Ursula motions with one gun towards a human-ish elemental off to my left, then slams her foot into the ground. A ring of salt sprays out from the impact, lingering in the air like early morning mist. She turns her focus to the two remaining humanoids–one gun pointed at each of them–and magic runs through her suit in veins of visible blue.

Shining like a star in my awareness, she gets to work. She rears back and slams her foot into the column of salt, forcing the blue to bleed out from her suit into the salt itself. In a heartbeat it becomes saturated with magic, solidifying from a mist into something that clicks and shivers in an almost musical tone. It blocks a spray of molten salt easily and retaliates with a lance of magic that shears right through the humanoid, skewering it to the wall behind it on a thin spike of magic.

It growls out a low noise and reaches down to pry the spike from its body. The little blue thing snaps easily. And explodes violently not a moment later.

I throw up a shield as chunks of salt–some from the elemental and some from the surrounding walls–batters everything in the room. None of the other elementals so much as react. Ursula stares at the site of the explosion until the salt dust clears, then concentrates her focus on the other humanoid.

“The hell was that?” I mutter to myself as I turn to the one elemental she left me. And the two non-humanoids, but they’re not worth worrying about. “She shouldn’t have access to her spells.”

March makes a strange noise–probably from the sudden sound we forgot to warn her about–and starts typing away once more. “I can’t tell you exactly what it is, but it’s some kind of explosive gel she made. She keeps it in her suit as a power source, since it’s completely harmless as a liquid but really explosive as a solid.”

That’s pretty much telling me exactly what it is, in my eyes. But I guess there’s way more to it if that’s not even the shortened explanation. I raise my dagger arm to flare a shield against another pincusion, then shove it to the ground and summon a shield between it and the humanoid. Molten salt flows free from the ground around the humanoid, crashing into the shield in an attempt to protect the pincusion from the projectile I just dropped on it.

My shield holds long enough, and the elementals’ forces are down to two humanoids and two pincusions. Flowing salt consumes the pincusion’s remains as my shield gives out. I push off the ground high enough to clear the attack. The elemental glows bright, and the flow hardens in an instant. Tiny spines burst free of the salt and pepper a shield I throw under my feet, which stops the salt buff from keeping me afloat. I feel each and every little impact, like countless bugs smacking against a motorcycle helmet, but they’re not even enough to shatter the shield. Not even with my extra weight weakening it.

Which has to mean they’re doing something else. I glance down quickly, and sure enough, dozens and dozens of little molten pock-marks bubble on the surface of the salt. Each of them with as much magic inside of them as the pincusion had. The tiny spines each start to glow as well–but only on the very tips, and only on the sides that aren’t lodged into my shield.

Awareness suddenly sears into my mind, screaming warning from each and every one of the tiny spines. I wince and shove off my shield, cracking it slightly in the process, and stumble through the air as my awareness keeps yelling at me to back away.

Pock marks molten with salt swirl, shake, and erupt violently with molten strands that look like tendrils of horrific pain to my awareness. They sear into my mind, causing horrible shivers just like the thorns falling in the main room for the moments between launch and them crashing into my shield. Which shatters when the very first of the tendrils shears clean through it.

But they don’t stop there. Dozens and dozens of the tiny spines fly free, spiraling randomly throughout the room. Each of which is followed by a molten tendril like a bloodhound in hot pursuit. I grit my teeth and put up as many shields as I can to stop the random assault, but they too are broken like sugar glass.

“How the hell did this thing get so much power?” I wince and hyperextend my neck as a spine whizzes by, chased closely after by a tendril that nicks my cheek. The wound is immediately salted, and the pain is stinging and deep.

More and more spines manage to find their way to my general direction. I look down and make the snap decision that it’s safer down there than still in the air. Salt meets shoulder with a single thought, and I roll into a crouching lunge that gets me as close to the humanoid as possible. It’s glowing features lock onto me instantly, and the salt underneath it roils and shifts as it prepares something else. Attack, defence, I don’t know yet, but my awareness isn’t screaming at me to avoid it. So my money would be on defence.

