I simply stare at the man who tries to pull forth such cruelty for seemingly no real reason other than his own enjoyment. And I don’t feel sadness or despair; all I feel is disgust and anger. For what else can you do when evil appears?

I turn away and stuff the plate back into my sturdy backpack, before throwing it over my shoulder. And I step away, leaving behind both of the spirits.

I look back only to find the same smug look as before, like a child showing the sorpse of a bug to his parent, expecting praise. And I turn back in disgust, there isn’t anything of value to be found here.

But as I turn to leave, I hear over my shoulder, Oh, you won’t even play a game with me? You’ll be torn apart in any real court; you might as well give up if you are so enraged by a few mortals. Although it makes sense since you bloody well aren’t a real spirit, you just ate one with that deranged spoon."

I turn around, seeing a couple flitting yellow sparks within that grey light, as I can just feel a cruel smile across his empty face as he says, “Just like a human to turn a goddamn spoon into a murder weapon. Even I haven’t done that, I haven’t tainted myself with the entrails of someone’s soul. But look at you. You’ve mixed so much with your own bloody victim that most poor saps can’t even tell the difference.”

And with that, the pot barely held in place with a thin layer of disgust boils over, and I lash out with the wand, immediately tossing the bastard into the throes of sleep. I laugh, taking a sense of grim satisfaction that the thing that they dismissed as worthless ended up instantly defeating them. What was it that they said earlier that the wand wouldn’t work on any real enemies, and if so what are you?

I chuckle to myself as I turn away from their unconscious figure to look at the spirit of curdled anger, who merely makes a nod before shimmering out of existence.

I shrug, dismissing the strange creature from my thoughts as I gather myself together and start running. My metal boots clang furiously on the floor as I accelerate faster and faster, bursting out of the room and past the guard.

They sputter, raising their spear, but before they could even react, I jump off the platform, switch on my boots, and fly through an entrance, the clattering rocks rocketing me through the building.

I smile beneath my helmet, enjoying the exhilarating feeling of pure movement, but that movement soon comes to a stop as I see in front of me a doorway. I wiggle my toes, switching off the rocky propulsion, and stumble in a slowing run as I come to the doorway and take a curious peak at the room’s contents.

Only to find nothing but crates stacked neatly in a well-organized storage room. Presumably filled with foodstuffs and other basic supplies, there were certainly no victims in this dismal place.

I rub my helmet, my gauntlet making a subtle scratching sound as I stand aback in sheepishness. Guess I shouldn’t have gone so fast without thinking. This entire facility is a mess of corridors, and I won’t be able to find them if I just rush around like a rat in a maze.

I sigh, taking a survey of the room, but I don’t find anything worth taking, not that I could carry it back if there was anything worth it. I slump my arms falling as I curve my back to the floor in sheer annoyance. Ugh, I really should get to making a storage room or something.

Then I would be able to clean out this entire facility just for shits and giggles, and any other place like it easily. Plus, I would learn a bit about spatial enchantments, which will undoubtably be necessary for me to leave this dreadful plane.

I snap back to my full, if unimpressive, height and clap my gauntlets together before heading back across the platform. I walk a bit too afraid to try to fly in the corridor again. Haa, it truly is strange to feel the full weight of my steps nowadays.

Oh well, I awkwardly walk through the long hallway, my steps heralded by a clang, and the progress is slow due to the previously irrelevant weight of my armor.

But thankfully, soon enough, I see the light. I try to quiet my footsteps, but considering I am clad in layers of solid iron, it is for naught.

I step through the doorway, looking up at my previous position, and I see the guard staring at me icily, their eyes showing their sheer disdain and anger towards me in their little quakes.

I step into a sort of defensive position, but they don’t do anything; they simply toss out a stone before jumping off the stone platform, dropping like an arrow from on high.

I am taken aback, unable to believe what I saw before I approached the edge and looked down. For I see nothing but billowing mist, and fog, the lifeblood of a bloom.

They couldn’t possibly have just given up, they must have left for reinforcements. I need to hurry up, this is going to get harder and harder the more delays there are and the more time that spirit and his posse of mercenaries get to prepare. Thankfully the spirit is occupied right now, but well ordinary humans are nothing to dismiss.

