Sophia, dressed in a blue, silver and gold tunic, representing the city of Al Dherjza, paced in back and forth outside her tent. The knight carried an ornately carved but sturdy staff, slung over her back.

A gigantic, polished, round silver monolith towered up beside Sophia’s campsite. It looked starkly out of place in an area surrounded by lush foliage and rust-brown stone. A strange collection of items sat in an alcove hewn into it. A modest waterfall rushed merrily away nearby, appearing from a spring somewhere over the elevated, vine-covered ground to the west. The resulting river wound its way near Sophia’s campsite.

A masked figure with long, unkempt black hair, clothed in bandages, sat on a small brown stone nearby. Her left arm was wrapped around her knees, her right hand drew in the rusty dirt with a stick.

“Maybe we need to bring it a live one?” the masked one suggested without changing her posture.

“You already tried that, Effie.” The tall, beautiful, staff-touting Sophia replied.

Effie began to sigh heavily in response but, detecting Sophia’s attention turn sharply, she was careful to finish the sigh after directing it away from the ponytailed knight.

But in doing so, Effie caught a glance at the dead fish in the alcove, causing her to shake her head. A past failure. Its scales were unnaturally coloured, resembling the brilliance of a full rainbow. She dryly began to recite something that had come to define every moment of her last three days.

“For those who seek ADAM, the Namer.

Prove your mastery of the High Art’s Mystery.

And be granted a taste of his power.”

That was the inscription above the alcove. Beneath the inscription was the image of a five-pointed star above water. A fish swam beneath it, and a dove in the sky above it, perched atop a crescent moon. A burning tree connected the water and the sky.

Sophia continued pacing in the reddish dust.

“We’ve been here for three days now,” Effie said. The boredom was evident in her voice.

“Well, it’s not like we’ve been wasting all of our time, Effie. Besides, three days is nothing compared to the three months it took to break the second seal,” chided Sophia.

“Yeah, well. That’s that, and this is this. Let’s go over what we’ve got again, shall we?” Effie replied.

“If that helps,” Sophia replied.

“The fish, cold-blooded, an object, yet inseparable from water, which represents life. This suggests that the fish is the target of the spell. It also suggests that we should use one that’s alive.”

“Which is troublesome, considering it's impossible to make a stable magic circle underwater.”

“Yeah. Moving on, there’s the tree and the waves, representing life. But, it's alight with fire, which represents death and destruction. When you combine the two symbols, the meaning changes – transformation, from life to death, from solid to gas.”

“Hence we end up with a dead fish. Which is why we should offer it a dead fish,” Sophia said.

Effie shook her head in annoyance. They’d been over this a thousand times.

“It gets more complicated. The star, representing magic and the unknown, is on the burning tree instead of in the sky with the crescent moon. It suggests that the transformation is mystical, not literal. It’s reinforcing that the process should primarily be through magic, not suffocation. Its lifeforce needs to be preserved.” Effie explained.

“Well, whatever,” Sophia said somewhat curtly, slightly miffed.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

The urge to sigh was tremendous, but Effie held it together. Barely.

“The star has five points, indicating that we should use a pentagram arrangement,” Effie said.

“That’s what we’ve been doing. What about the crescent moon and the dove?”

“Those sit highest in the circle which represents the bounds of the challenge, which reinforce their superiority. The dove is a clear divine icon, both winged and a symbol of tranquillity. The crescent moon represents turning dreams into reality and new beginnings. Because the dove is harmonious atop the crescent moon, it suggests that the final product is completely transformed, wholly divine, and with power beyond worldly dreams.”

“But what does a divine fish look like anyway?”

“I don’t know. But we aren’t trying to make a fish. We’re trying to make what a fish would ascend to, like the angel equivalent of a fish.”

“An amphibian?” Sophia joked.

“Stop trying to jump to conclusions,” Effie snapped. Her patience had completely worn away. She stood up. “I’ll do the next one.”

