(Strive 11:7)
El unlocked her fourth spell that evening as we rested in the Atlantis Resort Lodging. We didn’t have any tokens left, and possibly for that reason, the entrances to the Restaurant and Midway had actually disappeared, leaving only a solid wall where they’d been. No restaurant meant no breakfast bar, which meant no pina coladas and mai tais. It was a sorry state of affairs.
“Hat Trick,” El read, as she lay on her back in the corner of my bed. “Fires illusory rabbits from a hat, number fired dependent on magic level, blah blah blah, rabbits do not interact with physical matter.”
“Mm.” I was noodling on my Aetherphone as I leaned back on an abundance of pillows. “Try it out, I guess.”
El brought her hands together and signed, and the room flashed with blue light. Suddenly, I was staring into the brim of a large magician’s hat, pointed at me like a cannon.
There was a sound halfway between a squeak and a boom as something fuzzy and white shot straight at me. I instinctively covered my face to defend myself, and a stream of illusory rabbits passed through me, evaporating through the wall. I heard a muffled yelp from the adjacent room as they evidently appeared on the other side.
El cackled with glee and prepared to send another wave of rabbits in the other direction, toward Artem’s room, when our door burst open. Selene stood in our doorway, toothbrush in hand, wearing an oversized T-shirt. Her gaze flicked between the two of us, then settled on the raccoon rolling around in chaotic mirth.
“El Bandito,” she said. “Really? Some of us are getting ready for bed.”
“My bad,” El managed through tears of laughter. “It was an accident.”
Selene’s mouth twitched. “You are not very convincing.”
El dropped down to the floor to nuzzle at Selene’s leg in contrition. “Honest, I swear. Minimal amounts of rabbits, from now on.”
“Selene,” I said, sitting forward. “Could we talk about those orcs?”
She nudged El aside to sit down on a chair, folding her hands in her lap. “What did you want to talk about?”
“They seemed… intelligent, if not outright self-aware. They had a buffet line, for chrissake.”
Selene leaned her chin on her hand. “I know. Honestly, I didn't mean to mislead you. Every other time I’ve been up there, they seemed like gnashing beasts. We never saw anything like that before.” She paused. “But in the end, if we can’t communicate with them, there’s no difference. They attacked on sight, after all.”
“Seems a bit too convenient.” I sighed and rubbed my forehead. “But I’m no pacifist. If we turned the other cheek, they’d probably have tried to stick a fork in it.”
Selene nodded, then reached down to scratch behind El’s ears, and for a while, the only sound was the raccoon’s sniffing. “We didn’t have raccoons, where I came from.”
“Consider yourself lucky,” I said. “These guys are a menace. Like big rats with kleptomania.”
El rolled over for Selene to rub her belly. “The fuck you talking about?” purred the raccoon. “I’m all sweetness and light.”
“Sweet’N Low, more like,” I muttered. “When’d you get so saccharine?”
Selene lifted El to her face. “Don’t pay any attention to Old Grumps. How about you hang out with me instead? What do you say?” She wiggled El’s paw affirmatively, and I felt sure the raccoon would’ve slapped the shit out of me for trying that.
“I can’t believe my raccoon is being abducted by a wicked sorceress,” I muttered. “At least pretend to put up some resistance.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“I don’t belong to nobody,” El said, looking back and forth between me and Selene. “What’s in it for me?”
“Couple candies and some leftover roast chicken,” said Selene.
“Deal.”
“It’s settled then.” Selene looked at me and smiled in triumph. “Sleep well.” I stuttered a goodnight in response as she carried El from my room and gently closed the door.
It was only a few minutes before the barrage of phantom rabbits started from the other side of the wall.
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(Strive 12:3)
“One hundred and forty-six,” I said in a low voice to El.
“What?”
“A hundred and forty-six rabbits you sent over while I was trying to sleep. I counted. It wasn’t as restful as sheep.”
El snickered. “You’re the one who’s always talking about practicing new spells, right? Oh, check this out.” She signed Airbrush, and her hand left a glowing trail in midair. She used it to draw a rabbit.
“Great,” I said. “That makes a hundred and forty-seven.”
We sat in a quiet room on the orcs’ level. There was a well-worn poker table in it, and El and I were playing Go Fish. Well, I was attempting to play Go Fish, and El was eating the playing cards.
“Almost?” said Artem.
“Don’t rush me,” Selene’s fingers danced as arcane characters formed a sleeve around her right arm. She sat cross-legged in front of a giant crab shell she’d pulled from her inventory. Apparently, El and her had gone hunting on the beach while Artem searched for me in the water. The crab shells were perfect materials for oracle bone reading, and Artem was insistent that too long had passed since our last check of Mia’s whereabouts.
Just as the two of clubs was disappearing into El’s mouth, Selene drove her hand down onto the shell, and the script flowed into it with a lick of blue flame and a whip-crack sound. Artem and I leaned over to see. Even though the network of cracks must’ve been equally meaningless to both of us, we pretended to look for something in the randomness.
Selene traced the lines with a slender finger, her lips moving silently, eyes closed in concentration. We were painfully quiet as she interpreted for what felt like a whole minute, before she opened her eyes, clear and sharp.
“She’s headed for the bridge to Eramai.”
Artem punched a hole in the wall.
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“As little as we know about this tower,” Artem rumbled. “We know even less about the others. That bridge appeared thirty-five days ago, and that was when the quakes started.” He thumped a brawny fist against his chest twice, demonstrating.
“Only thirty-five days?” I said. “I saw a performance about it that made it all seem like ancient history.”
“Eramai itself is old, older than our tower. Old enough to have stories that themselves are ancient, and probably half true at best. There may have been other bridges at times, waxing and waning like the seasons. These bridges are not fixed in stone like the ones you’re used to—yes?”
El lowered her raised hand. “Shouldn’t we get hazard pay or something? This all seems a bit above and beyond.”
Artem ground his teeth before acquiescing. “You’re right, midget bear. I’ll take the responsibility of convincing Master Shaw when we’re back—what?”
“Wasn’t this our quote-unquote mission anyway?” I asked. “Feels like this could be a two birds stoned at once type situation.”
“No,” said Selene, sipping on a canned soda with a picture of a turtle on it. “You don’t want to go there.”
“Why?”
“Our power won’t necessarily translate. This…” she held up her amethyst bracelet “...petty magic of hand and eye is tethered to Strive. The further we stray, the weaker we get.” She seemed a bit shaky from the heavy toll of the oracle spell.
“So what do we do?”
“Well,” Selene said, “she’s not there yet. As far as I can tell, she’s somewhere on the thirteenth floor. The bridge is on fifteen, so it’s still possible we could catch up in time.”
“If that’s true, how’d you know she’s going for the bridge?” El said.
“What do you think fortune telling is?”
“I mean,” I chimed in, “so far all this stuff has been within the realm of possibility, right? But divining the future is…”
I trailed off as I noticed Selene’s impassive look. Artem barked a laugh and clapped me on the back. “Good, a man of rationality. Maybe Shaw does have a good eye after all.”
His gesture didn’t make me feel any better. “Anyway,” I said hastily. “Seems it might be difficult to catch up to someone who can teleport.”
“Interchange,” said Selene. “Not teleport. It requires a second living entity, so she can’t simply skip through empty spaces. And it only works with direct line-of-sight. All of that is to our advantage now. Especially since the thirteenth floor is pitch-black.”
We passed through the orcish hallways and the lunchroom, now emptied of bodies and newly pristine. It felt odd, like visiting school on a Saturday, and it suddenly occurred to me that none of the orcs had dropped any shiny game tokens or stat candy as they died.