Where aqua was among the more common of affinities, many people being born in the warm embrace of spring, spatium was among the rarer ones, the cold of fall and winter often killing children before they could achieve any level of control.
It was a heartless affinity, wielding it made sure that one would encounter horrors beyond our wildest understanding, the test could have been just about anything, but when I regained sight, a stone corridor with multiple opportunities to turn into other tunnels.
The second thing I noticed was a guy right next to me, probably the one I had latched onto on my way here, his soul a bit damaged from the sudden contact, and as he tried to orient himself, a message appeared.
The labyrinth of spatium is an all against all fight. Your final ranking will be influenced by the progress of opening the portal out, and the amount of people living longer than you.
As I read this, I opened the list of spatium runes I had access to.
Tier 1 runes
Rune
Description
Move
Spatium
Open
Spatium
Close
Spatium
Tier 2 Runes
Rune
Description
Spatium
Warp
Spatium
Connect
Spatium
With a glance, I knew I had to get creative, casting open pocket on him, immediately opening every fabric based container he had on himself, the effect seen for no more than a second before it stopped having a proper effect.
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If I attacked him physically, his soul would suffer, the only reason I continued fumbling for some form of attack.
Open warp was my next attempt, a part of him twisting in absolutely disgusting ways, turning him inside out one small piece at a time.
Needless to say, that got his attention, the pain enough to make the stranger turn around, a quick hit of his heading for my face, and the way space twisted around his attack, I knew he was using spatium to ensure it would connect.
“Connect?” I ask, a sudden realization dawning on me as I dodged, casting ‘connect pocket’ and making his hand come from the bag of money I always had around my waist, the surprise of this spells result allowed me to punch him in the face properly, casting close move to freeze him, my punch connecting with his frozen form, a quick spell of his breaking mine, the release suddenly pushing him right past me as every bit of kinetic energy was released upon him at once.
It was quite hilarious to watch him fly past me, only for my warp move spell to disorient him.
Like before, I closed the distance to deal a punch right to his face. And like before, he managed to shake my spell off two seconds after my casting.
“We could work together, you know?” He asked, and I raised my eyebrows, taking a step back and preparing to freeze and punch him at the next opportunity.
“I am mostly the sneaky kind, and you seem pretty good at direct violence and brute forcing your solutions If you engage people in direct combat, I can sneak behind them and take them out for you. In the end, we give each other a solid fight again.” He continued, and a sharp nod on my part had his grin split the world.
I knew he just wanted to push away the inevitable, but I loved that kind of cat and mouse play. Right now, we are equal, and with him as a temporary ally, I once again held some kind of advantage.
“We follow the right-hand principle.” I tell him, simply doing so without explaining it, with me sometimes looking behind just to assure me he was still there, his presence barely registering at all, probably one of the reasons I hadn’t talked to him so far.
My hand remained on the cold stone to my right, and after what felt like an eternity on this path, I suddenly saw a shift in the spatium before us, making me halt my breath and press against the wall.
“Why is this thing so damn dark? I mean, it's good, but absolutely unnecessary. Gods damn it, what are we supposed to do, feel the walls with magic?” I heard the string of curses before the pale, long haired figure entered my sight, squinting her eyes as she finally approached close enough to see me, a quick warp movement and open warp had her flailing for a few seconds, while my unnamed companion jumped her, a simple close rune on her mouth and open rune on her neck resulted in a small cut appearing, while I alternated close move and warp move.
The teamwork was quite impressive to behold, her spells missing at best and not going off at worst.
I simply stunned her while my companion decided to hit her head over and over, until she felt unconscious.
It was a feral sight, and as he was about to kill her properly, I stunned him, instead heading towards her and stomping down on the neck.
“We don’t need to be cruel, a simple kill for the teachers to reanimate is better, and if you’ve got someone on the ground, swift violence is better. And you called me a brute, I feel a bit offended at that.” I tease, the mostly unknown boy blushing in shame as we proceeded.
“At least tell me you had some martial arts lessons, and aren’t just using your magic to make your blind flailing connect at least a bit.”
I ask, and he proceeded to visibly wonder.
“Don’t answer that, I just watched your spells take hold. You would have missed half those hits if you hadn’t forced a ‘connect move’ into all your spells.” He tried to answer as I proceeded, instead following the path before me, always staying to the right, until I felt a small difference in the spatium lining the next room.
“This is a trap. Can you at least get rid of those? I don’t plan on dying a gruesome death just because none of us know how to properly disarm a weapon swinging from the wall or something.”
He nodded at that, quickly getting his nimble fingers to work on the ground, testing for pressure plates and tripwires, until it was finally done.
As he stood on the other side, I decided to create the ‘move close’ spell, casting it as a basic teleportation towards a target I could see, in this case, my unnamed companion.
“Good job, you ok with being called skulk?” I ask, ready to give him this title, only for him to grin.
“If I can call you brute, that’s fine with me. Still can’t believe the power behind your punches. What age are you? Eight?” He asks, to a quick nod on my part.
“Pretty much, six months missing till that birthday, and you?” I ask, both of us proceeding further, until we heard the sounds of multiple footsteps.
“I tell you, boss, if we just continue to acquire more followers, the end fight will be even harder. We can’t win with more than four people.” A gruff voice exclaimed, and an even deeper one agreed.
“Listen, if you want to say these people aren’t loyal, tell me one who wants to kill me, or I assume you are merely projecting your own disloyalty. I am the chosen one, I control light, space and time, why would anyone want to see me dead?” He asked, and my hunger just got a tad bit worse than it already was. He did, in fact, have one of the juiciest souls I had ever seen, probably still in the first refinement, but with at least seven tiers. I knew I would ascend if I ate it, finally reaching that seventh tier, and we could see what happens if a soul is missing from a resurrected body.
I was drooling, and yet I decided to stop my urges, the danger of being expelled too big to give in just yet.
Slowly, skulk and I creep towards the group, my friend casting a close on his mouth while I used close movement to stop him from drawing attention.
Then I cast move close on him, teleporting right behind the target and choking it out, before stomping their throat.
We killed three of their men in this way, four people remaining when they finally noticed our attack, the two of us hidden in a close intersection as I cast connect pocket on my money pouch, choosing the leaders pocket and rummaging through it, quickly stealing a weirdly colored liquid and a small amount of coins before ending the spell.
We did that to the others as well, more and more of their belongings now ours, their lighter purses not noticed in the paranoia of having someone kill their allies without being detected.
At some point, they began walking back to back, leaving no entrance unseen, and then, I teleported between them. I shattered the liquid above the leaders head and used the shards to slam one into his smallest minions throat. When he whirred around to look for the source of his wet hair, he saw the bleeding man, and like an idiot, he pulled out the shard and began rummaging through his pocket.
It seemed, I had just used his healing potion.