A glimmer of magic tumbles down the tunnel, holding in it pretty much all my hopes of continuing. I blink against the radiation, holding as strong as possible so I can see the results with my own two eyes. As long as the tunnel isn’t some optical illusion that’s five times deeper than it looks, coinbound shield should be able to contain the beacon.
The question is for how long?
I clear my throat and wipe a line of sweat from where my shield-helmet presses against my neck. Far sooner than I expected, the coin clinks against the beacon and explodes into a spell. Magical energy wraps the beacon in a sphere in the blink of an eye, and like a tap being turned off, the radiation disappears.
Not just the stuff flowing out of the tunnel, either–even all of it that was stuck in my helmet unceremoniously cuts off. My sweat flows freely, no longer contained by the sickly heat, but it no longer has a reason to flow. It’s a little too cold for my liking. But it worked. I can’t help the grin that tugs at my lips, and I lean in a little further to check on the shield. A few cracks are showing in the sphere, but if they keep spreading at this pace, it looks like I’ll have a few minutes to work with every shield.
“Looks like it’s about… fifty feet down there…” I get to my knees and tap my fingers against the edge of the hole. “And the glass isn’t hot at all, so… I guess it’s perfectly safe to go down there. But if it’s just a hole without another connecting tunnel, I’ll either have to get the dead shellraiser out of the beacon or keep it shielded until I find a way to get it out.”
I pull open my Class Card and check my inventory. Sixteen ghost quarters to work with, all already doubled, so I won’t have to wait to use them. If I have to dip into my Worth as a last resort, I should wait the rest of High Stakes’ cooldown out. I’d kick myself if I ended up dying because of a few lousy undoubled Worth.
----------------------------------------
High Stakes is usable once more.
This notification will not be given again in future scenarios.
I look up at the notification, brush it away, and stand with a grunt of effort. I summon a glass lone and flip it, feeling that now familiar twinge of magic as it spirals in the air. It smacks against my palm, the familiar sensation of its glassy faces almost written into my nervous system for some reason.
“Heads.” I open my hand to reveal the empowered coin, then summon a ghost quarter right next to it. “I flipped hundreds more of these things than the glass ones, but they still don’t feel natural. That’s gotta be the system interfering. What do you think, Pearl?”
No answer. Just like all the other times I’d tried to talk to her since she retreated to her shell. Whatever she’s doing, it has to be extremely important. Nothing else could possibly justify missing all this quality time with me.
The glass lone vanishes, and I summon a second ghost quarter to fill with the shield for the beacon. I fill the first with a helmet-shield that goes right over my head, then walk into the beacon’s area of effect with the beacon’s shield between my fingers. This time I go in much more confidently, ignoring the radiation as best as I can, and let the coin fall directly down on the beacon.
As the radiation cuts off, I summon four more ghost quarters and fill them with spells I’ve been preparing over the last two hours. Ladders are too risky–since the rungs could easily shatter if I put too much weight on them–but a sort of climbing wall with protrusions I can get my fingers around and my feet into is much easier. Concentrating it into a foot-wide rectangle should get me more length, too.
The only issue is how many ghost quarters I’ve got left; only ten now. If I mess up, there really isn’t room for retries. So I’m just not going to mess up.
I pass the other three coins from my right hand to my left, then pitch the one I’ve got left at the wall as hard as I can. It shatters into a fifteen-ish foot long wall, complete with sturdy protrusions for me to get my hands in. At least that’s what I imagined.
Reality isn’t as kind. The complex protrusions look more like small lumps; barely big enough to get my hand around, and definitely not good enough to get a hold of. Guess that’s what the spell’s description was trying to warn me about.
“Okay, so really complex things are a no-go. Probably should’ve tested for that.” I shake my head with a sigh. “That’s fine. I can work with this. Just not… efficiently.”
I flick the second coin from my left hand to my right, then slightly alter my perception of what I want the spell to do. Instead of a wall flat against the tunnel’s side, I imagine it tilted at a forty five degree angle. Then throw it against the useless first wall.
