“Okay,” Ryan told him. “Go.”

With a rock in each hand, Micah picked up the bowl between and looked around, waiting for the golem to burst out of the stoneworks, or the ceiling to collapse in a flood.

Nothing happened. Water flowed gently. He turned to Ryan. “Should I try touching it with my gloves?”

“Give it a minute.”

Micah did, but when it was clear that nothing was forthcoming, he put the rocks aside and picked the bowl up a second time, twice as anxious now. What if it melted him alive?

Again, nothing happened. He felt kind of stupid for all the preparations they had made, the escape routes and monsters they had cleared. Looking left and right, he mumbled, “Awkward.”

Ryan pushed his already cocked head into a neck crack and shifted forward to get a better look, a fraction more relaxed than before. “Better safe than sorry. How were we supposed to know what they do?”

Micah agreed, but, “What does it do? Does it even do anything or is it actually just a bowl?”

He turned it around to look for clues and noticed, it wasn’t made of rock or metal at all. It was glass. Just really, really filthy glass. Years of dust and grime had gathered inside and on it.

Ryan wiped the shelf off, uncovering a circular ident that matched its size, and for a moment, Micah thought they might have set off a pressure plate. He panicked, but the indent was still sunken down. If it had been based on a weight, it should have shifted up, shouldn’t it?

Broken, perhaps?

He put the bowl back on top and pushed down a little, picked it back up, wiped the surface off himself, but that did nothing. He did notice a slight sheen to the rim of it and pointed. “Can you see that?”

Ryan squinted and moved his head left and right. He nodded. “There’s a shimmer there.”

“Oh, so not magic then?” Micah frowned. “Maybe it’s lined with a metal or something?”

His friend looked up at him. “What, you think you’re the only one who can see magic effects? Some types are visible to the naked eye, Micah. I don’t think this shimmer is a result of the material.” He picked at it with a gloved finger and shook his head. “See? It’s stone. Magic.”

Micah blushed at the chagrin and scratched his cheek to hide it. “So …?”

“So, that speaks of an enchantment,” Ryan said. “We just need to figure out what kind.”

“Oh.”

He went back to inspecting the bowl but couldn’t see anything through the filth. What if there were markings or writings? Micah washed it out in the water and found indents on the inside that started at about half height, like inverted knobs in the glass. So it was one of those? His parents had a similar vase.

After scrubbing for a few minutes, he held it up with a triumphant, “Tadaa!” His enthusiasm dwindled on sight. It was still pretty filthy. He searched for clues, but couldn’t find any.

Ryan raised his eyebrows, looking awkward.

“Give me a moment.” Micah filled it up with more water to scrub some more when the other guy started pulling the bowl out of his hands, telling him, “Here, let me try something.”

Micah pulled back. “What?”

“Maybe we just need to turn it around or something? Like a, uh, combination lock?”

He made a face. “What?”

He wanted to protest, but Ryan was quicker. He pulled the half-filled bowl out of his hand, water sloshing over the sides, and put it back in place, both hands on the rim ready to turn. But he didn’t get that far. The moment the filled bowl was back in place, it lit up with silver light.

Micah had a brief moment of realization. Oh, he thought. It’s a bowl. Of course, fill it with something.

Then they scrambled for their weapons, to get in position to fight or run, and Micah froze.

A large, silver hand appeared below the bowl and pushed up through it, glass sinking through its palm. He recognized it. Tower essence. Just, he had never seen it this whole before. It wasn’t the wispy echo it was outside of the Tower. There were no gaps. A perfect illusion.

As it rose, the contents inside the bowl surged up its sides and looked like dark veins in the hand’s wrist. A dark sludge crept over the rim of the glass and spilled before the light blocked vision, but it spilled out of the illusion, too.

The two of them stayed well clear of it, their backs to the wall and shield ready. Ryan looked prepared to bolt, but Micah put a hand an on his arm to steady him. He couldn’t see anything dangerous about the sludge and its movement was clearly caused by the passing of the Tower essence. It was just filth. Filth, which now dripped down the edge of the alcove and made a mess.

When the hand had risen almost to the top of the alcove, it disappeared without a sound. Micah was almost sad to see it go. It was like an anchor to the outside. Something familiar. Normal.

The glass, meanwhile, was perfectly clean. As was the rest of the water inside. All the filth had been removed and was now dripping over the edge of the workstation.

Micah wanted to inspect it, but he to remind himself, first things first. He glanced at Ryan. “Clear?”

“What?” The guy looked bewildered, but the question seemed to steady him. “Oh, wait.” He cocked his head for a minute and nodded. “Should be. But— I mean … what just happened?”

“Uhm, it purified the water,” Micah said, trying not to sound like he was stating the obvious again. “And the bowl.”

That got him a sharp look from Ryan. “Are you sure?”

He nodded. Nothing but water and its essence inside the bowl, now. The glass was still somewhat murky, but it was clear that it was intentional. Whoever had made it had twisted in lines of grey.

The dripping sludge smelled, but Ryan didn’t cover his nose. “Is it enchanted?” he asked.

