A Call to the Dark City (Delve/Mother of Learning/HPMoR/Mage Errant Multicross)
- Thread starter Berix
- Start date
- Crossover
8 - Prey
Berix
Toa of Twilight
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Zorian - Simulacrum Number Three
Given the importance of his work, Simulacrum Number Three had permission to use as much mana as he wanted.
As a consequence, there were no minute-long pauses between his rapid teleportations. The repeated wooshing of the world unfolding before him was merging into one continuous noise. Because he was only in one place for a few seconds, he'd even eschewed the standard force-disc beneath him, instead opting to use unstructured magic to maintain his altitude.
In a small necklace hanging in front of his ectoplasmic chest were two of Rain's aura anchors - Detection and Purify. Both of those were utility auras, neither offensive nor defensive, which meant that if the simulacrum ran into a problem, he was on his own.
Not that this prospect worried him too much. In fact, much to the original's chagrin, Simulacrum Three was somewhat looking forward to a potential confrontation. None of Zorian's doubles had had a chance to flex Rain's torrent of mana in combat, and Simulacrum Three had high hopes that he might be the first.
He was heading to the right place for that, at least. He was rapidly approaching Havath City.
Last time Zorian had sent simulacra here, they had drawn attention to themselves. It hadn't really been avoidable - it's hard to directly ask questions without being noticed, and lifting memories from people's minds is much harder without externally prompting them for the information you want. Still, Simulacrum Three was going to be much less noticeable.
This time, rather than walking through the main gates, he teleported directly into an empty warehouse his predecessors had scouted for this exact purpose. Then, he stepped out onto the streets.
Unlike in Cyoria, in Havath invisibility wasn't sufficient to be unseen. The chances that a passing guard had a wind affinity, or could sense the crystal aura anchors he was carrying, or heavens forbid, had some kind of cognition affinity that could sense the presence of his mind, were simply too high. Hoping to avoid that, the simulacrum was lightly touching the minds of the people he passed, ensuring that they noticed nothing out of the ordinary. He was ready to take control at a moment's notice if it became necessary.
There was always a chance that a lich was watching, but there wasn't anything the simulacrum could really do about that.
The decision to end the Intertwined was not one they had made lightly. Harry, in particular, had been deeply uncomfortable with the idea of ending the lives of seven functionally immortal beings. But, after Kanderon had told them about the Havathi army approaching Skyhold, their timeline had abruptly grown extremely short. Even Harry had agreed by the end of their discussion. In the end, seven lives were simply outweighed by the apparent thousands on the line if the armies faced each other outright.
Not to mention the fact that if Kanderon herself fell, they might also lose their only lead on how to travel through labyrinths and find their way home.
A mental missive back to their camp confirmed that Rain was watching through the crystal anchor hanging around his neck. Although Zorian's teleportation and mind magic gave him the edge in terms of scouting abilities, mapping out a system of pipes beneath a major city was definitely somewhere Rain had a clear advantage. If necessary, Zorian could construct a web of mana threads around him to sense space and objects moving through it, or summon an invisible arcane eye for scrying purposes, or any number of other creative solutions. None of them, however, were quite as efficient as simply receiving a three-dimensional map of everything within a hundred metre radius.
Speaking to the original Zorian back in their forested glade, Rain confirmed that he'd identified a number of tunnels beneath Havath City.
Closest, just beneath the simulacrum and the aura anchor he carried, were the cellars and basements of the nearby buildings. As in any city, space was at a premium, and some of the buildings had two stories buried in the marble substrate of the city.
Below that were the water supply, sewers, and minor alchemical supply pipes. Despite the lack of flexibility of magic in this world, the simulacrum had to admit that the specialisation of mages here allowed for impressive feats of civil engineering. Fluids rushed through the pipes at prodigious speeds, despite the lack of mechanical pumps within Detection's radius.
Deeper below that, buried so low that even artillery magic fired at the city would struggle to damage it, were the arterial pipes they were looking for. Toxic alchemical reagents flowed through the marble and bronze that formed the domain of the Intertwined. According to Kanderon, this acted like life-blood for the peculiar magical beings. If this constant flow were sufficiently interfered with, death might not come instantly - but it would come soon.
