The Restored: Chapter Thirteen

I whipped up the heavier gun that I’d been holding and released an infused shot, layered with every bit of magic that I’d been able to pack into it during the time that Devi had been clearing a path for us. 

Alyphize’s hand rose, her magic sparking violently, and we both unleashed our attacks at the same time. 

I hadn’t expected Alyphize to be here waiting for us, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t prepared an attack spell. I might be rusty, but delving into enemy territory without arming yourself wasn’t just foolish, it was dangerous. 

And when a sorcerer is given time to idle around and prepare a big blast, they can cook up some pretty nasty surprises. I’d written out a basic spell designed to increase the speed of my bullet, a spell that would cause the bullet to explode into shrapnel, and the most complex variation of the mass manipulation spell I knew. 

This one would drop the mass to zero if it encountered resistance over a certain threshold, and raise the mass at all other times. It let it slip through force wards, while hitting flesh hard. It wasn’t perfect – body armor could easily trip it up, for example – but it was useful. 

All three of the spells had been linked together into a single massive spell, and in the gaps between the three, I’d filled in with another bit of magic. This was a simple one that all sorcerers learned, and all it did was aura concentration. It let the spell take a higher auric throughput, and thus, hit even harder. 

With the spell created, I’d spent minutes filling it with power, then expanding the runes and lines making it up to be even larger, and then filling in the extra capacity granted by the larger runes. 

When I drew on Odril’s familiar power for an infusion, I didn’t infuse my aura hiding archstar. I didn’t really care if the shot was detected, after all. No, I infused the large spell with my third archstar, the one that provided me with a constant trickle of aura. 

I’d trained the archstar specifically to empower spells, and as the archstar melded into it, the entire thing sparked, outputting its maximum power in a second… and kept going. Every second, it released its maximum power, with no sign of stopping.

My bullet tore out of the gun, the heat, friction, and power instantly causing the barrel of my gun to warp and twist. 

Alyphize’s own magic reached for me, the luck surge aimed directly at my chest, and I could feel it shattering through the innate resistance to foreign magic that all living beings had. It ransacked my entire body, looking for anything it could push to failure. Heart attack, liver failure, kidney blockage…

The red light had caught the bullet in a tendril, and it was knocking it to the side. The entire bullet would miss. 

In the instants that passed where the bullet was slowed down and sent to the side, I forcibly built another spell, one for moving the trajectory of a bullet. Building up a spell that quickly was difficult, and if it had been anything other than one of the most familiar spells I’d cast a thousand times, I would have failed. 

Next to me, Jin and Devi were both moving into action. Jin’s sword was out of its sheath, glowing steeley gray with her aura’s light, while Devi was lighting up one of her boons.

Both were too slow. 

My bullet ripped through her head, and the vessel vanished. Her magic evaporated with a pop, and I let out a sigh. 

“I hate fighting curse mages,” I said. “They’re worse than illusionists…” 

“Rare, though, fortunately,” Devi said, glancing around. “Did you really kill her in a single hit?” 

“Yeah, well, don’t be too impressed. If I’d been even a little bit worse, I’d have been the one on the floor instead.” 

I glanced at Jin. 

“You said they were somehow creating projections out of the Fallen Void. How long till another one appears?” 

“Not sure,” Jin said, shaking her head. “After it seemed like people were beginning to catch onto her plan, she decided to retreat.” 

“I don’t even know how she’s sending projections of this level of quality,” Devi muttered. “I don’t know most druids capable of doing it, and a sorc should only be able to compose a rough one out of an element, not one so accurate. A witch should need hours. What, does she have a hundred stored up spells in bottles?” 

“Not exactly accurate,” I said, remembering the way they’d shifted around in my mass sense. “Their mass keeps fluctuating, like they’re an illusion one second, and real the next.” 

“Weird.”

“Well, Axel and I should keep offensive spells tense and ready to fire,” Jin said. “Devi can take photographs and do her thievery stuff.” 

I nodded and started building spells while stepping into the red room. The strange thing was, the instant I passed through the glowing red light of the box, the rest of the vault looked to be made of the smooth gray walls, floor, and ceiling as the rest of the Wandering Path, and every other sectioned off space within it that I had ever seen, including my own weapon vault. 

The Arenamaster had built shelves out of cheap metal on the walls, and on it were artifacts. Most of them seemed to be historical in nature: there were pot sherds, what looked to be chunks of stone walls that had been chipped off, paintings in various states of repair and reconstruction, and more. 

To my uncultured eyes, none of it looked to be extremely interesting. A few of them had some gemstones, and I spotted an ornamental looking dagger that was made of electrum, with designs of dragons on its hilt, the dragon’s eyes each tiny rubies. But none of it screamed rare and ancient artifacts. 

