I swirl my glass and void around me—thank god both of those came with—and desperately try not to panic. My glass touches nothing. My void senses only water around us, as far as it can reach, in any direction. There’s no sign of the Prismatic. Thick, oppressive silence presses in on me from every side. The predator’s presence swells again, alert and violent, trying to take control so it can lash out at our unseen assailant.
I activate my Glow spell on its lowest brightness, attempting to stay grounded. Focusing on the spell is as much to distract myself from the predator as it is my own fear.
I can sense my signing glass rearrange itself into a sphere as a small ball of light blooms into existence at its center. The waters around me illuminate with the white light, revealing…
Nothing. The darkness goes on forever.
I’m lost.
Okay. Okay, okay. Don’t panic. Don’t think about the unending darkness. Don’t think about the creatures that might be out there, watching me from the black. Don’t think about how helpless and vulnerable I am. Don’t think about Zyneth’s spell and his steadily draining mana and how I’m about to be crushed into little glass dust.
Actually maybe I really need to think about that last one.
I check my timer:
[Three minutes and twenty-one seconds remaining.]
I fucking panic.
I spear my void into the dark, stretching, reaching as far as I can manage, desperate to touch something, anything. I’m overwhelmed by the instinct to move, to rush back to safety, but I don’t know which way the Prismatic is. I don’t even know which way is up or down. Any attempt to find safety might be leading me in the opposite direction. Fear paralyzes me, constricting around my soul. I’m going to die. I’m going to die out here, alone in the dark.
The predator wrenches control from me before I even have a chance to react.
No! I grab for it, but I’m still so panicked, so scattered, that it bats me aside without a second glance. The void swirls around us like a hurricane, spreading out four times as far as I’d managed on my own. It’s thin—terribly stretched, nearly so diluted it risks being swept away by the ocean currents. But the predator doesn’t flinch. It’s searching, its focus as rigid as iron. I feel like a fly knocking against a window. Oh god. It’s locked me out. It’s just like Peakshadow—I can’t get control—
There. The predator’s attention latches onto something our void touched—a stream of null arcana. It leaps toward the magic, propelling us forward, recalling all the feelers of void it had put out into the dark to funnel more magic into the null current. I catch a glimpse of its intentions, and my already fraying sanity takes another hit.
We can’t go into the null current, I say, unsure if it even hears me. What if it cuts me in half? What if it—no, wait, stop!
The predator plunges us in. I can feel the magic crackling at me, stinging through our void—but none of it touches my glass. The predator has wrapped a protective layer of void around us, keeping the wild magic from touching me directly. I didn’t even know it could do that. The predator leaks self-satisfaction across our bond.
Yeah, yeah. Show off.
My immediate panic subsides into a more general, existential dread. I may not be about to be sliced in half by wild teleportation magic, but the time limit is still ticking down by the second.
I can’t control any of that, though. Instead, I focus on what the predator’s doing.
Our void is spreading through the null arcana. Flowing along the current, branching into other streams. Its range is incredible. Bigger even than what we had been doing moments before. The null arcana is boosting our abilities—not just the range, but our sensations, too. We look through our void, opening and closing our sight along dozens of different points, searching for any hint of light in the dark.
The power the null arcana gives us is intoxicating. We could Attune more of it. With our void to hold it stable, we wouldn’t have to worry about it damaging our core. And with more Attuned void at our disposal, we would be capable of far more powerful abilities.
A distant, yellow glow. We focus more of our void in that direction, trying to get a better look. There’s motion. A large shape and flickering lights: The Prismatic, its limbs splayed around it like hair, and dozens of tempo squids blinking in and out of existence all around. They’re under attack.
[…ne minute and ten seconds remaining.]
Our glass is still far away from this stream of void we’re watching through, however. Now that we have some idea of where the ship is, we also have some sense of scale—and our core is much, much too far. Even if we propel it through the water as fast as we’re able, it would take several minutes to get back.
