Half Beast And Half Mind

  The spaceship descends at full speed through the planet's atmosphere; from the windows you can see the festival of colors and flames that wraps around the ship as it falls. It reminds me of the terrible final fall of Atlantis. Now I can once again appreciate the power and intensity of the flame, which resonates with my determination to see this mission through. It is my duty, my debt - no matter what the outcome, I must reach the end, no matter how sad or cruel it may be.

  The descent takes several minutes. The stress on the ship is palpable in the sounds and tremors as it holds its ground against the onslaught of natural forces trying to destroy it. Sitting in my seat, I think about these last hours, the last minutes I was able to talk to Nanami before she disappeared.

  The Celestial Forge was a sacred place for the Atlanteans, carefully carved out of the inner walls of the center and heart of Atlantis. Within the deepest caverns of Salem rested the power source of Atlantis and its primordial fire, which legend says was created by the first Atlanteans during the Great Mortality - the same fire that protected them from the unrelenting cold of the Quaternary Ice Age. This same fire was used to create the finest Atlantean weapons: the Orichalcum Weapons, forged with techniques that can only be described as torturous martyrdom and twisted horrors. For this reason, they were only made during times of extreme need for Atlantis. The construction of these weapons was overseen by the Guild of Aurora Blacksmiths, who oversaw the approval and creation of special weapons - even above the authority of the Emperor, at least until Orion abused the system by simply threatening the entire Council with a horrible execution.

  The battle for the Celestial Forge was a massive dragon assault to destroy the only forge capable of creating a weapon great enough to stop them. What began as a skirmish between patrols escalated as each side called for reinforcements. Both forces were drawn to the monumental cave, and gradually the battle turned into a full-scale campaign as the spiral of death and misery spiraled out of control, engulfing all sides. The hell lasted more than three weeks in continuous combat - bombs, gunfire, the sounds of death, the fiercest dragons and their attacks on the terrified men in the trenches. I remember at one point fighting alongside the White Banisher, Gaenbald the Abyss Walker, and hundreds of other volunteers, trying to launch a desperate counterattack to draw the enemy forces away from their main corridor, hoping to buy time for Nanami and the blacksmiths of the Aurora Guild to work on forging the weapon. They called it a suicide attack. We bore the name of the warriors of the Last Dawn - we were nothing more than dead men walking, a handful of civilians and a few soldiers trying to make our lives count for something, silent souls that kept the world turning. None of them remembered, none of them recognized as heroes, yet all of them helped save the world that day.

  It was during this small skirmish that the True Death Dragon reappeared to finish us all, where Gaenbald the Abyss Walker stood against the one who had once been his master - and then lost his life. It was the same battle where the White Banisher lost his last teacher and mentor, leaving him in charge of the survivors during the retreat. It was the same moment I received my wounds, trying to save those whose names I no longer remember. What I do remember with certainty is the pain of the stretcher as they rushed me away, the horrible bumpy ride full of jolts and drops, the smell of burnt flesh and the cries of grief or pleas for help, the rain of upturned earth left by the bombs.

  I didn't see Nanami until the next day, surrounded by her guards as usual. I remember hearing her mention that they were close to completing the Great Sword of Avalon. I also remember knowing that this was my end, and all I could think about was making Nanami smile one last time and giving her the strength to go on without me. My last memory of her was her embrace, a kiss, and the heavy injection of morphine that would give me a rest I thought would be eternal.

  But instead I am here in her place, now on my way to the site of my greatest defeat, to face the fear I have of the unknown and the possibility that the answers I find will be more painful than my current wounds. I'm afraid of discovering the painful truth, but curiosity and the need to finally put an end to this silly adventure scattered through time, once and for all, push me forward.

  Seeing the door open and Stella step out of the pilot's cabin pulled me out of my past tragedy and brought me back to the present. She seemed to have something important to tell us.

  "All right, get your things ready. We'll be landing in about twenty minutes."

  "Please have everything you need with you and don't leave anything behind," the angel said to the group. Then she looked at me and motioned for me to come with her to the pilot's cabin.

  From there, I could see more clearly where the spaceship was headed: a city hidden in a valley of high mountains, a medieval town with its castles, wooden and stone houses, windmills doing the best they could with what little they had-along with the huge and massive hole in the middle of the city, the great pit known as the Dungeon of Florin Village, famous for being an awe-inspiring feat of biblical proportions. This was a place I already knew, somewhere I had been on a surprise trip before; it was the same world where I had met Tifa.

  "That huge hole again..."

  "I knew it wasn't normal."

