Near the town of Ilshard, three people stand above a sheer cliff, closer to a wall in the lack of curve..
Two are dressed in well kept clothing, with groomed hair and fiery red cloaks adorning their shoulders.
The Taller of the two men has brown hair that falls down past his ears, green eyes and a stoic look.
The other has a brown bowl cut, though his dirty blond roots are visible. His eyes are a dark blue, and he tries to appear stoic as well, as he sniffles from the cold.
These two are Magic knights, from the Crimson Lions.
The third person here is a man with greying black hair and a wrinkly face, his eyes are a despondent black as he stands there, looking across the horizon.
A strong voice pierces the silence on the cliff. "Sir, could you repeat that?"
The old man scoffs with an attempt at sass and says "didn't ya hear me, laddie? This, is the Desert O' Hail, tha one yer lookin fer, yeah?"
"B-but there's n-nothing here..? Just a s-straight drop into what seems like a w-white void." A younger voice pipes up from the man with blue eyes.
A deep breath can be heard as the old man speaks like he's talking to a child. "thee. Only. Thing. In. That. Fookin. Wasteland. IS HAIL. Of course there ain't anything but a fookin 'white void' yew stupid little --!.. -What yer lookin fer, IS that!" The old man says with anger, as he motions directly at the vast wasteland of ivory white.
"Sir, there is no need for that kind of language, thank you for bringing us here. We will go now." The sterner voice of the taller man states.
"Hold on ther', do ya'll e'en have cold protection?" The old man askes.
The two look at each other, and nod, than look at the old man and the taller one says "we have everything we need, thank you, Mr. Vale. You have been a tremendous help."
Allen Vale huffs and nods his head, "if yer sure, I'll leave ya to it, jus' don't come back complaining about tha' sheer cold o' tha' bloody death trap…" the old man says as I waves them off and returns off the his home.
then he turns around again with a dead serious look "ah, 'nd if ya see a wee lil' tyke down ther, tell 'em their fackin grounded!" as he says this,
The two look at each other again before both of their forms are enveloped by a red and orange light respectively, and they both jump off the cliff, and into the sheer white void…
- - - -
Although the darkness was still present, the hall I walk down now, is warm.
Too warm…
I begin to swear again. the idea of this entire hallway collapsing from the temperature shock... I don't want that to happen especially while I'm still near by. so I hurry onwards to the rune I made, feet pitter-pattering on the quickly turning piping hot stone.
The closer I get, the hotter it becomes. A prickling sensation quickly adds to the pain of my body, every movement, every drip of sweat, magnified and sending my pain receptors into a confusing kind of sensation, one that is almost pain, it not quite.
'A human would've been dead by now, or at least, far less capable of movement…' I passively acknowledged the thought, and I also know that, if I had enough energy to care, I would be panicking at such a thought.
I kept walking as the room got scorching.
I kept walking as my mana skin started enveloping me completely for the first time in what felt like ages.
And I kept walking, as the heat was only slightly lessened by the protection.
I stopped walking as I felt my foot touch a strange texture on the floor.
Probably the remains of the pads of my feet, they'd healed remarkably fast, but their remains still stayed.
And that means that the rune should be around here…
I grasped around the wall with a mana string, until it eventually got snagged, then absorbed by what I can only assume is what I am here to de-activate.
Usually it would need to be slowly dismantled, over the course of hours.
But I don't have hours. So I begin to engrave a runic array around the original triangle.
One basic command. Convert absorbed energy type (heat) into energy type (light) at a rate of double the original rune's energy type (mana).
of course this will also take mana to do, so its a win win. the original rune wont be able to absorb more mana to produce more heat, and the new rune around it will absorb any it manages to produce with the scraps.
It wouldn't destroy the rune, but it would convert any heat produced at this point into light, eventually the first rune would lose enough heat that I wouldn't be vaporized on the spot, and that's when I'll break it up.
