As the group proceeded deeper into the dungeon, things grew ever more uncertain. There were places here Prime could recognize, either from his prior life or the literature from it. Currently, they were under the dark shadow of an overpass.
The blazing lamps lighting the street above, casting the group in a deep shadow. No other light was present, and no sky. Merely the stark door through which they’d come, and another stark door on the far side of the area.
It wasn’t as though they could see a ceiling, simply a dark void. It might give the impression of the sky, were it to be filled with stars. Or clouds. Or any detail at all.
Anri was looking throughout the space with interest, the lamps and the concrete both seemed to grab attention. “These aren’t familiar, Arya take a sample of this terrain. I’m going to see if I can scan one of those lamps.”
The librarian turned on the spot, and jumped off on a ripple of force.
Lyrill let force a low whistle, “Sure wish I could do that.” He hefted his lance wistfully.
Prime grinned, he could well imagine why a lancer might want the ability to jump like that. He’d started to wonder just how far a leap he could manage, though Anri’s clearly had some extra oomph to it.
So with that curious thought in mind, and a subconscious full of modern furniture and impossible architecture behind him, he lept through the air towards the overpass.
To his chagrin however, he found that while incredibly physically impressive, he couldn’t just casually leap onto an overpass unaided. Nearly though!
He hit the side of the overpass with a heavy slap, fingertips digging into the concrete like steel. He shook his head out of the mild daze he’d acquired, wondering where the concussion was.
Prime couldn’t easily associate himself with the soft human he’d been before, despite the similarity in appearance. The skin was clearly wrong, for one thing. The strength and durability were clearly strange, it damn near took an explosion to kill him. Hell the sudden stop was more of an issue than the sudden impulse.
He pushed those thoughts from his mind, and climbed up over the edge of the overpass.
“Are you trying to wake the dead?” The Librarian asked him casually.
“No no, I just had a question so I thought I’d ask. You’re the only one in here who seems to have your wits entirely about you.” He said, then gestured at the lamp she was examining.
“Is this place how you’ve acquired all the interesting technology I saw in the city outside?”
She scowled, “Not all of it but a majority.” She said bitterly.
Ah, Prime thought, that’ll be a sensitive subject for some reason then. Probably under orders to examine everything interesting they could find. Or a by product of another industry she disapproved of, maybe.
A small book flew out of her cleavage like a bat, opened itself to a specific page, and unfolded itself into a full-page incantation. And with that, Anri began chanting absolutely nothing Prime could understand.
Language barrier, good times. There wasn’t much visual going on, the lamp just looked like it was in a bit of a heat wave. He refrained from touching it, despite the curiosity.
This was not a world where one took risks easily, he was learning that rapidly.
A sharp cracking sound split the “night” as Arya somehow removed a large sample of concrete and earth, and used some complex spell to disassemble it all into its base components. They all flew into different jars, which manufactured their own labels, and disappeared into her coat.
“If you don’t approve, why come here?” Prime asked.
Anri plained gestured at Arya, “Some of us still have learning to do, about many things. This isn’t a bad place to do that. Actually by many measures its a good place to do so, especially when you’re young and ignorant. Comparatively speaking.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her, a question clear on his brow.
She smirked with some bearing of superiority about her, smugness evident. “Well not a lot of people know or notice, and the information is kind of suppressed but…”
Prime face fell, “This place produces what’s contained in your mind and memories to throw against you.”
The looked on her face vanished, a blank stare met his gaze for a few moments. “Yes.”
Prime had gone pale, “We need to leave. I need to leave, I need to leave now. How do I get back out?”
“Why are you so panicked? It only produces faded replicates of the original things, similar but weakened.” Anri shook her head, “Just calm down, there shouldn’t be anything here that you can’t fight. The creations here essentially feed off of your ambient energy to create themselves.”
She regained her previous look, “At the risk of sounding arrogant, they’re simply beneath you.”
Prime took a deep breath and calmed his nerves, as far as he could tell he had little or no actual ambient mana output. It was all a self-contained self recycling unit now. But at the same time, if his other suspicion was correct…
“Hmm, perhaps it is.”
A wicked laugh echoed through the surroundings, though to is confusion Anri seemed unassailed.
“Did you hear that?” Prime asked casually.
She just shook her head impatiently, “I’m telling you we’re fine. Beside, we ha-”
Crack
An uncomfortable loud sound split the nightlike atmosphere, causing everyone present to dip defensively. Or Prime assumed as much, until he heard the distant cries of his comrades beyond the edge of the overpass.
He bit off a curse, Anri was already looking over the edge with a horrified, ashen expression. Before Prime could even marshal a question, a narrow white crystal appeared from within her apparel and pointed towards something out of view below. A white line, similar to a laser pointer cast through mist, connected her to something.