“Not that I can see. It’s just clean.”

He nodded at that and lifted the bowl up to pour its contents into his empty bottle, careful not to spill any to the sides. Of course, it was inevitable that it would happen now and again.

It wasn’t a lot. Not enough to fill the bottle up entirely, but maybe they could just do it over? When Ryan tilted it up more, Micah frowned. The indents of the glass were more visible, now that it was clean. Their size and shape, too.

He got a marble out of his pouch and the moment Ryan was done, set it inside. It nested in one perfectly.

His friend noticed and set the bowl back down. The fit was undeniable. Wordlessly, they got as many marbles out of their pockets as they owned and stacked them inside until all were filled. The middle space between them was half-empty, but it was stable enough that none fell from the edges.

When Micah put the last of their marbles in place, they stepped back and waited for the Tower essence to show up. Nothing happened. “Maybe it needs water?”

They carefully filled it with water and put the marbles back in place but still, nothing happened. The bowl didn’t even purify it, this time.

“Maybe we need more marbles,” Ryan mumbled, “or it could be nothing at all. A coincidence.”

Micah gave him a look, Really?

He shrugged.

Reluctantly, Micah picked the bowl back up and held a hand in front of the rim to hold the marbles back, but noticed something else on the shelf. There was no shimmer to the circle anymore.

He wiped the sludge away and washed his glove immediately after, but the circle itself was dead.

Ryan groaned as if he had just realized something obvious and said, “Single use. Of course!”

“What? So the enchantment has to be there to attract it?”

“Attract it? You mean activate it?”

Micah frowned. “The Tower essence?”

“The … What?”

“Didn’t you see the hand?”

“Hand? No. I just saw a bunch of sludge lift itself out of the bowl,” he said. “What did you see?”

“Uhm, Tower essence,” he explained. “A hand. It lifted the sludge out to clean the water?”

Ryan stared at him for a long moment and his expression seemed almost afraid. Or even disgusted.

Micah took a step back and mumbled, “It’s just … what I saw. I mean, you know about—”

His friend shook the expression and hurried to interrupt him, “Right, no. It’s okay, Micah. I was just surprised. So many things in the Towers don’t have explanations. So maybe there are some, but we just can’t see them?”

Oh, right. So this was yet another thing Micah could only see on his own? That sucked. If only he could— He broke off the thought, an idea forming. “[Tower Gaze of Doom]? I could try to reveal it for you!”

“Oh.” Ryan gulped. “Yeah, uh, what? You think so?”

He nodded eagerly.

“But, are you sure that’s a wise idea?”

Micah smiled, excited. “Yeah! Tower essence is harmless. And maybe if I could show it to you, you’d, like, understand? I mean, Lisa doesn’t really ‘see’ essences the way I do, she told me. She just ‘senses’ them, whatever that means. But if I could show you guys, I wouldn’t be so …”

He trailed off when he realized what he was about to say. Alone. Embarrassed, he cleared his throat and said in a deeper voice, “Anyway, we still have to find out what those marbles do, right?”

Surprisingly, Ryan smiled. “Right.”

Finding the nearest workstation was easy enough. It took a little longer to clear out the nearby tunnels to create escape routes. The upside was that they collected a few more marbles on the way.

They cleaned the bowl as thoroughly as they could this time around, as to not waste its single use on purifying water—if it even could do something else. Micah even released the slimes he had captured to squiggle around inside and clean up the things that couldn’t be washed out by cold water.

He offered to try and make a detergent with them to be extra sure, but Ryan said it would take too long and might not even work. Micah disagreed with the first point but reluctantly conceded to the second.

When the bowl was as clean as they could get it, they stacked marbles inside. Ryan put one with the murky lines from the fish-rats in an indent and Micah protested, “Not that one.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t like it. We have enough anyway, right?”

“Only to fill the indents, not the entire bowl,” Ryan said.

“Still, it’s just one. Leave it out?”

He rolled his eyes but agreed. When they were done, they readied themselves and set the bowl back in its place on the alcove, but nothing happened.

“Huh. Maybe it needs water?”

Ryan used the purified water from the last bowl to fill it up to the rim of the indents, about half-full. It was about half of the water they had since the marbles took up the rest of the space.

This time when they set it back down, it glowed and Micah trained his eyes on it, ready. Instead of a hand, an eye opened up below the bowl and raised itself a little to inspect its contents. By the curve of the white, Micah thought it might have been an entire eyeball hidden in the stone.

Not hidden much longer, he thought and stared at it and only it to the exclusion of all else. He was a little worried he didn’t have enough time to do this before it disappeared, but when Ryan shoved a hand in front of his chest to drag him back a step, he knew it had worked.

“What the fuck?”

Micah panicked at the sound of his voice. He hadn’t thought he would react that strongly. But then he saw what had prompted it.

The eyeball parted in the middle like lips and a tongue shot out to wrap around the contents of the bowl. It dragged half the essence there down with it and started chewing with closed … lips?

