“Magus Pilip, do you understand why I’ve brought you here today?”
Pilip looked up nervously, meeting the eyes of the man sitting across from him. He was a figure everyone at the Academy knew, a man who ranked as fourth most powerful in the Inuvik mages – behind Lord Hann, and ahead of Magus Amaq. Captain Kodan, the sole peak Wisp rank in the Academy and the closest to reaching the Smoke rank in all of Trurok.
“I imagine you are investigating the Lethridge attack,” Pilip said. “I also imagine that I am your primary suspect.”
What a horrid stroke of luck that had been for him. A raid with insider sabotage, right after Pilip’s request for resources. He knew the timing made him look suspicious, maybe even doubly so since he had sent his servant Levin alone on the last trip. That was highly unusual at Inuvik Academy.
“You are correct that this is about Lethridge, but you’re not the primary suspect. We have someone else in mind,” Kodan said.
“Oh?”
“Your servant, Levin. We believe he is coordinating with an outsider runesmith. What can you tell us of him?” Kodan said.
“What do you want to know?”
Pilip squirmed in his seat. He had no information on Levin – Pilip had absolutely not been monitoring the boy during his time here. But if Pilip claimed to know nothing, and then Levin was proven guilty… it would certainly not reflect well on him. Pilip doubted his reputation could survive such a scandal.
“The identity token you gave Levin. More specifically, which room in the servants quarter it was coded for.”
Pilip chuckled nervously. Why would he remember something like that? He didn’t have the first inkling of which room Levin might be in. They would want to search it, and Pilip’s forgetfulness right now would be slowing their investigation.
He glanced up. They were sitting on the fifth floor of a seven story tower, one of the shorter buildings on campus. This was the Academy’s jail, and the two stories above contained cells for prisoners. But the four stories below contained storage units that could be rented out by the mages on campus, and that terrified Pilip. Not the storage units themselves, of course, but what they represented – that this jail tower wasn’t often used.
Prisoners were kept here so infrequently that most of the space in the jail tower was being repurposed. The reason was ultimately simple – prisoners were either sent to the mines as a slave, or executed. The cells above were just a temporary stop to a much worse fate. Pilip very much hoped this incident wouldn’t land him in one.
“I can’t recall,” Pilip said, cringing in his chair.
“Very well. I’ll send someone to fetch the records,” Kodan said, pulling out a transmission tablet. It lit in his hand briefly as he sent a message.
“Now, Magus Pilip. I’d like to stress something very important.” A bead of sweat ran down Pilip’s face.
“Less than an hour ago, I received a message from Magus Amaq. Do you know what he was doing at the time?”
Pilip shook his head, clamming up as Kodan spoke in a low, threatening voice.
“He was sent to arrest Levin. You were invited up here, but we planned to show no such courtesy to your assistant. But Magus Amaq never returned here, and all I’ve gotten in that time was this message,” Kodan said, spinning his transmission tablet between his fingers.
“What did it say?” Pilip asked.
“I’d very much like to know the same,” Kodan said, and Pilip furrowed his brow in confusion.
“The message was cut short, you see. But Magus Amaq did manage to get one word through. ‘Chaos.’”
Pilip gulped audibly. “Can’t that mean anything?”
“Yes, Magus Pilip, I fear it can. Perhaps his tablet simply ran out of ink. Or perhaps he was forcibly stopped from sending a message. As you can surely understand, we are in desperate need of information. I trust you will be willing to provide.”
Pilip nodded furiously. “Of course, Captain Kodan! I will share everything I know.”
“Good. First of all, have you ever provided a transmission tablet to Levin?”
****
Field popped like a bubble. As the rune ran out of ink, the red dome encasing Levin vanished and the swirling Chaos energy inside dispersed into the air. As it did, the crimson filter vanished and the beautiful blue sky flooded Levin’s vision once.
Levin lay on the ground, blood pooling beneath his punctured shoulder. His breath came in ragged gasps as he stared up at the sky, mind spinning. He wasn’t sure how long he had been laying here, next to Kirima’s grave and Amaq’s corpse. But he felt oddly calm, despite the intense pain he was in.