A bright flash of light followed, and she was gone. As she vanished, the heat in the “room” began to spike rapidly. The concrete jungle around him began to shimmer with heat, distorting his vision. He resisted the urge to shield himself, as his body was undisturbed by the temperature alone.
Casting his eye’s over the edge of the pass, he saw what remained of his companions below. Only the scattered equipment they’d carried remained, dropped to the ground as though their bodies had vanished from within them.
“Well, I’m in trouble now.” Prime muttered. His comment didn’t refer to his vanished companions, but instead to the scene beyond the glass floor that now described his environment. True to form, this place refused to make any sort of sense. Below him a star was approaching, confirming his fears in a sharp and present manner.
Though a star approached, though its size and mass should have crushed and wasted him, he stood firm. Beyond not having a choice, it wasn’t having the effect physics would normally dictate with its existence.
It made sense, otherwise he himself would’ve been consumed from within already. Or become an empty soulless vessel. But he didn’t know the limits of this star, or the entity that had generated it. Though he was certain that doing so had instantly garnered it a great deal of attention.
“I thank you for this new ability young one, it will serve me greatly. Though I have such a concept as gratitude however, I shall still require you to die. I sense it to be the only way to retrieve what you’ve stolen from me.”
“Killing me won’t help you,” Prime said, face overcast with a bitter wryness.
“On the contrary, I understand your existence better than you do. I even felt your creation and arrival, we’re quite similar existences. It’s interesting that you acquired a physical body so quickly, I confess to some jealousy.”
“I don’t see why you’d be jealous, you’re a much larger creature than I. And obviously more magical, would being something more akin to human truly suit you better?”
“Though I am contained here, it is not my nature to be the snake in the grass. This massive form, is not the predator that describes my true nature. I have no specific desire for beauty, or strength, or power that humans desire.”
It paused for a long moment,
“Mobility or freedom however. That is a desire that I share with Man, Elf, Demon, Drake, Dragon or otherwise.”
“Well my point still remains,” Prime pressed, “That killing me won’t help you. You seem to have acquired some form of my ability, and you have a vaster wealth of experience with which to apply it. There’s no reason to kill me just because I absorbed the admission fee.”
“But there is. I have never been able to create my own vessel with which to walk the world, but now you’ve given me a gift that could create a thousand perfect vessels. But not one of them would be able to carry that perfect forge with them, and so I’ve realized to retain this mighty ability that your body must be mine. And so I really must have you die, or at least become a soulless husk.”
Prime felt a strange twist in the world, as some sort of psionic attack hammered against his mind. It wasn’t overly sophisticated and was similar more to a migraine than anything threatening.
“I don’t think that soulless husk idea is going to work out,” He said flatly, “And you can’t just consume me with the star. So I’m going to leave now. Unless you feel like taking one of those thousand perfect vessels for a form, and get yourself killed?”
Prime scanned the room, but the exits were obviously gone. Everything else here might as well be glass now, from the lampposts all the way down to the rebar in the highway. Leaving was an easily expressed prospect, but harder to perform in the current circumstance.
Regardless he progressed to what he perceived as the edge of the room, leaping off the overpass directly to the terrain below. It was interesting how it had kept the same texture, so it made him wonder about the true state of the area.
Given the abilities of the labyrinth that contained him, how could he guarantee that this place wasn’t a hall of mirrors with the flesh of a cuttlefish? Despite this dedication though, there was no edge of the room to be found. If he walked into any part of the distance, he just strode into darkness only to find himself ultimately facing the overpass again.
“Its been an interesting challenge, adapting this ability of yours to my purpose. I hope you enjoy the introduction.”
There was a sudden, unified thump. As though a thousand feet had touched ground in unison, and the sound surrounded Prime in totality. From the darkness in every direction, from his perspective he could clearly see that manifestation of numerous zombies. Counting was the last thing on his mind here.
Actually there was quite a lot going through his mind, like why he’d never pondered the idea of creating a construct or a life with the Mana Star.
And here his enemy was using his own ability to create animated death.
To be fair though, he wasn’t himself a dungeon. Nor had he ever been, or considered himself to be, a leader of men. No, at his core he considered himself something else. A warrior, or a challenger. A problem solver, explorer. Regardless, the nature of his ability revolved around his desire to solve problems.
And many times, the only thing you needed to conquer an insurmountable problem… Was sufficient leverage. Not every problem could be conquered with leverage of course, but the right tool for the right task was something he’d learned readily enough as a mechanic.
And so here, he’d created himself a capacity to generate infinite tools.