Micah had to admit, to see an eyeball chew was a first. Did it even have teeth? He doubted it.

It was quick about it, like a person chewing a single bite, and let out a satisfied sigh in the form of a cloud of essences Micah didn’t recognize. They made his head hurt. He did recognize the essences inside the bowl, though, so he focused on watching those before he got lost.

The eyeball wiggled a little as if it wanted to do something, but stayed where it was. Ryan and Micah stood frozen as they watched it. Its silver pupil shifted a bit. Left, right, up, down. The movements spoke of a confusion.

It swiveled over to stare at them and froze.

Ryan’s arm was rigid in front of Micah’s chest, but he thought it might have trembled a little, then. His friend looked ready to stab the eye, for as much good as it would do him. It was essence.

The eye blinked and its pupil widened a little, the entire white of the eye stretched out, making it sink a little further into the stone. The expression seemed almost human as if it was saying, Oh.

Micah waved. “Hello.”

It blinked out of existence. Ryan lurched away from the wall to look around for it, panicking.

“Aw, it left.”

He spun on him. “Are you sure?!”

“Yeah. Calm down. It’s just Tower essence.”

“Just— ‘Calm down’, he says!” He ran a hand over his hair and paced, looking frantic. “That eyeball just— It was a mouth. It has a tongue. And you say that watches people sleep at night?”

“Yeah, so what?” Micah asked. “That’s not even one of the weirdest essence types I’ve seen, trust me, Ryan. Fire essence has teeth, you know? It gnaws and chews. Grass has hands. Sometimes, I see stretched faces float by in the river with dark mouths and eye sockets. When I was young, I thought they might be the souls of the damned. Pretty sure it’s make-up and other things people dump in the river, now.

But I also see ghostly fish swimming about and the currents of the water like laundry lines. It’s the same for the air. Still air is like blankets, you know? It’s comfy. Too much is stuffy. And the night sky is overlapping circles and lines; geometrical diagrams with the occasional starlight cloud. I have no idea why, but I haven’t seen regular stars in years. I miss them. And don’t get me even started on biological essences. Blood? Disease? Pee? Essences are weird, okay?”

Ryan froze for a moment as he listened to the rant. But when he spoke, it was simply, “Ghostly fish?”

“Yeah.” Micah didn’t know what to say, so he went with, “The shimmer a little when they swim.”

“And the sky …?”

“There’s, like … circles and lines instead of stars. They draw themselves into existence when the sun sets, like if you were slowly drawing with a ruler or compass. Steady.” He gestured a little as if he could draw them here. “I don’t know. The colors are pretty cool. I remember how awed I was the first time I saw them.”

He smiled at the memory. “I remember how awed I was when I saw the Tower the first time, at night.”

Ryan breathed, staring at him. “So Tower essence, that … is normal?”

He nodded. “Yup. As normal as it gets anyway. It’s the first time I’ve seen this clearly, or during the daytime, come to think of it.”

“Huh.” He frowned. He seemed to have calmed down a bit, but then he started chuckling. It sounded a little off. Ryan pinched his nose, pressing his knuckles into his eyes to rest them.

“You okay?” Micah asked, worried.

“Yes. No. Sorry. I didn’t mean to … I’m just tired, you know? Surprised. I didn’t mean to chicken out like that. Could you do me a favor and forget how lame my reaction was forever, please?”

Micah smiled. “Deal. But only if you promise to never bring up how lame I am, sometimes.”

“Deal.”

“I mean,” Micah quickly corrected himself, “still point it out. Stop me from embarrassing myself, please. Just, you know, say something so I can do better? Cooler in the future? And then let it be.”

Ryan nodded. “I know what you mean. Now, let’s see what the …” He frowned and sighed. “Tower essence brought us. Are you sure it’s even essence? You said it ‘left,’ just now.”

Micah glanced at the bowl. It was filled with a greasy, brown substance. The marbles were gone. Had they dissolved? Definitely not made of glass, then. “Yeah, Tower essence travels,” he said absent-mindedly. “I’ve never seen it disappear that quickly from sight, though.”

“And you’re sure it’s not a spirit?”

Micah hesitated.

“You’re not sure? Because I don’t know about essences, but spirits can hide from sight. It might not have liked that you revealed it to me, by the way. It seemed surprised. Not angry, I don’t think, but … surprised.”

Micah frowned and looked around. Was it still around, but hidden? No. He shook his head. No, it wasn’t a bunch of spirits. That didn’t make any sense. He had always thought of it as essence. If it were a spirit—

“Micah?”

“No, it’s essence,” he said. If it were a spirit, he would know … right?

“Are you sure or are you just being stubborn because you made an obvious mistake?” Ryan asked, giving him the option to opt out now before he sunk his teeth in too deep.

“I’m not!” he insisted. “Lisa referred to it as essence, too, remember?”

The other guy backed off, one hand raised to support the gesture. “Alright, alright. I was just saying.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s alright.”

They inspected the bowl as a change of topics. The marbles really were gone. They seemed to have melted into the water to make whatever this sludge was. It looked almost like a cream.

