The Children's Section

Bal - As they three look over a map, "And what is this island ... 'Cartographer'."

Cartographer - "A volcanic one sire, and still active."

Cybal - "As the magma pushes from ocean's floor, the mountain rises higher and higher."

Bal - "I wonder if his plans must involve it."

Cybal - "They would at the very least have to incorporate it, looking at the same map we are."

Bal - "Indeed ... "

Cybal - "I'll fly ahead with full scouting party."

Bal - Stares a moment.  "It is wise."  Returns to the map as she turns to leave.  "And bring the Cartographer."

She turns again to him.

Cartographer - "My lord ?"

Bal - Looking up at Cybal, "This map ... seems incomplete to me."  He turns to the Cartographer, stands tall and works his arm as healing is clear.  "And you insect, seem untested."

Cartographer - "Um.  Technically I'm a spi ... "

Bal - A chunk of armor over his face folds back into place with a grind ... "! BEGONE !"

~ The Children's Section ~

(open credits)

But the river, two nightmares on lunch break while building a fort ~

One - "What do fortify this river for ... "

Two - "Well the order came from Bal directly, so it must be some kind of evil ... "

One - "Mmmm ... evil is good."

Two - "And what's good ... "

One - "Is evil ... hahahaaa ... "  They toast their smoking potions and drink. "Still ... I like my evil to be a little ... more hands on that this.  I do not like this ... preemptive evil.  Like evil where ... we have to sit around and wait for them to walk into it ... evil traps."

Two - "Oh !  I know what you mean.  Back in the day we brought our evils to people directly !"

One - "Now it's like ... evil plot this ... horrific fate that ... and what's it all for ?"

Two - "For the strange walky things I suspect."

One - "I've heard of them ... what of them ?"

Two - "Oh.  Well apparently, I heard, they gather heroes ..."

One - "Nawwwww ... "

Two - "So they say, like moss on a rolling stone."

One - "Well that's not right at all then is it ?"

Two - "No it is not."

They slam their potions and get back to work as the view rises over the very long river still waiting to be fortified, out to the ocean and the small volcanic isle as Cybal rides toward it, cartographer following in a strangely invented dirigible, nightmares simply leaping the great distance from behind to before them there.

Cybal - On a well packed Alabast next to the dirigible, to the Cartographer at its wheel, "Continue to circle for your maps, I set up camp directly below.  Miss nothing, and circle thrice."

Cartographer - "I fear for my balloons my lady, this volcano still sputters ... "

Cybal - "And I fear for your stance as a spider if I tear off the two legs you're standing on."  Begins a spiraling descent.

Cartographer - To himself, "Well.  Don't see how that would help me fly in circles all day ... "  The airship veers into its first arc high, to examine the volcano's mouth.  Voiced over, "Sometimes I think I may be working for very bad people."

She lands among the nightmares who already look about for anything which may fear, they turn to her for instruction. 

This land is barren, pale stone of the dust accumulated from the shattered glass of obsidian here and there forming a forgotten wall now set into it all.

Cybal - "You three circle that way and you three that."  She looks around and at the ocean ... "I smell nothing that fears here, this trip is to learn.  Remember everything.  Return and carve it in stone."

They dart bounding their separate ways. 

These nightmares with her are clearly different than those set to such things as construction.  In fact builders and the like are far older, in secret each one was once a god who forgot who who they were.

Which happens sometime.

These hunters however are purely adaptable, with no persona or core of a soul at all.  Simple strands of pure human fear, as it is being ruled by humans.  Formless without the fear to guide it, and completely undifferentiated from any other. 

Here they prowl and leap from stone to stone, up and down the fearless mountainside. 

The volcano itself is broad, its irregular explosions shattering its walls further and further back, the remnants re-cooling in sharp veins.  As the Cartographer circles high he spots a cooled island within.

He pulls a scope to examine it closer.

A few straight lines, here and there, the signs of once a civilization.
____________

Gabby - "I don't even remember what my parents do when I'm here.  And I don't remember all of here when I'm there either.  But I do remember my dad talking about other worlds."

~ Her father - Tucking her in, "The universe is infinite, but there are only so many ways, that matter, can be put together.  So everything that's here, is somewhere else ... "

~ Gabby - Cutting him off with a giggle, "In a different way."

