Nettal closed her eyes in pain. She grimaced, and then the green light behind her eyelids went out.

All at once, the overwhelming urge to open her mouth and breathe consumed Addie. She began to draw in her magic to pull everyone into Realmspace.

Before she could, Nettal gasped as she took a deep breath. Addie watched with panicked eyes as Nettal began to drown in the inky blackness.

Except, she didn’t drown. Her breathing started evening out. She even turned to Addie and smiled, then she said, “There’s air in here!”

Addie released the magic she had been building up, letting it dissipate into nothing. She took a breath. Just like Nettal said, Addie could breathe just fine in here! Despite it feeling like inky honey all around her when she moved her arms and legs, somehow she could breathe just fine— no different than normal air. Perhaps even stranger, despite the surroundings being pitch black, Addie could still see Nettal and everyone else just fine— even with just her normal eyesight.

Behind her, still attached to her shoulders, she felt Squishy start breathing again, too. “Fascinating,” he said.

“Well, now what?” Nettal asked no one in particular.

Addie waved her arms and legs around, trying to see if she could swim anywhere. But, nope. Even though she could rotate in midair, or even do a flip, it didn’t matter. She couldn’t move laterally.

“Please, cease, my lady. You are making me nauseous.”

“Oh, my bad.” Addie patted Squishy and then stopped rotating around. From when she stopped rotating, she was now upside down in relation to Nettal. Except, she didn’t feel like she was upside down. The feeling of blood rushing to her head never happened. It almost seemed like Nettal was upside down and Addie was right side up. But since only Addie had been twisting around in the air, she knew Nettal was really the one right side up.

“This is weird,” Addie stated. “You try, Nettal. It doesn’t even feel like I’m upside down!”

Nettal also rotated in midair, bringing Lotty along for the right since she was still holding him. He seemed to enjoy the flipping around about as much as Squishy had.

“You’re right. This is weird.” Nettal said with confusion. “It’s like, we’re flying, sorta?”

Now that both girls were oriented the same way, Addie really couldn’t tell which way was ‘up’ anymore. From her perspective, ‘up’ just seemed to always be directly above her. It was hard to wrap her head around.

“Well, I could put us in Realmspace. It feels like we’ve been falling in here for more than thirty minutes!” Addie exclaimed while she rotated her whole body again— this time sideways in relationship to Nettal.

It was fun playing around in here like this, but she had to rotate gently so that Squishy didn’t get sick. As it was, his legs were trembling slightly as he continued to flex his muscles and stay on Addie’s shoulders.

“I think you were right about the fog. Let’s not go to Realmspace unless we really get stuck here.”

“Alright,” Addie shrugged, “But what should we do? Just fall here forever?”

“Of course not,” Nettal replied with a bit of annoyance flashing across her face. “Let me think.”

Addie decided to sweep the area with her spatial sense again. Still nothing.

“I wonder if I can set this goopy black stuff on fire?” Addie mused aloud as she pretended to walk up walls.

“Don’t set things on fire,” Nettal interjected immediately, before Addie could get any bright ideas.

“It would just be a little bit.”

“Nothing is ever just ‘a little bit’ with you, Addie. Here, let me think.” Nettal clapped her hands together, but the sound was strangely muted. “I know! What about your book? It told us to jump down here, remember?”

“Hmm, ok.”

Addie concentrated on her soul. She pinged the soul book with a bit of magic and sent it thoughts about coming out. She had never communicated with it from her side before, but it was easy, just like talking to Ember.

The book flowed out of her soul and down through her arm before expelling itself in a long stream from her fingertip. The book flipped pages rapidly before coming to a stop on a blank page. Addie briefly wondered why it bothered with that, all the pages were blank. Text began drawing itself upon the page:

*Ignite your flames.* It read simply.

Then, without elaborating, the book turned back into magic to flow right back into Addie’s soul.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“See! I told you!” Addie exclaimed brightly to Nettal.

She crossed her arms, “Whatever.” Nettal let out a huff.

Besides, Addie knew how to control the flames without hurting Nettal.

Addie waved her hand through the pitch black, igniting the familiar white-purple ghostly flames on her fingertips as she did so. Like a match, the entire inky rapidly ignited with a roar, the flames burning brightly but painlessly. Addie made sure none of them touched Nettal or Lotty. Addie and Squishy were naturally immune though so she didn’t bother doing anything special for the two of them.

The white ghastly fire rotated around them in a vortex, only the tips of any given flame shining bright purple at their apexes before diminishing again. The bright dancing flames licked at the air (or lack thereof) forming a beautiful roaring and twisting tunnel of soul fire. The flames completely banished the inky blackness from before.

Then, something pinged Addie’s soul. The next moment, she was in a dark room, weird black inky stuff surrounding her like the previous tunnel. The only difference this time was that Addie could feel a hard floor beneath her feet. She tugged on her soul bond to check on Squishy and felt him perk up from his place on her shoulders. Good, he was here with her.

