(Clarifications:
/-- [] --/ = Represents a thought, thought process, or inner realizations.
)
________________________________________
My senses return to me; Neck colder than I remember it, head lighter than it was before. Then my eyes open.
Goddamn it this light.
Shadowing myself with my arm, the light goes away before I can even adjust to it.
"What the—"
The brain fog after waking up is something I’ve gotten accustomed to at this point, so when it clears up instantly, and gravity takes my arm back—
"Lyanna?"
I'm laying down again, aren't I.
—the first thing I expect to see isn’t her looming over me.
Fu-
"Up?"
She stares down at me, already having had this exact interaction before. But this time her expression is different. Last time she looked scared. The time before that, guarded. Checking my face the way you check a door to see if it's locked before you try the handle.
Right now, she just looks tired. Not of me specifically. Just tired, the way people get when they've been carrying something heavy for long enough that it stops feeling heavy and starts feeling like just the way things are.
Just tired.
I don't say anything about it.
"Yeah."
My rough voice clears out.
"Also," she says, "I won't carry you in next time. I'm done with that."
Her black curls skim over my face as she leans back, catching the dim light from the corridor.
"I—"
The infirmary flashes before my eyes. Her voice calling my name in the hallway. The way she looked when I woke up that time, like she'd been holding her breath for a while.
I can’t recall that entire memory.
"...Trust me."
She stares at me with a firm gaze. A gaze that she’s never acted on before.
"Sorry about that."
She doesn't answer. Looks away instead, picking at something on her sleeve. That same habit she has when she doesn't know what to do with her hands.
I watch her for a second, and then I notice something.
She stopped checking the exits.
Not literally, at least in a way. I mean the thing she's been doing since we met. The constant low-level awareness of where the door is, how far I'm sitting from her, whether she can move if she needs to. It's been running in the background the entire time, visible if you knew what to look for.
Right now she's just sitting there. Picking at her sleeve. Not tracking me.
That's new.
I don't make anything of it. I just file it away and let it be; Only letting the force wanting to perk the edges of my lips win.
________________________________________
Three hours later we're moving again and I let her up to the front.
We don't talk much at first. The engine fills the silence well enough, and she's looking out the small window at the walls going past.
Same walls, different positions, same stone. I've stopped really seeing them. I think she has too.
*Sigh* Fuck me.
At some point I say something stupid about the route, she corrects me, I tell her she's wrong, but she turns out to be right. She looks quietly pleased about it in a way she doesn't try to hide. I let her have it.
Something about that loosens whatever was left between us.
It doesn't announce itself. It just happens the way most things do. Small, unremarkable, gone before you can name it.
…
We're just talking. About nothing particularly important. And she's not checking the exits.
I check in with my vessel on the ceiling out of habit more than anything. Do a routine sweep, the kind I do without really thinking about it anymore.
Then my hand slams on the brake.
Lyanna catches herself on the panel when the cart lurches. I’ve already thrown my arm across her before I register we're stopped.
"What—"
"Hold on."
I push the vessel further out. Cross-reference it against the markers from hours ago.
The number that comes back doesn't make sense.
Wait.
I run it again. Same result. My heart pounds on my chest when I realize what I’m seeing.
According to everything I tracked before the trial, we should be two, maybe three kilometers past the entry point. Accounting for speed, time, and the modifications I made; Three at most.
Seven…
I stare at the number.
Seven.
That doesn't— that can't—
I do it again. Not because I think I'll get a different answer. Because my brain needs the extra seconds to catch up to what the number is telling me.
SEVEN??
That's not a rounding error. That's not me miscalculating our speed. That's a week and a half of walking distance, gone, without either of us feeling it happen.
SEVEN FUCKING KILOMETERS????
/-- The circle architecture under the pedestal --/
It really was a transport circle. But that doesn’t make sense. How can transport work in here. I was blocked when I tried it.
EXCUSE M—
“Damn”, I find myself bitting at the corner of my lower lip.
My head flops on the seat. The planes that hold the physical realm and the astral split. And I switch to Soul Walker to confirm with my own eyes what the vessel showed me.
It fucking is…
I end up staring at it for more than a few seconds.
My head slips a bit more to the side while I float up in the ceiling, Lyanna not taking it too well, the 7 seconds of dwelling actually leaves me with an answer. It’s an answer I’m not sure where to put or to even accept. But it’s the most realistic one.
Either, there are barriers placed here with specific rules and conditions, or—
Lyanna grabs my shoulder and shakes it hard. I don't feel it, but I can literally see it.
I'll come back to that in a second…
Seven kilometers. Corridors stretching back further than the vessel's range, confirming it. I hang there for a moment and just look at it.
This doesn’t feel right…
The relief is real. I won't pretend it isn't. A week and a half of this maze, gone, that's not nothing. But the relief and the wrongness sit next to each other without canceling out, and I don't know what to do with that except note it and keep moving.
That trick doesn’t work too well this time around; Seems like that bin is full.
I partially remember the circle, but only a tiny fraction of it. Which isn’t really enough.
I file it under things to think about later; The bin now overflowing.
I come back to my body, and Lyanna has both hands on my shoulders.
"I have news", I say both in excitement and discomfort.
She punches me in the stomach before I can get the rest of the sentence out.
“AOW, THE FUC-?”
"WHAT HAPPENED??"
"THE FCADISSP’S— THAT WAS HIGHLY UNNECCESARY”
Her small hands somehow sting harder than an adult’s punch, which I already know how to explain but WHY THE FUCK DID YOU HAVE TO DO THAT??
“Y-YOU PASSED OUT AGAIN SO I WAS FUCKING SCARED”
“Whoa whoa don’t say that”
“WHAT?”
Rubbing down my stomach hoping it’ll desensitize, I’m not in a perfect state of mind to be answering a thought-out response, “Just don’t say… that.”
“SO, YOU CAN PASS OUT FOR THE 3RD TIME, LEAVING ME TO FIGURE IT WHAT TO DO, BUT I CAN’T SAY A SINGLE WORD??”
“Ok Ok”
I am way too overstimulated to handle this.
“Just breathe in and relax.”
“OH COME O—"
“I was using Soul Walker, so I technically didn’t pass out—"
"THEN TELL ME THAT!"
"I was going to—"
"THEN TELL ME FIRST!"
God I love teasing her.
…
We go back and forth for long enough that she eventually runs out of steam and I get a chance to explain. She calms down enough to hear it.
“I was using a skill called ‘Soul Walker’ to separate my…”
I wait for a bit waiting for her to catch the cue.
She doesn’t.
“Separate my Soul.”
Lyanna stares at me like I just fed her dog food.
"It's a skill that basically helps me detach my soul from my body to do observation and research. Simply."
I’m starting to realize Soul Walker doesn’t really sound that cool. You’re just a spectator upon activation.
“So that’s why you ‘passed out’?”
“Yep. And, on the good news.”
I subtly check her expression hoping for some excitement. Only to be met with a somewhat distasteful one.
“…Well before I get to that, there are some things I need to explain first. I made a mind map of this maze-”
“So it is a maze.”
“Yes.”
Did I forget to tell her?
“Before we went through that trial—”
My hand twitches, hitting the control panel. Her leg jerks, heel hitting the seat.
“I memorized local markers to help pinpoint where we were. Reference points, so I could track where we were relative to where we started. Which works because I don’t have a GPS or Google Maps in my head.”
Wait- Did I check after we passed through the trial?
“The estimated distance we should've covered, accounting for everything, was three kilometers at most.”
“Was it bad?”, She sits with her elbows resting on her knees, cradling her chin in her hands.
“No actually it was good- Wait why did you think it was bad?”
She curls her lips backward thinking for an answer or a way to pull back her words.
“Just the way you said it”
I watch her face.
"We’re at seven”
The number lands. I can see it in her expression. Whether it’s the confusion of how big those numbers actually are, or the subconscious relief she’s not sure how to interpret, it’s painted in pastel on her face.
"That’s… a week and a half worth of distance we won’t have to cover. I-I’m not sure how to explain how that works, but the only logical speculation I can make is that…”
I take a deep breath after realizing I’ve been running on one this entire explanation.
“It’s because of that circle underneath the pedestal.”
She sits with that for a moment. I watch her work through it in the same way she handles most things. Takes a breath. Sets it down somewhere internal.
"Ok."
She squeezes my arm, quick, like a reflex, and then lets go before either of us has time to make anything of it.
Did she—
The first time she's touched me without needing something.
I look back at the road.
She just…
The event doesn’t leave me for a while. It only lingers while the corner of my lip wants to lift again.
…
We're close to the dome now. I can see it in the aerial view, centered in the maze exactly where it's always been, looming slightly larger with each turn we take.
I've been watching it for days. Tried every approach I can think of to get a read on what's inside: vessels near the walls, vessels above, partial splits from Soul Walker. Every time I switch to anything near the dome, I lose access immediately.
Once, for about half a second, I caught something. A sphere… I think, mid-flight, heading toward the interior wall.
Either it’s a trap, or, there is something or someone in there. Active.
I haven't told Lyanna that part yet.
