In a largely empty alleyway, save for some piles of garbage and the smell of piss, a door opened. A door that might have been there before, but then again, it might not have. Out stepped a pale man with a grey streak running through his hair. Following him was a dark woman of small stature, curls bouncing as she went. Finally, out trampled a big hairy man, who kneeled over and vomited.

“What the fuck was that!?” Teddy gurgled, chunks dripping down his beard. Agatha looked disgusted at the sight.

“A gateway?” She answered as if it were obvious. Aethel felt questions starting to bubble in his mind, but the discombobulation from the sudden teleport combined with the waft of puke caught him first. He grabbed the nearest wall and retched up whatever little was in his stomach as well. As he did, his side where the investigator had hit him flared up in pain.

“Really nice, guys. How much did you drink last night?” She rolled her eyes.

“Well, we did burn down the café.” Aethel said dejectedly.

“WHAT? The one you worked at? Why? When?” She blurted out. Teddy rose from his grounded position and spoke up as if he hadn’t just projected his insides onto the ground.

“We wanted to make sure we’d agree to your job. Besides, aren’t you rebels or something? Why do you care?” Agatha sighed at him.

“Bael made me keep an eye on you… Make sure you didn’t do anything stupid…” She looked a little ashamed as she spoke.

“And what marvellous work you did.” Aethel declared before he continued.

“To answer your questions: Yes it was the café I worked at, we were extremely drunk, vengeful and stupid, and we did it in the black of night.” He listed.

“The fuck made your boss think we’d need spying on anyway?” Teddy interjected. Agatha’s face grew into a guilty expression.

“Well, we’ve been watching you for a little while actually…” She admitted. Both of the young men's eyes perked up. Agatha explained.

“There aren’t a lot of surge users outside of government or law, and even then it’s mostly cracked hermits or nobles who only use it as a party trick.” She began.

“It seems like everyone is turned off by the idea of magic in general, for some reason.” She continued, and Aethel chuckled at her proclamation.

“Oh really?” He said, reeking of sarcasm. Oblivious to the remark, she answered him.

“Yes! Then we found you two, perfect for the job!” Teddy looked more than a little smug from her comment.

“But you do idiotic things when you get drunk!” She said in complete earnest, and Teddy’s face quickly shifted to a shameful smirk. Agatha looked as though she wanted to say five things at once and finally gave up with a sigh.

“There’s a lot more to it than that, but right now we need to get to our base. I’ll explain once we’re past the city gates.” She pointed to a door to her left that definitely hadn’t been there before. Teddy and Aethel both sighed at the same time.

“More of those?” Teddy complained. Agatha frowned.

“You would be welcome to walk there yourself if the city wasn’t crawling with people looking for you.” She rebuked.

“Not only did you vandalise a building and possibly murder multiple enforcers and an investigator, but they have you on file.” Aethel was about to correct her, as technically she was the one who conjured up the mysterious black smoke, but the last thing she said left him quizzical.

“On file…?” He asked.

“Oh yes. Trained surge users don’t blend in as well with the crowd. I can assure you that by now, every law enforcement agent has seen a picture of you.” It was almost as if every word coming out of her mouth spawned another question inside of Aethel’s head, which was already brimming to the point of exhaustion.

“So. Let’s. GO!” She punctuated with sincerity and ran through the door. The two men shared another concerning look before they both let out a puff of air and passed through the gateway.

Once they exited, Agatha immediately began walking towards a new one, and so it continued for a while. Most were doors, but sometimes they crawled through windows, basement entrances and even sewer holes, all black with a purple tint. A couple of times they even exited into Main Street, but they always found another gateway fast enough and thus avoided the long arm of the law. Every time they did this, they would find themselves closer and closer to the city gates. It seemed that way in the beginning at least, until they suddenly found themselves further away. Aethel had been about to speak up but Agatha shushed him before he could. So they continued, getting closer, then a little further, then closer again. Two steps forward, one step back, until they finally exited a small hatch.

As Aethel poked his head up he was hit by a powerful gust of wind. He closed his eyes in response, flinching a little. When opened them up again, he was met with the sight of Agatha pressing a finger to her lips, staring at him intently. He obliged and kept quiet as he continued to rise from the trapdoor. Looking around he saw mostly clear blue sky. The rooftop was huge, flat and made of grey stone. He noticed that around the edges of the roof were human-sized pillars with armoured men standing between them, facing outward. As Teddy made his way out of the gate behind Aethel, it dawned on him. The pillars were battlements. They were on top of the humongous watchtower at the end of main street. Teddy took a look around as he stood up and seemed to reach the same conclusion. He gestured with his hands to the surroundings and silently mouthed ‘What!?’. Agatha looked nervous. Aethel could see that this hadn’t been a part of her plan. She moved back towards the trapdoor and mouthed ‘Follow me’. As she began opening the latch she pressed her finger towards her lips again. Agatha looked down carefully, and after a brief while gave a nod to both of the men before she began descending. They followed after her.