“I don’t much like these, but there’s nothing like them for dealing with a zombie.” Prime said, proceeding to pull a revolver out of thin air. He clutched his empty hand, and 4 shiny bullets appeared as though he’d pulled a magic trick.
These zombies weren’t in a hurry, they were the current literal definition of a shambling horde. He had all the time in the world to load up his bullets, pull another magic trick, and finished up chambering his rounds.
“Right-o, one deag!” Prime shouted, unloading a round into the nearest zombies brainpan. It ricocheted off its skull, leaving only a shallow wound behind. Then proceeded to vanish into the darkness above.
Prime scowled, and unloaded the remainder of his rounds into the horde. There was little appreciable effect, whatever zombie he hit. Some the rounds passed through, ignored. Pierced but without effect, brainpan or no.
Others the rounds stopped dead on their flesh, failing to even make a mark. The strangeness continued as the final zombie he blew away actually grew himself a new head, despite having suffered truly lethal damage.
This last action had a secondary effect however, the shambling horde had gained some energy. The scent of blood and viscera had agitated them, and they proceeded as one towards the source. The first unfortunate zombie, without voice or suffering, fell.
Ripped into pieces and then eaten by his fellows, those who’d managed to salvage a few mouthfuls had gained more energy and vigor. Prime backed up, but he needn’t have worried at the time. These more energized zombies simply dove at their fellows, continuing the ripping rending feast of flesh, blood, and organs.
He dropped the useless pistol to the ground, empty. Continuing to make rounds for it would be pointless, naturally. Even if he made the rounds out of mithril, would it matter? His knowledge of mithril included abundant hardness and lightness, so not only would the bullet be inaccurate but likely also to ricochet.
And on top of that, if they simply healed then what was the point of a mortal injury? The best way would be to burn them, or chop them into pieces so they couldn’t move. Or crush them into paste, catastrophic injury was going to be the only way to get this done.
Conventional weapons would do him no good here, this was a magical place after all. And he wasn’t making a reference to Tahiti. He’d never been one for conventional warfare, so it was alright with him. But at the same time, what to make to manslaughter the slaughterhouse? What could rend the flesh of anything without question, and cut for him a path to freedom?
It was time to go back to basics. Magic had put him in touch with his inner child, and reawakened some of his deepest dreams. His imagination had provided him with a forge, and his passage through reality had granted him a door into it. He had started out at his simplest stage, in this way, and so in this way he would advance.
He was a swordsman again, with a whole new world to learn to spar. Here was a practically unlimited supply of cutting practice, he need only a weapon. Only a blade.
So out of infinity, behold arrogance!
Fell the hammer and let the mighty be reborn!
Woe unto your enemy, let their doom triumph and your victory unite your soul, should again the fabled blade Excalibur be born!
A shallow boom echoed throughout the glass space, the Mana Star that lit from below rippled as a transparent wave of dimensional energy traveled through and out of the local space. Inside of Prime himself, things were more drastic. His Mana Star had become almost nothing, his first thought had nearly been his doom. It flickered wildly and threatened expansion with ferocity, and he struggled to hold it all in.
The dimensional ripple wasn’t the star, or the generation of the legendary artifact Excalibur. It was the grip of his Will slamming down on his soulmass and forcefully stabilizing it! As a consequence he could do little more than manifest a small continuous doorway to his Mana Star, allowing its hunger to breach the dimensional barrier and begin consuming the Mana in the area.
Every zombie head snapped to him at once, and he braced himself for the oncoming storm. Defying his expectations however, there was no counterattack. Even as these mystic undead had their meals sucked away, there was only a long pause.
The moment passed, and they resumed their assault on each-other with renewed rage and vigor. It was as though a competitive urge had been struck up in the horde against this one usurper to their meal, this intruder to their might.
“This will not help you, you are too small. Alone, insignificant. You have an interesting tool and nothing more.”
“Ah, you don’t even know what I have.” Prime panted, “But I’ll give you that it's an interesting tool.” He pulled Excalibur from the Mana Star, he didn’t have the energy for any great fanfare here. It was a straight-bladed, double-edged sword typical of what you’d picture in the fable. About three feet long, with a silver blade and a gold guard, both were plain and unadorned. This was a weapon made and meant to serve a purpose, though whether that was the original design or his influence Prime couldn’t be certain. The handle was squared and beveled off, wrapped in some type of gold-colored leather. It’s pommel held a crystal ball nearly double the size of a breaker marble.
“Hmph, quality over quantity is it? The Sword of Promised Victory will not save you here, no you will serve my purpose regardless of how you attempt to struggle.”
Smug and confident, this borderline psionic voice inspired a feelingless of helplessness quite well. He imagined it had great experience in this effort, breaking a mind would swiftly lead to the fall of everything else. But this wasn’t a place or a time where he would be broken easily, indeed he had already buried a plan in the back of his mind.