When I do, she thinks about it for a second and then says, "Could it be people?"
The question sits in the air between us.
"It could."
I’m still not entirely sure.
.5.
The distance has been dropping slowly enough that the transition from possibility to reality hasn't fully hit yet. Then I look at the aerial view and it hits.
500 meters. We're actually doing this.
I give her a metal switchblade, explain why,—
“There is a possibility that I might not make it through this. Sure, I have this skill, but with the limitations I have, I can’t just quickly create anything I want.”
—and watch her face go through three different emotions in about four seconds.
“I can create small things like swords and spears before combat,”
/-- The trial --/
“But I don’t think I can handle doing that again. It takes way too much of a toll on my body and mind. It’s not like I can use the skill willy-nilly like drinking water from a cup.”
She sits there, slowly breathing. Eyes on my chest.
Then she speaks up.
“Don’t you even mention the word dying— Don’t you dare even consider that.”
She tenses up. Visibly distressed all sudden, words wanting to slip out faster than she can think. I’m not sure why.
“I’m saying this just in case the worst case happens. It’s a real possibility, and I don’t want to leave you completely defenseless. And in all honesty a little knife isn’t going to do much, so I’ll engrave a few circles in you.”
“What does that mean?”, the anger she has for the comment I made makes itself obvious in her tone.
“You’ll know when we’re close”
Lyanna struggles with that for a bit. Head flying everywhere, mind trying to come up with an answer.
/-- I shouldn’t even be giving a da̴̡̓m̵̧̢̼̭̺̩̖̙̊̋ͅņ̷̦̣͙͖̝̺͙̘͆͋̈́͊͘—
Fuck off.
“But, like I said, that’s the worst-case scenario. Either way we’ll meet in the afterlife, so Don’t Worry!”, I offer a sarcastic thumbs up because- What the hell am I doing.
Her hand instantly flies to my head, the force knocking it back.
I recover faster, only to be flicked to the side by a slap to the cheek.
My head hits on the seat harder than she punched me.
And there comes the headache.
“YOU- YOU- YOU’RE LIKE A GOD. THERE IS NO ONE ELSE WHO CAN JUST CREATE ANYTHING LIKE THAT OUT OF THIN AIR. HOW DO YOU NOT SEE THAT.”
She starts shaking me like a soda can again. Fueling the headache that I’m desperately trying to drown.
“But I. Am. Just. A. RANDOM. GUY. WHO JUST GOT THIS ON PURE CHANCE. I DIDN’T ASK FOR THIS!? I DIDN’T WANT THIS SKILL—WELL I DID, SORT OF, WHICH IS COOL NOW THAT I HAVE IT—BUT I DIDN’T WANT TO END UP IN A SITUATION LIKE THIS.
I DIDN’T WANT TO LOSE ACCESS TO ALL OF MY SKILLS AND SPELLS JUST TO BECOME THIS. I DIDN’T WANT THIS. I DON’T HAVE ANYTHING LEFT NOW. NO ONE. NOTHING. I AM A FUCKING HUSK OF WHAT I WAS. I USED TO BE ABLE TO KILL SOMETHING THOSE… THING WITH ENOUGH MANA TO ACTIVATE A SKILL. I COULD KILL SOMETHING BRAWNY LIKE THAT IN 15 SECONDS FLAT.
TO HELL WITH THIS ‘SKILL’, IF THE CONSEQUENCE OF USING IT IS ME SUFFERING FOR A FEW MINUTES, THEN WHAT THE HELL IS POINT OF HAVING A GODDAMN SKILL LIKE THIS?”
“I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU THINK, JUST KNOW THAT IN HERE, YOU MIGHT JUST BE THE MOST POWERFULL PERSON BREATHING. I’VE SEEN SO MANY PEOPLE DIE BECAUSE THEY COULDN’T DO ANYTHING, AND YOU’RE HERE WITH THIS… ABILITY.
SOME OF THEM DIED BECAUSE YOU CAN’T KILL SOMETHING LIKE THAT. NO, EVERY-ONE OF THEM DIED BECAUSE THEY COULDN’T DO ANYTHING.”
Lyanna hyperventilating, heart racing faster than mine, I break the deadlock.
I grab her arms. My hands rising to her hands, keep them fixed between us.
“Ok Ok. I’m sorry for whatever I said. I lose track of the conversation when I’m frustrated so I can’t remember much, but what I will say is this.”
The ground shakes, and for the first time, I manage to embed a template vessel into a material. Not on top, directly in it.
Aerial view displayed in mind. Vessels form in a line. Leading directly to the dome.
None go in, but they cover the surroundings of the dome. Completely encompassing the walls.
“Whatever happens we’ll fucking survive. Got that? Sorry if whatever I said upset you, but I am not in the mental state to keep discussing that, so please let’s just move past it.”
The relief Lyanna feels is slightly overshadowed by the unsureness of what just happened. But she lets it go. Just like that.
“FINE... But, never mention something like that ever. It’s not even funny when you say something like that.”
And I’ve just now noticed the tears under her eyes.
She lets a sigh out, and she stops sounding like a strict parent.
“Please just never say anything like that"
I let her hand go. Poke her cheek with my finger, to which we both share a grin. Hers letting the relief surface.
She’s getting more comfortable with me. Maybe a bit too comfortable… Why are children always like thi—
Back on the accelerator, I get back on my portable GPS, and start navigating again.
Engine rumbling to a start as the circles trigger in a methodical order to turn the axle. The silence finally breaks, apart from the stuttering of Lyanna’s breath.
The wheels start to roll in a slow spin, debris on the ground shakes the cart a bit. Then a thought arises.
/-- Her family --/
The realization makes my heart skip a beat.
Oh…
I glance back at her again. Lips curling inward. Head resting on the headrest, face to the left.
Shit… I forgot about that…
I want to stop the cart again and address my mistake, but something in me doesn’t want to.
“I’m sorry for what I said. I won’t… joke about that again.”
She only nods. No verbal answer. Only a nod.
Who the fuck even am I now…
.4.
400 meters.
The guilt's mostly gone now. What's taken its place as the distance shrinks is something quieter and less useful; Nervousness.
What it it’s boss room? Would I be able to handle it?
Realistically I can handle a fight. The trial proved that, even if it nearly killed me. But the problem isn't the fight.
It's what comes after.
The physical cost, the recovery time, the fact that my body has been adding up everything I've put it through, and I don't know what the total is yet.
Thinking long term, yeah I’ll be going through hell after the fight, but that’ll be fine.
/-- And what was that whole ‘vessel creation thing before’...? --/
God I hope I’ll be fine.
.3.
300 meters.
Lyanna’s off to a nap in the carriage. I’m still on the wheel.
The switchblade isn't enough. I knew that when I gave it to her, and I gave it anyway because I didn't have a better answer yet. But now I do.
This won’t make much sense if it’s going to be overlapped with other circles. I need a uniform design that’ll fit seamlessly. The layers shouldn’t…fallladabla— don't fight each other, for a lack of words.
Energy distribution upon activation should be even on the anchors now that I’m remembering. It should be able to hold the pressure of all the layers of circles I already have rather than compound it.
If she ends up in something and I'm not there, whatever I put on her has to work without me constantly needing to maintain it.
With a pen and paper on hand, like texting and driving, I’m designing and driving. Only with the stakes of getting it wrong won’t be a fender bender. More like a big boom boom ‘AH ME NEED HELP’, ‘OH ME ALREADY FUCKING. DEAD.’ explosion.
In already seriousness though, she needs to last as long as it takes to survive. So I need the most optimized set of circles I can design for full amplification efficiency. Something stable and reliable.
“I’m not going to half-ass this.”
The sketched-out lines aren’t the smoothest due to the rattling of the engine, but I can mentally fix that before creation.
The design takes shape slowly. Pentagon base. Wide arc rim. Grid inside the pentagon, structured tight. Five anchors modeled on the Sarovian moons. Circular, but fractured in a way that doesn't translate well to description, more felt than seen.
And in the center, a symbol that sits somewhere between the Greek α and the Cyrillic Ч, the convergence point where the two halves of the circle's intent meet.
It's a simple design. That's exactly what makes getting it perfect the hardest thing about it. Simple circles have nowhere to hide their flaws. One anchor line off by a degree, even on a minor scale, and you're not looking at a failed circle anymore.
You're looking at a bloody fire.
.2.
200 meters.
She’s still asleep, I’m still in the final phase of finishing this circle.
“Stealth”
I sketch the circle on a separate sheet of paper before I draw it on the final. A test draw before I commit to creation.
My hand is shakier than I'd like. I do it anyway, slow, correcting the moon anchors twice before I'm satisfied with the spacing.
Lines following the shape of a pentagon, wide circle arcing around it, grid-like lines inside, anchors resembling five the Sarovian moons—circular, fractured—and the α/Ч convergence symbol in the center.
I look at it until I'm sure.
Then I create a metal box to my right and memorize the circle in full.
My heart is suddenly going faster than I want it to.
I create the circle, and it phases through the box.
