What is arcane magic?
Mia hadn’t the faintest clue. She knew what it could do, and what it was generally used for, but what it was as a whole? Not a clue. It just seemed to include a range of random things bundled together without much rhyme or reason.
Light projected energy, fire governed plasma, air gases, water liquids, earth solids and darkness absorbed and stole energy.
All of those were simple, concise and mostly all encompassing descriptors of the elements. They were simple. Easy.
What was arcane, the element that stood in the middle, separating the elements into two groups? The one that stood at the crossroads of Light and Dark, Chaos and Order? Was it a mix of both? Neither? Something else entirely?
Mia didn’t know. She hadn’t the faintest clue, and it made her want to tear her hair out. Even though she tried focusing on these vague ideas, she didn’t feel any mana gathering around her as Mark described. She was doing something wrong. But what-
Three loud knocks rumbled through the door. Mia was already up, mana halfway to her fingertips as the Arcane Blast spell circle started forming in her mana pool.
Wait. Monsters don’t knock. Not letting go of either her mana or the spell circle, Mia called out. “Yes? Who is it?”
“Jeff’s calling a meeting,” a gruff voice came from the other side, sounding like the personification of boredom. “Be there in the entrance hall in thirty minutes if you want to be given water and food.”
Mia’s ears focused on the man beyond the door, but all she heard were his departing footsteps and his knuckles rapping at the next door down the hallway. He repeated the same thing he told her, then went down to the next apartment, and the one after that,
No wonder he sounded bored out of his mind.
A few minutes later, and with a grumbling Mark trotting behind her, she set out again with her new knife holstered at the back of her waist. Just in case. Mia wanted to get going before most people to avoid the awkwardness of walking into a full room, but it seemed people were more nervous about food than she thought.
Mia saw at least a dozen people just on the tenth floor nervously heading down, just like her. She tried not to stare, she really did, but what could she do when a woman with butterfly wings or a man with the head of an otter walked by?
It was rude, though. She got a fair few looks herself and they made her uncomfortable in a way the regular stares never did. She felt like some exotic animal in a zoo.
After that realisation, she kept her eyes on the floor or facing forwards.
The staircase was blessedly more or less empty, so they could make their way down with little fuss. The reason for that turned out to be that everyone from floors one to nine were already down in the entrance hall.
Mia, having been in a bit of a hurry to get there first, was the first one to reach the floor and also the first to enter the room. Which made her the centre of attention when more than a hundred pair of eyes turned towards the new people streaming in.
She quickly made herself scarce, slipping into a quiet corner with her eyes studiously staring at the floor. Mia wasn’t that bad with attention, but there was some mental switch in her head that got flipped on whenever over ten people stared at her and it made her unnaturally nervous.
Which was why she loathed doing presentations. It was fine when only the professor and a couple of other students were there, but when she had to do it before a filled up lecture hall? One time she couldn’t hit space to get to the next slide in her presentation because her hands were shaking so much.
Years had passed, but Mia still found herself thinking about that moment. Memories like that were what kept her up at night.
Mark followed after her, his gaze flickering through the crowd with a curious glint and Mia couldn’t help but join in once her heart calmed a bit. People ignored her, of course they did, there were many others more interesting than a girl with pink hair. She tried not to stare too much at any one person, but she still noted with awe every interesting ‘awakened’.
There was a man made entirely out of rocks, a woman who stood at three metres tall, and another with large tusks poking out of her lips and bulging muscles. Mia even found one or two people like her, people with vibrant hair and pointed ears of varying lengths.
I should probably talk to them. They might have figured something out about the change that I missed. Well, it might be a miss since she now knew Halvyr were just one of the races with Fae ancestry and most of them should have pointed ears — if fantasy books were to be believed.
“Great. That should be just about everyone.” Jeff’s voice echoed through the hall and Mia arched her neck to search for the man with no success. “Let’s get started. Those who aren’t here yet will be filled in by someone else. Now, pay attention please, because we have important news and will be discussing how we are to survive in the near future.”