Sophia’s expression was a mixture of shock and surprise. “…Fine,” She finally managed to say.

I don’t get how she ever thinks she has a chance with Rolynd with an attitude like that. I was just trying to lighten the mood. Sophia couldn’t help but think.

Neither Effie nor Sophia were born on Apolaphia. Therefore, they lacked ADAM’s Gift. But as a Bloodstone, this was no problem for Effie. Using telekinesis, she rapidly carved out a magic circle in the sand. Deliberately leaving it incomplete so that the spell wouldn’t activate until she needed it. At each of the five points, she placed reagents. Smouldering coals. A chrysalis. Thermite powder. The six-winged godbug. Wet clay.

Finally, Effie walked over to a pool of captured fish by the river. She quickly grabbed one with her bare hands and strode back to the monolith, where she carefully put it in the centre of the magic circle. Of course, the fish proceeded to flop around tragically about in the dust. Effie wore a dour expression beneath her mask as she finished the magic circle.

Immediately, the entire arrangement was inundated by light. The fish and the reagents melted away, and a new object began to form in the centre…

Boom!

The product exploded as if there was a geyser beneath it!

Sophia flinched while Effie fell back roughly onto the floor, her mask askew. Bits of enchanted clay and fish rained about them.

The girls were silent.

The continued splat splat splat of falling debris was all that could be heard.

“…I thought you said the spell calls for something less literal,” Sophia jibed.

“Aargh!” Effie screamed as she threw her hands into the air and walked off into the savannah, angrily readjusting her mask as she did so.

Sophia quietly chuckled to herself, but when looking at the mess Effie had wrought, a thought flickered through her mind. It was almost as if the clay wasn’t right to contain whatever the spell had created. Clay was said to be able to hold the breath of God, but a complete divine spirit may have had too much ego.

Sophia walked back to their supplies and procured something. An antique metal lamp studded with precious gems. They only had one. She proceeded to recreate the spell much like Effie had. However, Sophia substituted the clay with the lamp.

If the spirit has the power to turn dreams into reality, would that make it a djinn?

Pushing the thought aside, for now, Sophia fetched a fish from the pond. When she got back, Effie was waiting for her by the magic circle.

“You better not mess this up,” Effie said coolly, referencing the fact that they had only one lamp. But, she made no attempt to stop Sophia.

Sophia completed the arrangement.

Light took hold just as it had before. There was a deafening noise, like a great wind being forced through a small opening.

Then, silence.

A lamp sat where the magic circle was, decorated to depict a piscine creature. Gems were shaped into plated scales, the handle like a splash of water from a fish’s tail, the spout like a playful spit of water from its mouth.

“It hasn’t exploded yet,” Effie remarked, “do you think that if we rubbed it, a real wish-giving genie would pop out?”

Sophia considered it for a while. “Perhaps,” she said.

“Should we do it?” Effie asked.

Sophia picked up the jewel-encrusted lamp. “Let’s see if the gate opens first. Maybe it's a trap, a test of our willpower,” she said, as she walked over to the alcove and offered it to the monolith, clearing out the material of their previous failed attempts as she did so. A grid of lights scanned the lamp. Numerous magic circles were projected over every inch of it, analysing its occult properties.

The monolith rumbled, and the ground beneath them shifted.

“It worked! We finally did it!” Effie exclaimed, forgetting her rivalry in the moment of triumph.

Sophia laughed jubilantly.

…Suddenly, the sun turned off.

The girls’ celebrations stopped abruptly.

In horrified silence, they dragged their gazes to the heavens. The sky itself had become all-too-familiar grey steel. A single angry red eye stared down on them in scornful judgement.

Then, the red eye glimmered.

Seeing this, Sophia immediately plunged the tip of her staff into the ground. A magic circle instantaneously appeared around her feet and consumed them.

And not a moment afterwards, the area was transformed into an inferno as bright and chaotic as the missing sun. Reality gave way to the all-consuming roar of the world falling apart.