Even though my mind rebels at this conclusion, I cannot ignore the evidence of my own eyes. This one faint glimpse tells me that the writings must be true… the gods do exist – or at least entities that pretend to be divine.
Even more disconcerting, I saw a similar band of fire arcing away from my own body. It curled toward that blazing creature, as though funneling part of my own mana to the goddess. Is she feeding upon her followers? Perhaps others like myself? Would that explain the river of mana that I saw condense and collect here in a whirlwind of fiery energy? I’m not certain I see any other answer.
***
Finn scanned the room quickly.
With his enhanced sight, the cave glowed a dark green, the signal that he was looking at glass – a mixture of earth and fire. His attention shifted to the shards that littered the room. The clusters containing the hidden cave grubs gave off a telltale signature, just a faint hint of air mana. That had been what threw Finn off and caused him to assume they were dealing with the larval version of the female ants. However, now it offered Finn a possible way across the room without attracting more of the grubs.
“Daniel,” Finn said, his voice still hoarse. “Can you pick out a path through the room? Try to minimize contact with the grub clusters, but I can touch normal glass.”
“Yes… yes, sir,” the AI replied, clearly still taken aback by what Finn had done to himself – and perhaps his role in the process.
Within just a few seconds, a winding blue line traced a ragged trail between the glass clusters, terminating in the now-clear expanse in the center of the cave. It was going to be tight, but it looked possible – even if he didn’t quite measure up to his daughter’s flexibility.
However, the thought of Julia raised another problem.
Finn swiped at his chat log, bringing up the window and tapping out a short message to his daughter. She would need to clear any of the fire crystals trapped with her inside the Stone Coffin. The last thing they wanted was to blow themselves sky-high as soon as Finn made it to her location. Julia also needed to be ready when he arrived, which meant arming herself, pulling her lance and shield from her pack.
Finn dismissed the window with a flick of his wrist – not waiting for her reply. Instead, his attention lingered briefly on the grubs that piled on top of the mound of stone in the center of the room. With his sight active and now that they were no longer hidden behind the thick glass, they glowed a bright orange, creating a miniature hill of fire to Finn’s eyes. His forehead wrinkled, and he glanced back at the nearby clusters, quickly removing the ambient earth mana. That’s when he saw it – a dense pocket of fire mana in the center, hidden behind multiple layers of green and yellow energy.
Clever little assholes. The clusters must be some sort of trap.
Although, the presence of fire mana indicated that they were going to be resistant to his Fireball and Fire Nova – his two most effective ways of clearing the horde. It was no matter. He had an idea for how to deal with that, but he would need to be much closer to Julia first.
Enough. I need to get moving.
Finn pulled two fire mana crystals from his bag and promptly crushed them in his fists, forcing the energy into his body to replenish the remainder of his mana. After what he had done to his eyes, he almost didn’t register the itching burn that swept across his palms. The pain was nothing compared to what he had just been through, although the absorption pushed his health back down to 20%, his regeneration feebly trying to keep pace. Then his fingers twitched, summoning his Magma Armor, and the warm energy soon slid across his shoulders and along his arms.
“I’m going to make my way to Julia,” Finn said to Kyyle, noticing his colorful outline shift, turning to glance in Finn’s direction. The hue fluctuated in a now-familiar pattern, most likely doubt and anxiety. “When I make it to the mound, drop your coffin and push the grubs outward in a ring. We’ll just need a few seconds.”
“Got it,” Kyyle grunted between casts.
Then Finn was ready – as ready as he was going to be.
He didn’t leave himself time to waver. Instead, he raced out into the cave, kicking off the glass floor and sailing through the air. He struck a small patch of clear ground and rolled – just as his daughter had. He pulled up short of the glass and then began winding through the clusters.
However, where his daughter had avoided every tip and edge, Finn could see now which clusters hid the grubs. He could slink up against a shard of real glass, edging around another as he made his way forward, following the flickering blue line that Daniel traced through the field even as the AI hovered overhead.
As he neared the coffin, Finn’s attention shifted to the glowing circle that denoted his control range. It was edging closer and closer to the mound in the center of the room. He could make out his daughter underneath the stone, dense green earth mana surrounding her weapons, but her body otherwise invisible to his sight.
He didn’t see any telltale flicker of fire mana from the crystals.
Good. She’s ready to go.
As soon as his control range crossed Julia’s position, Finn turned to Daniel. “Highlight Julia’s shield.”
The green circle was suddenly awash in a stark blue that stood out clearly against the ambient mana in the room. That would make it easier to track the shield as Finn ducked and wove through the glass.
Finn’s right hand began moving as he started casting Imbue Fire. He localized the spell to a single hand, keeping his other limb free to navigate the cavern. Tendrils of fire mana soon wound around his fingers, and he could see flames begin to bloom around the metal shield. Julia was less than thirty feet away and the distance was closing. The fire would consume what little oxygen remained in her stone prison, but it didn’t have to last much longer. And he knew that the spell would tip off Julia that Finn was getting close.
