Eli leaned his pounding head back against the delightful embrace of the pillow in the play booth. It had taken him over thirty minutes and had left his entire body feeling like he had been crushed and pulped for juices.
Eventually, he had realized how he could use his body more at the baseline level. It fucking hurt. Even with Lumencloud Transfiguration and Body of Light allowing him to tamp down the sensations, he felt every slight adjustment Refinery’s Alteration made as it broke his body down and remade it in his new vision.
Next, he figured out how he could loop the power around so it worked on itself. Refinery’s Alteration itself improved ever so gradually while he pushed it at and into everything he possibly could.
Until he eventually did it.
Stellavoltaic Nullspace Ev. 0 Warlock’s Sanctum Ev. 0 Refinery’s Alteration Ev. 0 You may now select from one of the following options: Evolve Power Merge Power Obtain New Power N/A> He had even got a free level out of Vigilant Muse, too. It was almost time. Eli removed his [Double] and [Control Light] perks from Stellavoltaic Nullspace before he confirmed the three-way merge between each of the powers. Thousands of needles stabbed into his nerves. Shades and hues of red and blue bled across his thoughts. Space fluctuated around him as the text jabbed its static directly into his eyes. His awareness resonated as his understanding and perception of regular space, voidspace, subspace, and nullspace all harmonized. Fractals bled around him. What used to be his demispace in Warlock’s Sanctum changed as it unmoored itself from his thoughts. Expanded into his spatial field entirely. His spatial field sharpened as its rigid sense of scale loosened. Potential bloomed all around him. An endless renewable field full of nascent stars waiting to be free. Relief shot through him as the next notification rolled across his vision. Beads of lumencloud sweat dripped from his radiant skin. Infrared radiation cooled as he finally relaxed. Eli focused on the spot across the room before he willed himself to teleport. He appeared instantly, almost quick enough that he saw himself from the other side of the room. Good. As long as he could teleport, this would be acceptable. He wanted to find out what else this could do in their duel. Sparks of Dream flitted around his wrist as he dove back into the game and dungeon. Reality rearranged itself until he stood in the courtyard once again. Roman stood by the entry point, where he grabbed Eli by the arm and dragged him away. They passed into the giant stadium over to a row of couches in perfect condition. Nora and Dorian waited out of earshot, where they waved at him. “Dude, are you okay? That was brutal.” “I’m fine.” Eli brushed his fingers through his hair with a sigh. He was over his loss and wanted a rematch. Even if he and Roman lost again, he wanted a chance to show Dorian that he would not lie down and take the loss. It was time to give Artificer’s Nullstar a trial run. “Really? You disappeared for almost an hour.” Roman raised an eyebrow. “Really. I took a bit to think about it and I’m fine.” Eli chuckled at the clear lack of belief on Roman’s face. “Seriously. I was upset at first. You know how much I dislike losing, but I want to fight him and Nora now. Warm up is over.” “Good.” Roman’s smile was nearly as bright as the clear happiness in his eyes. Vigilant Muse poked Eli with the realization that his habit of keeping things to himself was taking a toll on his friend. It probably had for his family too. A cascade of self-awareness threatened to go off before Nora and Dorian stepped closer to them. “Now that you’ve both seen what this battle maniac can do, are you two ready?” Nora said with a small smile and a nod at Eli. “Let’s do this. But first, let’s talk terms.” Roman’s wide smirk felt far more threatening than any expression Eli expected to see on his face. “What do you want? I’m fine betting all the points I got from farming today and from the duel I did while we waited for Eli to calm down.” “Nora,” Dorian hissed. “What? He lost because you’re a beast. Dorian, love, you’ve been scouted and recruited by the military every year since freshman year of high school when you performed in the Junior Delve Cup.” Nora waved her hand at Dorian without looking at him. Eli blinked as he realized they were actually dating. Probably. “Lieutenant Harold is a friend of the family. That’s all.” Dorian shook his head. “Besides, my build is support and combat focused so it makes sense.” “If you say so.” Nora rolled her laughing eyes at Eli and Roman. “Anyway. What do you want if you win?” “I want out of the Tri-Delve Cup.” Roman glanced at each of them with raised eyebrows. “It’s not our responsibility. Fighting and killing spawn is fine and all, but I don’t want to turn it into a sport. If it were my choice, I’d never do it.” “Well. Okay then.” Nora and Dorian