But so that I don’t go through any dead ends, let’s figure out where to go. I nervously stare at the seemingly endless depths below before jumping my toes on the switch. I gulp a scream as I fall for a bit before getting back up the extremely violently summoned rocks, thankfully enough to save me from falling below.

I climb through the strange, impossible room, rapidly reaching into the strange gray mist, before falling, wheeling my arms about as I drop down, thankfully on target.

I wheeze little flakes of my life shaved off with that scare before I stand up straight.

I make a discreet cough, still terrified but sadly put into enough of a pressure crunch that I have to just deal with it. Gritting my teeth, I reach for my circlet, whose name is still being decided.

I pull my long, curly hair to the side as I reach behind my helmet, wheel around the circlet on my head, and press the analyze button. The screens burst onto my eyes but my mind slides past all of them as I debate various names for the helpful circuit.

I ponder a name, like maybe circlet of examination, before shaking free of the thread and quickly getting back on task. I piece past all the little posts, but all the little bits of arcane information give me nothing. Drowned out by the sheer amount of secrets kept in here. Witnessing everything from a sneeze made by a foreign diplimot to a strand of silk stuck to a rough bit of rock—silk that is completely and utterly unavailable in this time period.

I wince the headaches getting too intense to continue looking through, so I quickly turn it off to view things not in detail but in beauty. As my eyes find themselves drawn entranced by the shifting texture of the walls created as the spirit slowly melds the stone into one organic mixture.

But as my eyes fall from bits of beauty to the next, I find nothing of import at all.

Frustrated, I tap off the rune and let my gaze be focused on Oddity. And curiously enough, I immediately notice that on a platform down below. Because there are a truly odd number of scratches, as if an endless sea of people were dragged in kicking and screaming.

Taken aback I wonder how many people were taken? For the amount of scratches is truly ridiculous, and the other option that the spirit just kidnaps others so frequently that it gets engraved into the stone is disturbing as well.

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A bit put off by the strange sight, I turn off my circlet, and I jump off resolute in my goals as I manoeuvre through the strange central room, before blasting into the corridor.

I blaze past at an incredible pace, accelerating more and more from the constant violent stream of force from my boots, the lack of air leading to no limits at all.

I blaze past at an incredible pace, accelerating more and more from the constant violent stream of force from my boots, the lack of air leading to no limits at all.

But as I go at speeds that would boggle the mind, there is no change to the scenery, just an endless repetition of the same stone hallway.

I frown, how long is this corridor anyway? I have no idea how fast I am, but frankly, if there was air, I have no doubt that it would peel away at any exposed skin. I’m pretty sure right now I’m going faster than an actual car.

So why am I still here, on my way to save them?

I feel like someone trapped in a painting because, well, there is no possible way that the spirit’s bloom is large enough to contain me. It only took like what a minute to reach that storage room. And it’s been at least 10 minutes from what I can tell.

As I ponder this I hear a terrible noise—a long, sustained rip—as if someone tore out a piece of reality. As my entire concept of space is destroyed.

Because rather than a grid, I can feel the paper, and I can feel it shift as if someone took the fabric of space and smudged it with their finger. Like a child fingerpainting with the stuff of the universe.

And an open hallway appears to the side of mine, intersecting, looking ridiculously like someone shoved their hallway into mine, and within that hallway, is a horde of mercenaries all decked out in leather armor and good swords. And all led by the guard from before, his face contorting into righteus fury grinning an evil slice as he raises his spear, and commands the charge.

The entire squad of mercenaries barrels towards me in unison, the ones in front positioning shields, and the ones behind raising their speed as they go forward as one united creature.

Cycling through my options quickly, I grab my wand and summon a series of walls in front of the charging crowd, and with a grin, I can see their faces noticing their impending failure.

As the ones in front slam into the wall with a grunt and get stuck, and the others stumble over their companions to get stuck as well. Turning into a ginormous pile of flesh stuck together by my enchantment. Moaning and screaming, their bodies attached to the metal wall I summoned into the floor, unable to move too far for fear of ripping their skin.