As the horde of cave grubs began to loom in his vision – only a few scant yards now separating him from Julia – Finn’s other hand started to move. It wound through the gestures of Haste, and he soon felt the burning energy sweep through his veins, empowering his muscles as the world around him slowed.
Just before the spell completed, he shouted out a warning, “Now, Kyyle!”
There was no more room for thought – only action.
The Stone Coffin around Julia exploded, the rock and stone rippling outward in slow motion and tossing the grubs back. Their bodies flew through the air, crashing into the glass that lingered along the edge of the clear circle. Finn could already see fractures forming in the fragile material – signaling the start of another cascade. He expected this one would be larger. Much larger.
But it didn’t matter. They were committed now.
Julia came crashing up through the rock, her lance held in hand, and her shield already awash in flame. Finn ducked under the flying bodies, weaving through the crowd of rock shrapnel and flailing claws that drifted past him even as his right hand ratcheted up the heat on Julia’s shield. He used his armor to shoulder through the grubs, letting their claws glance along the molten surface.
As the temperature hit heat rank level 3 and the metal of the shield began to glow with a bright-red light – not quite melting down to a liquid – Finn tugged, pinching with his fingers. He pulled spikes from the surface of the shield, creating a thorny patch of metal along the front of the barrier. That step complete, his hands jerked again, setting the shield into a spin.
Finn dove forward the last few feet, rolled across the broken ground, and came up beside Julia. She was just beginning to turn in surprise as she sensed him coming through the crowd of flailing bodies and flying stone. He must have appeared as a human-shaped blur as he maintained his Haste.
His mana and stamina were dropping fast, and Finn pulled another gem and crushed it in his fist, using the scant energy and his feeble health regeneration to replenish his waning mana. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for him to finish what he had started. Even under the effects of Haste, Julia
’s shield had begun to blur as it spun up to speed.
Just before his stamina finally bottomed out, Finn dropped Haste. Fatigue overtook him, and he fell to his knees, his legs suddenly unable to hold his weight. Yet he didn’t stop casting. With his right hand, he tugged the heat rank on Julia’s shield up to level 4. The fingers of his left hand moved swiftly, layering a second Imbue Fire onto the new spikes along the shield’s surface. The metal would start to liquify at this temperature, but Finn was going to need that added control given the considerable weight of the shield. His hope was that the second spell would help the spikes hold their shape despite the heat.
The world slammed back into full motion. The grubs flew across the room, crashing into the dense clusters as a machine gun pitter-patter of exploding glass echoed through the cavern – the sound almost deafening. Finn could see hundreds of the ravenous creatures pulling themselves from the wreckage, their gaping maws turning to face Finn and Julia.
Within only seconds, a monstrous wave of claws and flesh was barreling toward them from all sides. They were gnashing teeth and hunger and frenzy. A wave of death.
“What are we—?” Julia began.
“Start spinning and then throw the shield!” Finn shouted over the noise, interrupting her, and letting his own fire mana burn away his own fear and doubt. Those emotions wouldn’t help right now. “Then, cover me with your lance.”
Finn couldn’t see Julia’s reaction, but he saw the whirling shield shift in his sight – a sign she had done as he asked. The disc rotated in place, and he could almost visualize his daughter’s movements. She was using her impressive strength to force the heavy, spinning shield to rotate around herself, pulling her entire body into a spin. It was a tremendous feat given the shield’s weight and the centrifugal force of its rotation. She pivoted on her heel, ducking into a crouch.
And at the very end of the arc, she let go…
The shield arced away from her, and Finn’s fingers trembled as he pulled at the shield with everything he had. He needed to pivot the metal into roughly a 45-degree angle, using the combination of the jagged saw-like edges and the newly formed spikes to create a blender of destruction that carved through as large a swathe as possible. Straining against the heavy metal’s spin and momentum, he then forced the shield into a shallow arc that expanded slowly outward in a spiral.
The flaming shield struck the line of grubs, literally ripping apart their bodies in a shower of glowing orange blood. They simply exploded, as though they had been shoved into a woodchipper. Yet the shield just kept going, driven by the force of Julia’s throw, the force of its spin, and the constant pull of Finn’s mana. It arced through the room like a metallic juggernaut, ripping apart waves of the creatures within only seconds.
The amount of ambient fire mana in the room was becoming oppressive. The blood created a cloud of orange in his enhanced sight. If not for the blue outline around the shield, he would have easily lost sight of it amid the carnage.
A few grubs made it past the whirling shield. Their bodies were only faint smudges of color against the horrific backdrop of blood and death. Yet Julia had no difficulty seeing. The instant the grubs neared him, her lance speared the poor creatures with uncanny precision and sent their limp bodies flying across the room as she flicked them free of her weapon.
The shield soon emerged from the wave of grubs and struck the outer edges of the expanded clearing that Kyyle had created when he broke open the Stone Coffin, carving through the remainder of the glass along the floor. The shield obliterated the hidden grubs before they could even break through.
