From Moving Crates to Killing Gods-Chapter 6: Three Teams

The discussion that followed was less like a conversation and more like frantic yelling. Under Darien and Mira’s direction, we cataloged our new realities, sorting ourselves into categories.

Utility, Traversal, Combat, Defense, and a grim pile of Extras that didn’t seem to fit anywhere.

My box switching was deemed Utility, with a question mark next to Traversal. Kira’s grass growing landed in Extras, though her quiet insistence that she could sense water got her a second look.

The plan we formed was as fragile as it was daring. We couldn’t all cross at once. The strain would be too great, the margin for error non existent. Instead, we formed three parties, each a patchwork of abilities designed to cheat the lake’s despair.

The first party was Ember’s. They were the vanguard, tasked with trying the route. A boy named Silas could create thick, rigid boards of hard wood from the rock walls. A girl named Lin possessed a dampening field, a shimmer of air around her hands that could keep the wood from burning. A nice dude called Gale, who could gather and loosely direct the flow of air. And a guy named Coco who could make water turn into juice.

Their plan was simple, Silas would grow a narrow platform. Lin would keep it from igniting. Gale would funnel wind into Ember’s palms. And Ember, our volatile torch, would become a motor. She would blast jets of fire backward over the water, propelling the wooden raft forward in short, terrifying bursts. And Coco would be... Drinking juice, making counterweight.

We watched them from the shore, a silent, tense audience. Silas pressed his hands to the cavern wall, veins standing out on his temples. A slab of dark, polished wood, shaped like a rectangle, peeled itself from the stone. It was just big enough for the four of them. They pushed it to the water’s edge. The black liquid didn’t splash, it parted with a thick, syrup like reluctance.

Lin placed her hands on the table’s edge, and a pearlescent sheen crawled over the wood. Ember took position at the stern, Gale flanking her. With a deep breath, Ember clenched her fists. Fire roared not like a wild inferno, but in a focused, blowtorch stream. Gale took all the air he could into his lungs, arms sweeping forward, and the wind answered, howling into the flame and shaping it into a tight, white hot cone that screamed against the water.

The large wooden table moved forward, then surged. It was impossibly loud in the silent cavern, a shriek of fire and wind cutting across a sea of quiet dread. They became a shrinking comet, trailing light and thunder over the profound black. Halfway across, Ember’s fire spread, her arms were shaking. Lin cried out, her dampening field flickering, and a tongue of fire licked the sled’s edge, charring it before she could suffocate it.

Coco dropped his juice for a moment. But Gale redoubled his efforts, and Ember, with a raw shout, pushed again. They slammed into the far shore sixty seconds later, tumbling onto the stone in a cloud of smoke, exhaustion, and laughter that echoed faintly back to us. It worked.

They seemed to be dancing frenetically, then checking on each other wounds and status, but from the shore of the lake I couldn’t really hear much of what they were saying.

The second party was Darien’s. Theirs was a slower, steadier approach, built on reinforcement and patience. Darien’s own power to harden materials was the core. He’d found a girl named Petra whose ability was ’Stick’, she could make any surface of something glue to another surface. Another, named Cobb, had the ability to enhance his speed, making him the perfect paddler for their raft.

Then they had Mira, who could maybe showcase her bright blade of light, and Rolen who had the ability to communicate with passive mobs... So maybe he could domesticate Coco?

Their raft was a patchwork of stone debris and wood plates Silas had grown for them before departing. Darien touched each piece, and it darkened, becoming metallic and dense. Petra weaved her hands over the borders of the plates, and it seemed to become unnaturally cohesive. When they pushed off, they started slowly.

They poled their way across using a couple of reinforced ledges, since Rolen and Mira could still paddle. Regardless it was a careful, steady procession.

The lake despair seemed to press harder on them, a tangible weight.

And then Cobb started getting the hang of it, so he went faster, and faster, being careful not to touch any drops of the black liquid. But even then, a cold, dark despair oozed into their veins.

Thankfully, they already were at the other side, but with empty faces.

"That can happen to any of us!? I don’t want to touch that black stuff!?" Said Finn, worried.

"It seems like that, so don’t go diving looking for silver in this pool Finn" I said.

Then it was our turn. The third party. The leftovers and the weird.

Kira. Me. Finn the Navigator. And two others, a boy named Phinyx who claimed he could "make vibes," and a girl, Yami, whose power was to emit the note A, it could be heard by whoever she wanted.

Darien’s thoughts could almost be audible, about how dumb it was to let the most important person, the navigator, be on the group with the least chances of making it.

I looked at our awesome team, and I started to concoct a plan in my head. Yes, Yami can sing our deathsong while Finn points to Argent. Phinyx will create a positive ’We’re not about to die’ vibe. Kira can grow a couple of flowers for our graves and I can move enough rocks for our tombstones.

"How in the world are we going to reach the other side?" Said Kira, maybe reading my mind.

"Well, if by other side you mean heaven i’m pretty sure we have the perfect team for that". I said in a melodic tone hinting it was a joke.

But I just couldn’t picture us on the other side of the lake.