I make a strangled noise as I stare at the results of my own invention, but I cannot dwell on it for long as a few stragglers, slower than the others, jump over the wall and face me. Their faces outraged at the grotesque display of their companions failure.

They dash toward me, and I scramble backward, having expected that the wall would take care of them, cringing as they stab at me with their long spears.

But as I raise my gauntlets over my head, their spears skate over my breastplate and do nothing at all...

I stare at their spears, almost unable to believe the sheer ineffectiveness of their attacks. I can’t even feel it, their vicious strikes are as if someone scratched me with a feather.

I stare at them through the slit made of clear ice, yet I see nothing of import, just a few terrified men, and I start laughing hysterically, for I realize something quite crucial: my armor is a few thousand years past their technology level!

I almost buckle over from laughter, holding up my hands as if I were calling a break while the two still ruthlessly stab, stab, and stab over and over again to no effect at all.

They scream in anger at their worthless blades and attempt to drive them into the slits of my armor, only to find cool ice and thick cloth.

And I slap away their pitiful spears with my gauntlets. As I oversee this pitiful excuse for a battlefield, I see the trapped idiots, their eyes filled with terror, their throats emptied by screams and moans.

And I notice one particular face in the front: the guard from before who led the charge, he who was first; his face is firmly attached to the wall, and no matter how hard he tugs and how much pain he is in, there is nothing he can do but seethe. He who made me feel the tiniest bit afraid someone that I can quite literally step over.

I laugh hysterically at all the bozos attached to an incredibly simple spell, but they are not the only ones deserving ridicule for those in front of me aren’t exactly that impressive either; the battle won before it even started.

The man to the right, screaming in outrage at my disregards, yells at his companion, who circles around me, trying to herd me into a position, but I stand still, comfortable in my technological superiority.

All built up so that he can charge, spear raised forward, a bit concerned, I step backward but the man behind me jabs, forcing me to stay in position as the first mans spear slams straight into me!

Only to snap like a twig, the sturdy wood shattered by the man’s full weight upon my solid iron armor.

Still giggling a bit, I quickly put the two men to sleep. But my giggling stops as they topple to the floor quite violently, the man herding me collapsing and the man in front falling onto my chest.

I sigh, gently placing him on the floor, as I oversee this truly ridiculous sight. A dozen men attached to a plate of metal, of all things, next to two mercenaries sleeping peacefully on a stone floor.

I stare at them, still furiously wriggling and trying to get out, and ponder just putting them to sleep, no need to struggle, then. Rolling the idea around in my mind I find it more and more appealing. So methodically, I put them all to sleep. They protest, but when they are stuck like sitting ducks, it isn’t hard to nab each and every one.

I shuffle through their things looking for anything important, but as I sift through their trinkets and armor, I am strangely attracted to an ordinary rock.

But as I looked it over again, I could see that it was anything but ordinary little bumps. The strange bubbles in the stone actually buttons, and the scratches a complicated code.

And while this might have been sufficient or maybe even overkill for most, it doesn’t stop me. For unlike the runes that gave me such trouble, these codes are in the end patterns, they fit in a way, their ideas molded by that damned spirit, allowing me to easily read the buttons.

So with but a glance over the strange magical remote, I press a button, and the hallway unfurls, curling back to its original place in space. I shrug and place the little thing into my backpack before striding past the bodies on the floor, steadily walking towards the kidnapped.

—

I fly through the corridor, but sadly enough, it seems that the trick with the looping corridor bought enough time for that dreadful spirit, for at right this moment I hear the groans I remember so well.

The ones of a teenager unwilling to get up but nonetheless slowly doing so. That evil thing truly is childish; it’s cruelty like a child as well, curious and new. Breaking things just to see what changes. But while I can deal with a human child doing strange things perfectly fine back home, I can’t exactly slowly explain to the spirit the consequences of cruelty.

I sigh, exhausted with the tomfoolery of this impossible place, as I rocket forth with great speed, albeit not quite as fast as what I managed while trapped in that loop.

But as I stare with alarm, that speed soon becomes my enemy, as gravity strengthens to such a degree that I can feel its pull like an angry toddler yanking on the drapes, but in this case I am the drapes falling to the floor.

