Knives & Levels - Chapter 91

Colt flicked black blood off his blade as he looked at the three massive corpses of the Mimics; they were a strange thing. The interiors could be seen… Barren rooms with fake furniture that were only flesh deep… Beneath it and within thick walls were organs, flesh, and blood. Somehow, these things could shapeshift, too, but that hadn’t been much of an issue in the fight.

He supposed that it was more of a preparatory thing; these monsters were meant to wreck you in a single surprise move, and they’d effectively outclassed it from the start.

Still terrifying to know Mimics existed in this world now. He’d have to think twice about ever opening a chest or entering a building.

Paranoia.

“See, stuff like this makes me think maybe I was still right before,” Julia said as she cast more water on herself—rinsing off the black blood that had stained her clothes, and then in another quick cast, leeching said black blood and conjured water into a ball and dispersing it on the ground. “Like, this is stuff out of a videogame, right? So what the hell? Maybe I was right, Colt—and you’re all just NPCs in whatever virtual reality I’m in.”

Colt went over and tapped her on the back of the head with the hilt of his knife, then raised an eyebrow. “Did you feel that?”

“Kidding.” She said and sighed, looking at the dead corpses. “It was nice to stretch out my mana a bit, but I don’t think we’re going to find the dungeon anytime soon with how the scouts work.”

“Well, yeah, they’re going about it in a systematic way. They’re trying to guarantee that they do find it.”

“But they aren’t using anyone with a water affinity or Edicts to track it. They’re just searching blind when there’s much better ways to go about it.”

Colt shrugged and looked over to their scout, Leon, who was still staring at the Mimic Corpses with a gaping mouth.

They were horrifying in that now that you knew they existed, there would always be a part of your brain wondering if what you saw was real or yet another mimic in disguise. Was he still capable of fear that would linger for a long time? “Do you have any suggestions on how to improve things?”

Julia shrugged and then started condensing the mist—a ball of water forming in her hand. She squinted as she looked at it.

“The mana is wrong.”

“And just what does that mean?”

“It’s not just water—it also has a trace of some Edict in it… All of this mist does.” Julia said, waving her hands around.

Well, yeah, that was the crux of the issue; since it was infused with a lot of mana and Edict, tracking down the source was impossible to find. Or so it appeared from Colt, who would’ve tried to follow the thread of the edict were it not like a blanket coating everything.

“I think it’s why they’re having such problems,” Colt said, folding his arms as he glanced over at Leon. The man seemed to be gathering his courage to head over.

“The mana feels thicker in the water than in New Nashville,” Julia said as she manipulated the water, a frown on her face. “Meaning, we’re closer to wherever the dungeon is than before. Mana doesn’t hang around long in a conjuration. It’s why in that sauna, the nice old lady has to constantly put in new water—or it will run out and become regular water.”

Colt paused, digesting the words.

He’d seen it so recently. She was right. With the example of the woman who could heal his soul… Also, a unique property he hadn’t realized came with the territory of summoning water.

“Shit, that means… Wait, you can track down the dungeon.” Colt said, eyes widening.

Julia slowly nodded her head as she held the water, letting it swirl in a small pattern eight. “I wasn’t sure until testing it out here, but this mist feels fresher. If we keep sampling the mist, we can narrow down the search location until it's found.”

Colt did a mental calculation—he didn’t have the precise number of water mages in the city… No, even if there were a couple of other mages, none of them were likely as advanced as Julia. She was their premiere resource when it came to water magic. Which meant she was their only tool for this job. Colt took her in with a new light, seeing the value that her magic expertise had provided that extended past a simple engine as fuel for her Edicts.

He supposed it was possible that there was more to the use of magic than he’d thought.

“Right—“ Colt waved Leon over. The man was still hesitant to get close, probably due to a healthy fear for his life.

“Are… Are we good to resume?” He said, making sure to keep Colt and Julia between him and the bodies.

Colt nodded and then looked at Julia, “We are, but we’re going a bit off-script from the plans. Instead of simply following your instructed route, we’re going to use Julia. She’s discovered the key to finding where the dungeon is. You’re going to mark the locations, she says, and when we return to New Nashville, we’ll have a meeting with the scouts and narrow down the search area?”

