Anastasia Pascal
She stared into the hole and wanted to scream. They wanted her to go down into the darkness that was gurgling like a madman. Though the blond acolyte wanted to do anything in her power not to go down there, she knew that it would happen. Damien would give her no choice with his oblivious assumption or Clarissa, she would drag her down in a headlock. It was a certainty. Anastasia Pascal was going down into those damp depths. All her efforts now were needed to make sure that she did so with dignity rather than waste any of it trying to avoid the descent.
Malachi was staring down into the hole beside her. That clockwork mind ever turning to create more nightmare life experiences. He did it wonderfully and as safely as was possible, but the truth was that the leader of the Sixty was at the heart of every dreadful adventure she had in The Pit. It was hard not to see him as a harbinger of doom.
“Reuben, go over what you saw again,” asked Malachi, his attention crossing over the assembled raid party. After their meetup, everyone had come to the clearing in the middle of the fog. They were going to explore the caverns below, at least a little, before calling it a day.
The scout shifted into view and Anastaisa cringed at the memory of his report. Forcibly she focused on Julia, emulating her stance. The shieldmaiden had revealed a similar deep terror of the things she did, yet somehow summoned the courage to leap into holes full of hungry otters. This was precisely the sort of attitude the blond acolyte wanted to adopt. At least that’s what she thought now. Several attempts to try some others on for size resulted in many ill fits in the long term.
First, she angled her body to mirror Julia and then summoned an estimation of the right thoughts. Fearful, but straight-backed. Willing to stare into the abyss for the sake of others. Solid, dependable.
“It’s not as dark as you would think,” began Reuben. “A glow comes down out of the roots that hang from the ceiling. Tree roots most likely. Seems the plateau is pretty hollow, all sorts of tunnels down there. Cramped. All the space is centered on underground streams so don’t lose your footing. The current looks pretty damn fast. Everything twisted together and there were even bridges. As I said before, looks like it's a giant maze. Not too natural either, the walkways are all too smooth, so that means there’s a plan to it. In my humble opinion. Y’know, if the stairs weren’t enough of an indication.”
“Thank you,” Malachi nodded to Reuben. “You heard, enclosed and flooded. Designed as a maze, so getting lost is gonna be easy. No deep diving today, we’ll be back with supplies tomorrow to map it out. I just want us to explore a little. Get a feel for what’s down there. We know those otters are, but what else?”
“What does a little exploring mean?” asked Phelian thoughtfully. He gave the hole with a staircase a sick look. Anastasia felt for him. It felt distressing to go down in a place that sounded too close to the Ratsin’s Tunnels. Nauseatingly like returning.
“Err, that’s where I’m unsure,” admitted Malachi. “I don’t want to say an hour because well, that’s a lot of time to get lost in. Without something to mark your path back, it’s dangerous to go too far.”
“Three turns,” suggested Molly. “That should allow us to spread out a little to survey things, but be able to return without much trouble.”
Warner nodded while distinctly not looking at the cool-eyed woman. “Sounds like a decent idea to me. We can remember three turns, easy enough.”
“Easy?” retorted Reuben, his tone a little scornful. “Don’t tell me you forgot how the gloom messes with your eyes? This is close quarters too, the light is going to be distorting all the angles. Things aren’t gonna look the same from another direction. We’re not talking about a smooth-walled maze here. It’s … asymmetrical down there.”
Damien pondered aloud, “Easy to get lost… bad lighting… we can bring our own light into this! Quickly, Anastasia! Grab as many sticks as you can!” A smile pleased and excited cut across the obsidian acolyte’s face. He lifted up a random stick from the ground. Under his regard, light rose from the wood. Violet and ghostly. They watched as the enchanted stick dropped into the dark hole and proved its powers of illumination.
Anastasia blinked at the simple solution and turned quickly to collect her own supply. She cradled a bundle of wood. Mostly sticks, but some slender pieces of wood from larger branches. Minor applications of Mana were easy for her to pick. A little manual effort and a blade of pure force diced branches with ease. The blond acolyte thought of chemical glow sticks to decide the need of the thickness and length.
The two acolytes pooled their collected sticks and got ready to do a chain of enchanting. Allen and Jorgenson came over to offer their assistance. Damien was happy to demonstrate, but she suspected that it wouldn’t be as smooth for them to pick it up. Their manual Mana skills were only just maturing. The storm acolyte proved she had some control, a decent amount gained a green-gray glow and only a few were shredded. The task was difficult for the fire acolyte to replicate. Most of his sticks were incinerated.
For Anastasia, it was as uncomplicated as remembering. She saw how the obsidian acolyte performed the spell and then copied. Repeated the flow of Mana, from the straining of intent to the shaping of activation. With her sight, Anastasia could see why the other two were having trouble. They weren’t purifying their Mana correctly. Their naturally occurring affinity was tampering with the results. Flames and storm winds were useful aspects to have for the big works, especially when it came without effort, but for the little castings, the added element caused chaos if not outright failure.
