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That first batch of Essence Crystals they collected was enough to win me my first War.
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“I still think you should enter.”
Matt was standing in Charlotte’s hallway, a steaming mug of tea in his hand. Charlotte herself was rushing around her house to collect everything she would need today. Matt had knocked twice on her door before it was suddenly pulled open by a Charlotte who was already running back inside, looking for something in a long cupboard but coming away empty-handed, then running into her kitchen for something else. At some point, she had placed the tea in his hands before rushing away again.
Her house was located along the Northern wall of the cavern, and Matt had crossed almost the entire city to get there this morning, walking through streets buzzing with anticipation of today’s spectacle. Several people were already moving towards the Arena district. He’d thought Terrence and Shawn’s idea of a Tournament was just an idle distraction, a project to make them feel useful, or even to spite Mia, who had been focusing everyone’s attention on getting stronger or improving the city. He remembered how they had both been surprised when Mia readily accepted their proposal, and now he also saw what Mia must have recognised immediately. Regardless of their intent, this is more than a stupid game. Focusing on something other than preparing for an inevitable war has made people almost celebratory. Grudgingly, Matt had acceded that this tournament might actually be a good thing.
Charlotte’s house was a weirdly narrow building, only ten strides across and extending straight into the rock wall in the back where a cubby was carved out of the stone. Essence lanterns hung from a string that criss-crossed the ceiling, casting a flickering light across a living space filled from wall to wall with cushions and rugs in a glaring range of colours. In the corner where the cavern ceiling was at its lowest, Charlotte’s tea was resting on a single wooden table emerging from the mass of fabric.
Matt smiled at the lanterns, which had been his first successful attempt at making something useful with Runecrafting. The Rune was simple, and when carved on an empty essence crystal, it provided a simple light source for anyone with an affinity proximate to light. His real success had been the creation of an input array, which could leverage any type of essence to fuel the magical light. Of course, Charlotte’s Starlight essence didn’t actually need the specialised array, and the room was bathed in the intense yellow, almost white, light that was the signature of her essence.
Charlotte’s not-so-gentle nudge to his shoulder startled him from his thoughts. While he had been lost in thought, she had apparently finished getting ready. Her hair was tied back, and there had been a shift to her posture. Shoulders squared and head held high, she was ready for battle.
“Uh, sorry. I was… I was thinking. No, I’ve thought about it all night. I have considered it carefully. I’m just looking forward to seeing the fights, actually. There’s so many people here now, and I have no idea about the range of abilities and skills they have. But…”
They made their wait out her door and started down the street, headed for the Arena. He looked down, unsure what to say. Unsure how much to say. “Charlotte, no matter how much you, Pete, and the others push me onwards and claim I can stand toe-to-toe with you, I just can’t. I see it every day; I’m nowhere near your level, and every day the distance just keeps growing. In the beginning, in the first few days… I remember what it was like, standing shoulder to shoulder with Pete when we did the dungeons. I was his equal. We had each other's backs. If I try to fight with him now, I’ll be a liability. He would need to spend more time protecting me than fighting himself. Did you hear about our Tower Dungeon run?”
He looked at her, and she nodded.
“When we were on the first floor, I was… I was important. I don’t think we would have beaten the Balance Scenario without my contribution. And the guandao. We kicked ass!” He smiled as he remembered. “Then a few weeks ago we tried the Second Floor, and by then the others were all level five or even six. We beat the floor by the skin of our teeth, and I think Mia spent more time protecting me and healing me than the rest put together. I told you about the strange time stasis effect I experienced on the first floor, right? If I could find that again, if I could just… trigger it again, I might be able to help. But no matter what I’ve tried, it just doesn’t work. The guandao is getting a bit impatient with me… I keep trying, several times a day.”
As they got closer to the Arena, more and more people filled the streets. People dressed in armour or robes, wielding strange and mysterious weapons. Even if he would just be watching today, Matt missed the feel of the guandao in his hand.
