Soren Hill
The revolvers flashed in both of his hands. Faint silver trails followed the path of the enchanted bullets that exploded upon penetration. Chitin cracked and then ripped open a second later. Scorpions poured over their broken kin, hoping to use the pause of reloading to charge in.
His fingers danced like magic and the revolvers spoke again. A pause too short.
Veins of red Mana grew in intensity as Soren fought. Heat and excess energy were absorbed on top of his own steady supply. When needed, the trigger stilled as beams and bolts of red fired. Genius Valerie had gifted him twin guns that contained the magical circuitry to mimic the abilities of his crystal gun and that was just the beginning of what she had blessed her creations with.
Bullets and power fired in a flurry.
The horde of scorpions faltered and then diminished. A ring of debris surrounded the party, trails spiking out like sun rays to burrows. They had stepped into the middle of a large nest in their wandering. Most of these monsters were solitary or pack hunters, but this new species was a numerous collective.
“That’s a bumper field of cores for us,” Soren observed, pleased. His revolvers slotted home with perfection as he freed his hands to check on his people.
Carlo stretched before a frosted piece of desert. Ice crushing and clutching dusting scorpions. “Damn right, didn’t seem like there was any end to those buggers. What do they eat to keep their numbers?”
“That’s a good question. Maybe something tasty comes out at night.”
“Well poor bastards, being on the bottom of the food chain and all.”
Soren smirked with sympathy. “Someone’s gotta be.”
“Not us though,” grinned the ice mage.
“True.”
His attention shifted to the others. No one was harmed even with the numbers stacked against them. Leon’s talent for barriers meant the mage rarely got to practice his meager healing ability. A fact that bothered no one and pleased most.
Charlotte Scott was cleaning her sword, completely unable to wait for the dusting to take care of that. A mad woman in battle, but a fussy clean freak outside it. He adored her and her unique disposition.
The scout Francisco had decided to join them today and was deep in conversation with Dorothy Roth. The two of them discussed the merits of maneuvers against hardshell invertebrates.
Everyone had settled well into the pace of the desert floor. Perhaps in large part due to the glacier blue ice crystal hovered among them. Carlo's construct broke all conventions, outdoor AC. Effective and efficient outdoor AC. Within the domed radius, the desert heat was forgettable.
The glare of the floor was still a problem, but Soren had bought sunglasses long ago.
Mostly, this floor filled him with a sense of peace. Desert simplicity. They walked and fought as monsters approached. No need to worry about pathing or missing anything. The flat plainness assured them that anything and everything was visible. That he had grown up in a similar environment only added to the pleasure of the eighth floor. A sense of home.
He was honestly in no rush to complete the floor. It’d be nice to match up to the others, but Soren had found peace. His thorn of pride pulled free. Instead of chasing after others' accomplishments, the marksman was existing as himself. Pursuing his own ideal, like Valerie. The arcanist had a goblin’s soul, but she was unapologetically herself.
An inspiration that.
They picked up the cores and moseyed onward. Like Phelian’s Gimmie Frog, his party had their own strange interaction.
A mound instead of a pit, a fox instead of a frog. It had waited for them eagerly with a series of challenges. Minor things that only took cleverness or concentration to complete to the monster’s satisfaction.
Once they had entertained the fox a dozen times, it laughed with pleasure; overwhelmed with glee. It turned to stone in the middle of that good humor and a tablet appeared clenched in the forepaws. Another poem, one that praised the tribulations of the desert. Promising elevation to those who embraced its lessons.
Now, Soren led his party to wander. Looking for the next oddity of the floor
There was a lot of time to reflect in the desert, an impulse encouraged by the stark terrain. He thought about a lot of things while walking and eyes scanning. Things from before and things as they were now. Mostly the marksman thought on those little things of one’s self.
Valerie had freed him, this was true, but there was more to it. His anguish of pride had been blinding him from the wonders of this place. Combat might be at the heart of The Pit yet it was all a distraction from the true potential of magic. What was a spell to throw fire in comparison to a spell that warmed a home without fuel or smoke? The true value of power was found in easing life rather than taking it. Through her passion, the mad arcanist had opened Soren’s eyes to that.
Harken’s obsession and Phelian’s childish joy had driven him away from considering the gift of Mana. It took the crankiest amongst them to change his perspective. Valerie was preparing so hard to not only be useful to everyone, but for the future. The others were focused on reaching the sky and she was thinking of what then.
Spending time with her had broadened his world and potential.
That new lane of consideration had made him reconsider everything about his personal Mana. The beautiful shadowed red power that had empowered his guns and now could be summoned at will. Since his arrival in The Pit, Soren had considered only its worth in battle. He now wondered what else was within his talents.
What was his affinity?
In comparison to others, his use of Mana was unremarkable, unversatile. Reliant on tools rather than his Will. The only exception was his Form, a working of power with actual substance beyond a variety of blasting raw power in one direction or another.