“It’s leather essence,” Micah said when he got a good look at it. He had recognized it from a distance, but now he was sure. Leather essence, like dried and aged flesh. There were hints of two different types, though. From experience, Micah could discern them. Amphibian and mammal leather?

He thought he caught hints of stone essence, too, but it was so little, it might have been his imagination. Like when he spotted a dot in his drink and tried to fish it out with his spoon and, in the end, it turned out to have been a bubble.

But if it was stone essence, then the product was a result of everything they had kept in the marbles. What was that phrase Mrs. Burke sometimes used? The output depended on the input? What if he had put Lisa’s fire marbles inside, what would the result have been then?

Like with the golem crystal, the essence here looked almost alive. Not through movement, though. If it were through movement, it might as well have been flesh essence. There was just a … a vibrancy to it. It seemed more real than other essence types. Almost, it behaved as if it had a pattern of its own.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Essence behaving like a pattern, that was a weird thought.

He told Ryan as much and the other guy considered the information, nodded, and promptly stuck a finger inside to scoop out a dollop of it.

“Ryan!”

“Relax,” he said with a smile. “You’re sure about your stuff. Well, I’m pretty sure about this.”

He put some of it on a damaged part of his armor and wiped it off until it was level, and Micah watched in fascination while it dried in seconds. The threads of the substance and the threads of his armor connected until suddenly, they were patched together. They were still different types, but the damage was gone.

“What?”

“It’s a patching sealant,” Ryan said. “I’ve heard of them before, though there are different names. Jar of Leather is the most popular one, I think. You can get different types from treasure chests. I’ve just never heard of getting any like … this.” He gestured at the bowl.

“Jar of Leather?”

“For fixing it. Look.” He did the same with some other damaged sections of his armor and made sure they were all level. Each time, the substance dried to weave itself in until his armor was whole again.

“Wow.”

Excited, Micah scooped some out himself and began patching up his own shredded armor, courtesy of those annoying rats. He didn’t have nearly as much leather on him as Ryan, but he could repair his boots!

Well, partially.

One of them still flopped around if he removed the bandages. They didn’t repair anything else, apparently. If only they had done this from the start, the damage might not have come that far. He wasn’t sure, but on a whim, Micah used the cream to fuse his boot together. A temporary fix. That made it uncomfortably tight and it didn’t feel as sturdy as before, but he could always cut it apart to have it repaired right later, once they got out of here.

Better than relying on bandages.

“Can it be used to patch wounds?” he asked, curious.

Ryan’s face fell. “No.”

“No?”

He shook his head. “No. Don’t try it. You can maybe eat it because leather is edible. You might have to cook it first or use, then cook it. But do you think shoving bits of leather into your body would be wise?”

“Oh. Uhm, no.”

“Right.”

Micah noticed the patches were also waterproof as droplets fell off more easily than elsewhere. Because of the toad’s essence? He suspected if they had had more stone golem essence in the mixture, it might have made them more durable. But it was far too diluted to have any effect, here.

They were almost done when Ryan put some of it on his own Growing Boots, to speed up their self-repair, and didn’t even get the chance to wipe it away. The substance reacted. Like a tumor, it bulged and grew into a wart of leather that only expanded more and more. Outward. It started to look stringy.

Ryan hopped on one foot, unsure of what to do.

Micah could see his boots’ lines of essence stretching into the tumor, something shifting, and shouted, “Cut it off!”

He took the advice and set his knife against the bulge, started sawing until the blob of leather fell into the water and stopped growing a second later. They left it there and sighed in relief.

“Bad reaction with the enchantment?” Ryan asked. “Or some kind of compound effect?”

“No idea.”

They frowned at the blob in the water—aside from the deformities, it looked almost like the beginning of a new boot. Ryan glanced up at him. “Do you think we could use it to grow a second pair of Growing Boots for you?”

Micah grimaced. “I think it would break the enchantment.”

“Oh? Do you see anything?”

“Not anymore, but your entire boot was definitely affected, not just the blob. The essence stretched so much, it looked ready to snap.”

“Shit. I hope that didn’t break it. Can you …?”

Micah nodded and peered closer when he held his boot up for him. He saw thin lines of leather essence weaving themselves together over the coarse section where he had cut it off.

“It’s still working, right now.”

Ryan sighed.

He checked the tunnel out of habit and glanced back. The bowls were fascinating. Micah really wanted to experiment more with them, with putting different ingredients inside or different types of essences. Could crystals be used instead of marbles? They didn’t have any, anymore.

But the more important concern was still that they needed to find an exit out of here. A “Jar of Leather” wasn’t worth sticking around much longer. Just, they had been searching far longer than some of their entire trips into the Tower, for hours, and still hadn’t found anything.

“Ryan,” he said, chewing his lip. How did he approach this?

“Hm?”

“We need to do something differently. I don’t think … I don’t think we’re going to find an exit like this.”

His friend looked contemplative for a while and sighed when he gave an answer, “Yeah. I think you’re right. Did you have an idea?”

