Kieran stood guard over Neaila whilst she worked on the portal. With hands wreathed in white mana she steadily streamed her energy into the flickering aura surrounding the immense disc of light. Illya insisted on holding off any orcs by himself for now, adamant that Kieran's effort would be best spent aiding Neila's mana stores so they could all leave together as soon as possible.
Unsure how exactly he was going to help, Kieran hesitated awkwardly behind Neaila's small frame.
That is until she reached a hand back to him and waved him forward.
“You sure? Wouldn’t wanna besmirch a maiden’s honour.” Kieran asked, deadpan.
“Oh hush and get over here now! I’m not missing this chance to be the first of my generation to activate a portal by myself” she hissed playfully. Clearly she was more enthusiastic about magical accolades than Kieran initially realised.
“By yourself you say?” Kieran smirked, raising an eyebrow knowingly at her.
Neaila’s perfectly pale skin took on a remarkable shade of pink as she turned back to the portal to hide her face.
“Just give me your help please” She shook her hand at him again, but this time more frantically. “and some of that wondrous mana you obviously don't deserve to have.”
Kieran considered bantering with her about a fee for royal assistance, but the approaching echoes from down the tunnel told him time was short.
Despite the hot nervousness he felt, he grasped a hold of Neaila’s offered hand.
Kieran felt so grateful that she was tunnel-visioned on the lights of the portal, as it gave him a moment to compose himself and hide his own faint blush. It took all he had to ignore the unbelievably soft skin in his hand, as well as to calm his own racing heart.
Kieran forced himself to look inwards as he began to take deep breaths in and out, pulling more mana into himself in a steady cycle. It hadn't even been a minute when he heard Neaila exclaim loudly beside him.
“That’s it Kieran! I can feel your mana, oh goddess it's so pure” She beamed at him with her brilliant blue eyes. Under the mesmerising lights of the tunnel her irises looked more like Sapphires that hid the light of the rising sun than any eyes he’d ever seen, and his mouth fell open in awe for a long moment.
“Sorry Neaila, I really need to focus” he lied, closing his eyes tightly to escape the confused look she pulled.
The connection of mana between their hands strengthened significantly as Kieran put more effort into really feeling the channels that guided his energy. These many channels were still imperceptibly thin, but seemed more dense and durable than before, as if they'd turned into some ephemeral metal wiring for his mana circuits.
Mana began to flow freely into Neaila as he found a good rhythm for his breathwork. He became the bellow to her furnace, pumping in fresh energy with each inhale and streaming it toward her spellwork. Granting her a seemingly infinite mana pool to work with.
Something in the white light of the portal shifted then. It spontaneously crackled with all the colourful hues of the rainbow in a split second, before settling back down into a less dazzling and more muted display of pure white light.
“Its almost there, don’t stop Kieran” she urged “I just need to finish stabilising it”
“You hear that, Illya?” Kieran called back, practically yelling to be heard over the loud fizzing sound of the portal. “Won't be a minute mate”
“Bold of you both to assume we have a minute” Illya growled through his teeth.
“Here they come! Don't wait for me” he commanded, readying his shabby spear as if it were a javelin, he held Kieran’s black blade in the other hand as he set his feet.
Neailas hand tensed in Kieran’s grasp as they both heard the sound of orcs racing up the tunnel toward them. She gripped his hand firmly, then nodded back at him in silent acceptance of what they had to do.
Kieran returned the gesture, then took a deep long breath that filled him to the brim with mana. He gripped Neaila’s hand tighter when the intense rush of mana that followed threatened to push their hands apart.
The sound of Illya’s violent snarl echoed through the tunnel as he noisily clashed with the first of the Orcs. A single wet crunch, and the foe was dead on the floor with a large barb of wood impaling its throat. Its companions desperately tried to scramble over its corpse but were met by swift slashes from the black shortsword that glistened in the erratic light of the tunnel.
Struggling to stay on task and not leap to his friend's aid, it took all he had to just stand there being a mana funnel and nothing more. Illya can hold his own, just focus on this for fuck’s sake.
Neaila's hand squeezed so tightly on his that he couldn’t let go even if he wanted to. His response was simply to push the mana into her palm even faster than before.
