Chapter 18: Ivy
The “STOP” echoed through the entire clearing as Ivy slapped the pile of cards. “Aww,” she groaned, “I was winning, too!”
“You were not!” Persia said indignantly, before rising to stand behind Kel. Ivy stood as well and watched the scene unfolding in front of her with a sense of detachment. But then, that was how she usually saw the world.
Richard’s case of cards flew through the air as Richard and Lee came to respective halts, aghast. This huge monster thing was there too, but it waited, frozen, as the case flew out to the center of the clearing—
—where it landed squarely in the palm of a ninjesque figure as she leaped from the stone to the northwest. Ivy blinked. This woman seemed even younger than Ivy herself, but she seemed powerful beyond her years.
“Cool,” said Ivy. It was all that came to mind.
The woman landed reasonably gracefully and everything unfroze. The monster roared and advanced. “What do you think you’re—” Richard began to shout.
The woman blinked and stood up straighter, and suddenly a blast of shining, spiraling light and sound flew out, striking the monster somewhere near where its spleen would probably be, if evil projections of malforensics have spleens (or spleen-like organs) and they are positioned in a place roughly analogous to the placement of the spleen in a human body. Not that Ivy had ever dissected a human to pinpoint the spleen. She scrunched up her face at the thought.
Belatedly it occured to her to shade her eyes, but as she was raising her arm she caught sight of a dark glint hanging off the monster’s belt. (Hey, it couldn’t be a bright glint, or she’d never see it amidst all that swirly bright light.) Taking a chance, she sped into action.
“Ivy, what—?” Persia cried as Ivy ran towards the fray and very carefully and sneakily stole the whatever-it-was from the monster’s belt. And just in time, too; with a howl of dismay and anguish, the monster burst into pieces. This time Ivy did remember to cover her eyes. She heard the noise of the beam become lower in pitch…and slower too, until it seperated into individual words.
“…ank you for judgi…”
Ivy cautiously opened her eyes and saw the woman in the middle of the clearing collapse into a slumped sitting position. A piece of paper fluttered by, then another. In fact, there were dozens of shreds of paper falling from the air where the monster had been. Ivy looked down and opened her hand.
A swirly black key of some sort that didn’t quite seem to be present stared back at her. For a minute Ivy stood frozen by the fact that a key was staring at her, then she realized that it was just an effect of the design, which appeared to always be watching her face as she shifted the key back and forth in her hand.
Obviously it’s hard to describe such an object. Think of a Klein bottle, except without the restriction of being embedded in 3 dimensions. It hurt Ivy’s brain just to think about it, so she stuck it in her pocket.
Richard and Persia were already running over to the newcomer who had saved them. Kellie had rejoined herself and was now vigorously scratching the back of her head. “It always makes me so itchy!” she said to no one in particular.
“Who…who are you?” Persia asked.
“Persia!” Richard said, shocked but smiling at the same time. “That’s not very polite!”
The woman grinned, though it was a tired grin. (Small wonder, after what she had just done.) Ivy and Kellie joined Persia and Richard, and Ivy decided to sit down as well.
“Vani‽” Kellie said incredulously.
“Wait, you know her?” Richard responded, just as incredulously.
The woman—Vani—scrunched up her eyes. “I can’t remember you…”
“I’ll give you a hint,” Kellie said with a grin, “I helped you get out of the Elibe region?”
Vani’s face cleared and her eyes shone with recognition. “K-something…Kellie? Wow, I’m impressed that you even remember me.”
“Of course I do!” Kellie shook her head. “This is Richard, this is Persia, and this is Ivy,” she went on in her “introduction voice”. “Guys, this is Vani. She has the power of awesome.”
“Why am I always last…” Ivy wondered, but was talked over by Persia. “The ‘power of awesome’,” she said not-quite-skeptically.
Vani blushed. “For lack of a better name,” she said modestly. “My father called it ‘concentrated occasional oration laser’.”
“‘Occasional’?” asked Richard.