A stress-inducing second passes,
“IT WORKS!!”. I get my voice down remembering she’s asleep.
My head and body flop back on the seat in relief and I lose grip of the accelerator. We come to a slow stop.
Covering my face hoping I don’t let the tears out.
The relief settles in perfectly.
.1.
100 meters.
The engine idles as we roll to a stop, the slow rumble and the rattling of the friction damaged wheels not letting the silence settle.
I head to the sleeping Lyanna on the cushioned seat inside the carriage.
“Come on, wake up”
I shake her a bit; Subconsciously not wanting to wake her up, consciously needing to.
She squirms on the seat, only to settle again.
I shake her again, this time a bit harder.
“Lyanna”
Her eyes jolt open. Body springing to life like I just tazed her, mind searching for something familiar.
Then she locks onto me.
With her body propped up on her hands, she lets the knot in her throat out.
“Yes?”
I’m kneeling next to her, trying to hide the subtle smile layering on me.
“Come on, we’re close now”, a chuckle slips while I say it.
. 50 meters .
The brake slowly comes down on the engine, the circles shut off and the axle starts to lock.
I hop off the cart while it’s still rolling on idle.
Aerial view opened up, I quickly scan through our surroundings. My body recovers from the jump just as fast as I start my observation.
All clear.
In the time it takes me to do a partial analysis, the cart stops a meter or so ahead.
I switch back and invite down Lyanna from the other side.
“You ready?”
“Hm”, she nods.
Her response lies somewhere between a confident Yes, and a nervous or fearful No. Like her brain isn’t sure what’s the right answer. A reaction pretty similar to mine.
“We’ll be going by foot here. This thing makes a bit too much noise.”
“It’s not that loud to me”
“Well we need more mobility. And if something goes wrong, I’l— We’ll have the engine here to come back to”
I sensed vibrations near the dome entrance a few minutes earlier, that in itself is enough to convince me that something there is moving. I still can’t get a clear view inside though, even with vessels covering the perimeter, it’s still completely dark and hollow to me.
I take hold of her arm—
“Eh?”
—and guide to a wider pathway.
Doing a quick scan again just because of the unpredictable nature of this maze, I spot an open pathway with walls spread apart wider than the one we were in. I place her in the center of it.
“Ok, stand there perfectly still.”
“Why?”
“I’m going to-”
Wait.
Is this a good idea—? I mean testing this first of her. If I let her go first and activate it with a defect I might’ve missed, then it’ll backfire on her.
If the circle does have a defect I missed, at this distance from the dome, with the distortion field I've been picking up for the last hundred meters, there's no way to test it safely. If I draw it on her first, then it backfires on her.
Not me.
Her…
I sit with the thought for second.
“No, actually— give me a minute”
I’m not risking that.
I gesture her aside and create a metal blade. The air swirls a bit, then the blade drops in front of me, exactly where she was before.
With the sheet of paper where I drew the circle design in my hands, eyes closed after memorizing it, I visualize it in my head.
Thoughts flowing as if it were gushing through rocky terrain,
I materialize it.
The circle spawns; Blocks instantly form and lock, kinetic and precise. The multiple anchors layered over each other begin to accelerate into a slow spin. The circle itself starts spinning with them.
Air suddenly doesn’t want to sit still. Scattered dust on the ground shares the same opinion.
Both vortex into the circle's diameter. The way a hurricane does at the start of its cycle.
The layers where I stacked different circles disobediently separate for a second. It exposes all twelve for one visible instant before merging back into one.
In that second I see them all spinning at equal speeds, only leaving me questioning the blue-tinted circle that was rotating fractionally slower than the others.
Not a significant difference, but it puts me on alert.
A burst of something I can't analyze in the second it exists ripples out when the circles merge again. It passes through Lyanna, reflects off me and the cart.
The vortex thins down to the center core of the circle. The top and bottom flatten down onto the circle.
Sparks. Arcs running throughout the circle. Lime-green and white dots spring out into the vortex.
A light glow emanates. The circle starts heating.
Come on…
The intensity of the light holds. My blood runs colder than the atmosphere here while the thermal store of the circle starts climbing exponentially like a dam with a wide gap in it. Not broken yet, building pressure faster than the structure can hold.
It’s heating up a bit too much.
Shit.
The dot particles swirling in the vortex burn into ashes. Heat spreads out from the anchors of the circle into the rim. One edge in particular starts turning bright red.
A small fracture opens.
SHIT.
My hand is already moving before my imagination catches up, and my body is already going for Lyanna.
I cover her in the nick of time, and the fracture sparks with a loud crackle.
It ignites. Flames ablaze. The circles phases through the blade, which disintegrates on the spot.
IT’S NOT DONE YET! “IT’S NOT DONE YET!!”
That leaves the circle to remain, I immediately cover the both of us.
With what’s left of my imaginative power in the moment, I stack 3 layers of Astralite metal walls between the circle and us. I do my best to reinforce it, but—
TOO LAT—
A sudden silence falls over us. The circle, a ticking time-bomb, runs out of time.
It implodes into a singular ball, then detonates out stronger than the implosion. The walls shatter like glass. The Astralite walls shatter like glass of a dropped mirror.
I wrap around Lyanna, and the impact comes at me with force of a ballistic missile impact.
Debris flies. But the blast itself is what carries me.
I don't even get time to think, that's how fast it comes, and that's enough time for me to end spine-first on a wall.
My spine shatters instantly. The back of my skull flings back into the stone and the concussion hits before I feel anything else. Paralysis takes over from the neck down. Lyanna catches a fragment of Astralite to the forehead but nothing worse.
/-- I̸ ̶m̷a̶d̸e̴ ̵s̵u̴r̵e̸ ̶o̵f̵ ̸i̷t̷ —
The sound that comes out of me isn't a word. It's not really a sound either, more like the involuntary compression of every muscle I have left that still works, forcing air through a throat that isn't cooperating. The kind of sound a body makes when pain is the only stimulant.
Blood mixed with regurgitated gastric fluid starts drowning me from the inside. Breathing becomes a decision I have to make consciously, every second.
That’s all I can feel. And all I can see is Lyanna up, eyes about to gouge out.
“A- A-”
Her reaction tells me I look worse than I feel.
I try to visualize. Fail. The emotional and visual cue won't come; My imagination won't connect.
Activate!
Static. Black and white dots like an analog signal with no source.
Activate Damn It!
Nothing changes. Breathing gets harder.
Fucking DO SOMETHING!
Blood gushes down my body, time feels like it’s slowing down.
/-- Idea --/
The position of the dots rearrange.
/-- Circle --/
I don't consciously think it. I imply it.
The dots rearrange into a simple circle. No anchors. No detail.
That works.
Now fucking work with it.
/-- Anchor. Semi-Adjacent Lemniscate – Overlapped. Arc lined rim.—
The full design of a regeneration circle builds subconsciously, piece by piece, pulling from memory and filling the gaps with logic where memory fails.
Ten real-world seconds pass.
Ten excruciating seconds for me. Ten increasingly terrifying seconds for Lyanna.
Her gaze doesn’t leave me during those seconds. Rampant thoughts keep her still, unable to move, wanting to move.
Her breath starts stuttering, chest heaving while her head bleeds.
The blood comes down to her right eye. It flushes red.
She blinks. Her body won’t let her move, and the only thing it permits is her eyes; Moving fast, doing what her legs want to do.
That’s what she does for 7 out the 10 seconds. Then something changes. Not in her, but around me.
I don’t clearly see what happens next.
The rim of the circle is the first to appear. But no blocks this time.
It just appears. Fades into existence.
It materializes in a circle around me, and then comes the rest.
Anchors, lines, everything. It all comes in just as fast.
This entire process of creation takes exactly two and a half seconds.
The anchors and the inner designs of the circle spin up. The momentum of the anchors driving the spin of the circle, it starts to glow a lime hue. The dot particles from earlier, shining a lime-green light scatter like dust in the spin.
A deep rumble sends vibrations running by accident, and three more circles spawn in.
They merge into one brighter circle, and separate again. Merge, and separate again. Merge, then separate again. Merge, separate. Merge, separate.
Two seconds pass and the oscillation is so fast the circle is barely visible.
Then they merge one final time with a bright flash.
It slams down on me.
The regeneration instantly kicks in.
My spine snaps back into one, all the blood and vomit eject out of me.
I didn’t even know my eyes were closed until they jerk open. Same goes with my body, only that I’m off the wall and up before I’ve fully healed.
I get back down quickly. Elbows up, hands on my face. The tears come before I can stop them and I don't let them show.
Oh thank fucking god.
I rock back and forth while my body decides what it wants to do with its new supply of oxygen.
“Lyanna, are you ok?”
“You…”
Her blank stare doesn’t stray off me even now.
“Well one thing’s for sure; ‘I might just be the most powerful person here’.”
A sigh of relief escapes me, pulling a smile along with it.
The sigh turns into my lungs gasping for air again.
“Very corny… I know…”, that was meant to stay in my head.
She comes back to her senses, and lunges. Not for a strike, but to wrap around me like gauze on wound.
