Unnatural Laws (The Whispering Crystals, #1)

by H. C. Mills

  “I think you interrupted something,” Kaitlynn says, glancing back slyly.

  I turn to see Miss Marvel touch Lily’s bicep and tilt her head back in laughter.

  “Ah. That explains a lot,” I reply dryly. Then I frown. “Hey, I’m pretty sure this girl is the first person I’ve seen here wearing glasses... how does that work with her eye-crystal?”

  Dave clears his throat. “Shouldn’t be a problem. I wore my glasses to Con. Took me a while to realise, but they don’t seem to affect light that falls through in any way in this Realm. Luckily I don’t seem to need them anymore either. They’re in my backpack now.”

  I turn to him in surprise. “Hold up, you’re telling me refraction isn’t a thing in this Realm? Then how the hell do our eyes still work?!”

  He shrugs. “I’m not sure. I have noticed that even when you’re looking at something up close, things behind it remain in focus.”

  I stare at for a moment, then hold up one of my hands in front of my eye, and close the eyelid over my eye-crystal. As I look at my hand, the wall of the temple behind it is indeed not blurry at all.

  “Nuts,” I mutter.

  “So she’s wearing a Captain Marvel shirt and glasses she doesn’t need,” Alec concludes, shaking his head in distaste. “Talk about bad taste.”

  I suppress the urge to roll my eyes. Of course you’d have an opinion about that shirt.

  Lily comes striding over. “Sorry about Carol-Anne, guys, I think she’s just a little nervous about her friend.”

  I try not to smirk. “That’s all right, Lily.”

  “Good. In that case: welcome back!” she says in an exaggeratedly chipper tone. “I have the thankless job of welcoming visitors—provided they have permits—to Hub Two’s most famous attraction: The Deadly Yin-Yang Temple!”

  She flings her heavily tattooed arms out towards the giant doors, adorned with familiar images of hideously deformed, suffering humans.

  I like her already. My eyes are drawn to her hairline; again, there are no visible roots, despite the obvious dye-job. I idly check the length of my own hair. I do think it’s grown a little, which seems to imply that that’s not the issue. Is this one of those ‘All are One’ things? Is their hair coming out dyed?!

  “Anyway, I’m supposed to inform you that—surprise surprise—entering this temple is ‘dangerous,’ ” she continues, rolling her eyes and using air quotes, causing Alec to snicker. “In case you’re complete morons, I guess. Anyway, so far four people have died inside.”

  That’s not funny.

  “How many people have succeeded?” Dave asks, looking a little pale.

  “Twenty-three, as far as the council knows,” she responds. “Now, if you’ll please hand me your permits—ah, thank you—I will give you instructions, and then you can enter, one at a time. The first one can go in when the doors open again, which is hopefully when Jack walks out. Otherwise, well... in our experience, you either come out that door with a Yin or Yang Qi Pearl when it opens again, or you don’t come out at all. Any other questions so far?”

  Kaitlynn licks her lips. “Wha—what’s inside?”

  Looking at her, Lily’s expression softens a little. “It’s basically like the Second Trial, just with some new obstacles and no second chances; there are spikes at the bottom of the pits in there. There’s also a few traps, which I will explain to you thoroughly. It’s actually quite doable, so don’t worry too much, okay?”

  Kaitlynn nods, and Lily starts explaining.

  After receiving Lily’s instructions, we decide to enter in descending order of Agility, to make the most out of the experiences of the successful ones. Also, though no-one says it out loud, to give us all a bit more time with each other, as the most likely to fail are the ones with low Agility.

  Either way, it means I’m going first.

  I find myself kind of anxious to just go in and do it. I mean, obviously I wouldn’t do this is if I had a choice, but since I have to anyway... it’s kind of thrilling, in a way. Risking your life on your athletic ability, traversing a temple full of deadly pits and traps, to get to the treasure at the end. I mean, Indiana Jones does this shit for a living, you know?

