FMH: Everything ~ Eighteen

In a stunning reversal, the mana in the area that had been expanding outward rapidly collapsed back upon itself, rending the air and rebounding with a concussive reverberation at chest level. Where Andre's portal had been gradually leaking mana, slowly meandering its way towards instability, Luke’s jagged portal gushed energy into their surroundings.

The Murderhobo slowly nodded and tried to take a step in, only for his Sigil to once more screech at him, refusing access yet again. He stared at the opening, knowing that true happiness for himself was only a step away, and he could not take it. Pulling off his backpack, he retrieved several empty water skins and handed them over to Zed. Everyone else was too shocked to comment on his actions, so Luke used the opportunity to the fullest. “Fill these up with water; use this scoop so you don't get it on your hands. There's a quantitative difference between the mana in the air and liquid mana. Don’t test it. I’ll hold the portal open, so you should be able to come back.”

Without waiting for a response, he chucked the Bard through the portal, earning a confused scream from Taylor and a sharp, rapidly bitten-off curse from Andre. Almost as soon as the Bard vanished through the portal, he returned with eight full water skins. He was clutching them to his chest for dear life, and his face had gone ashen white.

“Wh-what were those things, Luke?” Zed whispered, barely able to force the words out through the chattering of his teeth. “They weren't there when I was with you. They moved so slowly, and yet-”

“Try not to think about them. Doing so lets them find you faster. I can’t promise there aren’t any in this world or the base world. Don’t draw them in.” The Murderhobo patted his friend on the shoulder, pleased with his work. “Thanks for the refills; I was worried I was going to be out for the next two months.”

“Their eyes, Luke. Why did I look into their eyes?” Zed whispered, causing his friends to recoil from him in horror, though the Murderhobo merely shrugged.

“You’ll get used to the nightmares. Now I even find them soothing.” He approached the open portal and began punching it until the Scar folded over in agony and collapsed. Turning around, Luke frowned as he realized that the free power in the air was affecting his friends in a strange way. Both Taylor and Zed had vacant expressions, and they were staring at something that only they could see.

Something unfamiliar was wrapped around—and originating from—the Bard. Puzzled, Luke followed Taylor's eyes and found that she was studying that something floating in the air. It was words, and once again, he could not recognize what they spelled out.

Taylor and Zed both spoke, nearly in unison, with the Mage being only a fraction of a second slower than the Bard.

“Echoes of Reality.”

“Meta-Magic.”

The remnants of mana in the area flooded into the two of them. The whipcrack suddenness of the power draw smacked into their respective Sigils, directly knocking them out. Luke and Andre looked down at the fallen friends, then at each other. With a slightly annoyed shake of his head, Luke pointed at Zed. “I'll carry him, you carry her?”

“As per usual,” the Druid agreed, attempting to inject some humor into the situation. Luckily for the unconscious pair, the ambient power in the area wasn’t enough to create continual shock waves, as it did for Luke in Murder World. Perhaps less luckily, the distinct lack of energy meant that the metamorphosis they were undergoing was going to take longer than it otherwise would have.

By the time they woke up, Luke and Andre had been able to traverse the remainder of the distance that they had been scheduled to cross in this world. At least, mostly. Because the World of Names was such a common destination for Ascenders, it had been simple to the point of the plane where the front lines of the Hollow Kingdom congregated to exit into the base world.

They could see troops in their kingdom’s colors as they drew near. Andre didn't want to start an accidental fight with someone that would cause them to be punished by their Sigils, and Luke had no interest in interacting with people he didn't know if he didn't have to. They mutually agreed that it was best to resist approaching the larger group until they had someone who was as versed in the legal system as Taylor was.

Zed's eyes fluttered open first. He blinked a few times, then sat bolt upright with a strangled yell of exultation. “I gained a new Mastery!”

“We heard,” Andre stated dryly, though he offered a wide, happy grin for his friend's moment of triumph. “What does it do?”

“It lets me cast Fireball, that's what it does!” Zed lifted a hand and wiggled it side to side. “I mean, eventually it will. It actually lets me perfectly mimic any sounds of magic that I hear. I can play those sounds back into the akashic field around us to recreate the magical frequency!”

“If you say something like that to me again, I'm going to break your left pinky toe and slowly pull the nail off. In that order.” Luke calmly informed the Bard.

“Wh—oh, right. Non-Bard terms. Ah-haaa.” Zed flipped his hair with his left hand in a show of signature superiority. “Once I hear an Ascender’s spell being cast, then I can use that same Spell. As far as I can tell, I can even use it more than once. But, every time I use it, I am hearing my own ‘Echo’ instead of the ‘Reality’ of the spell. That means the next time I cast the same spell, it will grow weaker, until eventually it’s not worth using again.”

“Is it just Spells, or is it any power?” Taylor’s voice was raspy, as if she hadn't had a drink of water in days. “Also, I think we can chalk up the manifestation of new powers to our Mana Channels once and for all.”

“Doesn't prove anything about the bind point,” Zed flippantly countered. “I was saying ‘Spells’ for brevity's sake, not for any reasonable limitation. Also, thanks to the sheer amount of mana that you released, my other Mastery finished upgrading as well. Now I can slightly alter my appearance, and I have more control over how my clones look. Not as cool as this new thing, but it’s still pretty neat.”

As one, the group's eyes turned to Taylor expectantly, even though she was less interested in sharing everything like the Bard had done. Still, the peer pressure got to her after a few moments, and she broke her silence in a rush. “I'm kind of annoyed to say that my new Spell is really similar to Zed’s.”

“Ha!” Zed taunted for a moment, then went still as his eyes hardened. “Hey. Wait. All you did was steal a lesser copy of my Mastery as it was made!”