There were murmurs and some not too hushed talking already, but it was mostly silenced when Jeff spoke again. It made Mia wonder whether he was enhancing his voice with some spell, maybe a Skill for leadership that worked like a megaphone and some slight intimidation?
That would mean magic can fuck with the mind. Mia didn’t like the implications of that, or well, she didn’t want to think about it at all. Didn’t I see mental stuff mentioned in the Darkness part of that book?
“First of all, let us start with the dire news,” Jeff continued. “Most of you might not have heard, but a solar flare destroyed the vast majority of electronic devices world-wide. This means satellites, the electric grid, mobile networks, internet cables and everything of that sort needs to be almost entirely replaced.”
Mia was getting annoyed about hearing, but not seeing, Jeff. She looked around and found a half-open door leading into a side room just a few metres from her. Inside, she caught a glimpse of cleaning tools, shovels and, more importantly, a stool.
She sneakily slid inside and grabbed the stool for herself. Then set it down and hopped on a moment later under Mark’s deepening glare.
“You wouldn’t see anything even on this,” she said, shrugging off his glare.
Finally, she could look over the many heads before her and see Jeff. He stood on a large wooden box and around him stood about fifteen rather ragged people. Mia squinted at them. They must have been a few dozen metres away but she saw them clearly.
Torn clothes, spots of blood, grim faces and some still-healing wounds covered most of them. One or two even limped, leaning on metal bars for stability.
“Yes, I know,” Jeff said with a calming wave of his hand. “Not only does this mean that the entire world is probably in just as deep of a pile of shit as us, but that even if they could send help, they would likely not know we needed it for sure. And that is not even considering that most forms of transportation are gone as well. Cars, trains and planes wouldn’t work aside from a select few.”
People started getting more and more panicked with each word he said, but they stayed mostly silent. He is using some calming aura for sure, or just forcing people to keep silent? I don’t think I feel unnaturally calm.
Mia thought that over. Sure, she was calmer than most, but so far she was aware of everything Jeff talked about.
“With that in mind,” Jeff said. “I would like to propose working together to survive in this … apocalypse. The worst isn’t the lack of any electrical equipment, unfortunately. It is the horde of monsters now flooding the streets, ravaging through every single building they can get into.”
Jeff gave a meaningful look behind him, where the inch-thick metal stood. “We cannot go out. We cannot get ourselves food. We cannot plant seeds to grow our own food. Water might be doable with large tubs set up on the roof, but even then, people collecting water would have to fend off the vicious metal eagles that broke into almost a fourth of your homes in the last day.”
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“We are all going to die.” The whisper rang through the ensuing silence, and then all hell broke loose. People started shouting, screaming over each other as they broke out of whatever stupor they were put into by Jeff’s bullshit.
Mia shrunk back, huddling in the corner, and had her runic model construct her Arcane Shield spell circle. Mana flooded her hands. If anyone got stupid and tried to trample her, she was ready. She even shoved Mark behind her to protect him, though the dwarf just grabbed a hammer from the shed and glared at the crowd.
A part of her wanted to tell him to put the thing away that instant. Threatening people with weapons, even makeshift ones, was illegal and otherwise barbaric. But if it kept her from getting trampled by a group of panicking people …
“Stop,” Jeff’s voice rang out, echoing in Mia’s head like she stood in an empty cavern. Her ears rang and her arms dropped by themselves. Only with a monumental flex of her flickering Will could she keep the mana in her arm from going out of control. “Silence.”
Anger surged in Mia’s veins, her heart pounding. This asshole almost blew her hand off. Then he had the gall to ‘silence’ her. She tried to talk, just to spite him and his stupid and honestly disturbing magic.
She felt like a hand clamped down around her throat, constricting her windpipe.