This time, the latch functioned as normal. They entered a room as wide as the roof itself, with a low ceiling, giving it a claustrophobic feeling. There was little light, save for a small surge lamp on a table in one of the corners. The rest of the light came from slits in the stone and holes in each of the four corners of the ceiling. The walls were lined with spears, chakrams and something that looked like ballista bolts.

“Ok, so that was not entirely what I had planned…” Agatha admitted. Teddy visibly reeled.

“What? Then why the fuck would you take us up here?” Agatha flushed a little before Teddy continued.

“I thought you had some insane escape plan involving us jumping off of the tower.” He went from angry to perplexed and finally landed on disappointment.

“I don’t think she entirely decides on where the gateways take her. I guess this was a rather extreme case of it taking us somewhere completely different.” Aethel deducted.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Yeah you’re on to something…” She began dejectedly.

“I’m what you would probably call a chaos witch, so I call on chaos to help me…do stuff… And chaos is unpredictable, to put it mildly.” She gave a weak smile. As they talked, Aethel inspected one of the cabinets against the wall. Inside one of the drawers were dozens of vials filled with coloured liquid.

“Can’t you just make another door and get us the hell out of here?” Teddy asked. Agatha let out a breath of air.

“It’s not that simple. There’s a system to it. It is chaotic, sure, but it has to make sense. And for it to make sense now, it would probably just lead us further down in the tower.” She began.

“Most likely into a room full of soldiers.” Aethel interjected mindlessly as he read over the labels of the vials. Only about half of them actually had a label, and most of the labels didn’t even make sense. Agatha and Teddy curiously moved towards the cabinet as well.

“Whatcha got there?” Agatha asked with a country twang. Aethel was holding one of the vials in his hands. It was a sort of greyish blue.

“Potions, it seems…” He answered a little lost in thought. He put the potion back down and opened the drawer below the one he had been perusing.

“Aha!” He triumphed as he picked up a rather large box from the drawer and put it on top of the cabinet. It had a label on top stating ‘Float’.

“Hope you’re not afraid of heights.” He continued. Agatha looked at him.

“Float?” She questioned.

“Yes, float. Every soldier on watchtowers like this is equipped with float, in case of emergency.” Aethel explained and opened up the box.

“It just makes you fall slower, so when you…” He began but stopped when he was met with the sight of only a single potion rolling around within the box.

“Ah…” Aethel stated, and Agatha followed up with an “Oh..” before Teddy interjected.

“Let’s just have a third each. See what happens. We can jump off the table in the corner to test it out!” He said excitedly. Aethel chuckled. Agatha seemed sceptical.

“Oh don’t worry,” Teddy continued. “I’ll have the first sip. If it’s poisonous in any way I’ll have the best chance of surviving it.” Agatha raised an eyebrow as Aethel poured a third each into three empty vials.

“Augmentors have great control over what’s happening inside of their bodies. It’s kind of our thing.” He grinned before he continued.

“Besides, I’m a big guy!” He said and let out a loud “Boom!” as he flexed his arms at her. She laughed a little. Aethel shushed him.

“Volume control, big guy. I don’t want to meet the end of a blade because of your flexing noises.” Aethel handed one of the vials to Teddy, who rolled his eyes before grabbing it. He popped the cork and gulped it down, and for a tense moment, Aethel and Agatha looked at him in suspense. Teddy looked at his hands and balled them into fists. He looked down to his feet, back to his hands, and then at Aethel.

“How do I know it works?” He asked sheepishly. Aethel couldn’t help but laugh a little.

“You could try jumping off of the table?” He proposed.

“Right!” Teddy responded. He put down his travel sack, made his way towards the corner of the room and climbed on top of the table. Teddy had just barely been able to stand upright before. Now he had to hunch over so as not to hit his head on the low ceiling. Aethel smirked. It looked ridiculous.

“Here we go…” He announced and jumped off. He instantly slammed his head into the ceiling, which normally would’ve made Aethel laugh hysterically, but the fact of the matter was that Teddy actually fell much slower towards the floor. So slow that despite his falling trajectory being changed by the head bump, he didn’t crush his tailbone on the floor as expected. His buttcheeks simply cushioned down gracefully. He rubbed his head with a pained expression, before he looked up with surprise written across his face.

“Damn!” He cheered. Aethel put down his backpack, chugged down the second vial and quickly handed the third to Agatha.

