“Sierra,” I say, activating the Communication Stone. “Sierra, can you hear me?”
No response.
I’ve been trying to connect to her item for a solid ten minutes now to no avail. That could mean one of three things: capture, death, or simply being out of range.
I hope it’s the latter.
Every thirty seconds, I activate Locate. With my magic reserves as deep as they are now, I can use it without fear of depleting my reservers.
Locate: Sierra Jade, Adrian Stahr, Kirin Uten. At level 12 in the Gold tier, the skill functions at ranges exceeding half a mile, and I can use it to find multiple creatures or items at once.
I dash around Zelin with the help of Shapeshift and Antimemetic Cloak, using additional limbs to speed my way around a trickle of citizens and adventurers that don’t know that I’m here. The city seems to have a reasonably strong adventurer contingent, because I see a lot of them racing towards the crater I created.
Best of luck, I think as I pass over them. You’re not going to find anything worth taking.
Briefly, I consider killing a few of them and Devouring them for temporary skills, but they’re Category 0s and 1s. Real ones, not twisted to be as strong as I am. It’s a waste of my time to take them down.
Sierra and Kirin aren’t anywhere in town, it seems. I pass through district after district, barely pausing in to take the faded grandeur of the Whitestar Kingdom’s capital city as I search.
I do, however, Locate Adrian underneath an oddly empty patch of one of the poorer districts. I almost skip over the area entirely, but instinct tells me to look again, harder.
My Antimemetic Resistance levels up twice, taking me by surprise, and I realize what’s happening.
Something here doesn’t want me to know it’s here.
That warrants invasion. I don’t care for Adrian nearly as much as I do for Sierra, but I’ve grown somewhat attached. Plus, he’s the only link I have to Sierra. I remember Kirin telling us that it was likely that I would be sent apart from the others, but it looks like we were all teleported into different locations.
Alright, this should be simple enough. Now that I’m actively focusing on my perception, I can see the subtle markings in the packed earth where entrances into an underground facility lie. I make my way to one and clear it with Hemokinesis, utilizing a droplet of blood from a pricked finger to wipe away the dust. It fades away easily—of course it does. Anyone who operates in this facility must have a way in and out.
The entrance is a smooth hatch with no visible handle and an arcane pattern carved into one corner of it. At a guess, that’s the lock for this door, but I have no key with which to open it. My blood magic is strong, but it can’t break through solid steel, and Soulblade attacks the soul of living things, not magic. I try to find a path with Bloodpath, but it’s airtight.
It’s a good thing my arsenal is so wide.
I kneel down onto the ground, keeping Antimemetic Cloak engaged as I place both hands flat on the surface.
It’s good steel. Likely magically enchanted.
Still, this is a low-power zone. Even if this is prepared for people at the peak of Category 1, I should far outstrip that with the amount of magic I hold.
Wraithfire comes alive, wreathing my palms in flames, and it devours the runes and metal hungrily, black flame melting straight through inches of pure steel without even pausing.
When I’ve burned a hole sufficiently large enough to drop through, I Siphon the hungering fire, sapping the power from my own skill. Left alone, it’ll burn for ninety-nine minutes, but I’d prefer to leave as little trace of my path as possible.
With the magic gone, all that is left is a normal fire. I douse it in my own blood.
It’s only after I drop through the still-molten hole that I realize I could’ve made this a lot easier for myself by just shunting the door into my nullspace.
I would shrug if I had a body to do it with. Even if it’s not sealed against that kind of attack, it’s good for me to practice my other skills too.
After the entrance is a short ladder, which I ignore, and a long, spiraling staircase. I make my way down as fast as I can, intermittently activating Locate to confirm that I am, in fact, getting closer to Adrian.
About a third of a mile down, I reach the bottom. A simple translucent door lies ahead of me, revealing hallways that I faintly recognize the make of. Above it are stenciled three simple words—United Containment Coalition. There is a single guard—they’re wearing a power suit, just like the ones I fought on the train oh so long ago.
The guard raises an overly complicated rifle in warning. “Identification.”
“Hello,” I say politely. “I’m Evelyn Carnelian. I like your armor.”
I do not, in fact, like the guard’s armor. I wonder how people ever managed to fight me in these. It’s clunky, the interface barely works, and the mobility is so low. I suppose a weak, unpowered human would find this powerful, but this actually hampers me.
At least it fits me. Then again, it’d be a surprise if it didn’t, because I Shapeshifted into the form of the guard after I took her head off with my Soulblade. I get to use Imitation for the first time since I unlocked it, mimicking the mannerisms she held in life.
