The morning mists always hang low and late over Mystic’s Avenue. The last wisps of nighttime, clinging onto their domain until the inevitable heat of sunrise comes and washes them away. If you wanted to curse a bitter ex-lover with warts, illness, or an insatiable desire to have you back, you’d head to one of the many covens on Mystic’s Avenue. If you wanted to remove such a curse, you’d head to one of the many covens on Mystic’s Avenue.
In other, unrelated, news. The many covens on Mystic’s Avenue are some of the oldest and most successful businesses on the island.
Funny how the world works like that.
Jay didn’t have the heart to laugh at Akira’s travel guide. He dismissed the golden text and followed Lyra out of the pavilion. The trio had barely said a word since Jay’s first attempt at essence perception. Jay flip-flopped between wondering what he’d just seen and wondering what the fuck he’d done to his arms. Lyra and Akira were deep in silent thought, probably also wondering what the fuck he’d done to his arms.
Watching his surroundings as he strayed further away from the coliseum was a welcome distraction from the unanswerable questions bouncing around his mind.
When Lyra had led them through the coliseum courtyard, the morning mists had already left. It looked like they’d all come here. Wisps of fog clung to every surface, resisting the flow of the wind yet refusing to condense either.
Mystic’s Avenue’s central boulevard, although technically just as wide as all the other avenues, felt ever so slightly too narrow. Perhaps it was the taller buildings lining it. The cream stone used on the rest of the island made up the base levels, although most of these stones were littered with stains, scratches, and scorch marks. But every storey above the sixth was unique to each structure. Each one choosing their own material of choice to build higher. Wooden towers, intricately carved with sigils and runes, stood watch next to metal outgrowths jutting out, hanging over the street and casting their shadows on the passersby.
Multicoloured banners, triangular strips of red, green, yellow, and blue cloth, fluttered in their masses. They hung across the street on sagging wires that drooped down to barely above Jay's head, almost collapsing under their own weight.
Messy ink glyphs plastered each flag. Although they smeared themselves into obscurity the moment Jay tried to decipher them.
Lyra maintained her pace, not sparing anything a second glance as she marched along the avenue. Akira had a more visible response. He tried not to show it, but he kept glancing towards the mishmash of buildings above him. Tensing up every time they walked past an alleyway. It didn’t go unnoticed that, as soon as they'd left the courtyard, Akira had slowed down to ensure Jay was sandwiched between himself and Lyra.
After a tense few minutes of walking, Lyra stopped and pointed at a building to their left.
The building she pointed to, like the ones around it, had 6 floors of standard coliseum stone. It didn’t have any more floors built above it, just a large golden dome with a gold spire emerging from the centre.
“It’s that one, Pavan Hall. When we go inside, keep your voices down. I’ll go and speak to a friend and see if I can get your arms checked out. She’s a witch that studies here.”
Did she just say witch?
Jay followed her inside the building, Akira stayed just a step behind him.
They entered a dimly lit square room filled with no furniture and no occupants. Nothing except nine wooden doors, spaced about a metre apart, along each of the three walls they faced. Each door had a symbol carved into the stone above it. Jay tried to focus on them, hoping a golden box saying what each meant would pop up. Nothing.
“Stay here. I shouldn’t be long; Agatha owes me one. And please don’t go anywhere until I come back.” She whispered, directing the last sentence firmly towards Akira. He raised his hands in mock innocence, forcing a sigh out of Lyra as she walked through one of the doors. She tried to close it gently, but Jay felt a low vibration roll through the floor as it clicked shut.
Dusty grey smoke hugged the room’s ceiling, gently spiralling around the room. When the low hum of the closing door dissipated, it began to sink into the rest of the room. Swirling eddy currents wrapped around Jay and Akira, and the smoke dropped into a haze that blurred anything much further than an arm’s length away. Strangely, the only place it didn’t linger was the air surrounding his forearms.