“I did. I do. I think, well, we have options. The tunnels we’ve been scur— uh, hiding in only have toads and rats, right? I think we need to leave, go deeper in to find an exit. And we’ve seen several places that are different, that might lead to an exit if we fight our way through. Five, I think.”

“Five?”

“There’s the balcony area with the bats, except we can’t really fight those. They’re huge, the centipede’s scavengers, and their call hurt you?”

Ryan nodded.

“Then there’s the walkway along the chasm, except the centipede and the bats are there, so it’s even more dangerous. I mean, we might find something new there, but would it be worth it?”

Ryan frowned. “What else?”

“There was that tunnel with the miniature jungle. I don’t know what’s in there, but we might be able to fight it. Then there’s the holes in the ceiling. Maybe if we go up a floor, we’ll have an easier time finding an exit?”

“Both are unknowns,” Ryan said, voicing Micah’s own thoughts. “And the hole is dark and cramped, even with a light crystal we might not have an escape route for whatever is in there, not to mention that we’ll be on a higher floor. The difference between six and seven is worse than one and two, believe me.”

“Right. I do. So … the last option are the tunnels past the larger golem’s room. With the treasure chest?” He raised his voice a little toward the end, almost expectant but trying to hide it.

Ryan’s face fell. “Oh.”

“I mean, I know it’s dangerous,” Micah quickly said, trying to offer good reasons for why they should fight it, “and it might have capabilities the other golem didn’t, but it’s still the most familiar and—”

Ryan shook his head. “No, I’m with you.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah.” He gave him a serious look. “It’s the safest option. But we have to be smart about this.”

Micah gave him a nervous smile. “Definitely.”

Their preparations were simple in concept, and extensive in execution. It took ages to experiment with the other two bowls and Micah kept the fifth in reserve for multiple reasons—just in case, because the area around it was dangerous, and because they didn’t have that many crystals left to waste.

And while they got some interest results, like a “Jar of One-Time Camouflage Leather” from a surplus of toad crystals, none of those results were useful for fighting against the golem. Micah was also disappointed to see no Tower essence. Only the silver glow. Had it hidden itself from his sight? That ... hurt. It was like someone seeing they didn't want to see you anymore, but worse because essence wasn't a person. It was like a cat or dog not liking him.

Still, that’s how Micah ended up with a single blue cloud on his right boot after the color had adjusted to the water and stone around him when it dried.

They killed as many toads and rats to clear the tunnels as they could. Rocks were collected and moved around. Obstructions were removed or memorized. They mapped the tunnels out and practiced.

Micah made few alchemical preparations with [Kinetic Infusion]. He could have experimented with the plants he’d collected, but their plan was solid and the simplest solution was often the best one, even if he didn’t like it.

[Personalized Alchemy] had given him some valuable insights when thinking about how to fight a golem anyway. Heart, not head, being the most valuable of them, obvious to him in hindsight.

Maybe a part of him had known.

With everything done that they could do with their limited time and resources, they stepped into the dry tunnel leading up to the room. Micah with Ryan’s knife and shield, Ryan with his knife at his side and his spear.

They had eaten their squashed and deformed sandwiches, drunk water, rested. Micah was pretty sure his mana was topped off. They were ready.

The circular room really did remind him of the Sewers, minus the water below and grate above. Sure, everything was overgrown with green and the walls looked bleached, but there were large tapestries of grass-like moss blanketing the walls and those he remembered.

The wall the Golem had been building was finished, it hidden from sight. The stone stood there as if it had for years. Its maze-pattern seemed almost holy to Micah. They still glowed with residual yellow motes. Did those lines mean anything? He wanted to know. But for now, he threw a chunk of rock at it.

“Hey!”

The golem burst out of the wall almost before the rock hit, destroying what it had painstakingly crafted hours before. A part of Micah felt conflicted at that, regret and admiration mixing together into a bittersweet emotion. His anxiety was largest of it all, though, and crushed the other two just like the chunks of rocks crushed plants where they landed across the room.

Ryan and Micah huddled behind the corner of the tunnel, shield and corner blocking stray debris.

The golem turned its head to look at them, the maze-like lines covering its body glowing with a muddy, yellow light. It took a slow step forward and the ground shook underneath its weight.

Micah just frowned. Too slow?

He checked with Ryan and the other guy nodded reluctantly with a gulp, so Micah cupped his hands in front of his mouth and bellowed, “YOUR GOLEM DESIGN LOOKS STUPID!”

Its next step hesitated. The one after that was less slow, but still not fast enough. Micah shouted another insult, “Your wall looked like a shabby cottage!”

He shouted insult after insult about its craftsmanship, appearance, proportions, weight until suddenly, it wasn’t so slow at all anymore. Even if it hadn’t been a part of their plan, seeing a two meter tall stone man in armor charging at them like a mixture between a bull and a sprinter sent them running, boots splashing through the water. He wasn’t even thinking as he took a right halfway down the tunnel. Ryan kept on running straight ahead. They had their routes planned.