As the shield struck dark-green glass, it promptly crushed the substance, the particles blending with the bright fire mana-imbued grubs. The emerald spirals were soon consumed by the rest of the mixture, creating a single uniform dark orange – a combination of gore and glass.
Only a few short seconds later, the shield crashed into the outer wall of the cave, slamming to a halt as it burrowed deeply into the glass. With the last of his mana, Finn called it back. The heavy metal shield pulled itself free and then rocketed back toward them – no longer as difficult to control without its spin.
Julia snatched it out of the air and began beating down the remaining stragglers that lingered throughout the room. Finn could see a low barrier of green earth being pulled out of the ground around them, creating a short half-wall to block off the remaining grubs. It seemed that Kyyle’s mana had finally regenerated, and he had rejoined the fray.
Finn pulled another gem from his bag, crushing the crystal between his fingers. His health was low, but he needed to keep fighting. The mana soon seeped into his body, leaving the skin of his palms covered in throbbing welts. He was just reaching to pull two more metal orbs from his bag when something stopped his hand.
“I think it’s over,” Julia said, her breathing harsh and ragged. She must have restrained him – her hand and arm invisible. Well… almost invisible. Finn could see the faint mana of her armor and a small emerald sphere lodged in her arm, likely the metal used to purge her Najima.
Finn looked back at the cavern but had difficulty detecting any enemies. To his sight, the entire cavern was coated in a thick layer of orange – the fire mana in the creatures’ blood, making it difficult to distinguish specific objects. He would have to take Julia’s word that they were all dead.
As the adrenaline finally started to work its way out of his system, Finn listed to the side, and the colors swam and danced in front of him. His health was sitting at 7%, and his stamina was almost completely gone. After what he had done to his eyes – and casting his Haste twice within the span of just a few minutes – he was on his last legs, both mentally and physically.
Finn felt Julia catch him, holding him in a sitting position along the ground. “Hey, are you alright?” she asked. He could see the mana in her clothing and weapons shift as she turned toward him, even though he couldn’t see her face anymore. “What is…?” She trailed off as she finally inspected Finn.
“What the hell have you done to yourself?” she asked, horror creeping into her voice.
Finn didn’t need to see her face. He could visualize her expression from her tone. She was looking at the ravaged, barely healed skin around his eyes. The soulless black lumps of metal that were now welded to the bones of his face. She was taking in the blood and the rivulets of metal that had dried against his cheeks, like macabre tendrils arcing away from twin dark suns.
“What needed to be done,” Finn murmured finally, leaning against her more heavily. “What I needed to do to save you…”
Chapter 42 - Passionate
Bilel’s Journal – Entry 144
My lingering illness appears to be getting worse. The fevers and chills have grown more severe ever since my stockpile of crystals ran out. Some of the other acolytes have even begun noticing my ailment despite my illusion – remarking upon my ever-present cough, the stiffness of my movements, and the bouts of fatigue.
I need to find another source of mana. Something close; something discreet. Yet the acolytes don’t practice crafting at the temple. There are no more crystals. The only mana is that which they store in their own bodies, held in their Najima. That, and the well inside the great hall, but that isn’t easily accessible to me.
Even now, as I write this in my bunk in one of the outbuildings with the stars shining overhead, I can sense the mana in my sleeping neighbors. The energy calls to me – promising a release from the illness that plagues my body. There is only one way for me to gather more mana here, and these zealots deserve the pain that procedure would entail. For what they have done to me; what they have done to Renquist.
And for what I fear their goddess is doing to the rest of humanity…
***
“Here, lean against this,” Julia urged, guiding Finn to a nearby piece of rubble.
He accepted her help gratefully. Now that she was no longer in danger, the full import of what he had just been through was starting to
hit him – a mixture of latent pain and fatigue that left his legs wobbly and his newly enhanced vision wavering.
Finn felt more than saw Julia reach out tentatively toward his eyes. It was the way the air around him shifted subtly, sending vibrations spinning through the ambient yellow mana that drifted through the room. As he watched the effect, he idly wondered if it would be possible to have Daniel mimic his former sight with the blue highlights that he produced. Maybe he could calculate the rough edges and angles of an object by using the negative space created by the different types of mana…
“Hey, focus!” Julia said, snapping her fingers in his face as his head listed to the side. “Are you okay?”
Finn’s attention snapped back to Julia – or at least where he figured she was standing. “Yeah, I guess. I just zoned out for a moment.”
“What did you do to yourself?” she asked, her voice soft and full of a mixture of reproach and worry.
“Uh…” Finn hesitated, not sure where to begin.
Not so luckily for him, Daniel was nearby to help answer Julia’s questions.
“Finn decided that the only way to navigate the room to your position without drawing more of the cave grubs was to use his sight. However, since the ability couldn’t be used easily while moving, he developed a new procedure to augment his eyes,” Daniel chirped helpfully, his glowing form spinning around the pair.
“Augment?” Julia said, with an edge to her voice that Finn found familiar.
Damn, I wish I could see her. He was just now realizing how much he relied on facial expressions and body language. It would be nice to see the storm brewing in Julia’s eyes before she stabbed him to death.
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