She could see why Damien was so good at making new spells and had mastered manual casting. His raw Mana was just pure. No affinity at all. Whether that was because of his mindset or a deliberate effort, Anastasia didn’t know. It was just beautiful. Her own affinity made it easier to follow his lead, but she was worse at manual casting than Jorgenson and Allen if there wasn’t a blueprint to work off. No memory of a casting and she was out of luck. Her Mana, while oddly seemed pure, wasn’t. Something extra messed with the stability of spell construct. The blond acolyte had yet to identify it.
Personal difficulties aside, her pile of silver shimmering sticks grew faster than Damen’s. He was still patiently going through the process with the other two acolytes. The obsidian acolyte would show the spell as many times as was needed. Anastasia respected the odd man for many things like that. Being a surprisingly good teacher was one of the main ones. It wasn’t only the patience and passion, there was an intuitive flow to his lessons. As if her fellow acolyte knew exactly how you learned best.
“How long do you think those will last?” asked Malachi, surprising her out of thought and rhythm. She looked blankly at the sticks and then Damien to answer. The parameters of the spell weren’t something the blond acolyte knew. Anastasia only copied the spell.
“A few hours,” answered Damien without pause despite watching the other two acolytes attempt the spells. The sword acolyte’s sudden appearance seemed to make them nervous. One stick flickered red and turned to ash. Jorgenson’s flew off into the fog. “I could make it last longer, but there did not seem to be a point for this trip.”
Malachi agreed, “You’re right, that should be plenty of time. What’s below probably deserves its own day of focus at least. Making them last longer would be better for tomorrow as you thought. Almost done though?”
Damien smiled apologetically at his current students. “I will get it done in five minutes.” The obsidian acolyte squatted down and began poking sticks. They would flash violet before his other hand sorted them out of the way. No longer focusing on teaching, the pile of dim sticks disappeared quickly. Before Anastasia could be ready, the parties were heading down the stairs with their own share of sticks. Not that she would ever be ready.
Down they went.
Footsteps echoed back at them over the ever-present sound of moving water. The stairs curved in a spiral until the surface light cut off from sight. Their vision was preserved only by the light brought in with them. The glowing sticks periodically laid on the steps gave them a clear way to retreat. Four or five times the steps wrapped around until the walls disappeared and an unfettered view of the cavernous underground was revealed. A sunken labyrinth, most of it hidden by shadows and rock. Then the steps took them too low to see far.
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The air was cool and damp. Almost pleasant. Even the smell was just water and earth. Anastasia frantically searched for what would try to kill them. Not trusting the swift dark waters nor those hundreds of dark nooks that could be filled with any kind of horrors. She would not fall for this tranquil sight. That was murder bait.
On a little island of stone, the stairs came to an end. The sticks had been placed on the perimeter, creating a circle of light. Reuben stood to the side to direct people coming down. There were two ways to go, upstream or downstream. A reiteration she found unsettling. As they had passed easy mode and were now press-ganged into hard mode.
Or, is this just the normal difficulty before the hard one? fretted Anastasia. Fuck!
“Malachi, head upstream,” directed the scout. “There’s two paths that way. Keep following the water up or cross the bridge. Remember to mark which one you pick.”
Into their parties, they split again. Warner and Phelian headed downstream with their parties to pick different paths and Molly’s party followed Malachi's to take whichever one he didn’t. The so-called bridge appeared on their right as the gloom was dispelled by the leadlight in Julia’s hand. It was a completely rickety thing to Anastasia’s eye. She looked hopefully at the narrow passage beyond the bridge that didn’t look about to crumble. Unfortunately, it was the madmen she was attached to.
The leader of the Sixty glanced at the two options and then at Molly before directing Julia to take them over the bridge. Malachi waited as his party passed over to talk with the acolyte of curses. Anastasia wanted to take the opportunity to glare at the man for choosing the bridge, but couldn’t summon the courage in case of eye contact. Plus the arching stone over the river quickly took over her complete attention. Each step testing for that coming moment of collapse. Somehow, she made it across without an incident.
On the other side of the underground stream, the blond acolyte found their room to move was limited. It was a small ledge over the water with a dark passage in the wall. Which of course, they were going to pass through. Malachi joined them after his chat. She noticed Molly led her people on their own path with a sour expression. Her consideration of that froze as Julia threw a stick into the dark hole. The glow revealed a small tunnel that bent out of sight, just tall enough for the stone to graze their tallest folks.
“Ah, great… we’re um going to squeeze through uh a hole in the wall,” muttered Anastasia. Her claustrophobia got worse when at several points the walls pinched close, forcing them to slide past sideways. Neck pain became an issue too. A descending ceiling encouraged uncomfortable angles. Oppressive as the nightmare of being trapped in rock became more and more real. It was enough to make the blond acolyte excited for the tunnel to end at another river passage.
She threw herself free and danced to the side to clutch the rock wall to her back. Free air was a relief. Anastasia tried her best not to think about how escaping to the surface would require going through the tunnel again. Tried very hard. The new area had slow-moving water that they could follow in either direction, with or against. Across the way was an alien space of stalagmites. Structures that looked almost sculpted by human hands into a hedge maze of stone.