The ‘stop’ command faded away though, maybe because it was timed or because only one command could affect a person at a time. Mia didn’t care. Her mana surged up from her hand and from her pool and rushed at the foreign cluster of energy constricting her throat.
The mana pushed back against the invisible force, but what pried its hold open and finally tore it apart was her now roiling fury. Her Spirit resonated with that righteous anger, or rather, with the strength of the emotion and crashed into the constricting force like a tidal wave.
Mia gasped, sucking in a deep breath with a wheeze. Her lungs drank in the fresh air like a pair of starving dogs.
Her Spirit settled back into its place, somewhere around her mana pool and swiftly calmed the thunderous arcane energy inside wanting to be let loose at her enemies. At the one who struck at her mind.
Mia glared, her eyes finding Jeff on the other side of the room. Her fight with his magic only took a second at most. She seemed to be the quickest to recover, and she saw many others still choking with their hands around their neck.
Jeff was visibly wobbling for his part and now leaning on one of the men who stood behind him. Whatever he did took a lot out of him. He was weakened. A Bolt to the head and he would be dead.
Mia stiffened. Did she really just think that? That she would murder an acquaintance in cold blood for choking her a bit? Okay, it sounded all kinds of wrong when she said it like that, but wasn’t she overreacting to this a little too much? Maybe a slap or two was in order, maybe even a kick to the nuts, but murder?
A shiver ran down the young Halvyr’s back. She closed her eyes and slumped down on the stool, her head propped up in her hands.
“I apologise for that,” Jeff said a few seconds later, sounding strained. “But we cannot panic now. If we fell into chaos the monsters would pick us apart, kill us one by one. None of us can survive alone, not even those standing behind me who stepped forward to hunt down every monster that entered our building with me.”
The echoes of anger still lingered in Mia’s heart, even if she intellectually understood why Jeff did as he did. It was a logically sound decision from his position. Mia would have probably done the same. At the same time.
He used mind magic on me. Fucked with my head. It was revolting. A part of Mia she thought entirely her own, her sanctuary, had been casually intruded on and bent over a table like a common who-
Okay, let’s not go there. Mia rubbed her face, gritting her teeth as she tried to get rid of the lingering fury she felt. Jeff was strong, and if all apocalypse stories ever made were to be believed, the world would become a lawless shithole before long. Jeff already had the strongest fighters behind him. Fuck. He already set himself up to be the leader of our little group. Plus he has the most food out of any of us. He holds all the cards.
Mia was not enjoying the paths her thoughts took. Every future that played out in her head was worse than the last. They were at his mercy.
If by some miracle the military rolls in tomorrow, then we might be fine, but otherwise …
“Now, my friends. I would like to discuss how we are going to survive either until help comes or for as long as we have to.” Jeff re-started his speech, his voice quickly regaining the rough power it held before. “We will need everyone to step up and do their part. We will need people working to make food, we have to preserve as much of what we have as possible, we will have to have people make the tubs for gathering rainwater and several other tasks.”
“I will be expecting everyone to help out,” Jeff said, leaving a few moments of silence afterwards while Mia just brought up her legs and hugged them while the crowd shuffled nervously. “After all, our food and water will serve as payment for completing these tasks. Food and water, which we will be rationing to last as long as possible.”
That set off another bout of angry mutterings and harsh glares, but Jeff didn’t use his magic this time. Was he out of power, or just didn’t want to bother? Mia filed those tiny nuggets of information away.
“I will be taking questions now,” he said. “Raise your hands if you have a question. There is no need to not be civilised.”
Says the man who mind controlled a hundred people. Mia frowned in thought. Jeff was an acquaintance at best. The landlord had been a grumpy older man almost in his fifties before the awakening.
Now, he didn’t look a day above thirty and radiated power. But Mia doubted his personality changed all that much. It took a special kind of paranoia for someone to prepare a doomsday shelter in their basement and set up as many defences as Jeff had.