Problematic. But if the pathetic squid creatures could do it…
We compress the void nearest the Prismatic. The darkness swirls tighter, smaller, condensing in on itself in a whirl of building pressure. At the same time, we pull the void tight around our core.
Wait, what are we doing?
Darkness overtakes us as our vision switches off; it takes too much focus to force the wild null arcana to assist with our spell. But with its power to boost our own, linking the two points of space becomes possible. Not easy, but possible.
This doesn’t seem like a good idea—
The points of spacetime connect like magnets snapping together, and we again feel that disorienting lurch like we’d felt before, when the tempo squid had grabbed us—
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
A blur of color spins wildly around us before we arrest our spiral and come to a stop, facing the Prismatic. Much of our void is behind us still, in distant null currents, still heading our way. But we’re here. We made it back.
[…-ty-three seconds remaining.]
Our glass cracks.
[...reduced to 95%.] Echo’s voice is distant, but we understand enough to be alarmed. We might have made it back to Prismatic, but we still need to make it onto the ship.
[…amage reduction reduced to 93%.]
[3 points of Crushing Damage sustained.]
We don’t wait for it to tick any lower.
The void propels us forward as the water squeezes our glass. What we couldn’t even feel before is becoming a mounting pressure. Gillow had warned us not to move quickly around the tempo squids, but we don’t have time—or patience—for caution. We wrap what little void we have around our core, sharpening the shadows into blades and sending them spinning around us like a fucking ninja throwing star as we torpedo our way back toward the Prismatic. A tempo squid appears in front of us, and we tear through it like wet paper. The crack in our glass spreads.
And then we’re bursting through the Prismatic’s cargo window, falling to the deck as Gillow shouts in surprise. The void cushions our blow, slowing our roll until we come to a haphazard stop in the middle of the room.
“Kanin.” Zyneth slumps against a wall. “Oh, thank the gods.”
[Crushing damage reduction charm ended. Thermal damage reduction charm ended.]
The faint glow around us vanishes.
“Great,” Gillow says, grunting from their position at a spell console along the wall. “Finally, someone who isn’t useless. Get over here and help me kill these squids!”
We start to pull our mind away, but we’re stopped.
No, not yet. Our void is still navigating back through the null currents. If we separate now, our range will shrink—we’ll lose the Attuned void that’s still out there.
Maybe that’s not the worst thing. We try to pull away again, but the other half of us won’t let us go.
“Kanin?” Zyneth calls. “You’re being quiet again. Speak to me.”
Our translator is back within range, but focusing on it is difficult while also wrestling with ourself. We don’t have time to fight—the ship is under attack. Let us go!
Not if we’ll lose our void. Wait.
“Trying,” we say, the word echoing from the translator stiff and terse. “We’re busy.”
Zyneth swears under his breath, pushing off the wall and hurrying over to our body.
We want to help fight those animals? Then patience. Our void is almost back. Just another moment.
“Would one of you two fucking do something?” Gillow demands. “I’ve got my arms full over here!”
Zyneth grabs the knife off our belt and hurries back over to us. He throws the blade to the ground, which skids up to our glass. Our void shies away.
“Take it,” Zyneth says, drawing his own blade and using it to gesture toward us. “Quickly now.”
Half of us understands what he’s trying to do—so all of us understands. At first we’re angry—he’s trying to take our void away! But then we have a better idea.
We snatch the knife up with our void, but don’t activate the spell in the blade. Instead we aim it at the window, and then in one swift move, launch it out into the sea.
Zyneth stares at us, open-mouthed. “Did you just—You threw away my knife!”
“No,” we say, still struggling to get the words out. They feel so strange to us. So unnatural and foreign. Speech itself is at once familiar and strangely abstract. “Lightning.”
Our void finally catches up. Energized by the null arcana, it’s crackling with potential—capable of so much more than usual. It grabs the knife, slicing through the nearest squid.
