Rid the Rainless (story)

The actual story of Rid the Rainless, a creature known as an Inros, of weird place where magic is in the hands of stupid people. Rid befriends creatures along the way to free himself from a spell.

So this wizard named Marv appeared in my house and popped a spell on me that made all rain stay away from me, which helped at first, but in a world of constant rain that was sort of redundant. Right after the spell, Marv just vanished. Oh, yeah, I should say this real quick. My name is Rid and I’m going to find Marv, possibly kill him. What he thought was a kindness, since water tends to hurt me, was actually unwanted attention.  This bubble doesn’t seem to have a limit, what we call a “sticky spell.” Oh, right. I should tell you before you freak out. I look a bit scary as a creature, but don’t EVER call me a monster. I will be mighty upset at that. So that’s my story, or it will be. Care to see more? Then just turn the page, but beware, my world is not yours. Let’s begin.

Well, lookie, that’s me as I currently am. Sorry about the bubble of swirling air, it tends to distort me a bit. Four arms, you’re seeing correctly, and yes, two are on my back. The feet look strange, right? That’s ‘cause they split into five fingers of a sort. It’s like I’ve got hands on my feet and four arms, but hey, I told you I look scary. We haven’t even gotten started with the story yet, but I guess you already know it, going to find a wizard and all. I meet some folks and face some challenges. All that fun stuff. For now, let’s finish defining how I look for these poor saps who can’t see me on the page.

So yeah, my skin is a very dark green, and furry, but the fur is white. Makes my back arms look like strange wings, but don’t call me an “angel.” I hate those guys, always flapping about the place like they aren’t scary-looking. They are WINGS on something that has no wings. Yes, we have angels here, it’s actually a disease that grows wings on your back. Seeing as it always rains here, they are sorry b******s, all cooped up in their little aviaries. I had angellium once, but they grew on my butt, so I got treatment. Like I said, it’s a disease, but some don’t want treatment, so they live in communities of winged creatures. Enough about them. We haven’t even defined my face yet.

I have horns, and I am damn proud of ‘em. They are white, with dark green lines wrapping around. The whole things stick out from a central spot on my head and curve backward while spreading apart. I’ve got three eyes, two in front and one hidden in the fur on the back of my head. I don’t have a nose. It’s more of two openings to breathe through. Mouth, no lips, just teeth. It’s a pain to keep the thing closed around them all. Eyes are black, helps me see in the dark. That’s all I think. Oh, and I have a short tail with a puff on the end, and I’m eight feet tall. I don’t think there are many of my kind left in this rainy world. It wasn’t always all wet like now, but that’s the lesson of magic in the hands of idiots.

Seeing as my kind has this aversion to water, enough of it would kill us, but I think most of us took the easy way out and buried themselves deep underground. The thing about water, it tends to sink into that ground, so I’m sure they are all trapped underneath to battle floods and cave-ins on a daily basis. Meanwhile, I just live on the surface, fearing that someone steals my enormous umbrella. That was before Marv, of course, the mighty wizard who stuck his nose where it didn’t belong. He was a human, by the way. Yes, we have humans here. They do ok in the rain, but not as well as Fischins. Those are like walking fish. When they go inside, they have to put these mouth things on to breathe. Enough about them.

It’s been a few months with the bubble already, and the positive of it has started to wear off. At first, I could venture out without my ridiculous umbrella. I went to places with heavy downpours to test the spell, with the giant water shield on hand, but the swirling layer of air did not budge. Other things came through it easily, though it scared everyone, even more than seeing me. My kind used to have a name, but the rain had been around for hundreds of years. Nobody even remembers what that name was, but I stopped caring a long time ago. Now you might wonder why this life-saving bubble of mine was getting annoying. I’ll tell you, but first, how about I tell you how the story ends? You’re not used to that, sort of method, are ya? Well, I can’t spend a lot of time on this short story. It’s pretty boring and I just want to relax wherever I am right now.

“Don’t do this, Rid,” Marv called out from within his pocket dimension. That’s right, it’s a dialogue plug. The current situation is a bit of a chaos so pay attention to every little bit. “I didn’t mean to harm her. You should have stayed away. If you value your friend’s life, get out of my home!” Yes, I had a friend, more than one actually, and then there was her, the only female Inros I’ve met. She was beautiful, living as a spectacle. Her name was Iri, and that wizard Marv killed her. The friend he had was my best buddy of a few months now, a wiper by the name of Gionn the Eighth. I called him Gio for short. He’d actually broken a law of his job to find me and try to correct my story. At the time, I had no idea what he meant, but now I knew he was the only chance to save Iri from Marv’s knee-jerk reaction of killing her.

“You know I can’t” I yelled into the room. “Gio’s the only one who can make this right! Let him go! He needs to wipe this story from existence!” Since you’re reading this, assume that didn’t happen, but maybe this was written before the story was wiped, so keep some hope for Iri.

