The group attempted to walk along the drawbridge, but once they were past the support of the sand, they heard a crack, and Amity felt her left foot give out.
“Shit-”
Amity fell down, feeling the board scrape and cut her leg, and she barely caught herself, but was unfortunate enough to grab a section she immediately felt give under her hands as the board splintered and snapped, finally giving in.
She fell maybe 6 inches before she felt a solid tug under her arm, as her bag caught onto the board, somehow managing to catch Amity. The board creaked and groaned, but the section that the bag had grabbed was secure, and Amity hadn’t fallen into the pit. Yet.
Amity felt her arm lift up, and then the bag’s strap slipped away. She managed to grab onto the strap, just barely, but the board creaked more, and it began to give way again. At this point, Raleigh bent down and grabbed onto the hand that was at that point barely keeping hold of the bag’s strap, and pulled. The first thing to happen was Amity using her other arm to grab the drawbridge, then she began lifting herself up. She made it back up, then retreated to the sand to check her leg.
“Oh crap, it’s everywhere.” Amity said, referring to the blood on her leg. She slid back over onto the bridge to grab her bag, noticing a rip that was forming along the side, and then returned to the sand to patch herself up. Amity grabbed her first-aid kit, grabbing one of a few sterile gauze packs to cover the large wound, then placed a stick atop it, following that up with some roll bandages at the top and bottom to keep it there.
Amity stood up, albeit slowly and painfully, and carefully inched back along the bridge to reach the other side.
“Raleigh! Thanks man, I like, almost died there.” Amity fist-bumped him. “I think I’m okay to walk, so we should go in and check for a pot to start the solution in.”
Once they stepped in, Amity directed everyone to their own section to search.
Himiko went to the right, down a long hall of boiler rooms, janitor closets, and other miscellaneous behind-the-scenes areas. Near the end of the hall, there was a door slightly ajar which opened to a warm room with clean floors (compared to the rest of the place), wide counters and a few cabinets with various dishes, most notably being a very small pot that looked like it could barely hold a cup or two of water. She picked it up and made her way back to the main area, where she called out for her friends.
“Guys! I found a pot!”
While she awaited their return, she set up a pretty basic stand for the pot, a few chunks of rock holding up the pot at it’s edges with enough space under to slide a fire glyph under.
Katie was first to come back, immediately followed by Amity and then Raleigh, all of them gathered around the pot.
“Might want to rinse it out, but I think it’s pretty much fully ready to start boiling besides that.”
Amity used a water glyph to fill it about halfway, before swirling the water around, dumping it out, and using the remainder of the water glyph to fill it again, this time to begin the mixture. She grabbed some of the shards of the blue rock and dumped them into the water, stirred it in, then set a fire glyph to start boiling. Amity used the time between starting the glyph and the water boiling to pull out a syringe and a small bandage from her bag.
A few minutes later, the water was boiling and Amity dropped a rock on the fire glyph to stop it. She uncapped the syringe and brought up 20 milliliters of the neutral magic solution (what the book called it) before preparing to inject it. She pulled up a sleeve and pressed the needle up onto her skin.
She sunk it in, and shortly after she pressed the last of the solution into her arm, she felt a light buzz run through her arm. The buzz made it down her fingers and then all the way back up into her chest, as she felt something build in her arm, as if something was pressing against it, then it vanished, leaving her right arm feeling lighter than ever. She waved it beside her, and then searched for a large rock, something she wouldn’t normally be able to lift. She bent her knees, braced her back, and it lifted with relative ease. Not easy exactly, but it was easier than it should’ve been. As Amity lifted the rock, something flowed through her, into her muscles and back out through the rock.
Amity tried to swing, and she managed to throw the rock a fair distance, crashing into the wall behind the pedestal intended for the throne.
“Whoa, what the-” Himiko said.
“Dude, Amity, you’re so strong!” Raleigh said.
“Oh dang, I don’t even think I could’ve lifted that thing.” Katie said.
Amity grabbed Raleigh’s phone, searching for the book pages he saved. She found them, and then read them to herself.
“To channel magic after gaining a neutral medium, you must hold a non-neutral medium and think of the result you want.”
She followed the instruction, grabbing the red rock and imagined a raging fire, tearing through everything, dark red and devastating. She felt the warmth of a small flame near her hand, near burning but just far enough away to do no harm. Though it was small, it was powerful. She didn’t have any flammable material in her hand besides the air that surrounds it, but there was still a flame there. Self sustaining as the wielder, it raged on. Amity was able to imagine it growing, getting bigger in accordance with her thoughts, and it happened to the true flame. She dropped the red rock, and the flame abruptly vanished, as if it was never there.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Like the flame, she picked the yellow rock for her next test. Amity thought as hard as she could, imagining a shock running through her arm to manifest in a bright source of power in her hands. Once the thought was complete, it happened to her real body. Lightning formed, and she discovered a flick could launch it wherever she chose. Unfortunately, since it was her first attempt at using it, she missed and managed to shock Himiko.
“Wait, crap, Himiko are you good?”
Himiko had fallen over, and could only respond with a shake of the head, so Amity grabbed the green rock from her bag and ran to Himiko. She rested her hand on the electrical burn and desperately thought about health, healing Himiko, saving her, and-
“Amity, what is that one?”