Not a trace of her body remains. I’ve made sure of that.
With this on, it’s much easier to travel through the twists and turns of the UCC facility. Nobody accosts me—I’m meant to be here. I could also try to use Antimemetic Cloak, but given that the Coalition has a track record of dealing with anomalies, I’m sure they’ll have some way to track me even if I seem not to exist.
Instead, I keep my head down and march with purpose, taking the fastest possible route towards Adrian. My security clearance as a guard is surprisingly high, though I take the liberty to Siphon the wards one time when a door refuses to let me through.
Esoteric Recovery Unit, I read. I’m getting close.
Blood Sense tells me how many are within, so I’m completely unsurprised by how busy the seemingly abandoned unit is. Adrian is here, so I simply march at this guard’s usual gait until I find his bed.
I can guess what happened here.
He looks… healthy. Normal. Adrian’s sleeping, and his chest rises and falls evenly. He doesn’t look like he’s in pain, but my senses aren’t strong enough to determine if his soul is intact again.
“Adrian Stahr,” I drone in exactly the same manner this guard would have. “High command has ordered your immediate release. Please do not resist.”
“Excuse me, officer,” a heavily accented voice cuts in. I turn to greet him.
For a moment, blinding rage passes through my veins, but I register soon enough that Fala Teir is a full elf. Nothing like Sapphire.
“Yes?” I ask, infusing my voice with a special hint of bored irritation. “I am carrying out my orders, doctor. Do you mind?”
“Whose orders?” he asks suspiciously.
I think quickly, trying to remember anyone that I know has an affiliation with the UCC. “Researcher Callen. He’s requested Stahr.”
Adrian remains asleep, but he twitches.
“I invoke control protocol,” Fala says after a moment. “Nobody is supposed to be coming here and taking my patients. We have a deal. Callen would never send a lackey to break it for him.”
I don’t actually know what control protocol is, so I do my best to get on with it. “Carry on, then.”
“Your helmet.”
I remove it. There’s nothing to fear. I have the guard’s face. “You done yet?”
The elf’s brow furrows, and he presses one finger against my forehead. Ever so slightly, I feel a light touch brush over my soul.
Fala starts screaming, and everyone in the room stops, turning towards me.
Oops.
I sigh, dropping the disguise. You served me well, you awful hunk of armor.
Devour cuts its way through the powered steel in half a second, and I take two quick strides to where Adrian is sitting.
Both of us enter my Bloodpath.
Escaping is shockingly easy. Though these people might be specialists, there is awfully little they can do when so few of them actually have power that can contest mine. I’m too fast, and anything that can hit my blood form barely affects it. I make sure not to leave a mess behind.
Nobody is able to stop me on my way out. This is a facility built for research, I realize, not combat. Kirin is a complete and total outlier. Where did he even come from? His power is utterly incongruent with everyone else’s here.
I can figure that out after I’ve found Sierra.
Even after I resurface, I don’t stop. Only once we’re a solid mile away from the molten entrance I created do I let go of Bloodpath, leaving me standing in the middle of an empty alleyway, Adrian in my arms.
I lower him to the ground and shake him until he wakes.
“Adrian,” I say. “Will you live?”
He looks much better than he did when I left him, but looks can be deceiving.
It takes him a minute to wake up fully, reorienting himself to the dingy, stale air of the alleyway and the world around him.
I repeat my question once he’s fully lucid.
“He patched up my soul,” he says. “It’s like stitches, though. I’ll be fine, but I can’t break them now, or everything will go to shit.”
Irritating, but expected. "Don’t overstress yourself, but we do need to get moving.”
Adrian grimaces. “I was about to say that.”
I cock my head, questioning. “You know something I don’t?”
He points at his own. “All of us on the Hex project are linked. Sierra’s in trouble.”
Ruins of an unnamed village, 25 miles from Zelin
Sierra is not winning this fight.
She’s not losing, either, but she knows that it’s only a matter of time.
Wrath of a Peaceful Soul (Rare)
Tier: Bronze
This is a special skill. As one of the few souls on this planet that truly bears strangers no animosity, it is your wrath that the wise ones fear greatest. While this skill is active, you cannot die and your mana output and regeneration is tripled. You also temporarily gain every magic affinity at level 1. Casting magic affinities of mutually exclusive types triple the power of the skill while Wrath of a Peaceful Soul is active.
