Kai's Memories

Strange technology. Some sort of ship beneath the sea, weird interfaces she struggles to understand. Alistair lit up the second he saw all that stuff, but she can’t think of anything except the Maldrus.

She can sense it in every hair on her body, the magic within pulling her towards it and the Maldrus itself pushing her away. It’s going to tear her apart. She doesn’t know how she still holds her form.

Down. They need to go down.

It’s so quiet as they head below, the only sound their steps splashing in the ankle-high water and the crushing hum of the ocean pressing against the metal walls of the ship. Hundreds of years and it still hasn’t caved in.

They enter into a large room packed with machinery she doesn’t recognize and certainly doesn’t understand. Light draws her eyes from around a corner tangled with pipes, the familiar thrum of a rift.

She nearly walks into it.

The Maldrus, a devastating force that had claimed the southern ocean, devastated all who challenged it, killed her parents and hundreds of others, seems so small and helpless here. It cowers and shrinks back as she approaches, staff held up like a threat.

She gets just close enough to reach out and touch the lingering Maldrus with her staff. It shrivels up, disappears, and then the rift seals.

They’re standing in a quiet room. Her lingering powers fade, and she can’t sense the Maldrus anymore.

It’s over now. The dead can rest, and her too.

Everything’s going to be okay.