  "Can you explain what is going on here, Stella?"

  "Well, exactly what you asked for."

  "We came directly to the place where the Lamia Voranoa was born."

  "From what we could verify, she came from deep within the ruins of Medui Tamn."

  "So that's exactly where we're going now."

  "The ruins of Medui Tamn..."

  "When Tifa first told me about them, they seemed so strange and far away, and they made me curious as I tried to imagine what had happened there."

  "Now I just feel apathetic when I think about what it has to do with Atlantis."

  "The hole is quite deep, a difficult descent for sure."

  "Unfortunately, the passages ahead are much too narrow for our ship to pass through."

  "We'll try to find a safe place as low as possible; after that, the final descent will have to be made on foot."

  "That's why I brought my crew-that way you won't have to worry about the difficulties that might arise."

  "We promise we'll do everything we can and more to make sure you have a safe journey to wherever you need to go."

  "Yeah, fine, whatever."

  "I just want to get this over with; I don't care about anything else."

  "I have no intention of staying on this planet one second longer than necessary," I said as I returned to my seat.

  The ship descended for several minutes through the large hole in the middle of the bustling city, unnoticed thanks to its advanced cloaking system. As we descended through the ruins of Medui Tamn, we watched the landscape of the cave change several times: from the lush green upper forests, to the darkness where the sunlight no longer reached, to where the light returned thanks to the magical crystals inside, and finally where these gave way to the vast forest of glowing blue bioluminescent mushrooms, gradually creating an atmosphere reminiscent of the cursed continent of Atlantis.

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  The ship came to a halt where the main shaft ended in large solid rocks-nearly fifteen kilometers straight down from the surface-but we could still see that the chasm continued, revealing a complex network of tunnels and ruins on a gigantic scale that seemed to reach to the center of the world.

  The first to come out were the paladins, several men in heavy armor, carrying shields the size of walls, securing the immediate area around the spacecraft. Then the Marines ventured deeper into the cave, dealing with any threats that might arise in the central part of the expedition. After them came a group of scouts and explorers who joined the Marines to try to find a safe path that would take us further down. Stella's team followed, escorting a cage in which the Lamia girl was beginning to wake from her long sedation. They also worked on clearing the area around the ship, preparing the camp we'd use for our exploration.

  Finally, our group was ready to disembark. My sister Maria was thrilled to be part of what she called "an ancient adventure," although I didn't see it that way. Lisa stood beside her, trying to keep Maria from getting into trouble by ignoring the dangers. Poor Tifa had burrowed into my bag, refusing to stick out more than her head to look around - her fear of the world seemed to have returned now that she was back in Etria. Tamamo walked beside me, moving gracefully in her Celestial Godness kimono, gently waving her hand fan with the kanjis of "償還" meaning redemption. She seemed to be trying to analyze the surroundings and understand the possible history that gave rise to this place, but she kept looking at me every few minutes. It looked like she was also concerned about me and the connection all of this had to my past and present.

  I walked slowly to the cage of the now awakened Lamia, who watched me warily through the bars.

  "The girl is a wild monster, not much different from a carnivorous animal."

  "Because of the work Henry Lecarde did on her, she understands the concept of language and can communicate."

  "Just try not to use... very complex concepts because she probably won't understand them right away," Stella said, giving me some instructions.

  "I want to see her face to face."

  "Open the cage," I told the angel.

  Stella looked at me for a moment, knowing it would be dangerous, but proceeded anyway, turning the key and moving the door. Immediately, the snake girl jumped out in front of her towards the exit. I was in her path; she opened her fierce mouth, showing the large fangs she would use to attack. But just as her head crossed the doorway, her heavy slave collar activated, as if invisible chains were pulling her back. Her body jerked to a halt right in front of me. She still didn't understand what was happening and kept trying to push herself forward. I could see on her face that her anger had given way to childlike confusion, wondering why her body couldn't move forward as she wanted and commanded it to.

  "All right, I've been told that you're not the smartest one around here, so I'll try to be direct with you."

  "You, the half-snake girl, it seems you used to live around here."

  "You found this spear here - it belonged to an important person I used to know."

  "I want you to take me to where you found it."

  "You came from deeper down, right? You just have to take the way back."

  "I'll pay you with something when we're done."

  "You? What I want? I want life.

  "I want to eat. Always hungry...always cold in stone and dark."

  "No one there. Only me. Only hunting. Only kill. Only live."

  "Never... others like me. You many, me only, no pack."

  "You lie, you stronger than all."

  "You don't eat weak, always have plenty to eat but no hunger. or eat."

