Daniel

He awoke on the stone floor of a dark room lit by the streams of light pouring from the vertical slits of Paul’s helmet visor. Kenta’s eyes were closed, though his sitting posture and the fact his neck hadn’t stretched into a twisty noodle indicated consciousness. Lea stared at a spot on the wall with trancelike stillness, bags under her eyes visible despite the dim. Paul sat sentinel with her. Cassie and Wendi were playing with a—

Daniel shut his eyes tight, and they watered. When he opened them again, he noticed Rana sitting beside him with her knees to her chest, watching him.

:What did I miss?: he asked, his tension eased by her calming presence.

:Twelve hours,: Rana replied.

He struggled to rise, then gave up. :Why do I feel so awful?:

:That’s what happens when you push your limits.:

Daniel must have failed to get a ‘refund’ on his last attack against the Black Dog for some reason. He shook his head, and a few lingering spots faded from his vision. :Fall into a coma?:

:Or Break,: she added casually, :Though that’s rare.:

He’d pushed himself harder trying to shatter UE 000’s barrier and hadn’t fallen into a coma then, though he’d somehow called Perses. What was the difference between then and today? Neither time had he felt close to a ‘break,’ so he decided not to worry too much about that. He had more pressing questions. :What are we waiting for?:

:The mages to give up.:

Daniel blinked. Obviously, he wasn’t fully awake. :Why would they give up? We couldn’t beat Tesem, let alone them. Where are they?:

She pointed, :On the other side of that wall. We’re hoping they’re smart enough not to follow us inside. Really, it’s a wonder we were dumb enough to do it.:

:Do what?: Daniel sent, then asked, :Rana, where are we?:

:You’re smart. You don’t need me to tell you. It’s been hours, and they’re not quitting. Mages can conjure food and water. They’ll starve us out. Our road leads down.:

There’d be time to decipher what that meant later. Daniel had finally mustered the mental energy to deal with what he’d previously ignored. :Are Wendi and Cassie playing with a preteen bedsheet ghost?:

Rana turned her head and nodded as if to confirm, yes, that was precisely the situation. : Tarō appears that way at the moment. He’s a Tsukumogami.: She headed off his next question, :It means, ‘Tool Spirit.’ They shapeshift into and have magical powers related to any physical tool. That is to say, loosely speaking, any object which helps achieve a goal. They have hundreds of possible forms.:

He tilted his head in curiosity, an impressive physical feat at the moment by his estimation. :That sounds absurdly useful.:

Rana shrugged. :There are two types of magical races, ‘Hammer’ and ‘Jack.’ One is your type, ‘When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.’ The other is my type, with a large number of weak abilities. The Tsukumogami are an extreme version of the latter—a ‘Jack of all trades, master of none.’:

A thought occurred to Daniel. :Does Toadish have a cryptic poem for Tsukumogami?:

She frowned. :Toadish has a cryptic poem for every race, Daniel. Most are too rude to repeat.

:Tsukumogami are known as, though it’s more of a racial slur, ‘Lesser Tools.’ They’re not feared as being dangerous on their own, mainly because the majority of them are limited to a few forms of those possible hundreds. It takes a lifetime of study and prodigious talent to manifest the true potential of their magic. With your kind, on the other hand, any idiot can be dangerous. That’s why you’re one of The Thirteen.:

He smirked to himself in self-deprecating condescension. :Lovely.:

“Danny’s up!” cried Wendi as she rushed over. Rana withdrew as Wendi scooped him into her arms and cradled his head on her shoulder. “Guess what happened while you were asleep! No, wait, don’t guess, I’ll tell you. Cassie threw this enormous boar beast into a wall so hard she killed it—”

“The fall killed it,” Cassie corrected, her body turned to hide her face.

“Right, then we met Tarō, who’s really cool, and he showed us a place to hide—that’s here. And to get inside, he turned into a guitar—”

“—Shamisen,” Tarō amended, looking for all the worlds like a boy wearing a bedsheet but without the boy beneath.

“Right, and he played this sweet tune… Doo tee too dee too tee—” Daniel blinked in surprise as Wendi sang a few brief notes. Does she have perfect pitch?

“—It’s the melody for my Race’s Anthem.”

