The fact that their group popped out of the labyrinth in an entirely different city seemed like a punishment from the universe—or the platform maintainer, perhaps. There had been so many reasons to hope they would end up in the city they had entered from. Back to Livery—Emilia had finally been able to ask the kids what their city was called, after being bestowed with her notebook—and whatever awaited them there: death and destruction, but streets the children knew and loved.
The homeless children had been convincing in their arguments that it was unlikely the older homeless people would have evacuated the city. Most were too old, and their underground homes would have been safe enough from the blood magic raging through the streets above—that was, after all, why their group had descended into the caverns and accidentally entered the labyrinth in the first place: it was the safest place to go, as the giant doors of the city closed in the stampeding adults.
They could have gone to them, to the old grannies who ran Livery’s homeless population. They could have found support and knowledge to fill in the gaps in Emilia’s impromptu education, which was currently being sponsored by Sawyer. He was still a child, however. An intelligent child, but a child nonetheless. Most of what he was telling Emilia was only theoretical, his own core too weak yet to support more than the most basic of magics.
That basic magic—short bursts of pure energy, wind and the occasional spark—was far more than she’d been able to accomplish. Her magic was strong… when it worked. Usually, it didn’t, and the few times it had, she’d either used the wrong magic or missed whatever she was aiming at.
The problem was how different the techniques used in their worlds were. While Censors certainly picked up the bulk of the work for skills, running activation sequences and math in the background before forwarding the information and allowing the skill to be let loose, the user’s brain was still involved in the process. Filtering out that useless background noise, ignoring it in favour of something more important—like not getting eaten—was an important combat skill. A person could only use a skill their core could handle and their brain could effectively ignore their Censor activating.
Well, mostly. There were some skills that required stillness, the user’s full focus aimed onto the skill and what came before its activation. Those people had to rely on supports and allies to keep them alive, but in return, the skills they released were monstrous.
The point was, Emilia was good at multitasking—good at ignoring the minute details of one thing while focusing on another. Entire equations could flitter through her head without distracting her. Her brain was made for her world’s skill system, and it was not meshing well with this world’s empty-headed magic system.
Where skills used math and logic and fact to work, this world’s magic relied more on imagination. Fine. You didn’t get to be a wildly successful skill coder by having no imagination, but Emilia’s imagination was code. Ones and zeros that slid their way into people’s minds for use, that code shuttering through the aether to write itself temporarily—hopefully, anyways—onto the code of the universe.
Casting magic while imagining what it was going to do without giving voice to what it was going to do? Fucking. Hard.
Impossible. It could very well be impossible, for someone like her.
Imagine the light magic gem glowing. Imagine it’s a lovely gold, lighting up the world like a glow bug, or a night light. Do not give voice to those thoughts. Vibes and intent and images only, and Emilia wanted to die.
It should be so simple. Even Astra could do it! Granted, no one was sure how she could do it, but still! The silent girl—who everyone had agreed was far younger than was normal to be using even basic magic, let alone the complicated stuff she was doing—was obviously a prodigy! It was probably why none of the other kids knew her. Her parents were hiding her away! Keeping her abilities a secret from the world! That would be fair, given what she’d learned about the Risen Guard swiping up the most skilled children for their ranks.
Emilia grumbled as she held out her wrist to Astra, letting the child reactivate the quickly fading light shimmering out of the one stone. Astra, at least, wasn’t rubbing the fact that her assistance was needed in her face. It still sucked. Even with all her knots, it wasn’t often that she had to rely on other people for help—not for anything as serious as this, anyways. Money, occasionally, and it was nice to have allies to do most of the hard lifting in raids, but at the same time, she didn’t actually need help with either of those things. She had money, even if she refused to access it, and she could take on raids alone, even if she hated them with a burning, undying passion. Needing a child’s help now for something that everyone said she should be able to figure out was terrible, and saying no wasn’t an option.
The world was dark, pitch-black save a few windows with the curtains closed to the light eating substance splattered over the ceiling high above them. Light peeked out behind those curtains, but they were so rare and dim that they were practically useless as they traversed the streets. Where they were traversing the mystery city’s streets to, none of them had any idea.
⸂We’ll follow the magic of the universe!⸃ Benny had confidently declared during the discussion that had ensued as they exited the labyrinth, and they’d realized no one recognized anything.
To Emilia’s general horror, practically all the homeless children had nodded along in agreement. The homed and outlier children seemed less enthusiastic, several even refusing to go along with such a stupid plan.
⸂Fine,⸃ Sawyer had said, shrugging as he led the homeless children away. ⸂Enjoy standing around. Hopefully no monsters come out of that door to eat you~⸃
The homed children had turned wide eyes on the labyrinth exit—or entrance? Random doorway? Emilia wasn’t sure if going back through it would take them back to the heartcore chamber or to the beginning of the labyrinth or what, and she wasn’t about to go see… That said, the little, impossibly curious part of her kinda wanted to go back and check. Just a little.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
⸂There… there were no monsters in there…⸃ one of the children had stammered, little foot stomping into the ground.
⸂Yes, there were,⸃ Gale had reminded them, glaring down at the child. ⸂Are you forgetful, or just plain stupid? A third of our group is gone because they lost to monsters!⸃
The reminder of both the monsters and their missing members had quieted the group. They had all been hoping to run into their missing members once they exited. The fact that there was no one to be found, and no sign anyone but them had exited before them was defeating, and combined with their fear of monsters chasing after them, the homed children had contented themselves to following Sawyer through town. Emilia, pulling up the rear with the slower children, had paused, pulling out her {Blood Dagger} and slashed a message across the wall nearest to their exit. Something for V to find, if he and the others found their way out of wherever they had ended up.
