They arrived at the station, a completely empty shell of its usual lively self. The group left the transport, looking around for any sign of life or fight, but saw none in the immediate vicinity. The quiet was almost eerie, if not found the not so subtle shouting coming from the main lobby.
“Alright, Blue Blazing keep the kids safe here, worse come to worse take the boat back to the haunt.” Trevor commanded, swinging his arm forward, signaling the rest “everyone else, with me.”
“””Got it!””” everyone shouted and followed, except for Roy, left behind on the boat with just his beastman teammate, who was still trying to get him to snap out of it, his other members had moved out.
Mia was no different, ignoring him and continuing on as they climbed the stairs into the main lobby. “W-woah…” having reached the top of the stairs, they saw the state of the lobby, jam packed with adventurers, a sudden loud bang forced her attention towards the main entrance, a massive golden barrier blocking it off.
“HOAH!” A giant translucent fist appeared in the air, reeling back it slammed into the barrier, not leaving so much as a scratch. “AGAIN!” multiple voices shouted, repeating the useless effort.
“What is going on here…” Dria asked, glancing around, her eyes suddenly widening “the windows are blocked off too!”
“Eh? We are trapped inside?” a member of her party questioned.
“I’m going to check upstairs!” another ran off.
“How did they manage this…” Trever pinched his nose “better than everyone up here being dead or the guild being taken over.” He turned to the group “as of right now, you are dismissed, keep the kids safe, help get us out if you can, I am going to check with my fellow staff to see just how bad it is.” He then glanced towards Mia “If anything comes up…”
“Mn, will tell.” Mia said, saving to slot 2 while holding onto Ria.
“Good.” He then took a deep breath, eyeing the front desks “we had adventures outside the guild, they should have been attacking the boat… how did they even do this…” he grumbled, stomping off to the front, shifting through the crowd.
“I’ll help out at the gate.” Dria said, taking a few steps down before turning back “be well, stay safe.” She waved, wings sprouting from her back then she flew off. The rest of her party following.
The rest of the rescue group followed suit, disbanding into the crowd while some of the lower ranked ones just plopped right down on the stairs.
“Now what?” Ria huffed, walking away from the group with Mia in tow. Finding their own little spot “Thought we’d get to fight some more, or the fighting was done and we can go home, but now we are stuck here? Lame.”
Something suddenly happened at the barrier, a flash of light followed by a rush of smoke that was quickly contained by some form of magic, followed by someone screaming about large scale magic, but Mia couldn’t make out what was said.
“Yeah…” she tried to think what might have caused this, and it didn’t take long for her to figure it out “The coffin…”
“What was that?” Ria perked up, her ears flicking atop her head.
“The coffin, the cult was in front of the building this morning. Might be what is causing the barrier.” The cult did have a bunch of weird equipment, if that was the catalyst for this situation, it would fit.
“Oh yeah, that.” Ria shrugged “doubt it but, can you go back that far?”
Mia shook her head “no, got forced to save at evolution.” She paused, seeing Ria’s face twist in worry “Ah! Still have the one at the village, thankfully.”
Ria sighed in relief “good…” she turned back to the front entrance, watching the multiple beams of energy clash with it “think the city is in bad shape?”
“Don’t know.” Mia shrugged, their light barrier…false ritual or what ever it was called was very troublesome, but she didn’t see any light motes anywhere. “Going to go check…”
“Through that crowd? Good luck.” Ria said “Dria had the right idea, only way to get close is to fly.”
“I can fly now.” Mia smirked.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Ria shot up “no way!”
“Well, float.” She rolled her eyes, she then did a light jump, prompting her to slowly rise into the air, weightless. “See?” She plopped back to the ground, resetting her weight “feels weird… and can’t change direction once I start b-“
“That is freaking cool!” Ria grabbed Mia, lifting her up into the air and spinning her around “how did you manage that? Is it evolution? How did you get it?” she spoke fast, her voice filled with excitement.
“…” Mia’s face started to turn pale, her nausea from earlier coming back in full swing “p-put me down.” She pleaded.
“Oh-“ Ria gently put her sister down “sorry…so how did you get it?”
“Skill called floating, got it from evolution but…well… fill you in later, for now-“ she calmed herself, stepping between her sister and the barrier in the distance “give me a push.” She requested, becoming weightless once more and slowly rising from the ground.
“How hard a push.?” Ria smirked, poking her sister “Oh wow, you are light.” She chuckled, watching her sister move with just her finger pressed on her “I mean you were light before but now it’s like I’m pushing a bubble.’ She giggled, moving her back into place.
