Milo and Clack: An Elvin Love Story
Part VIII: A Watery Retrieval
Clack
“The retrieval process, you must follow the rules as we’ve practiced over and over. No grandstanding,” Olcarlamon said and glared at me. I humphed, but knew I had earned that glare. In my defense, practicing the same routine over and over did get boring after years of the same thing.
I listened as Olcarlamon, went through the procedure each of us knew like the back of our hands. We were the elite team chosen for this very scenario. I loved watching the humans' Navy Seal movies, as that was so similar to what we would be doing and I often thought some of the tactics they used would be useful, but the one time I brought that up, I was afraid I might be murdered in my sleep. Apparently, elves don’t mimic human tactics.
"The time is here." Olcarlamon looked at me and for a moment I thought he’d call me out for not paying attention, but instead he just shook his head and sent us on our way.
The portal would open into Arichimopolia’s underwater realm. Of course, we would be using the Limbert stone to hide our retrieval, but that only bought us moments. As soon as the king knew we were coming, he’d send his troops to intercede. Not for the first time, I thanked the gods that the former queen had the sense to hide the stone in the military camps under Olcarlamon’s care. Without it, we would certainly not be successful with a retrieval.
Olcarlamon cut his hand and let the blood flow onto the stone. This wasn’t something I’d ever witnessed before. The Limbert stone never required a blood sacrifice… but I knew what we were doing was dark, pushing ourselves into. then out of a different timeline to avoid notice. I must be a very dark spell he was using if it required blood.
All the training we’d ever had didn’t prepare me for the transition. I felt as if my head was going to pop as we were whisked from this timeline into the next. I heard my comrades moan as we were then thrust back into our timeline, but into the underwater kingdom of Arichimopolia.
As expected, we landed outside of the bubble that kept Arichimopolia dry. I almost sucked in water from the pain of transitioning back into our timeline. Luckily, the training paid off and I looked around to see all my fellow warriors seemed to have made it as well. We were just starting to swim toward the bubble when light torpedoes flashed through the water around us.
Crap, King Atticon’s guard, of course they would’ve anticipated us. That made this harder. We all swam toward the bubble. Luckily none of the light torpedoes struck. Of course, using light torpedoes in water was stupid, but I didn’t really have time to think about that right now. We needed to get in and out before the king’s guard used something more lethal.
The moment we entered the Arichimopolia bubble, the leader escorted us to the new king. “You’ll need to go back a different way,” the leader told me. They’ve booby trapped the water around us.”
I nodded, taking charge since I was the most senior of our team. “Thanks,” I said then looked at the new king.
He was not what I’d have expected. He didn’t sport the elegant features of his uncle, a man I’d seen on multiple occasions when he would come challenge the guard’s stance to protect the new king. An act that he knew was ridiculous, we had no choice but to honor the king we’d been assigned to.
If I were to see this man skiing with the humans on the slopes not far from our home, I’d have thought him attractive, but normal. His eyes were brown, not bright green or blue like the elves, his hair cropped short and not long and braided. The only thing that distinguished him as an elf was his ears.
A loud explosion caused the entire area to shake, and the bubble around Arichimopolia to waffle. “We’ve got to move,” I said, rushing toward the new king. I saw the older couple next to him, and remembered Olcarlamon had said the boy’s foster parents would need to come with us. I yelled for two of my team members to grab them as I launched myself at the king.
I began chanting, calling the Limbert stone’s power around us, and the moment I touched the King a light erupted around us. We were safe, for now.
Next Week: Follow the story as Milo and Clack must stay in limbo - together... alone.
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