  "I want your strength. I want to be free. No cage."

  "Why you no kill? Why you look... like I something more? I no more. Just beast. Only blood and venom. You use me. I bite when I can. Fair deal."

  Even though I could hear her speak, and even though I understood the individual words, I couldn't grasp the full meaning behind them. I knew she was saying something, but not the whole message. Confused, I turned to Tamamo, who was most likely to understand what the snake girl was really trying to say. As always, my faithful wife needed only to look me in the eye to understand, and she immediately stepped in to help me, just as I would expect from my personal goddess.

  "You... stay behind. Always behind. You don't attack. You don't run. Why?"

  "You don't hunt. You don't bite. You just use words. Long words... like big stones. "Useless if you are hungry."

  "Words don't give food."

  "No one leaves meat for the weak."

  "You are a question. I hate questions. Bite more than teeth. But... don't hit me. Don't eat me. Don't scream, just look."

  "Similar animals never fight. Similar animals hard to kill. Always many everywhere. Similar Animals fight to free similar Animals."

  "I look little like the pack in front of me. Maybe the pack gives food to animals weaker than themselves." The animal girl continued to speak.

  "Seriously, I have no idea what she's talking about," I whispered to Tamamo.

  "Well, this may be the first time she's ever used language."

  "She may sound like a silly animal, but honestly, it's impressive how much she is managing to say."

  "She talks in a silly way, but she's already using complex ideas, like the concept of a pack or the idea of a question."

  "I'm sure you spoke much worse when you were a baby, and you grew up in a world where language is normal."

  "For her, it's something she's never used before, and suddenly she realizes she can try to tell people what's on her mind."

  "......"

  "I think what's happening is just her thoughts, what she's debating with herself right now."

  "It's just that she hasn't figured out how to express them one by one yet, so she's saying everything at the same time."

  "......"

  "For now, the best thing is to start with simple things she can understand, and later we can refine everything around that."

  "Since she is so focused on survival, food might be her main currency."

  "One she understands."

  "......."

  "Alright, fine, we'll play by her rules then," I said, pointing at Stella.

  The angel immediately went into the spaceship and came back with some cooked meat in a bag and handed it to me.

  "Hey you, here, food."

  "I'll give... a little, you like."

  "......."

  "Later... I'll give more if you show the way down." I tried to speak similarly, with less success.

  The lamia stared at the bag of dried meat I was holding, her gaze wavering as if calculating whether it was the trap of another predator or just my stupidity in offering edible food to a lesser being like her. Slowly, she looked up at me and hissed:

  "You... give food... why? I not pack."

  "I just want something in return, an exchange."

  "I want you to lead us to your home."

  "Guide... what is that? I don't understand. No... trade. No words change hunger. Only food."

  Tamamo stepped forward, her tone soft but firm, catching the creature's attention.

  "She is not saying she will eat you."

  "She says: we give you this"-she lifted the bag a little-"and you take us to your home. To your cave."

  "You have a cave, right? Where you hide when you're hurt or sick?"

  "Your safe place."

  "Lair. Not home. Stones... hollow... mine."

  "Do not disturb. Secret place."

  Tamamo nodded slowly, with infinite patience.

  "That's it. Your lair. You lead us there."

  "You eat and we follow."

  The Lamia stepped back, dragging her tail through the dusty earth, visibly confused. Her voice was almost a growl:

  "Why go? Only stones. Dark. Cold. No food-just bones. Nothing."

  The mention of bones, and how they meant nothing to her, annoyed me a little, while also making me uneasy about finding nothing of value. But I also understood why they really meant nothing to her. In their world, I was the odd one out for insisting on looking at nothing. Still, I was determined to continue the journey.

  "' We seek something... ancient, forgotten. Something important... strong. Maybe it's in this place."

  The Lamia clicked her tongue, undecided, the inner struggle evident in every clumsy, visceral gesture.

  "You strange animal girls, odd number of tails, you a strange water creature, living water."

  "No one goes into lair. I danger. I death."She was silent for a few seconds, then, with a fierce gleam in her eyes

  "But...you strong. If you die, I... I eat afterwards; if you live, I eat too."

  Tamamo smiled and crossed her arms.

  "Fair deal, right? You show us the way, and we'll figure out the rest later."

  The Lamia approached, almost reluctantly, reaching out to grab the dried meat and eagerly bringing it to her mouth, tearing off chunks voraciously. She murmured between bites.

  "Alright. I follow the old path. Stones. Dark. But... fast. I don't like it much up there."

  "Big, strong predators up here."