And so he sought to renew his struggle.
The Sword of Promised Victory was everything Prime imagined it to be, and with a vortex of mana over his head he strode into battle with confidence and vigor. Everything about the weapon was designed to make you so, it guided you through battle as untouchable as the wind. Nothing could stop a strike made by Excalibur, and mistakes were easily corrected using the flexibility of the thin blade.
Though he knew its capacity to be greater, Prime spent many hours slowly cleaving through the zombie hordes, wearing away at his reserve of stamina as the time slowly passed by and he fought to free more mana for his vortex to consume. Assuming he could fully power Excalibur, he might be able to make his way out of here.
After all, this sword of Promised Victory was everything he imagined it to be. His knowledge of its lore extended far beyond the original creation of the weapon, and the artifact he held now was a measure of the divorce in the legend and its reality.
This bastard would take all the juice in the world!
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And there also at the back of his mind, the judgement of the weapon. You are no King, you are no Prince, no Hero. You are just a man, a selfish soul living for selfish ends, thinking only of your own existence. It sat there sapping away at his potential, itself a curse to those not considered holy and pure. A curse against those who shrink from self-sacrifice.
“Well, that’s fine. I just want out.” Prime muttered, gripping the blade. This was one of two things he was aware of that might be able to cut a way out of this strange place. Assuming he could claw up enough Mana to power the Excalibur.
He cut down yet more of the horde of undead, baring the blade of holy steel against its natural enemy and vanquishing them in a wash of destructive light. Yet for each undead denizen cut down, the remainder grew slightly stronger. Slightly faster. The number dwindled and so too did the source of magic powering this gruesome ritual.
It was starting to look like it wouldn’t be enough, the number of zombies had begun to dwindle too greatly. Those that remained were becoming tough enough to resist a casual strike from Excalibur, and he was starting to feel challenged cutting them to pieces from the raw resistance of the mob of every more lively undead. No more washes of light vanished his vanquished foes, and each hard-won victory left smoldering remains.
Much less a horde these days.
But more disturbing than a horde, some of the weapons these people were carrying were starting to wake up. A strange effect would wash across the room, here and there. A strange light. A darting noise. A whistling stone that bounced on the ground and passed through everything else. Prime wasn’t certain he recognized some of these, so he couldn’t help but wonder at their origin.
But he wasn’t the only mind who was in this Labyrinth.
Very suddenly he found himself in a general melee instead of a fight against an endless horde. Now, perhaps better than twenty undead remained. They looked mainly hail and healthy, but the light hadn’t re-entered their eyes as yet. They were still dead things, operating on instinct. However, a point had been reached where their living instincts had recovered.
He was now dueling his enemies instead of cutting them down, their instincts alone enough to hold Prime at bay as he attempted to cut them down and steal their Mana for his own use. It was looking as though his efforts were running into a wall, and he wasn’t packing quite enough steam to physically break it down anymore.
All his efforts had been in order to regenerate the Mana Star to the point that he’d be able to power the legendary weapon, and yet even as he regained some of his steam and stabilized his heavenly body, he had no way to measure exactly how much of his Mana this weapon would ultimately draw.
Hell, he had no way to determine what this Excalibur would even do! This was a weapon drawn from the many memories and experiences he’d gained on the world he’d come from before, a place of more imagination than reality and a spartan way of living. In a place like that, all you could do was dream.
Toiling away on the task in front of you, persistence your only real friend and hope driving you on towards something that was rarely better. Once more we walk through the sands beyond the edges of the hourglass, doomed to wander beyond our limits until we define them anew.
“Excalibur!” Prime cried, and the weapon lit with a white light that should’ve been instantly painful to look at. But though he should be blinded by it, Prime found the light gentle to his eyes. The brilliant holy light inspired feelings of warmth and succor, assurance and confidence. With a thousand welders in his hand, he drew all eyes to himself rapidly.
Some of these undead even seemed to recognize the weapon, beginning to mutter sentences or mouth words. It seemed that some of these undead hailed for Arthurian legend, not that it would matter now. Everything here was a template, made from something else. Even this Excalibur was more than it was ever meant to be, and in this case even somewhat considerate of the situation.
The rate of consumption was manageable, and it could even be tuned. It felt as though the weapon was waking up, and becoming attuned to the nature of its new environment. It resented the name Excalibur, though for the moment recognized its origin. It hadn’t made up its mind about Prime yet, though for the moment allowed its use due to the situation.