“Are you ok?! You- I thought-”
I groan a bit when her grip stings like literal gauze on my wounds.
I start patting her on back. I don’t feel my body do it, but I know I’m doing it.
“Hey Hey, I’m ok. I think.”
Sensitivity comes back to my legs and I push us both up. My kneecaps crackle like brittle bones, which nearly takes me back down.
I create a circle of healing. Blocks form upon creation, locking in to form the flat circle. I’m on edge this time around. Not entirely sure whether I visualized correctly, not completely sure if I did it properly. I barely remember what I imagined.
It phases through her, and luckily,
I’m not a complete failure.
The thin gash on her forehead, almost reaching her scalp, closes. The skin that was previously separated becomes one.
“Now are you ok? Do you feel any different?”
I run my hand through her hair and inspect her scalp to cure my worry.
“Yeah. I don’t… No nothing’s different”, she shakes her head. Eyes a bit red, almost like mine when I was choking.”
My breathing relaxes.
“That’s good. That’s good”
I keep my upper-body by using my hands to my knees as a pillar.
What went wrong? Did I—
Starting to slip into my own world, the stimuli of Lyanna patting my back brings me back.
I let my eyes stay idle.
The circle failed at the blue-tinted layer. I already know what it is.
The stealth circle.
I fucking knew it. That could’ve fucking killed her if I’d set it off on her.
/-- So much for joking about it --/
…I know.
I stay where I am for a moment, hands still on my knees, not moving. Just sitting with the fact that I noted it. I saw it spinning slower than the others, flagged it in my head, and then decided it wasn't significant enough to stop for.
One fractional degree of hesitation.
That's all it would have taken and she'd be the one on the wall instead of me.
/-- Could’ve created a circle of regeneration if so--/
But That’s NOT THE POINT. REGENERATION CAN’T ERASE THE PAIN CAN IT? EVEN THE REGENERATION ITSELF IS PAINFULLY HORRIBLE. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU EVEN ON ABOUT??
I’m back on the ground again. This time upright, hands on my face trying to hide the smile curving on my lips after realizing I could’ve fucked up so horribly.
I don't let that thought go where it wants to go. I just file it. Not in the overflowing bin, somewhere more permanent.
Never mind.
I get to my feet properly this time, testing the weight through my legs before I commit to them.
Lyanna's watching me find my balance. She doesn't say anything, which I appreciate more than I'd know how to express.
“Well, let’s get a move on”
I’m almost testing my legs when I put my right foot forward. I don’t really get to finish my experiment when Lyanna catches me before my knee goes fully.
I’m almost testing it when my right foot goes forward, but my leg disagrees immediately. Lyanna catches me before I've registered the stumble.
“Should you be walking already?”
“I adapt quickly. So, I’ll be fine.”
She keeps her arm around my waist anyway to help keep my balance. I spin around, sliding my hand under her waist, and she’s now suddenly in my arms.
We both stare for a bit.
“…”
“…”
Then I let go.
“Y—”
I didn’t mean let as in ‘drop’ let go, I mean I just placed her down. Why would I drop her like that. Why would you even consider that?
/-- I literally said nothing --/
Well then who did—
/-- YOU DID DUMBASS --/
“Yeah I- Uh- Yeah I’m never doing that again.”
“Good idea.”
“Thank you.”
I clear my throat before I get to imagining.
Pictures of what I collected on weapons in my recent times float into my field. Each ranging from modern, hence complicated mechanisms, to old and medieval, relatively easier to model and understand.
I lock in on a few.
9 seconds pass, and the first of the few starts to materialize.
The blocks form as they connect.
Rectangular metal box, long and carved out in the center. Wide, but thin arc at the front. Elastic band connecting the ends of the arc. Strap under the entire contraption—
Lyanna reads what it is.
“A crossbow?”
It drops. Arrows form next to it. I answer her after I’m done.
“Yes.”
In the span of 2 seconds, a sword falls onto my right.
“As for you,”
She lifts her head.
“I’ll be giving you ‘Stealth’. There’s nothing much I can do from a defense standpoint. I can try circles again, but…”
I’m not too keen on that.
"What does it do?"
I stare at her blankly for a moment before getting to the answer.
"It basically refracts light around you and makes you harder to see. You’re not invisible ‘technically’, but you’re something close enough that if something's tracking you by sight, you'll have a few extra seconds."
"…what?”
"In some situations, ‘a few extra seconds’ means everything."
Her face says it all.
“…what?”
She holds the awkward expression for second, then the side of her brain that should be processing what I said picks up with her pace. She nods slowly, the way she does when she's accepted something she doesn't entirely like.
"And if it—"
"It won't."
"Are you sure?”
A beat passes when I reluctantly check it on a box to my right. It disappears, signature still present.
"…Yeah."
I jolt back to the cart, get to the control panel and shut it off. Pack everything I need then and there. And get back to Lyanna laying on the seat again.
We move.
/————————————/
The dome entrance is forty-eight meters from where the circle exploded.
Forty-eight meters, and neither of us says anything for the whole walk. The ground is still scorched in a rough circle behind us, the Astralite fragments still cooling, and we walk past all of it without looking back; That’s if ‘we’ doesn’t include Lyanna.
Using the line of vessels as a guide for my senses, I’ve homed in on the entrance to the dome. The vibrations I was picking up earlier are stronger there but still not clear enough for me to analyze it for a signature.
Whatever’s in there, it’s active is all I can tell.
I doubt it’s some sort of trick in a place like this, I think, but…
“…”
…
Fucks sake.
An estimated 4 minutes is what the journey there should take, and that’s exactly how much time it’s taken.
Tall pillars shooting up on either side, the opening curved into a giant arc. It takes up the entirety of my vision, filling it with pure darkness ahead.
Nothing to see through the entrance.
This one-way barrier is the same as every other one we've passed through in this maze. Same texture, same darkness, same total refusal to tell me anything about what's behind it.
My mind starts to pull on a memory before I got here.
We stop in front of it.
Crossbow to my left, sword to my right, sack of arrows on my back,
I really didn’t want this.
For some reason my mind is saying ‘Go, Go, Go’, the blood pressure doing backflips in my head doesn’t want that. In reality neither do I.
Is there really no other option left? There has to be a way around right?
I check back with my Aerial vessel.
The vicinity of the dome comes up before I even push the link to.
I just need something.
Anything.
My focal point flashes through the perimeter of the circle. Every inch that I can find, I see.
Please just give me something.
*Thump*
The rim of the dome. I slide my sight along it.
Nothing.
I try my luck with the corne— Over the dome.
*Thump*
The saliva in my mouth starts feeling more viscous.
Wait is there a barrier there?
“Lyanna catch me”
“Sorry?”
Heh.
Soul Walker flips on, I’m flying directly at the top of the dome.
I can’t sense one. Maybe this could work.
Analyze activates and…
Wait wait…
There’s no barrier here.
THERE’S NO BARRIER HERE!
I go to switch into my body, but a thought arises.
Like a car hitting the handbrake while the accelerator is down, I drift back at the dome. This time with a lot more energy than what was carrying me earlier. The realization is so freeing, I can feel the air rush into my lungs down there.
The surface of it hurls at me, and with the speed I’m flying, I push my body into it going right hand first.
A ripple spreads out the way water does, with the sole exception that the water here is solid matter.
Come On!
I push harder.
My astral body starts vibrating, and something I don’t see is happening.
Trails of mana, the mana that makes up my astral body and soul, start to leave my astral body.
From my abdomen to feet, the trails of what makes up my soul start to flood out.
*Thump*
My fingertip slips in.
YES!
The speed I’m going at the wall keeps going up, the composition of my soul keeps going down.
/-- 91% --/
*Thump*
Jolting back up with Lyanna gawking at me, I’m sent back to my body without any warning.
Well Never Mind!
“Kiddo, I have an Idea!”
She stares at me the same way she did last time.
“Ok…”
Let’s FUCKING GOO!
With the adrenaline running in me, I can barely think. But one thing I can do is get on with it.
“Ever seen the heavenly staircase before?”
Her eyes widen at that.
“No?”
“Well—”
I aim my left arm to the top of the dome.
“—now you will have”
The blocks flood upward, each locking in patterns of flat and ascending.
The first steps appear and my head turns to it; They’re forming in a diagonal upward.
It seems that I’ve been unconsciously holding my breath.
Thank god this worked out.
I don’t know what to make of the situation. My mind is somewhere between ‘Oh thank god we can get over’, ‘We’ll be passing through the 50%-way mark’, and ‘It’s still not the end’. Each conflicting in their own way.
A few hours ago I was nervous about getting here— Well deep down beyond nervous. Maybe that’s why the circle failed. But b̷e̵f̸o̵r̵e̴ t̸̠̑h̸͍̆a̶̛̞t̴̛͔ t̵̘͐͝h̵͎͚̿̕ȇ̶̖̚ř̴̲͓e̸̜̿̓ w̴̜̯͌̏͝a̶͖͝s̸̢̔͋̎͜ t̵̞̔͗ͅĥ̸̻̽͜ȇ̷̺̖͙̖ ṫ̷̜͕͗͑͋͠r̸̛̬͉̪̥̈́í̵̜͖̺̇a̶̮̱̒͆̄̃l̷̥̺̩̊͊͗̽—
*Thump*
Ah piss off already.