Jay heard Akira sniff behind him and did the same. The smoke didn’t smell of much, but Jay made out incense hidden amongst several other scents he couldn’t quite pinpoint. While the smell was nothing special, the churning eddies surrounding him, and especially Akira, held his attention like a spell.
The vortexes, although at first glance simplistic and random, seemed to spit out truths in their wake. Jay felt as if he’d learn the secrets of the world just by looking at the mesmerizing spirals.
Akira started walking. Making a perimeter lap of the large, smoke-filled room. Jay followed him with his eyes but kept being drawn back to the spiralling smoke. He watched it rush into the grooves of the symbols in the walls, repainting the carved brushstrokes above each door before completing its lap and returning to the room.
When Akira finished his lap, he tapped Jay's shoulder and leaned into his ear.
“Did you notice how this room is wider than the buildings entrance on the street?”
Jay hadn’t, but now that he thought about it, Akira was right. The room extended into the neighbouring terraces. There were front doors outside that should have opened into here, but when Jay looked towards the entrance they walked in through, it was the only door on the wall.
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Akira must have seen the gears of confusion spinning inside Jay's mind. Grinning, he tapped Jay's shoulder and whispered again.
“Spatial essence. They pack the essence of space into the walls, the floors, the ceilings, everything inside the building. It makes the inside larger than what’s physically possible on the outside. Its ridiculously expensive though, and doesn’t scale well with size.
“If you want a backpack that’s a 6-foot cube on the inside, that’s not a big deal. It’ll cost you a ton, but you’ll be able to find one. Something this scale must have cost a fortune, not to mention there can’t be many people skilled enough to make a building like this.”
Jay nodded, he didn’t even think about adding spatial essence manipulation to his list, that idea had losing battle written all over it. He left that thought for another day and probably another year too.
It did remind Jay of the Flaming Tomb Alliance, however. They hadn’t just made a twenty-by-twenty metre room, but they’d expanded a building into a whole mansion and courtyard. If spatial manipulation was as expensive as Akira said, just how rich were they?
Before Jay could regret not befriending the rich kids, Lyra returned. Entering with a hooded, robed woman following her.
“Jay, Akira, meet Agatha.”
Agatha took off her hood. Faded black tattoos weaved across her youthful face, forming a symmetrical pattern of lines that left almost none of her pale white skin showing. Four of them terminated in pure black dots that made a diamond on her forehead while others continued around her bald head and underneath her robes to the rest of her body. She gave Jay a kind smile as she looked at him. It flooded through her face and up to a pair of gentle eyes. Eyes that probably would have looked cute if they weren’t entirely pitch black.
Jay had gotten used to the strangeness of Lyra and Vega’s appearances by now. Their obsidian skin was weird. But it was also foreign enough to be chalked up to, as he liked to call it, weird magic shit. But Agatha looked human enough that it still shocked Jay. She was someone that you might glance twice at if you passed by them on Earth, but she was just another face in the crowd at the Second Chance Coliseum.
“It’s lovely to meet you Jay.” She said softly, almost whispering. “Please follow me and don’t talk unless you must. Lyra, please remain here with Mr. Akira. For his safety.”
For his safety? What is this place?
Akira had a similar reaction. His eyes probed Lyra for an answer, but she merely shrugged. He turned to Agatha, who lifted a finger to her lips. Her hands were just as inked as her face, with pure black nails and tattooed lines running along each finger. She looked at him like he was a naughty child that knew what he’d done wrong but refused to admit it.
The look lingered for half a second before Agatha turned around and began walking. Jay nodded his friends a silent goodbye and followed her.
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Agatha entered a corridor made of a duller, greyer stone. Dark oak doors dotted the walls every five paces. Each had an elaborate rune etched above it, far more complex than the ones in the main entrance chamber. They walked for thirty seconds in complete silence before Jay followed Agatha up a spiral staircase.
Jay tried to keep track of where they headed, but the smoky haze seemed to cloud his memory as well as his vision. The journey blurred into a mess of lefts and rights, with a few ups and downs sprinkled in for good measure. When they finally stopped, Agatha motioned for Jay to stay still. She stepped into a room and left Jay alone in the corridor.