And with no more heat being expelled into the environment, the natural cold of this place will, hopefully, return. eventually…
its a concern for the environment to come back to a state of balance because above me right now is a desert of hail so large that if enough magic was lost and it started to melt... the entire dungeon would most likely be crushed under the sheer weight of a large lake's worth of water. with me still in it. it is imperative this thing doesn't continue.
But I disregard the rune as I move on to my real prize.
It's been, I don't even know, three, four days? Since I last came into contact with it's fur.
'Soon, these will be pants' I think to myself with maybe a bit too much glee.
'Still can't believe we wanted to try and turn this thing into a mech to escape this place…' I nod along with the thought.
The original plan to escape the frozen wastes above was, to climb back into the heart of the bear, and expel as many strings as I could, and weave my strings along it's limbs and head, essentially turning it into a mobile fortress, or a puppet controlled from the inside…
It was a stupid plan to begin with, but now…
I want absolutely nothing to do with puppets at all.
Ironic, since strings are my main magical weapon of choice…
'Hmm, we should look into basic constructs, or something…' I think tiredly.
That all being thought, the new plan is this. getting this bear down here, so I can skin and cut up the meat so I can finally eat!
And then I'll get out of this devil blessed place!
- - - -
"That Guide didn't tell us that the hail would stick even to our mana…" the gruff voice of my magic knight superior -Sertentio Deton- reaches my ears, even as I stay afloat my earthen mount.
It was with a small look around I asked "hmm, do you sense that, Sir?" To my senior from the whirlwind of loose earth I stand upon.
He then looks up at me and says in a commanding tone "Arlonde, get down here, Now."
Concerned with his tone, I do as he asked and fall softly to the pebble sized hail.
I cast out my mana sense, when I was still on my mount, it was barely noticeable, but now, as I stand here, focusing on only this… "there's an active fire spell below us. Though it's being covered by an absolutely massive magic signature…" as I state the obvious, my senior nods his head, and prompts me with a question.
"Is this magic a trap or an active attack?" His voice remains gruff as he askes me that testing question.
I prioritize the feeling of the spell, the way that it works, but the inner workings… their being covered by the massive mana signature, so I am only left guessing as to anything but it's most basic information.
"Obviously it produces heat through magic, but I can't parse deeper than that, it's like something has obscured the spell in some way… but, if I were to hazard a guess, it's a trap." And at my words, he nods.
"Your first mistake was assuming this was a spell at all. What we just felt was an active runic array, although in your defense, it's not constructed in a way that I would consider, 'standard'. most likely, this rune was used as a way to heat a room to a certain temperature, and then maintain that state." My face showed both my shame at not being able to see the truth of such a thing, and awe at my senior's refined ability to sense magic.
"Thank you for teaching me!" I say passionately.
He looks away and nods, then both of our heads snap to our left, where a spell had just activated underground.
It was a coiling thing, the spell, barely comprehensible to me under that odd, obfuscation of mana that pervades under our feet. The signature of which is both dark, and ancient.
But miraculously, it only made itself apparent to me when I stepped on the ground…
'This must be how such a massive thing had hidden away until now…'
My senior instructor, speaks up again. "And that spell? The one just cast to our left, can you sense anything specific about it?"
I look at the ground where the spell is coming from, I can only barely feel the spell, and I can't actually feel the person who's casting it at all, but I answer none the less. "The spell feels weak, wisp like in nature, it could be some kind of, rune holding up a barrier? Maybe the entrance?"
Sertentio nodded again and explained "when I was as young as you, I would have thought something similar, but note that the spell only just came into being, it is newly cast on top of that, the spell's source is fluctuating in a way that suggests life, not a mana construct like a rune. meaning that there is someone below us. They might be trying to hold something, that is true, but it's better to proceed with caution than it is to charge in head first, especially when you don't know the strength of your opponent, or if that signature even is an opponent at all, both are things to keep in mind."
My eyes hardened with determination as I nod vigorously in the cold air.
"But, to find out really, whether your theory about this being the entrance is true or not, we'll have to test it, won't we?" As he says this, his Grimoire starts glowing a fiery red, as an aura of the same color appears around him and a gauntlet of hardened fire magic conjured around his hand as he spoke out the words "Fire Magic: Glove of Flame." And walked over to the left and punched the ground where the magic was being cast.
