I was a little ahead of the expected word count for NaNo for a few days....and then it just crashed and burned this Wednesday. But with luck the three-day weekend will give me enough time to study, catch up with sleep, and catch up with word counts. Yay word-sprint marathons!
I'm not sure if there'll be another post next week....Hopefully I remember, but if not, you'll know where I am in NaNo (via the little calendar) and know how desperate I am to catch up. If anything, there'll be a post over the Thanksgiving weekend!
As always, comments and critiques are loved!
PREVIOUS SET (61-66)
67. Boundaries
In the astronomy tower, Celestine and Vesper peered out at the sky, relaxing after a practice session. Cheerful humming floated through the room. Celestine peered through the telescope. “It’s like there’s an anomaly,” she noted. “Not out there, but from…us.”
Vesper laughed. “That’s ridiculous. You’re looking at other world in the sky.”
“What if it’s…another layer of existence, that’s overlapping here?”
“Like another dimension?” He laughed. “Relax, enjoy the silence and the sk.y.”
But it wasn’t quiet. Celestine screamed, cowering and denying madness. Before she completely broke that boundary of insanity and frustration, she bolted out, seeking silence.
68. Unsettling Revelations
Incessant knocking at the door. “But Celeste, I really think you should see this!”
“Go away! Continue, Anuna?”
“Celest—“
Celestine opened the door. “Are you deaf? Or just dumb?”
“Never could figure that one out,” Aldis murmured. Arlin doused him with a weak water spell.
“Finally. I got readings last night after you left. It is another dimension.” Vesper intoned, holding out a data printout. “What’s more, the attacks on campus? They’re coming from a rift somewhere on the grounds. An energy leak from the dying Somnia to here. If it continues to widen…it won’t just be us fighting.”
69. Shattered
Arlin thought the data legitimate. Even Elysia looked convinced. Celestine didn’t believe him.
She was going to talk to hersel—to Epsilona. She was going to consult the clocks. She knew enough clockwork spells now, and knew where to look to confirm Vesper’s data.
“Epsilona?” she thought as she entered the Room of Clocks.
No answer. Not even an echo.
“Epsilona!” she called aloud.
“Mhr…here…” a whimper came. Epsilona’s form flickered from her usual clock. She was a pitiful heap, wings down in broken pieces and the clock shattered. All of them. Another flicker and the pixie was gone.
70. Bitter Silence
Celestine stared, horrified. She held out her hand and summoned anything magical around her. Nothing. Silence.
Then whisp-like fragments of the shattered clocks flew together above her hand to show her a glowing archway, a crimson-haired ancilla, and her dreamscape’s land of fog. Words emerged over the images:
Travel the trails to find the gate.
Redeem the princess of false schemes
Restore to life the land of dreams.
The moment she finished reading, the mirage turned into a whirlpool that drained onto her hand and formed a small round shape: A diamond pocketwatch, the last of the clocks.
Comment Blurbs:
67. Boundaries
Celestine and Vesper are hanging out in the Astronomy Tower that evening. Celestine casually notes that there seems to be something weird going on, but Vesper decides its ridiculous. Celestine agrees that it’s probably just silliness, but it’s Vesper’s next line that sets her off: he remarks to “enjoy the silence and the sky,” but from Celestine’s perspective, there was a clear cheerful tune playing in the room. Suddenly jolted into the insane mindset, she bolts out of room, trying to find that silence that she couldn’t hear.
The last time we saw Vesper and Celestine together was 9 episodes ago in Heartfelt Apology. Sometime since then, it looks like they’ve gotten back on talking terms. Or maybe they just ran into each other here. Either way, whatever truce they had is now shaken again.
68. Unsettling Revelations
After Celestine ran out in panic, Vesper misunderstood her and decides to do some readings monitoring magic-content and other complicated stuff from the Tower. He races immediately to ECA’s room, where Arlin, Elysia, Anuna and Aldis are hanging out. Vesper has determined (through remarkable genius and coincidence) that there is indeed another dimension: the land of dreams. There’s a rift that’s creating a leak of energy from Somnia to the mortal realm, like there was when the Angelic Gate was open (way back in the beginning of the tale, this was what Elysia and Celestine’s history project was about). Vesper is concerned that if they leave the rift alone for longer, it will spread, and it won’t just be the university students dealing with the monster attacks.
69. Shattered
Although everyone else seems to think the data indicate Somnia leaking energy, Celestine doesn’t believe him and decides to consult the clocks and Epsilona, who is Celestine’s friend from her dreams. However, when she arrives, all the clocks in the Room of Clocks are broken and Epsilona’s form flickers before vanishing.
I wanted to do something more epic for shattered, but this was the only thing that came to mind that fit.
70. Bitter Silence
Celestine finds the silence she was looking for in Boundaries, but it’s a painful realization: all of the clocks in the Room of Clocks are broken, and there’s no trace of magic lingering in the once-magical room. Instead, by calling together any last remnants of magic, Celestine creates a small diamond pocketwatch. Along with the pocketwatch, the last message the clocks have to offer her is the prophecy first mentioned in Eternity (post 7) and three pictures: a portal, a pink-haired sorceress, and Celestine’s own foggy dreamscape. (See this!)
NEXT SET (71-74)
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