by Peri Akman
Like something was tugging on him.
Like something was—
Oh.
Oh gods.
Oh no.
A beam of light caught it just right, and through the murky waters, an orb, easily a dozen feet wide, flickered, like it was an illusion.
Like it was a demon.
Quinn coughed in shock, bubbles pouring out of his mouth, air leaving him.
Quinn turned up to the water above him and propelled himself forward with his free arm, to go back to the air. He slowly rose as panic filled him.
Was this the generation spot? It seemed like the generation spot. It definitely seemed important.
His head was just about to break the surface, when suddenly something grabbed his leg—and pulled.
In a second, Quinn was a foot away from the surface. In the next second, he was at the bottom of the lake.
Sand was everywhere, and his goggles shifted ever so slightly. Water started to pool around his eyes, the flickering orb dancing with moving limbs.
Quinn took a sharp intake of brea—
Oh wait no he didn’t because he was underwater and there was no air.
Water filled his lungs, and Quinn flailed against the flickering limbs that were pinning him down. He was drowning gods he didn’t want to die like this!
He shut his eyes as the water pooled in. The tugging sensation tried to dwarf his casting abilities, but luckily for him he didn’t need to cast around him.
His entire mind screamed Ser Hero. If he could just get that arrogant jerk out here!
He was dying he was dying he couldn’t breathe and there was all this PRESSURE and he REALLY NEEDED SER HERO.
PREFERABLY A SER HERO WHO COULD BREATHE UNDERWATER.
He couldn’t hear anything—it didn’t seem like it was working, he needed another plan. He couldn’t gamble on that person—
Air bubble. Summon Giant Air Bubble.
And just like that, he could breathe. Quinn took a deep gods-filled breath, coughing the entire time, He forced himself to roll over on his belly, and eject the water. He opened his eyes, his goggles half way filled up with lake water and looked around. The bubble was punctured, water pouring into his sanctuary, but it did not pop.
He had time now. Precious, precious time.
There was just one issue.
The air was summoned.
Which meant if he tried to summon anything else that air would be gone.
And he really did not want to find out what would happen to his lungs after that. If he waited for the air to run out he should be fine, since processes still happened but—what if his lungs exploded? That sounded like something that would make his lungs explode!
Through his slowly leaking goggles, Quinn looked from side to side. Weird large demon hands were holding his hands down. He gritted his teeth and twisted his hands, wriggling out of the pressure holding him down. The second a hand got free, the demon orb seemed to vibrate with rage, and several other flickering limbs spurted out of it.
The water was beginning to immerse him—he needed to stand up, or at least sit up.
His eyes flickered upwards; the bubble was actually bigger than he thought at first. Had his range gotten better? It had to have…
Thoughts for later!
He slammed his free hand on his trapped hand and wrested it free.
Quinn jolted up, just in time for the other hands to pierce the bubble and grab him by the waist.
He was breathing a bit more easily now, which only made him all the more terrified to banish the bubble.
Quinn gripped the individual fingers away, trying to pry them off. If he could just summon something else. He just had to—
The limb tightened, and whipped Quinn out of the bubble, with less than a second for Quinn to take one last saving breath.
The water was thicker than air, so he wasn’t exactly getting whiplash at the speed he was being tossed around, but it was definitely faster than anything under water should have a right to be.
Dear gods, Quinn thought, in a mad panic. If you want to give me a last-minute breakthrough in my abilities, now would be a great time!
The gods did not answer his prayer, but Quinn wasn’t expecting them to. Two saving graces in a short period of time would be ridiculous anyway. His brain began to cloud.
He focused entirely on keeping the air still summoned. It was possible he could somehow summon air inside his lungs right away, but that didn’t seem likely. He had never summoned something inside of him before.
He was about to make peace with himself and summon something else—when suddenly the entire area was engulfed in air. The plants at the bottom of the lake drooped from the sudden lack of water holding them up, and a few remaining fish flopped helplessly against the packed sand.