Occasionally, as they went, Sawyer would stop, his energy reaching out and winding through the aether looking for… something. When she wasn’t busying trying to empty her mind and send her own energy to the gems—she was hoping more walking meditation would work, ok?—Emilia sent little wisps of her no longer golden energy out to search the area and feel for what Sawyer was doing: looking for snags and cracks in the aethernet—or the universe, as the children called it.
It was an impressive skill, and one that certainly required a lot of concentration and attention to detail. Many of the cracks the boy followed were so subtle that, had her energy not been following the trail of his energy, she likely wouldn’t have noticed them herself.
Cracks and tears were common in her world. They’d always been there, some more dangerous than others. The Strats were the result of a long since sealed hole in the aethernet, pure aether converging into the visible world and creating the beautiful cliffs. As far as anyone knew, they were the result of a natural rip in the aethernet. If something had created it… well, the hole the Strats had come out of would have been even more extreme than the strange area created by the Corist during the Battle of Luxor, which was largely the result of tears through the area’s aethernet. To imagine some sort of skill—some attack or accident—having caused damage to the aether even worse than what had occurred in Luxor was unimaginable.
Damage to the aether was the norm for her world, these days. Most were minor rips and cracks in the aether, the result of decades of war. Usually, damage was quickly sealed up by the aether itself, but it wasn’t uncommon to feel ripples in it when your Censor and skills hit bigger ones. During the first days of the war, those ripples and tears had occasionally caused issues as skill failed to deploy due to too many scratches over the universe, and most skills had been updated to account for a less even surface.
The point was, it had never occurred to her to follow those tears, although perhaps it should have. The monsters during the war had followed them, their claws ripping holes bigger so they could fall through the aether. While sparking wasn’t quite so brutal, it still leveraged making holes in the aether to travel. The holes it created, however, were nothing—they were small enough for the aether to immediately stitch itself back together. Originally, there had been some concern that sparking could permanently damage the aethernet, but decades on, there was no sign of any such thing—it was one of the few bits of research Emilia kept up on, given she’d been instrumental in creating the skill.
SecOps, The Black Knot, various mobs and criminal organizations, the military and government; practically every group with any power in Baalphoria had tried to track people through their sparkmarks. None had ever gotten anywhere with it. That was as far as anyone got to letting the defects in the aethernet guide them, and it was fascinating watching Sawyer let such small marks guide their way.
The boy was so confident, not just in his use of his core and energy, but in his belief that he was doing the right thing—that the small line of damage across this world’s data was an intentional thread, leading him right or left or forward. Never back. They never needed to go back. The universe knew all, after all. Past and present, the future of everything.
At least, that’s what Benny had explained to her, eyes bright with facts that he had apparently learned from the same old grannies who taught the children forbidden magic.
⸂Does the universe care about all the shit happening in it?⸃ Gale growled out at him.
Emilia had figured it was just a matter of time before someone expressed annoyance that the universe was apparently aware of everything, guiding what happened, yet had turned a blind eye to the carnage of the blood curse. Similar things had been said in her own world during the war, after all, especially to those who practised religions with similar beliefs in all knowing, all controlling gods.
“Why does god, the universe, the aether, forsake us? Does it not care for all the destruction those monsters are wreaking on the world?”
It wasn’t surprising that such questions came up now, but Emilia was slightly surprised it was Gale who voiced her incredulity that Benny believed in such a seemingly malicious and apathetic universe.
⸂Of course,⸃ Benny replied, glaring over at her and the rest of the homed and outlier children.
Even as they’d gone on, their journey through the city so far shockingly smooth, the two groups had refused to accept that they were following some secret message in the fabric of the world. Unfortunately, it also seemed to be dividing the group back into simple groups of homed vs homeless. No more outliers. ⸂Everything happens for—⸃
Benny’s voice cut off as someone—although Emilia couldn’t figure out who—forcibly silenced him. The aether around the boy shuddered, and although he didn’t appear to be in any pain, he also couldn’t speak.
Their group halted, heads twisting as they looked for the source of the energy surrounding Benny.
⸂Who’s there!?⸃ Gale yelled, her previously contained voice echoing out through the street. They waited, but no reply came, and slowly, the energy surrounding Benny dissipated.
⸂We should go…⸃ Miira said, tugging on her friend’s arm. Sawyer had already begun to move again, the homeless children following behind like his own personal army. The homed children lingered around Gale, Miira, and to a lesser extent, Emilia—they were more afraid of the dark than the homeless kids, the primary reason she’d been keeping her light gem activated to spare them from the fear. ⸂We don’t want someone to poke their head out and find us…⸃
⸂Says who!?⸃ one of the most opinionated of the homed children demanded, tiny legs stomping forward until they were glaring at the slightly taller Miira. ⸂There are adults here! They could help us!⸃
⸂Yeah, could,⸃ Caro piped up. ⸂They could also do bad things to us! Or turn us over to the Risen Guard!⸃
⸂Then the guard will return us to our parents!⸃
⸂Assuming they’re they’re even still—⸃ Energy whipped through the street, wrapping itself around Caro and cutting off their words, just as it had Benny’s.
The eyes of the child Caro had been arguing with bulged—apparently they didn’t like the energy getting so close to them, the children standing practically nose to nose as they argued. Their mouth wobbled and before Emilia could grab them, they were bolting down the street and not in the direction the rest of their group had gone.
Emilia blinked into the darkness the child had just disappeared into, readjusting the kids in her arms. “Well… fuck.”