I can work with that. My shield-knife slams into a crystal barrier as it sprouts from the ground, sending shockwaves up my arm and throughout my brain, but they’re not enough to stop me. I focus on the shape of the knife’s projection and envision a thin, piercing line–just like the one Ursula used to explode her own humanoid–and force it down my awareness to rest in the knife.

For a few terrifying moments, it doesn’t move. The elemental shudders and cracks as the salt shifts beneath my feet, creating a carpet of moving salt that’s reminiscent of the one that just shot spines into my shield. I squeeze my eyes shut and focus everything on the knife as I say a silent prayer.

Sensations flow right back at me through my awareness. Emptiness. Weakness. Hunger. It stretches along my arm and reaches down to my coin holster, wraps around a skeleton, and makes me aware of why everything’s not doing what I want it to. It’s not the salt. It’s not my ability.

There just isn’t enough magic left.

Sharpness digs itself into the soles of my boots. It doesn’t reach my skin, but my awareness informs me of just how close it got. I swallow hard and withdraw a single iron five from my Worth, push a shield into it, and flip it as quickly as humanly possible. Once the spell settles, I slap the coin into the slot on my knife.

And activate Shoreline Risemuation to turn it into a skeleton before the blade takes it.

Fragile magic nearly shatters as it enters the knife, but holds just long enough for the blade to swallow its power. My command remains whole and strong, now empowered by a ten Worth skeleton screaming towards the edge of my knife. Magic blossoms into being, then keeps going. And going. And going.

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Until it skewers through everything to get to the humanoid elemental. The spines at my feet start to grow warmer and the salt stirs with violent promises. My thin line of death isn’t dealing much death right now, but with a single thought, it expands. A mass of razor-sharp darkness explodes inside of the elemental–incredibly solid and deadly–separating it into six clean pieces. One of the shields shears clean through its core, and the entire thing goes limp at once.

I sigh in relief as the spines under my feet begin to melt away. That spell–whatever it was–was way deadlier than it had any right being. It was just locator pins for the spell itself to track. Did that really up the deadliness by so?

Spikes shatter on a shield as my awareness flares once more, and I turn to shoot the pincushion an ugly glance. Two projectile-filled coins fly free from my right, and in a spray of salt and light, the thing isn’t my problem any more. From the lack of elementals and Ursula holstering her guns, she’s done too.

“All good?” She asks.

I nod and call for the magic in my knife to form back into plates. “All good, yeah. The spine attack was pretty damn terrifying, but I think I–GAH!”

Shield plates overtake my vision completely. I stumble around for a few seconds as they finish solidifying around the entirety of my arm and most of my torso, then blink rapidly when the world comes into focus just as quickly.

Ursula laughs and crosses her arms. “From the sound you made I’m guessing that wasn’t intentional?”

“No, it was definitely not.” I confirm and run my fingers over the plates that should be blocking my vision. Instead, I can see through them almost perfectly. Save for the fact that the world’s completely black and everything’s just outlined in a shifting rainbow of colours.

The elemental drops down before I can say anything else. It turns and scans the room in one uniform motion, then sinks into the floor until only their elemental cores are visible. Ursula and I share a worried look as everything starts to shake in rhythmic fashion.

She rests a hand on her gun once more. “Ready for whatever happens?”

I respond by summoning some coins.

Light and vibrations course through the salty heart, all the machinery in the walls locked up tight by the crystalline salt pulsing and struggling as the elemental does whatever it’s doing. More of the same sensations twitch down my spine along to every pulse. My awareness flares too, rippling like a glass of water heralding the approach of some massive beast.

The elemental erupts from the floor and grabs my arm. “I am having troubles. Come help.”