Quinn gave a sputter and a cough, and started breathing in precious gulps of air. His eyes tried to focus on the source of the sudden air bubble, but with little success—his goggles were still filled with water and rather annoyingly in place.
“QUINN!” Kole screeched from what had to be very close by.
Oh thank the gods he was okay.
“I can’t summon anything!” Quinn practically ripped out, flailing blindly against the limb holding him—which was now whipping him around at a very proper pace.
“Breathe, Quinn!” a harried voice yelled at him. “Get my air in your lungs then summon away!”
She was nearly ordering him. He took shallow breaths, panicking.
Once he felt confident, he summoned Ser Hero’s sword, and cleaved into the limb holding him. It didn’t exactly get cut, but it did drop him. He fell into a summoned large pillow, and he tumbled next to Kole. His goggles went askew, water vacating his eyes and his vision clearing.
She was soaking wet, her bandages were plastered on her skin, but she was waving her walking stick all the same. Quinn couldn’t even begin to conceptualize how she got down here with all her clothes on.
“What do we do?” Quinn rasped as he half-tackled Kole, swapping out the pillow for a shield. He crouched and winced as the limbs attacked them, both defending as well as they possibly could—but it was inevitable that one of them would make a mistake. “How do we beat this thing?”
“We don’t,” Kole responded simply. “We flee.”
Chapter Twenty
Two minutes later, Quinn and Kole crawled to the shore, soaking wet, freezing to the bone, and covered in bruises.
They lay on the shore, heaving for breath.
“I… I can’t believe it just let us go,” Quinn heaved.
“You’ve been swimming in this lake for a week and it never reacted, probably had a sensitive area of effect. Once we left, it stopped caring,” Kole spat out, muffled by the soaked bandages.
Suddenly the water receded. Quinn looked around on confusion as the water went from his knees to past his ankles.
“I just unsummoned my water bubble,” Kole explained, as she went to massage her leg.
“And that caused the water to sink?” Quinn asked, ripping the goggles off and chucking them across the grass. He blinked, and began to rub his poor abused eyes.
“Well, yeah. You can’t just put a giant puff of air in the water and expect it not to do anything. Usually you don’t notice because you’re just displacing air, but water is a bit less… infinite. That’s how I noticed something was definitely wrong—a small water bubble appeared, and when I got closer, I suddenly had knowledge of how to summon an air bubble. Two and two together.” Kole winced and moaned with pain at her leg’s stress.
“I was afraid to summon anything else after that. I thought my lungs would explode,” Quinn admitted as he wiped the water away.
“Well, you were wrong, but in a right sort of way. Think the opposite—it’s way more likely your lungs would just collapse when there was suddenly nothing in them,” Kole admitted between pained hisses.
Quinn swallowed dryly. “So… would I have been okay?”
“I m
ean… if I was a healer, yeah? But… no. Not really. You would have died by your own hand,” Kole said quietly.
“I… wow,” Quinn sputtered.
“Don’t sweat it. You were smart! You kept yourself alive until someone could get to you. There is no shame in that,” Kole muttered, still quiet. She took a deep breath as she gripped her walking stick, which was lying on the shore.
Quinn blinked fuzzily at this contradiction in logic, before realizing she had simply just summoned a separate stick once she had made it underwater.
His abilities really were convenient. And even though Kole clearly had better range, better concentration, and the luxury of summoning an array of items without nearly as much stress, it meant hope. He would one day have that ability.
And if his ability to summon living things also progressed in the same way? He could have an army of Ser Heroes!
Wait, that was actually horrifying, he didn’t want that.
“We’re gonna need to go back to the temple. Tell them we found the nest. We will… probably definitely need backup. I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Kole spoke out suddenly as Quinn was lost in thought.
“I’m going to go to the temple. You’re going to go dry off so you don’t die of… whatever people die of if they’re wet too long.” Quinn stared at her, expecting a protest.