This one bursts into exactly what I imagined–except it’s completely missing any of the bumps. Which means I can alter the spell inside of a coin as long as I haven’t thrown it yet. That’s definitely good to know, since it means I don't have to be so reactive with putting a spell in them at all.
I quickly open my Class Card and add those two points to the list, then close it and lower myself into the tunnel. My shoes catch on the magic like rubber on glass, slowing my descent just enough that I can gather my thoughts before I throw out the second–well, third–coin.
Just like the one before it, there’s no issue with this coin–it smacks against the wall opposite me and summons another platform. My free hand drags against the wall, slowing my descent as much as possible, until the edge of the first wall sneaks up on me.
The last second comes all too quickly. I tense my legs and lean down as far as possible, then push as hard as I can to make the relatively small jump from one platform to another. My feet slam against the shield, followed immediately after by my shoulder. I let myself crash into the glass wall, then shift with a grunt so I’m facing back into the depths of the tunnel.
“One wall down, more to go.”
Two more walls come and go without a single hitch. I have to resupply my spells after the third, and as long as my estimates are right, I’ll be able to get to the beacon with only six total coins. Not including the one I wasted. My shoulder aches something fierce, promising a wicked bruise tomorrow morning, but that’s what I have a healing potion for.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
I steady myself and toss the fifth coin at the wall, slide down the one I’m on, and vault to the next shield. Pain shoots up my leg the second I shift into a crouch, starting from the middle of my calf and pulsing like a second heart that spreads pain instead of blood. A pathetic cry rips free of my throat, and turns into a whole-ass scream of bloody murder when I push off with that still throbbing leg.
My shoulder crashes into the fifth shield first. For the shortest of split seconds, my muscles spasm all the way down to my hand. I grit my teeth and blink away the rapidly forming tears, whimpering in multifaceted agony as the horrific pain spreads from one leg to the other.
Discovery: Healing Rebound.
When a wound is healed through any magical means, pain relative to the amount of damage restored is inflicted a random amount of time later.
Does not inflict any damage–only pain.
This pain can be triggered earlier through strenuous activity, further damage, or biological faults.
Effects are reduced with a higher Body stat.
“Biological faults?!” I hiss into the shield as I watch it slide away. “You turned a damn charlie horse into a whole stampede!”
As if rubbing salt on the wound, my right arm decides to join in the pain parade. All my muscles spasm at once, and all of them hurt about as bad as the absolute worst moment of the worst cramp I’ve ever had. Except they’re constant. Pulsing from bad to worse. Slowly sliding me to certain death.
I have to do something. The pain blanks my thoughts. My left hand clenches uselessly around empty air, and the soft crackle of a coin shattering somewhere below is a harsh reminder that my last ghost quarter had been in my right hand.
Scrabbling for another coin, my mind can’t focus enough to get my inventory to respond fast enough. It’s like pushing through brambles with a horrible burn. Each and every thorny thought scraping against the raw flesh of pain prevents me from getting through. Sweat and tears pour down my cheeks as I clench and unclench my left hand, hoping desperately that a coin will be there the next time my fingers close around it.
A single stray thought catches hold of something more solid than a ghost quarter. Cold glass presses against my palm as my right foot slips over the void.
There’s not enough time or spare brainpower to question anything. I squeeze my eyes shut and force a hasty shield into the coin–a simple square that I can fall onto. Big enough to support my body, but not so big that I shatter it on impact.
My knees join my feet. And with a little more of my body over the edge, the rest of me shifts awkwardly to join it. I yelp in equal parts pain and surprise as I’m dragged over the edge by my own dead weight, clenching my coin as hard as physically possible as my eyes wrench open to the sight of the beacon screaming towards me.
“Shield!” I scream as I tumble head over heels.