“Right, and that opened this huge door that wasn’t even a door because it was a rock.” No one interrupted this time. “That was the secret entrance!”

“To?” Daniel asked.

“My home,” Tarō said.

:He lives in a cave?: Daniel mentally whispered to Rana. :And how did we get in?:

:An underground Taotie guardian with the Stone Rune accepted the melody as a key code and moved the rock wall. It’s a good system for a hidden passage, as few Clairs could spot the concealed orb during hibernation.:

“And the mages are right outside?” Daniel felt uncomfortable this close to danger.

“Well…” Wendi offered her opinion, “It’s a big rock, so ‘right outside’ is a bit further away than you’d think.”

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“But they’re not leaving us alone?” he asked the others. Lea, Paul, and Kenta shook their heads in unison. “Then we should get moving. Maybe there’s another exit.”

The others dragged themselves to their feet and made their way downhill deeper into the rocks and darkness of the cave. Cassie rode piggyback on Rana, her leg-hands inefficient at walking. Being carried by Wendi allowed Daniel to regain a little of his strength as they went. They used Aurvandil to see through the dim and to dispel potential illusions, not caring if it revealed their position.

They didn’t find any traps but did hear a roar intensifying as they neared. Cassie covered her ears from the loud sounds, but her wings did a poor job. Tarō wrapped himself around her head to help. The bedsheet proved ineffectual until he transformed again. He became a pair of fuzzy red behind-the-neck earmuffs customized for bat ears. Cassie’s tension melted as he muted the painful noise.

“Awesome! I’ve never been earmuffs before; thanks, Cassandra! This day keeps getting better.”

The bat girl giggled and thanked the boy in turn.

Few things in nature were this relentlessly deafening. They emerged from the narrow tunnel into an expansive chamber, their light gems illuminating the farthest corners crisply while whole swaths of perfect shadow hid behind tiny pebbles. A black river, cold as death, fell in a thundering underground waterfall. A crack delving the planet’s bowels sucked in light and water in a turbulent froth.

Two sights dominated the enormous room, for the square sides didn’t belong to a natural cavern. A huge waterwheel caught the flow and turned the shaft on a massive stone roller rumbling a song of wet gravel against its pair.

“It’s a wringer!” Daniel said. His aura repelled the minuscule splashing water droplets, though he felt humid air on his skin.

Their path dead-ended with this staggering obstacle. To pass, one would either have to stop the water wheel and move tons of rock or stop a roaring icy waterfall. Even with Daniel in peak condition, he’d likely block the way with rubble or cause a cave-in with his magic.

“Now what?” Kenta surveyed the room with a frown. Lea met his eyes, the two likely sharing their apprehension on a private channel.

:Daniel, did you look at the stone?: Rana sent.

Interested, he squinted at the rock of the roller. :It has an aura!: Not like the shooting star aura of Cassie’s great bat form leaking excess magic, nor like Lea’s soft aura of passive Charm. This felt more like the ambient magic that created giant animals and mushrooms… the footprint of a god.

:Someone powerful did this. The stones absorbed their magic. Or they imprinted the stones with their aura?:

:Enchantment?: Rana sent. :I’ve heard such things exist, though not much more.:

The group advanced into the room as the two of them conversed.

“This is such a nice home you have here, Tarō,” Wendi said with forced enthusiasm as she pretended to admire the scenery.

“Thanks, but this is a door,” Tarō replied as he floated free of Cassie in a streamer of fabric and rippled through the air toward the roller. The titan’s clothespress caught his edge and pulled Tarō under in a blink. They held their breaths, unable to speak.

With a reverberating click, the water flow diverted around the wheel via unseen mechanisms. The rollers ceased spinning, and the lower one recessed into the floor to reveal a stairwell. Their group hurried through into the next room where Tarō stood in straw-man form.

Cassie leaped into the air and glided to the boy’s side, “Tarō, don’t run off like that without explaining anything!”

“I wasn’t running!”

“That’s not important! We worried about you.” She pulled him into a hug.

“I’m sorry,” he said. With the waterfall’s volume dampened, Tarō wrapped himself around her neck. The Tsukumogami shifted into a handsome scarf, bright red in the light of pearl-sized Cintamani burning in sconces. The pattern even complemented her fur and complexion.

