From Moving Crates to Killing Gods-Chapter 93: October

"Now I know her species, Rolen. She’s a Dark Keshnel." I said, assuming the name would be familiar. If anyone had heard of it before, it would be him.

Rolen stood very still for a moment, looking at Wip the way you look at something that doesn’t belong in the category you put it in. Like discovering that the family pet was actually a spy from a foreign country. Then he adjusted his glasses, which seemed to be his way of putting the world back in order, and said carefully, "Then I’ll need to do some reading tonight."

"About what." I asked.

"About what a Dark Keshnel actually is." he replied after a short pause. "Because I have absolutely no idea where that species comes from."

Wip was cleaning her face with one paw, completely unaware of the crisis she had just caused in Rolen’s mind. She licked her paw, rubbed her ear, and made a small satisfied sound.

"She came from a cave in the mountains... probably." I said.

Rolen nodded slowly. "Okay." he said, as if that clarified something. After a brief pause he added, "Well, I’ll head back to the farms now. I’ll see you later."

"Sure, Rolen. You were of great help." I said, Wip adding a few cheerful wips to our thanks. She didn’t know what she was thanking him for, but the vibes were positive and she wanted to contribute.

He gave a small nod and headed off, walking with the focused calm of someone who had decided to process things later rather than now. I watched him go, then looked down at Wip.

"Dark Keshnel." I said quietly. The words felt wrong in my mouth. Too dramatic, too significant. Too much for a creature whose entire personality revolved around moving rocks.

"I prefer much more the name we gave you, Wip." Kira said while petting Wip.

"Wip, Wip." she replied and jumped back onto my shoulder as if the conversation was settled.

I supposed it was, for now.

We had a long list of things to ask Damian. The sixth outpost lab, the portal on the mountain, and now whatever Wip actually was.

But before any of that I needed a shower, food that wasn’t canned, and sleep on something that wasn’t stone or packed dirt for a length of time that didn’t have a survival reason to end.

Those things came first.

As we walked through Argent toward the Spire, the corridors felt strangely small after weeks in the open canyons. The hum of the barrier filled everything again, a sound I had stopped noticing as a child and now couldn’t ignore.

"Hey." I said. "Thanks for going to get Rolen instead of heading straight for a bath. I know you wanted one."

She glanced at me sideways. "What do you mean?" she asked calmly. "Are you saying I smell bad?"

What?

"I didn’t mean that." I said quickly.

"Good." she replied. "Anyway, I went because of Wip."

I thought about the last few weeks. The outposts, the training, the cave, the mountain. How much of it I had spent inside my own head mapping distances, running sequences, combining sense with Switch, thinking three problems ahead. How little of it I had spent actually talking to the people walking beside me.

"Are you actually okay?" I asked.

She took several steps before answering. "It’s just..." she began, pausing the way she always did when choosing words carefully. "Sometimes I miss before. When we were in the orphanage, and the worst thing to worry about was card games and what abilities we’d get when we were older." She gave a small pause. "We made up such good abilities for ourselves."

I remembered. She had wanted something with plants before she even knew she would actually get something with plants, which had felt like a miracle at the time and then immediately like a responsibility.

"You have a good ability." I said.

"I know." she replied calmly. "But you’re the one who can fight them. And now everyone depends on you. I feel like I’m doing my part but..." She trailed off. "I don’t want to be part of the burden. I want to share the weight."

I hadn’t looked at it from that angle.

I had been so focused on the mechanics of getting stronger, closing the gap between what I could do and what the wasteland demanded, that I had assumed everyone else was running the same internal race. But Kira’s vines couldn’t hurt a Corruptor. Finn’s ability pointed directions and built bunkers. Coco’s dark water hid us. Phinyx kept us calm and energetic.

All of it mattered.

"You’re not a burden." I said. "The road exists because of all of you. I’m just the part that... kills things."

She nodded slowly, still looking ahead. "I know." she said after a moment. "I just wanted to say it."

"I’m glad you did."

Wip, who had been quiet on my shoulder during the entire exchange, leaned slightly against the side of my head. She didn’t say any wips, just leaned.

We reached the Spire as the afternoon light was flattening.

The structure rose obsidian dark against the pale silver of the city around it, tall and clean edged, nothing like the worn ruins of the wasteland. The material had that familiar wrongness, similar to the portal door on the mountain. Something other than silver, something older.

Wip went rigid.

Every muscle locked at once. Her ears flattened completely, her tail pulled tight, and she pressed herself against the side of my neck without making a sound. She stared at the obsidian with the same stillness she had shown in front of the Corruptors.

"Hey." I said softly. "It’s just a building. A very old, dark and ominous building... but still just a building."

"Wip." she replied quietly, uncertain in a way I had not heard before.

Kira slowed down and looked from Wip to the Spire. Something thoughtful crossed her expression.

"She recognizes the material." Kira said quietly.

I looked at the obsidian again, then at Wip.

The rectangle inside the cave had been obsidian dark. Whatever Wip’s connection was to that thing, seeing the same material built into Argent’s Spire meant something to her.

I kept walking at a steady pace, breathing normally so she could feel that I wasn’t alarmed.

Slowly Wip relaxed. Her tail loosened a little.

At the entrance Kira and I separated toward our rooms.

She glanced back once. "Take care of Wip, give her plenty of food." she said.

"Of course. She deserves it." I replied.

We parted ways. When I reached my room, Wip looked around the place curiously.

I dropped my pack down and let out a slow breath.

The outposts were done.

I opened the window and stared out across the lower levels of Argent, at workers moving through distant corridors, at the faint green shimmer of the barrier.

January first.

That was the date that mattered, the date when everything would be decided.

It was October now.

Three months.