Charlotte put a hand on his arm and held it there for a moment. “Keep trying, Matt. Remember Chenxi’s diary.”
He looked back at her and smiled a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “So you read it! Well, I haven’t given up yet, but it’s hard to piece it together from just books. Cultivation… There’s something there. My core keeps… I don’t know if improving is the right word, but something is happening. It’s more dense, brighter, more… powerful. When you look inwards, you see your skill symbols. I see the core, a dense sphere of essence that just… sits there. No Runes, no skills. It doesn’t translate into anything useful, other than as a source of essence to push through the Runes I make. And as you saw, I’m just not quick enough with Runes to use them in combat. Give me plenty of time and a good crystal plate… You’ve seen the runes I can make now; some of them are pretty good.”
He smiled at her, but instead of returning a comforting smile, her lips were drawn in a line and she looked at him with an intense gaze.
“So prepare something. You have a weapon that’s still more awesome than anything else I’ve seen here, and those battle robes of yours… Can’t you, like, make yourself move more quickly or something? Prepare a fireball, or make a bow that fires enchanted arrows?”
“I’ve actually tried that fireball thing, but triggering it while holding it… It wasn’t my best idea. Throwing it won’t work. I need to touch it to trigger the rune. And I don’t want to draw Runes on myself.”
They had arrived at the arena, and Charlotte’s eyes were scanning the crowd, stopping at a wooden table set up to one side. Glydia was sitting behind it, a notebook and a pen in front of her.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Charlotte turned to Matt, a strange look in her eyes. “Matt… I have a feeling.” She put her hand on his arm. “All of this,” she looked at the crowd outside the Arena, “All of them… You are selling yourself short. There’s something about you. You are different. Unique. You are the one with powers that nobody else has. Sure, the rest of us have some skills and abilities, but… I don’t know where the feeling comes from. And I’m not just saying this to comfort you. One day–and I think that day is closer than you think–nobody here will have a chance to even touch you.”
She squeezed his arm as she turned away from him, and before he had a chance to respond, pulled him in the direction of Glydia, shouting her name and waving at the Arena Master.
“Hi Charlotte. Hi Matt. Come to sign up?” She asked and cast a look at Matt.
“She has,” he pointed, “I’ll just be watching today.”
Charlotte turned to him and opened her mouth, but he shook his head slightly.
“Hmm.” The tall woman answered, her lips drawn together. “Something tells me there’s no point in trying to convince you otherwise, Matt, so I won’t try. Charlotte,” she looked at her, “you know how this will run?” Without waiting for a response, Glydia kept going. “There’s just over fifty of you signed up so far. Today, we’ll mix fights randomly. Each of you will fight five times, and the thirty-two fighters with the most wins continue tomorrow, when it’s a pure knock-out tournament. When inside–”
Matt tapped a distracted Charlotte on the shoulder and waved a goodbye, his mind still spinning from her words, and started walking towards the nearest spectator entrance. He’d never actually done that before, always entering the massive edifice through the Falcon or Bull gate.
He watched the people around him as he walked. People who were nothing like the scared, uncertain, frightened and timid farmers who had arrived over the last weeks. A regime of constant training, exercises, and dungeon runs had shaped them into warriors; honed them into weapons, and Matt felt a strange pride as he took in the crowd of pure power. Any one of them could easily defeat any of the warriors he had known in the army, and some of them could have taken out the entirety of the Ranger’s army.
Then he noticed the thick streams of powerful threads weaving through the mass of people. Intricate threads of essence streaming through the air to spin around the fighters, jumping from person to person and coming together in shapes and symbols that he now knew, and was startled to realise he could read their meaning. Anticipation harmonised with steel, pride mixed with sharpness. I wonder if I could predict what skills they have, and if I was fighting them… I might get a warning before they strike.