Soren had to think then on what he could do to expand. Burning hours in contemplation and with mental strain to illuminate the truth of his inner self. Pouring through abstract questions one must ask themselves. It was hard to filter the deep answers from his fantasies. He realized that magic was something the marksman had never really taken seriously.
To his embarrassment, his reaction to The Pit was terribly similar to Phelian's. Perhaps a notch more delusional even. The arisen warrior had embraced the dream of living out video games, but had taken the situation seriously. Recklessness besides, the new world was real to him.
The marksman admitted guiltily that it had all been a game in his eyes. The Path suggested had appealed without question and the crystal gun had played too well into his incredulous acceptance. Devoting himself to the competition had been coping, a revulsion from taking anything seriously. In doing so, Soren had crippled himself from his full potential.
Power forced rather than sung free.
Returning back to basics had been the clue. Another embarrassment. Between figuring out the gun and figuring out his Form, the marksman hadn’t paid the book more mind than a single read. Even with Damien and the Council's suggestion, almost a demand to do so at least twice.
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Perhaps reacting to his experience with Mana, the personalization of the words came quickly. The book recognized his needs. All of which could be summed up with actually learning to hear his Heartsong.
It was surprisingly hard.
Soren had felt wounded by the difficulty, so many had preceded him there. He had Mana control, but not the understanding of his affinity. The Heartsong was required for that, for anything grand. Once again, behind the class. The marksman had never really needed to sink that deep into himself before. Self-correction at most. Trying to understand how he ticked had been an uninteresting task. Perhaps frightening to do so.
The marksman had no more time for such childishness. Valerie had gifted him seeds of growth and he wouldn’t fail the ideal growing in his heart. The desire to live up to her dream of a better world.
Soren wanted to be more than a weapon.
He wanted to be the Word of Law and the Hand of Justice.
It was childish and madness, but when his multitude of desires were refined down that was what was left. Throughout his life that had been the ideal that had always been there in the back of his head. An Old West marshall dispensing justice in a lawless world.
That was the ideal, that was the dream. Every decision was colored by his resolve to become a lawman of actionable honor. Experience had tempered it and reality took away the glamor of such a role. He had to reshape, readjust to what the world would allow, but Soren pursued it nonetheless in silence. Unacknowledged the truth of the ideal or break the spell of maturity.
His Heartsong whispered the truth of this amongst the infinite of self. Himself reflected back in sincerity, flaws and talents made clear. Soren listened and accepted the song. To rave against it would be pointless. It was him, complete madness to castigate one’s self for being who they were.
With understanding and acceptance came power. A welling, but more importantly, the gates of potential had broken open.
An expansion of gifts and the birth of new ones.
The simplest aspect of the improvement was the raising of his combat skills through an enhancement of his senses. At will, Soren could slow his perspective and had the speed to react as if time had been. His control over the shots, bullets and laser had risen to the level of a conductor. He could bend them with increasingly greater flexibility.
The rest of his awakening resulted in powers with little direct combat use. Soren saw and knew more in a glance. Felt lies and truth. Judgment became an act of gravity. As if there was a supercomputer within his mind able to process every bit of related information for a perfect weighing.
He was ascending to his ideal.
Through Mana, all things are possible, thought the marksman. His train of thought trailed away as something in the distance stood out. The edge of the floor was in view again, but there was more to this span of it.
No one else in the party had seen it yet, but Soren shifted their angle to a direct course without saying anything. They’d notice soon enough.
The details sharpened slowly as the party drew closer. A collage made in various shades of white, hard to differentiate; especially in the glare of the desert. Everything was tangled together as the impression turned from an oddity of carvings to an intertwining of something manmade and naturally grown.
“Petra,” whispered Soren when the distance was close enough for the others to begin squinting in interest. A decorative entrance was carved into the white barrier wall, but overgrown with undead trees. Bone white with cobwebby leaves. Ghostly in every impression.
When his people began to chatter about the intertwined details the marksman noted the wind. A constant pressure that grew with every step until it became clear that air surged from the openings.
One hundred yards from the structure, the party halted for observations and reporting. Soren lifted the speaking stone and hoped that Phelian had returned to the floor. Testing had shown that the stones didn’t work between floors. It wasn’t a matter of distance nor solid rock. Valerie and Damien were stumped at the limitation.
“Phelian, Soren calling. I have a sighting to report. Looks like we found something that looks like a potential exit.”
“Hey Soren, hearing you. Just got back with a new load of water. What do you see?”
“Ancient Petra looking thing. Weird white trees too, but nothing living is visible at the moment.”
“That does sound promising. We’ll head that way, so go ahead and test it out. Location?”
The marksman took out the compass, relaying the current distance and direction from the pole. There would be a few twists and turns to get her, but the coordinates would get Phelian here.
A few more peasantries were shared and then Soren put everything away. He didn’t waste any more time. In a tighter formation, the party began to cautiously move closer, everyone’s eyes searching for any potential threats. The wind’s howl grew louder and louder until overwhelming the crunch of pebbles. Closer stiller, a second sound began to underline the gales, a hissing of silk on silk.