Although it wasn't the primary purpose of this journey, Zorian was very interested in learning more about the internal mechanics of Anastian liches. There were several obvious advantages and disadvantages when compared with liches from his world, and it wasn't yet clear if the two states of being had more in common than just their name.
From here in the warehouse, Detection could only glimpse a fraction of this network of pipes. So the simulacrum began to walk. Under the cover of invisibility, Simulacrum Three criss-crossed the city. Personally, he had no idea where he was going, but Rain relayed instructions through the original.
Somewhat to the simulacrum's disappointment, no sword-wielding figures dropped from the sky to confront him, and the first part of his scouting mission passed without incident. Several mages, instinctively observing their surroundings with their affinity senses, did begin to notice that something strange was happening, but that was easily rectified with some gentle mental nudges. The simulacrum was careful to avoid sending mental tendrils downward; even if this was a mercy mission, it was best if the Intertwined remained unaware of their plans.
The fortified centre of the city was the hardest to map. There were no open pathways for citizens to walk in, and the great bronze doors were warded in an esoteric way the simulacrum couldn't easily figure out. So, he'd simply resorted to staying outside, and using unstructured magic to levitate the aura anchor over the walls and through the inner sanctum. Whatever impressive magic had created these wards, they apparently hadn't been designed to trigger when a single small rock crossed the boundary.
With that, the scouting was done. Now, it was time for the real test.
Simulacrum Three walked back to a less busy part of the city, and into an industrial-looking maintenance depot. Usually, this sort of place would be well guarded, but the guards had just now decided to visit the bathroom all at the same time. That was strictly against protocol, but in a stunning coincidence, their commanding officer had gone on her lunch break early today - something she hadn't done in thirty years, and would be unable to explain afterwards.
The entrance to the pipes was clean and well-maintained. The hatch was thoroughly secured and airtight, but easy to use, and opened to reveal a marble access tunnel with a bronze ladder. The simulacrum descended, and after a minute of climbing, found himself in a wide tunnel. There were thin marble walkways on either side, and in the centre flowed a veritable river of greenish liquid.
Kanderon hadn't been kidding when she said these materials were volatile. Even the vapours in the air were stinging at the simulacrum's ectoplasmic flesh, and if he had a sense of smell or taste, he was sure he'd be retching. Still, he had work to do, best to get it done and get out of here.
He bent down, and held a Purify anchor as close to the liquid as possible, his hand just above the liquid and protected from splashes by a small unstructured kinetic shield. They were operating under the assumption that the more liquid they evaporated, the greater the chance the Intertwined would notice - so it was important to keep the total volume of the river intersecting with the Purify radius to a minimum.
None of them were quite sure how this test would go. Normally, Purify would easily take care of toxic chemicals. These toxic chemicals, however, were arguably someone's blood, which Rain insisted he'd never been able to evaporate - at least while it was inside people. On the other hand, the entity this liquid was keeping alive was in significant pain - would that help Rain's mind think of it as material which ought to be removed? Or perhaps it would simply be too difficult for Rain to wrap his head around the idea that a city-sized, faceless entity with no apparent organic biology could be truly alive.
By his own admission, Rain didn't actually know how his magic categorised which materials would evaporate under Purify's effects, and which wouldn't. Apparently, it could even change with his preferences and beliefs about the world - alcoholic drinks, for example, would either be affected or unaffected depending on whether or not Rain was planning to get drunk.
The simulacrum was reminded of his drinking competitions with Zach. The other, more boisterous time looper had been impressed with Zorian's alcohol tolerance - until the moment he realised Zorian was using a simple spell to remove the alcohol, and was basically just drinking juice.
He felt a small pang of homesickness before reminding himself to focus on the task at hand. With a message to the original, he signalled for Rain to begin.
An instant later, a tiny sphere of concentrated light shone from the gem in the simulacrum's palm. The effect was immediate - within the sphere, the toxic fumes ceased to damage the ectoplasm of his arm. And crucially, where the bright sphere intersected with the river below, there was now a void where the chemicals had disappeared.
He felt a rush of excitement - their plan might work.
