Wake up.
Mark the day.
Descend nine flights of stairs.
Grow breakfast with a couple whispered words and the mystical power of her soul.
For the past eternity, Grace’s mornings had all started the same.
The quiet bouncing of her pack reminded her of the sea of silence within her home, and the constant cadence of her steps accentuated the monotony of her days. As always, she sent her soul through the half-dozen scripted pots that composed her “garden,” and as always they sprouted plentiful batches of mystical squash and otherworldly potatoes.
Without any particular thought, she ascended the white granite stairs with her now-filled satchel in tow, and it was under the same state of mindlessness that she activated the scripts on the burners just enough to cook the food to her liking.
A maze of shelves and tables surrounded her, flowing outwards from the stone altar dedicated to the teleportation anchor of her long-dead master. She had once hoped that one day it would light up with magic as it used to, revealing his open arms as he came to rescue her from her sentence of solitude. Reality had never been so kind.
As custom demanded, she finished her meal in front of the tall windows of scripted glass, looking down upon the maze of ruins that spanned out in all directions from her home.
She let out a breath. Those collapsed buildings used to be the greatest city in the world.
As if to taunt her, a hulking mass of flesh and bone roared from the streets, polluting its surroundings with black blood as it trampled past the Spire.
Like her master’s anchor, the sight of her home overrun with monsters had once sent lances of emotion through her chest.
Now… well, it wasn’t as if she had forgotten. She could still point out the names and functions of each of the ruined structures around her, and she still vividly remembered what it was like to roam those streets without a care in the world. Yet, the hurt that accompanied those thoughts had long since passed. Perhaps it was numbness, the same numbness which permeated every facet of her life these days. Living in a city’s grave was just routine, and who was she to go against routine?
After breakfast, she wandered back down the stairs and into one of the countless rooms which dotted the Spire’s interior. There she found a scripted broom and feather duster — left there from when she had left off the previous day.
Once, restoring the Spire had given her a sense of purpose. Every day was a bit of progress, a room cleaned or a shelf of scattered tomes sorted. But she had long since combed through every inch of the tower for stains. She had already organized every tablet, scroll, and book in the building by section and lexicographical order. Now all that was left was maintenance, a pitiful battle against the all-ensnaring wear-and-tear of time.
She gave a little chuckle. “Isn’t that right, Spire? We were never so different, you and I.”
As she wiped away the minuscule amounts of dust and grime that had managed to gather inside the room since the last time she visited, Grace sighed.
She had been meaning to automate the maintenance process for years, but a part of her was afraid of what she’d do without even the simple act of cleaning to occupy her. It no longer gave her the satisfaction it used to, but at least it gave a reprieve from the constant repetition. Other than the weather and the random movements of voidspawn outside, her cycle of rooms was the only thing that ever changed these days. She let that bit of novelty sustain her as she cleaned on and on, for the barest moment free of thought and worry. Now if only she could —
She paused, polishing off the final inch of grime from the floors. Somehow, the golden light of morning had already given way to dimming rays of deep orange.
How was it already sunset? Reluctantly, she hefted her broom and began her ascent back to her chambers. That was all the maintenance for today, she supposed. If she deviated too much from schedule, there wouldn’t be enough dust gathered in the room next month.
A second later, the absurdity of the statement hit her. Was this what she was reduced to? Scheduling her life around how fast dust could gather in a room?
But, well, it wasn’t as if she had anything else.
There was no point in continuing her ritualism. Her stores of scrim — the spiritual parts that allowed her rituals to function — were barely enough for her to survive, and the precious essence inside them was wearing down with each new day. It wasn’t as if she could just get more, either. That would mean extracting them from a mystical beast’s soul, and the only living things left in this horrid city were, well… monsters.
And reading?
She scoffed. She had already read and re-read every text available at her level, to the point where she could recite the contents of any of the thousands of scripts mentioned even in passing in the Spire’s stores. She knew perhaps better than anyone alive the concepts of ritualism, spanning the full breadth of novice to initiate to journeyman to adept.
And the master-level documents made her head spin so much that there was no point in trying. She huffed, flinging the broom away in frustration.
An instant later, her eyes widened as she realized where she had thrown it.
It tumbled through the air in a haphazard arc, catching the fading sun on its bristles before impacting against the stand that held her master’s teleportation anchor.
The golden orb crashed to the floor with the sound of a broken bell.
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She froze.
No point in trying?
Since when had she begun thinking like that? Six years ago, she would have jumped at the challenge of trying to understand those concepts.
Suddenly, she burst into laughter — a cackling, breathless thing that seemed to intensify with each new realization of just how pitiful she had really become. She laughed and she laughed, until the pain had seeped so far into her voice that the sounds began to resemble sobs.
The rolling anchor came to a stop at her foot.
Her master would have been so disappointed.