She sits up in her bunk on the walker suddenly.  Lays back and looks at the sky.
____________

Invisible King - Devouring an ice cream cone, "Well we exist right now, so that would mean there's someone here imagining us !"

Maid - Clearly bored already holding two more cones in one hand and one in the other, starting to drip.  "Uh-huh !"

Guard - "Maybe it's me."  Smiles proud.

King - "You !?  Pfffffffffffffffffffff(looks at him and back to the ice cream)fffffffffff."  Shoves it in his face.  "Next."  Looks at the guard.  "Ff."  Takes the next cone.
____________

Mike - Sitting cross-legged with the rest in the center of the opened machine.  "Well we're going in a straight line.  We're not like just ... wandering around dreaming stuff."

Ari - "I used to have a lot more nightmares."

Gabby - "I'm sorry."

Ari - "Yeah ... "

Sam - "Me too.  I ... haven't had a bad dream this whole time.  Well.  Since that one."

Outside, the giants walk.

Adam stops, raising a hand.  They all stop looking around.

Gabby - "You feel that ?"

Ari - "Yeah.  They're coming."

They get up and head for the command chairs.

Sam - "Xenofix, close the roof."

It closes before a nightmare bounces off in hard direct attack, then back to the woods.  Their mist creeps the ground closer to, seeking their fears.  The four gather around it, waiting for the attack.  One just flies between their gap and bounces again.

Inside, another hit felt.

Sam - "What are we afraid of ?"

Ari - "Them !"

Sam - "Yeah !  More than anything !"

Gabby - "So they can't take form as anything ... "

Sam - "But themselves."

The hear the guns wind up and begin firing.

Ari - "Nothing to fear but fear itself !"

Gabby - "Somebody said that once."
________

Cartographer - To Cybal, "Only the nightmares can approach it, too deep into the volcano's core for flesh.  But it is there my lady ... forgotten to time itself."

Cybal - Showing impatience with his verbiage ... "What is there."

Cartographer - "Hephaestus' forge ... my lady.  Abandoned."

Cybal - Smiles, "Ours."

~ two

As they walk the night ~

Ari - Calling up to Eve's height, "Excuse me ?"

Eve - Examines a moment as Adam looks back to them.  "What is it Ariel ?"

Ari - ... "Ari.  Are you a goddess ?"

Eve - A look, "Not precisely ... why ?"

Gabby - "Goddess of suspicion."

~ Adam giggle-snorts.

Sam - "She's Eve."

Ari - "I know who Eve is but there's nothing about her being so ... "

Eve - "Are you asking why humans are so short ?"

Ari - "No ... I'm asking what's happening."

...

Eve - To Sam, "I'm not the Eve you've heard of.  We, are an archetype of three women.  The archetype.  Not the women themselves."

Sam - "Noah's Archetype ?"

Eve - Glances to Naamah who looks away ... "No.  An archetype ... is like a circle.  Every circle you see may be different, but they're all a circle.  And we, are three women."

Mike - "Like the fates."

Gabby - "Or three witches.  There's always three witches."

Eve - "Yes.  Both, and all such things.  But we're also what happens when three people get together.  Two can converse and share secrets, be themselves.  But add a third."

Sam - "And people compete."

Eve - "Yes.  As children, you may know less of the furies, but some day."  To Ari, And what's happening is you are, for some reason, trapping in a world we such things as we three, exist.  Dreaming yourselves here."

...

Eve - "Your connection with this ... " A smile at the walker ... "Thing, is unknown.  That's why we're here.  To answer all these questions."

Mike - "We thought you were here to protect us."

Eve - "Mm.  No.  That's why he's here."

~ He looks back and shakes his head.

Naamah - "But we will."

Eve - "Until we know what we seek to."

Lilith - "Which means seeing it to the end."

The three turn to each other, letting the walker pass then approaching.  Ari pops her head over and sees them drawing their swords before gone in the darkness.

Adam - "Don't worry about it.  It's what they do."

Ari - "Excuse me ... what's in the box ?"

Adam - A smile, he pats the lid.  "Oh ... nothing but another story entirely."
____________

Cybal - Kneeling to Bal who watches from a glowing sphere of light in his hand.  "But it is inaccessible to us who can think and feel."