Do I just stick my head into the sand and do the bare minimum to survive? Mia was leaning that way. Magic was fun and interesting, if people just left her alone and she had enough food and water to survive, she would be … not quite happy, but not unhappy either.
I’m going to miss bathing. Mia stared at the ceiling. And mom. Is she alright? She lives out on the outskirts of town, so maybe monsters didn’t get there.
Mia took a trembling breath, a pit forming in her stomach. She has to be. I’m sure she is. She has that old shotgun. The monsters will learn to fear her.
Mia would have to repeat that mantra until she actually believed it. So far, it was far from working.
“Yes, you there!”
“There are at least two hundred mouths to feed in this building,” a measured male voice said. “How do you plan to do that without exiting the building? Even if we use every single spot of dirt in the walled-off park, that’s far from enough space to grow enough food.”
“I plan on venturing out into the city with those who can survive against the monsters,” Jeff answered. “We will try to raid supermarkets, grocery shops and gather any food we can. For now, that’s the best we can do. Next question?”
“Can those people behind you really kill the monsters?” This time an aged female voice spoke up.
“Yes,” Jeff said easily. “Each of us killed at least five of the avian monsters. And even if they can’t, there is no one else who can.”
On and on they went. Mia listened and tried to remember everything, but her thoughts kept wandering. Could I get to mom if I trained up my stats? Or would I have to get levels to even stand a chance against the stuff out there? Is there another way to level up that doesn’t include swimming in monster guts and almost dying?
She wanted to ask the last question. Maybe, just maybe, someone in the crowd stumbled upon a secret way to level up without life and death fights.
Just do it damn it! Mia wanted to knock some sense into her own head, maybe by smashing it into a wall, but she just couldn’t raise her hand. Her breathing sped up and her arm trembled uncontrollably whenever she thought she finally convinced herself to do it.
There were just too many people. It also didn’t help that the lingering embers of anger flared just from the notion of asking for the help of the one that trampled over the sanctity of her mind.
“What if I want to fight the monsters myself?”
The voice brought Mia out of her darkening thoughts. It was feminine. She’d put the woman at around the same age as her, just from the sound of her slightly trembling voice.
“I’d be happy to have more people who are willing to fight back,” Jeff said after a moment. “I’d pair you up with someone at the start, but considering fighting would be the most dangerous task there is, you would be rewarded a considerable amount of food and water for doing it.”
“I’ll do it,” the woman’s voice still had a tremble in it, but her resolve shone through. “I want to be strong enough to fight back.”
“Then please stay behind once we are done here, we will discuss getting someone to watch over you for the first few fights at least,” Jeff said, his opinion on the matter impossible to decipher from his tone.
If he wanted to have an iron grip on power, he’d have to keep the fighters on his side and keep the rest from gaining power. At least that was what Mia thought an up and coming tyrannical would-be warlord would do in Jeff’s place. Whether the man was one was yet to be determined.
I should join too. Mia found herself thinking. She needed power if she wanted to get to her mother before the monsters did. But could she? Could she face monsters like that bird again and again, day after day?
She would have to either way. There were no questions about it. If she didn’t go to the monsters, they would come to her. Even if she lived on the tenth floor. That stupid bird proved that even that wasn’t safe.
Yet she found herself walking up the stairs once the Q&A came to an end, walking away from the small group of people who walked up to Jeff to join his warriors.
Her heart thundered in her chest, her teeth grinding against each other in self loathing, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn back.
Every time she almost managed to, she remembered the bone-deep chill she felt as she bled out in the hallway. She remembered the feather burrowing into her shoulder. She remembered those eyes filled with endless malice and a hunger for the suffering of others.
So she left, running back to her apartment and burrowed herself under a pile of blankets as she sobbed in frustration.
Why am I like this? Why can’t I just be brave?
Why do I have to be so pathetic?
Mom … I’m so sorry.