  But since we still have to wait on the person inside right now, I’ve got a few. I claim to need a few minutes alone to mentally prepare myself, before walking off to a secluded spot.

  I look around one last time. The coast seems clear.

  I clear my throat. “Suri, I was wondering: is there a reward for breaking the record of something like ‘fastest to clear the temple’?”

  For a few seconds, it remains quiet.

  [If such a reward exists, then I fear telling you about it would be against the rules,] Suri chimes. [So I’m afraid all I can say is, ‘that’s classified.’]

  Damn, that’s too bad. Perhaps this is for the best; perhaps this crazy notion should be buried deep—

  [However, if you really want to know if there’s a reward, I suppose you could always try to clear the temple in a time shorter than the official record of 12 minutes and 41.2 seconds.]

  Oh, hell yes.

  CHAPTER 35

  Temple Run

  WHEN I COME BACK I’m raring to go, so I take up position to wait near the doors.

  Carol-Anne glances at me in thinly veiled annoyance from her position next to Lily.

  I decide to be the bigger person and attempt to start a conversation. “You know you can see just fine without those, right?” I ask, pointing at her glasses.

  She full-on glares at me. “Of course I know I can see just fine without my fake glasses, you think I’m an idiot?!”

  I blink. “No, I meant... Nevermind.”

  She scoffs. “Whatever.”

  Bitch.

  We wait in absolute silence, except for Lily awkwardly clearing her throat once or twice.

  After another minute or so, the heavy stone doors begin to grind open.

  The rest come walking up to me for some final good luck wishes or something, but I’m too focused on my goal to really register it.

  I’m just waiting for Carol-Anne’s friend—what was his name, Jack?—to walk out so I can go in.

  But when the doors are open, we’re met with an empty hallway.

  It remains very quiet for a moment.

  “Ah, man,” Lily says with a sigh. “Looks like we’ve got a fifth casualty...”

  Carol-Anne raises a hand to her mouth and lets out a stifled sob, then turns and runs away.

  Well, shit.

  The notification says exactly what Lily claimed it would, so I impatiently wave it away as I jog through the downwards sloping stone hallway.

  What happened just now did give me pause for a moment, but in the overall statistics, it doesn’t make much of a difference.

  I can do this. Just gotta keep my head cool and my eye on the prize. Swift but safe is the goal. It helps that I know what’s coming.

  I enter the first chamber and a grinding sound erupts as five circular platforms start spinning above a pit full of spikes.

  The overgrown pottery wheels spin at different speeds and in different directions; the last one is even tilted. There’s three on the left and two on the right, so I’ll have to zigzag across the room by jumping from one to the next.

  After a brief glance around the chamber, I activate Boost Physical and call out, “Lavi Flows Window!”

  Good. I’ve come a long way since the Second Trial; at this level, I should be able to sustain Boost Physical with repeated activations till the end of the course. In hindsight, it would’ve been smarter to eat the meat of the Blue-Scaled Trigot this morning. Well, what’s done is done.

  Although I can be satisfied that using Boost Physical won’t kill me, that unfortunately doesn’t stop this Skill from hurting like a bitch.

  I wave away the window, pick up some speed, and easily leap onto the first platform. I never really noticed back during the Second Trial, but aside from the pain, Boost Physical is amazing. The extra con
trol I gain over my body from the boost in Agility, the crazy Strength I have now... it makes me feel invincible, like a superhero.

  I study the second platform as I pass by on the first rotation. The jump seems easy enough; my legs twitch, ready to go, but I hold back and decide to take it on the next round.

  Fast but safe. Let’s do this.

  On the next rotation, I leap smoothly onto the second platform.

  However, on the first rotation here, I realise that it takes me very close to the right wall, which also passes by the fourth platform.

  I hesitate only briefly. On the next rotation, I throw caution to the wind and leap off the platform onto the wall.