Cho was flying back with a healing ink from his stash already. Levin’s wounds were bad, and without treatment he was definitely going to bleed out in a few more minutes. But his Y-Link calculated Cho would be here in time, even with the damaged wing. And during the flight, he saw no mages headed their way. It seemed Amaq hadn’t gotten a message out after all.
And Levin did have another advantage for dealing with pain. Through his Y-Link, he gazed on Earth, on the starry expanse of his home dimension, and on the striking image of Saturn that had marked his last glimpse of home. Levin had avenged Andrew, helping Mei bring down Azaadi. And now he had avenged Kirima as well. All that was left was to see his home dimension in person once again.
Cho fluttered down, and engraved a healing rune into the dirt. Levin then picked himself up with Cho and put himself down into the rune, activating it immediately. Levin sighed loudly with relief as he felt healing-element Force pouring into his body, stitching the hole in his shoulder closed along with all the smaller cuts and gashes adorning his body. The process itched fiercely, but was still a great relief from the pain.
Levin sat up as the rune worked, mind becoming clear once again. As it did, he took in his surroundings, and let out a small gasp. Grass and shrubbery had dulled and wilted while the surrounding boughs, their leaves faded and falling, hung lower in the air than before, as though the tree trunks they grew from struggled to support their weight. He looked around, taking in the darkened and wilted vegetation, a grim testament to the destruction Levin had wreaked on this day.
“I had to do it,” Levin said aloud, looking towards Kirima’s grave as he spoke. Levin subconsciously touched her clan medallion that was hanging around his neck. She had loved the natural scenery of Mount Inuvik, and Levin knew she would be saddened to see what had happened here. What he had done here.
“But the plants will recover. I may have given this entire area Chaos Sickness, but these plants haven’t died. With the Chaos gone, they can grow strong again.”
But his words felt hollow. He hadn’t expected to do this much damage to the environment, and it sent a pang of guilt through Levin. To part of him it seemed so silly to be guilty about something ultimately inconsequential, but he just couldn’t get out of his mind – his natural mind – the image of Kirima’s joy and awe laying eyes on this spring for the first time.
If he had known the environment would respond like this to his Chaos, he would have done this someplace else. And yet, being so near to Kirima’s grave had given him strength, strength that felt lost to Levin now. He curled up into a ball, tears running from his eyes. Even if avenged, Kirima was still gone. And nothing Levin could do would change that.
The healing rune beneath him switched off, its light fading.
“If only I had been stronger back then, you would still be alive…” Levin stopped crying, and wiped away his tears. “I promise, in your memory, I won’t let the mages beat me down.”
Levin gathered his strength, and pushed up from the ground.
And immediately fell back down again.
“Huh?” Levin’s head spun as he lost his sense of balance, and he toppled backwards onto his rear. When his vision cleared, he found himself staring back up at the sky and breathing heavily, a dull ache permeating his body. Something much more than simple exhaustion.
“Oh, I must not have brought enough healing ink,” Levin thought, sitting up and looking down at the rune beneath him.
But there was still a faint light to the rune, that of an inactive ink. It showed there was still power left, and that the rune had simply lost its target.
“Maybe I made a mistake in the engraving.” Levin stumbled up, stabs of pain running through him, and got a good look at the rune on the ground. He had been dazed and addled from blood loss when inputting the commands into Cho, after all.
But the rune was perfect. That made sense – if there really was a flaw, the rune was far more likely to not activate at all than work only partway.
Then Levin understood the problem. It wasn’t a sudden realization.
It was more like a bubble, one that had originated deep underwater long ago and was only now reaching the surface. It popped. It had been there all along, deep down, in the form of a dull ache that had only started flaring up after Blade was engraved.
The problem was that Levin had Chaos Sickness.
“No. No, no, no… this can’t be happening. I’m supposed to be immune to Chaos Sickness. I came from another dimension!” Levin thought, breathing in quick, shallow bursts.
He had just watched a man go through the stages of Chaos Sickness. Amaq had started the fight looking like a weathered but healthy middle-aged man, and had ended it as a wrinkled bag. He had watched his skin wither as the man’s control of his own body faltered and eventually failed.
That was Levin’s fate.