I hastily joined him, not wanting to miss the action.
- - - -
I was struggling in my tired state, to un-lodge the bear from the hole in the ice, I had some strings wrapped around it's back to give me some more leverage, but it seemed that the more I pulled the harder it got stuck…
It was then that something happened to shake it loose or something, because with a massive movement, the entire bear came sliding into me.
I backed up as the bear nearly crushed me in it's fall, but it stopped before I took too many steps.
With the mana strings still underneath the massive thing, and a willingness to drag this thing back to my temporary base, I began sliding it forward, using KI for every step, and surely, it was hard, annoying and made my body feel weaker and dizzied my mind.
But this is my only chance to get out of here alive, and I won't be able to get at all of it, if it's in a hallway.
Turns out, the hallway wasn't actually that long, it was only my skewed perspective, and near death!
and being once again, near death, this time for reasons far harder to stop or overcome, it was all I could do to drag it one step after another.
hooray...
- - - -
We had fallen into a void of sheer nothingness… I couldn't see a thing, and my mana senses had been blinded and overwhelmed, just as the light above had been consumed completely by the merciless dark.
As I stood up, it was made clear to me, the place we had fallen into was no mere dungeon, but instead, closer to hell.
The terror of the darkness reached a peak when I heard a groan to my left, I looked there, and of course saw nothing. Although -being this close- I found in my raddled mental state that the groan had sounded familiar.
But just as I was about to breath a sigh of relief, the rolling sound of something hard grinding against stone met my ears.
I stared transfixed in the darkness as the horrifying sound slowly got louder, and echoed in my ears.
Over and over, as if a person dragging a massive blade with each step, or a massive, lumbering Basilisk pulling itself towards me, the sounds of scraping only grew in intensity.
Nothing in the six months of my being a magic knight had prepared me for this… nothing in my life had even hinted that this would be my fate, to die, eaten by some incomprehensible monster in the dark, that would surely eat me whole…
It was a voice in the dark that harshly whispered "Alronde" as it wrapped a hand around my shoulder, that I screamed -like a man- and started to panic even further. When the shockingly warm digits of what I could only assume was death wrapped around my mouth, I was left speechless as the person holding onto my face suddenly spoke up.
"What has gotten into you, Dellion?! It's Me, your senior. Sertentio. Calm down." My fear began to abate as I finally realized who was holding onto me.
'Y-yes, that's right, my name is Alronde Dellion… I am on a mission, I am a magic knight. And I need to focus.'
I pull his hand off my face and ask "sir! I'm sorry, is this th-the dungeon? I can't see a thing…"although my eyes are useless in the dark, my voice comes out clearly, and a bit shaken.
"This is indeed most likely the dungeon in question. And this darkness… it isn't ordinary, I'm sure you can sense it too, it is fully magic, some kind of massive spell, but the magic is so condensed that I can't even get a slight picture of it's inner workings… the mission has changed. We need to get out of here." His grizzled voice had taken on a steely tone, as the hand he had on my shoulder tightened slightly.
"B-but sir, there could be artifacts in this place!"
"Damn the artifacts, boy! Our lives are worth more than some trinkets. This was meant to be a training exercise anyway, we weren't meant to explore the place for treasure, only scout out as much as we could." Hesitantly, I nod my head, then I realize he can't see me, so I eek out a "y-yes sir." And just after I do, another dragging sound is heard from in front of us.
The spell being used is -unnervingly- harder to feel in this darkness, I can't even parse enough to see the person casting the spell, if there even is one…
I feel my shoulder get patted as he says "well? Use your earth magic to get a sense of our situation, I'd rather us get out of here as soon as possible." Realizing what I was supposed to do I say "R-right…" before shaking my head to try and get rid of the fear.