Slightly at ease but also worried for her cousin, Addie rapidly turned her head to the right, but Nettal wasn’t there. She swept the area with her spatial sense, but Nettal wasn’t anywhere.

“Uh oh.”

Addie’s soul-book flowed out from her body once again, just floating in the air a bit to the left and above her head. The book didn’t open or anything, instead it just sort of hovered above Addie.

Without anything better to do, Addie shrugged and started walking forward. Maybe she could find Nettal somewhere along the way. If for some reason she was totally trapped in here, she and Squishy could always go to Realmspace, but she didn’t want to do that without finding Nettal first.

And so, she walked, Squishy jumping off of her shoulders and walking alongside her into the infinite dark.

“I hope Nettal is ok,” Addie said aloud, wondering if Squishy had any thoughts to share.

“I as well,” he replied in that way only the two of them could do, using their soul bond. He angled his head up to glance at the soul-book. “It is that strange artifact which led us here. Curious that it does not reveal more words to us.”

Still walking, Addie spared the book another glance. “Yeah, weird. Do you want to try running? I hope Nettal is ok,” she repeated her worries for her cousin.

“Perhaps you can send Ember out to scout?” Squishy advised.

“Oh! Good idea. Come on out Ember!”

The Soul Hunter flew out from Addie’s extended arm, squawing into the empty air. She twisted her head left and right a few times, as if deciding where to go, before she just gently landed back down on Addie’s shoulder.

“What’s wrong? Can’t you go explore for us? I want to find Nettal.”

Ember still wouldn’t take off, instead, she just kept scanning the surroundings. A feeling came across their bond then, Ember seeming to say something like, ‘there’s nowhere to fly to.’

Addie didn’t really get what Ember was trying to say exactly. She could walk around, so it’s not like there was nothing around— even if it was inky pitch black. Ember seemed to disagree with Addie’s thought though, pushing against the idea with strong rejection.

“Ember says there’s nothing to scout. It’s empty in here I guess.” Addie reported with a frown.

“Hm, like the previous tunnel then, I suppose. Let us not waste any more energy walking since it is not productive.”

It was a good thing Squishy’s words were not just simple language; Addie could somewhat feel the intent behind his sentences. Otherwise, she’d never be able to understand all of the really big words he liked to use.

Since she agreed with his thoughts, Addie abruptly sat down on her bum and tried to think. If they couldn’t walk anywhere, and going to Realmspace might mean that she loses Nettal, what should she do? At least she had Ember and Squishy to help her think.

“Let’s try prodding the book,” Squishy suggested as he sat on his haunches. “It has guided us this far.”

She looked back up at the floating book above her, but it remained shut. She knew it could feel her questions using her soul. They were connected in some pseudo-way, though not in a full soul-bond. It just continued to ignore her.

Addie huffed in frustration.

With nothing better to do, Addie swept her spatial sense around the area again, just to confirm she really was surrounded by nothingness. Since that had been useless, she repeated what she had done in the weird tunnel. She gathered up her magic, Ember contributing to create a condensed flame in her hand. She kept gathering it, not releasing it, but instead just letting it build bigger and bigger. Finally, when she felt she couldn’t hold it anymore, and after she had let out as much anger as she could, she released the stream of flames.

The torrential outpouring of magic came out from her hand with a roar, Addie reflexively shutting her eyes at the sudden brightness. Just as always, these flames of hers didn’t hurt her in the slightest, even though they came right from out of her bare hand.

Like before, the inky blackness all around Addie caught aflame. The black oily substance acting as fuel to surround Addie in a ghostly white-purple glow. Addie thought it looked beautiful, though she had just seen something similar a second ago, so it didn’t impact her as strongly this time.

Unlike last time, catching the room on fire didn’t somehow put her in a new location. Instead, the flames slowly died down. Once the flames had completely extinguished, Addie was excited to see that something finally happened.

A golden pedestal appeared from out of the blackness— appearing out of nowhere like a shroud of fog being lifted from the area. Addie’s soul-book flew out to the pedestal and landed itself splayed open. The pages began to rapidly flip through a few times before they came to a stop.

Cautiously, Addie stepped forward a few times to reach the pedestal. For some reason, the pedestal was perfectly Addie-sized, and she didn’t even have to tip-toe to read the book resting on it. The page had words written on it

*You have found the first fragment of Ennulis. Good job Addie! With this, you’ll have more lessons I can teach you to help with Ember’s magic. Specifically, you have unlocked flame shield! If you want to unlock more abilities, you’ll have to find more ruins. Remember not to use your soul projection in Ennulic ruins!*

She had to spend some time to read all of it, but once she did Addie replied, “Why is it all split up? You said before that you could teach me about Ember’s magic, without needing things from any ruins.” Addie petulantly put her hand on her hips and stared at the book with slight annoyance. “And Nettal better be ok,” she added.

Instead of answering her, the book slammed shut, as it tended to so often do. It dissolved into pure magic and flowed right back into Addie’s soul.

Then, the inky darkness abruptly vanished, and Addie was standing in that brown cave again right next to Nettal, completely surrounded by fog.