“Wendi, I know we’ve talked before about making friends, but that was trying a little too hard,” Daniel said with a smile.

“Yeah… I feel like I made a good impression with him earlier and wanted to keep it up.”

Daniel sighed internally. Wendi had struggled to reforge connections with the others after her recovery on Radio World. For her, new friendships had the advantage of a clean slate.

Rana shocked them both by offering advice, “Don’t overthink things. Some spend years improving their conversational skills and still make mistakes, but you have good intuition. People appreciate you for being genuine.” Wendi pondered the frog girl’s words, taking them to heart.

Daniel beamed at Rana to show his gratitude. The frog girl met his eyes for an instant before kneeling to let Cassie hop on again.

With another click, the stone button on a nearby plinth reset as an unseen timer elapsed. The way closed behind them, blocking their path to the surface.

“Does anyone else feel like they are being eaten?” Lea asked as they descended into a stony throat behind shut jaws.

Daniel’s eyes swept high and low. “Why make the staircase so tall and wide?”

“A dozen people could march shoulder-to-shoulder,” Kenta said.

Minutes and many stairs later, they turned a corner to enter a vast chamber.

Three enormous hibernating Taotie orbs the size of Big T—the Radio World guardian—sat each inside their circle. Their intimidating presence demanded so much attention Daniel didn’t notice the dozens of smaller orbs scanning them.

“Intruder alert! Invaders inbound!” The tiny guardians shouted in a genderless monotone. Then three blinding auras of power erupted before them in their Second Sight.

The grand guardians activated, leaving Daniel’s reaction three steps behind. Triple sets of Letters assembled into tiled mosaics that formed an imposing red shield, a hovering green spear, and a terrifying violet blade, each the size of a bus, each readied to protect the three. Triple Runes bloomed for annihilation: Fire walled them away from the exit, Lightning charged for devastation, and Wind siphoned a vacuum fierce as the void of space—they’d suffocate if what came next didn’t kill them first. Triple sets of Glyphs poured forth, conjuring a great beast by thirds from the inside out.

While the Taotie Guardians set themselves in the creature’s skull as its three eyes and rolled skin over exposed flesh, Tarō interposed himself between the groups and shouted, “Guests! Not intruders, not invaders, Guests!”

The three guardians froze as a smaller orb scanned the boy, pronouncing, “Son of Nurarihyon, this unit recognizes your claim.”

At that, the three ceased their preparations and dismantled what they’d created with equal efficiency. Fire turned the beast’s meat to charcoal, Lightning blasted the pieces to ashes, and a whirlwind left the floor spotless and restored breathable air. Finally, the guardians settled into their places on the floor to hibernate and left the energy constructs, Letters, Glyphs, and Runes, to fade as the magic bled away.

Eight kids tread softly between the orbs, not daring to speak until they reached the next hallway. Daniel looked over his shoulder at the fading mess of auras. “The City considers Cintamani their main form of currency, right?”

“How long does it take for them to grow that big?” Paul said, reminding Daniel of the subterranean vineyards inside each Terminal.

Lea’s eyebrows lifted, imagination roiling. “How much wealth does that room represent?”

“Unfathomable,” Rana said.

“More accurately,” Daniel added, “We lack a frame of reference to evaluate.”

“Come on; it’s not much further now!” Tarō called from the face on Cassie’s scarf, not paying them any attention.

The others exchanged glances, all sharing the same ominous feeling. They were spent, stressed, and stretched thin from their flight thus far. Despite feeling better, Daniel knew himself to be in no condition to fight. Yet, with their enemies guarding the surface, all that remained was to continue.

He considered the obstacles they’d faced: A test of knowledge, a test of ability, and a test of identity—each of which Tarō passed with trivial exertion. A whole company of mages could have died in an attempt to make it this far.

These tests might also be thought of as displays of cunning, craft, and wealth. Where were they headed? Daniel suspected he knew.

Another few minutes of walking revealed the answer. At the end of the final hall, the walls again expanded into a colossal cave dwarfing all previous.

Here the flaming Mani sconces ceased. Instead, hundreds of paper lanterns hung from ropes strung between stalactites across the underground ceiling. A freestanding two-post gate with an elegant lintel marked the start of a path leading to… a house.