“just enough to get me there, and not too high, don’t want to fall down and land wrong.” Mia said, slightly unamused at her sister moving her like this.
“Got it.” She then aimed her “good luck~” and with a light poke she sent Mia slowly flying off towards the barrier.
Mia floated above the crowd, gently swirling around to watch her approach, but then she didn’t stop spinning. She spun and spun and spun, quickly becoming sick again. She tried to flail around to get herself to stop, but she couldn’t, with no way to stop herself she started spinning out of control. To make matters worse, she had no friction and was pushed off course by her flailing and the slight wind in the building.
“A-a-aa-aa-ah-“ Mia spun around, and by the time she noticed she had hit the ceiling, bouncing off of it like a ball “T-this s-su-cks!” she had tried to grab ahold of the ceiling to stop herself, but she failed to grasp anything as she floated away towards the front desks.
She needed a foot hold or something to grab ahold of herself with, she wished she had wind magic, the she could just push herself around, fire… she tried it, making flame spew out of her hand in a small cone. This caused her to spinning to become worse. She started internally screaming flailing her arms around looking for something, anything to grab ahold of to stop herself, pleading that she didn’t slam into the ground or somebody.
She just needed a hold!
It was then her hand finally found something to grab ahold of, her body suddenly and harshly yanking to a stop. She returned her weight to normal, now dangling from what ever it was she was holding. She slowly opened her eyes, covering her mouth with her free hand and forcing herself to swallow “bleeh…what did I grab?” she looked to her hand, by the feel of it she expected a pole or metal rod…
“Oh, that works?” instead what she saw was a cylinder made of true ice, perfectly wrapped in her hand “Huh, neat.” She could make this work.
“Hey! What the fuck are you doing!”
Hearing someone shout, she looked down, having attracted a large crowd of spectators that had no doubt watch her bounce around the room “…new power…” she squeaked, pulling herself up and making angled boxes of true ice below her feet “just gonna reset anyways, no need to feel embarrassed…” she tried to tell herself, stepping on the platforms and testing them, surprised when they didn’t budge “…I can make this work.”
She removed the pole, it melting into nothingness by her will, then balancing on her true ice platforms she reduced her weight and kicked off, soaring away at a decent speed “this can work!” she shouted with joy, looking back to her platforms still frozen in place “need to remove them as I use them…” she willed those gone as well, moving through the air.
She made a new platform infront of her, then spun around to try and kick off of it, but she continued to spin, her butt slamming into the platform and sending her off course, she then stopped herself with another pole in hand “…hard…” she’d need to practice this… looking down she’d need to practice this in a room not filled with people… she still had quiet the gallery watching her right now.
She melted the platforms, making new ones below her feet aimed at the barrier, and with another kick she flew towards it ‘can go straight just fine…turning is…’ practice for later.
She arrived at the barrier, stopping herself next to one of the far sides of the doorway. She reset her weight, dropping down to the ground as spells slammed into the middle part of the large gateway. She was not the only one here, however, several different people were scratching away at the ground to see if they could dig under it, or some were studying the barrier.
Mia looked passed them, able to somewhat see outside and what she saw perplexed her.
Outside at the foot of the steps, there was the coffin, a large tower stretching out of it and into the sky, at the base of the tower was a group of cultists, and passed them was another barrier with a group of adventurers and city guard trying to break their way in.
“They have the guild trapped in a barrier, and themselves also in one?” she also noted the cultists at the base of the tower frantically replacing cylinders “Hoooh?” Mia smirked, she knew from Cy they had a limited supply of those, meaning it was matter of time.
“M-Mia? Is that you?”
She froze, hearing a familiar voice, she slowly turned around, spotting a familiar mouse that wasin pretty bad shape. Her armor was severely banged up, her hair scorched and burnt, she was even missing a chunk out of one of her ears.
“It is you… isn’t i-“
[Slot 2 loaded]
‘No, not yet.’ Mia panicked, she did not expect to see Roxie here, especially not looking like THAT, what in the world happened?! She hadn’t seen her since the incident but surely her life couldn’t had gotten that bad? Maybe she just participated a cultist attack somewhere, maybe that was it…that missing ear chunk didn’t look recent…
“What, did something happen?” Ria asked, confused, they were suddenly back in time.
“Y-yeah, a bit.” She snapped out of it, she’d have to catch up with her as soon as this matter is taken care of. She looked at Trevor, who raised an eyebrow “got some info.”