The smoke hugged the ceiling here, just as it had in the entrance hall, and drooped down further once the closing door’s reverberations died out. Thin tendrils snaked their way into the carved runes above the door. Whirring through the flowy stone ridges before losing their shape and returning to the air. Jay watched four more cycles before Agatha cracked open the door and pushed the smoke back upwards. She waved him into the room.
The room was tiny, and barely lit by a few flickering candles. If Jay stretched all his limbs, if they all still worked, he could’ve probably touched all four walls at once.
In the centre of the room sat a circular cushion next to a metal tray holding a rag, soapy water, and a lumpy black mixture inside a pestle and mortar. Agatha tapped Jay's arm, and a deep green system screen appeared in front of him.
Please remove your top and sit. I will wash your arms and apply the conduit paint. The process works best in silence.
Jay did as he was told. He was in too deep to ignore any instructions. The coarse rag grated Jay's shoulder as Agatha vigorously scrubbed his arm down, but the feeling faded the further along she went. By the time she reached Jay’s elbow, he couldn’t feel a thing. If he’d closed his eyes, Jay wouldn’t have known anyone was touching him until she started on the other arm. After cleaning Jay's arms, Agatha grabbed a paintbrush and shuffled closer.
She grabbed Jay's arm tightly, almost painfully, and held it so close to her face that he could feel her shallow breaths on his shoulder. Jay noticed a slight wobble as Agatha grabbed the paintbrush, taking a slightly deeper breath this time, but he chose to ignore it and look off into the distance.
The conduit paint stung as Agatha painted it onto Jay. He would’ve jerked his arm back, but the slight woman had deceptive strength. Her vice-like grip locked his arm in place.
The lines she drew reminded Jay of her own tattoos. Was she applying to him temporarily what she’d permanently done to her own body? Jay wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but it was too late to turn back now. He just had to trust that Lyra wouldn’t have led him into anywhere too dangerous.
Then again, Lyra had no skin. She wasn’t exactly the authority on tattoos.
Jay eventually got used to the stinging. Just like with the scrubbing, the sensation faded the lower down his arm she painted. After ten minutes, she finished the right arm and moved onto painting an identical set of lines on his left. Looking at his finished right arm, Jay noticed his hand was painted exactly the same as hers were tattooed.
One less question, I guess.
After painting both arms, another green system screen appeared.
Wait until the paint dries, then close your eyes and sit cross legged in the centre of the room.
So Jay waited. Even after drying, the paint still stung his upper arms. Not enough to make him wince in pain, but enough to make relaxing impossible. Agatha pressed one of Jay's left fingernails. After no paint came off, she pointed Jay towards the cushion. Jay shifted into a cross-legged position, placed his lifeless hands in his lap, and closed his eyes. Calming himself in preparation for whatever was coming next.
Agatha started humming, beginning some sort of chant.
Alongside the humming, Jay heard the crackling of a fire. Louder, and more intense than the handful of candles flickering in the room. A sputtering poof, followed by the fire dying out, almost made Jay open his eyes. But he resisted and held strong. A cold breeze swirled around Jay, caressing his skin as it encircled him. A colder, wetter, breeze poked at Jay's neck. He jerked forward.
The fuck was that?
Jay still held his eyes firmly shut, and slowly returned to his original position. More on-edge than before, but still relatively calm.
Was that the smoke?
Jay managed to stay still the next time the cold wetness touched him, barely. The more it groped him, the more disturbing it got. Crawling around his neck and chest slowly like a metre long slug. Tugging and pulling at his skin.
Once it reached the paint on his shoulders, the cold touch slid off his torso and into his arms. It travelled faster there, it felt more like the rush of wind than… whatever he’d felt before. Much like everything else, Jay could sense the smoke, or whatever it was, along his upper arm but he got nothing from below his elbow. He was about to consider cracking his eyes open when Agatha made that decision for him.
“What the fuck did you do to yourself?”