Elemental magic.
It wasn’t quite what Lilijoy had expected. She had watched her friends learn and struggle at the Academy, had heard their tales and those of others around her. A year to understand a new Clade, months to raise a Spell from Apprentice to Journeyman. A Source was supposed to be like a door propped open by the wielder's mana, the Clade a screen that filtered what came through into energy that could be shaped by the Class and finally packaged and polished by the Spell itself.
All those components were there for her, but the metaphors… weren’t. There was no door, no screen. Instead of some external source, her earth magic seemed to have become entwined, integrated even, with her soul vortex. It wasn’t the same as the relationship between her diamond mana and Nandi’s boon though. Her emotions didn’t fuel the elemental power as much as resonate with it, creating feedback loops that allowed her to feel her way around the different aspects of the element. It was as if the complexity of the word ‘feel’ itself had been simplified, unifying touch and emotion.
Mass had a texture of stubborn, or rather a spectrum of resistance and compliance. Matter, sang of the bonds, the relationships between layers of structure across a range of scale. It felt satisfied, content and confident, all of those and their opposites. This then blurred into Aspect, the process of identity, which she still didn’t understand. It felt both glorious and tragic, as if the very act of becoming sacrificed all else that might have been, or perhaps that creation made destruction inevitable.
She understood that these must be Clades. Indeed, her character sheet told her as much
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Magic
Source:
Earth: Journeyman (5)
Clade:
Mass: Journeyman (5)
Matter: Apprentice (3)
Aspect: Initiate (2)
Class:
Fused: Apprentice (3)
Shaped: Initiate (2)
Spell:
Barrier: Initiate (2)
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It was a mystery to her why her earth magic was so… top-heavy. She suspected it was due to the strange interaction between her soul vortex and the earth source, that she might have absorbed far more from the emerald than she was really supposed to. When she focused on her lone spell, Barrier, she could tell that it drew in turn from Shaped, Matter, and of course Earth. The knowledge of how to cast it felt just out of reach, a memory that just needed one bit of context to come surging forth. That didn’t worry her, as her environment in the white death-space was pretty much context free.
After she had waited out her time in the white and respawned amid the rocks and boulders far beneath the chamber’s windows, she immediately began playing with her new toy. As she had suspected, just being around stone and earth gave her all the context she needed. She could now sense the spell as a package, a prefabricated unit that required little from her other than decisive will and a few gestures. It felt like it wasn’t quite hers, not really, but that didn’t stop her from enjoying the fact that she had it in her grasp.
She soon discovered that there was plenty to learn about, and from, the new spell.
Barrier, she thought as she prepared to cast for the first time. Like a wall, I guess. Seems generic enough, good for crowd control. How about… there!
She visualized a moderately-sized wall about ten feet across and five feet high and made what she hoped was the appropriate gesture. Immediately she saw a fuzzy outline, more or less wall-shaped. She stared for a moment curious to see how the spell might unfold, but with her first blink, the wall vanished, leaving her wondering if she had imagined it.
Clearly, I’m missing a step or two. She checked her mana well and found nothing missing. I guess it never fired off. Maybe there’s more than one step?
She had been under the impression from Magpie’s tales that the spells from the Trial sources worked regardless of the ignorance of the user, but that seemed not to be the case with hers. It was a tiny wrinkle though, for she drew upon knowledge of a thousand videogames, and tens of thousands of fantasy novels for her second attempt, and this spell that was not truly hers was cut from that same cloth.
This time she used the gesture to create the exact wall framework she envisioned, drawing it upon her sight. The wall appeared, or rather an outline of a wall, visible only to her she assumed, and before it could dissipate, she slammed her own mana into the spell structure within her mind, observing the intricate flow from Spell to Class to Clade, where her own energy was converted into a call upon the Source, and then the flow back out, power shuttling between each of the aspects not once, but multiple times in loops of feedback and calibration, before finally departing her control and flowing into the outline of the wall before her.
What happened next, expected as it was, still made her squeal with joy and clap her hands. The stone and earth beneath the virtual wall thrust forth as if sucked into the mold she had created. When the spell was complete, her barrier stood, a fusion of the same rocks littering the slope beneath it. Residual earth mana reinforced the structure, and she could see it steadily, though slowly, dissipating.
Guess I won’t be building my next house with this spell, she noted.
Curious to see what would become of her creation, she sat herself down and practiced her Body Manipulation skill while she waited for the mana to finish evaporating. After a few minutes the wall began to slump and collapse, the rocks and particles loosing cohesion. Watching the process felt a bit like watching time and weather take its toll on a vastly accelerated scale, and after another minute passed, all that remained was a pile of rubble. She was intrigued that the spell did leave a permanent, or so it seemed, mark on the landscape; if she made a large enough wall the residual pile alone would have a decent defensive property.