Dammit… that looks really easy to get lost in,” grounded Anastasia. She just knew her fate would be to enter that tangle of rock. The Sixty were all mad, but Malachi’s party was by far the most likely to do the most dangerous thing.
In preparation for that inevitable experience, the blond acolyte studied the distant landscape and hoped she could be forewarned to some of the dangers. There was always an unseen one. A quick chant activated Discerning Sight. Her sight altered as Mana became absolutely clear. It was thick in the air, but there wasn’t any hint of anything too concentrated across the way. Nothing that would indicate a monster or trap. That she knew to identify at least. Something shifted in the river and her altered sight locked onto a slither of pulsing Mana.
A giant otter popped out of the water. The two of them shared eye contact. Her mouth opened up to scream and it drooled with a grin of sharp teeth. Mana surged around the monster as it contorted to cast. The water surface never even rustled as the high-powered spray came to life. Shooting towards her face. Anastasia saw the shape of the spell, how it curved and imbued into a single intent. She saw and in a panic copied the spell down to replicating the affinity.
Two jets of water slammed into each other. There was a loud smacking sound and stinging drizzle sprayed everywhere from the contact. Wonder and surprise rolled through her head as the blond acolyte easily maintained the spell. She had no idea why, but recreating the monster spell was much easier to copy. In fact, the casting was already locked into her mental spell list. Using it in the future would be just as easy. Anastasia felt powerful as water surged through her rod.
Her eyes never left the stalemated otter, but she could hear that more otters had made an appearance. A full battle was breaking out. There was no time to waste. Staying too focused could get her killed by being bull rushed by several of the aquatic monsters. She was too exposed. Doing as Damien had taught her, Anastasia critically observed the workings of the water gun spell. Looked through its mechanics to find the efficiencies and inefficiencies. This was another skill she had few problems picking up from the obsidian acolyte. The blonde acolyte wasn’t the best at innovation, instead modifying was second nature to her.
With an effort, the spray became a cannon of force.
The air hummed with the pressure as Anastasia’s spray precise through the monster’s efforts and snapped off the top jaw of the otter. Blood stained the water and the partially decapitated body began to sink while drifting with the current. It was an absent-minded gesture to use Mana to snatch the body out of the water. Her panic-driven battle senses flared as she looked for the next target and safest place to be. What the blonde acolyte got was Damien suddenly in her face while excitedly clapping in a flutter of motion.
“That was the monster's own spell you used against it, right?!” exclaimed Damien. His eyes were alight in the thrill of new knowledge and possibilities. She knew that look, it was equal parts comforting and terrifying.
“Uh, yes,” squeaked Anastasia.
“Excellent!” the obsidian acolyte cheered. “Are you now able to manipulate water or just that one spell?”
She thought about it seriously. Damien wouldn’t let it go until the idea was given some real thought and likely a great deal of testing as well. Her thoughts shifted to the little pouches of knowledge that were the vast intricacies that made up the workings of every spell. The one for the water gun was the newest addition to the lot and stood out from the rest. Anastasia tried to alter the construct, but found it resistant beyond the basic parameters. Nothing drastic beyond the pressure or other small factors could be changed.
Damien had been watching carefully the nebulous Mana trying to form along her rod. Likely he already knew the answer to the question. “I uh don’t think so,” said Anastasia. “Um seems I just uh learned that one spell.”
“Too bad, but this is still very interesting! A monster’s spells, they are learnable. We have not seen many of them that can cast them. I wonder, could you have learned the Ratsin’s magic?”
Anastasia paled at the thought, but answered honestly. “I think it’s um because I was using uh Discerning Sight and focusing on Mana flow when the otter began to uh cast. The construct just uh made sense and came um together in my hand.”
“Well, you have always been good at picking up spells,” reflected Damien. Then added cheerfully, “Better than me! I have been very envious. You have copied one of my spells too! This is definitely your affinity.”
“My affinity?”
“It has been discussed that each of us gives our Mana an affinity. A natural effect that…”
Having completely forgotten everyone else and fallen into ease of their private conversations, Anastasia snarled. “I know that! I was one of those that supported that theory!”
He blinked in surprise to be interrupted. “O! Yes! I did not forget, just referencing. Hmmm… Where was I going with that again? Anyways, some of us are very transparent. Fire, wind, barriers, et cetera. Others are more abstract.”
“And, my affinity is abstract?”
“That is my theory,” agreed Damien. “For you, your affinity does not add anything to your spells to make certain effects easier. No, you are inclined to learn any spell you see cast. Like a mirror!”
“Huh, ok,” nodded Anastasia. “That’s pretty cool.”
“I think so! Imagine all the possibilities it opens up. Tell me, is there much of a difference between human and monster spells?”
She reflected, looking at the spell list again. The water gun spell had stood out and took a moment for the reason why to be clear. Simplicity. Everything about it was the simplest of concepts. If Anastasia had to guess, in comparison, human spells might be just overthinking sometimes.
The two acolytes fell into a deep discussion about the nature of spells and her copy ability. They became so engrossed that she almost forgot where the party was. Even the occasional monster attack was barely an interruption. Those proved to be more of an opportunity for experimentation. Soon enough the party was turning back, but the theorizing was far from over.