Micah waited around the corner for the golem to catch up and shouted another insult, just to be sure it would choose him instead of Ryan. It almost missed the bend and took a chunk out of the corner when stumbled in, righted its course by almost stumbling into the opposite wall, then finally sprinted straight down the tunnel at him.

Wherever it stepped, the water was left slightly murky. He suspected it would turn to mud before long.

Micah almost tripped as its stomps made the ground shake, but made it around the corner without a hitch and kept on running. This was no different from the entrance exam or running with Ryan, practicing half an hour before they had started this. He just had to be quick.

Ryan was quicker than Micah, so he would catch up no matter which route he took. He had another mission.

Three bends down, he felt the exertion and almost took a left when he was supposed to take a right. He had enough time to correct his course because he had to make sure the golem was following him properly.

When it smashed its shoulder into the wall where he had stood a minute later, Micah was two-thirds down the next tunnel and glancing back. Still there? Good— Wait, what was it doing?

The golem looked at him, standing still, but then spun its head and torso a hundred and eighty degrees to look the other way, independently from its legs. Why? Oh shit, had it noticed Ryan? Micah leaned closer to the wall to see past it and suddenly remembered why he hadn’t supposed to take a left.

There was another patch of patterns on the far side of the tunnel and the golem placed a stone hand against the wall, cylinder fingers splayed.

Yellow lines raced along it to the patch and lit up the maze pattern there, making Micah’s vein hammer against his throat. They had known the golem might cast spells and even gone through a few options, but this wasn’t a part of the plan. Suddenly, the wall burst into a cloud of rubble as a Stone Boar leaped free and huffed the dust away. It turned its head, looking for the enemy.

The golem stomped its foot once, making the ground shake, and the Stone Boar looked over at it. Without looking, the stone man—or rather, spirit controlling it—pointed at Micah and the boar’s head followed.

It spotted him and scraped its hoof through the water, against the layer of mud. Huffed once more.

Oh, no.

From its first three steps alone, Micah knew it was faster than both him and the golem. He ran.

He was halfway down the tunnel when the boar’s tusks clanked against the wall far behind him and he flinched before looking back. Neither it or the wall had taken any damage, aside from scratches. So it was not as destructive, then? Still, a charge from it would probably break his leg if not take it out entirely.

The impact had knocked it back, but it only needed a moment to reorient itself and run after him. Micah caught a glimpse as he turned around the next corner. Where was the golem?

He couldn’t afford to wait. The boar ran after him. Another tunnel down, Micah found his answer as he almost ran into the stone man when it crashed into the wall right in front of him with its shoulder.

He huddled behind his shield as best he could to block the debris, but more than one stone hit him instead of hitting the wood. A heartbeat later, Micah threw himself into a roll to avoid its strike. The stone fist hit the wall instead. He didn’t pause once he had slipped past, he just kept on running.

Two steps in, he realized he was in the wrong tunnel. Mentally, he adjusted his course along the map they had made. Did he have a way of correcting it? He was almost near the end when he decided, Yes. He could. He skid in the mud and water, one hand on the ground to steady himself, and slipped around the left corner.

The boar tackled the wall again a moment later. A moment earlier than it had last time. It was gaining on him. Because of his encounter with the golem? Or was it just flat-out faster?

“RYAN?!” Micah bellowed. Where was he? He should have been here by now.

“MICAH?” he called back, causing a flood of relief to surge through his limbs. From the distance, it sounded like he was one tunnel off from the one Micah should have been. So he, at least, had stuck to the plan.

Great.

Micah dodged another boar charge and leaped over a small mound of dirt from a collapsed wall, then called, “ALMOST THERE! DID IT WORK?”

The answer came a moment later as Micah spotted Ryan in the distance, two tunnels off from him. He had his spear in hand … and nothing else.

“NO!” he shouted. “RUN!”

Micah did so without prompting, running past in a parallel direction. The image of his friend flashed by. It hadn’t worked? Was there just nothing he could have used or … what happened? No, he couldn’t focus on that right now. The plan could still work without Ryan’s part in it, if they did it right.

Half cut off from the distance, Micah heard Ryan calling one last warning, “BEHIND YOU!”

He chanced a glance back and saw the boar sprinting toward him, body and lines glowing with a yellow energy. It left cleaves in the ground where it ran and was faster than before, looked angrier than before. The golem must have made it stronger, somehow. Micah didn’t know if this was better than the terrain spells they had been expecting, but he knew one thing: He couldn’t outrun it.

He jumped and put it a foot against the wall, used it to push off and hopefully jump over the beast’s charge, but it raised its head below him and its tusk reached high enough to nick his right calf in passing, shoving the guard aside like twisting a shirt and cutting his flesh as surely as a knife.

He cried out and hit the water hard, at a tumble. He tried to cushion his blow like they had learned in school, but most of the fall exercises they practiced were for throws, not intercepted jumps.

His shoulder took the brunt of it and the wrist of his shield arm twisted as it pushed against the wood on the ground.