The symptoms were undeniable. And Mei’s usage of a weapon art proved that living in this dimension was enough to acquire magic. Coming from another dimension would leave him magic-less for only so long, and then the Chaos Source inside him would do what it always does.
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“I still have time,” he thought desperately. “I know there are techniques for removing Sources – it’s a necessary step to making a Chimera. Just like how all these plants will survive now that they’ve stopped being exposed to Chaos, I just need to purge it from my body.”
Levin took a deep breath. He wasn’t dead yet. And he had lived with Chaos for over two months now, so he probably had a fair bit of time left. It turned out that fighting without Bolt was a blessing in disguise. The additional Chaos Source he would have been injected with for that rune would surely have accelerated the process.
“So I’m not going back to the Academy, then.” Escaping Bolt was enough of a reason, but this whole incident had also been kicked off by Amaq trying to arrest him. That was obviously going to happen again if he returned, doubly so now that Amaq had disappeared in the course of investigating Levin. Returning to the Academy would only end with Levin in chains.
But he also couldn’t leave just yet. Levin set his sights up the slope of the mountain, the opposite side holding the Academy’s campus. And inside there was the central rune array.
Levin wanted to destroy the Academy and seize its power. But to do so, he would need to bring down the most sophisticated defense system in Trurok. Levin stumbled over to where Amaq’s desiccated corpse lay, kneeling down next to the body and rifling through his robes.
He came out with a bag of coins and a small wooden slip, too small to be a tablet. Amaq’s identity token, and a key to the central rune array. If Levin wanted to use this, his best bet would be now, before the mages could take note of Amaq’s disappearance.
On shaky legs, Levin began the march up towards Inuvik Academy, tucking the coin purse and identity token into his torn and bloodied robes. Behind him, Cho clutched Amaq’s corpse in its talons, carrying it off to where no human would ever find it again.
***
Levin’s strength returned gradually, and he actually felt mostly back to normal by the time he walked through the gates to campus. But he wouldn’t be fooled into thinking that meant he didn’t actually have Chaos Sickness. Field had delivered him a tremendous dose, and Levin’s returning stamina was merely the effects of that wearing off. He could still feel that tell-tale ache in his gut.
He walked briskly through campus, straight past the statue of Panai towards the Smoke Hall. Levin wore a fresh set of clothes dropped off by Cho, including a gray hooded cloak that he had pulled up around his head, trying to hide his face. Even if it was an imperfect disguise, it was all he had. And Levin planned to be in and out very quickly.
The Smoke Hall was a short but sprawling building, with a large main hall and many passageways leading to facilities serving the campus mages. It was early afternoon when Levin entered, so one of the busiest facilities was the cafeteria, and many mages had spilled out to eat in the main hall.
It was crowded enough that Levin felt camouflaged more than exposed, and he slipped through the hall with barely a glance being spared his direction. Near the rear of the grand hall was a passage he had been in only once before, on the very first day he had arrived at Inuvik Academy. The dim candlelight illuminated no one inside, and Levin ducked into it.
It was a short hall, with a simple wood door at the end. Levin walked up to it, pulling out Amaq’s identity token. Even Master Pilip wasn’t allowed in here. Only as chief of security was Amaq granted access. Levin doubted there were more than a few on campus who’s identity tokens could open that door.
Inside was a storage room, with shelves stacked with vials of ink. Levin’s eyes glowed with greed as he looked around, but he stopped himself from taking any. He couldn’t leave any indication an intruder had been here. These would be his prize for conquering this place.
Beyond the room was a spiral staircase, tunneling straight down into the earth. Levin set off into its depths, clinging to a guardrail and moving quickly but silently.
“I hope Hann isn’t down there,” Levin thought, recalling the workshop he had seen at the base of this staircase.
At this point, Levin was willing to gamble and see how the dice fell. He would probably never be able to confirm for sure it was empty down there even under the best of conditions.
Levin crouched down on the stairs as he neared the cavern at the bottom, peeking out from near the stone roof to see if anyone was below. He engaged his Y-Link, analyzing all the data coming from his body’s senses. If there was a person down there, he would definitely detect them.
His fears were confirmed. Hann stood at a lit runesmithing furnace, his back to the stairs. Levin froze. The flashing lights of the central rune array were visible at the end of the cavern, but Levin had no idea if he could safely traverse the distance.