It’s only her new special skill that is keeping her in this fight. It asssists her Red Mage class, giving her the tools to utilize the always-active skill that the class operates around—Counterbalance. Mutually exclusive magic types aren’t supposed to be exist on the same person, but the Red Mage class breaks those rules, allowing her to cast fire and water, light and dark, push and pull simultaneously. More than that, it enhances the effect, giving her unique, flexible powers.
With over a hundred magic affinities active at once, she feels strong enough to take on someone twice her level.
But even if Evelyn’s counterpart is lower leveled than her, he has something she doesn’t.
He can adapt. Sierra’s Diamond-tier Appraise tells him that he’s only using two skills; Adapt and Universal Resistance.
“You,” Sierra complains, “are total bullshit. Understand?”
She knows a lady does not swear, but she cannot be bothered. This entire time, she’s been playing keep-away from a monster that’s capable of Adapting to keep up with everything she does. Her attacks lose efficacy every time they connect; right now, it is only the massive variety of magic she has that is keeping her alive and Evelyn’s Death Prayer intact.
RI1 barely resembles the creature it was when it entered. After her initial flurry of attacks, it changed its entire body structure. Rather than the almost-humanoid six-legged thing it came in as, RI1 now looks like something straight out of a nightmare.
A core of flesh the size of Sierra’s head is buried at its center. Dozens of spiked, chitinous limbs extend from that core, interlinking with each other and forming a twisted, skeletal sphere. Each of the bony limbs are covered with sharp cilia, short vibrating structures that tear at anything the expeirment hooks itself on.
It never stops screaming.
Sierra has long since abandoned the idea of defeating this thing in combat. She’s tried far too many options already, but as it turns out, even shunting it into a new, empty fragment created with a combination of star and dimensional magic is a solution that lasts for just under forty-five seconds before it rips apart reality with its hands to escape.
She’s running out of options, running out of time, and running out of mana. Sierra has to end this quickly, and she’s decided that the best way to do that is to leave.
Annihilation Magic - Erase. Sierra doesn’t normally have access to this, but her wrath is apparently worth a lot.
Creation Magic - Creation. It’s a basic spell, meant to create wood or metal, but when combined with its polar opposite…
She mimics her own special skill, creating half an ounce of antimatter.
Vector Magic - Redirect. Sierra is truly glad for this skill, and even though the fight is nowhere near over, she can’t help but think about where she can learn vector magic when this is done. This sole skill has saved her more times than she can count already.
This time, she uses it to direct the entirety of the nuclear-bomb-sized explosion into a sphere just larger than RI1. Her opponent is thirty feet across now, which makes it awkward, but she handles it with ease.
The area fills with flame and force, but she knows that nothing will come of it when the nuclear fireball dissipates. She takes the opportunity to build distance.
Sierra only has a few minutes left on her special skill. She can feel it fading already. She’s still at least twenty miles from Zelin. From Evelyn.
Her Death Prayer seems to burn bright in the chest pocket where she placed it. The fragile piece of hard paper pulses with every passing second, reminding her that it’s not just her life that’s on the line here. It keeps her from teleporting away, knowing that even the slightest brush of mana over it will set it aflame and end Evelyn.
And so Sierra runs, and she runs, and she fights.
But no matter how much she flees, she can’t do so forever. Ten miles from Zelin, she’s managed to put five miles between her and RI1, but she can still see it on the horizon, lumbering towards her at a deceptively fast pace.
The burning wrath has started to fade, replaced bit by bit by crushing despair. The borrowed magic starts to drift away with her anger, which prompts a fresh wave of hopelessness. She can’t run fast enough. She can’t fight well enough.
“I refuse to die here,” she tells herself. “I refuse.”
Evelyn wouldn’t stop here. She wouldn’t.
So she continues on, running from an unkillable monster—even with her fading mana pool, she will survive.
An arm grasps onto hers, and she throws it off, flailing wildly with what little magic she has. RI1 has caught up to her somehow, it has to have. Who else—but no. There’s nobody here. Where did that arm come from?
“Thank the gods,” a male voice on the edge of familiarity says. “You’re alive.”
Suddenly, Sierra’s vision shifts; a blind spot removes itself, and her heart soars.
“Hi,” Evelyn Carnelian says, extending a hand. She pauses, tilting her head and casting a skill of her own. “Hmm. I see you’re not the only one who’s life needed saving.”
Sierra takes her hand just as she did that fateful first time.
Evelyn has a nasty habit of overturning every situation she finds herself in, including Sierra’s life, but Sierra can’t be any more grateful right now.
Suddenly, this hopeless fight seems winnable.
