He looked at Nel and said, “’There went in two and two…the male and the female, as God had commanded….’”
“What is that?” she replied.
“It’s a truncated version of Genesis. Noah and the Ark. Not sure why, but it felt appropriate right now.” Remi’s Ouro-halo flickered, the faint green ring edging forward, as if the Crucible itself had marked his words.
As they prepared to push into the vines, Remi remembered what Archie had said. “Nel. The AI said something about there being snakes with swords.”
“Really?” She had her computer out in a flash and was typing almost frantically. Found the system file. Looks like there are monsters called the Bladewoven. Here, I will show you what I can find. It isn’t much, but anything is better than nothing.”
Remi’s HUD flashed with a font that was distinctly different from the system’s, and he was already associating with Nel herself.
[MONSTER DATA FILE // AUTO-PULL]
Name: Bladewoven
Type: Mythic Construct — Nagakin Cohort
Designation: “Those who fight as one.”
//Overlay pull from Mneomonist=NEL.
He considered. She was right; there wasn’t much to go on. “Looks like some coordinated combat might be needed,” he said. “Maybe, like the Camp Crucible Lake fight?”
“No, I don’t think so. But we both can pull more info when we get closer. I have a small view of your HUD, so I can parse any information you get as well. That way I can coordinate, and given your more active skill set, you can get in there.” She smiled.
Remi knew she was right. He was developing a more active combat style. “Hey, if you can see my HUD, does that mean you can see what I say to the AI?”
“No, actually,” she said. “I should be able to, but he seems to have locked that feed down tight. So continue to share.”
“Will do,” Remi remarked with a grin. “But snakes! Why did it have to be snakes?!” He made a whip-cracking gesture to punctate is Indiana Jones riff.
The green ticked up again.
“Interesting,” she said. “Seems like our readers enjoy a bit of camp.”
“Me too,” he said with a grin. “You know me. I love me some camp.”
It was her time to grin, but hers was decidedly wicked. “We’ll see.”
Remi’s grin faltered. “Wait. What do you mean?”
She didn’t respond.
“No, really, what do you mean?”
“I have an idea, but you'll not like it.”
It didn’t take long for him to find out what that meant.
* * *
Remi could see the chasm long before he could make out the gate. It was a wide rip in the earth, which he estimated to be about 200 feet across, but it extended for miles in either direction. There was no getting around it. Luckily, or more likely intentionally, there was a bridge that traversed the gap. It had no railing, and in the very centre rested what appeared to be a burned archway blocking the path.
“That appears ominous,” he remarked. Nel didn’t look at him; she just kept walking forward.
“No, it appears perfect,” she replied.
Remi couldn’t help but think that her comment was even more ominous than the prospect of a death-inducing fall and mysterious murder door. He knew he was going to regret asking.
“What do you mean by that?” Nel’s evil grin and typing were the only response.
As they reached the edge, she finally talked. “I want to try something.” Her fingers came to a stop with a final, firm push on what he assumed was the enter button.
[HUD FILTER: VOICE OVERLAY INITIATED]
Mode: ISEKAI
Creator: NEL//SCRIPTBREAKER
“Wait,” Remi said. “What did you just—”
Before he could finish, a booming, overly noble voice echoed out of his own throat:
REMI (through filter): “LO! I, A HUMBLE TEACHER OF REALMS FORGOTTEN STAND BEFORE DESTINY’S CHASM!”
Her laughter was the counterpoint to the horror on his face. “Perfect,” she said.
Remi’s face contorted.
REMI: “THE ETERNAL INJUSTICE OF THIS WILL NOT GO UNPUNISHED! I WILL SMITE YOU WITH THE FORCE OF A THOUSAND ANCESTORS!”
Nel stifled another giggle. “I’m sure you'll, Remi.” She diverted her attention back to the laptop. “It appears to be working. System diagnostics say that the Novelty and Audience rings are tracking up. Can you see it in your Ouro-rings?”