The boar kept on running and hit the wall with a crash that was just as destructive as the golem’s charge. It didn’t move, but Micah could still feel the thumping of the stone man’s steps behind him. One arm against the wall, he forced himself up and used his other to pour his middle-grade healing potion in the general direction of the wound as he ran. He must have spilled half of it before he felt any visible effect at all and still, he leg didn’t feel right. He limped.

The golem just barely managed to avoid crashing into its pet as it rounded the corner and grabbed the corner with one hand to steady itself. Micah could see a workstation in sight. Beyond it, Ryan.

Thank fuck.

The guy was about to step into the tunnel when a distortion shot out behind him and wrapped itself around his arm. He barely seemed to notice. Micah called out a warning just as he was yanked out of sight.

Shit! He wanted to hurry to the bend to help him, color the toad for him to fight, but he couldn’t. He would just bring a golem and boar made of stone on him. Ryan had been fighting those toads all day. He needed to trust that he could handle this. Micah, meanwhile, had to stick to the plan, even if nothing else would.

He had to carry his own weight.

He got to the workstation just as the golem stomped up a few steps behind him and snatched one of the glass bowls they had stashed there to turn around and throw it at its face. It cracked on contact and the contents spilled. Micah was so surprised by the two stone arms by his sides, he almost fumbled his cast. Adrenaline and muscle memory made him shout, “[Infusion]!”

All it did was make the golem pause for a moment and shake its head. [Personalized Alchemy] had been right. It was its crystal he had to obstruct with essences, not its head. Then Ryan had been right, too. Stuffing bags over its head might have worked on a golem this high up.

Still, the moment's hesitation bought him enough time to press one foot against its leg and pushed himself off into a sideways roll and keep on running. He kicked a stone railing they had leveraged against the alcove on his way and winced as his foot suffered for it, but that sent the piled stones in the alcove splashing into the water behind him. Hopefully, they would slow the golem down.

Micah was almost to the corner and glanced back when he got an answer to that question, No.

The first stone shot at him as surely as if it were an alleyball Finn had kicked across the park, and he threw himself into the water, covered his head with his shield. It smacked into the wall and cracked.

He crawled forward an inch, then lunged into a sprint to hide behind the corner as two more shot into the wall. The freaking golem was kicking stones at him. Micah used the moment’s respite to dump some more healing potion on his leg, put some weight on it, and glanced right.

No sign of Ryan. Shit. He grit his teeth as he broke into another sprint in the opposite direction. The guy had to be fine. His secondary prize was in sight anyway.

He climbed through the hole in the mound of dirt, jumped over the rope they had fastened, and hid behind the wall.

The golem burst through the mound like it wasn’t there, sending dirt flying in a cloud of dangerous debris, and ran straight through the taut rope. It snapped like a twig and the spirit’s body didn’t even trip. Micah’s heart stopped for a moment.

But relief came when it still couldn’t stop its momentum despite that. It kept on running, through the hole in the railing they had broken, and off the edge into the chasm below.

Gone.

Micah doubled over, bursting out and sucking in lungfuls of air immediately after with his hands against his knees. Everything burned and he could barely stand upright in his exhaustion, but he had done it. Despite so much going wrong. Despite—

Ryan.

Micah forced himself to stand upright. He had to go back and help him. But a sound and twisted sense of curiosity made him step forward to look over the edge, to see what had become of the golem. How far had it fallen? Had it shattered on the rocks?

Neither. Instead, Micah almost stumbled as the golem shoved another hand into the wall and the ground shook below. Cracks widened near the edge, snaking dangerously close to his foot.

It was climbing back up.

His blood ran cold and he took a step back. No, no, no, no. Shit. What did he do? He couldn’t let it get back up. They didn’t have another way to kill it. It was too tall, they could get to the grooves to blind its crystal. It was too tough. It ignored rope. They had whipped it into a frenzy.

He was helpless. This was their only chance.

Micah grabbed a rock and threw at its head, but it didn’t even react. He went looking for a bigger one, but couldn’t find anything heavy enough. It was mostly pebbles, mud, and dirt. So he grabbed one of the stone bars they had broken from the railing and smacked the back of its hands when it got closer. After the fourth strike, the bar broke in half again and it was still climbing up.

Micah scrambled to get his emergency crystals out of his pouch and knelt to crack them against the floor. From here, he had access to all the openings to its body. “[Condense—”

The golem’s head rose over the edge, dark and yellow eye slits staring right at him and he fumbled. At the same time, someone grunted as a boot splashed in muddy water behind him.

Micah glanced back to see Ryan, with the Stone Boar raised almost over his head. His one arm was bleeding wrist to elbow, and both them and his legs were shaking under the strain. His veins were pulsing against his necks and his cheeks huffing in exertion, sweat a second skin.

The boar twisted its head in an attempt to escape, but its body was less flexible. It was like a turtle turned upside-down.

Ryan stepped to Micah’s side and cracked the Stone Boar down on the golem’s head with a primal roar.