But he had already given up trying to play it safe. And with his newfound Chaos Sickness, Levin felt like he was all in. Hann or no Hann, he was going to the central rune array.
Levin hid behind the banister as he crept to the ground, then peeked out again. Hann was busy with a brewing process – even a Smoke rank ground ingredients by hand, apparently – and facing away from Levin.
Levin steeled his nerves, clutching the silver medallion around his neck for strength. Then he rushed out, staying as low to the ground as possible, silently moving towards the back where flashes of multi-colored light played out on the gray stone walls.
Mercifully, Hann stayed focused on his task. Levin slipped out of sight of the Smoke rank’s runesmithing lab, straightening up as he stepped into the secondary cavern.
The first time he had been here, he had only been able to catch a glimpse of the border of the central rune array. Now he beheld it in its full glory, and had to admit that Lord Hann was an impressive runesmith.
The array was dozens of feet in diameter, made up of several distinct sections with their own purpose. Compared to Lethridge or the mines, the central rune array was more like an array of arrays, with distinct clusters of similar runes each dedicated to their own purpose.
He could see a section larger than the entire Lethridge array devoted solely to the Academy’s shields, another for the door control, one for preserving foodstuffs and resources, and one for temperature control in all the towers. Levin hadn’t even realized that last one existed, though he must have been enjoying its benefits this entire time.
He didn’t have the time to analyze every single piece of it, not with Hann right there. But his eyes lingered on a part near the back, and his Y-Link confirmed what it was – the Force Distribution System. Without seeing the central rune array in person, Levin hadn’t been sure how he could interfere with it, but now he would be able to find out. And watching Silla’s attack had given him an idea how to take advantage of it.
He ran over to the Force Distribution System, engaging his sensors and the analysis rune in his toolbelt. His analysis rune had been kept deactivated during the fight with Amaq, so it still functioned, though much of the ink had been eaten away at. It probably wouldn’t stay working long enough to get data on the whole rune array, even if Levin was willing to risk it.
As his Y-Link received the data, Levin ran a few tests. The mechanics behind the Force Distribution System – and nearly the entire rune array – was beyond Levin’s understanding as a runesmith, but his simulations could still process them. It would take a lot of time to do any heavy calculations, but there was just one tiny piece about the functionality of this system that Levin wanted to confirm for now. Something to tell if his idea was feasible.
The results were positive. Levin leapt for joy inside – with this plan, an attack on the Academy really would be possible. If Levin told Uki that he could do this, she would certainly approve the operation. He would still need to make an incredible amount of runic artifacts from the Lethridge supplies, enough to outfit an army, but that would be much easier from the comfort of the Mage Hunter’s base.
Levin hurried out. He wanted to take the time and analyze the entire array, but that would be foolish. He did grab some data on the shielding runes as he hurried out, just in case his first idea didn’t work out, but left the rest.
Once again, he managed to sneak by Hann without issue.
Climbing the stairs out was terrifying enough to distract Levin from the burning in his thighs. If anyone was heading down at this moment, it would be nearly impossible to avoid them. Levin kept his Y-Link engaged on his ears, hoping it would pick up the sounds of any footsteps above before Levin could. At least he knew Hann wouldn’t be coming down.
But his worry was for nothing. He exited into an empty storage room, and back out into an empty hallway. The main hall was still crowded with groups sitting for lunch, and Levin hurried out and back onto campus. As far as he could tell, he had gotten away cleanly.
Levin’s next decision was a difficult one. His survival instincts urged him to get off campus immediately before a battlemage recognized him and realized he was supposed to have been arrested. But on the other hand, the big bag of coins he had just gotten from Amaq was burning a hole in Levin’s pockets. This would likely be his last chance to visit the Academy’s store.
He made a snap decision, feeling too pressured to hesitate. Amaq’s disappearance probably hadn’t been noticed yet, and it was unlikely word of his arrest had spread to most of the mages on campus. Right now, Levin was still just an Academy servant. Though he would be giving any battlemages, easily recognizable in their vibrant red uniforms, a wide berth.
