I ragdoll through the air for one horrifying moment. Paradoxically, I have a perfectly steady view of my body falling to its inevitable doom as the orb I’m using to see through floats peacefully nearby. It’s absurd. I want to laugh—or maybe that’s the panic. The ground floor is rushing up to me alarmingly fast, and I don’t have time to think about it.
I seize my glass. All of it. As much as I can hold in my mind, as complex as I can imagine it. Float, damn you, float, float, float!
And the void reacts, too. It scatters then reforms, infinitesimally small pieces snapping into every Chained joint, stopping my haphazard flails as each limb locks abruptly into place. And for one moment, I can see it all: the whole, instead of individual pieces. Like it’s just one continuous form. I latch onto this, mentally grabbing my body and throwing it to the side. I clip the banister as I fling myself back onto a floor and go rolling across the ground.
I feel my limbs break.
[10 points of Fall Damage sustained. 3 points of Bludgeoning Damage sustained. 7 points of Bludgeoning Damage sustained. 2 points of Bludgeoning Damage sustained. 23 points of Sundering Damage sustained.]
My health plummets as my foot breaks off—fingers shatter—my forearm cracks. I roll to a stop, stunned and aching, as the floor erupts into chaos around me. People are yelling and scattering, running every which way as pages flutter through the air. I dimly wonder how pissed the librarian is going to be.
No time to rest. I roll myself over, carefully cataloging the location of each injury as I Check myself.
[HP: 8/10]
[Temp HP: 225/315]
[Mana: 11/56]
At least my core was mostly spared. No time to celebrate, though. I’m nearly out of mana—I need to find Zyneth, fast.
What floor am I even on? I look wildly around as I grab my broken foot and hastily Sculpt it back in place. It’s crooked, but that’s the least of my worries. Looking out across the spiral, I can’t see the top ceiling or the ground floor: I must be somewhere in the middle, but am I above or below Zyneth? I guess it doesn’t matter. I need to get down and out of here ASAP.
I pick myself up, briefly trying to levitate as I had just a minute before—although perhaps levitate is a strong word for “threw myself at a wall.” But that moment of mental clarity is past, and the void has returned to bracing the joints in my legs and back. An enigma for another time. I begin limping after the library patrons, who in turn flee from me, screaming. That’s fair.
I’ve barely made it half a loop when I hear a familiar voice. “Kanin!”
Relief floods through me as Zyneth sprints down the slope toward me. So I’m under floor twenty then. Good: less floors between me and a hasty escape.
Concern is plastered over his face. “What in the world is going on?” he asks, taking in all of my injuries. His enchanted blades are in his hands faster than I could see him draw them. “How did you get down here? And where the blazes is your head?”
“Help me get out of here first,” I say. “Give me a hand.”
Zyneth doesn’t even miss a beat. He slings my arm over his shoulder as he lifts the side my crooked foot is on, and then we’re off, me struggling to keep up.
Once again I’m struck by how quick Zyneth is to jump into action. How he never questions me when I ask for help. It’s always act first and figure out the details later. I guess he’s a lot like Noli in that respect. What did I do to deserve people like them in my life?
I tighten my grip on his shoulder, leaning into his support.
“There is some crazy mage up there,” I say as we rush down the library. “Raz. An artificer or something. He is strong—very strong. Destroyed my head—wanted to take me apart and see how I worked.”
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
“What?” Zyneth snaps. His grip on me tightens, his face contorting from concern into rage. There’s a tremble in his voice when he speaks. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this mad before. “What does he look like? Tell me everything.”
A burst of flame sweeps over us. I stumble to the side as Zyneth slashes a hand through the air, dispelling the wall of fire. Raz is right behind it, jetting down from an upper floor to land heavily on the railing only ten feet away.
“He looks about like that,” I say.
Zyneth lets go of my arm and steps in front of me, facing down the fire mage.
“Bastard,” Raz spits, literally, as foam flecks his lips. “How dare you raise a hand against me!” He pulls his hands apart, summing a blindingly bright ball of fire as heat spills across the floor. “Get out of the way, fool!”
Zyneth glances back at me out of the corner of his eye. “This isn’t insanity, this is some kind of vendetta. What in Tora’s name did you do?”