“What?” Leon asked, his voice growing more reluctant.

Though their time was limited together, Colt had pieced together that Leon was the type to have a singular purpose-driven mission. He didn’t like change, and certainly, since they were about to strip his assignment away from him, he wouldn’t react very well without a careful approach.

“Leon, what exactly do you want from this expedition,” Colt crossed his arms as Julia sighed, wandering away from the Mimics. No doubt the girl just wanted to get on with it, but sometimes, these things took a minute to work out.

“To do our job and cross off another section,” he said, giving Julia a weary look before wandering off. What exactly do you mean you’re going to use her? What key?”

“Your job is to find the dungeon. If you do that, you’ll have saved us all time and heartache, and potentially lives. Right now, helping us, you can manage to cut down the search by potentially weeks… You just need to trust us when I say that Julia’s magic is a tool that can get us closer than we’ve been before. All we need to do is to humor her and enable her to lead us to success.”

Leon didn’t seem convinced and started to ask questions—which Colt was happy to answer as more came out. Not that he had all the information. The point wasn’t to give concrete details. It was to redirect the way Leon thought and get him on board.

After all, he’d be leveraging Leon to convince the rest of the scouts to change their tactics for this search.

Minutes later, he had done his work, and Leon shifted to a bit more agreeable, he could tell the guy didn’t believe him, but it was far more workable then it had been before.

###

Seth trailed through the air; his body weakened, the blood from his hand long since closed off by a cheap piece of rope to triage it; somewhere, far in the distance, was Nashville, left behind. His home and place where he’d served a man for months…

Denny.

The wind mage shook his head and shivered in the cold air above; much of his travel had been this way, slowly trailing forward. At a relaxed pace like this, it wasn’t much better than walking. But it had the advantage of keeping him from the ground. In his weakened state, he very much didn’t want to run across any monsters.

After his leader had died, he felt a sudden freedom… Along with a crushing weight in his chest as the power invested into him by the throneweaver was suddenly stripped away. Combined with his injuries… The last week had been tough.

But Nashville was far behind now; the forest that had intersected the city vanished away into the hills and valleys that normally made up Tennessee. This brought another benefit that he hadn’t expected: the blessing of not having to traverse the ground with his exhausted body and navigate the many hills that would make his thighs scream in anger and his lungs burst into flames.

All of his points had gone toward willpower and intelligence, guided by the need to advance his magic as much as possible.

As he drifted listlessly forward, his mana strained, but able to keep him in the skies the entire day, he felt no regret.

Especially since down below, the hills were not the same type of hills and grounds he’d grown up with. Every now and then were patches of black leaves—withered forests or an occasional twist to nature that spoke of the impossible. Up above, with the perspective he had been blessed with in the system, Seth saw more than anyone could in the city, just what had changed.

It was as if the world had collided with another, stretching geography or filling spaces with unnatural landscapes and vistas that came from a different place entirely. If the system had jammed weird magic into their souls and minds, it had also shoved strange worlds and monsters into their own. No one in Nashville knew, really, how widespread the changes were. Not three miles went by of soaring before he saw another oddly colored patch or grove down below that indicated something wrong.

There were more than just odd patches of ground, magic-esque groves, and troubles. Among them were monsters. Several times, he caught the noise of battle being fought—haunting calls and crackles as things died in the chaos that was life in this new world.

 Now, if these were dungeons, he’d yet to test… And he had no illusions that he was in a state to do so. After disconnecting with Denny after months at his service, his very Soul felt wounded from the backlash of their separation; his magic felt weaker and more lethargic to return to him.

He needed healing.

And as he drifted further southeast, he was headed to their salvation. Atlanta. City of warlords—sure, but some of them had received their messages quite warmly.

He could only hope that in heading there, he might reconnect with one of those old allies, find a place to heal, and then, with their might, sway them to turn their attentions from their war-ravaged city to Nashville.

Seth wasn’t the type to forgive, nor was he the type to abandon his home after being so forcibly thrown away from the place he’d loved and grown up.

With his lethargic pace, Seth kept floating, safe yet cold, among the clouds far above, knowing that it would only be a matter of time before he arrived at his destination.