Libriohexer ~ 25!

<Celestial feces but that was close!> Bill swore in Sam’s head as he skidded through the door, panting from the effort.

Sam’s retort was cut off as golden light enveloped him in a halo, briefly lifting him from the ground. The experience from the final kills had only been shared by a fraction of the original kills, which meant he had gained enough to hit level twelve. That came with a host of benefits: he automatically received two Intelligence, Wisdom, and one Dexterity; not to mention four characteristic points he’d get to spend at his leisure. Now certainly wasn’t the time or place for that, but the sudden added bonuses left him feeling like a million bucks even after losing most of his team.

The second his feet touched the ground, he shot away from the door at his highest possible speed. Dizzy had already made it into the hallway and slammed the doors shut the second Sam was past the threshold. Sam took a quick look around, frantically searching for Finn.

Kai, Arrow, and Sphinx were all goners, but he felt weight lift off his chest when he saw that Finn had made it out in one piece. After seeing what had happened to Kai, being in one piece was an enormous victory. Dizzy looked deeply shaken but simultaneously relieved… at least until the doors started rattling as though something were trying to pull them open from the other side.

Eyes wide, Dizzy spun and grabbed hold of an iron door ring. The doors shook more ferociously, but she held the ring fast in a white knuckled grip. “This thing wants out, and I’m not going to be able to hold these doors for long. Sam, I think it’s time we trigger the escape plan.”

“Right. Right.” he repeated, shaking his head to get himself back into gear. The escape plan. Just because they’d made it out of the chamber of certain death didn’t mean they were in the clear. They still had a whole College to navigate. He reached into his flask and pulled out a single sheet of paper. It was a rather plain, unremarkable thing; but in Sam’s hands, with his unique abilities, that single sheet of paper was a Weapon of Magical Destruction. That single sheet was twined to a sheet of paper tucked away in a book bomb in the janitor’s closet near the junior faculty lounge. Whatever he wrote on this sheet would appear on that one.

That sheet, in turn, was twined to a sheet located in a book bomb in an annex classroom… which was twined to a bomb located in a supply closet housing novice gear. On and on and on it went: one enormous daisy chain of books, fifty strong, all twined together. All tied to the sheet of paper in Sam’s hand. Anything he wrote on it would appear simultaneously in every volume strategically scattered throughout the College. Creating such a long chain of spelled papers was incredibly dangerous and wildly irresponsible—transcription errors increased fivefold with every duplication. Any spell he wrote was not only guaranteed to fail, but certain to explode.

Terrible under any circumstances other than this one. There was no way he could set off all those planted book bombs at once, not using command phrases and not over such a vast distance. But with Transcription Twining, he could do the impossible… or kill himself. He had a relatively massive mana pool, and even if Bill assured him that he could survive this spell, Sam had the gut feeling that any little thing could drain his core into oblivion and then eat through his health like a ravenous wolf.

Sometimes you just had to throw the dice.

The doors rattled again, this time more forcefully, and the wood groaned from the strain. Dizzy had sweat rolling down her face. “Come on, Sam!”

Sam licked his lips drew a quill and then copied the most basic spell he could—an easy spell he’d practiced a thousand times. Ice Orb. He drew the first loop, imbuing the lines with mana, and his hand flowed through the motion. Right before he got to the end, he whispered a silent prayer and pulled a line short, raising his quill and breaking the spell form. The effect was instantaneous. The scroll erupted with a flash of blue, slamming Sam against the wall as hoarfrost spread across the ground and climbed over his robes. The cold was terrible, but the damage was minimal. Bill had picked the spell, knowing that of all Sam’s spells, it was the one he was most likely  to survive.

But that wasn’t the only effect. Even in the bowels of the College, Sam could feel the rumble of explosions rippling through the grounds. Every single twined paper had likewise blown, triggering not only the bookbombs themselves; but activating the myriad of spell scrolls tucked away in the pages. Even half freezing to death, Sam couldn’t help but smile. It had worked. Unfortunately, his joy was short-lived.

The pain that hit him next was a thousand times worse than the exploded Ice Orb spell scroll. A roaring filled his chest cavity as his core emptied in a rush—rudely ripped out to fuel the small army of failed Ice Orb spells. He couldn’t stop the scream that tore its way from his throat. This was worse than anything he’d experienced before. He clutched his chest as though trying to physically prevent his core from being ripped from his body. In a matter of seconds his mana was gone, and stars swam across his vision.

Next his health started to drop like a stone.

So much for Bill’s math. Several notifications flashed across his eyes.

Skill Increased: Book Maker’s Book Bomb (Beginner IV).