“Sierra,” I say, activating the Communication Stone. “Sierra, can you hear me?”
No response.
I’ve been trying to connect to her item for a solid ten minutes now to no avail. That could mean one of three things: capture, death, or simply being out of range.
I hope it’s the latter.
Every thirty seconds, I activate Locate. With my magic reserves as deep as they are now, I can use it without fear of depleting my reservers.
Locate: Sierra Jade, Adrian Stahr, Kirin Uten. At level 12 in the Gold tier, the skill functions at ranges exceeding half a mile, and I can use it to find multiple creatures or items at once.
I dash around Zelin with the help of Shapeshift and Antimemetic Cloak, using additional limbs to speed my way around a trickle of citizens and adventurers that don’t know that I’m here. The city seems to have a reasonably strong adventurer contingent, because I see a lot of them racing towards the crater I created.
Best of luck, I think as I pass over them. You’re not going to find anything worth taking.
Briefly, I consider killing a few of them and Devouring them for temporary skills, but they’re Category 0s and 1s. Real ones, not twisted to be as strong as I am. It’s a waste of my time to take them down.
Sierra and Kirin aren’t anywhere in town, it seems. I pass through district after district, barely pausing in to take the faded grandeur of the Whitestar Kingdom’s capital city as I search.
I do, however, Locate Adrian underneath an oddly empty patch of one of the poorer districts. I almost skip over the area entirely, but instinct tells me to look again, harder.
My Antimemetic Resistance levels up twice, taking me by surprise, and I realize what’s happening.
Something here doesn’t want me to know it’s here.
That warrants invasion. I don’t care for Adrian nearly as much as I do for Sierra, but I’ve grown somewhat attached. Plus, he’s the only link I have to Sierra. I remember Kirin telling us that it was likely that I would be sent apart from the others, but it looks like we were all teleported into different locations.
Alright, this should be simple enough. Now that I’m actively focusing on my perception, I can see the subtle markings in the packed earth where entrances into an underground facility lie. I make my way to one and clear it with Hemokinesis, utilizing a droplet of blood from a pricked finger to wipe away the dust. It fades away easily—of course it does. Anyone who operates in this facility must have a way in and out.
The entrance is a smooth hatch with no visible handle and an arcane pattern carved into one corner of it. At a guess, that’s the lock for this door, but I have no key with which to open it. My blood magic is strong, but it can’t break through solid steel, and Soulblade attacks the soul of living things, not magic. I try to find a path with Bloodpath, but it’s airtight.
It’s a good thing my arsenal is so wide.
I kneel down onto the ground, keeping Antimemetic Cloak engaged as I place both hands flat on the surface.
It’s good steel. Likely magically enchanted.
Still, this is a low-power zone. Even if this is prepared for people at the peak of Category 1, I should far outstrip that with the amount of magic I hold.
Wraithfire comes alive, wreathing my palms in flames, and it devours the runes and metal hungrily, black flame melting straight through inches of pure steel without even pausing.
When I’ve burned a hole sufficiently large enough to drop through, I Siphon the hungering fire, sapping the power from my own skill. Left alone, it’ll burn for ninety-nine minutes, but I’d prefer to leave as little trace of my path as possible.
With the magic gone, all that is left is a normal fire. I douse it in my own blood.
It’s only after I drop through the still-molten hole that I realize I could’ve made this a lot easier for myself by just shunting the door into my nullspace.
I would shrug if I had a body to do it with. Even if it’s not sealed against that kind of attack, it’s good for me to practice my other skills too.
After the entrance is a short ladder, which I ignore, and a long, spiraling staircase. I make my way down as fast as I can, intermittently activating Locate to confirm that I am, in fact, getting closer to Adrian.
About a third of a mile down, I reach the bottom. A simple translucent door lies ahead of me, revealing hallways that I faintly recognize the make of. Above it are stenciled three simple words—United Containment Coalition. There is a single guard—they’re wearing a power suit, just like the ones I fought on the train oh so long ago.
The guard raises an overly complicated rifle in warning. “Identification.”
“Hello,” I say politely. “I’m Evelyn Carnelian. I like your armor.”
I do not, in fact, like the guard’s armor. I wonder how people ever managed to fight me in these. It’s clunky, the interface barely works, and the mobility is so low. I suppose a weak, unpowered human would find this powerful, but this actually hampers me.
At least it fits me. Then again, it’d be a surprise if it didn’t, because I Shapeshifted into the form of the guard after I took her head off with my Soulblade. I get to use Imitation for the first time since I unlocked it, mimicking the mannerisms she held in life.