I turn my head back to Lyanna, arm folding down, the staircase building up, I start to realize I’ve been overreacting a bit. Possibly a bit more than ‘A bit’…
More than ‘a bi—
“Anyways with that over with, next comes the other side. I’m not entirely sure what to expect, but I don’t think we’ll have too much of a problem.”
“Ok”, she nods while her eye fixes onto the ground, then onto me.
“So then, we’re half-way out of here?”
“Yes”
I may or may not still be a bit high from the adrenaline.
My head flying at the stair case again,
“Did you bring everything you need from the cart?”
She signals me a firm thumb-up.
“Understood. Well then—”
/-- If she goes first and the structure isn’t stable, or if somehow there’s a defect, she’ll be the one… affected. But if she goes behind me, then I’ll lose my line of sight to her and that’s not preferable either. --/
“—after you.”
Lyanna’s hands tighten behind her. A bit taken aback from what I said, and unsure of herself climbing the ascending stairs floating, and not tipping over. That’s because visually there’s no structure holding the stairs, but anti-gravity is behind that.
She stares at the growing top for a second.
“Are you sure?”
I take a quick glance at the stairs, up and increasing.
“Definitely.”
It takes her a while to process her thoughts, but then with a deep breathe, she returns to me with an answer I wasn’t looking for, but she’s given anyway.
“I trust you on this you know, so I really hope we don’t fall off”
My hand ends up on her back,
“Heh—”
,Then it slides to her right shoulder clinging onto it like a rope. I slide her closer using that as an anchor, her left arm sits comfortably against my right.
“—I’ll gladly put myself up if it comes to that.”
Her head folds onto my waist.
“You should really stop saying stuff like that.”
“I know”
/--I have nothing to lose.--/
We stand like that for a second. Staring at the gaping entrance ahead, and the stairs forming in front of us. Quiet like this hits different.
I tap the edge of shoulder with my hand.
“Come on, let’s go”
My hand slides down, with the sword behind me, I don’t expect to grab onto anything just yet. But it connects with something.
Someone.
“Lyanna?”
Palm to palm, her hand links with mine. The warmth of Her’s dissipating into mine; Cold and dry. I pause then and there. My heart does things I don’t want it to do.
Something I didn’t think I would get to experience again.
When you already have something you’re already comfortable with, you don’t go out of your way to indulge yourself in it completely because you know it’ll always be with you. But you lose that thing, the regret of losing it starts making you depraved to reach for it again.
I don’t think I’m any different.
She adjusts her place, I straighten my legs, and now we’re both next to each other.
I feel that static that surfaces every now and then when I’m frustrated, but this time it shows in a different form.
She jerks her head, letting the curls of her hair rest in the way she wants them to. A part of her eyes show in the middle of it, glowing brighter with a smile on her lips.
Her voice is the first to break my static.
“Let’s move!”
After a few hours of dullness in her tone, she finally lets the light shine through.
I let my eyes turn first, and this time I properly feel the ends of my lips curling up. The grip I have on her tightens, the same goes for the crossbow still sitting on my left.
My legs get the headstart, I’m leading her until we reach the first step. Then I—
A loud screech with the pitch of a fork scraping on metal. Air booms down in a shockwave. It starts to get awfully warm.
I instantly lock onto it.
The blocks forming the stairs gather at the top. Not forming onto the stair, just frozen on a flat top like they’re trying to cross an invisible sheet. Stuck like flies in a spider’s web; A barrier I somehow couldn’t see.
My heart sinks to the floor. The rest of my body wants to follow it. I end up staring at it even while my eyes are dying to close.
Air in my lungs stay still, fixed to where it is.
*Thump*
How…
This doesn’t make sense…
*Thump*
But that means…
That means…
*Thump*
No no no.
*Thump*
Analyze should’ve sensed this—
*Thump*
How could it not detect—
*Thump*
It…
*Thump*
Then—
*Thump*
That—
*Thump*
Means—
*Thump*
/-- BREATHE --/
The screech stops in a flash; The entire structure of the staircase disintegrates. Ash at first, then nothing.
“We’ll still have to go through this”, my head returns to the gaping entrance of the dome. My eyes staring into the darkness ahead, the darkness staring back at me.
“Aarius…”, she doesn’t turn to face me, just at the same direction my eyes are targeted at.
I stand there for a few seconds. Don’t do anything. Don’t think of anything. Only my subconscious works.
The grip I had on her loosens, my hand flops down.
Lyanna does the same—her brain stuck in a state where she’s not sure. Not sure with relying on me, not sure what to think. For some time now, she’s been comfortable with everything happening since… Simply put, relying on me to guide the way.
Even now it’s the same. She still trusts me to find a way out, even if it means risking a lot. She relies on me because right now there’s no other to rely on.
She feels the same impact I feel. No other way around, completely stuck to face whatever’s ahead.
It’s a very similar feeling that’s pressing on our chests right now.
We’re both utterly fucked.
While my body’s been on autopilot, it’s led me right next to the side of the dome.
An instinct in me to punch out all of my anger lets itself out.
“GOD DAMN IT!”
Back and forth, my right-hand crashes onto the surface.
Again, and again. I’ve been fucked once more.
“WHY DO YOU KEEP FUCKING DOING THIS ME!?”
STOP LEADING ME ON IF YOU’RE ONLY GOING TO JUST FUCK ME IN THE ASS ALREADY. EVERY SINGLE TIME. EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TIME.
Why does nothing ever work. Why the hell didn’t analyze sense it. It’s not a skill on the local scale, it has access to all the puzzle pieces it needs to make sense of everything in front of it, so why can’t you just do your fucking job.
Or is it just me? Am I the reason? Is my luck so bad, life so undeniably shit that you chose to work the fuckery of this universe on me specifically? Is that what this is about?
Why. WHY. AM I SO WORTHLESS THAT I SUFFER MY ENTIRE LIFE? IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?
Emotions overlap, creation triggers, circles I wasn’t even focusing on materialize. My hand absorbs them all. It slips into the surface of the dome.
And ejects me with the force of a nuclear explosion.
“FU—"
My head goes rolling first. Then I hit the wall behind me, face-first.
I flop on the ground, and not even Lyanna reacts to it.
/-- T̶͔̈́h̴̙͗ȇ̵̬ ̶͙̔n̶̠̏o̶͚̿i̵̠͝s̵͔̿e̶̟̅.̴͉͐ --/
Blood gutters out of me like a leaking drain.
“If I’m so fucking worthless then Just Kill ME ALREADY.”
Gravity circles active on my hand, it’s heavier than any other thing here. So when my body can’t hold it in anymore, and the only thing I want to do is crush something, my hand plays right into it.
“WHY LET ME GO ON SUFFERING. YOU TAKE EVERYTHING FROM ME, THEN LEAVE ME LIKE THIS TO TORTURE ME— SO WHY THE LIVING FUCK DO YOU KEEP ME BREATHING. JUST TO TORTURE ME?”
/-- Ḯ̸͍͈̇̎ţ̸̱̭̃'̷̻̔s̵̬̍͆̊ ̴̟̐̐s̵͖̮̎̓͘ȏ̷͈͕̓ ̷̩̪̰̓̈́̋f̶̘̞̽̈͗ǘ̶̲̈c̵̨̔̕͝k̷̰̲̋i̵̠̞̩̋ń̸͇̩g̸͇̻̉̒̕ ̶̗̌ľ̵͚͙͠ͅo̵̓ͅǘ̵͎͚̇d̷̤̮̔ --/
My hand curls into a ball. The emotions I’m left with, h̷̠̟̋e̶̖̿͝r̴͔̲͐̈́,, all the static. This skill-
“WHY THE HELL GIVE ME THIS WHEN YOU’RE ONLY TRYING TO KILL ME. What’s The Fucking POINT??”
I’m done… I’m just… done. I’m tired. I’m fucking tired.
I don’t call for the activation, it just happens. The same sword I used to finish the clone of me, forms over me. Hovering there, waiting till my emotions drop from its threshold.
I give up. Whatever the hell you want, fucking take it already.
The only thing I do here is glance at Lyanna already jolting at me. Desperation drives her legs to flex.
Call me selfish.
“Good luck Lyanna”
I’ll pass her my skills right after my core splits. She’ll learn the uses on her own the same way I did.
Thank you for staying with me kid.
I let it fall.
…
<<̷̣̜̭̾̓̌̈́̃̈́̀̾̿͜͝N̶̢̙̻͍̺̼͚̣̱̫͖̬̉͐̐̆̐̇̏̈́̎̌̓̈́̇̚͜͠ớ̷̹̤̤̬̗͈̙̦͖̆̾̆͒̊̓̍̉͝>̴͓̟̙̾͐̈́̓>
It disintegrates inches in front of my chest.
Only ashes remain for a second before ever that fades away.
I lay there staring at the ceiling. The ceiling staring back at me, the gaping entrance still locked at me.