“Me?” I cry. “I was just defending myself! I did not do anything.”
Nearly done forming whatever doomsday weapon he’s summoning, Raz narrows his eyes with a growl. Well, just the one eye. The other is shut and covered in burnt and blackened skin.
“Oh, I also might have burned out his eye.”
Raz roars, firing his weapon at both of us. I take a step back as Zyneth brandishes his knives, lightning crackling off the blades and meeting the fire blasts midair with rapid concussive explosions. I stagger away, raising a defensive arm, as the two clash.
Watching them fight is something else. This is some Dual of the Fates shit. They’re forces of nature, fire and lightning deflecting off in every direction. The ceiling begins to rain on us as several bookshelves catch flame, like some kind of magical automatic sprinkler system, but it can’t keep up with Raz’s blasts of fire. I just try to stay back, stay out of the way, and avoid getting struck by any stray shots.
Zyneth is a blur of movement, agile and precise, but Raz is a higher level. I saw his mana stores. If it’s a battle of attrition, Zyneth won’t win. He needs to end it now, or it won’t end on our terms.
I don’t know what to do. I feel like Zyneth’s lightning is coursing through me, like every inch of me is electrified, itching to move, to run, to fight, to do something. I hate the idea of leaving Zyneth behind, but maybe fleeing is the right call. It would get Raz focused on me, maybe give Zyneth an opening. My hands twitch, indecisive.
Raz cuts around another one of Zyneth’s attacks, blasting a fire ball point-blank into his hand. Zyneth’s dagger goes flying. Before he can raise the other, Raz already has a second fireball leveled at his face.
“Lightbeam!”
My glass instantly reacts, snapping into place as I funnel the last of my mana into the attack and the blinding white light sears through the air and into the fire mage. He reels back with a cry.
[9 points of Light Damage dealt.]
[Mana depleted.]
The light vanishes as quickly as it appeared, but Zyneth doesn’t waste my effort. He surges forward before Raz has an opportunity to recover, delivering a strike to his temple and a slash across his open hand. Electricity bursts across his form as the mage collapses to the ground.
Zyneth stands over him, panting. I’m feeling mentally exhausted myself, all the injuries of the last few minutes catching up to me in a cacophony of a thousand tiny aches. Cautiously, I make my way over to Zyneth.
“At least that’s over,” he says, wiping his brow on his forearm and sheathing his knife. The rain has plastered Zyneth’s hair across his forehead and neck, and is streaking across my vision in blurry lines. “I can’t take you anywhere, can I?”
I send some of my glass over to retrieve Zyneth’s disarmed knife and float it back to him. He takes it with a gracious nod.
“Is he unconscious?” I ask.
“Just dazed,” Zyneth says, even as Raz groans. “Where is the librarian? This is unacceptable.”
I’m still standing there, wondering what the hell a librarian could be expected to do about all of this, when Raz abruptly flicks out a hand.
“Watch out!” Zyneth shoves me back. Pain lances across my chest and arm, skimming past me as the item embeds itself in a nearby bookshelf: the fire knife Raz had used on me before.
[7 points of Searing Damage sustained.]
“Shit!” Zyneth slams his boot into Raz’s stomach, and the mage gasps as the blow flips him over onto his front. Zyneth drops a knee on his back, grabbing his hands and quickly binding them with a severed bit of spider silk that had been used to string the lights.
My chest aches. I bring my hand away from my flask, and for a dizzying moment, I don’t understand what I’m looking at.
Ink. Black ichor is spilled over my fingers and dripping from the gash in the bag that’s holding my flask. I sway unsteadily, static creeping into my mind. Horror prickles up my limbs even as I watch, and the black begins to drip up. A toothy smile presses into my consciousness.
My soul lurches with fear and disbelief. No, it can’t be—it’s gone, it’s stuck in my inventory, it can’t be back—
“Kanin?” Zyneth asks, watching me. His eyes are on the void, pinched with concern. He starts to stand up.
“Get back!” I stumble away, holding a hand out defensively. “Run, get out of here, get everyone else away—”
I convulse as another sharp pain lances through my core, stabbing through my vial like a heart attack, and the predator seeps into the world.