  Suri chimes a noise that’s the equivalent of a gasp for her, but doesn’t comment.

  The weird gravity of this Realm assists me in sticking to the wall long enough, so by the time I start to lose my grip, I’m close enough to leap off and land on the fourth platform as planned.

  The fourth platform spins in the opposite direction to the second, so the landing is jarring, but I quickly stabilise. I take one rotation to reorient myself, then leap for the fifth platform.

  I land easily on the tilted platform where it starts its ascend. This time, I don’t stay on for a rotation, but leap off at the highest point. The danger of this platform, after all, is that you might easily get thrown off on the downspin.

  I land on the other side of the chamber, break my fall with a roll, and keep moving.

  [You are a madwoman,] Suri chimes, [but I like that about you.]

  I grin but don’t answer, already speeding towards the door.

  The second chamber holds some standard fare, a mixture of rope and bar swings and some wall runs and jumps, all over pits full of spikes. I never even stop moving as I go through it.

  The third chamber is a little trickier; handholds crawl up the wall onto the ceiling and over another giant pit of spikes with some platforms above it made of an elastic material. Essentially, they serve as trampolines, which I need to use to reach the next set of handholds.

  Powered by Boost Physical, I practically fly up the wall, and with my ridiculous Strength, I make short work of the ceiling part. I take it slow on the trampolines though, dropping down carefully before taking a few jumps to get a feeling for how this works in the weird gravity of this dimension.

  I may be excited and reckless, but I’m not suicidal.

  As I was informed, the open spiral stairway up to the fourth chamber contains the first trap. It triggers automatically when I’m about halfway up. The smooth and slightly slippery steps start to... undulate. Basically, they tilt downwards in waves. This way, it's very easy to lose your footing and tumble out of the staircase into the pit of spikes below.

  Lily advised us to run back down the steps, keeping pace with the wave in order to safely reach the bottom, and then wait it out. The trap should only trigger once and stop after a few minutes, allowing the stairs to be safely climbed.

  But, yeah, I’m not doing that. Instead, when it triggers, I leap with all of my might from the last upright step in the wave I’m on, and land on the first step that’s coming up again in the next wave.

  Success! Encouraged, I continue up the stairs in this method, clearing each wave with relative ease.

  Eventually, I reach the top. I throw a quick glance at my Status Bar, not for fear of running out of Lavi, but to calculate roughly how much time I’ve spent with the help of my net Lavi flow.

  So, a little over nine minutes, that gives me at most three minutes to clear the last and arguably hardest chamber. Whoever set this previous record was really gunning it.

  Anyway, time’s a-wastin'.

  I walk up to the edge of the—you’ve guessed it—giant pit of spikes. There’s only a single feature I need and get to cross it: an eighty-foot-long tightrope.

  It seems easy enough, but I know what will happen when I try to make my way across.

  From what Lily told us, the safest way to reach the other side would be to hang from it and more or less crawl across upside down, and simply cling on really tightly, no matter what comes flying my way.

  But I only have three minutes, so I spread my arms, and set foot on the rope.

  Relax, Emma, it’ll be just like walking the balance beam. Except the moment I step over the edge the pull of gravity decreases, which sends chills down my spine.

  The rope creaks and sways in front of me as I traverse it.

  I make my way steadily up until I’ve crossed about the first quarter of the pit. Here it comes...

  I glance at my Status Bar. Two minutes remaining, which means I gotta pick up the pace.

  I’m not even three steps farther when it happens. The scrape of stone on stone when dozens of panels slide open in the walls is my only warning. Round holes appear behind them, from which all kinds of things are launched.

  And I mean all kinds.

  Sticks, jets of Hydrum, small rocks, bones, empty jicca nut cones...

  Luckily I was prepared for the onslaught. I move as quickly as I can, which results in most objects flying past behind me. I duck under the larger objects that I see coming from the corner of my eyes; the others I let hit me.

  They’re not exactly heavy enough to knock me off the rope, after all—they’re just annoying and distracting.