I then crouch on the floor, hands to the stone, covered by my mana skin of course, and say "Earth Magic: Lay Of The Land!" And as I say that, a pulse of my magic expels from me, and after a few moments, comes back to me as information about the lay out of this space. I would usually then use another spell to create a three dimensional map of the place we're exploring, but that isn't really useful in the dark…
The first thing I realize is that the thing in front of us is not, in fact a part of the wall, but is, in fact, a wall of massive dead bear carcass, so thick that my magic thinks that it's a wall, meaning I can't map past it…
I did not shriek even a little bit as I sensed the open jaws of an absolutely massive bear in front of us… even as the hand on my shoulder tightened for no-particular-reason!
The walls are stone, no kind of torch mounts. And the ceiling above us…
"S-Sir… the, the ceiling." I called out to my senior with a shaking voice as I looked upward.
"What, What is it?" His voice was justifiably concerned as he asked me what it was I had seen.
"I-it… closed up." And it was the truth. Before my spell. I found that the hole we came in through had closed while we were a adjusting to the abyssal darkness of this nightmare place.
"Our way out is gone?" I affirm his words through my panic with an "a-aye!" And I try to focus on the rest of what my magic has found.
To our backs, is a hallway. One that is seemingly… endless.
The entire thing is, just a single hallway that goes on for more than half a kilometer at least, which is the limit of my spell.
What ever it is about this stone, I'm not able to get any kind of reading on anything but the surface of it, meaning I can't even get a lay of the other rooms of this place…
I didn't notice it up until I finished examining everything, but the weight on my shoulder has gone, so I call out "Sir?"
And echoing from far behind me, I hear a faint "yeah?" His gruff voice comes from far down the hall.
'Huh? Would he r-really just leave me here alone?! T-That asshole…'
I turn my head behind me and begin to take a step before a raspy voice comes from my left, "that wasn't me..." And I freeze in place...
- - - -
"Ohh, one hundred bottles of beer on the wall, one hundred bottles of beeeer, take one down, passion abound, twenty one bottles o' beer on tha wall!" I had resorted to singing to keep my body on task.
Not to say it was particularly difficult, nah fuck that, it was just about the most hellish task I had given myself in a while, but lugging around massive loads is easier with more corporative Ki and a bit of magic.
Heck I just passed the modified heat rune, meaning that I'm just about.. half way? Or something….
What was really hellish about it was trying to not keel over and die from hunger, or blood loss, or internal bleeding, or dehydration, or the fuckin' cold or a heart attack or simple exhaustion…
Realizing that I had started thinking about death again, I started to distract myself with another song.
"Ooooh I know a Song that gets one Everybodies nerves, everybodies nerves yes on everybodies nerves, I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves, and this is how it goooooooeeesss… Oooooh I know a"- I continued singing that jaunty tune in the silence of the dark hallway.
Oddly enough, within my mana sense, it looked like the darkness itself was squirming away from me, or something? Ehh, whatever, it's probably just a trick of my mind…
As I finally, finally, reached the exit point to get back to the base, I realize something very important….
"Tha bear ain't gunna fit through tha fookin door…"
I felt a bit stupid for not realizing it sooner.
So I reeled my strings back in -attaining only about sixty seven percent of the original cast- and decided to just say fuck it.
But just before I was about to start dismantling the mostly frozen bear corpse, I blindly began walking - arms outstretched- to my left, just to see if the hall continued on that way.
To a bit of my surprise, my hands did not meet a wall where I thought they would. So I shuffled back to the bear, and cast out some strings under it again.
Noting that my mana reserve had gotten back down to nearly empty after I did so.
huffing in exhaustion as I nodded and kept this in mind, I tried my best to keep control over the spell as I restart the arduous process of dragging the damned thing down the newly found route into the unknown.
- - - -
Did you like the difference in perspective in this chapter? I think I did a good job! Thanks for reading, if you have any comments please feel free to leave them.
also! the voting has come to an end! I will take not of the votes, and keep them in mind in the future.
I will most likely make another Voting chapter, though I cant say I am satisfied with the results, but i suppose that's what I get for establishing a democracy...
it'll work out fine.
Good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight, all! hope y9ou have a good rest of your day.