“It’s called Meta-Magic,” Taylor pressed onward, not stopping though his consternation brought a grin to her face. “Despite its name, it doesn't give me a greater understanding of magic as a whole. Instead, it enables me to see a Spell being cast and perfectly copy it. Unlike the music man over here, I can't use it more than once. Instead, I can increase the potency of the final effect by adding additional mana to it. Even though my Spell is restricted to a single use per observation, I can actually use a stronger version than I saw cast in the first place.”

“Neat.” Luke’s answer, as always, was succinct.

Andre’s was less so, as he shouted in inarticulate excitement and grabbed both of his friends in a bear hug, picking them up and swinging them around as he laughed with them. Luke was only able to stop them by pointing out the fact that a group of Mages from the Hollow Kingdom was closing in on them, likely due to their screaming and shouting. The group slowly composed themselves and started marching toward their fellow Ascenders, ensuring that they were visibly calm and clearly not moving toward them threateningly.

“Abyss, I want to see if I could crush those smug faces with Cookie, even if they put a barrier up.” Actually, only most of the group wasn't moving toward the others threateningly. Luke was swallowing several times a minute, clearly having a buildup of saliva as he envisioned destroying the people in front of them. “Do you think they would be good training for going against Archmage Don? Maybe not, but it would be a start, right?”

“Master Don is as far above these Mages as you're above a common militiaman,” Taylor told him with perfect enunciation, ensuring there could be no miscommunication. “Frankly, I'm almost positive that even Zed could wipe the floor with these low-powered noble sons.”

“Halt right there, you silly trespassers!” The man hailing them was dressed in a peacock’s dream, his clothes being reflective on top of having a brilliant hue. “You can't just walk into an active war zone! You have to have a reason to be here, or we have to go out of our way to detain you. None of us want that; the cages are so stinky.”

“I'm starting a betting pool right now,” Zed told the others under his breath. “The wager is not if he was dropped on his head as a child; it's how many times. We’ll do two to one, over-under. I'll start the betting at being dropped five times.”

“Eight,” Andre breathed.

Luke shook his head and firmly countered, “Three. Not dropped, but thrown.”

“All of you need to knock it off!” Taylor hissed at them, causing the three men to let out puffs of laughter only through their noses so that it wouldn’t be quite as loud. “Hail, brave Ascender of the Hollow Kingdom! I am Archmage presumptive, Taylor Woodswright. Myself, and my team, The Four, have been given orders to… well, we need to get to the front lines.”

The incredibly flamboyant nobleman skidded to a halt, jumping up and down in place and clapping his hands wildly. “Is it really you? Oh, my goodness! Good golly gracious! By the Celestials, can I get you to sign my autograph notebook? I'd love to have proof that I was the one who got to meet you at the border!”

A stunned silence caused every other person to simply stare at the man as he pulled open a fanny pack and rummaged around inside of it, popping up with a quill and notepad a moment later. “I have heard so many stories about you, and I have been following your work for years! Someday, I too hope to have a well of personal power deep enough to reduce a mountain to purified minerals in a single day!”

“You know what?” Zed stepped forward and happily scrolled his name on the paper after ensuring that there was no magic involved in either the quill, ink, or paper. “There are worse dreams to have. I think I can like you.”

“You must be the Bard, correct?” There was no fear or revulsion in this Mage’s eyes as he stated the question, a first for Zed, at least amongst people in the know of his power set. “Your exploits are nearly as legendary, even if not something that I think I will ever be able to achieve myself. Still, being able to live vicariously through you is already a great honor! To think, the first of The Four signing my notebook is the Tornado of the Red Light-”

“Aaand that's enough of that conversation!” Zed laughed as he pulled his hand off the Mage’s mouth, revealing a disconcertingly wide smile under the palm. “I don't suppose you could show us to the border we share with the Dynasty of Dogs?”

“Oh, I certainly can! The only teensy issue is that you’ll have to leave the World of Names and go back to the Hollow Kingdom to get there.” Seeing that Zed was about to argue with him, the Ascender merely shook his head and smiled knowingly. “The world distortion won't allow you to go much farther, anyway. We’re nearly at the edge of the world, and the closer you get, the worse the ratio between walking and achieving a distance in the base world becomes. Here, in case you didn't know, for every step that you take, approximately four times the distance is traveled in the base world. As you get closer to the border, that ratio approaches an inverse, then scales higher as you continue. You’ll ultimately wind up needing to cross significantly more distance.”

“I've heard of this.” Andre joined the conversation with great interest, reaching out and signing his name on the notebook as well. “Something to do with how the dimensions are not layered on top of each other, but are at oblique angles.”

“Exactly!” The nobleman looked Andre up and down, then fluttered his hands together in tiny claps. “The Terraformer himself, in the flesh! I will tell this story to my grandchildren. I do hope they will believe me!”

“You believe in yourself more than I believe in you, if you think you're going to have grandchildren.” Luke grabbed the quill and scrawled out a rough approximation of what he thought his name was supposed to look like. “Where do I go to get some fighting in?”

“The Murderhobo!” The vivacious nobleman somehow managed to keep himself very still, even though his smile looked like it was going to tear his cheeks. A slight giggle burst from his lips as he tried to speak around his nervousness. “It is such an honor to meet you, and you definitely came to the right place! This is the front lines, and we're currently experiencing an invasion! If you're allowed to take the field, it will be an all-you-can-fight buffet. If you don't mind waiting, I will try to get relieved from my position so I can watch you work. I hear your Abilities are… *huhh*… exquisite.”

“Get away from me.” Luke stomped away and didn’t look back as the Ascender watched him leave, his garish, gleaming chest heaving with every breath.

“Gracious me!” The man pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at his forehead. “What an experience.”