Though itself without alignment to any particular ethos, there was still definition offered by raw instinct to be had here. Its reluctance was also saving Prime’s life, as a full draw on the Mana Star would surely result in a catastrophic failure. The best use of Excalibur in this instance wasn’t to attack his enemy, but instead to shatter the barrier between himself and his need!
“Welcome to the fight, you bastard!” Prime shouted, slamming the tip of the weapon into the glass-like ground. It embedded deeply into the strange crystalline substance, creating stress fractures that spread around him like webbed lightning. Every undead remaining in the space froze, faces shining with eager anticipation, suddenly drawn from their combat.
"As a single grain of sand, I am nothing."
The blade sank into the floor.
"Before the universe, I am small."
The ground cracked and fractured.
"Wondering, I weep."
The spaces grew, and Mana began to stream freely.
"Knowing, I rage."
A small tremor shook the earth.
"For every evil comes, without end."
There was a long pause, and a grand trembling started up in the surroundings. The zombies were suddenly completely disinterested in each other, every one of them standing frozen in rapture. The cracks along the ground widened, the temperature climbed. Azure light streamed from the cracks, and the zombie people breathed it in like oxygen. Like ambrosia, like life. The grey faded away from them, the cracks in their flesh healed. The rough sections smoothed.
Before Prime stood a field of Valhalla, resurrected in all its might. The weapon in his hands vibrated crazily, seeking at once to leave his grasp. In the presence of so much destiny, so much fate, so much greatness. The Holy weapon wanted nothing to do with him any longer. It had likely only granted him a sliver of its power, specifically for this possibility.
"And so a field of Heroes is born again,
For the coming battle everending,
Until our wheel of time turns once more."
So within the space of a moment, it vanished. Gone back to whence it had come, its purpose served. Within him the Mana Star made it part of himself again, growing to its original threatening scale. He started laughing, “All the tools in the world can’t make up for having allies, so what now giant dungeon monster? Can you keep this field of hero’s contained within yourself, can you make meals of them? Can you control them? I suspect your ritual never meant for so many to survive!”
The space around him rumbled intensely, the glass floor continued to crack and slowly shatter. More and more magic was being freed into the space, and as before Prime was drinking it in. A small doorway draining it continuously into his Mana Star, feeding its potential. The people around him had begun to converse in a confused hush, some of them knowing each other.
From their gracious host alone, there was silence. There was no reply, no response to his taunt. That monster which was trying to eat him and steal his body made no reply at all. He stopped laughing, and tried to marshal up a new plan. He had some backup, maybe.
“So, hello everyone!” He said, giving it his best parade voice. “I am Prime, welcome to the interior of a crazy dungeon monster! To make a long story short, if we do not leave we will be eaten. I have doubts about the pleasant nature of such an end, so I’d like to leave. If anyone has any ideas how to escape a dimensional dungeon monster, I’d love to hear them.”
Now that he had time to stop and count, there were thirteen people before him. Including himself, they would number fourteen. He was no hero himself, but his new body was quick and powerful. His history included a fair amount of martial obsession, so combined with his weapons he hoped to be an asset.
His Mana Star was still giving him the sense that it was incomplete, so he was becoming loath the use it. His imagination also seemed to severely affect the weapon he produced, so he’d need to be selective if he didn’t want to tap himself out.
“So what sort of hero are you then?” A strident voice called out, and from the group strode forth a group of four. Prime assumed they were familiar, considering the grouping. However dressed in full plate-mail armor as they were, he was unable to guess at their identities. All he could hazard was that they were likely from his own mind and memory. The style was familiar, as was the armors craft. Neither were gauche or overstated, but instead ruthlessly functional in their form. Inlay, engravement, and the occasional jewel adorned the armor. None were without purpose.
These were suits of military grade magic weapons defensive hardware that fairly hummed with the potential capacity to generate defence. The four of them together actually gave the airs of an impenetrable fortress.
These four he had also avoided during his slow march through the undead earlier, as he’d no desire to test Excalibur on potentially mystical armor. As the number of undead dwindled, their capacity to defend had become quite obscene.
“Not?” Prime said, a little flatly. The query was painted across his face plainly though, “Why the assumption?”
“Not a Summoner then,” He said, turning back to his companions. They wore richly colored cloaks, so beyond weapons and voices they were easy to tell apart. The lead man, Sir Strident, wore a richly colored gold cloak.
His companion in deep green responded, “Couldn’t say, they are a crafty lot you know. He’s the only one who’s said anything since we got here, there’s been no other reply other than those here.”
Royal Purple injected, “No reason to jump to conclusions yet.”
Ocean Blue, “I get the impression he’s telling the truth, he may as well be a peasant to anyone else here. Look at the disparity in equipment.”
“Well, what about that thing he had right when we came to?” Gold put in again.
