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[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/512595944613740556/1150886937255751762/Black_White_and_Purple_Designer_Film__Animation_YouTube_Video_Outronc.png]Sample of Survey Carried out by the Udrebam institute of Relations, Have Men, Circa 1,195 I.E.

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Burning oil pervaded Unity’s guts, sloshing around with every step he took and leaving not a single inch unseared. It was a remarkable pain. Deep, unending and sharp long after any normal agony would have been blunted by acclimatization.

The pain, he knew, of tearing flesh. Had his belly not been squeezed empty already, just thinking of such a wound may have set him retching once more.

He kept his eyes ahead, gaze eaten by the darkness beyond, and found himself seized by a single thought. In the face of the looming blackness it drove away even the pain of his stomach, for a time being.

“We should’ve taken a torch.”

It seemed a simple thing in hindsight, and that simplicity only worsened the fact that they hadn’t.

By the tightening of his shoulders and the straightening of his back, Unity could tell Crow felt similarly.

“We should have.” The boy agreed, still not looking at him.

“Don’t suppose I could convince you to go back.” He tried. The shaking of Crow’s head began almost before he’d finished speaking.

“I’m not going back there."

Unity knew better than to push against the finality he heard, and so he continued to peer uselessly ahead.

“I agree with Eden.” Came the Takawan’s voice, and Unity found a smile creeping onto his face as he turned.

It was difficult to see her in the dark of the corridor, yet he found himself staring all the same. The girl’s newly claimed spear made her position obvious, tapping the ground sharply with every step, and the thought of missing her reaction to what would surely come next was simply too awful to bear thinking about.

“You can, if you’d like.” Came Crow’s reply. “But I won’t be going back there, not if you drag me.”

Thought of the chamber sent pain snaking down into Unity’s gut, and he found himself wondering what returning would bring them to face. He wasn’t sure whether seeing the contestants ruin themselves further by overindulging would be better or worse than a room already emptied.

“I won’t go on my own.” The girl answered, thickening what tension had already been present even further. Unity wondered whether it might become tangible.

Maybe it’s time for some oil, turn this spark into an inferno.

“Scared we’ll leave you behind?” He asked her. “You needn’t worry, Crow would never allow that.”

The girl’s silence was loud enough to ring ears.

“You know, it’s getting easy enough to touch these nerves that it isn’t even fun anymore.”

“I don’t suppose that means you’ll stop?” The bitch shot back. Unity felt a laugh sprout and didn’t bother hiding it, the sound was as good an answer as any.

“Light!” Came Crow’s voice. It snapped Unity’s attention away from the Takawan, turning his face front and setting his eyes into a focused stare that sank deep into the centre of the oncoming dark.

No matter how long he held his gaze, the black curtain refused to yield. No radiance shone ahead, nor even did it glint, and Unity realised what Crow had done only after wasting seconds.

“That was a cheap way of distracting us.” He grumbled.

“You still fell for it.” The Takawan sneered. Unity could picture her face even as it lay beyond his sight, the thought of it heated his blood to boil.

Stuck up cunt.

“I did.” He said, turning to the source of her voice. “I suppose you’ll be bearing that in mind for when you need to create an opening to stab me in the back?”

The girl’s sharp inhalation set him on edge. Even confident there would be no more outbursts, the sight of her charging at him with readied magic seemed burned in his mind.

“What do you even want to know?” She asked.

"Pardon?"

"It seems you demand I answer your every slight curiosity. Why is that? I refuse to believe you care so much about me, that I'm such a fascinating enigma. So what are you really aiming to learn with these edged questions?"

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Her confusion confused him in turn. Unity had assumed the girl knew, he'd certainly made no effort to hide it.

He allowed himself a moment to remain awed and silent at the sheer stupidity of naturally-born humans. Then, almost before he'd realised, his tongue was lashing once more.

"Your magic." He said, surprising even himself. "You're not just hiding it from caution, I saw something else when you were asked about it. Something close to fear. I have a hard time imagining why that is."

More silence.

How Unity wished the tunnel was but a shade lighter. Just imagining the look on her face made him giddy, drove him almost to interrupt the clapping of echoey footfalls with a cackle.

His laughter was held down by the pangs of warning, she was almost over the edge.

"Fine then." Came her voice, quiet and subdued. It rang in Unity's ears like a singing wind chime.

"You don't have to tell us anything if you don't want to." Crow muttered.

The weakness in his reassurance made Unity sick.