Marv knew I was coming after him. I’ve been looking a long time for him, not even trying to hide it. When she found this cowardly wizard, Marv thought it was me and… he… Well, you know what he did.

“I CANT GO BACK!” Marv called out. Poor man was homeless at the start of his story. He found an old magic book that other bums were using as toilet paper and it made him into a servant, channeling magic through him while limiting his freedoms. Anything was better to him than what he was back then, and thus he’d rather kill the N^thGoni in his possession than let that thing erase his progress. “I’ll kill him! I swear I will!”

“Relax!” I shouted back. “He won’t wipe your life out, just let him go! Gio, don’t do anything, alright? Marv, I just want to talk! I promise!” He was walking around in spectral-form, behind the cover of the real dimension. I could see him, but not reach him. Was my conversation a ruse to get him out of there? Yes and no. I really wanted to speak with him, but half of me just wanted to tear his human body apart. I curbed my anger and sat down, bowing my head in submission. “Please don’t kill another friend of mine! PLEASE!”

An orb appeared in the room and split into an opening. Marv stepped out still holding tightly onto Gio’s neck. He struggled, but there was no escape. As a wiper, Gio’s skin was a yellowy-brown. He was like a little human, thinned out, with long ears like my horns, curving to the back. His eyes were pure gold, with glowing gemstone pupils. Other than a naked humanoid body, he had sharp claws on fingers and toes. One hole where the mouth could be served a variety of purposes, from breathing to reproduction. He was a strange little creature, but he told me what I was, an Inros, an old creature of the beginning. He didn’t say much more on that subject.

“I’m so sorry, Rid,” Marv said still holding onto Gio. “I didn’t mean to hurt her. I thought she was you! Everyone’s been talking about how you were coming to kill me!”

“You killed her!” I said making him skip from fear and let go of Gio. He did not get far as a spell made him float in the room. “Just making sure what you did there, Marv. I was upset about the bubble until I found Iri. That was such a happy time. We could spend time together outside. I was the ultimate umbrella. What good am I now?! She’s gone! What use is your stupid magic if you can’t even bring one being back?!”

“Now, hold on there,” Marv said and reached into a pocket dimension to get the magic tome possessing him. I could just tear that book apart right now, kill his future. With that, he’d have to allow Gio to go back. “Zibby? Suggestions?” A blue blob appeared hovering over the book.

“Resurrection, hmm,” it spoke with a makeshift mouth. “Alatas spell of grave reach is your best bet. After that, I don’t know, Murri’s reconnection, or Karter’s uplift.”

“It won’t work,” Gio said holding his sore neck. “She was an Inros, like Rid. They don’t exist like normal creatures. She can’t be resurrected by means of magic. The only way to save her is to let me restart the story, but that comes at a price. You and me, Rid, we’d never meet, and though she’d be alive, she’d still be a part of that travelling freak show.”

“NO!” Marv yelled and had his hand around Gio’s neck again. “I will not take that chance! I’m somebody! I remember being nothing! I will NEVER GO BACK!”

…Aaaand let’s leave it there. Quite a conundrum, wouldn’t you say? It all started with… Nah. I think I’ll skip to the part when Iri and I met. Yeah, I like that part. She taught me so much that my folks did not. My youth is quite another story, one I will not get into here, but here is what happened in the end eventually.

I knocked the book down to the ground, and jumped on Marv. Gio already started the process to wipe the story by tearing openings in the space of the reality with his claws. I took the little blue pal and stuffed it down Marv’s throat. After a few seconds, his skin turned all blue and his eyes opened glowing white.

Rather than wait, I tackled the wizard out of a window and pile-drove him into the ground below. I think it was justified. I saw Gionn only once more before he tore up my reality to reset me. It was back to my enormous umbrella again, and no memory of anything, but when I stumbled into Iri again, everything came flooding back, like the endless rain from above.

That all for the end. I did meet a whole bunch of people along the way, but I won’t get into that here. The last part will be about meeting Iri, and that’s it. Maybe more of my story will come up someday, but I doubt it. We live in mystery, like you, with stories untold. Gionn once said that to me. Can’t always have all the details. The world would be a very bland place if that was true. Without further ado, the last installment of my tale. I will also discuss why the bubble was such an annoyance at last. Way to keep you in suspense, yeah?

The N^thGoni were named “wipers” as they were these creatures who interfered with twists of stories. Gionn had a very royal name in his circles, using the same letters as his kind’s real name. He came to me at the start of my journey, trying to act all cool and mysterious, but I was not in the mood.

“I’m… important…” he managed while I sat on him. “Help…you…”

“I can’t hear you, weirdling,” I said.

“You… asked for it!” he said and vanished from underneath me. His yellow butt appeared in front of my face as he turned and wrapped his legs around my neck. With claws to my sides, I was immobilized.