“Ability based magic, not sure I could summon a person. Maybe create one, if I had enough power available to manage it without ending myself.” Prime muttered, though he wasn’t exactly in a sharing mood considering.
“I don’t suppose you’d care to name yourselves then?” Prime asked, projecting to the crowd. The rumbling continued, the cracks in the floor widened. The calm these people displayed in the situation was a bit surreal, there was a confidence in knowing little to nothing could hurt you that these people had in spades.
Though for all their confidence, a heady silence met his question.
Nine more heroes stood silent before him, aside from the armored knights. He’d thought he might be able to name them all, but it wasn’t likely now.
In the forefront, a heavy woman with extreme muscle tone. She had black hair like a mane and reverse limbed feet, wore no boots or shoes of any kind. Her paws dug into the stone with the confidence granted by razor claw stabilization, with no care for the hardness of the glass floor below. She wore a tight short cropped top, and a light kilt. Her tail was three times her height, and two punching daggers hung at her waist. Her skin wasn’t human, but a strange approximation of fur.
Before he’d even begun, Prime realized that he wouldn’t know the origin of them all. The katar didn’t look special to him, but he still suspected he’d come up short in a serious fight with her. Thought that might just be her eight-foot height. She actually towered over everyone else present, so it was a little difficult to miss her.
“Can I help you?” She asked, with an irritated rumbling pur.
“No idea, you tell me.” Prime replied, “I’d still like to leave this place.”
She looked around, curious and alert as anyone here, but came back just as confused as Prime. “I can neither see, nor sense a passage free of this place. However it is only half real, maintained primarily through force of will.” She inhaled a deep breath, “This place reeks of fear and loss.”
Prime nodded, still pondering what to do. He’d previously thought of the perfect item to suit the situation, however it had no name. Being nameless it had no renown, no memory for him to draw on. He could imagine it, but he couldn’t make it. As far as the Mana Star was concerned, it was truly imaginary.
“Well, if we can’t name ourselves. We can at least name our talents, or those we’re willing to bring to the table.” Prime said, “You all can consider me a Conjurer. If I can thoroughly understand something’s nature and the forces driving it, I can reproduce it. This isn’t limitless however, the strength of the object naturally limits my capacity for replication.”
“You copy things,” Gold said.
“I copy things.” Prime confirmed. “Or reproduce things, if you prefer.”
Several of the weapons present suddenly vanished, as did the full armor sets the four knights were wearing. Prime rolled his eyes, “I could blindfold myself if you’d like, but casual observation of your weapons won’t gain me anything.”
Nothing reappeared in response to his words, not that he was surprised by their actions. His little personally crafted seeing spell didn’t give him that much information about powerful magical objects, outside the fact that they were powerful magical objects. He was thankful it still worked, he wasn’t sure why it still did.
“Assuming the item isn’t in use, or used up by its nature, it doesn’t cost me much stamina either. Though its existence represents an overall reduction in my capacity. On top of that, knowing how to make a weapon, objects, item or whatever. That doesn’t tell me how to use it, I can only apply instinct to operate the item in question.” He continued.
“Anybody else?” Prime looked at the Knights, who now appeared to be of Germanic origins of some type. “You have anything to offer?” He asked Gold directly. The man shook his head, long flat black hair accentuating the movement. A serious, stark, and dark gaze met his. “Got a name to offer?”
More silence.
The environment continued to rumble intensely, Mana continued to fountain from the various cracks in the crystalline territory underfoot. Prime surveyed the area, the crowd shifted uncomfortably. Why no one here seemed willing to reveal even a name was odd to him, but to each their own.
The cracked in the ground were turning red now, the star that had been below them had shifted at some point. Its brilliant azure blue was gone, instead a red ocean continued to expand below them. The blue Mana hanging about the air crystallized and became vapor, a vision of another world appeared around them.
There were standing on a highway now, hot asphalt below their feet. Scalding temperatures chased every breath, as they stared into the newborn desert that surrounded them. In either direction the highway stretched on into the distance, the only difference painted across the sky sitting on the horizon.
In one direction, darkness as black as the void. Not a star, not a light. No sound to be heard, no motion. No clouds hung above, an oppressive aura of fear hung there. In the other direction, a red sky with twisting black columns of cloud. They swirlded oppressive and continuous over whatever destination the highway led, a bright hub of fire marking their centerpoint.
A beacon at the end of the highway to hell.
“The end of the line never looked so long.” A thick italian accent stated, fading away by the end of sentence. Prime looked over, but the man was gone. Almost everyone was gone actually, only 3 unfamiliar people remained.
“The fu-”
“It’s not surprising!” This voice was convicted, and female. “It's a road, we’re the only ones who recognize it as a road. We’re the only one’s here!”