If you're going to cut in, have a spine as you do. Speak like a mystic, don't mumble like a boy.

"You do actually," He quickly added, "Unless you're confident you can reign that temper in for the rest of the Stage."

A hissed breath in the dark, fury lending a blade to lungs.

“Very well then.”

When Ethi spoke of her magic, there was none of the anger or frustration Unity had been hoping for. She was mechanical and detached, threading her words with no more passion than a lecturer. It was, Unity could tell, an explanation she had given before. Though he listened to it no less carefully.

The girl described the key function of her sole ability, to tether emotion with magic, and dully went over each of the ways in which it could manifest.

Anger for strength, fear for speed, utter calm to project a freezing energy outward. It all seemed so very appropriate. A sure mark that, unlike so many other magics that changed by their user's mindset, it had been crafted purposefully.

“Why would you choose such an uncontrollable ability?” Asked Crow. His tactlessness sprinkled welcome amusement into the conversation.

Ethi didn’t answer his question, and Unity could see why. Unfortunately for her his own knowledge of magic went beyond Crow’s by half a dozen steps.

“You saw why yourself.” He said, trying not to let his relish show. “That speed, remember? You were right to be so impressed.”

Silence made footsteps the music of their walk, echoing uninterrupted for several moments before the boy spoke again.

“I still don’t understand how that could be worth it. Surely the power to choose which ability you use would-"

“I can choose.” Snapped Ethi, anger back to add grizzly teeth to her voice.

Unity made sense of everything at that moment, her embittered revelation proving the last piece he needed to complete the puzzle.

Magic could be strengthened by adding limits or conditions to it, that much was common knowledge, yet those conditions were only as powerful as they were inconvenient. The benefit for one as difficult as changing by their user’s mood would surely be considerable, and Unity had seen first hand how much self-control the girl had. If that discipline extended to her emotion…

You can choose indeed…

“Why would an ability like this not be known the world across?” Crow asked, apparently sensing that the direction their conversation had turned was a sensitive one.

Unity's pride at the uncharacteristic show of astuteness almost found balance with his despair at seeing the authentic proclivity for avoiding thought so clearly demonstrated.

"Do you want to tell him?" He asked the Takawan, jeering.

"Because, ever since coining the limiter, my family has guarded its secret to the best of our abilities."

It was a story as old as magic, or mankind. Whichever had come first. Regardless Unity was in no mood to hear it again thanks to Crow's incessant questioning.

"If keeping this secret has been so important for so long, I'd say you're fucking up atrociously by sharing it with us." He sneered.

"The ability itself isn't a secret, idiot. That would be the trick to tethering magic and emotion in the first place, and I'd sooner have my tongue torn free then use it to let that loose into the world."

"Why?" Crow cut in, his attempt to sew peace no more subtle than any of his other bludgeoning interruptions.

It irked Unity that Ethi humoured the boy.

"Because my family has its enemies." Answered the Takawan. "And to strengthen them would be fatal."

Crow fell into a silence, though Unity swore he could hear the sound of his contemplative thoughts. Rumbling along the corridor like a growling engine.

Getting fanciful Unity. Authentics are slow, but one cannot hear thoughts through intensity alone.

He supposed the boy’s wonderment could be forgiven. Unity himself had taken some time to fully understand just how many rivalries the mystic-born nobility of Unix held for one another.

As his thoughts turned to the millennium-long pissing contest that had plagued Taiklos and the Alliance, his mouth tugged itself into a smile.

The Alliance really is like a big family. He mused, recalling the handlers who'd spent so many hours convincing him of just that, as if the Factions cared more for his well being than the sharpness of a knife.

Unity wondered whether he'd proven himself blunted beyond function or not, finding the world growing numb to him as he pondered it. The rumbling echo of his steps bled into one another, then into the passing minutes as they continued deeper on.

Time melted like ice and ran like water, passing in dragging minutes and fleeting seconds alike within the grim monotony of the tunnel.

Then, bringing variety so welcome it seemed honey on his tongue, there was a door before them.

Grooved iron made its body, a crease running down the centre where two halves hung on different hinges met. A nearby torch cast light enough to make the texture clear, orange glow catching on bumps and knots to send streaks of shadow quivering across the dark metal.

It was a yard taller than any of his team and broader than all three of them together, though thinner by far than the tunnel it capped. The stone reached out a pace from both sides to pinch metal between it, and Unity found himself absently trying to spot the joints where carved and cast material met.