For the next hour, she practiced building walls of varying shapes and sizes. She could channel a maximum of sixty mana into the spell, and by trial and error she was able to determine that it cost her about one mana point for every eight cubic feet, and that standard principles of structure and architecture applied, though she could bend them a bit at a greater cost. Taller walls needed a thicker base, which limited her a bit, and the control gestures didn’t allow for much detail beyond height and width. Still it was an impressive spell, and her largest wall was quite substantial, almost forty feet long and ten feet tall. She also discovered that she could could keep her walls from collapsing with a continuous trickle of mana, which took only a little attention, for her anyway.
Between experiments, while she waited for her mana to regenerate, she also practiced her Body Warp ability. Previously, she had only used it for moving into and within the Trial Space, but now she had some time to herself and the ability to create a custom obstacle course.
It worked just as she thought it would, allowing her to transport herself through any space she could fit her hand through, or even a finger, if she extended it with her Body Modification.
I could be the world’s greatest thief, she realized. As long as there’s a good sized keyhole or a gap under a door.
Using the ability repeatedly was exhausting. The Inside didn’t seem to have cooldowns on abilities as such, but there were organic limits, fatigue that was as much emotional as physical, that felt almost like burnout. After moving herself back and forth through a two inch gap between walls of her own creation several times, she began to feel a strong sense of apathy, almost disgust towards using the ability. She was able to override it with her system, but she didn’t know if there might be hidden consequences, so she resolved to be cautious and only use that method of circumvention when absolutely necessary.
She would have stayed there playing with her new powers for much longer, but the problem of Lowly kept intruding on her thoughts. She wanted to be close at hand if he was somehow able to return to his body or otherwise start to communicate. She also was beginning to feel a little guilty about abandoning Skria and Jess on the Boiling Plains, though she was still hoping to find a non-dying method for her return trip, especially since respawning at the falls would leave her far from where she had been when she left.
Well, she thought, If I’m going to die every time I get a source, I might as well get something else from it, like a ticket back to the boiling plains. I guess not dying would also be an acceptable outcome.
With the smallest of efforts, she cast herself back to the source chamber, and found herself looking out the window over a landscape filled with long piles of rubble, the remains of the many walls she had created. She couldn’t help but think of the Piles she had grown up next to, and some tiny part of her mind began crunching how much mana it would take to recreate that particular range of broken, glassy material.
It was a bit strange to see the ram portion of the statue without the green gem between its horns. The ram almost looked angry, its eyes narrower than she remembered, its lips pulling back from broad, square teeth.
Do rams even have that expression? she wondered. Just to check her sanity, she pulled up a vivid picture of the ram from her memories before she had taken the source and overlaid it on her vision. Yup. Definitely pissed off the ram statue. Huh.
She took a moment to look over the fish, some kind of carp with long tendrils flowing from its mouth, laid flat along its black scales. It didn’t look particularly upset to her, but then, she wasn’t sure just what would make a fish look angry in the first place. Putting the fish from her mind, she considered the implications of the ram’s new disposition.
If the statue can change that way, then who knows what else it might do? I bet I’m about to find out why someone can’t just come back here and grab up another source, even if it would be an almost impossible climb.
She approached the statue, and despite her mental preparation felt a thrill of fear and excitement when the ram turned its head to follow her. The movement caused little shards of stone and powder to cascade to the floor, and made a groaning, creaking sound like ice being squeezed.
She took a hasty step back and prepared for conflict, allowing her natural adrenal reaction to increase her heart rate. The ram didn’t move, though its featureless black eyes conveyed a menace that made her shiver, just a little. The atmosphere in the room took on a palpable tension, and Lilijoy was struck by a strong sense that a dark force far beyond a simple statue was judging her through the ram’s dark orbs. Judging her and finding her wanting.
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The sensation brought back memories of the fiery cavern and the eldritch presence of the Nasty Hanging Tentacle Monsters. She had come a long way since that desperate scramble, but she couldn’t shake the sensation that she was still nothing more than an ignorant gob girl, fragile and… squishy, a bag of blood and meat.
She shook her head and checked her system defenses for the subliminal effects of Charm. Finding none, she shrugged. Maybe it just is that scary. Or maybe… On a hunch, she checked her soul vortex, and saw that it was… responding to the environment, spinning out feelings from her past, feelings of fear and inadequacy, of vulnerability and mortality. It reminded her of what the ice mage Shiver had been trying to do to her team, only this was far more effective. This… intent was a palpable pressure on her soul.