“That’s it!” She yelled. A split second later and the portal twisted in place before pulsing with cold energy. In the very centre of the white disc, a black ripple tore open, instantly filling the majority of the discs surface with a region of intense black mottled with tiny white dots.
It’s beautiful... Kieran could have lost himself for hours staring into the beautiful visage of the portal.
The only thing that interrupted him was the noise of violence behind him and the cold, limp hand within his own. Neaila dropped to her knees an instant later, barely remaining upright as she teetered there like a puppet with her strings cut.
“Illya help!” Kieran shouted, voice full of panic. He didn’t know what had happened to her or how he could help. But when he felt her brother's hand on his shoulder he allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief.
“She’ll be fine, it's just exhaustion from all the mana.” He huffed still from the carnage he'd unleashed upon the orcs. “I'm sure she’ll wake up even stronger considering what your pure mana did to me.” He reassured both Kieran and himself.
Illya handed Kieran his sword back, covered in dark blood, then rushed to scoop Neaila up into his arms with no visible effort.
“Did you not hear me? She's fine'' He said, sending a smile over Neaila’s supported head.
Clearly he'd noticed the look of terror on Kieran’s face as he rushed over. “Alas, i think it's time we abandon this accursed dungeon once and for all, don't you agree my friend?”
Kieran nodded, then followed close behind as Illya hurriedly carried his sister up to the thrumming portal. They both stood there for a moment, gazing up into the beautiful interplay of pure darkness and dazzling lights.
“It's seriously incredible” Kieran said, resisting the urge to see what the portal's mana tasted like.
“Truly” Illya looked from the portal to Kieran, and then to Neaila, a sad smile creeping onto his stern face. “Perhaps now you understand my little sister's deep fascination for such complex magic”
“Oh definitely, I'm sure it's way faster than the tube too, and less pissy” he replied absentmindedly.
“Why would you humans relieve yourselves inside a transport tunnel? Honestly!” Illya all but scoffed, and Kieran stifled a laugh at the apparent outrage on his face.
“We don't actually sit in the tunnel itself, and the piss is usually just on the floor” to which Illya threw him a deeply disgusted frown.
“Saying that, sometimes the seat actually does smell of–” A roaring bugle tore through the tunnel, stealing both men's attention. The way it echoed made the origin seem either very far away or dangerously close. Kieran didn't want to wait and find out.
“Okay, you take Neaila first, I'll be right behind you both” he urged, ignoring the adrenaline pumping in his veins.
“I'm serious, just hurry mate” he al but yelled when he saw the hesitation on Illya's face.
Chivalrous to a fault Kieran noted, pointing his hand at the portal with finality.
“Whatever happens, do not tarry Kieran.” Illya said as he reached out a hand into the event horizon of the portal.
He turned back once more, sending a meaningful nod Kieran's way. Then he did something with his hand that caused the portal to rumble gently like a car engine.
The multicoloured light of the portal border extended out in a luminescant tendril to envelop the man's long pale hand. A second passed where the light looked to rush up his arm and surround both siblings in a dazzling aura of mana. A blinding flash later, and they were both gone.
“Do not tarry!” Kieran pulled a face as he imitated Illya’s fatherly tone. Why would he want to linger in this crappy place?
Okay, my turn.
Kieran approached the portal. Nervousness rattled his legs as he stood directly in front of its impressive looming form. Gazing into the mosaic of darkness and brilliant light within its depths filled Kieran with that same sensation of awe as the clear night sky would.
“It really is beautiful” he mused, his hand absentmindedly raised toward the surface.
The sound of several orcs stomping their way up the tunnel behind him drew him back from the hypnotising lights he'd been exploring. He drew his hand back cautiously, not sure when he'd lifted it more inches from the portal's surface.
Before he knew what was happening, a tendril of light latched around his wrist from above. He was shocked by how aggressively it squeezed ahold of him, especially compared to its gentle contact with Illya just moments prior.
Resisting the urge to fight it off and try to escape, Kieran allowed the mana to take control of him. The tendril spread out and wrapped around him like an icy cold blanket he eagerly wanted to shirk off.
He closed his eyes, waiting for some unknown power to yank him through spacetime in a magical instant. But there he stood, statuesque, surrounded by shimmering lights that wouldn't budge.
