celeste zoomed up to me and Pinky, “This thing doesn’t want to die.” She looked at my mount. “Who’s your friend?”

  “I call them Pinky,” I called over the wind.

  “Caw!” Pinky squawked, clearly appreciating being called Pinky… I am pretty sure. They weren’t mad cause if they were they could have just dumped me.

  “What do you mean it doesn’t want to die?” I called.

  “The prompts keep saying I killed an Ichtheys but then it just keeps reform -on you left!” Celeste dove and Pinky banked right as another massive beam of light cut through the night.

  I pulled the snow lion string out of my inventory and crafted it into a harness that looped through the handhold. Okay now I could do something. Pinky did a barrel roll. Why that may have been a pro strat for Star Fox, for me it was disorientating. Luckily I was bad at taking care of myself and hadn’t eaten for… a few days. I wanna say two ish. I didn’t vomit due to lack of food to upchuck.

  As Pinky went back to circle strafing the doom beam, I concocted a plan. It may have even been a good plan. I pulled the bow out of my inventory.I then manifested another layer of Ablative Shell.

  I then crafted an arrow. Okay three arrows. Not sure why that is. When I made a sword it was one sword. Maybe it was something to do with volume. I tended to craft big swords. I had only expected one arrow though. I was able to grab two. The third fell out of reach. After a few seconds a prompt popped up.

  Eh screw that guy.

  I then nocked the ice arrow and drew back the string. Pinky flew steady. I lined up the shot at Elijah’s barn sized head, and then let loose.

  The ice arrow flew straight and true. Yet again Titanic Scale took physics out behind the woodshed and old-yellered it hard. The attack impacted the massive fish monster and caused roughly half of it to solidify into jet black ice. The crystalline parts rippled and then bucked as they fell with a crash. The meaty bits also fell over with a thud.

  I looked over to Celeste and she pointed back at the monster.

  Yeah that tracked. The ice melted and then flowed back to the meaty bits. the abomination got back up and then roared. It was loud enough to push Pinky and me off course. It was a roar of defiance and challenge.

  It was answered by the roar of the dragon.

  Call me a pessimist but I didn’t think the dragon coming back was actually a good thing for us. The realization hit me soon after. Elijah picked a fight sunset. The Narrators said we were going to be attacked at night.