Just as he was pulling back his hand, before he even had a chance to take more than a single step away from the rushing liquid, the stone beneath his feet ceased to support him, and he sank up to his neck into the marble, which gave way to his body as if it had become a liquid. It solidified again, and he was stuck, his hand only inches above the torrent of fluid. None of the marble pierced his ectoplasmic flesh, though, so this clearly hadn't been intended to be lethal. Simulacrum Number Three decided not to dismiss himself yet, and instead resolved to wait and see what was happening.
It appeared the Intertwined were paying some attention, at least, to the goings on in their domain.
The marble of the tunnel wall curved and rippled, and a humanoid shape composed of marble and bronze stepped out. Its statuesque face was expressionless. It looked like it was about to speak, but the simulacrum spoke first, blurting out an observation which surprised him more than casual manipulation of stone.
"You're not in pain anymore!"
The figure froze as if the animating force had abandoned it. There was a long pause.
Despite the rocks constraining his body, the simulacrum flinched a little as the vast mind surrounding him changed. Starting slowly, but gradually increasing, he could sense the deep, scarring pain returning within the lich.
The stone statue spoke, sound being produced by some kind of magic in lieu of vocal chords. "Pain is not a fact of our existence. It is a weapon wielded against us by our masters to keep us in line. We choose to feel it again now to keep this conversation private from those who would keep us as servants."
The statue knelt down to be closer to the simulacrum's face, which was now at ground level. "You come here with a stone which can destroy our blood. You are surprised to see that we are not in pain. We are not fools. You are here to kill us."
The simulacrum teleported, moving only a short distance - enough to be free of the stone encasing his body, and faced the statue. "And yet I'm still alive, if a little compressed. You could obviously have killed me then, and yet you didn't."
The original was mentally shouting at him to escape, to get out and away from the lich-avatar, but the simulacrum refused. This conversation was promising - telling the truth had worked quite a few times on this world, perhaps this would be another. Of course, the original had the final say - he could always dismiss the simulacrum's body directly, but then there would be a considerable delay as he sent another simulacrum to Havath City.
The lich-avatar responded. "We would rather rule this city than be destroyed. If you assist us in this, you will find us useful allies."
The simulacrum considered the proposition, but then slowly shook his head. "We seek to halt the Havathi Empire's expansion, and prevent the next great war. Even if you took control of Havath City, it's likely the returning army under Duarch Locke would besiege the city to take it back. Tens of thousands would die."
Another one of Zorian's simulacra was trailing the Havathi army travelling toward Skyhold, and was gently probing the minds of the weaker battlemages for information, like the name of their commanding officer.
The stone figure stood, rising slowly from its kneeling position. The void where the simulacrum had been imprisoned melted back into seamless stone. "You seek to avoid casualties. Would your destructive sphere not also kill indiscriminately as you used it to drain us of our lifeblood?"
Simulacrum Three almost laughed at the misunderstanding, which paralleled his own fears when he'd first encountered Rain. "No, although I can see why you might think that. This power does not harm humans, nor other conventionally living beings."
Reaching out with mental tendrils, he found and controlled a rat living in a nearby tunnel, and commanded it to run toward them. He needed to look surprisingly far - apparently a city in which the ground was sentient and could swallow up living beings was quite good at pest control. A moment later, with the rat cooperatively nestled in his hand, he instructed Rain to activate Purify again.
The sphere of light spread out, washing over the rat and leaving it unharmed, and cleaner than almost any rat had ever been before. The simulacrum released it, and it scampered away, largely confused by the experience.
The stone lich-figure nodded slowly, pausing for a moment in thought. "If you will not help us take the city, releasing us from our pain while leaving the city unharmed is the next-greatest gift you could give. We will help you."
Somewhat smugly, Simulacrum Three noticed that the original's commands to flee had halted. He cast a quick spell to check for external listeners, but there were none that he could detect.
"Is anyone listening?"
The stone figure shook its head. "The same process that causes us pain denies our masters access."
"Good."
For the first time on this world, Zorian began to cast the Gate spell.
In the tunnel, space began to warp and twist. Initially focused on a single point, the air began to rip, a cut in the fabric of reality. It grew till it was about the size of a fist, then stabilised. On the other side was a simulacrum, casting the other half of the spell from a safe distance from their forested glade. As soon as the portal opened, dozens of tiny stones shot through, propelled by unstructured magic - each of them identical to the Purify anchor in Simulacrum Three's hand, the fruit of Rain's labour over the last two days. After coming through the Gate, their speed rapidly reduced, and they came to a stop hovering above his outstretched palm.