“I gotta try this.” He said and made his way towards the table as well.

“Careful!” Teddy warned him. “You jump a lot higher than you’re used to.” He continued as he stood. Aethel nodded and jumped a little softer than he’d originally intended. Sure enough, his head just barely grazed the ceiling. He reached towards the stone above him and pushed a little, making him turn backwards while travelling through the air. Like Teddy, he landed softly, except Aethel landed on his back with his arms behind his head, like a bachelor lying in a grass field on a warm summer day. Agatha laughed excitedly and drank the liquid.

“Ok, ok, ok check this out!” She ran towards the table and climbed up. She positioned her feet on the edge of the table and jumped forward. She flew like a starfish across the room and almost made it to the other corner.

“Weeee!” She exclaimed before she flopped on the floor belly first, just as gently as the other two had before her. She broke down laughing and rolled over on her back.

“Ok we really should be going n—” Aethel began, but Teddy cut him off short.

“I have GOT to try that!” He made his way back towards the table, climbed on top and positioned his feet just as she had.

“No! Let’s just go before anyone shows up!” Aethel tried, but Teddy wouldn’t have it.

“Just watch!” He said excitedly and jumped. At the same time the trapdoor on the floor opened and an armour-clad man poked his head up, just in time to see a huge bear-like figure fly over his head and land on his face on the other side of the room. Aethel froze. Agatha froze. The man froze. Teddy laughed.

“My whole belly is tickling. You gotta try that Aeth-” Teddy began before he turned to see the man looking at them. For a moment, it seemed like no one really knew what to do. The mood was that of someone walking in on them on the toilet. That was what it felt like to Aethel at least, but he nonetheless quickly formed a bolt between his hands, and before the man had any time to take action or call for help, he flung the ball of force towards the man’s head. The sudden blunt trauma to the soldier’s temple made him fall down the ladder, with the trapdoor closing behind him.

“Enough fun, let’s go!” Aethel said in an almost commanding fashion. The tiny girl with the black curls sprung to her feet. As did the great rug of a man. Aethel and Teddy each grabbed their respective sacks, and as the others climbed the ladder, Aethel stuffed a random assortment of coloured vials into his backpack.

It seemed like the guards outside hadn’t detected the commotion below. They were all still standing at attention facing outward between the battalions. Aethel pointed towards one of the empty spaces on the right side of the roof, which was facing neither out nor into the city. He mouthed ‘Jump?’ and gestured with his hands to indicate that they were to jump rightward, towards the forest, instead of having to sneak past the guards on the north side of the tower and jump towards the Kingsroad. Before the other two had any time to respond, however, a loud bell rang from below them and every guard on top of the tower turned their heads.

“Stop!” One of the soldiers shouted over the wind.

“Jump jump jump!” Aethel yelled repeatedly and ran towards the empty hole in question. Teddy and Agatha followed after him, and all three of them practically launched into the air, as the potion had let them jump much higher than they were used to. They soared through the wind with what seemed like a pleasant trajectory for a landing in the southern wilds.

“Wooooo!” Teddy hollered as they floated away. Aethel began laughing. Softly at first, then a hysterical laughter of complete disbelief.

“Thavion’s cock and BALLS!” He yelled. “What are we doing!?” He laughed and laughed. Agatha let out a few hoots as well, and Aethel turned to see her waving her arms in the wind. As he did, however, he noticed something else entirely, and his smile faded.

“Arrows!” He yelled and instantly shut his eyes. He heard the first arrow swoosh by them, followed by sounds of alarm from Agatha and Teddy, but it all faded away rather quickly, as Aethel fell deep into his mind. He visualised the familiar stream of surge around him and began to command it. As they were flying rather quickly, he first had to make a stream follow his own trajectory, which already made his hangover headache grow. Faintly, he heard another arrow pass them, but he pushed it aside, sinking even deeper into the crevice of his consciousness. He had to be in complete control for this to work, as he hadn’t performed a surge barrier technique in many years. The stream soon followed him, and he was ready to mould it. He ordered it to flow in a circle further away from him, landing at a distance that would engulf all three within the barrier.

As another hiss of an arrow shot by, he made the stream expand into a sphere. Aethel’s head was beginning to seriously hurt, but he imagined that an arrow to the head would hurt even more, and so he commanded the surge around him to be that of an outward-pushing sphere of force. He felt a familiar buzz as he often used to do when he performed techniques like this a long time ago. It made his temple reverberate in pain, but he could feel arrows deflecting off of the barrier, so at least it worked. Each time they did, another wave of hurt struck him, as the stream in the barrier reconnected where the arrows had cracked it. After a short while the arrows stopped, and Aethel's mind lulled slowly into the comforting embrace of darkness.