The approaching footsteps behind him sounded closer with every long moment he waited. Tension built in his chest as for a second he worried he'd be stuck like this until the orcs arrived and had their gruesome way with him.
His fear abated when a pleasant flash of white from the portal's surface sent its beautiful surface spiralling into darkness. Then his stomach dropped as a vibrant purple aura burst free of the portal's epicentre to engulf him in its energy.
Ah fuck what's happening? he tried to shout but his whole body was locked down under the colossal pressure of the purple light. Something clicked in his head and he recognised this as that same energy from the stone monument that almost killed him.
Before he could summon his mana in resistance to this terrifying power, it overwhelmed his sight, blinding him completely. Then in a tsunami of agony that burned into the centre of his chest, the energy eroded his thoughts one by one until his mind slipped from consciousness.
Both Kieran and the portal blinked out of existence, leaving the tunnel dark and empty but for a handful of green corpses smeared across the floor.
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Deep tiredness filled Kieran's bones, the breed of unique fatigue born from constantly being knocked unconscious by both physical and ridiculous magical forces, repeatedly, and without explanation. Not even the remarkable rejuvenation capabilities of mana, which he’d been absorbing so much of until now, could do enough to offset the mental exhaustion brought on by his latest agonising, external magical attack.
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Barely conscious in the empty darkness he opened his eyes to, Kieran noticed the unnatural chill in his limbs first. Assumedly brought on by a cement-like wall against his back that hungrily tore all the warmth from his body.
This constant loss of heat long since left him full of icy cold and lacking the strength to rise. He would shiver frantically if only he had the energy to move a muscle.
Night and shadow filled every direction except up, where a dim orange radiance floated a great distance above him, almost entirely out of sight. Yet still, the eerie lighting and smell of dusty earth struck a deeply familiar chord in his mind.
A weak voice at the back of his thoughts protested at the vague recognition, telling him he shouldn't be here and needed to leave right this second. But even if Kieran could get up, where would he go? He didn't know where he was or how he got here from the portal.
If only his phone would turn on so he could check his map application, not that he could even pull it out with his limp hands. Then it hit him.
Wait, the map? Maybe it'll work now?
“System” he croaked dryly, ignoring the pain lancing into his chest, and the confusing memory it brought with it.
“Please…show me…the class quest map” he huffed.
To Kieran's weary bones, entire days had gone by since those first System messages revealed themselves to him, and since Nathan vanished before his very eyes. The message that popped up now was nothing new at all to him, but it more than answered his question about where he'd winded up.
Error!
System Map unavailable inside Dungeons.
“No...” he breathed in disbelief.
Why am I still in the fucking dungeon?
What about the portal? His chest started to heave.
"Sys-" the word lodged in his dry husk of a throat. With a raspy cough, his whole body trembled and fresh wetness spilt down his front. The sweet and coppery taste of blood made it apparent that he was not in good shape by any stretch of the imagination.
A few seconds of rasping, wet breaths told him that he was most likely dying right now. Whether it was from the unending cold that seeped into his bones, or the deep wound in his chest, he couldn’t tell. But he did his best to push the grim thoughts aside for now.
If he couldn't get to his feet, he would die here, that much was certain. But the fact he couldn't feel any mana around him to breathe at all filled him with a deeper sense of dread.
Turning his sense of awareness inside himself, he considered if he might stoke his mana into a frenzy to scrape out some modicum of strength. But without any guidance, and no access to fresh mana, he couldn't even imagine where he might begin.
Every uselessly long breath he wheezed did nothing to re-instil his body with even a crumb of vigour.
It wasn't fair. He'd been so close. After making new friends and bonding in deadly battles, Kieran genuinely thought he was beginning some grand adventure and that he had finally encountered his new chance at a truly exciting, purposeful life. Any excitement he once held quickly turned to ash in his mouth. A grim acceptance came to him. This dark dungeon would be his tomb, and all hope was lost. The dark walls of his mind began to close in once more. Kieran wanted to cry like a little bitch as despair took him, but he didn't even have the energy to get physically upset anymore. All his muscles were numbed to a complete standstill as he weakened further with the passage of time.