The portal grew wider, large enough to fit a person, and three simulacra passed through the Gate.
The portal closed.
With the help of the Intertwined, placing the anchors was fairly straightforward. The marble liches formed detailed maps of the underground network into the wall. Combining this with Rain's three-dimensional image, Simulacrum Three had a better overview of the tunnels than any human living in the city above. He had identified a number of critical points - pumping stations, input points for the chemicals themselves, and storage tanks, which held the majority of the liquid.
The quartet of simulacra now spread across Havath City assembled a small swarm of rats. It took far longer than it would have in Cyoria, and the resulting rodent army was smaller than the simulacrum had hoped - but it was enough. Entrusted with one aura anchor each, the rats followed mental commands to place the crystals in unobtrusive, difficult to reach locations near these critical junctions. Simulacrum Three felt a little nostalgic - near the beginning of the time loop, he'd defended Cyoria from an invasion supported by cranium rats. Now, he was in the reverse situation - organising and mobilising rats to invade a foreign city. Still, this invasion would be far more pleasant to experience than the brutal monster raids and accompanying artillery bombardment he'd endured as a novice mage.
According to their calculations, when Rain activated the Purify beacons, it would only take around a minute for the vast majority of the alchemical fluids to drain into the critical locations and be evaporated by the aura. That wasn't too long, but there was still the chance of some kind of rapid response. That was why the four simulacra were now waiting underneath the largest pumping stations, ready to defend against any attempt from Havath City's defenders to seize control of the stations and destroy the anchors.
There wasn't much chance of holding the pumping stations indefinitely, but they didn't need to - they just needed to hold them long enough. The Intertwined had confirmed that even a few minutes without the vital fluids was enough to kill them.
All four of the simulacra were accompanied by an avatar of the city-spanning marble lich. Despite the claims that they were in fact seven separate individuals, the avatars of the Intertwined looked very similar - golems of marble, with non-descript facial features outlined in bronze.
Simulacrum Three looked questioningly at the avatar standing by his side. The lich nodded.
It was time to begin.
With a mental signal to the original, he indicated to Rain to start the process.
Across the city, dozens of small crystals began to blaze, bathing their surroundings with purifying light. Vast quantities of mana radiated from the anchors, evaporating tonnes of alchemical fluids every second as an entire city's network of tunnels drained into a few key locations.
The stone in the simulacrum's hand glowed, leaving a sphere of tunnel around him cleaner than it ever had been.
At first, there was calm. Then, Simulacrum Three saw the avatar by his side tense.
"They're coming."
Noises came from the access tunnel by their side, and the simulacrum could sense a handful of minds at the top. They weren't typical minds either - they were like Valia, the soldier who had apprehended Simulacrum One and Two a few days ago - their minds were bonded with the living weapons and tools they held.
The lich-avatar turned its head to face the vertical tunnel, and it collapsed in on itself. The marble walls pinched together, forming a seal, and the bronze ladder coiled up to reinforce it with a lattice from beneath.
It wasn't a moment too soon. The ground around them shook as some thunderous force slammed into the seal, partially crumbling the marble.
Around the city, the other simulacra were reporting similar responses. A massive dragon, dwarfing the ones Rain had killed above Ithos, had landed atop the pumping station near Simulacrum Five, and was tearing chunks out of the marble. Above Simulacrum Six, a powerful fire mage with a simple but strong mind shield was resisting their mental probes, and was pouring a torrent of white-hot flame into the tunnel - Six was draining their reserves fast just to hold it back.
Havath was waking up.
A thread of mental connection dropped away as Simulacrum Ten was torn apart, along with the most of a city block.
By Simulacrum Three's side, the lich-avatar suddenly doubled over. "They know," it managed to choke out between spasms of pain. The marble walls of the tunnels quivered in rhythm with the waves of agony the simulacrum could feel radiating from the vast conglomerate mind. The avatar fell to the ground, curling up in foetal position. "End this. Please."
They were in terrible pain, even more so than their reactions indicated. It was difficult to watch. The simulacrum's resolve strengthened - whoever was inflicting this pain on the lich deserved to lose whatever power they had.