Skill Increased: Spell Alchemy (Novice III).

Transcription Twining (Beginner V).

Transcription Twining had increased to Beginner Level Five? That seemed excessive, but the thought felt like it belonged to someone else. Sam was sure that was important, but he couldn’t quite seem to remember why. To his right, the doors to the Reliquary of Trustees rattled ferociously. Dizzy shouted, but the words were all jumbled together. For some reason, Finn was by his side, but black was creeping in around the edges of his vision. Sam was sure that this was the end. But then, miracle of miracles, the pain abruptly ceased, and his rapidly dwindling health stabilized.

He was low. Fifteen of one-hundred and fifty.

“Drink this, old boy,” Finn was saying from a great distance. His friend thrust an odd vial full of red liquid into Sam’s shaky hand. But Sam’s head was so fuzzy that he simply stared at it. Everything felt so far away. Detached.

<Snap out of it, Legs!> Bill billowed in his head. <You gotta drink the potion.>

“Potion? Why?” He mumbled half-heartedly.

<Because you just got your brain sucked out through a bendy straw. Listen, it’ll make all the bad feelings go bye-bye. That’s all you need to know.>

“Okay,” Sam managed to take the vial from Finn and throw it down in a single long gulp. The potion hit like a haymaker. His health bar rocketed up to seventy-five percent, and the haze clouding his thoughts cleared somewhat. He blinked and quickly gained his feet. He’d done it. He’d survived.

“You need to go now!” Dizzy yelled at them over one shoulder, her face beet red from the strain of holding the doors.

“What about you?” Sam demanded even as he realized that she meant to sacrifice herself.

She grunted and shook her head. “If I let go for a second, these doors are gone and that thing is going to kill us all. I can buy you another two minutes. Just… just make sure it’s worth it. Make sure Finn gets out of here alive. That thing will tear me apart, but I’ll be back in twelve hours, tops. He won’t. It’s up to you, Sam.”

“I promise,” he solemnly swore. “I’ll get us clear.”

Sam took one last look at Dizzy, now wholly consumed with holding the doors shut, then turned and took off at a run. The health potion had taken care of the damage, but his mana reserve was recovering at a snail’s pace. Thanks to the generosity of the College, Sam had a ready supply of mana potions, all lifted from the Journeyman quarters. He popped a cork on a glass vial and downed that one as they moved, feeling power and energy surge back into his center. His thoughts came together as his mental energy was refreshed, and his body and mind worked more naturally.

The vial didn’t top him off, but it brought him back up to two-hundred Mana and left him feeling human again. He slipped the empty vial back into his flask—waste not, want not—then ushered his sole surviving teammate up the corkscrew staircase and back into the upper College. Sam made it about three paces into the connecting annex hallway when the entire world erupted with noise and power and motion. Stones groaned, the floor rattled the teeth in Sam’s head, and a wash of mana flooded through the hallway. Sam dropped to a knee staring around, trying to discover the source of the explosion. He’d already set off all his bookbombs, so it couldn’t be that, and even all of them going off at once couldn’t possibly release so much mana.

“What in the abyss was that?” Finn managed to ask as the rumbling finally subsided.

“Was that… was that us?” Sam wondered right as Finn spoke.

“Phft. Not on your life,” Bill replied with more than a little awe filling his voice. “I honestly have no idea what that was; and I know what almost everything is. It was big, that much I can tell you. Bigger than anything I can even begin to imagine… whatever the abyss it was is going to change the fate of Ardania. Nothing will ever be the same. Honestly, I don’t feel like sticking around to find out how the world just shifted.”

The annex was still abandoned, but that all changed by the time they rushed through an archway and into one of the central hubs that connected several of the main corridors. Sam just had to stop and look around at the throng of people milling around and the madness sweeping through the halls like a plague. There were guards everywhere, but they seemed just as frazzled and confused as Sam felt. Some were running around, screaming about fires and magic out of control all around the College. That bit had to be Sam’s handiwork, but just as many were just… standing there, looking completely lost.

Watching the mages was even more bewildering.

About a third of them were openly weeping and sobbing uncontrollably. Another rough third looked like they’d just seen death in the flesh; those were mostly muttering about the destruction of the College, and grumbling that nothing would ever be the same again, almost verbatim what Bill had said.

“How will we survive this,” a long graybeard whispered to a mage in opulent red robes. “The Accords are everything. They are the foundation and cornerstone of our people!”

“It will be lawlessness and anarchy,” the other replied. “At least for a time.”

“But anarchy creates a void,” a third spoke firmly, “and that void will be filled by those willing to do what must be done.”