Increasingly lost and scared, Kieran knew he had to try something desperate. As usual, he started by soothing himself with deliberate and methodical breathing, like many times before. With all the focus he could muster on his lungs and each breath, he pulled forcefully in an attempt to eke out even a single strand of free-floating mana from the air, but none came.
The air was so devoid of life and energy that he barely recognised it from what he had grown accustomed to in this dungeon until this point. He then noticed that much like the surrounding air, his body itself was equally void of power. The observation urged his anxiety into action.
What? Where did all my mana go?
It drew his attention to the wall he leant against so casually, without even considering. After all, a wall was just a wall, surely?
No…it's not just stone
Towering high into the air behind him was no simple wall to rest against. The ingrained malice became clearer to him with every moment. The cold that pressed against his back was far more biting and menacing than he’d first noticed. And as he tried to understand the nature of this strange behemoth, something resonated familiarly and moved inside the depths of the stone itself.
Part of him was almost excited once he detected that brief rush of mana from inside the stone. The consideration that maybe he could even absorb some and save himself from this doom flashed through his mind. The thought lasted right until another fluctuation of energy came through clearer than before, revealing the nature of this mana to be completely identical to his own mana stores.
Only then did Kieran understand why his body was so bitingly cold. Why he was so incredibly weak. And why he was not healing at all, despite being so full of mana the last time he could remember.
This…this fucking thing stole it all?
It didn’t make any sense to him that the portal would send someone here merely to be drained to death without resistance, and he looked to be the only person here.
Kieran would not accept this new absurdity, not after all he had endured in this place. The idea of being killed by an inanimate, oversized slab of rock made him want to cackle with rage. Instead, he pushed the anger down. Focusing instead on the unnatural feeling of his last scraps of body heat and even his life being torn away with every passing second. He could practically feel ghostly claws scraping at him from behind.
The almost imperceptible tugging at his back was surely an illusion of the mind. At least that's what he reasoned to himself at first. But each raspy breath he exhaled caused the tenuous sensation to become far more visceral. The desire to live by even an unlikely gamble became more powerful than his innate fear of death, and he knew he had to act now.
Kieran understood there are times in life when all you could do was fight tooth and nail against every crappy thing arrayed against you, never surrendering ground until your final breath. But just as important, were those times when you had to accept your fate and flow with the insurmountable tides that sought to take you under, to escape to the other side.
So this is what he did. Even with the whispering echoes in his mind that this was a bad idea, Kieran fully gave in to the inescapable pull of the stone.
With a cleansing sigh, he relinquished all natural resistances he hadn't even been aware he possessed. The overwhelming vulnerability that followed set his hair on end. A strange feeling of being pulled into its depths overcame him, despite his body not moving an inch. The wall became a giant gaping maw, ready to bite down and consume him wholly. There was no doubt in his heart that this mysterious force greedily sought to consume his life, so Kieran chose to alter the paradigm.
With a mental acquiescence, that last vestige of mana in his chest slowly dissolved away, leaving him completely void of all mana and weak beyond compare. At that moment, Kieran considered he may be making a huge mistake, but if death was coming for him, he would choose how he faded into the great black. Even if survival would still cost him the very power he had wished for all his life.
Whatever happens, so be it.
In that last moment where he willingly surrendered his last drop of magical energy, and possibly his life, he also unknowingly removed the tiny barrier of mana containing and quarantining that ominous black bead within his chest.
Now that the bead of chaotic energy was no longer condensed and restrained, he could feel its energised presence more deeply than ever, and the minuscule orb began to pulse rhythmically. It awakened once more.
Kieran’s chest began tearing itself apart in what should have been absolutely debilitating pain, but due to the full-bodied numbness eroding his physical senses, he barely noticed a thing. Sitting in the dark, a weird mix of sensations overlapped in his body and mind. Kieran first sensed and then physically felt the thrumming vibrations of the stone wall behind him coming to life.
Immediately, his chest throbbed with a feeling far beyond simple pain, and a thrumming purple light appeared to fill his lower periphery. He gazed down at the eerie new colour with little concern until he beheld a dense violet smoke crawling free of his chest. This strange energy illuminated the immediate vicinity around him, showing him the flat stone floor he had been sitting on this whole time. Then exposing the solid bases of many stone columns a short distance away.