The tunnel by his side thundered again, and the lich's blockade began to crumble. A furious face protruded through a gap.
Simulacrum Three reached out and clamped down on the soldier's mind like a vice. It was a strange experience - the mind inside the soldier's sword kept sending mental signals back through to the man, imploring him to wake up. The simulacrum could have pressed harder and forced him unconscious anyway, but there was a simpler solution. He grabbed at the sword with unstructured magic, sending it flying down the tunnel and out of sight. Separated, the two minds were much weaker, and the soldier fell limp. The body was rolled aside, and an arrow shot through the gap. It ricocheted off the outer layers of his shields, but the impact drained far more mana than it should have.
The glow from the Purify anchor seemed to intensify, the brightness almost blinding in the underground space. They must be getting close now, surely - how long had it been?
<Forty seconds,> came the response from the original. Of course he was calm, he was hundreds of kilometres away.
Simulacrum Five reported that the dragon had broken through. He'd managed to bloody its eyes with a volley of invisible magic missiles, but had been forced to retreat deeper into the tunnel network to avoid the torrent of viscous fire jetting from its mouth. It hadn't been enough, and he'd resorted to collapsing the roof above to block off access entirely.
By his side, the lich-avatar's movement began to slow. To the simulacrum's mind-sense, the great mind began to falter and fade - the Intertwined were dying.
Another arrow whistled through the hole in the access tunnel, and he barely managed to dodge out of its path. He seized a huge chunk of rubble with unstructured magic and used it to block the gap.
Another signal lost. Simulacrum Five was dead; something had carved a gash through his torso, leaving the two halves of his ectoplasmic body to dissolve on the ground. Where had the attack come from? There had been no minds nearby.
It felt like an ocean wave cresting. The huge souls of the seven beings that had become one, finally released, tearing apart and dissipating into nothingness.
At Simulacrum Three's feet, the marble floor twisted and reshaped itself into a single, delicate marble flower, growing from the stone. It was done.
Shouting voices echoed from either side of the tunnel, but they were too far away - they wouldn't make it here for a few more minutes. Simulacrum Three slumped against the wall. It had been tough work, but they had done it. He was preparing to dismiss his own ectoplasmic body when he felt a gust of wind, and the cracking noise of an object moving faster than sound.
He felt a hand gripping his throat.
He opened his eyes.
A sneering face. "And you're not even really here, either. We'll find you, little one."
And then there was darkness.
Harry
Harry felt a little left out.
Rain was sitting cross-legged, his eyes shut. Visually, he didn't seem to be doing anything, but Harry knew his auras were acting at a distance, cleansing the tunnels under Havath of the last of the blood of the Intertwined.
Zorian was also sitting, his attention focused on his copies, far away. Meanwhile, there wasn't much for Harry to do. He was nervously pacing around the edge of the clearing, with a single diamond hovering above his left hand. The conjured gemstone was floating up and down, up and down. It wobbled periodically at the upper and lower ends of its motion.
His right hand was gripping the Elder Wand.
Until now, their group had largely avoided the attention of the great powers of this world. Whether or not their efforts today were successful, an act like this… they were undeniably announcing their presence to the world. There was no telling how it would react.
Zorian's eyes snapped open and he leapt to his feet. Harry jumped in response to the sudden motion.
<We need to move. Now.>
"Why? What is it? Have the Intertwined been dealt with?"
<Yes, but there's something else. All of my simulacra in Havath are dead.>
Rain clambered to his feet. "Teleport us?"
Zorian nodded, and the three of them, along with three simulacra, grouped up on a disc of force. There was a rushing noise, and the clearing vanished and they were a hundred metres above the forest. Six more teleports followed, and the varied landscapes flashed beneath them. Forest gave way to deeper jungle, which petered out as the land flattened into a broad plain. Mountains loomed in the distance, but grew closer with each jump, until they hovered above one of the peaks.
Eventually, Zorian lowered them to the ground.
<We're in the outer territories of Sica, one of the major geopolitical rivals of Havath. Hopefully they'll think twice about following us here.>
Harry took a moment to get his bearings, feeling his feet firmly placed on the rough stone of the mountain, rather than Zorian's oddly slippery disc of force.