She couldn’t help but feel that it was a bit extreme as a deterrent. I guess the Inside, Nandi, the Archon, whoever, really doesn’t want people helping themselves to the all-you-can-eat source buffet. The sensation of being a bug about to meet a windshield was strong, and growing stronger. If it weren’t for her ability to spin up her own positive emotions, collected, woven and purified within her soul vortex, she thought she might have already turned and thrown herself out the window.
Maybe it was the new earth source, feeding back a cycle of stubbornness and resiliency into her soul vortex, but she stood instead, leaning forward as if walking into a fierce storm, and began to walk toward the statue once more.
You’re not the only one who can be pigheaded, jerk, she thought toward Attaboy, thinking back over the past couple hours of her Outside experience.
***
Two hours previous:
Attaboy crossed his arms, then uncrossed them. He kicked his legs some more, and then sighed.
Maybe it was a mistake to accelerate puberty, he thought. Maybe it was a mistake to accept that jerk’s challenge. He considered this idea for a moment. Nah. It’ll work out. It always does until it doesn’t. I’m done with being pushed around.
His just slightly remote memories as Atticus, and his own memories of Pinton told him as much. You had to push back. Push back or let others dictate who you were, what you could be. This was his, or Atticus’, second chance. Fear no one, live life on your own terms or die trying.
Maybe I watched too much anime.
I guess with enough money, you can even survive the apocalypse. I love how they kept their corporate colors. I wonder if they have a flag somewhere with that star symbol thing.
Djian interrupted his thoughts.
Attaboy rolled his eyes. For some reason Djian had recently decided that goading him with Lilijoy’s accomplishments was the best way to get him to cultivate. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy the process, once he got rolling. It was just hard to get started, hard to lose himself. It felt like a chore at times and the more pressure he put on himself to improve, to seize the obvious future in front of him, the more he felt his feet drag.
Why can’t I just have a training montage?
The thing was, he remembered working hard in his previous life, working his butt off in fact, to meet his parents’ expectations, and then to prove to everyone else that he deserved his position in his parents’ organization. He didn’t have memories past that first year as little more than a glorified intern, but he now knew how pointless it had been, in the end.
This life was going to be different. No one, not Djian or even his sister, was going to tell him what to do.
Finally, the door to the chamber opened and Nykka came in. He stood as she stalked over to him, stretching his height as best he could so she wouldn’t be looking down at him.
I’ll be taller than her soon, he thought. Maybe she’ll take me seriously then.
“Do you have any idea...” Nykka began the process of evisceration “...how much trouble you have caused?!” Her voice was… not low. She continued for several minutes, excoriating him for his thoughtlessness, carelessness and general idiocy. He looked over at Lilijoy several times, vaguely surprised that she wasn’t joining in the Attaboy hate-fest, but she had the glazed expression he had come to understand meant her attention was occupied by the Inside. He wasn’t sure whether to be relieved that she was distracted, or disappointed he wasn’t getting it all over with at once.
He turned his attention back to Nykka once he realized she had finished lecturing him on his inadequacies and moved on to the good stuff.
“I secured you a private duel,” she was saying. “Bokken, pads and points, judged by the Duel Tenders. They still think I have Sinaloa’s backing and their own reputation to consider, so they’ll be at least somewhat impartial.”
Seriously? I don’t even get to hurt him?
His face must have betrayed his disappointment. “I know, real baby stuff,” Nykka said her tone as disgusted as Attaboy felt. “That’s the point though. They want to make this as meaningless as possible, and so do we. Can’t have Walden coming after us for retribution, not with things the way they are. You’ve already put us on their radar in a big way. If you’re smart...” her smirk upon saying this was telling, “...you’ll take a dive.”
Attaboy shook his head. “Then they’ll think I’m weak, which will be just as bad.”
“For you, maybe, maybe not. But for the rest of us?”
He looked away, unable to meet her white eyes. “I thought it was private anyway.”
“Private doesn’t mean secret. The Duel Tenders will make the results public, you can be sure of that. It’s good business for them, and it keeps the parties involved honest.”
“Oh.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the representative from the Duel Tenders.
“The arena is prepared, young man,” he said. His eyes scanned and assessed Attaboy with complete neutrality. “Please follow me.”
Lilijoy stirred from her near trance as Attaboy began to leave the room, offering him a tentative wave, before he was swept down a corridor and then down a wrought-iron spiral staircase. The staircase was located at the edge of another of the huge hexagonal chambers, this one filled with platforms of varying widths and heights. Attaboy could hear the sounds of combat drifting down from high above, and the sounds of cheering as well. He craned his head around, trying to see the action without falling, but the stairs spun him around tightly and the narrow steps descended quickly.
There was nothing to see anyway, he concluded, after nearly falling into the man in front of him for the third time, but it sounded as if the entire space was used for duels and fighting, or training anyway, and though he could only see the metal frames supporting the platforms, he could imagine the epic struggles that took place in this setting every day, and it filled him with excitement.