The shining violet mist thickened as it swirled all over him in condensing wisps, its touch surprisingly warm and comforting to him. Kieran barely resisted an instinctive flinch of his hand when he saw the mist seeping into the back of it on its own accord. Then he realised he could move with little effort for the first time since waking up in this weird spot.
The light flowed into his body with every passing second, causing his skin to tingle all over and his muscles to twitch erratically.
Electric tingles grew to an itching discomfort in his whole body but quickly faded to the typical physical sensations he knew so well. With little effort, he clenched both his fists in his lap with a degree of strength that confirmed he was no longer paralysed by the cold.
In a sudden, great exertion, Kieran forced himself to lean forward with a pained huff, peeling his back off the stone to break free of the wall's contact, he could finally breathe again. To be safe though he rolled roughly across the hard ground to gain some more distance.
Lethargically staggering to his hands and knees, Kieran turned to scan his surroundings, the only thing he could see clearly was the subtle glow creeping from countless indecipherable glyphs upon the huge wall.
Arrayed in multiple rows and columns of ancient characters that randomly switched places with one another in no apparent patterns, the wall spanned almost the whole diameter of the huge circular dias it sat upon.
The increasing strength of these shimmering symbols cast flickers of light all about the immediate area.
That was the exact moment Kieran recognised exactly where he’d been sent to.
The giant rectangle of smooth stone, the raised circular platform he now saw himself standing upon.
These were suspiciously memorable, but only when bright flames burst to life high above him upon the two parallel columns of pillars did Kieran realise quite how screwed he still might be.
It was that weird bloody door thing all along? What In the fuck is going on?
As the whole basin of ruined rock and stone around him became slightly more visible, Kieran was thankful not to see a single green humanoid in sight. Back on his feet, but by no means combat-ready with the absolute state of his chest, he took a moment to assess himself in case dangerous foes found him once more.
The many confusing sensations of old lingering pain and fatigue meant he couldn’t accurately decide how his body felt at all. Becoming completely devoid of all mana, he felt hollowed out and empty, at least in comparison to the vivid memories of that wondrous power he held prior.
Only the spreading warmth of the bizarre purple mist soothingly simmered in his cold veins. This energy was entirely different to mana, and where it once caused him intense suffering, it instead comforted him like an injured child now. A few deep breaths helped him regain some composure after narrowly escaping death in a way he hadn't known was even possible. Despite zero mana coming to his desperate rasps of air, his physical condition actually improved drastically in comparison to the awful near-death state he awoke to. He could only attribute this renewal to the purple mist whose last visible wisps disappeared into his flesh.
Something in the air around Kieran changed as he looked about the place, craving for information. The space surrounding the wide circular platform came alive with thrumming energy. Subtle small glyphs burst to life, one by one, slowly forming a shining blue ring that bordered the entire raised platform.
“Oh what now? Are you still hungry, dickhead? Want some more of my juice?” Kieran asked the tall wall sassily, not at all expecting an answer.
He wasn't entirely sure why he was shit-talking the alien stone door. Kieran definitely bore a solid grudge from losing all his hard-earned mana in his sleep though, and then almost getting sucked dry by a lump of rock of all things.
Jimmy would roast the shit out of me for this…
The exact moment the ring of illuminating symbols completed a full encirclement of the raised platform, several lines of light channelled across the floor in rivets, right to the centre of the large dias. The lines divided the circular platform into slices that Kieran felt looked like an extra large pizza. Until he looked at the giant alien structure atop it with those bizarre glyphs now floating about it in varying patterns and clusters. Kieran couldn’t understand a single thing, so he moved a little closer to get a better look at the waves of writing.
Full of caution, Kieran approached the towering stone wall with a mind to kick the thing repeatedly to vent, he definitely would if not for the sudden thought that it would still try to kill him on contact. Instead, he opted to examine the writing from a few metres away, and his eyes traced the strange light fluctuations these glyphs were shining all over the place.
He briefly noted there was a perfectly straight but almost imperceptibly fine line cut away from the stone, it ran vertically down the exact centre of the door-like structure splitting it evenly in such a familiar way that Kieran realised this was in fact a sealed set of doors and not simply a single slab of stone.