Bal - "Not to me.  I grow stronger by the minute."  A twist of the castle outside.  "I will extend that power, servant, to you."  

He watches her shriek in agony a moment, bursting into flames before settling into a fiery form, she stands in no pain.

...

Cybal - "Thank you.  My lord." 

She turns and blasts a cave into the mountainside.  Blasts again to dig it deeper, Bal closes his hand satisfied, his armor over flesh nearly completed with another grind of steel, he stands.

Bal - To those gods and nightmares lingering in the throne room, "Prepare the turrets and catapult, trebuchet and crossbow, dip it all in oil and prepare it to launch.  We go to war.  We burn that Erie wood to the ground, they will hide no more."
_________

She walks burning into the core chamber of the volcano, where an iron structure has been fused over by the ages, suspended to the caves wall, as if to catch the inferno beneath it.  

That magma having risen it sets like an isle on top of it.  She closes her eyes with a vision of Bal leaning into his fist on the throne, she begins to glow.  She leaps to a suspending platform. and walks toward this core.  

The size of the mountain itself, she looks up to the belled cave overhead, opened to the air.  Between the gasping smoke she sees the dot of a Cartographer in the sky.

~ Bal looks more closely into nothing before his throne.

Her eyes focus further and further as a hawk, the cartographer seen looking back through his scope, taking notes on the structure.  She keeps walking.
________

Naamah carries Eve over her shoulder covered in band-aids.

Eve - As they pass, "Sorry I was condescending."

Then up to Adam.

Eve - "Sorry I mocked your pain."

Lilith - "And ?"

Eve - A sigh.  Mumbles, "And we are hereby sworn to protect you on your journey through our lands.  ...  But not one second more !"

Lilith fist to black.
________

Voiced over while Cybal walks for a central structure, four pillars with a squarish platform at the top, but all smelted over and rough, barely more obvious than a natural formation.

Sam - "What's condescending ?"

Gabby - "I thing it's like descending ... except con.  Which is like the opposite so she was climbing."

Sam - "She's sorry she went climbing ?"

~ As Cybal does, there seen winding steps smoothed over, winding around a throne at the center of the pillars, going down.  She places a hand on it, her protection immediately begins to fade.  In pain as she falls, "I'm sorry.  My lord." 

Her protection returns.

Mike - "No it's like conning somebody.  So she's sorry she was conning us ... down ... right ?"

Ari - "Wait was everything she said a lie !?"

Adam - A laugh ... "No.  It means she's sorry she was talking down to you."

The stare at him like he's nuts.

Ari - "She's a giant.  How else is she going to talk to us."

~ Cybal descends the steps winding around the pillars, Bal watches through her eyes.

Gabby - "Maybe it's like ... con - de - sending."

Mike - "Like sending us flack ?  I'm not supposed to do that anymore."

Sam - "No it makes more sense like con - descending."

Ari - "Yeah !"

Gabby - So ... she was climbing down the hill, backwards ... which means going up ... "

Mike - "Which makes her even taller ... "

Sam - "So talking like an adult !"

All - "Oh ... "  They call out, "That's okay !"

Eve looks up from Naamah's shoulder, thumbs up, slumps back down.

~ Cybal reaches a chamber, walls smelted but a smooth floor.  She reaches down to touch it, a hesitation.  Then as her finger nears it, a tiny static jolt before her hand across the smoothness.  She looks up from it to a gap between floor and wall.  A smile.

Then his voice in her head, "Return."  A tiny fade in that protection, a look of sadness nearly broken.
________

The old gods who think themselves nightmares on break again from their construction, impossibly halfway there to the river's mouth.

One - "Do you think we will get to keep one ?"

Two - "Keep wot."

One - "A walkey thing."

Two - "Oh no ... I'm sure he'll hoard them all to himself."

One - "Why's that ?"

Two - "Well.  Because it would be evil."

One - "Ah !"  A laugh ... "That it is my friend ... that it is ... "  A toast, they drink.

(credits)
________

Maid - Stomach growls.  "That was weird."

Chef - "What was weird ?"

His stomach growls.

Chef - "Hm."