The shield manifests an inch from my face. My helmet-shield smashes against it, shattering instantly. The tip of my nose is next, and–
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I blink slowly as all the aches and pains come back to me. Blood, drool, sweat, and mucus sticks to my face as I try unsuccessfully to pry myself from the shield. My memory feels stitched together–one second I’m slamming my face against the shield, and the next I’m waking up with a smashed nose and a…
Blood drips down from my forehead, interrupting my thoughts. A LOT of blood. Almost like my forehead was ugly crying from the massive smack it just suffered. I shift a little so the blood doesn’t fall into my eyes, then curl up into the fetal position as nausea and dizziness join the horrific pain.
“Pearl.” I slur out through bleeding lips. A thought summons my health potion, but it just clatters against my shield. “Help.”
Only a soft crackling, like thick ice slowly melting, meets my ears. I force myself to actually take in the state of my shield, but much to my surprise, it’s in damn good shape. Only a spiderweb of cracks from where my forehead and nose slammed into it.
If existing wasn’t so horrible right now, I might’ve been ecstatic to even be alive. More crackling kills that thought instantly. And it isn’t coming from my platform.
It’s coming from the one just a foot underneath me.
The spherical shield looks like someone glued a shattered snowglobe together, but used white school glue instead of the stuff that dries clear. From the trial run, I know this means I've got all of a minute before the sphere shatters and radiation pours out of it like… like… Shit, I’m so borked I can’t even think of a good simile.
…Broken. I meant broken.
“Shelby?! I’m here!”
Pearl’s panicked voice washes over my mind like ointment. I instinctively close my eyes, but that just makes her panic even harder.
“Oh no oh no oh no! Please! Um, how can I… what can I…” She sounds like she’s on the verge of tears. That really sucks. “Health potion!”
The sound of metal clattering next to my head makes me crack open an eye just a little. There’s a tiny little creature standing there, struggling to maneuver herself into opening up the cap. Tiny rivulets of neon blue stream down her cheeks, and all I want to do is reach out a finger to whisk them away.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She repeats as the flask’s cap swings off, letting some precious health potion drip onto the shield below. “I should’ve been here with you. I should’ve helped you. I’m so–”
Her voice catches with a sob. She drags the flask to my mouth, shoves it into my lips, and runs around the back to tip it into me. The liquid pools in my mouth, and I struggle as hard as I can to get the first drops down my throat. About half of it makes it down, and the other half painfully burns its way down to my lungs.
My body jerks violently as movement comes back to me. I clutch my throat and sit bolt upright, choking as much of the potion up and out of my lungs as I possibly can. Pearl hurries up to my side, dancing in and out of my field of view as she whimpers and apologizes in equal measure.
“I’m so sorry!” She blubbers and smooshes herself against my hip.
I wave one hand a little, but can’t speak through the strange pain of a health potion trying to work in my lungs. Suddenly she’s at my ear again, whispering more apologies.
“It’s all my fault. We’re supposed to be partners, but I just… abandoned you. When you’re doing all this to help me.”
I want to point out that I’m also doing it to stay alive, but apparently talking isn’t going to happen any time soon. God, the backlash from this is going to be horrific.
“I… I won’t let this happen again.” Pearl says with shaky resolve. “We’re in this together. That means we do all the important things together. I’ll… I’ll make this up to you somehow. I swear on my ________ __ ________.”
Ringing white overtakes everything. If I wasn’t already sitting, that blast of system censorship would’ve put me flat on my ass.
“Beacon!” I croak out as the world comes back into focus, along with the beginnings of a putrid heat.
Pearl tilts her head to the side, then freezes. “The beacon! You found a way to block it!”
Chunks of crystallized red spill out of my mouth in a wet, wracking cough. I clench both of my hands and find both of them functional. None of my breaths come out right, but I can get just enough air to survive. A ghost quarter pops into my hand. Sickly heat assaults every fiber of my being.
Only one question remains: delay the inevitable, or deal with it and accept all the consequences?