Rosmira was leading them, her jaw set, her eyes fixed forward.
Others trailed close behind. Many others. All different, yet all sharing a similar expression and demeanour.
Pale faces. Lips pressed tight. Moving with a fever of urgency that neglected every sign for caution. A single person was on their minds.
Juniper’s adoptive parents and the three gnome brothers kept up as best as they could with their short legs.
Every Bottlesocket employee was down here, men, women, humans and gnomes alike.
It was a long and perilous journey, but even as cheeks looked gray with dust, eyes were burning with determination.
Rosmira’s breath rasped in her throat. She refused to slow down however. The air was already getting colder, the dust thicker.
Yes, the place of the collapse loomed ahead. Only it…
She froze in her tracks, and everyone else behind her nearly ran into her.
It wasn’t collapsed anymore.
“What the…” she hissed, chest heaving.
The cavern gaped open before them. Where earlier tons of stone had sealed it shut, now there was only rubble scattered wide. Only it looked like it had been hurled outward by something far greater than any pick or shovel could have managed.
But it hadn’t exploded. There we no scorch marks whatsoever. No blackening. The stone fragments were sheared in strange, uneven ways, edges feathered, surfaces pitted and ridged. It looked less like an explosion the more they looked at it.
Rosmira didn’t linger. She pushed forward, boots crunching over shards of stone until her lantern’s glow caught on a figure in the dark.
“Juniper… Juniper??” Her voice cracked, breaking the hush.
The Gond girl sat slumped against the wall, head lolling, hair wild and tangled as if a storm had passed through her. Her goggles hung loose around her neck, the lenses cracked.
“Juniper…?” Rosmira’s hands and gaze slid over her friend.
Juniper’s outfit was torn in strips and rents, only not from jagged rock, but as though ragged blades had shredded the material. The strange smell of singed cloth and something sharper… like ozone… hung in the air.
Rosmira grabbed Juniper’s shoulders. “Juniper! Hey! Look at me! Stay awake!”
The girl’s eyes fluttered. For a heartbeat, she seemed there, that gaze focusing, those lips moving, even as no sound left her throat. Her expression twisted in confusion, as though the words being shouted at her didn’t reach her ears. Then, with a weak shudder, her head tipped back, and she slumped again.
“What… in the Nine Hells happened to you?”
Rosmira’s hand shook as she brushed the dust from Juniper’s face before she motioned for assistance.
A tenday later…
Juniper lay in the Bottlesocket household, washed and bandaged, propped against a mountain of pillows too soft for the grit still in her bones. The lamps were turned low to protect her senses.
The gnome brothers moved in and out with quiet, purposeful motions, speaking only in whispers. Rosmira stayed closer in the past days, seated in a chair she barely left since they brought Juniper up from the dark. Her arms were crossed, but her eyes rarely strayed from her.
Juniper had spoken little those first moments of consciousness. Her throat felt raw, her ears still rang as though the cavern’s collapse had never stopped. But when her words had finally come, they had come steady, measured. Juniper had described the darkness at first, followed by the mist, and then the figure who had reached for her, the hand pulling her through. No one had spoken when she said it. Some had looked away, others making small signs.
Rosmira… she believed Juniper. Especially when her friend tried to explain the escape from the collapse.
Juniper had tried to describe what she did with the hammer, the sudden rush in her blood, the sound that wasn’t entirely sound. A talent Pixel had had, and that now somehow had manifested in Juniper. Rosmira had watched Juniper as she tried to explain, to define the resonance, the power that had infused the hammer and cracked the stone as though it were glass.
It had been magic. Only not the magic Juniper had known before.
First of all, as soon as Rosmira had surfaced to find help, she learned something was happening on a divine scale. All magic had ceased to work. Well, almost all magic. Arcane magic still worked, only in irregular and chaotic ways.
And Juniper had used a spell to turn an object into a sonic weapon. Luck after unluck, this spell had been amplified, which explained how the collapse had been cleared. The question was, had Pixel somehow helped to unlock this power?
Rosmira didn’t know and perhaps that would remain a mystery forever. She grew tired eventually for the day and left Juniper after a goodnight hug.
Later, when the house had hushed, Juniper lay still beneath the quilt, staring at the ceiling beams. Her body still felt exhausted, yet her mind refused sleep. Slowly, her thoughts turned inward.
First, to Pixel. Her sister.
She reached to her memory as if by habit, the way she had reached in the vision, with a hand extended into the space behind her eyes.
Pixel, are you there? Her chest tightening with the silent plea. You showed me, you saved me. Please, say something. Just once more.
But there was nothing. No warmth, no shimmer, no playful echo. Only the stoic stillness of an empty room.
Her eyes stung. She swallowed hard, shifting her reach. This time, to Lord Gond.
Master of craft, source of artifice, give me a sign. Guide me, if this gift was from You.
Her lashes trembled as she held her breath, waiting for even the smallest answer. A whisper, a flicker of thought.
And not because she was deaf as of now… but again, nothing.
Finally, exhaustion conquered her unrest, and she slipped into a fitful sleep, with only one thing ringing in her ears.
Silence.
(( Hello dear reader. And yes, I know you are out there, secretly keeping tabs! Anyways. If you made it this far, I like to thank you for reading. This entire Bottlesocket sidestory is dedicated to Darkcloud/Terri, one of the few people who were a reason for me to keep on writing. The player not only played Terri with whom my character Kitty was close, but also they played Pixel. Darkcloud, you brought a character from my stories into our game, and I wish I could tell you now that you are missed, and never will be forgotten. I’d even let you in on a secret : Juniper will always carry Pixel with her, just as we carry you with us. ))