“Fuck you”
I let the breath that’s been a knot at my throat release. Simultaneously regeneration circles spin alive even though I don’t call for it.
/- … -/
Tears run down on the sides; I don’t feel it again. Lyanna slows down and crawls next to me. She sees what I don’t.
“Aarius!”, Her voice shaky.
“What Was That For!?”
The blood drowns into the floor, this time leaving the stain of red behind.
She places my head on her lap while sits down. My subconscious can’t get past the rattling of her voice.
“You sound more mature than you look like you know”
“Answer Me!”
How.
“I don’t know”
What do you want from me.
“What Were You Going To Do!?”
…
“Forget about it”
Her hand cups against the side of my cheek. I can tell she wants to slap me again, but seeing me like this, she doesn’t go for it.
“It’s Not Something I Can Forget About”.
At this point she’s just sobbing pointlessly.
“Let’s go, end of discussion”
I go to lift myself up.
There’s no point in cont—
Her arms around me. Head on my shoulder, chin covered under my ragged coat. She doesn’t let me.
“Why do you try to hide what’s wrong.”
“Let me g—”
Her grip around me tightens; Strapping around me and not letting me move.
“I- I-”
I don’t try to put on a comforting smile, nor does it come naturally. I don’t have the energy to do anything. I just let the blank expression sit.
“Lyanna let me—”
“Don’t ever try that again”
The obvious pain in her voice is something I’m not sure how to process. Whether it’s because I’m not sure if she’s being genuine—
She’s a child. Children lie, I lie.
Why are you so gullible to believe it…
…I— I don’t know—
Why are you even talking about this—
Are you so pitiful that you think she’s acting in a scenario like this…
…I don’t know.
/-- Not everyone is like you --/
Using some of the energy I had, I let my right arm embrace her. My forehead lands on her shoulder.
“Understood”
/-- 97% --/
My breath stutters when I manage to push those words out, some of the energy I had returns to me with it. The corners of my shoulders jerk up a bit as a reaction to it.
I tap her back softly the way I did before. The only difference here is I’m unable to feel anything about. Not in the literal sense, just that no emotion crosses the pathway between my conscious and my brain.
“Let’s go”
I stand u—
“Wait”
I turn my head expecting to see her face dried of tears for some reason, only to be met with her eyes red and still swollen with tears. The glare off her cornea is a good indicator of it.
“Yes?”
Hurry up. The faster you get along with it, the faster we get through this.
“Please don’t leave me alone here.”
Every joint in my body locks.
My grip on her tightens. I still manage to stand up.
This is me doing it consciously.
“Whoa—”
I pull her up and balance her before she tips over. Lower my entire head to her because my under-eyes are too flimsy.
“I won’t”
Cloth created in my hand, I wipe her tears even though she’s still struggling to control her breath.
I don’t know what to do about that, so I’m not going to do anything about it.
“Shall we?”
I extend my hand. Not asking for her trust, but at least some reassurance.
She gladly accepts.
“We shall”
I nod right after she does, somehow manage to get a hint of a smile onto my face, and we’re once again right in front of the entrance again. Still intimidating even though I’ve spent a few minutes looking at it.
Crossbow ready, I can create the sword once I’m inside.
/-- I have other plans for it --/
Fuck the circles, I’ll create them as I need them inside. My memory can handle it.
Once again, palm to palm, her hand links with my right.
"Ready?" I ask, mostly because saying something feels better than not.
"Nope", she says. More honest than I’ve ever been.
"Me neither."
I lead the charge in, she follows.
Darkness spreads in behind us with every step, my heart’s racing faster than a bullet with every step.
When will the encounter begin? It’s a question racking my head.
My grip stays firm on Lyanna, and I slide her closer.
It begins.
The resistance hits first. A fabric-sensation, the thing brushing my eye, and then it passes. It’s akin to passing to a mesh filter.
This resistance only gets stronger the further we go. I push Lyanna behind me, but hold her as close as I can using the both of my hands.
I let my left hand out of her for a second to test something, then hold it right in front of me.
The resistance shifts to hand; It feels like fabric and acts like fabric.
The attempt to create a block divert to the resistance fails when I realize there’re no anchors to use as a reference.
It’s just too dark.
But then the need for it disappears when a bright flash of light catches me off guard.
“Shit”
My eyes slam shut on reflex. I hold still, one hand still on Lyanna, waiting for it to pass.
Using the vessels as a point for my senses, I nudge them in to try to sense what’s happening. They prove useless.
For two seconds, my eyes sting as light bleeds through my eyelids, red and insistent.
My pupil shrinks to let my retina adapt, then it widens back when the burning ends.
…
The first thing that hits me, even before the visual, is the smell.
Not the maze smell—stone and cold and the faint metallic trace of something that doesn't have a name—but something else entirely. Something familiar, dating back further. Something that has sharp and green behind it, something that belongs to the outside of buildings rather than inside them. Something living.
I stand there for a moment doing nothing.
Lyanna's grip on my hand loosens slightly, and I feel her shift weight. She's looking around the same way I am, trying to orient herself, trying to find the edge of the thing. There isn't one.
Only houses and stalls. Pavement running through the middle and around. Lamps lining the rim of it.
I don’t mistake it.
/-- Possibility of an illusion --/
Analysis activates before I decide to activate it. Running at a 100%—yes, I've been running it at 75% this entire time, don't ask me why—its data floods in all at once.
Eyes darting at the green and saturated grass on either side, trees seemingly sprouted,
It’s likely a construction class circle or spell, most likely a circle.
I grab her hand back and she returns to reality.
“Don’t trust what you see yet”.
A bit dishearten is what her reaction tells me, but seeing that we both notice there’s no one, no people in sight, that seems to justify her over-expectance.
I keep my head shifted to her while she gets to her answer.
It’s still the same temperature as before, but there are ‘trees’ and ‘grass’ and ‘buildi— the point is it’s not possible for organic life to be able to survive for years here. It’s way too dry; There’s no moisture here. That’s one of the reasons I can see this being complete bullshit.
This also leads me to believe this isn’t going to be your conventional type of ‘boss’.
I drop the crossbow.
It’s useless if what I assume isn’t wrong. It could just be egotistical thinking, but I really don’t give a shit right now.
Then I take the leading step forward.
Perspectives don’t shift awkwardly in a way that indicates optical trickery.
That’s off the table now.
It could be constructive like I predicted. I’m not seeing anything that doesn’t say no.
2 steps forward, nothing happens, and the dawning question of when this’ll start begins to gnaw at the back of my brain.
“Aari— Ar?”
“I know.”
Why is nothing happening. We’re on a long pavement junctioned with a wide one curving, in what I think, to span around the entire dome up. Only half-way through right now, and there’s a fog beginning to build.
This isn’t good.
I’m losing visibility.
2 steps forward, I’m fully prepared to create at will,
“Lyanna, get close—
Analysis kicks into activation.
The force of activation rattles my core in a way that’s never happened before; It leaves it oscillating for 2 seconds. 2 seconds of enough oscillation to leave my signature flying out.
I drag Lyanna next to my cover.
“Don’t move—”
Blood splurges out of my mouth. Normally the effects of full activation shouldn’t be this intense. But this time, it does.
A force I don’t dodge or expect to arrive crashes through the center of my core. Fragments of soul material fly behind me, shattered.
Wretched fucking pain squeezes every part of my body.
“LYANNA!”
My head turns to her, what I can only visualize as a gong the height of my body shoots inches from my face.
Creation gets to work.
Circles of everything that the failed circle had before form under her. They phase through her. I can’t see her anymore.
Activation is a success.
The gong hits me. Speed so fast my body doesn’t move even while it’s coming right at me.
The impact first makes contact with the left side of my face. Bone matter instantly fractures.
Second impact is my left shoulder. Dislocated and shattered in the same manner.
My head jerks to the left. It leaves a corner of my spine split.
The velocity of the gong finally adds up with my body.
The dome ejects me.
I’m shot out through the entrance of the dome, shattering through the walls in my path; Something that’s not even possible.
I break speed with the last wall I slam on. It leaves my lungs in ok condition while I had exhaled, but my heart jolts with the sudden impact.
It ruptures a ventricle.
/-- 15 seconds --/
That’s enough.
Regeneration instantly spawns over me. I’m up in 2 seconds flat.
No thoughts erupt out even though I can feel my subconscious wanting to leak.
Missing 20% of my core is already enough.
A burst of energy floods into my legs, which is more than enough to bring me up in a flash. From my left arm, down to the tendons of my right foot, a sharp sensation courses through my nerves and they stiffen instantly. Only releasing when Acceleration layers on me.
My head jerks up, tracking down the pathways in front of me. Because this time, I don’t need to have my map open.
A boom erupts behind, and I break through the air in a jolt; Passing through the pathways it shoved me through, the walls I broke through, healing like thermal foam expanding.
Left.
My body curves through the arcing pathway within a few milliseconds.
Right.
A sudden ninety-degree turn; My body almost slams into the wall when I don’t shift fast enough.
Right.