Six white streaks pulled free from the rippling foliage, floating and twirling in their direction. Strings rapidly threaded free around the streaks. The silk wove into crude sails for maneuvering in aerial unity. Soren recognized they moved as a mirror of their formation
Through the haze of silk Soren identified the streaks as gauzy silkworms. Thick as an arm and long as a table leg. There didn’t seem to be a face, only a featureless tube that exuded silk everywhere.
When the worms were hovering four feet over the ground there was an explosion of silk. A cocoon of extraordinary size that shrunk down in a flash of Mana. Suddenly everyone was looking at a cottony clone of themselves. A perfect copy down to the weapons and the stance, if bleached of all color.
Soren fired and four guns roared. To his shock and bewilderment, his shots exploded in the air between the two of them. The silk clone was somehow able to exactly match his trajectories. More frightening was that the power level was also the same. He was potentially fighting a flawless duplicate. Using a tendril of Mana the marksman flipped a switch within his guns. His next shots were fully empowered by Mana.
Red struck colorless. Each shot, no matter how he strained to curve. The mirroring construct of the silkworm was blocking him with his own skills. Lips pulled back to reveal clenched teeth, Soren gave no smile. Frustration burned thoughts and reflexes to sear through the silk.
All around him, the same pattern of blockade was happening to his teammates. Charlotte Scott bashed shield and sword with her silky lookalike, neither able to drive past the other. Blue ice shattered against white ice as Carlo raged against his copy. Dorothy Roth and Francisco dance with their partners as if playing out a movie fight. Blades never closing on flesh, only steel on steel. Leon was in a frozen stalemate as overlapping barriers tried to crush or stall the crushing. Stilled in reality to their metaphorical stillness.
The marksman flared crimson and leaped toward his silkworm. Another twitch of Mana extended energy blades before the barrels of his guns. He brought the fight in close, a brawl of blade and bullet. Yet, once again the struggle was a series of interruptions.
Whatever tricks he pulled out were halted in equivalent reaction. Impossible perfections of blade and bullet colliding. While keeping up the assault, Soren began to calculate. A suspicion had risen, demanding attention. The impossible angles. They weren’t sitting right with him, at all.
A perfect mirror? No, can’t be… not with the blades, those would just slip past… there is more to this. Reflection, but modified to block. Indefinitely? Or? Look carefully! See the ruse first.
Now Soren looked without true intention to hurt, marking each clash of violence. Seeking the oddity his instinct swore was there. Then he did see it. The subtlest shift of the wrist to angle the colorless blade to cross against his black-edged red one.
There was the hint and proof. Not a true mirror, but a mocking one.
“A ruse! A ruse!” declared the marksman to his people. “Don’t get dragged into complacency! They don’t have to mirror us perfectly!”
Something of that message must passed not just to the party, but to the monsters too. Suddenly the silk gun that should have fired to block his bullet twitched down. Soren shifted poorly, pebbles slipping wrong, but the enemy’s bullet struck the leather duster as desired. The impact threw him to the ground due to poor footing.
The clone sneered with a raised gun.
At will, his right gun flashed and launched an orb of soaked up Mana. The silkworm shot it and both of them were thrown as the energy grenade blew up.
The marksman rolled with the force, maneuvering himself to his feet. He fired blindly, but with the certainty of the monster’s location. Through the dust cloud, Soren charged while firing where his senses told him the silkworm was recovering.
All around him, the orchestra of stalemates turned into discordian war.
In the chaos, the battle turned in their favor. There was a disorienting dread that came from fighting your reflection, but fighting a vicious monster that threatens your life was normalcy to them. The heart could pump to that beat with ease. Soren smiled with the certainty of victory.
Beyond the clearing dust waited his silk clone. Damaged where his shower of bullets had nicked or skewered through the cocoon body. It didn’t wait for the marksman to act, firing with the intent to kill now.
No more tricks.
Soren engaged without hesitation. A new dance as each looked for the opening. Firing and slashing to shifting concerns. Opposition of a different flavor than holding. Perhaps the worm had been learning his moves, but there hadn’t been enough time. Without the miracle ability, it was lackluster to the real thing. The marksman wore through the amateurish motions until the monster was pushed to desperate defense.
It wasn’t good enough. He broke through and fired into the dead center of the chest. Straight through the vulnerable worm encased in dire silk. Soren had never lost track of its location as the clones had formed.
He turned to his party, scanning across their progress. The fights remained individual and like his own progressed towards their inevitable victory. Experience unsurprisingly overcoming magical replication. Soren considered leaving the fights to them, but decided against that. These were monsters, not some mystical trial.
Even if it might have been intended to reflect that.
A few shots hastened the fights and the desert was quiet again. No more worms fell from the ghostly trees. The party walked smoothly into the carved arches. Beyond the entrance was an antechamber with a familiar golden gate.
“Success,” smirked Soren.