shared a look together. “Do you not want to duel at then or…?” “No, I’m fine with this. I’ve had fun, but…” He frowned for a moment while he paused. “This is clearly a game and I enjoyed it, but it’s pretty fucked to do regularly. Life is sacred and I don’t want to crumple that up and toss it aside for mine and other people’s entertainment.” “You don’t have to play at all if you don’t want to.” Dorian nodded gently. “It’s very dangerous and we don’t want to force either of you into something you’re ready for. I… I didn’t really think about what that must be like for either of you to not have a choice. Delving isn’t a sport to me either, but I understand where you are coming from.” “I’m fine with it, but I don’t know. I’d rather focus on other things.” Eli shrugged. Family and home waited for him. Visions of Farbrook’s ruined state with fucking bush monsters in the streets. Images of his dad’s graying hair and limp. “If we finish our side project, then maybe, but by then you won’t need us.” “We have a side project?” Roman glanced at him before he nodded. “Oh, yeah. I’ve been working on something toward that end too, by the way. But I do want to fight you guys and see what happens.” “You better give it your all, then. Both of you.” Nora’s eyes burrowed into theirs. “Go for the kill.” “What about what Dorian said about handicaps? Will we get one?” Roman asked nervously. “Yes, of cou—“ Dorian started to say. “No. Fight me as hard as both of you can. If I beat you, it’s because I will have earned it,” Eli interrupted them. “Not to be an ass, but while you could maybe pummel me enough to kill me, I doubt you would win. You have incredible recovery for where you’re at, but I outmatch you. Utterly.” “Stop being so dramatic. If he wants to fight, let him. I want to do this before it gets much later. Let’s do a 2v2.” Nora glanced off to the side for a second before prompts appeared. Eli only needed 105 GP to buy the rest of the perks he wanted to build his new power, so he decided to bet the rest. He decided to vote for the arena he had just fought Dorian in. Adding to the pot: 731 GP> “How much are each of you betting?” Eli asked while he smiled at what he hoped would become a tremendous windfall. Or be enough to tempt Dorian to fight him for real. “All of mine. 565 GP.” Roman said as motes of Dream sparkled around their wrists. “Hell yeah, let’s do this thing!” Nora giggled as she must have mentally confirmed her own bet. “1,059 GP. Got a bit from the farming and the duels.” “Very well. I’ll bet my full 1,416 GP then. I left some in my account last time so that’ll make for a nice incentive.” “Nerd.” Nora jabbed her elbow into his side which elicited what Eli now knew was a practiced ‘oomph’ of fake pain. “So, what will that come out to after the multiplier for each of us?” Vigilant Muse tallied up the sum and made a note of it before calculating the conversion rate for the blue 15%. It would be 3,771 GP which would then be multiplied by four per combatant for 15,084 GP. That would be $2,262.60. Eli opened his mouth at the same time Roman spoke. “Holy shit! If I’m right, we would make about two grand if one of us won? Split to $1,131.30.” “Damn, well, let’s start this thing, then.” Nora grabbed Dorian’s hand with a beaming smile before the wristbands finally yanked them away. Moments later, a familiar mountain overlooking a canyon appeared around Eli. He landed by himself next to the three monolithic stones absent of its usual red moss. Vigilant Muse went into overdrive as his body shed its mortal guise in favor of his radiant lumencloud form. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. No one else was anywhere near him. Eli walked up to the edge while he spread his spatial field out with Artificer’s Nullstar. Space seemed to thin as it pulsed out until he butted up against the boundaries of the cube arena. A washed out blur harshly scrubbed out all detail of where things were, but he had no idea what any of it was. Abstract smudges sharpened as his spatial field retracted and focused in on itself. He saw the suggestion of boulders, rocks, and pebbles. The ruins below his perch and the exit of the cave beneath him. Dirt trails wound toward the maw leading to the Colossal Titan Spider’s den. Instead of a sphere, his spatial field narrowed into a cone with ease as he swiveled it around him. Once he felt the impressions of three other people, he compressed it further into a barely large enough needle to feel their entirety. Dorian and Nora were a few feet away from the spot where they had landed. Footprints had marred the slime ridden stone wherever they stepped. Roman stood beneath Eli where the Crucible’s portal let out into the cave. A tiny wisping star burst next to Roman as Eli threw his voice. “They’re in the spider cave. Want to mine shaft them?” Eli asked as he dove into the demiplane anchored firmly to him. Copies of hydrogen grenades and the hydrogen generating beads appeared in the dozens in the air around Eli. He felt both the original and the copy improve as he summoned them. “Excellent idea.” Roman smirked as his once again pristine suit of armor whirred. Metallic plates withdrew as squares spun out along his suit’s arms and shoulders. An array of holes poked through the plating. “Want me to fire it directly and you transport it or what?’ “Hell yeah. I’ll join you down by the ruins.” Eli popped out another star that he willed to harmlessness. Sparks of electricity crackled in a halo around it as it widened, while Eli prepared the exit points around the cave. He waited until Roman nodded before he linked them and teleported the entirety of their payloads into the cave. Hard hydrogen beads bounced all over the floor of the cave while metal cans spilled out. They rolled with a clatter. Nora spun around with wide eyes as they neared the exit. She screamed something while Dorian only smiled. A single bolt of starlightning fragmented into thousands of sparks as it ignited each of them. Hell plunged through the cave out into the exit as gouts of flame and starmetal shrapnel scythed through the cavern. Stone groaned as the cave collapsed. Nullspace flickered in a radius around the collapsed rubble. An aurora of stars hummed into existence. Copies of radiant enchanted arrows poked out of each star as he prepared to fire them. Vibrant static charged in a nimbus around each star. Roman flew in a dash out the cave beneath Eli. Fragments of stone zipped as Dorian emerged behind a supercharged concussive blast. Fire had ripped or consumed swathes of his clothes. A patchwork of burns had lapped their way across his exposed skin. Oozing wet skin scabbed as it flaked and dried off him. A domed forcefield rose behind him as Nora walked out from under the devastation. Her body had transformed from flesh and blood into a tightly bundled pack of sound waves. Fabric fluttered loosely as dust swirled and danced around her oscillating form. “How the fuck do you beat sound?” Eli’s eyes widened as the first notes of chaos unfolded. Dorian disappeared in a flash of force. Bolts and bars of starlightning surged as a rain of radiant arrows exploded from each of his stars. Nora lifted her vibrating fingers smudged by sound before she snapped. Thunder clapped, shaking the earth. Lumencloud blood trickled out of Eli’s ears. Camera lenses in Roman’s suit cracked outright. Dorian appeared in front of Eli faster than he could fully comprehend. Fingers clasped around his throat. Crushing pressure creaked along his trachea as Eli’s heart pounded in his radiant ears. Eli vanished in an explosion as each of his starlightning bolts dredged the loose ground and ruins below up. A tsunami of stone and rubble crashed into Dorian, burying him under a cresting dust cloud. He reappeared behind Nora as he slashed his reinforced, radiant lumencloud sword-arm down. Threads and waves of harmonized sound snapped under his blade. Buzzing hums built up to a— Roman flew out of the cave in a storm as his armored suit unpeeled out of his body and reassembled itself. He hefted a massive high powered rifle. Bands of starmetal gleamed as he pointed it at Nora. He pulled the trigger immediately. Forcefields sprang up around Eli and Nora even while he continued to cut into her. Penning him in. Dorian blasted through air and space right toward them, ignoring Roman and his charging rifle. —crescendo as Nora unleashed all her gathered sound. Sound waves hummed and crashed into light waves. Eli cracked into the forcefield. He shifted his head to the right. Dorian’s fist drove through his own forcefield as kinetic energy swept Nora aside. Eli smiled. Vigilant Muse clicked as it settled in. Nora stumbled as Roman’s rifle finally fired. A starmetal-steel composite rod burst out in an electromagnetic pulse. It screamed through the air as unnatural Dream polluted physics with its cognizant mess. Eli teleported away while he flexed the space around the missile to copy what he could. He couldn’t store it, but his lesser copy squirmed and screamed in his vault. Pure starlight and lumencloud swept around him and Roman as he nested them into subspace. The starmetal-steel rod clipped Nora’s arm with a spray of vibrating matter that turned into human blood immediately. It continued as it struck Dorian’s turning back. Propulsive jets sprouted rocketflame from the back even while it crumpled at the tip. “Ignite.” Roman commanded. Tongues of prismatic flame combusted as the dense starmetal-steel rod flared. Layers of reality shuddered as the fire caught on Dorian’s remnants of clothing and skin. Molten metal shrapnel burst as the rod exploded. Everywhere the shards landed burned as the enchantments in the metal infected whatever it touched. Rock, skin, cloth, air, light, and space. Everything. It all