I bounce off the walls when the forty-five degree turn becomes a slit-sized passage that I barely manage to slip through at this speed.
Right.
Another ninety-degree turn. Much more comfortably executed.
Two Right’s at once.
Heading at an exact One-Hundred-and-Eighty degree turn, the dome is already straight ahead.
I’m already past the entrance when I realize that I’ve just seen the dome.
Darkness swallows me once again, my speed instantly chokes to a simple run, but this time I come out of it faster than when I first went in.
What I assumed was a village comes into view again, and I’m once again on that long pavement.
Shit, where is she.
I layer acceler—
Analysis surfaces the second my core stops oscillating. Parts of my core that had broken out come back to me flying, to which the force of it pushes me forward like a gust of wind. I stumble on my feet before regaining balance.
The fog disappears. Acceleration breaks when I see her in my vision.
Eyes wide. Chest heaving. One hand pressed flat against her sternum like she's checking whether her heart is still where it's supposed to be.
“Lyanna?”
She’s right here in front of me again, already noticed blood drooling from my mouth.
I don’t look away from her; Even her arms lock around my waist, face buries in.
Dark-blue tints my vision as an entirety for a second or two. And instead of the normal implication I get from analysis for activation, this time it appears as plain text. Plain English Text in my vision.
The letters scramble. Attempting to form words, but not able to yet.
“This has never happened before”
Is this why Gran doesn’t want me hav—
The tint fades away, I find that my eyes are closed. They open.
“There are… people?”
I look down at her to confirm whether she’s an illusion or not.
Analysis clears up.
The jumbled letters finally form into words and the skill somehow reads through my thoughts.
Markers appear in my vision, pinned to surfaces and structures, fixed even when I move my head. And the data I see displayed shows undeniable proof—
[/—Wood: Organic, age-consistent grain patterns. Estimated growth time 40-60 years]
[/—Cobblestone: Compressed sediment, moisture retention. Weathering]
[/—Atmospheric humidity: 65%. Inconsistent with {Save: est -00:10:00}]
My eyes stop moving.
[/—Thermal variance: Consistent. -Unable to display full data-]
[/—Vegetation: Active photosynthesis read. Growth rate nominal. -Unable to display full data-]
[/—Structural integrity: Load-bearing walls. Authentic settling patterns over time. -Data stream too large-]
[/—Organic/Conscious signatures: 23 confirmed.]
—that I was wrong.
I read through it once.
Then again.
“It’s real”
The palpitation in my heart leaves me shivering a bit. But only shivering when the rest of everything in my body locks again. The key somewhere outside the dome— Or whatever this is.
My foot, which had been moving toward the next step forward, just… doesn't.
“I know!”, She shoves her face into my waist again.
Words force their way out, even if my throat’s dried up.
“Holy fucking shit”
Her grip tightens around me.
A few seconds pass while I stand there. Again.
Is this real? Tha-That seems too good to believe. But Analysis can't get anything wrong at 100%. At that efficiency it has access to all the information the context can derive— so that means the data can’t be fake.
But can it?
With the laws of this plane, it seems too good to believe that.
But consider the placement.
This dome lies in the direct enter of it all. Even on literature for any foreign planes or realms, a center dome like this forms a direct correlation to a large obstacle.
I don’t get it.
How can this be real then? It shouldn’t make sense—
But there are people here.
Lyanna’s here.
My head folds to her, breathing quietly and calmly. Her hands are shaking slightly, both of them, I can feel it.
The cut on her forehead from earlier has closed but the skin around it is still raw. Nothing new. Nothing worse than what she came in with. Eyes closed in the way you know she’s relieved.
With how she got here, and by the logical fact that she is here…
My eyes widen, pupil following the same chain.
…
I hold the thought for a second, not sure how to interpret it. Because if that thought is true,
…it means these aren’t constructions. It’s actually real.
“I smell bread”, she says with a calm in her muffled voice.
“I know”
Holy fucking shit they’re all real.
“I’m hungry”
“I know”
"What do we do now?”, she gleefully asks with a subtle gasp in her voice, still refusing to get up from the floor.
A smile as subtle as the gasp in her voice creeps up onto my face.
"I don't know."
We stay like that for a second at the edge of the pavement, both of us looking at the street ahead when Lyanna finally stops breathing into my shirt. The movement of it. People going somewhere with something to do. Stalls open. Smoke rising from somewhere behind the buildings.
I don't have a word for what this feels like after everything that came before it.
I've been in a maze for long enough that the concept of having options about where to go next doesn't immediately compute. There's a street. There are people on it. There are stalls, structures, what looks like a well about fifty meters ahead, and a general sense of a place that has been running long enough to have developed its own rhythm.
I start walking toward the street and Lyanna stays close. More so I keep her close.
The first few people who clock us do the same thing. Look, assess, continue. Not unfriendly. Just thorough.
One woman in particular holds the look a beat longer than the others. I catch her eye. She drops hers first, not uncomfortable exactly, just finished with whatever she was checking.
The smell gets stronger as we hit the main stretch of stalls. It's bread, primarily, and something savory underneath it that I can't place precisely. Lyanna's pace slows without her seeming to notice. Her head turns toward the nearest food stall the way a plant turns toward light.
"When did you last eat something that didn't come out of my imagination?"
She thinks about it.
"Why?”, the tone in her voice signals to me she’s obviously read the situation.
“No reason particularly”
“Before I got here?”, her arms sway while trying to maintain eye contact she suddenly thinks should be normal.
"Right."
I steer us toward the stall. Lyanna suddenly grips onto my arm.
I say ‘suddenly’ even though I saw it coming from a mile away.
The man behind it is somewhere in his fifties, broad, with the kind of steady hands that come from doing the same work for a long time. He's arranging something on the near shelf when we approach and he looks up.
His eyes do the same thing the woman did, except his lands on my coat first, then Lyanna, then back to me, and stays there slightly longer than comfort suggests it should.
I’m actually seeing a conscious individual after so long. It feels like a fucking dream.
He doesn't say anything about what he's seeing. Just waits.
Lyanna squeezes my arms a bit, I pick up on her hint.
"Morning"
Was that the right move?
"Morning." His voice is even. Careful in the way that isn't unfriendly but isn't open either.
"Anything you want from here?"
I scan the shelves. Bread in various sizes. Some wrapped things I don't recognize. What looks, improbably, like a burger sitting on a small wooden stand near the back.
Lyanna's already pointing at it before I've made a decision.
"Can we get that one, please?"
The man looks between us again.
Oh for fucks sake
The shirt beneath my coat is stiff in places where the blood dried and I didn't think to deal with it, and whatever Lyanna's got on her coat isn't subtle under morning light.
"Small question," he says. "Are you… new here?"
"Yeah."
He exhales, not quite a sigh.
"Meat's rare. That burger alone runs 21 silver."
I'd already been watching the man ahead of us in line.
And you bet your ass Analysis is still active.
The coin he pressed into the vendor's palm, the specific weight of it, the markings on the face. I have the shape of it memorized down to the worn edge on one side.
“One second’
I create a sack with 20 silver coins in my pocket, each one exact, and set it on the counter.
He counts them. His face doesn't change exactly but something behind it recalibrates.
"You’re missing one."
I produce the last coin.
“Lyan— Ly,”
I turn to her while sneaking in a glance at the vendor.
Her head rolls back as if I just shot her in the head.
“Ly?”
“Yes, now could you check your pockets please?”
“I don’t think I have po—”
Her hand freezes at one on the back of her coat.
Well. You do now.
She glances at me before taking a coin out of it. Then gives it to me after examining it like a rare rock.
I fix it on the counter.
“That should be enough right?”
He looks at the coin for a moment. Then slides it towards me.
"Never mind, you can keep it for 20. One silver doesn't really make much of a difference."
"No no no, it’s not really that fair for us to do that, so keep it.’
He looks up at that. Head turning to glance at something to the side of the stall. Something I can’t see from my perspective.
Lyanna leans slightly forward on the counter, not saying anything, just picks up the food we paid for, and something in the combination of the two of us seems to settle whatever thought was running in his head.
“Oh, what the hell”
He takes the coin. Pockets it. Then reaches under the counter and comes up with a folded piece of paper and sets it next to the burger.
"Ok listen, this is a map of the area. There’s no official name, but people here just call it the Isolated. Don't ask me why they named it that. Look around for yourself and you'll probably take a fair guess", He says it the way you say something you've said many times before. "Figure you'd need it."
"Thank you."
"That’s for the extra you paid”
He holds the look for one more second, then turns back to his shelves.
I take the map. Lyanna is already reaching for the burger before I've fully turned away from the counter.
We move off to the side of the street, away from the main foot traffic of 10 or 15 people and end up on a wooden round table. I unfold the map on the table while she eats.
It's hand-drawn, careful, clearly made by someone who knew what they were doing. The village layout is accurate from what I can see. Circular street spanning around the dome, one inner street connecting the ends, structures, what looks like a water source in the northeastern corner. The dome entrance we came through is marked with a small symbol I don't recognize.
Oh no wait, it is the entrance. Tall arc? Go figure.