He looked for the rings on his HUD; they were in fact bumped by about 10% from prior to this ridiculous filter. He didn’t care. There was no way he was going to spend any more time in this state.
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REMI: “YOU MUST VANQUISH THIS EVIL FROM MY BREAST, OR I WILL SEEK JUSTICE!”
Even though he couldn’t see them, Remi knew how many exclamation marks were in his dialogue. He told his students never to use them unless absolutely necessary. That they were equivalent to stomping your foot and punching the air. To highlight this, he always showed it with the actions. Stringing them together as he spoke. The successive punch thumps always got a wonderful reaction and drove home the point.
And here he was. Punch-thump-drunk and stumbling his way through the Crucible for everyone’s amusement.
REMI: "PLEASE STOP!!!!!!"
The word stop, which Remi knew was rife with exclamation, reverberated around the canyon, and came echoing back at him.
“Op! Op! Op! Op!”
Fuck me! He thought.
Nel seemed unfazed. “That is really impressive, given that the canyon is fake.”
That surprising revelation was almost enough to make him forget about the filter. “What!?”
She continued. “The what you think is a gap is just an image. What you see is an illusion; there's actually a wall in front of you. It only looks like a gap. You can’t fall.”
Remi couldn’t believe her. It was all too real. He could see it. He could hear it. There was a quick way to confirm.
Remi: Did you paint a chasm for us?
Remi: Why?
Remi knew the movie, but that had been a sky mural. He reached out, and sure enough, he could feel the solid wall in front of him. As he slid his hand towards the bridge image, he felt the corner edge. There was a path; he knew it now. It also meant that the door was a real barrier now. He’d hoped just to lash himself around it, and ignore the whole thing. No such luck. He couldn’t help but echo his question.
Remi: Why?
Nel looked at him, like she knew he was talking with Archie. She said nothing, but gestured towards the gap. “You go first.”
He sighed. . He started down the path slowly. Even though he knew the images at his sides were illusionary, his body couldn’t help but react to the perceived drop. It looked like he now had hundreds of feet of open air below him, and Remi hated heights, so he'd inch along this thing.
Remi heard Nel’s exasperation in her breathing. He ignored it and continued his dungeon crawl. Finally, she’d had enough of the snail’s pace.
“Just put your hand out to steady yourself. It will make it easier for you to move quickly. I'm hoping to get to the gate before our week runs out!”
He'd have bristled, but the suggestion was a good one. As he set his left palm against the side wall, he could feel his nerves steady. And like Nel had said, he was soon able to travel much faster. They were in the centre of the bridge and before the door in a matter of minutes.
The door itself was about fifteen feet high. It was covered in glyphs, and there was an enormous face-like knocker in the centre. It didn't have a ring in its mouth, but Remi knew the Truman Show wasn't the only movie going to be ripped off today. This was likely in response to his Goblin King line earlier.
As he approached, the face animated, opened its mouth and spoke. “Who approach’th the bridge of death must answer me these questions three?”
Remi: You are creativity’s bane! It was originally five anyway!
Remi: What is that exactly?
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: Patch Notes]
Five questions will now be asked to unlock the door.
He could feel Nel shaking her head behind him. Remi didn't turn to confirm; he instead focused on the gate before him. The scorched archway thrummed as if it were receiving an update. The brass knocker blinked its eyes rapidly a few times.
“If you want to get by alive. You must answer my questions five.”
Remi: Anyone ever told you that you are an asshole?
Remi shifted his focus to Nel, who was explaining the gate.
“You have a pretty straightforward question gate in front of you. You answer the questions, and go through. That is why I tried the filter. It’s a pretty boring puzzle narratively, and so I wanted to see if I could amp it up a bit. I planned on letting you struggle a bit, spiking our views and then turning it off. But then you had to piss off the Crucible. Now you have more questions. And the filter is locked on. It’s tied to the door opening now. I checked.”