Unlike the snow-capped summits of the Skyreach Range, here, trees stretched almost up to the rocky peaks, and the undergrowth was thick and bushy. The carbon-based cellulose of the trees registered as a dull buzzing to his nascent affinity senses. The ocean was just visible in the East.
One of Zorian's simulacra conjured a disc of his own, cloaked himself in invisibility, and rose back into the sky. <I'm keeping watch, in case anything's coming.>
Harry turned to Zorian. "So, the Intertwined are dead. Any news from your simulacrum with the army approaching Skyhold?"
Rather than speaking out loud, Zorian continued to respond mentally. <They know what we've done. The army has stopped moving.>
"Good. We shouldn't move to Skyhold yet - if Locke's army decides to attack anyway, the University will be one of the most dangerous places on the planet."
There was a moment's pause as the four of them admired the view from their vantage point at the summit. A few rays of sunlight pierced through the grey clouds, shedding light on a landscape below, which reminded Harry of Tolkien's Mirkwood - massive gnarled trees spreading across rolling hills. For all the dangers on this world, it was certainly a beautiful place.
"So what's next? We camp here until we're sure Locke's retreating, then use a Gate to travel to Skyhold?"
Rain turned away from the view. "Sounds good to me. I hope we did the right thing today."
<We didn't have much choice in the matter. Unless we wanted to try to navigate the labyrinths ourselves, working with Kanderon was the only way to avoid a war.>
Harry breathed in, and out. The cold mountain air was refreshing after so long in the humid jungle. "It's usually better to end a war before it starts."
Rain looked at his armoured palms. "After so long making Purify anchors, it feels strange to be done." He looked back out across the plains, and did a double take. "Can you see that?"
Harry squinted, and readjusted his glasses. "What?"
Rain grabbed them both by the shoulders. "We need to teleport. Now."
Zorian summoned a disc beneath them, and reached out. His third simulacrum dropped out of the sky to join them. The last thing Harry saw before the world vanished again was movement in the distance - something in the trees. Something very, very fast.
Then they were teleporting again. The only way Harry could keep track of their disorienting motion was by catching glimpses of the ocean to their right. They must be moving north, then.
The mental voice of one of the simulacra sounded in his mind. <It's still coming. Look.>
Harry craned his neck to look behind them. There, near the horizon, but approaching rapidly, was a plume of dust. The world flickered, and the plume was smaller, barely visible. The world flickered again, and Harry expected it to be gone, but somehow it was larger now, getting closer despite their constant teleports.
That was… exceedingly impressive. They were teleporting once every six seconds or so, and coarsely estimating from the shape of the coast, each jump was about ten kilometres.
Whatever was following them was moving at a little under five times the speed of sound.
Harry strained his voice to be heard over the ocean winds. "Zorian! We won't outrun them, at least not quickly. They're travelling along the ground - try to lose them by gaining altitude."
Zorian mentally assented, and their next two teleports took them upwards at roughly a thirty degree angle. Meanwhile, one of his simulacra must have wrapped them in a sphere of invisibility, because Harry could no longer see his hands in front of him.
The plume of dust behind them vanished. There was a moment of reprieve before Rain sucked in air through his teeth. "It's still coming. It can airwalk, or something."
<We do not want it to get close. It tore through my simulacra before they knew it was there.>
"Can you teleport us back to the glade?"
<I can only teleport that far to a permanent teleportation circle, and the one I set up in the glade is too weak to function at this range.>
The air at this altitude whipped at Harry's hair and clothes. "Zorian, cast the Gate spell."
<I can't cast that without staying still for a moment, and it'll catch us if I stop teleporting.>
More than ever, Harry wished he had learned to apparate under his own power.
This… entity, whatever it was, had found each of Zorian's simulacra beneath Havath. It had traced them to Sica. And now, despite their invisibility, it was following them, moving through the sky at speeds that wouldn't quite break airspeed records, but would definitely give them a run for their money.
They needed time, time to think, to plan, to run. "Can you send a simulacrum back to delay that thing?" Harry asked, his mind sinking into familiar cold patterns.
Harry jumped a little as a simulacrum behind him responded out loud. "I don't know how long I can hold it back."
"You-" The world twisted again, cutting Harry off just as he was about to speak.
"You just need to buy us some time. Take this."