Devi began moving through the vault, slowly taking pictures, turning them over, and taking more. She was methodical, and had only worked through about a fifth of the contents of the vault when Alyphize materialized again. 

Jin cut her head off with a single sword swipe, and Devi continued to move through the room. She stopped at a cheap metal table, and then started swearing. It was so loud and so vulgar that it would have made even a seasoned airship captain blush, and I bolted over.

When I saw the paper that Devi had spotted, I started swearing as well. 

It was a list of names. There were other details on it as well, but the thing that caught my eye was the big, bold text at the top of the page, which clearly stated ‘the five enforcers’. Beneath it, underlined, were four very familiar titles, and one that was unfamiliar: 

Mist. 

Zone. 

Firefright. 

Deepwater. 

Soulwitch. 

Under each of the titles were a list of names. Dozens upon dozens of names for all of them, each with listed causes of death or failure. The reasons ran the gamut, but all of them were bad. Three from their souls being unable to bear the burden of being forcibly awakened that early. At least fifteen of them had died due to their unstable, experimental magic. Some had died from their overbound demonic magic not working correctly and feeding off their soul. A few of them had been killed in the arena. Above all, the number one reason for their deaths, especially in the early part of the list, was due to unstable body and spirit modifications.

At the bottom of the Mist list, I saw Axel Font, followed by Jin Delacroix. My name had been marked as a failure for insubordinate demonic bond, while Jin’s name hadn’t been crossed out.

The only list without any of them was Soulwitch. That simply had a check mark underneath it. 

There were more papers underneath the first, but I didn’t read them, distracted by a resounding clunk sound as Alyphize was killed by Jin again, and I jerked, almost shooting Jin on instinct. 

“Sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “Twitchy. We need to take these papers with us.” 

“Agreed,” Devi said, stuffing the whole pile of papers into her backpack. “I’m also going to take some of the ones that have a lot of magic.”

“You can see magic?” Jin asked in awe, and Devi shook her head.

“No. But I have a boon from a Dreamscape being that gives me a rough sense of the amount of aura inside of objects. It can’t account for quality – a really terrible artifact could still have a ton of aura for power – but it’s better than nothing.” 

“That must have been expensive,” I commented, aiming and firing as Alyphize appeared. 

“It was, but Nexus footed the bill. They spent somewhere close to a quarter of a million thin-panes for it?” 

Jin whistled, and glanced around the room, heading to the other side, which also had a table. This time, she was the one who started swearing, and Devi rushed over. I wanted to do so as well, but if Jin was getting distracted and wandering off, then I should keep watch. 

I killed Alyphize’s construct twice more before Devi started moving through the room, shoving things into her pack. She picked up a few things that I wouldn’t have suspected, like a glass sculpture of an elephant that I couldn’t see any visible runes in, and some things I did expect, like the fancy electrum dagger. 

Jin joined me on guard duty again, killing Alyphize with me each time she manifested. 

When Devi finished, she stepped up to the tear in the side of the room, and glanced at me, then Jin, not stepping through.”

“Based on what I got, I think we should blow it up,” she said. “The information is too valuable, and if these are components, which they have to be, they’re hard to replace. We stole what we could, and blow up the rest. We probably can’t get back here.” 

“Agreed,” Jin said. 

“You’ll hear no argument from me,” I agreed. “Let’s go.”

I pulled the bomb from my coat and began setting it up, twisting the runes to all align, then spinning my aura into the timing function of it.

“How long do we need to get away?” I asked. “Alyphize seems to only need a minute, maybe two or three, before she can re-appear.” 

Devi’s smile grew wicked. 

“Let Jin and I get out, set it for fifteen seconds, and then step out with me.” 

“Are you sure?” I asked, frowning. “It’s a big blast.” 

“You’re about to get to witness a part of the Wandering Path that very few get to,” Devi said. “Trust me.” 

I grunted, and the moment that both of them were through, I set the timer and bolted out. Devi’s magic snapped away, and the square, red magical room reappeared. I immediately paced back, not wanting to be caught in the shockwave or shrapnel. Jin did the same, showing good sense, while Devi just stood there.

The seconds ticked by, until there was a flash of gray light. It somehow stood out against the entire gray landscape, despite being made of the same material and color as the entire plane. The color seemed to warp and wash over the box, which folded out of existence, and Devi smirked at us, reaching out and shoving her arm into the gray light. She siphoned several sparks into herself as it began to fade away, then clapped.

“Shall we return to the Contractor’s base, now? Or is there somewhere else in Elderglass you’d like to re-appear?”