Remi really did have a big mouth. He should learn to shut it. But here he was, might as well get on with it. He turned his attention back to the brass face. As they made eye contact, it spoke again.
“What is your name?”
He tried to say Remi Page. Instead, what came out was far less straightforward.
REMI: “I AM THE SPILLER OF INK, THE SCRIVENER, THE MARGIN WALKER OF DESTINY!”
Nel snorted. “Accurate, but you missed blatherer of stupid thoughts!”
Remi could feel his cheeks flush slightly, but there was a DING!
“What is your quest?”
He attempted to say, survive. To save his brother.
REMI: “TO VANQUISH EVIL, CLAIM THE HOLY RELICS, RESCUE THE MAIDEN AND REWRITE OUR EXISTENCE!”
That wasn't quite what he said, but it should be close enough for the door. But nothing happened. There was no sound of acceptance. Instead, the door shifted its gaze to look past Remi to Nel behind him. Even with the ridiculous filter, Remi felt the humour evaporate from the moment. The Crucible had shifted the game, and he was no longer the one being dealt the cards.
“And what is YOUR quest?”
Nel’s response was glib and delivered quickly. “Same as his.” This, however, was also met with no responding chime. There was a long silence while the Crucible waited for the real answer. Her response came as a whisper. “I want to matter.”
Her words—I want to matter—made Remi’s heart hurt. Not just because of the wave of sadness that he felt for her, but because they resonated deep within him. They scraped across a similar wound. The one he tried to pretend didn’t exist. It was the last part of his own answer, the one he didn’t have the courage to utter, but she did. Remi hated how that felt worst of all.
The Crucible accepted their combined response with a DING!
Question three followed the pattern established by Monty and the gang.
“What is your favourite colour?”
REMI: “I GLORY IN THE SIGHT OF THE BLOOD OF TEN THOUSAND ENEMIES — CRIMSON RED!”
That was absolutely untrue. Luckily, Nel had his back. Her response was direct and simple. “His is blue. Basically, he wore the same style of blue shirts every day. Mine is Lavender.”
DING!
The next question Remi knew was where things would likely go off the rails. He was expecting something like, ‘What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow.’ He was ready with the punchline: African or European? That wasn't, however, the question he got.
“Who do you think is watching you?”
Before he could scream out a bombastically filtered response, Nel’s words floated up. “No one. Not for a long time.”
The jokes inside Remi dried up.
If his heart ached before, it flat-out sobbed now. He wanted to say something. Anything. He wanted to tell her that he saw her. That she wasn't alone. But Remi knew the stupid filter would fuck it up. Perhaps in a devastating way. So he stayed silent.
Surprisingly, the Crucible didn’t need a response from Remi. There was a DING!
“Do you miss them?”
The response to this question came in unison. “Yes.”
[SYSTEM MESSAGE - DOOR UNLOCKED]
The door creaked open. Their path was finally clear.
“Nel?” Remi’s voice was once again his own.
Her response was soft. He could hear the quaver in her voice. “Can we not talk about it? Just for this one time?”
He could hear the air leave her lungs as if she’d been holding her breath for the entire journey.
He nodded once, the words he wanted to say dying before they reached his mouth. “Of course,” he said.
He desperately wanted to say something pithy, to help ease the tension—anything to let her know what he was feeling. But this wasn’t about him. When people tell you what they need, respect that. He forgot that sometimes, more often than he cared to admit, but not this time. So Remi walked the last few paces in silence, eyes fixed ahead. The illusionary canyon shimmered, then collapsed into stone as the final lock released.
He didn’t look back at her. He couldn’t.
The Crucible hadn’t meant to wound her; it was he who had done it.
If he hadn’t mocked the gate, if he hadn’t baited the system into its extra questions, she never would’ve had to answer any of that—never would’ve had to lay herself bare for his joke.
As he walked, he couldn’t help but ask himself.