“Do you guys run tournaments here?” he asked the man.
“We host, organize and publicize,” the man called over his shoulder. “The Corp owns the space. Mind your step.” He hopped down from the final stair onto the floor. “The measurements didn’t quite work out for the staircase.”
And you couldn’t just build a platform? Attaboy thought as he jumped the final couple feet. He put all that from his mind as they passed through a double door into a large well-lit space with white walls and ceiling and a surprisingly springy wooden floor. There were two stations against opposite walls, each with a rack of wooden weapons, a bench, a bucket and a box of protective equipment.
Across the way, his rival was already donning the pads, struggling with the various ties and straps.
All right! he thought. Lets get this party started.
***
When Lilijoy laid her hand on the red gem, the fire source, the room exploded into a frenzy. Before the tentacles on the ceiling had even made it halfway to her, the ram pulled itself out of the statue, or moved around the statue? Lilijoy wasn’t sure. What she did know is that the ram struck her before she had even gotten started on the process of bonding with the source and hurled her across the space to smash into the wall.
Bug, meet windshield, I guess. Hey, where’s my damage?
She dismissed the lack of a health point notification as yet another quirk of the Trial Space. She didn’t need one anyway, to know that she was already in trouble. The room writhed in slow motion, stuffed with the tentacles that had now burst forth from the ceiling in all their glory, with a great sound of grinding and scraping, a thousand stone claws scraping a giant blackboard in an echo chamber.
Holy crap. How did Magpie navigate this in real time? she thought, beginning the process of dodging. The ram was still pursuing her across the few feet of distance between wall and statue, and with disgust she realized it was dragging something that looked an awful lot like intestines out of the mass of the statue, in lieu of the back half of its body. Everything was composed of the same black stone, which made it hard to see details. She was almost relieved to see the knobby tendrils of stone begin to move, writhing and pushing against the floor.
Oh, it’s just more tentacles, she thought for a moment, starting her leap over the tentacle currently sweeping toward her ankles. Oh wait. Nope, still intestines. Intesticles? Wait. That’s even worse. Maybe tentestines?
Whatever it was rolling and undulating behind the ram’s front half, they were half dragging, half propelling the stone beast, which was also scrabbling along the floor toward her on its knobby front legs, a demented expression somewhere between lust and rage contorting its features as it struggled to reach her. It seemed utterly unconcerned by the more traditional tentacles sweeping the room, which were giving it wide berth.
No, really Trial Space, don’t hold back, she thought. Let me know how you really feel about someone coming back for seconds.
With everything moving in slow motion, it was a bit difficult to judge their real speed, but she was pretty sure that she would never have been able to navigate the ever-moving maze of crushing and grasping stone while pursued by a demented ram-thing with flailing entrails if her Flash or her processing speed was any slower. After an agonizing five seconds of real time, well over a minute to her, in which she twisted, limboed and hopped her way across the room, she was able to slide under the mostly closed door leading to the stairs.
She was heaving a great sigh of relief when the stone ram wedged its head under the door, throwing chips of gray stone over her, its jaw opening and closing with silent bleats, or possibly words in a demonic chant. Silently thankful for her lack of sheep lipreading skill, she pulled up a small wall to seal the space, enjoying the greatly reduced volume of grinding and screeching stone that followed.
I’m never going to see a partial statue the same way, she realized. After a few seconds to regain her composure, she headed down the steps to check on Lowly, sending a small trickle of mana back to maintain her tiny wall. Nothing had changed with the Labyrinthian’s status, to her simultaneous relief and disappointment; the gooey blob of blood web still draped over the desiccated body of the little being.
Lilijoy looked down on the sight for a moment, hands on hips.
What am I going to do with you? I wish you would just go back in, if you even can.
Then an idea struck.
That’s so stupid, it just might work.
***
In the strange, fractured universe of spider memories, the essence entity formerly known as Lowly became aware of a disturbance, first as the connections and relationships between the strands, already blurred and distorted, proceeded to compress and mingle with even more fervor, and then as their limited sensory connection to their former reality altered, conveying movement and pressure.
A sense of barely comprehensible familiarity tickled at the edges of their being, a connection that allowed for movement along a different plane, and the essence entity formerly known as Lowly moved along this new axis of freedom. Soon they recognized familiar halls and tunnels, and they rushed to fill and explore old haunts, pushing open the walls of the labyrinth as they went. They had little energy left, and the process sapped most of that which remained, but finally they reached it, the engine of movement, the chambers of propulsion. It was still and cold, and the entity took a moment to gather itself for one final burst of effort before sending the last of its power into a violent surge of initiation.
Halting at first, then with gathering momentum, Lowly’s heart began to beat.