She rubbed the inky gold mark on her shoulder, feeling its instinctual pull towards her master’s soul. For the past six years, the direction of the tug had stayed the same, forever anchored to the location where he had severed his spirit in order to seal the Void.
What was the last thing he had said to her?
Continue our legacy.
Continue their legacy? She could barely continue her own miserable life. When was the last time she had even practiced anything but the handful of rituals she used to survive?
But… what was she supposed to do?
She traced a long, jagged scar down the side of her neck and across her row of ribs. There were monsters out there. Ghastly, calamitous hordes of voidspawn just waiting for the opportunity to tear her limb from limb as they did the rest of her school.
So what?
Was she just going to stay in here, wearing away at her script-circles until they were ground to fine powder? Waiting for someone to voluntarily enter a death zone and accomplish what even the greatest ritualist in the world failed to do?
Suddenly, even the open essence-glass of the Spire’s windows felt suffocating.
Her quivering hands managed to find the latch that closed her quarters to the hanging balcony, and they wrenched it open with the grind of long-untouched metal on metal.
As the cold air of twilight hit her face, she let out a shuddering breath.
And then…
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
The hair-raising sound of claws on stone assaulted her ears.
She froze, looking down to the source of the noise. At the base of the Spire, amongst scattered bone and jagged rubble, an unnatural, emaciated thing pawed at the doors of the structure.
It stood — though the hunched, twisted nature of its spine barely invoked the word — on two legs, and where its eyes should have been were instead sunken sockets, draped in the sickly white film of its skin.
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
Like the steady beat of a corrupted heart, its finger-length talons scraped over and over at the stone entrance of the Spire, each pass removing just the tiniest fraction of material as it fought to get inside the building.
As it fought to get to her.
She stiffened.
It was because of this creature that everything that she had ever known was gone. Every tree, every flower, every face she had ever called family had been taken from the world by this… thing.
Her gaze returned to the streets of her ruined city. Like a fleeting dream, her mind turned to the time they had been filled by cheers and laughter. By merchant-stalls and artists and sleep-deprived researchers who roamed the shops in search of fresh tea.
In the deepest part of her chest, she felt a cold grip settle around her heart.
Slowly, she descended the Spire, past shelves of meticulously-arranged maps and vibrant portraits of ancient emperors. Step by step, she made her way to the bottom, until she stood in front of the pair of reinforced stone doors which separated the only part of her past which still remained intact from the hungry monstrosity aching to destroy it.
An ethereal edge materialized around the tips of her trembling fingers.
The name she had learned for it was Essence-Scalpel. It was supposed to be an instrument of precision, manifested from scrim that ritualists incorporated into their own souls so that they would never be left without a tool to extract spiritual parts.
But flesh was flesh, no matter the intent behind cutting it.
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
Now that she was focused on it, she could hear the noise from across the feet of solid stone. How long had the ghoul been there, diligently pawing at her defenses? Perhaps in another six years it would finally get through.
But she was done letting it.
Her soul twisted, and the translucent edge grew in length until rather than a surgeon’s scalpel, it resembled the head of an executioner’s blade.
She laughed.
Even through the crystalized frost, a long-forgotten part of her soul reveled in the act of forming the technique.
She slapped a hand on the activation module, and the power of her spirit blasted the door open with enough force to throw the creature to the ground.
It shrieked in surprise, revealing a set of knife-like teeth. She knew that if given the chance, it would skewer her on those claws that seemed to never dull no matter how they cut.
But before it could shamble back to its feet, she was there.
Thnk.
With a puff of shimmering black essence, her blade buried itself into the creature’s chest.
For a breath, its emaciated limbs spasmed in protest, and then it went still.
She dragged its corpse back inside, then pulled the Essence Scalpel out of it with the sickening squelch of lacerated muscle. Beads of dissolving blood clung to her spiritual weapon, and for a moment she stood there, staring at the unmoving creature.
Then, she stabbed it again.
And again.
And again.
With all the force that her spent limbs could muster, she carved at the monstrosity, decimating the mystical bonds which held its energy in the form of meat and marrow. Each strike felt like the smallest bit of retribution, as if dealing the pain she felt back onto the creature would somehow make it go away.
Over and over she hacked at it, until she was breathless and weak and all that was left of the thing was a small knot of black tissue.
As her Scalpel flickered out of existence and she bent down to pick up the spiritual organ, the frost receded enough for her to recognize that she was holding new scrim.
Some small part of her brain tucked away that fact.
And as the last rays of twilight disappeared underneath the jagged skyline, she retreated back up the ancient tower.
Stair by stair she climbed, past spotless walls and archways of sculpted silver, until she returned to the highest room of the Spire. Exactly where she had left it, her master’s teleportation anchor sat on the floor, its ambient magic lighting the room like a twinkling star.
She picked up the golden orb — as gingerly as one would a newborn — and hugged it to her chest.
And there, in that sea of unending night, she wept a second time for all she had once known.