  But as I continue, the objects come flying at me faster, and the bigger ones become harder to dodge.

  I barely evade collision with a skull. Was that human?!

  Filled jicca nut cones are now added to the mix. I realise this when one of them collides with a rock right in front of me, causing the cone to explode in a rain of nuts that harshly pelt my skin.

  I’m over the halfway point by now, but it’s only getting worse.

  I glance at the Status Bar. One minute left. If I fall and have to hang from the rope, I could cross safely, but I’d have to kiss my record goodbye...

  Screw it, I’m doing it.

  I kick my legs up behind me and launch my torso forward, ducking a full jicca nut cone as I go. My left hand grasps the rope, then my right.

  As I complete my first cartwheel I use my momentum to keep going into a second.

  I considered trying to run, but I fear it’d be easy to make a misstep; with my hands, I can grasp the rope far more reliably, and with my feet sideways, hitting the rope is also easier. I just have to make sure I stay balanced long enough to reach the platform.

  Thankfully, the speed I gain causes a vast majority of the projectiles to cross behind me. At least for the first two seconds, then the room apparently adjusts and starts launching farther ahead.

  But nothing can stop me now.

  Three more cartwheels till the end... two more... one!

  A large, flat rock is launched low over the rope, heading straight for where I was going to put my hands next.

  So I do the natural thing, and switch to an aerial, retracting my hands to my sides as I put extra speed and power into my launch.

  My forehead passes over the rock with maybe an inch to spare. I land on the opposite platform.

  Man, what a rush! It’s been a long time since I did serious gymnastics back on Earth, but the feeling of control over my body just now... it’s like I’m back in top shape.

  The last objects hit the wall and the room turns silent. Not that I’m paying much attention—I’m sprinting through the stone hallway towards the finish.

  At the end of the hallway, I enter a circular room, and several notifications pop up at once.

  Sweet! That’s the first time I’ve actually raised that stat... I guess it happened somewhere during my run and Suri saved the notification for afterwards. I’m glad she took the request I made about that during the Second Trial to heart. Though I did sense something during that aerial, so it might’ve happened just then.

  Right. Keep it safe, keep it secret. But now for the real question: did I do it?

  Aww, yeah. Jackpot.

  CHAPTER 36

  Get by with a li
ttle help from my friends

  I DID IT! I beat the temple record! My Strength ebbs away as I stop activating Boost Physical. At the end there, I was afraid I’d suffered for nothing, but a low-grade Agility Power-Up and 50 Trial Points? Hell yes!

  [Quite an accomplishment, Emma. Well done.]

  Aww shucks, you’re gonna make me blush.

  “Thanks, Suri,” I say, happily beaming at a wall. “Just trying to grab any advantage I can to help me survive. And it looks like I wasn’t the first who went out of their way to set a new record; I wasn’t even that much faster.”

  [Indeed, but what you need to understand is that the woman who set the previous record actually levelled up before she made her attempt. Your accomplishment was ostensibly greater.]

  Interesting.

  “Really? But how did she level up before getting a Qi Pearl? Did she steal someone else’s?”

  [Something like that.]

  Very interesting.

  I quickly find the receptacle that holds my rewards; it’s a small alcove below a large, grotesque statue of a suffering human. I have to wonder about the sanity of this sculptor...

  The Yin Qi Pearl is about the size and shape of a large marble—a shooter, if you will—and solid black. I pick it up. Despite its size, it lies heavily in my hand.

  I study the Power-Up as well. It’s a transparent mushroom, that almost looks carved from ice, and has tendrils of purple lightning shooting through it. It’s rather mesmerizing, but... am I supposed to eat this? Well, there’s only one way to find out.

  “Appraise.”

  Huck. Worms?!

  [Well go on, Emma, eat it.]

  “Eat it yourself!”

  [That doesn’t make any sense; I don’t even have a mouth or digestive track.]