Before I can get a word in, my world splits into a mess of sensations and colours that dance like glass leaves on a wind that can’t decide which way it wants to blow. Salt stings my eyes and I squeeze them shut, letting my awareness and the elemental drag me to wherever the hell it needs help.

Pearl leans forward with obvious interest. She cups her chin with her hands and rests her elbows on something, then mouths a few words that’re clear as day.

‘She’s a little like me.’

If she wanted to get my attention, that’s one surefire way to do it. I wrench my eyes open through the stinging and call my plates to form a better seal, which they do, except they’re trapping the salty… air?... in with me. But the buff keeps it from doing any real damage, so I keep my eyes open and locked on the elemental core that’s dragging me ever deeper. Even though we definitely should’ve touched metal at this point.

How is this thing like Pearl? They’re both magical creatures, that’s for sure, but it doesn’t feel like the entire story. The elemental is salt, and Pearl is cosmic goo, which… I guess could be kind of close? Shivers run down my spine as the elemental dissolves into just its core, leaving behind no trace of its body, but the pressure on my arm remains all the same.

“Signals.” I murmur as it hits me. “You’re just a mass of signals that’s controlling a bunch of salt. But somehow, you have way more signals than all the other elementals. Where’s the thing that makes you?”

The elemental doesn’t respond, but the sensations down my spine somehow take a downturn. As if they’re sad that they, too, don’t know. I never got that from the elemental when it spoke.

My follow up question lingers on the tip of my tongue as the salt spits me out and deposits me on a metal floor. A dull, thudding echo reverberates through the entire place as I knit my eyebrow in surprise, then look up to see just how far we traveled. Ursula tilts her head from not two dozen feet above me and waves sarcastically.

I roll my eyes and return the wave, then turn to whatever the elemental wanted me to be here for. It manifests a body for itself once more and whatever sensations it had been feeding me disappear instantly.

“There is something here I do not know how to deal with.” It says, leading me towards a panel on the wall that drips oily grease. “Sensitive electronics reside inside of this. Yet for some reason I cannot access them.”

This time, I only wait a few seconds for the follow-up that’s never going to come. I click my tongue and raise my plate-protected hand to the greasy panel. They squeegee away the gunk with a thought, flinging it every which way except for directly at me. The five Worth coin turned skeleton is much more attentive to my thoughts, but I can feel exhaustion slowly building in the background. And that’s with barely any use at all.

I shake my head and put the thought to the side. It looks like there’s something on the panel–some paint or whatever that’s been nearly destroyed by all the krarig gunk. Might’ve been yellow at some point, since there’s flecks of the colour dotting the metal, but that could also just be some weird rust. I screw my eyebrows together and get as close as I can without my nose touching the gunk–it really looks like there was something here before. Something I should probably be able to recognize.

It’s long, twisting, and not that thick. Almost like someone dotted a worm with paint and threw it at the–no, shit. Not a worm–a snake. One with the traces of five legs and two slightly more distinguishable tongues.

“Architect, patch Mercenary into the comms.” I say as I trace my fingers along the paint. “I think I found another one of the symbols.”

“Really? Cool. Patching her in now.” March says eagerly. “Which one is it?”

“Which one is what?” Ursula asks.

“Pretty sure it’s the snake.” I answer with growing excitement. “The elemental’s pretty sure there’s sensitive machinery behind it. Just like there was behind that keyboard in the pump room.”

“Well damn. You need any help getting it off?” Ursula offers. “Uh, actually, scratch that. I have no idea how I’m supposed to get down there with you.”

“No worries; I got this.”

I run my finger all along the plate, gently pushing a barrier into the smallest of seams that’s leaking out the gunk. Once I’ve got the entire thing surrounded by tissue-thin shields with wedging edges, I take a step back and motion for the elemental to do the same. It doesn’t.

“Don’t blame me if you get grease all over you.” I say as I focus my awareness onto the shields. It seems to consider that for a moment, then backs up one single step. “Yeah, sure, that’s exactly what I meant. Ripping the panel off in three… two… one!”