And then there are other markings. Some are most likely for important locations or buildings I presume. That’s what I can tell off the general symbols at certain points in the outer street.
My eyes drift to a tall arc on the opposite side of the map from the entrance; same shape, just inverted. A second opening. I stare at it long enough that Lyanna notices.
She peeks over her seat to get a better view. That’s if a better view is an upside-down view— but who am I to judge.
"What was ‘Ly’?" Lyanna asks through a mouthful.
"What was what?”
Ok how do I explain this.
“You called me ‘Ly’ before. What was that about?”, she questions casually, and for some reason my throat goes numb.
“That was… uh…”
YOU KNOW THE REASON, SO JUST SAY IT. WHY ARE YOU HESITATING MY GUY??
“Well putting it lightly, it’s not the best to have your name surface in a place like this.”
Lyanna settles in her chair again.
“Why do you say that?”
I fold the map and put it in my pocket.
“I’ve had a small experience like this before.”
She only stares at me for a bit before going back to feasting. Doesn’t question it. And I don’t want to recall it.
Sarovia was always a risk anyway.
/————————————/
The weapons shop is Lyanna's idea and I let her have it.
It's set back slightly from the outer street, easy to miss if you weren't looking.
The sign above the door is a single carved symbol; Same straight-line design language I'm starting to notice on everything here, no curves, no softness.
I push the door open. A bell rings above us.
The smell is different in here. Metal, oil and something faintly floral underneath it that doesn't quite fit, like someone tried to make the space more livable and mostly succeeded.
I let the door close while Lyanna strides ahead.
There are weapons everywhere; Hung on walls, resting in stands, laid flat in glass-fronted cases that someone has kept clean. The variety is larger than I expected. Swords, spears, crossbows, arrowheads in more configurations than I've seen in one place. And the same design logic across all of it: straight lines, ninety-degree angles. Nothing that bends, nothing that has to.
I run a finger along the crossguard of the nearest sword. The deliberateness of it comes through the metal. This isn't a default aesthetic. Or sample template.
Analysis seems to have dissipated, but I can tell by the vibrations of the metal that it’s extremely dense. Denser than any sword I’ve ever used.
And that’s just the crossguard. I’m not sure if my judgement on the blade is right, but it feels even more denser.
I’m guessing it’s hard to mold with its nature. Or just a cultural thing native to… here.
I end up taking it to my hand.
And it’s extremely light too— What’s this material? I don’t think even Astralite comes close to this.
Lyanna is ahead of me already, moving between the display cases with her hands behind her back, looking at everything with the focused attention of someone who has been carrying a switchblade for weeks and has developed opinions.
She stops in front of a case near the far wall. Face lit up by windows lining the wall in front of the cases.
"These ones", she says.
"What about them?"
Her arms start swaying again.
"They look right."
Lyanna… What do you mean ‘look right’?...
I let the sword rest on its shelf, memorize the details and structure as much as I can, and come to look.
They're daggers, and mostly, a few short blades. Same straight-line design as everything else. Same deliberateness.
A throat clears behind us.
Our heads turn to the man standing at the back counter with one hand on his hip, watching us with an expression that is neither welcoming nor unwelcoming. The scar runs from his forehead across both eyes and down his left cheek, old and set deep.
"Hello there."
"Hello", I say.
I didn’t sense him.
His eyes move between us. My coat, Lyanna, back to me. Whatever his read is, he keeps it off his face.
"First question," he says. "How'd you two end up here?"
"It’s a long story—”
“Please indulge me”
I stare at him for bit questioning to myself the sudden inquiry.
“A circle that didn't work as ‘intended’. She had something similar."
He makes a small sound in his throat. Not disbelief. More like a category confirmed.
"And what are you after?"
Lyanna turns from the case and holds up the switchblade I made her. The metal one, slightly worn at the tip, the rubber grip showing where she's been holding it.
"Something like this.”
I don’t get my eyes off its worn tip, and he looks at the blade. Something shifts slightly in his expression. Not quite surprise, more like readjusting.
"Should you be carrying that?" He says it without any real weight behind it, the way you ask a question you've already answered.
"Yes", Lyanna says.
He looks at her for a moment, then nods once.
"Fair enough." He turns to me. "You?"
I've been thinking about it since we walked in. Close range is harder without skills to back it up, and with Creation available I'm not doing close range anyway if I can avoid it. I’d prefer something with reach. Something I can embed circles into without the weight distribution fighting me like a flying hose.
"Scythe," I say. "Not too top-heavy, but strong enough to last."
He taps at his shoulder while staring right into my eyes.
“Are you sure? They ‘sound’ cool at first until you’re faced to use it.”
“Yes.”
Something moves in his expression that might, in another person, have been amusement.
"Custom, then."
He walks to the corner of the shop, signals us over, and shows us the closest matches he has for the switchblade. Lyanna looks at them carefully, turning one over in her hand, then sets it down.
"They're the same as the one I have” “They’re the same as the one you have”
"They are," he agrees. "I've got nothing that improves on your current one off the shelf. Custom's your option if you want an actual upgrade."
"Then custom."
He nods. Looks at me. And I have a general guess to what he’ll ask next.
/-- Creation --/
I show him 74 silver. He takes the sack and counts every coin. Every single one, slowly, without apology for the time it takes. Sets the sack down when he's done.
"Give me two days," he says. "Come back then, and I'll have a tally and the pieces ready for finalizing."
"Understood."
He walks us back to the door himself, which I note.
“Before you leave.”
I hadn’t even step foot on the other side when he stops us.
“I’m not trying to get you to buy another weapon on top of the ones you’ve already ordered, but I recommend you order a Valkyrie alongside the switchblade for her.”
“Any particular reason?”
He kicks back, holds the door open using his foot.
“That switchblade won't be enough. Even modified. Short range for her build isn't something I'd recommend. But if she gets accustomed to something like a Ballistic Knife, what some people here call a Valkyrie, her survival chances are much higher. She can keep the distance she needs and still have reach of a long range.”
His eyes slip off me for a second when someone passing through hits their head on the bell; Its ding cutting off the last part of what he says, but I hear enough.
My only intention was to get her a weapon because she wanted one, not to actually put her in real combat. But that doesn't mean she won't end up in it.
Or alone on her way out.
I come down with the decision.
“Yeah, let’s do that”
“Noted.”
He lets Lyanna leave first, then watches us both step out.
The bell dings again as the door closes, and I direct us towards the street again.
I really don’t want to mess up the economy here by inflating—
Lyanna lets the knot in her throat release, and drags my coat, subsequently me too, back and forth.
“Thank You!!”
“Yay.”
/————————————/
We find a low wall near the far edge of the street and sit on it. Lyanna works through the last of the bread we picked up from a second stall. A quieter one run by a young woman who asked us nothing and watched us leave; I watch the crowd.
The village has the rhythm of somewhere that has been running a long time. Morning commerce, people moving with purpose, the low sound of things that need doing. But every so often something sits slightly outside the rhythm.
A conversation that stops when we're within earshot and starts again after we pass. A child who watches us from a doorway for just a beat longer than curiosity before being pulled inside by a mother who’s yelling at them while the food’s running cold.
I wonder if my mother did that when I was small.
Lyanna finishes the bread, then wipes her hands on her coat.
“Can I have some water?”
“Sure”, a wooden cup filled water materializes behind the cover of my arm.
She leans back on the wall, looking up at the fake sky. I tilt my head with her.
I notice now that the light’s not quite behaving the way light actually does. This one’s a bit too uniform. A replication of the sun sits above us, brighter than the rest. But comparing it to the sky as a whole, the lighting feels… too even. Still makes me question,
Who made this?
"What do you think happened to the people who came in before us."
It's not a question, exactly.
"Well, some are here in this village. Or city— Whatever this is. That ‘some’ are the people who are either lucky or skilled enough to get past everything you have to deal with here. But that leaves out portion of people that have neither.
That portion is the larger of the two, and it’s the people who don’t make it. I already saw one when I got here.”
"Really?"
"Yeah."
Her head turns to me for a second. Then up again. There's something in her face that isn't fear, it's past fear. She's been here for a while; She’s seen things I wasn’t around to see. I'm starting to understand that about her.
"Me too", she says.
We sit there for a while longer, both thinking about it, neither of us saying anything else. The village moves around us and the sky stays even and the coins in the weapons dealer's pocket are probably being looked at right now with the same carefulness he checked them with.
I'm not sure if this place is safe.
I'm not sure anywhere in this maze is safe.
But for right now, in this specific minute, sitting here on this wall with the bread finished and the day ahead and two days until the weapons are done, I feel something I haven't felt in a while.
Not happy, exactly. More like: here. Present. Alive in the ordinary sense rather than just technically not dead.
To think I was scared shitless not too long ago…
I glance over at Lyanna.
She's fallen asleep sitting up, head drooping slightly to one side, completely unconscious in the middle of an unfamiliar village in a maze she almost died in.
The first time she's fallen asleep around me not because her body forced it.
I look back at the crowd and keep watch, and let her sleep.
(Clarifi