I crash into the ground, bunches of rocks scacttering around my feet as they still spray. I cough, all the air pushed out of my lungs, as I skid along the floor the iron brutally scraping on the stone floor.

I try to breathe in, but my lungs can barely move; the heavy air and deflated lungs refuse to take in air. My eyes bulge, and my lungs try to pump faster to hyperventilate, but I can’t.

And so I am here, like a piece of roadkill on the side of the road, barely able to even move.

My armor weighs heavily on my lungs, my heart, my everything. But no matter what this weight might be, I can’t just stay here. The spirit is a sicko and I can’t leave anyone in this demented place any longer.

And so I grunt as I slowly pry myself off the floor, the iron scratching and gritting against the floor. But as I go through it, a strange itch flows through me as all the damage gets instantly fixed. I smile feeling the effects of the heeling rune on my body, my ingenuity saving me from crucial moments of failure.

I shakily get to my feet one step at a time, carefully balancing the sheer weight provided by the armor. I made it extra dense for a bit of extra protection, but that radically increased its weight, and although that really isn’t a problem the vast majority of the time.

Well, the spirit has sort of slammed a mallet into a weak knee this time. It’s summoned gravity, able to summon the previously irrelevant consequences allowing the spirit to sucker punch me. I groan as I stumble forward, extremely careful not to fall with my full weight on the floor again. And as I do so, I think about the fact that I can’t exactly get the armor that’s the problem off.

It’s a bitch to take off when someone hasn’t cranked the G’s, but if I tried now, I might crush my skull underneath the weight of my own breastplate. And I won’t be able to survive that, no matter how ridiculous I get.

Plus, I think, smirking, this thing is way too expensive to ditch. So I must trudge along. Wary I turn to look back, worried for any more mercenaries. Hopefully I fucked up any more reinforcements by taking the weird remote, but I should hurry up anyway the only question is how?

I frown. The obvious answer is my boots, but with gravity jacked so high, I most likely can’t get up. And with how the propulsion is placed on the soles, I can’t exactly walk with them on.

I chuckle imagining a looney toons-like scene. Ah, the classics remain the classics no matter how long. But if I want to speed up, it will have to be my main tool, I am far too heavy to be affected by a windwave right now. And I won’t be able to sustain the Wanderlust required to fly my way there quickly.

Hmm, if the problem is that I can’t step with the boots, then why step at all? Cars and rockets don’t exactly need to point away from the earth they can fly perfectly parallel to the ground. And well, with the continued lack of air resistance, no matter how initially slow I am I will eventually get quite fast.

With a wince and careful motion, I slowly get onto the floor, carefully using my hands as supports, and turn backward. I look behind me before flipping the switches, and then I’m off with a putter like an old engine refurbished from the 2040s that refuses to start.

Like a man slowly going forth on a squeaky shopping cart, I painfully move forward, and with a sigh, I pedal backward, shoving my backward a bit at a time.

Eventually, I start pushing myself backward with my hands, adding anything possible to get to the kidnaping victims sooner. I blast windwaves forward, continuously push with my wand, and as I build on more and more methods of propulsion I get faster and faster.

And the halls speed past more and more, a barrage of rocks, wind, and scrapes wandering in my wake as I shove myself through the halls at a ridiculous speed. Blasting past innumerable sights as I rocket through the bland hallway.

I laugh hysterically at the sheer ridiculousness of this whole affair after all I am literally flying by the seat of my pants, or rather my armor, which adds a layer of extra pun fun to the whole endeavor.

I laugh as I wheel my legs in the air. The clattering sounds of 15 different bits of rock and metal clanging echo along with my belly laughs.

But as I blast through, I slide through a door and fly into the air, even with all that weight, and I look over the room, my lungs still heavy, and my head still spinning, only as I hang there in the air suspended by Wanderlust the laughter dies.

Because it wasn’t a few ransomed or even a couple dozen, it was everyone. I look over and see an entire community taken from their homes, young and old, rich and poor, scattered in tiny pockets amongst the poorly reordered storage room.

And my eyes fall as I realize I don’t think I can get them all out. Not with the sheer mass of thousands dragging me behind.