“Geez, trust a guy, would ya?” he asked still holding the sharp nails to my neck. “My name is Gionn the Eighth and I’m here to help you fix what Marv messed up.”

“Last I trusted a guy, he put a sticky spell on me,” I replied. “You know how hard it is to drink anything with that thing? I had to construct a whole contraption just to drink some water!” His claws retreated into the strange eight-fingered hands.

“Which is why you need a reset of your story,” he said.

“A reset?”

“Yeah,” Gio replied. “And I know how to do it, but we’ll need to find Marv to do it. Ever since he did that spell, you and he became connected in a story, this story that these folks are reading and one sad sap is writing.”

“Huh?” I asked, but he just looked off into a random direction before returning to reality. “Then we have a similar goal, Gio.”

“It’s ‘Gionn’, actually,” he said running up as I exited the small room. “Don’t forget the n’s on the end.”

“I did not forget,” I replied. “It’s a nickname. Friends use nicknames, but don’t start thinking we’re friends. What’s up with your eyes?”

“Huh?” he asked.

“Are they really gold?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said with a small smile. “My kind cries molten gold.”

“Man, that’s gotta suck.”

“How so?”

“Well, I don’t know if gold is worth anything where you’re from,” I said. “But in this world it’s extremely common. Can’t give the stuff away.”

“Oh,” he said. “Then I won’t cry.” He did though, when Iri died, rivers of it flowed from his eyes. In the end, he did become my friend, and now, he’s somewhere out there, watching over this story without interfering. Or maybe he was punished for acting on his own moral code to change my story. I don’t really know. “By the way, do you know where the wizard is?”

“Not a clue,” I said. “But we’ll ark around in the next town over.” I reached for my giant umbrella, but paused.

“Old habits hardly fade,” Gio said witnessing my hesitant reach.

“Well, aren’t you just a scuzz-bucket of wisdom,” I said. “Come on, Gio. Let’s go find us an idiot-of-a-wizard.”

“Rodger Dodger.”

“Don’t- Don’t ever say that again.”

“Ok.”

You might question why I injected this meeting of Gio in here before getting to Iri, but I don’t care. It’s my story, and your choice to read it so big middle fingers crossed at wrists and thumbs. In case you don’t understand, that’s an offensive gesture on my world. But hey, you learned more about the N^thGoni and those little devils are in charge of the “if and when” your story resets. That’s the true déjà vu source. Anyway, let’s get back into it. A few towns over, we got our first solid lead, but that was where I met Iri. Sh was a slave to the master of the travelling freak show. More on that in a bit.

“Alright, so from what the folks in the recent town told us,” I said. “The council of wizardry is located in this town.”

“Welcome to Tanyr,” Gio said reading the sign. “Home of the best magic in the whole of existence. What a joke. They love the idea of themselves a bit too much if you ask me.”

“Nobody did,” Haedin said. Interestingly enough, he joined our journey near the start. He was a Trevit, escaped from this dimension called Secear. Their population was not as high as humans who got here with this round bubbly thing that spun a ring to open a sort of portal. “You talk too much for a nothing.”

“Hae…” I said as a warning.

“What? That’s what his kind spells out,” he said. “The ‘N^thGoni’ is just ‘Nothing’ rearranged. Embrace it, Gio.”

“It’s ‘Gionn’ to you, pygman,” Gio replied. The little blue eyes narrowed on the Trev. Apparently they were sensitive to the higher energy light, living among the purple masses of Secear where all was a shade or tint of purple. Even though it rained constantly, there was still day and night.

“If you use that derogatory term invented by humans,” Haedin said. “Be prepared to be called a ‘nothing’.”

“Guys, shut up,” I said. They were always at odds with each other for some reason, but made up in the end, or at least before Headin went back into his dimension. Went back was putting it lightly. He fought it as hard as he could, but they took him back by force. Turned out he was a fugitive, but going into Secear to get him out again was a stretch. At the time I met Iri, he was still around. “Let’s just go ask around where the council thing is. No calling names unless it’s nicknames. You’ll make friends in the end.” I felt a bit like a parent and was annoyed at the thought.

After finding the council, and having them inspect the sticky spell, they told me it was much too powerful to dispel by simple means. The grandest of wizards and they had no answer, only referred me to waiting it out. When I asked about Marv, they told me how he was kicked out for breaking the rules of the council and retreated to this one place deep in the mountains. With that, I had my location, but what happened next, stopped me in my tracks.

“Ah, an N^thGoni,” said an archmage from the Elders’ audience. “The so-called writers of fortune. I wonder, what do you see of my story?” Gio fidgeted until I saw the elder was trying to charm him. I threw a broom at the audience to stop the spell.

“B*****d!” Gio said. “I can write you out of existence! You try to make me a slave? Let’s go, Rid!”