Not a trace of her body remains. I’ve made sure of that.
With this on, it’s much easier to travel through the twists and turns of the UCC facility. Nobody accosts me—I’m meant to be here. I could also try to use Antimemetic Cloak, but given that the Coalition has a track record of dealing with anomalies, I’m sure they’ll have some way to track me even if I seem not to exist.
Instead, I keep my head down and march with purpose, taking the fastest possible route towards Adrian. My security clearance as a guard is surprisingly high, though I take the liberty to Siphon the wards one time when a door refuses to let me through.
Esoteric Recovery Unit, I read. I’m getting close.
Blood Sense tells me how many are within, so I’m completely unsurprised by how busy the seemingly abandoned unit is. Adrian is here, so I simply march at this guard’s usual gait until I find his bed.
I can guess what happened here.
He looks… healthy. Normal. Adrian’s sleeping, and his chest rises and falls evenly. He doesn’t look like he’s in pain, but my senses aren’t strong enough to determine if his soul is intact again.
“Adrian Stahr,” I drone in exactly the same manner this guard would have. “High command has ordered your immediate release. Please do not resist.”
“Excuse me, officer,” a heavily accented voice cuts in. I turn to greet him.
For a moment, blinding rage passes through my veins, but I register soon enough that Fala Teir is a full elf. Nothing like Sapphire.
“Yes?” I ask, infusing my voice with a special hint of bored irritation. “I am carrying out my orders, doctor. Do you mind?”
“Whose orders?” he asks suspiciously.
I think quickly, trying to remember anyone that I know has an affiliation with the UCC. “Researcher Callen. He’s requested Stahr.”
Adrian remains asleep, but he twitches.
“I invoke control protocol,” Fala says after a moment. “Nobody is supposed to be coming here and taking my patients. We have a deal. Callen would never send a lackey to break it for him.”
I don’t actually know what control protocol is, so I do my best to get on with it. “Carry on, then.”
“Your helmet.”
I remove it. There’s nothing to fear. I have the guard’s face. “You done yet?”
The elf’s brow furrows, and he presses one finger against my forehead. Ever so slightly, I feel a light touch brush over my soul.
Fala starts screaming, and everyone in the room stops, turning towards me.
Oops.
I sigh, dropping the disguise. You served me well, you awful hunk of armor.
Devour cuts its way through the powered steel in half a second, and I take two quick strides to where Adrian is sitting.
Both of us enter my Bloodpath.
Escaping is shockingly easy. Though these people might be specialists, there is awfully little they can do when so few of them actually have power that can contest mine. I’m too fast, and anything that can hit my blood form barely affects it. I make sure not to leave a mess behind.
Nobody is able to stop me on my way out. This is a facility built for research, I realize, not combat. Kirin is a complete and total outlier. Where did he even come from? His power is utterly incongruent with everyone else’s here.
I can figure that out after I’ve found Sierra.
Even after I resurface, I don’t stop. Only once we’re a solid mile away from the molten entrance I created do I let go of Bloodpath, leaving me standing in the middle of an empty alleyway, Adrian in my arms.
I lower him to the ground and shake him until he wakes.
“Adrian,” I say. “Will you live?”
He looks much better than he did when I left him, but looks can be deceiving.
It takes him a minute to wake up fully, reorienting himself to the dingy, stale air of the alleyway and the world around him.
I repeat my question once he’s fully lucid.
“He patched up my soul,” he says. “It’s like stitches, though. I’ll be fine, but I can’t break them now, or everything will go to shit.”
Irritating, but expected. "Don’t overstress yourself, but we do need to get moving.”
Adrian grimaces. “I was about to say that.”
I cock my head, questioning. “You know something I don’t?”
He points at his own. “All of us on the Hex project are linked. Sierra’s in trouble.”
Ruins of an unnamed village, 25 miles from Zelin
Sierra is not winning this fight.
She’s not losing, either, but she knows that it’s only a matter of time.
Wrath of a Peaceful Soul (Rare)
Tier: Bronze
This is a special skill. As one of the few souls on this planet that truly bears strangers no animosity, it is your wrath that the wise ones fear greatest. While this skill is active, you cannot die and your mana output and regeneration is tripled. You also temporarily gain every magic affinity at level 1. Casting magic affinities of mutually exclusive types triple the power of the skill while Wrath of a Peaceful Soul is active.