Himiko had awoken, and asked about the new rocks that Amity had admittedly not told her about.
“Oh, yeah, I uh, forgot to tell you guys about these. The yellow one is electricity powers as far as I can tell, and the green one as you see is health powers, it’s getting rid of her burn now…”
Himiko didn’t verbally respond, but she nodded to say that she understood.
“Do any of you want me to give you that shot?” Amity asked.
“I’m gonna refrain for now” Himiko said.
“Yeah, same.” Katie said.
“It seems… dangerous.” Raleigh also said.
“Alright, but I do have more syringes so I can do it anytime.”
Katie reached into her backpack and pulled out a small jar, enough to hold maybe half of the mixture made, but that would still be plenty to inject everyone with it. She offered it to Amity who happily accepted, and sealed the mixture away.
“I believe that’s actually everything we needed from this place, there wasn’t anything else of value in the kitchen and I don’t know if you guys found anything but I assume not.”
“Yeah, there wasn’t anything else we needed from here. We could probably get going soon, maybe we’ll only be missing people for a week at this rate!”
They all gathered their things and walked outside. Miraculously, they made it over the bridge without breaking it anymore, and bid the castle adieu.
“Okay, this map says the next spot is a royal town another mile or two north.” Amity said.
“What are we looking for?” Himiko asked.”
“Not much, actually. There’s a mine nearby with huge deposits of a new kind of magic rock.”
“Wait, really?”
“Yeah, that’s what it says.” Amity folded up the map and slid it into her pocket. “Let’s get going.”
The group followed the wind for a few minutes, walking between several cacti and large gems, although none of them were anything notable besides it just being unusual for huge shards of rock to sit sturdy in the middle of a desert. After a while of walking, they spotted a flowing blue monster nimbly passing between and under tight clusters of rocks. The familiar looking enemy turned it’s head towards the group, and upon realizing something about the front and center person, it lunged towards her.
“Really, again?”
“Huh? What do you mean, ‘again’?”
“I can explain when we’re done with it.”
Amity reached into a pocket to find the red rock, then managed to force fire out of her hand. The monster didn’t react in time, getting skewered by the flames launching from Amity. She bent down and found a stick long enough to wield as if it were a sword, and placed it into her hand.
The fire transferred itself to the tip of the stick, extending out in more a narrow path than the prior breadth of flame from her raw hand. The fluid creature launched a stream of water towards Amity, who managed to duck down in time to avoid a hit. She swung her makeshift fire blade at the water-based enemy who avoided the attack by splitting itself in half around the weapon.
It then retaliated by flinging a solid sheet of water, extinguishing the flame and again managing to soak Amity. There was another smaller launch of water, aimed for her head, that hit and knocked over the fighter. She switched hand and went for a lightning approach, flinging electricity at the creature who managed to call back all water it had sent to Amity. It dodged the glowing attacks, but then it froze in place as it processed some information, then it began it’s first major shift of the battle. It’s statute lowered, but it’s accessories remained taller than Amity as it’s ultimate attack began. The creature began to sculpt itself into the person standing directly behind the main fighter.
“Is it… turning into Himiko?” Raleigh asked.
“Yeah, it did this last time too. It apparently stops Amity in her tracks, so she might need some backup.” Himiko said.
The creature’s body didn’t just turn into Himiko, it began going slightly further. Growing slightly taller, getting a little stronger, and filling out it’s chest, Amity couldn’t fight. She was entranced, as happened in the prior fight.
“What is that thing? It’s like, an idealized version of you.”
“Not very nice Raleigh, but you’re kinda right actually. It’s me, but… I’m a little shorter than that. My arms don’t have like, any muscle. And I’m way flatter than that.”
They observed the creature, only reacting when it lunged towards Amity. Raleigh ran in and pulled the barely-aware girl away from the path of attack. She stopped looking at the intentionally unrealistic version of Himiko and managed to get ahold of herself.
“Guhh… Oh crap, did it-”
“Yeah. It turned into Himiko like last time, you got stuck staring at it.”
“Shit, sorry…”
Himiko picked up a rock and while throwing it at the monster she called out “It’s fine, but you have all the magic stuff. Come help!”
Amity obliged, finding the yellow rock again and sending a concentrated bolt of electricity to the creature. She struck it that time, and the easy pickings meant she could, albeit clumsily, switch to the flame power and launch a wide range of fire at it. The monster stood back up and shifted back into a vaguely human shape, not resembling anyone in particular. It nearly managed to hit Amity before it lost it’s cohesion. Himiko ran over the puddle it created and snatched up the heart.
“Hup!”
Himiko punted it a good distance away, and they made a getaway before it could reform.
“So, what is that thing?”
“I think it was a Water Mimic. That’s what the book I saw called them. They hook into your mind to find a visual image to trick you.” Himiko replied.
“Ah. Wait, why was it finding you then?” Raleigh asked.
“Clearly because I’m so pretty and awesome. Nah, I actually don’t really know. Maybe… nevermind.”
They spotted a stone mound with an opening and made their way towards it, assuming it to be the mine they were searching for. Once they reached it, they noticed that the traditional stairs you would associate with a mine weren’t there, replaced by an elevator reminiscent of the one from the tree base. Himiko stepped in first, waiting for everyone else to enter before hitting the down button. They descended, and just as the elevator’s still open doors began to close, it stopped moving.