Assumption, not that it mattered. They were separated either way, though they hadn’t shown much interest in cooperating with him either way.
“Well, I don’t think going either way is ultimately going to prove helpful.” Prime responded, looking over at the girl. His face blanked for a moment, this ancient lady had the voice of a woman in her prime. It was disconcerting to turn and meet the eye of someone so old, who sounded so energetic and convicted.
“Why?” She asked, with mock vapidness.
“Well, we’re still inside of a creature that would like to destroy us. Or control us, or eat us. I’m not one hundred percent about its intentions.” He was rethinking his open nature at this point, perhaps telling them this thing had a goal of possessing his physical body wasn’t a grand idea.
“I don’t think following either of its directions will really lead anywhere.” Prime finished, privately thinking that his only effective attack on it had essentially been on the ground. He was wondering, perhaps whatever effect it created required it to have physical contact with its subjects. Strange, but this was a magically based world.
“No evidence to offer beyond my word though,” He trailed off, spreading his arms wide towards either direction. “Which direction would you travel?”
“Well personally, I’d go up. Nothing like having a good overview of the situation.” She said, “Best put words to actions I suppose.” The final two fingers on her left hand formed a point, and she jabbed it at the air before her. A small vortex formed in the atmosphere, and a moment later she shot off into the air. She trailed mist like an aircraft and mocked superhero’s with her flight style, and zipped off into the clouds before Prime could finish reacting.
Of the three remaining people on the ground, one let out a low whistle. He threw off a dark, thick black cloak. Pulled an ivory bone plate helmet off his head, and craned his neck to continue following the woman. The only unusual thing about this guy seemed to be his eyes, which had oddly chromed irises and extremely wide pupils. “Now that’s a traveling spell.” He said approvingly. The various bones, plates, and pelts that made up the rest of his outfit and armor made strange striking and clicking noises as he moved.
“Sorry about the silent treatment before!” He said enthusiastically, “My names Darran the Silverlight! I would’ve introduced myself earlier, but that aura’s coming off all those people was crazy. Especially in a group!” He offered his hand warmly, which Prime cautiously took and shook. It was more out of automatic reflex than willing greeting though, the man seemed a bit eccentric.
“And this here, is Nea the Grit! She’s from the Madness Mine, owned by the Doomtracker family. Not generally a nice place you know.” He pulled the other black cloak off his companion, revealing her to be a white haired girl who’d never know the touch of scissors. She was lithe, with an elongated torso and held herself like a wound spring. She gave an impression of extreme agility from first impression that only compounded with continued observation.
She gave a fierce, almost feral impression. Broken entirely when she opened her mouth, “Hello there friend, I’m Nea. Its nice to meet you, I hope we can work well together and dig our way out of this grim and hapless situation. You seem to have been present before everyone else, and you’re vaguely familiar to myself and my associate. You wouldn’t happen to know how we came to be here would you?”
Prime was taken aback for a moment, but grinned as he responded. “Nice to meet some civil folk, as for how you came to be here I’m really not sure. I can tell you what transpired beforehand, but I can’t explain the mechanism that brought you here no. My eyes aren’t good enough to discern that level of detailed information.”
“Speaking of which,” Nea interrupted, “You only have one form of ability currently active on your person, have you no other personally driven abilities? I don’t mean to be rude with the inquiry, but you don’t seem at all like you should’ve made to this place as anything other than a meal… Whatever this place is.”
“He did say he could make things,” Darran interrupted. “And there was mention of a weapon he’d been holding I didn’t catch sight of.”
Prime shook his head, “I have a little library of other magics with me, but the environment here was too ideal and I was too early in my studies. A combination of stress and haste have caused me to jump the gun a little.
“Magics?” Nea asked. “Magicks!” Darran exclaimed. Nea shot him a surprised glance, but it melted into a satisfied comprehension a few moments later.
Prime looked a question at them both, an arched eyebrow and a flat look stifling them for a moment. “Right, this situation is interesting. Where are you two from?”
Darran shook his head, “We’ll explain later, just continue please.”
Prime paused, “Alright. I’ll hold you to that though.” He heaved a sigh, then continued. “Long story short considering the situation, I came here to gain experience and potentially riches. The city I was in directly beforehand subliminally set it up as the thing to do, so I was quite curious about the focus and attention on this ‘Labyrinth’ as its referred to outside.”
He gestured at his gear, “One of those people earlier mentioned an equipment disparity, couldn’t be more true. I essentially arrived on this world, and plane, accidentally. I have nothing, not even a family. Even the knowledge I have about this universe is patchy and inconsistent, as it was presented without the context of time and linear progression. So ignorant of basically everything, I came into this place thinking to grow and learn and gather enough resources to perhaps be a person again.”
