Polynya

Her guards and her attendants turn to ash and a lock appears on the large door behind them. Even though there are no windows in her throne room, thick velvet curtains fall from the walls, further insulating the space.

Her two baby griffins remain on their pedestals, sleeping as if nothing is happening.

“We need to speak to Sophia,” Ryuk says, his throat suddenly parched. He takes a deep breath to steel himself, to remind himself of where he is and that there are people looking to him for guidance. “Sophia will know what to do. That’s why we’ve come here, Empress, we’ve come to Porthos to meet her. We didn’t know Zaena was royalty; we didn’t know that my brother, as you say, is the one that is parading around as me. We came here simply to speak to Sophia.”

Empress Thun locks her dark eyes onto Ryuk. “If it is Sophia you need to speak to, I will call her here.”

A blinding spark in the center of the room gets Hiccup bitching about UV rays.

“Sheesh! Warn us next time!” the goblin growls. Before he can say anything else, an outline of a woman bathed in light takes shape at the center of the spark.

Sophia Wang Level 99

HP: 7399/7399   

Mana: 3976/3976            

ATK: 751     

MATK: 1983

DEF: 1341

MDF: 4485

LUCK: 108

Sophia has elven features and puffy black hair. Her flowing white dress is embellished with golden thread and her feet are encased in a pair of sandals adorned with fluttering Pegasus wings.

Sophia performs the same full-body prostration the Mitherfickers suffered through earlier. Empress Thun places a foot on the top of her head, and once she’s done, the Mind Mage turns to them. “Hello, Ryuk.” She offers the others a tight grin. “You all may call me Doctor Wang.”

“Finally,” Hiccup says as he rubs his hands together, “we get to meet the good doctor! Fick, we’ve heard a lot about you, lady, believe you me. Probably enough to make your elven ears twitch even if we were a continent away. Hey! Dammit, Liz, keep your fickin’ ghost paws to yourself!”

Sophia gives the goblin a troubled, distasteful look. “I thought that removing the word ‘fuck’ from the goblin vocabulary would be a good thing,” she says to herself, yet loud enough for everyone else to hear. “Apparently, I was dead wrong.”

“Hold the fick up. You’re the fickin’ Mind Mage who did this–” Hiccup keeps speaking, his jowls flapping up and down as no sound emerges from his mouth. His face grows red as he points a finger at Sophia and starts silently yelling.

FeeTwix laughs. “You have got to teach one of us that spell!”

“You’ll have to be a much higher level to learn Silence of the Fools,” Sophia says.

Hiccup stomps his feet and crosses his arms over his chest.

The Mind Mage shrugs. “I can permanently take away his ability to speak, if you’d like.”

Ryuk looks from Sophia to FeeTwix. Next to the Swede, Hiccup is making an X with his arms as he looks to Ryuk with pleading eyes.

Hiccup: Don’t do me dirty, kid. I’ve always been there for you, thick and thin. Hell, I’m practically your fickin’ wingman! I’m the one that got you off those training wheels and put you on that fat hog. Now look at your ass, all grown up. A couple of fickin’ hours from now and you’ll be knee deep in Enway’s churro!

Zaena: You are a despicable creature.

Hiccup: Love you too, Liz.

“That won’t be necessary,” Ryuk tells Sophia, instantly regretting the words that come next. “Please restore his ability to speak once we’re finished here.”

Hiccup: Thank you, Marbles! See, Liz, that’s called chivalry. Get woke!

Sophia’s eyes flash white. “What is it you’ve called me here to discuss? If it is easier, I can simply read your thoughts.”

“That won’t be necessary, Sophia,” the Empress says. “Ryuk can explain.”

Ryuk steps forward and swallows down the nervous energy swelling in his stomach. This is it, the moment he’s been waiting for, and his thoughts race as he thinks of how he should begin. An image of his brother flashes before him and he casts it away.

There will be time to deal with that later.

(0)__(0)

“Everything started with Tamana,” he explains, and beginning with that statement, he concisely recaps all that the Mitherfickers have been through. He touches on wanting to get in touch with Sophia, and mentions her guild rule that former members aren’t able to freely contact current members, which has made it difficult.

“Rules are in place for a reason,” she says firmly, shooting him down. “So you were betrayed by Tamana, and before this, both of you had a digital hallucination in the real world after becoming resetters. Also, from what you can tell, these digital hallucinations are only happening to people from Tritania.”

“Exactly.”

A burp gets caught in Hiccup’s throat. He pounds his chest, and in the process, triggers a sharp toot that sounds like a bike tire popping.

Sophia floats into the air and hovers there.