Adam woke to a crippling pressure pushing him into the ground. He felt like a building had been dropped on top of him. He groaned.
“Adam, you up?” A voice called from the side. “You think I should drop some water on him? Wait no, his armor is likely airtight and waterproof. I’ll just increased the gravitational force.”
Adam opened his eyes, finding himself face down in the dirt. He struggled to push to his knee’s noticing a faint crackling web of purple around him. Was this another crazy training they had come up with? It made sense he supposed. They did similar things to new recruits in the military, waking them at all hours of the nights to stressful situations.
“Oh god he’s moving again.” Finn said. “I’ll increase it some more.”
Adam felt like the very air around him was condensing into lead. The ground around him splintered and cracked around his gauntleted hand. Wait. He was wearing his armor? He hadn’t remembered doing that. The last he remembered he was…
“I’m awake.” Adam called. “If this isn’t some sort of training, can we stop with the gravitational bombardment.”
“Don’t listen to him Finn.” Ava said. “It’s just a trick. Throw some fire at him.”
“I’M UP” Adam yelled. He pushed himself to his feet through the increasing pressure. Finn was sweating now from holding the gravitational field, his teeth clenched. Adam grinned back at him, though Finn wouldn’t be able to see it through his helmet. He took an agonizingly slow step toward Finn, the weight making it feel like he was lifting a car with each step that followed.
“Now this is getting interesting.” Caius said, folding his arms as he stood by Ava. “I almost don’t even care to know what led to it.”
Adam ignored them and took one slow step after another toward Finn who had held up his other hand, purple rings pulsing brightly. The pressure on Adam intensified until it felt like every part of him was being compressed. His armor dug into his skin at sharp angles. Even his helm compressed against his skull causing his vision to blur.
Adam roared and pushed, feeling a pulse shoot through his body and into the space around him, pushing the pressure away from him. The purple webbing was still there but hovered a few inches away from him instead of compressing on his armor. Finn stumbled back, his head snapping back and arms dropping to his side.
“What’d you just do?” Finn exclaimed, blood dripping from his nose. “I feel like I just got hit in the face. Like a part of the gravitational force I was dropping on you was just pushed right back at me in a directed blow.”
Ava went to Finn’s side and placed a hand glowing with green healing energy on his shoulder. “It’s… hard to say. It almost seems like your soul was scratched. Not wounded but pushed against.”
Adam dropped to a knee, on hand on the ground the other on his chest. He felt suddenly exhausted, his lungs heaving as the sudden burst of energy had left him incredibly short of breath. Adam stared at the ground, noticing for the first time that this wasn’t where he had fallen asleep. He could just make out the tops of a few buildings over the corn stalks around him. The rippling dome above him was a dark blue hue, which was lighter than when he had gone to sleep. He guessed daylight, or whatever the equivalent of that here was coming. The three days he had spent here so far wasn’t enough to get a good grip on the light cycles when there wasn’t a sun to judge by.
“What… what happened?” Adam asked. His head throbbed inside his helmet.
“You tell us?” Ava huffed. “Have you been hiding things from us?”
Adam looked up at her, anger pulsed within him. It was like a flash of rage that came on and was gone just as quickly. Thankfully, he was smart enough to hold his tongue in the moment.
Finn wiped his nose with a handkerchief he pulled from his fanny pack. “Yeah that was weird. Maybe it’s a function of your armor, Adam? I wouldn’t be surprised since it’s a primordial’s skill.”
“Seems more likely than anything else.” Caius said, though didn’t sound convinced.
Adam honestly didn’t know what to think of it but knew it didn’t come from his armor. The only other answer was his soul skill, which he had absolutely know idea how to use. Even though Caius has said most skills gave the user an innate understanding of how to use them, he got absolutely nothing from it.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
“I don’t think it came from my armor skill.” Adam said. “I honestly don’t know what happened. One second, I was being crushed by Finn’s gravitational bombardment, the next it was as if there was an impenetrable field around me. Like an ozone that his skill couldn’t pass through. It only lasted for a moment though.”
“How intriguing!” Finn said. You could practically see the gears turning in his head. “Do you think you could replicate the process so I can study the dimensional fluctuations?” He had already began pulling stack of papers and writing utensils out. Oddly, he held something that looked extremely similar to a pen, but instead of ink, it was as if it burned the letters into the sheet.
“I really don’t think I can.” Adam said hurriedly. “Trust me, I wish I could. The only thing I can think of is my soul skill.”
“Well that sounds like a load of crap if you ask me.” Ava said.
“Ava.” Caius said. He seemed to have a tone that was specific for chiding her. Stern but soft. She glanced at him and nodded slightly, apparently letting the matter drop. “I think we have well established that Adam isn’t some sort of spy. Or if he is, he’s the universe’s best, or perhaps luckiest spy. “
“Definitely luckiest.” Finn said. He sat cross legged on the ground scribbling furiously on a sheet of paper.
“You really have no idea what happened?” Ava asked. “Soul trauma doesn’t happen easily. Usually it only occurs when someone greatly overdraws their Primordial Energy reserves or is cut off from Primordial Energy all together.”
“Wait.” Adam said. “How can someone overdraw their Primordial Energy? Isn’t there only so much you are able to use?”