It’s only her new special skill that is keeping her in this fight. It asssists her Red Mage class, giving her the tools to utilize the always-active skill that the class operates around—Counterbalance. Mutually exclusive magic types aren’t supposed to be exist on the same person, but the Red Mage class breaks those rules, allowing her to cast fire and water, light and dark, push and pull simultaneously. More than that, it enhances the effect, giving her unique, flexible powers.
With over a hundred magic affinities active at once, she feels strong enough to take on someone twice her level.
But even if Evelyn’s counterpart is lower leveled than her, he has something she doesn’t.
He can adapt. Sierra’s Diamond-tier Appraise tells him that he’s only using two skills; Adapt and Universal Resistance.
“You,” Sierra complains, “are total bullshit. Understand?”
She knows a lady does not swear, but she cannot be bothered. This entire time, she’s been playing keep-away from a monster that’s capable of Adapting to keep up with everything she does. Her attacks lose efficacy every time they connect; right now, it is only the massive variety of magic she has that is keeping her alive and Evelyn’s Death Prayer intact.
RI1 barely resembles the creature it was when it entered. After her initial flurry of attacks, it changed its entire body structure. Rather than the almost-humanoid six-legged thing it came in as, RI1 now looks like something straight out of a nightmare.
A core of flesh the size of Sierra’s head is buried at its center. Dozens of spiked, chitinous limbs extend from that core, interlinking with each other and forming a twisted, skeletal sphere. Each of the bony limbs are covered with sharp cilia, short vibrating structures that tear at anything the expeirment hooks itself on.
It never stops screaming.
Sierra has long since abandoned the idea of defeating this thing in combat. She’s tried far too many options already, but as it turns out, even shunting it into a new, empty fragment created with a combination of star and dimensional magic is a solution that lasts for just under forty-five seconds before it rips apart reality with its hands to escape.
She’s running out of options, running out of time, and running out of mana. Sierra has to end this quickly, and she’s decided that the best way to do that is to leave.
Annihilation Magic - Erase. Sierra doesn’t normally have access to this, but her wrath is apparently worth a lot.
Creation Magic - Creation. It’s a basic spell, meant to create wood or metal, but when combined with its polar opposite…
She mimics her own special skill, creating half an ounce of antimatter.
Vector Magic - Redirect. Sierra is truly glad for this skill, and even though the fight is nowhere near over, she can’t help but think about where she can learn vector magic when this is done. This sole skill has saved her more times than she can count already.
This time, she uses it to direct the entirety of the nuclear-bomb-sized explosion into a sphere just larger than RI1. Her opponent is thirty feet across now, which makes it awkward, but she handles it with ease.
The area fills with flame and force, but she knows that nothing will come of it when the nuclear fireball dissipates. She takes the opportunity to build distance.
Sierra only has a few minutes left on her special skill. She can feel it fading already. She’s still at least twenty miles from Zelin. From Evelyn.
Her Death Prayer seems to burn bright in the chest pocket where she placed it. The fragile piece of hard paper pulses with every passing second, reminding her that it’s not just her life that’s on the line here. It keeps her from teleporting away, knowing that even the slightest brush of mana over it will set it aflame and end Evelyn.
And so Sierra runs, and she runs, and she fights.
But no matter how much she flees, she can’t do so forever. Ten miles from Zelin, she’s managed to put five miles between her and RI1, but she can still see it on the horizon, lumbering towards her at a deceptively fast pace.
The burning wrath has started to fade, replaced bit by bit by crushing despair. The borrowed magic starts to drift away with her anger, which prompts a fresh wave of hopelessness. She can’t run fast enough. She can’t fight well enough.
“I refuse to die here,” she tells herself. “I refuse.”
Evelyn wouldn’t stop here. She wouldn’t.
So she continues on, running from an unkillable monster—even with her fading mana pool, she will survive.
An arm grasps onto hers, and she throws it off, flailing wildly with what little magic she has. RI1 has caught up to her somehow, it has to have. Who else—but no. There’s nobody here. Where did that arm come from?
“Thank the gods,” a male voice on the edge of familiarity says. “You’re alive.”
Suddenly, Sierra’s vision shifts; a blind spot removes itself, and her heart soars.
“Hi,” Evelyn Carnelian says, extending a hand. She pauses, tilting her head and casting a skill of her own. “Hmm. I see you’re not the only one who’s life needed saving.”
Sierra takes her hand just as she did that fateful first time.
Evelyn has a nasty habit of overturning every situation she finds herself in, including Sierra’s life, but Sierra can’t be any more grateful right now.
Suddenly, this hopeless fight seems winnable.