“Sheesh, guys, we’re not interrogating her,” Kellie admonished.
“No, it’s OK.” Vani ran her fingers through her hair. “It’s ‘occasional’ because I can’t control it.” She sighed. “What you just saw now is something I usually have to attribute to pure luck. But this time…I think someone was leading me here.”
An ominous silence fell over the clearing and the breeze suddenly felt chilly. Without any conscious effort Ivy found herself fingering Richard’s card case, flipping the clasp open and shut. Somehow it had traveled from Vani’s hand to hers.
“Hey!” exclaimed Richard, realizing, “Give me that!” Ivy held on to the case and Richard let go. “Please, Ivy?”
Ivy sighed. “All right.”
Richard took the case back with a bit of resentment, and Ivy stared right back at him. He turned to Vani instead. “Thanks for catching this, and hey, any friend of Kellie’s is a friend of mine.”
Ivy scrutinized Vani, then shrugged and nodded. The three of them waited expectantly for Persia.
No reaction. Ivy finally reached over and poked her in the side.
“Ow! Hey…” Persia slapped somewhat awkwardly at Ivy’s arm. “Oh, right. Welcome to the team. We’re a bit short right now, but…”
“What?” Vani looked questioningly at Kellie.
Together, Kellie and Richard explained the situation as best they understood it themselves. Persia and Ivy looked at each other and simply nodded. Personally, Ivy wasn’t sure whether to believe Richard’s tale of apparent time travel, or instant space travel, or whatever. And Kellie…well, Kellie was Kellie.
“So now you have five people to rescue,” Vani said for confirmation, and sighed. “And you have no idea where to look?”
Richard looked uncertainly at Ivy, who shrugged. Why is he looking at *me?* “We thought we’d just head in the direction of the greatest evil,” he offered weakly.
Vani shook her head. “Well, I hate to burden you guys, because I’m pretty useless when my talent’s not in play.”
“You’re not useless,” Kellie interrupted, not entirely tactfully.
“But until you guys have some idea what you’re doing, how do you expect to rescue anybody?” Vani continued, “It’s like…”
“Overly restrictive topics?” Richard offered. Everyone stared at him. More creepily, Ivy felt a pulling in her pocket.
“Um, Ivy?” Persia said nervously, “Your pocket’s glowing.”
Ivy sighed. “Why is it every time I take something it gets us into trouble?” She pulled out the key-thing.
Richard blinked several times, trying and failing to take it in. Vani looked to the side and Kellie closed one eye. Persia…zoned out, and Kellie had to wave her hand in front of her face to get her back. “What? Oh, sorry.”
“Where did you get that?” Vani said with distaste.
“From that monster…thing,” Ivy replied. Richard gave an involuntary shudder. “But it didn’t do anything until Richard said ‘overly restrictive topics’.”
The key flared with that same dark purple light that represents the dark element in most games, and almost yanked itself out of Ivy’s hand. It was pulling to the northeast.
“Whoa,” said Persia, rubbing her eyes.
“O…K…” Vani agreed.
“OK, here’s what I think,” said Kellie briskly. “This…whatever-it-is—”
“Key,” interjected Ivy.
Kellie paused. “OK, this key is some kind of homing device, or energy supply, or something. But we can find out where it comes from by following it back where it wants to go.”
“That’s really arbitrary,” Ivy muttured, but as usual she was overspoken.
“But why is it activated by ‘overly restrictive—’” Richard cut himself off as the others waved furiously at him. “What?”
“Don’t you think it might be sending some kind of signal?” Kellie hissed.
“I suppose that must have been the most evil thing the maker could think of at the time,” mused Vani.
The others stared. “What a dismal imagination,” commented Richard. He clapped his hands. “Anyway, we’d better get going. Good work, Ivy.”
Ivy hesitantly put the key back in her pocket. “Good work”? Now that was unusual to hear. Especially from Richard.
She retied her shoe and shrugged, then moved off after the others.