Instead Kole just gave a low chuckle and forced herself to stand up with her walking stick. “Whatever people die of? Is that a term you’ve forgotten or is it just a shot in the dark for you?”
Quinn picked up his clothing and draped it over himself. He shivered slightly. “Shot in the dark, but am I that wrong?”
Kole bent over, picked up the discarded goggles, and placed them back in her walking stick.
“No. Not wrong,” Kole replied simply.
She said nothing else, and Quinn could only assume she was agreeing with him.
They didn’t talk until they were a good deal further away from the lake.
A few monsters tried to charge them, sensing their weakness, but Quinn summoned Ser Hero, and they continued their trek back home.
“So, I’m an external summoner, right?” Quinn asked once the looming danger seemed to be a bit further away.
“Correct,” Kole replied.
“And you’re… an external mimic?” Quinn asked further, frowning.
“No. Internal,” Kole said.
Quinn raised an eyebrow. “What would an external mimic be like?”
“Historically? Able to summon up ghostly beings who were representative of the mimicked abilities. It’s… rare. And if you’re curious, an internal summoner usually has to summon things in place of them. They disappear, something else appears in turn. Usually limited fleshy homunculi that can perform a few simple actions. It means they’re less likely to die, but it means they have less, if any, control over what their meatbags can do,” Kole explained, her tone changing to something lighter, clearly enjoying the lecture.
“So… if I can displace water, then… could I hypothetically… displace people?” Quinn asked with a slightly hesitant tone.
“Summon things directly inside of people, or summon things exactly where they are?” Kole asked.
“Uh… either or?” Quinn tilted his head and shrugged. It sounded a bit morbid, now that he thought about it.
“Probably not. I don’t think you’re that specialized,” Kole said. “Of course, there’s nothing to stop a generalized warlock from doing something like that, but it’s incredibly rare.”
“But not impossible?” Quinn probed.
“Ehhhhhh. Only the hermit has been recorded as being able to summon things internally like that. Which stands to reason—”
“The hermit?” Quinn asked.
“I know I told you about this before,” Kole snapped. She let loose an annoyed groan when Quinn shook his head.
“Fine! When I was like, ten, there were headlines of this person who was this incredibly specialized summoner. Only able to summon tiny things, no bigger than an inch. But said hermit was able to summon it anywhere. Turns out, an inch doesn’t matter if I put it in your arteries,” Kole said.
“That… but that would instantly kill people,” Quinn exclaimed.
“En masse too,” Kole replied.
“I… what happened? I've never heard of them! I feel like I should have heard about them!”
“She was news and then she dropped out as quickly as she rose to fame. She didn’t want to kill people, so she went off into the mountains. Not these mountains, mind you. I think she went to a different country entirely. Completely outside of the Grevelt Alliance. After that, she hasn’t been mentioned since, except in rumors. She has her own religion now. My old master met her once. Apparently she was a cloud-headed antisocial jerk hippie, if such a combination was possible.” Kole began to pick up the pace slightly as they neared the house. She was shivering as well now, most likely from her cold clothing.
“Oh… well that’s… a thing,” Quinn said, not sure what to exactly make of that story.
“Point is, you being willing to go head first into danger, unlike the hermit, might mean there was never a chance of you being able to do that,” Kole explained, finally hitting her point.
“That… okay, I’m sorry, how does that correlate?” Quinn flailed, rather confused.
“I just explained it!” Kole whined. “Okay, starting over, sorry. Ever hear of the Jestalt-Dwyer Effect?”
“No?” Quinn replied. How many rules were there to magic anyway? This was far too complicated.
“I’m not surprised, it’s mostly a sociological phenomenon. High Academia, not really relevant for the average warlock to read up on.” Kole waved her hand vaguely.
The houses were in sight, and the two walked to the well before collapsing from exhaustion.
Quinn lightly touched Kole, and sure enough, she was extremely cold. It was getting later, sure, but those wet clothes couldn’t be good for her.