“What?” Zyneth says.
We don’t have any void left on us—it’s all in the waters outside—so we point to his blade with our glass. “Use lightning!”
He finally seems to put it together. Zyneth activates his Attunement, electricity crackling down the length of the blade. And outside, in the water, we activate the spell to pull his lightning through.
Electricity erupts from our knife, lancing through the sea. We slice through tempo squids even as they teleport away, and with the null arcana empowering us, our void holds on, teleports with them, and finishes the job. Our blade is disappearing and reappearing all around the ship, cutting through and electrifying the squid, one by one.
[Level Up!] Words appear in our vision, but we brush them away, maintaining our focus outside. It happens again a minute later. And again.
Light flashes in through the windows of the Prismatic in a silent display of fireworks. Gillow stops what they’re doing, letting go of their spell circles to watch. Neither Zyneth or Gillow speak as we finish the creatures off.
It’s only when our void flows back in through the window, carrying the knife with it, that we release the grip on our mind. The void puddles around us and we use the opportunity to start to pull free, finding the seam in our mind, the line that’s growing ever harder to distinguish. Unsticking ourself comes with a series of tiny stings, like slowly peeling off a scab.
[EXP threshold reached,] Echo says as I finally let her talk.
[Name: Kanin]
[Class: Wizard]
[Level: 17]
[HP: 10/10]
[Temp HP: 328]
[Mana: 111/111]
[Bonus Mana: 512]
[Role: Homunculus]
Level seventeen. Okay. At least the level ups healed my glass. That’s… something.
I turn my attention to the predator next.
[Predator Time Limit: 32.9 hours]
[Predator Influence: 33%]
It went up. I guess I should have known mixing all the extra void in with my magic would do something. I slide Zyneth’s knife across the floor and away from us, still worried the predator might try something—and frankly surprised it hasn’t already.
It saved us—again. And then it wouldn’t let me go. I should have been stronger than that. I’m the more dominant mind. I shouldn’t have let my panic weaken my will as much as it did. What if it had burned a few of our preciously low seconds trying to pull more of itself from my inventory? Would I have been strong enough to stop it?
Subdued, I move all my glass and void back over to my body. The void pours beneath the clothes as I take control of the glass, and I begin propping it up like a possessed puppet. It’s not until I’m standing once more, checking over all my limbs and joints, that I realize the others are staring.
Gillow takes a breath. “What the shit.”
“Did you get enough null arcana?” I ask, too weary to get into it with them right now.
“You destroyed them,” Gillow says, clasping their hands behind their head. “You just murdered them all. Where’s that been this whole time? Why’d you even have to go out there to gather the null arcana? Your range is huge!”
“Was,” I say. Now that the predator isn’t running things, the range of my void is back to just a dozen feet or so to any side. But Gillow doesn’t need to know that. “I’m going to go rest in my cot. You two have everything from here?”
“Now, hold up,” Gillow says. “You just did some things that deserve an explanation. You have to—hey, wait!”
I’m already leaving. I don’t have the bandwidth for this conversation. I need space. I need to gather myself—before I fall apart.
“Kanin,” Zyneth says, following me out.
This time, I do stop. “Please don’t ask me if I’m alright.”
He doesn’t. Wordlessly, he holds out a hand, and I take it. It doesn’t really feel like holding hands—not like when I had my real body. My fingers don’t fold into the shape of his grasp or radiate any heat. They’re cold and unyielding. But it’s almost the familiar, comforting touch of human connection. It’s almost what I need.
Zyneth squeezes my hand. “We’re going to get you home. We’re so close.”
It should be what I want to hear, but instead it just makes me feel like my soul is being torn in half. I touch my freehand to my vial—to the crack that’s now healed, but I can still feel running through it. “I need to lay down.”
We both know I don’t.
“Okay,” he says.
We walk the rest of the way in silence.