burned. Holes in reality trembled as the Dream fueled the conflagration spiked toward Dorian and Nora. Nora flailed as the Dream ate her screams and Body of Sound. Rendered mortal, it transmuted her into a magical flame. Rock beneath her deleted itself as the pyre grew. Eli readied a radiant arrow to put her out of his misery. “No… Don’t.” Roman coughed as he put a hand on Eli’s shoulder. Unnatural divine energy seeped from Roman’s now translucent pores as he wobbled. His stare stayed on Dorian and Nora’s suffering. Unwavering. “It’ll burn us too.” Eli nodded as he swallowed what he had to say. Hairline cracks fractured through Roman’s armor and diminishing body as he continued to Dream of fire. Eli hesitated before putting his lumencloud hands on his friend’s shoulders, where he poured healing and peace into him. Stability slowed the inevitable shattering of Roman as he gouged his raw will into reality. When he looked up nothing remained of Nora. Not even the Dreamflame that had devoured her. Giant clefts of the mountainside were missing where she had been. Dorian limped toward them. Geysers of prismatic flame tunneled into his flesh in an uneven spread. Chunks of his face had been scoured away. Stubs burned where his fingers had been. Forcefield prosthetic legs bore his weight as he moved closer. “Can’t… hold… it,” Roman gasped. All the flames extinguished en mass as Roman dropped into Eli’s arms. Pockets of space in Roman’s body where Dream had carved itself flooded with blood. “Too strong.” Roman’s wristband jerked him out of the arena. He fell out of Eli’s arms and his subspace with a tearing screech. Dorian blasted forward as Roman’s Dream ceased its suppression of his powers. Bright-eyed wrath pierced into Eli. A halberd cleaved pointlessly through the space where Eli would’ve been. But he was in a pocket of subspace, so it passed over him uselessly. Irritation tugged at where Artificer’s Nullstar resided. Eli focused and inverted all his light and lumencloud as he teleported his fist into Dorian’s face. Blood leaked out of the nub where his nose had been. Forcefield blades appeared as they swiped toward Eli, but he had already teleported away. Slabs of the mountain chunked into the air as Dorian threw himself to where Eli had appeared. Blades and bolts of lumencloud and radiant arrows slapped against him. Eli teleported again. Another form of space beckoned to him. Different avenues for Artificer’s Nullstar. He felt how each kind of space he had learned and mastered fit together like a puzzle. A symphony that only he had an ear to understand. Dorian stabbed his forcefield wrapped halberd into the ground where Eli had been. Scratches wept as another wave of lumencloud and radiant arrows bounced off his Body of Force. “Stop running!” Dorian hurled a conjured or created javelin shrouded in forcefield with a snarl. Thunder clapped as it tore through the sound barrier, but Eli had already teleported away. Space was relative and everywhere. Infinite, unending. Each point of space bridged to a void of absence. Subspace twisted space on its axis into new directions and angles of possibility. Nullspace was the layer before dimensional and planar. The layer of in-between. Of liminal space. Eli didn’t teleport away from Dorian’s frantic slash with his broken halberd now shortened to an axe. He slipped into space as he warped around to punch a spatial bubble packed full of his next salvo into his side. Skin tore under his radiant knuckles as radiance burned into him. Lumencloud radiated into the wound. Weakening it. Damaging the cells and strands of DNA. Dorian’s healing slowed. Space warped again and again as Eli stood still and battered Dorian with salvo after salvo. He had come a long way from needing to hurl forgotten exercise weights at home invaders. All of his and the real varieties of space folded together into starspace. Starspace strobed in a bolt of starlightning out from his hand to six inches away. His knife construct of space forged itself while it filled with the true conceptual weight of all his growth and progress. Space warped as Dorian’s notched axe missed Eli’s head again. Forcefields clamped around him, but they never reached him. He had an endless supply of space to twist and flex. Blood leaked from Eli’s nose as he overclocked all his powers, but it was fine. He was almost done. Eli jabbed the knife upward, not even bothering to aim. Lumencloud leeched skin parted as the starspace blade carved through the wound as it connected point after point in space together. He unraveled the starspace blade that impaled through the gap in Dorian’s ribs. Starlightning detonated as the starspace whipped out into space, voidspace, and nullspace. Dorian’s Body of Force could survive and thrive the harshest blows, but Eli didn’t need kinetic energy to sever the points of space inside of him that he could reach. Bloody mist