“The Jestalt-Dwyer effect, suitably named after two academics named Jestalt and Dwyer, probably, I dunno, sixty-something years ago? Anyway, Jester and Drierface coined a theory to explain why we don’t have as many murderous warlocks as you’d expect.” Kole launched back into the explanation once they rested for a moment.
“Isn’t that just statistics? There aren’t a lot of us. Most people aren’t murderers. Venn diagram.” Quinn brought his fingers together and made overlapping circles.
“You know what a venn diagram is, but trying to mentally picture goggles eludes you?” Kole outright scoffed.
“Knowing what goggles looked like wasn’t required to pass math,” Quinn shot back, indignant.
“Right. Anyway, you’d be right, but I already told you, it sucks to be a warlock. We aren’t allowed to own personal businesses, we aren’t allowed to raise our own kids, we aren’t allowed to just… go off the grid for a while. Even the Hermit had to put in an official paperwork request to leave. So we’re limited, suffocated, and the average person might think we’re a god, or a demon, and on top of all of that, as far as science and religion says, we are responsible for the most devastating creatures on our world.” Kole gestured towards the mountains.
“So warlocks are trapped, frustrated…” Quinn began.
“And could easily, randomly, be born with power to just… destroy everything.” Kole finished.
That was true. When Quinn had been in Shorne, he could have easily bought anything with summoned coins. His concentration was good enough to hold it for a while, and all he’d have to do was make it look good—far easier than… literally… making it… look good.
Counterfeit. Far easier than counterfeiting it. That was the word.
So if he was entertaining notions of a vast crime empire in the making, why wouldn’t someone with a bit more oomph to their power contemplate mass government takeovers?
“The Jestalt-Dwyer effect states ‘the more likely someone would abuse a power to go against the social grain, the less
likely they will get such powers,’” Kole recited.
Quinn wrinkled his nose. “That… can’t be true.”
“Yeah, it really shouldn’t. It’s too circular, right? But it’s one of those rules that oddly applies more than it should. There’s some more sciencey-sounding speculation about it. Magic is molded on our subconscious, and it becomes what we truly are, not what we desire. It complements us. The person who wants power doesn’t get it, because they’re not actually equipped to have it or understand it.” Kole winced slightly at the last part.
“Complements us? I… that seems a bit…”
“Terrifying? Yeah. It means that you are so boring, you have to make other things to make yourself interesting, just consider yourself lucky you’re not an internal summoner, and me? I guess it means I have no personality of my own. Or, alternatively, too much. Maybe the universe thought I needed empathy.” Kole rolled her head around mockingly.
Quinn snorted and stared at his hands. “That’s… weird.” He stood up and stretched. “Either way, I’m going to try and see if I can use my summoning more creatively. I didn’t realize it, but my range has been expanding, so it can’t be too hard.”
“Well yeah, you’ve been summoning your meat puppet every day for a month and change now. What did you think would happen? You’d get worse?” Quinn could almost see Kole smirking under the bandages practically molded to her face.
Quinn shrugged, and went to walk, but stopped.
Wait.
“A month? We haven’t been here a month!” Quinn exclaimed.
“Oh yeah. Yeah we have. Believe me. I know.” Kole nodded sagely.
“I just… a month? Really?” Quinn sputtered.
Was Sennta out of the coma yet? He had to be, right? Otherwise he would be dead. Or close to it. You couldn’t just stay asleep that long, right? Then again, maybe with healers he could.
Maybe… maybe after this he could track down Cosime. See if they could help.
Maybe…
“Yeah. A month. Anyway, you skedaddle off. I’m gonna… find dry clothing or something.” Kole gave a nonchalant shrug.
Quinn gingerly unfolded the outer clothing he had been wearing, and put them on. They were dry and warm, but he could already feel them getting wet from the underwear he had on in the lake. Void, even just holding them on the walk back had made them a tad damp around the edges.