The Academy’s campus was small, and its most important buildings concentrated towards the center. It took him only a minute to arrive at the Materials Pavilion. He walked inside, nervously scanning the first floor before pulling the hood of his cloak down. Better to be more inconspicuous here, and it was only the old clerk present anyways.
He was always manning the store when Levin visited, usually asleep just like during Levin’s first visit with Kirima. Even now his head was down, but the lack of snores made Levin suspicious. Either way, Levin had eventually learned that this old man was named Ahm, and despite his appearance he would fiercely react to any shoplifters.
But Levin had also figured out that Ahm only cared if you paid. After all, a mere servant becoming one of the Academy’s top spenders for a couple weeks hadn’t even made the man blink an eye. Levin was counting on that attitude now – he didn’t intend to have any coins left after this.
He hurried up to the higher floors, being careful not to look any of the other mages shopping here in the eye. Running out of the money taken from Tulimak had slowed his work, even with the resources from Lethridge. But Lethridge was a place containing many of the rarer and valuable Wisp rank resources. Basic materials, like fireliles or crimson gems, weren’t kept there, and it was those that Levin didn’t have enough of.
He quickly reached the limit of what he could carry, and added a few cloth bags to his purchase to carry everything. When they were full he made his way down to the counter on the first floor, depositing the right amount of money from Amaq’s coin pouch onto the counter by Ahm’s head. Levin still hadn’t figured out how he kept track of everyone’s totals.
Sunlight and a cool breeze greeted Levin as he stepped back outside. Levin set off at a brisk pace, his hood pulled back up, but not towards the Academy’s exit. The bags slung over his shoulder were heavy, and Levin did not want to carry them himself.
Instead, he found a secluded spot at the back of campus, in the shade of the sheer cliff wall carved out from the mountain. Cho dropped down by Levin, moving well despite the bent wing. It was very fortunate the damage hadn’t been worse, since Levin could see no way to fix it with this world’s technological level.
Levin handed off the bags of supplies to Cho, tossing in Amaq’s identity token as well. Cho would hide them along with the Lethridge supplies, which were currently in a random hole he had dug halfway down the mountain. Levin would move them, and himself, to the Mage Hunter’s base.
But he held on to Amaq’s coin purse. There was still over a third of the pouch left, money that could only be put to its most effective use in the Academy store.
“I’m being greedy,” Levin thought, heart pounding away in his chest. But he headed back into the Materials Pavilion anyways.
The second trip was exactly the same as the first. He carried out as many supplies as he could and handed them off to Cho without any incident. But now, every further moment Levin was spending on campus was causing his anxiety to build exponentially. Every minute more was one in which the leaders of Inuvik Academy might notice that Amaq had gone missing. And when they did, there would probably be a crackdown on security.
Levin had been as greedy as possible, and now it was time to leave. The additional supplies would certainly bolster his and the Mage Hunter’s power, and give Levin a greater chance of success. Risky as it was, Levin was glad he had done all he could.
He made his way towards the Academy gates, following along the perimeter of campus. As usual, they were wide open and without a guard in sight. In fact, there wasn’t even a single mage entering or exiting campus at that moment. Few mages had been coming and going in general since Silla had gone into closed-door meditation, and there would likely be even fewer after his attack on campus yesterday.
Levin hurried out, walking into the stables. Levin grabbed a saddle and reins himself as he headed towards Nini’s assigned location, finding her munching on some hay. A stablehand rushed over to assist him, and the horse was soon geared up.
Levin mounted, finally feeling some of his anxiety wash away as he looked out towards the smooth dirt path meandering down the mountain. With a small jab of his heels, Nini set off away from the Academy. Levin didn’t look back.
But he didn’t get far.
“Halt!” came a loud voice from behind.
Levin froze. That shout seemed to be directed at him. But he was afraid to turn around now, and Nini continued to trot forwards.
“We have orders to check all entering or leaving campus grounds!” Two pairs of thudding footfalls echoed out behind Levin, running towards him.
Levin kicked hard, sending Nini into a gallop. It was a foolish decision.
A moment later, black chains erupted from thin air and encircled Levin, binding his arms and legs. Nini raced forward but Levin was held in place, pulled backwards off the saddle. He was sent toppling towards the ground, unable to even stretch a hand out and catch himself.
Levin’s head hit a rock and he blacked out.