He’d not fully understood Verdant before, when she spoke of how people reclaiming magic would affect the essence weave, but now he understood. Normally, essence permeated the air in a chaotic way, trying but failing to form symbols as a variety of essences radiated from stones and grass to mix in shapeless clouds of energy. Verdant had called that ‘free’ essence. Here, that same essence was given meaning and structure from the presence of people given power by the pattern. By the System. And that was the same structure which drew the monsters out of dungeons. Something cold shivered down Matt’s back. The world has not seen a concentration of people with the System for a long time. The essence here… All of it is drawn into the symbols. There’s no free essence anywhere, and the nearby dungeons—
His thoughts were interrupted by a familiar voice calling his name, and he tried to remove the grimace from his face as he turned around.
“Hi, Terrence.”
“Matt! Are you not joining?”
The man stepped uncomfortably close to Matt and grinned down at him. Clad in shimmering red armour from his boots to his neck, Terrence was carrying a longsword in one hand and a buckler was strapped to his side. There was something about the energy radiating from the armour that set Matt’s teeth on edge, and he took an involuntary step back.
He forced a smile. “No, I’ll be watching you. This isn’t quite my thing.”
“No… No, I guess it’s not,” Terrence smirked back at him, before snorting a short laugh as he looked back at his compatriots. Matt had seen them around before, always trailing Terrence like a waddling of ducklings. The other men joined their leader and laughed.
“Tell me, Matt. How does it feel, being so powerless? Anyone here,” Terrence waved an arm at the crowd, “Could walk over you. Squash you like a bug. In the blink of an eye, and there’s nothing you could do. Despite that, you are on the Council? Still, they call you a Founder?” His voice dripped with condescension. “How is it, sitting there every day while that Mayor of yours implores the city to grow more powerful, listening to the Marshall planning how to get more teams through the dungeons, while all you can do is draw fancy symbols? Sanctuary needs power, and you fumble around in that basement of yours. Who will protect you when the nobles attack?” His voice dropped. “When the war comes, who of us should fall back to protect you, Matt? Who can we spare from the battle to babysit you?”
Anger warred with shame inside Matt, and he was about to speak when his connection to the guandao gave him pause. A faint message vibrated across theirlink, speaking of patience. As Matt drew a deep breath to calm himself, he heard another message, this one promising revenge.
Inside, his core pulsated wildly, a torrent of essence that filled his body with restless, angry energy. He turned to walk into the Arena without responding, and was about to start up the stairs to the spectator’s seating, when it began.
The first sign was a sudden and sharp pain that started somewhere deep within him, quickly rushing out to fill his entire body. He stumbled and reached for the stone wall to catch himself, but by then, the pain had already left. As quickly as it had arrived, only a faint tingle remained in his limbs.
What was that?
Walking slowly up the stairs, one hand on the wall, he failed to register the thunder of shouted voices when he emerged to look down at the Arena. His temples were throbbing with something more like pressure than pain, and his limbs felt heavy as he slumped down in the first available seat he could find. Below, the fighters were milling around in clusters, surrounded by threads of essence.
What is happening to me?
Something felt off. His thoughts dragged like treacle, and his body was weighed down by an unseen weight. Leaning back in his chair, he turned his attention inwards.
The first thing he noticed was the raging torrent of energy surrounding his core. A storm of lightning in all possible colours that threw random streams of essence out at random intervals. In the centre of the storm, his core was slowly contracting, compressing the flow of energy and forcing the chaos of symbols into a space that was shrinking slowly and steadily. As the core shrunk, the pressure increased minute by minute.
Something must be wrong. Should I get help?
Suddenly, the core expanded back out to full size in an explosion that sent shock waves through his body, accompanied by waves of agony. His short scream was drowned out by the throngs around him greeting the first bout of fights.
When his core began to contract again, the density of its energy was even higher than before. He watched as symbols of power raced across its surface, faster and faster. Tendrils of colour reached outwards into the darkness.
And he felt like everything he was, was slowly getting pulled into his centre. Into his core.