churned in a tide of gore before each speck of biological matter connected. A chain of starlightning arced him as Dorian fell to his knees. A section of Dorian’s torso sloshed out of the pulped crater. “Fuck!” Dorian grimaced as he pushed his hand uselessly against the red tide. His face paled from blood loss. “You got me good. I used all my powers, but you were never there.” “I’m fast.” Eli smiled even while he constructed another starspace blade, already refined and improved from his first iteration. Some of the flaws smoothed over. “But really, I don’t know if I would have won without Roman.” “Who knows? Let’s find out one day.” Dorian chuckled wetly as he inhaled slowly before he nodded. “Finish it. I lost, and I won’t pretend otherwise.” “No, bad System!” Dorian snarled as he wobbled. Eli shifted awkwardly as he held his newly created starspace knife. He was used to fighting for his life, not brawling for sport or straight up executing someone. “Um, where do you want it?” “It’s not a fucking tattoo or piercing. Just end it!” Dorian roared with laughter. “Savior damn y—“ Starspace jabbed into the exposed wound as it touched the lumencloud inside of Dorian’s system. It strained as Eli focused it all into Dorian’s heart and brain where he teleported and unleashed all the starspace into. Ribs cracked with a sick crunch as his chest distended. Blood flooded out of his eyes, nostrils, and ear canals as his head swelled. He vanished as the wristband yanked him out. Dorian Nora For a combined: [15,084 GP] [Game Point Balance: 7,647 GP]> He fell into the empty space reminiscent of a loading screen or that liminal space between dreams. Static washed across the gray void. Instead of the expansive courtyard or the lobby of the stadium, another long room appeared. A long, rounded rectangular table stood in the center of the room with too many rolling chairs stuffed in. Marker boards sat on the walls filled with blurred diagrams and chart projections. Eli blinked as he plopped down into a pulled out office chair with a glass of water and napkin set in front of his seat. Artificer’s Nullstar pushed against the shell of Dream around him, but it didn’t budge. Three people sat across the table from him. One was a short executive in a suit with a pinstriped blue-and-gray tie. On his left was a woman who had her hair pulled back into a strict ponytail with wisps curling over the collar of her blazer. The third person was Zach aka Inkmaster who had fought that one bald guy when Eli and Roman arrived to the Dueling Dungeon. Eli’s fists squeezed under the table as he glared at the man Maeve introduced him to. “Why, hello, Pulsar. My name is George and this lady beside me is Jane. We are top level executives of Delver’s Dive. We’ve noticed some interesting details during your delve and subsequent duels.” George explained with a practiced smile. It made Eli want to punch him in the face, but Vigilant Muse helped by redirecting his aggression to an array of interesting details. Why was there a folder in front of them and why was Zach there? “Why are you here Inkmaster?” Eli said as he craned his neck to glare at the man who had him fight a Starwraith. “I’m the one that entered your name into the Delver’s Regulation Committee.” Zach sighed even while he glanced at the door to the side, then back to Eli. “As Inkmaster said, he gave you a name and vouched for you, so he’s seen as your ‘mentor’.” Jane said as she plucked the folder up and opened it flat on the table. “This is you, isn’t it?” A newspaper article with grainy police footage showed a roiling mass of cloud that sent ribbons of irregular light across the picture under the lens flare. It was Eli from when he evolved Lumencloud Fortification into Lumencloud Transfiguration. IRREGULAR SPAWN SPOTTED, FLED APD “I’m not saying anything without an attorney present.” Eli raised an eyebrow with a smirk. Textbooks and snippets of memory from his research rifled through his internal access to Artificer's Nullspace and Vigilant Muse. Lawyers were already important back home, but here? They were doubly so. “We wouldn’t have it any other way. Fortunately, under DRC Code 79 Subsection 3, a sufficient member of rank or mentor can act as a legal counsel for anyone affiliated to them or to the Delver’s Regulation Committee. Inkmaster fulfills that role perf—“ Shouts rang from outside as the door banged open with a crash, sending ripples across Eli’s body as the wristband around his wrist crackled. Something interrupting the Dream enchantment? A familiar blonde woman strode into the room with thunderclouds in her eyes. Lightning crackled across her casual clothes as they reformed into a luxurious business dress. “Zach Griers is no longer necessary. I, Maeve Marie Newton, designation Starbreaker, will stand in as Pulsar’s counsel. Unless he has any objections?” Everyone turned to Eli. “I accept.” He grinned.