“In general.” Caius said. “But you can force an activation of a skill if you are lacking sufficient Primordial Energy or infuse it with more energy than you are able to hold. The energy must come from somewhere though, and your soul is the conduit that connects you to the ambient Primordial Energy. By forcing an activation you overtax your soul, forcing it to use ambient Primordial Energy at a rate it can’t sustain without damage.”
“Soul damage.” Adam said, thinking it over. “Can’t Ava just heal you if that were to happen?”
Ava shook her head. “You really are the most clueless spy. No, you can’t just heal soul damage. It’s irreversible. It leaves the user permanently crippled. Overdrawing Primordial Energy is quite literally a death sentence to your ability to progress further on the path to Kingship.”
Finn looked up from his writing. ‘You should only do it as an absolute last resort. As in you are going to die anyways so you might as well go out with a bang.”
“Speaking of going out with a bang, you came about one step from crushing Finn earlier. I think he almost pissed himself.” Ava said, a grin appearing as she nudged Finn.
“Well, you weren’t the one that was nearly trampled by a stampeding, golden, titan.” Finn replied. He looked back toward Adam. “It didn’t take long to realize it wasn’t you in control. We tried to stop you, but it seemed the only way we could was by locking you down, hence the gravitational bombardment.”
“Sorry about that.” Adam said. “I guess I was sleepwalking and accidently summoned my armor.” Adam inwardly groaned. The dream, or I guess dreamworld meeting with the strange wolf, had come back to him. He knew he should tell them, but at the same time was terrified of what they might think or do. Talking about a skill was one thing, but what if it they took it as a sign that he was corrupted. He didn’t know if something like this was normal or not in their world.
“Do you remember anything?” Ava asked. “Must have been one hell of a dream to have you moving like that.”
A battle raged inside Adam as he debated what to tell them. He knew he was being a coward. Knew he should tell them what was happening. Adam had no reason not to trust them up to this point, but at the same time the thought of risking that feeling of contentment so soon after getting it back held him from speaking.
‘I… I don’t know. One second, I was falling asleep. Then…” He trailed off, shame filling him.
“I guess we can’t be too surprised you’d have a nightmare after the day you had yesterday. Let’s just try to keep the sleepwalking to a minimum.” Ava said.
Caius stood off to the side, one hand fingering the line of his jaw as he examined Adam. “We have a problem, though.” He said.
Adam’s heart skipped a beat. Did he somehow realize that he wasn’t telling the truth. Adam had no idea what means the prince could have or even what was possible in this new reality.
“This is a problem that normally doesn’t happen on our world because we learn about energy circulation at such a young age. It’s something we practice long before we ever obtain a skill.” Caius said. “Adam never got that training, so his unconscious mind was free to roam. We need to teach him how to lock away his skills before sleeping so this doesn’t happen again. Thankfully he just has an armor summoning ability at this point, but if was an attacking skill, Finn could have been impaled, or worse.”
“What could be worse than being impaled?” Finn said. “That’d be a horrid way to be woken up.”
“I know a Duke who can conjure a mini sun that shoots solar flares from its surface. Waking up to a torching heat to be incinerated a moment later sounds worse to me.” Ava said.
Adam’s brows rose. “She can literally conjure a sun that burns people for her?” Ava nodded without the faintest hint that she was making it up. It only proved to Adam that he needed to figure out what this all meant before letting the team know what he saw in his dream. He couldn’t risk losing the first shred of meaning he had found in his life in a long time.
“I know her.” Caius said. “It’s more of a fire ball of molten lava that she conjures and uses the contents to attack.”
“Semantics” Ava said dismissively. “It’s a massive ball of fire that burns everything to a crisp.”
“Yeah, I agree. That sounds way worse than being impaled.” Finn said, his voice muffled. He had pulled a large corn off a stalk and was currently devouring it, vibrant purple juice spilling down his chin.”
Caius shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. The point is we need to teach Adam how to better control his energy even while he’s sleeping so this doesn’t happen again.” He looked toward Adam. “We also need to figure out whatever you did at the end to Finn. I’ve never seen anyone without a retaliation skill rebuff someones ability like that.”
“Yeah, what’d you do to me? If I hadn’t been so focused on trying to crush you into the ground, I would have loved to get a look at the dimensional disturbance. Every skill has some sort of interaction with our layer of reality.”
“Our layer of reality?” Adam asked?
“Yes!” Finn nodded enthusiastically. “You see, we currently”
“For the love of all that is good.” Ava complained. “Can you do this when I’m not around and stay on topic.”
Finn grinned unabashedly back at her.
Adam thought back to the tremendous pressure forcing his armor in on him. He honestly had no idea what happened. He just knew he had to force his way through, to push off whatever it was Finn was doing. “I… I’m not sure exactly.” The others continued to stare at him, clearly expecting more. “I just knew I wanted the pressure gone. I really don’t know what happened. I would tell you if I did.”
“Hmm.” Caius said. “I guess we’ll just have to think on it. For now, let’s teach you how to control the flows of energy so you don’t inadvertently kill one of us in the middle of the night.” He grinned and patted Adam’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, every five-year-old in Allaris can do this.”