Composing himself a moment, Prime continued. “However I am ignorant of all the dangers of the world, my interests and mind were drawn to familiar things. My soul was immersed in the things you’d only imagine in wonder, it didn’t take an inventory of the world’s evils, or given my background even consider the magnitude to which they might exist. This labyrinth is a place that can manifest the things in your mind and memories, and I come from a world where you…” He pointed at Darran, “And you,” He pointed at Nea.
“Neither of you can exist there, nor does magic. Abilities and Gods and Monsters, these are all fantastic imagination where I come from. We don’t defend ourselves from this creatures, we create them in literary imaginations to entertain ourselves.” He scratched his head in embarrassment, “And unfortunately I was quite literate and very imaginative. I used that imagination to leverage myself a powerful ability, but in so doing I overlooked the fact that any magic I haven’t mastered I now need to recreate in my own method to emulate.”
Prime pointed at his eyes.
“I only have a single active ability because I’ve only personally created this one spell. And the only reason it functions, is because it's tied to the ambient mana in the area and not my own. Effectively speaking, I cannot actually use magic for anything other than powering the equipment I create with it.”
He shrugged, “I also can’t recreate an item that doesn’t have a greater function, apparently.”
“So you can only recreate magic items?” Nea asked.
“Not sure actually, let me check.” Prime said, and closed his eyes. To his companions, his body was outlined in the most narrow of azure light. A moment later, seeming to rise from the earth itself, a strange machine with two wheels arose. On one side, it bore the words Harley Quinn pained stylishly along the side of a black fuel tank.
On the other, Ironside was stamped and printed over. A motorcycle had risen from the ground, as though it were summoned out of the ether. Or hell. Prime opened his eyes, casting them fondly over the steel steed from another life. He pointed at it casually, and it roared to life breathing fire. He’d had to reimagine the bike a little, it wasn’t as though he had gasoline to power it with.
“Ah that’s a beauty to behold,” He said, “The answer to your question would be no though. Not certain of the exact limitations, but it seems as long as it has a function beyond existing I can recreate it. Knives are a no go, which is interesting because I suppose that sword only qualified due to being a magical object.”
Naturally he was making some assumptions about his own abilities, but he was their creator. He’d used the unique insights he’d gained as an astral edge, and leveraged them well. The true nature of his ability was a little more complex, it wasn’t as though it was a simple copy and paste procedure. It was a recreation of the original item, but they’d also never be quite the same. Idea’s had room to adapt and grow, the reality of creating something as simple as a knife was that he couldn’t. A knife was too old, too ancient.
The very term, its origin so primal and deeply held, by so many things in so many places in so many worlds. Creating the true concept of knife was just beyond him, likewise creating a simple ‘sword’. Strange than the weight of its history would outweigh the legend of an item like Excalibur, and everything appended to it afterwards.
“What is this interesting vessel?” Darran asked, “How does it work?”
Prime grinned, “A little more complex than a casual explanation I think, especially given the tailoring I’ve done to the design. It's called a motorcycle where I come from, I’m guessing you don’t know what rubber is?”
Darran shook his head, “Why, is it important?”
Prime pointed at the wheels, “Rubber is the only miracle that solid foundational reality has ever produced, it makes high speed transport without magic possible. This does use magic though, because I don’t know what to use locally to create fuel yet. And I doubt anything in this place will be of help, as its basically an evil monster that would like to kill us.”
He swung a leg over the saddle, turned the bike on and started it with a practiced casual ease. “I’d suggest you guys get a move on though, the discussion appears to be over for now.” Though he was facing hell, he had a new resolve to continue. Mainly because reality was disappearing behind him.
“That grey wall doesn’t look friendly to me.” Nea said. Darran looked back as well, “No that, that is not...okay…” He trailed off. He swallowed, then cast his hands about before him. Quickly he weaved together a sled like object, though sized more along the lines of a large skiff. Atop it, sails lent to this impression as they caught winds from Darrans breath as though they were mighty gusts.
Held by his will in position, he leapt lightly onto the sled. He landed with a solid thump, Nea already at his side. The device made of silver light shot forwards, powered obscenely with his breath alone. It tilted strangely with the excessive weight of its apparently inhuman occupants.
Prime laughed a while, this place was true madness. He wondered if he’d ever be free of this insane dream, or if it really was his new home. The motorcycle roared to life with a rebellious rumble that shook the Earth with a secret fury, a newfound life and purpose breathed into an old friend bound for a realm of battle.
With a scream of rubber Prime laid out a middle finger of midnight behind him, chasing his newfound friends into a hellish twilight.