“I see you also found yourself a Trevit friend,” another elder chimed in. “All three of you could make it big in the travelling freak show. They already got one Inros, female, I believe. I’m sure curious how your kind breeds, seeing as you’re not really alive.”

“Come on, Rid,”Hae said. “Don’t listen to them. Let’s just go.”

“A female Inros?” I asked frozen in place. It had been so long since I’ve seen one of my kind and she was displayed like some sort of spectacle? I could not stand for that.

Among the crowds, I could not keep with Gio and Haedin. Before I knew it, my body was inside the room with the caged beasts and freaks. While some volunteered to be there, others had to be imprisoned. Iri was not there of her own free will. I saw her, and she saw me. When my mind caught up, Gio and Hae were beside me as she was getting wheeled out onto the stage. She must have been talking, but I did not hear a word until she was gone.

“Are you going to do it?” Hae asked. I was taken aback by such a lewd question, but it was only my mind thinking those things.

“Do what? Did you hear what she was saying?” I asked.

“Poor b*****d,” Hae said at Gio. “He’s already fallen for her. I mourn your passing, my friend.” Gio punched his arm.

“She wanted you to save her,” Gio said. “But you looked out of it. As far as I know, it cannot be legal to hold her against her will, so you have free reign to break her out.”

“That’s wonderful news,” I said before jumping out onto the stage. To make a short story shorter, I got her out of there. When we got far enough away, she realized that the constant rain no longer fell on her when she was close to me and my bubble. The joy in those black eyes was ever bright. Then she came up and nuzzled the fur on my neck. A memory of my mother told me that was an Inros was of saying “thank you”, but when I tried it, she pulled away. It had to mean something else when the male did it.

“Hi,” I said at last. We sort of danced in proximity of the bubble. “I’m rid. What’s your name?”

“I’m Irinia,” she said. Her horms were wavy rather than just curving back. A part of me was very attracted to this fact. “I thought all Inros were gone from this world. This rain is torture that follows you everywhere.”

“My family and few others decided to burrow into the ground, as deep as they could ot find some heat,” I said. I stayed behind. Then this stupid wizard named Marv cast a sticky spell on me, this bubble. It would be great if only I could drink stuff without enormous effort. So I’m looking for him to remove the bubble.”

“Small price to pay for immunity from the rain, I’d say,” she said. “But I understand. Inros still need to consume water, even if it hurts our skin. Speaking of…” She stepped closer and laid a hand on the soft dark belly skin that had no fur. The sensation made me sigh and reach out to reciprocate. I’ve always hought the middle was a weakness, but it had to be where most of the nerves existed. When she let go, I wanted her to touch there again, but the moment passed.

“Join us,” I said. “I mean, if you’d like. I need to find Marv and get the bubble removed. Then we could find a place we could live together.” She smiled and nuzzled the fur on my neck.

“I’d like nothing more,” she said.

That’s all you get. We went, she got killed, Marv retreated further into the mountains, and I took my revenge. On the wipe, I lead my sorry little life until the travelling freak show stopped at the city I lived next to. I saw her from underneath my big umbrella. I sought to speak with her, so I broke her out that night. When she nuzzled my neck, all of the previous story came flooding into my mind. You can have your theories of love having certain power to cross the layers of the universe, but I think that’s a load of bullshit. It was more likely Gionn gave me the last present he could.

I put my hand to her bare stomach as she sighed pleasantly. Could that have something to do with breeding of Inros? She knew much more about our kind and why everyone said we did not exist like other creatures. When her hand touched my stomach in return, I felt the same sensation as in the memory that never was. The reason for our non-existence was the fact that Inros were said to arrive from a dimension called Dranit.

What happened after I found Iri again, you don’t need to know. I told you the end of the story already. Marv died, story was rewritten. The end. When the stupid wizard suggested to put that spell on me a few years later, I shouted at him that he killed her, making him remember everything. Off he scurried, without another word. In that way, I lost two friends. Maybe I went to find them again, to Secear, to nowhere that Gio existed in. If so, that’s a whole another story, one not found here. Maybe I became old friends with Marv and took care of him in the last years of his life.

Maybe I took up that magic tome and became a wizard like him, but smart enough to stop the spell of endless rain. Is that an end you seek? If so, then it must be true. I’m no N^thGoni. I won’t write fortune for you, but maybe you’ll meet one of them one day, and it will give you a chance at a re-write. I don’t know what made me so special to warrant a wipe, but I am forever grateful to you, Gionn the Eighth, wherever you are.

As for my story, “Rid the Rainless” sounds like a knack title. Don’t blame the person writing, it’s never really their story to tell. They are more like conduits. Then again, I choose when to unplug. So, bye.

Author's Note

Believe me. He's an interesting character, but i cant necessarily get his story across do to him being the control.