Boar side and stone forehead cracked like eggshells and the sound made Micah flinch. The boar fell off huffing and grunting into the chasm. The golem tilted back. Its hand slipped free from the edge and the other fell as the stone crumbled under its weight. It, too, fell after its pet.

In one last, desperate attempt to get him, it grabbed out for Micah and he threw himself back to the wall along with Ryan, out of its reach.

Over the sound of his own pounding heart and lungs, he barely heard the echoing smack of stone far below.

Ryan looked like a mirror to him a minute ago, doubled over against his knees and heaving, but with a broad smile on his lips and sweat dripping from his chin. “Just … in time,” he panted and looked at Micah. “You okay?”

He hadn’t done it on his own. He’d almost been killed. His leg felt like someone was had grabbed two parts of his flesh and had yanked them together by force. His lungs— No, his entire body burned.

But he smiled anyway and cheered, “That was awesome!”

Ryan laughed and wiped his face. They both glanced back at the same time to check the tunnel, out of habit. “I’m glad.”

“How did you fare against the toad?”

He grimaced and held up his arm, blood still dripping. “It messed up my arm and tried to let go again, but I just twisted its tongue around like a rope and dragged myself to it. It fled down a tunnel. Hurt like hell, but it worked.”

“Oh. I tried to color it before, but—” He shook his head. “Sorry.”

“No. It’s okay. Nothing, in comparison to what could have been. Are you okay? There was blood in the water and uh, the mud on my way here.” He frowned and used one hand to rub his chest, pain clear on his face.

“Yeah. I’m fine. Healed.” He fished his healing potion from his belt and handed it over, not quite sure he could stand right now. There was only about a third of it left. Hopefully, it would be enough.

As Ryan treated himself, Micah asked about the second thing that had gone wrong, “What was in the treasure chest?”

That got his attention and he shook his head. “Nothing. I mean, I couldn’t get to it. There was a second wall blocking it behind the first. I didn’t have time to think, so I just ran after you the moment I saw it.”

Micah stared at him, waiting for him to say he was joking and they had found awesome loot, but there was no such admittance coming. He groaned. A second wall? “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

The brown bricks stared at them in the empty space in the wall, like a tiny foyer where the golem must have stood while it waited. They were dirtier and had holes in them. Hemispherical indents they recognized by now.

Ryan got to try out what he couldn’t do before since they had stashed their backpacks in an alcove.

He put an almost-full flesh marble in each brick until all twelve of them were filled and the lines between glowed with a silver light. They didn’t disappear. They didn’t fall apart. They did shift a little and, when Ryan kicked the wall, it bulged inward, acting like boneless flesh might.

While Ryan kicked it down, Micah wondered out loud what would have happened if they had used fire or something else to change its properties instead of flesh. What about stone?

“Fire and stone?” Ryan asked. “Probably would have exploded.”

“Oh. Right.” Micah thought he had dimly heard about something like that before.

“Water—” He grunted with another kick. “Might have been nice. Or mist to blow it away like sand.”

Finally, the bricks fell inward. Losing their coherence, the rest of the wall was easier to break and they made a small and ragged doorway to the room beyond, where the treasure chest stood.

Behind it, something that was more baseball bat than cudgel leaned against the wall, too big to fit inside.

Micah waved both hands in like a doorman. “To the victor go the spoils, O’ Great Boar Wrestler Ryan.”

“Haha. Very funny.”

Micah laughed.

Ryan eagerly stepped up to open up the lid. A smooth, glass bottle filled with a glowing blue potion, a white glazed earthenware jug, a cloth pouch, unsurprisingly full of marbles—more than what they had paid to get in here—and a net full of fruit covered in a weird slime were inside.

For all their effort, it didn’t seem like so much. Except, Micah had no idea what the jug and the potion were. And the slime on the fruit. And the baseball bat was definitely enchanted.

Ryan stepped around the chest to inspect the baseball bat as Micah leaned down to take a look at the slime covering the fruit. It looked more like durable jelly. Durable enough to rest below the fruit anyway.

He took a look at the glowing potion when it seemed to get a little brighter. Or no, not brighter. The room around them was just getting darker. Micah frowned and looked back. Why was it getting darker?

He backed up to look down the tunnel to the water. It was dimming and suddenly, he understood where all the light in these sewers came from. The water. Its surface transferred the light from outside or from the supply closets. So the further from the chasm or a light source they were, the darker it got.

It was getting darker everywhere, now. So either they were getting further away … or there was no light to be carried. He looked back at Ryan, was headed to join him and looked concerned.

“What’s wrong?”

“How long have we been in here?” Micah asked.

“Uh, I don’t know,” he said, frowning as he thought it over. “Longer than the exam. About a day trip, I think. So around six hours? Seven?”

They got in around noon, so however long it had been, it was evening now. Not long and night would fall and they still hadn’t found a portal out of here. Micah remembered the last time he had tried to get Ryan to camp in the Tower, in the Fields, how vehemently he had refused, even sided with Micah’s parents over it.

Why? Because the Tower was more dangerous at night.