Oh wow, does that mean it can actually open? He wondered curiously.
Like ocean waves, the blue light danced across his face and randomly lit up the great hall, ever undulating and carefree in its motions. Kieran found the light show mesmerising, he couldn’t help but watch on curiously at the beautiful display. His trance of focus and interest continued until he was distracted by the way one beam of blue light seemed to shine differently through certain glyphs.
There didn’t seem to be any pattern to the fluctuations, but every time certain symbols moved across the surface of the door, he could feel more than mere light being released into the air, and he realised it had to be mana.
Kieran figured the beams of light that carried wisps of mana along with them had to be some kind of key to understanding what this crazy vampire door was doing. As a thrumming beam shone from one of the moving symbols to brush by his face, Kieran held his hand up into the light’s path out of curiosity.
An intense cold sensation caressed his fingers as the beam wandered over his hand then off to shine about the hall in no particular direction.
Despite only being exposed to the abnormal mana within the light for a couple of seconds, the moment it moved on, Kieran found his hand enveloped in a light film of frost that he couldn't explain. He rapidly shook and flexed his hand to clear the deep coldness that pervaded his skin. The symbol that shone this light had long since drifted across the stone's surface to hide amongst the other unknown glyphs.
Kieran stood there for far longer than he ever intended to, absolutely caught up in the fascination of this weird gate and its rather beautiful ancient magic glyphs, as well as the deeper meaning behind this puzzle. Using his hand as a risky tester probe, he reached out one by one into multiple beams of light as they passed by him freely. Desperately trying to understand what their purpose and nature were.
Other than the many empty manaless beams, what he found most fascinating was the variation of energies present. The cold beam of light came around a couple more times, never doing more than freezing the moisture on his skin before moving on. He mentally noted the jagged lines of the corresponding symbol before it passed out of view once more.
After this, he encountered another kind of mana he already recognised, contact with the mana actually singed his hands slightly before he pulled it away reflexively.
“Ow, that sucked. Guess I found the fire mana, though?” he said, still thinking of the heated mana from burning torches back at the first cavern.
Icy, then hot? Interesting, let's keep checking.
He carried on, testing out the various lights that came from remarkably different symbols, eventually he encountered a light beam that pushed against his skin firmly, reminiscent of a cool breeze. And despite no noticeable disturbance to the rest of the dead airflow about him, he was sure that's what this was.
Okay, that’s gotta Air?…
Lastly, and most surprisingly to Kieran, was the crackle of electricity across the very tips of his fingers in a flash of white strands that stung and numbed his hand.
“Ah Jesus!” he yelped, being shocked both mentally and physically by the sudden flash of electricity.
As the feeling returned to his hand, he considered the purpose of these abnormal beams and what they were for. Then realisation hit him. They were four completely different natural elements and not just random magical effects.
“One was cold, so Ice? and the hot one would definitely be fire.” He decided thoughtfully.
“Next, had to be wind, I'm sure, and the last one was electric…but I didn’t think electricity was its own element, so…Lightning? Yeah, it must be.”
Of course…all four elements lived in harmony…He thought seriously to himself. “But everything changed when the stinky human attacked” Kieran chuckled.
Deciding he may have actually found some genuine insight into the workings of this odd doorway–that still owed him a week’s lunch money in mana–Kieran risked getting a little closer to the dancing symbols and the many twirling beams of light. Making sure not to stand directly in the path of the lights and potentially burn his eyes out with fire mana, he approached the left side and began to scrutinise the different symbols.
It was only when Kieran examined the antique carvings that flowed beneath the moving glyphs that he noticed a subtle indent the size of a thick finger carved vertically into the far left lower side of the wall, then another identical one several feet across from the first. Drawing a mental line between the two noticeable incisions, Kieran ducked under the flashing lights as he crouched down and scoured his way across the wall, stopping when he spotted two more finger-sized incisions etched into its surface.
“Four elements, four little holes…coincidink? I think not” he jibed at the weak correlation.
"but at least I'm finally getting somewhere"
He really hoped this wasn't one of those ball-ache trials that took days and days.
For all he knew, the magical orc asshole would come waddling down to torch him alive any minute now.