Harry reached into his Bag of Useful Items and nearly fell over with the motion. He wasn't used to coordinating his movements while rapidly teleporting across the countryside. It was surprisingly disorienting to have your entire visual perspective shift every few seconds. If his vestibular system had a voice, it would be complaining right now. Something invisible put a steadying hand on his shoulder and Harry shot a grateful look into empty air.
After a moment he had the object he was looking for in his hands. "Light the fuse with fire or lightning." He handed over the 5 kilograms of TNT, almost his entire supply.
To his surprise, the Simulacrum (at this point he was struggling to keep his numbering straight) took the bomb with only slight hesitation, lifting it and pushing the TNT into an expanded space in his robes. "Got it." The simulacrum nodded, and then vanished.
Harry reached up to cast a quick bubblehead charm on himself, and then breathed out. It was time to think.
Simulacrum Number Nine
Now invisible on his own stationary platform suspended in the air, Simulacrum Number Nine didn't need to teleport toward their pursuer. No, it was coming to him.
In the few seconds he had before the pursuer reached him, he cast a powerful hasting spell on himself, accelerating his movement and response rate. Then, he conjured a stratified wall of force, sheets of hexagons layered on more interlocking hexagons, carefully positioned to distribute forces evenly across the field. Given how easily his predecessors had been dispatched, he wasn't opting for his usual more elegant renewable shield pattern, settling on something to soak up simple brute force instead. He now existed solely to delay.
A plan was rapidly communicated telepathically between the simulacra via their shared soul. He backed a fair way away from his shield-wall. Now that he was hasted, the Simulacrum could make out the silhouette of the creature pursuing them. It was humanoid, not much larger than Rain in his armour, but glowing. In fact, it seemed to Simulacrum Number Nine that he wasn't actually seeing the creature at all, but rather just the glow of superheated air in front of it as it travelled. He prepared himself, pulled Harry's bomb out of the little pocket dimension in his robes, and then attacked.
He didn't quite drain their shared reserves (the original still needed to teleport, after all), but the volley of spells he released made quite a dent. Homing functions were layered into concentrated manifolds of force, fireballs and disintegration beams arced into the path of the oncoming enemy.
Most missed entirely, left in the wake of their fast-moving target. A few of the faster spells with homing functions splashed harmlessly against it, and even the single disintegration beam that struck home seemed to sink into the pursuer with no effect.
The barrage served its purpose, though. The pursuer slightly changed course, its trajectory altering toward him, rather than where the original was teleporting into the distance.
And then it was here.
Simulacrum Number Nine was quite proud of his wall. Most of the original's shields were built with efficiency in mind, given Zorian's relatively small mana reserves, but Rain had changed the game. In the few hasted moments he had, Simulacrum Number Nine had poured a frankly frightening amount of power into the gargantuan shield. He doubted even Zach could have got through it, even with time. And yet, two strikes from his pursuer's glowing fists was all it took for the entire construction to shatter. The entity shot towards him, accelerating back to its previous speed in moments.
Simulacrum Number Nine hadn't wasted these precious seconds. Just before the pursuer reached him, he finished casting his final spell.
High in the sky above the Anastian seas, a gate opened.
The original couldn't risk staying still long enough to cast a gate - if the stranger sped up and caught them, or could attack at range, staying in one place for too long would spell doom.
Simulacrum Number Nine was not long for this world, and he knew it. He had no such constraints.
The other side was maintained by Simulacrum Number Two, a few kilometres away from where he had been monitoring the Havathi army in the Skyreach Ranges, far across the continent.
The pursuer arced through the sky toward the gate, propelled by its supersonic momentum. Simulacrum Number Nine grinned a little at the trick, and prepared to close it as soon as his target went through.
And then the pursuer simply… stopped. Centimetres from the gate, its momentum just gone. A blast of superheated air passed around the gate and washed over Simulacrum Number Nine. He had just enough time to push an unstructured bolt of lightning into Harry's bundle of red sticks before the pursuer floated around the gate and casually put its fist through his head.
Harry
Harry could barely make out the tiny speck of light as his TNT detonated near the horizon, and he privately thanked Simulacrum Number-Whatever as it winked out. As far as he was concerned, that was a living mind that had just willingly gone to oblivion to buy him a few seconds to think.
Zorian had changed direction, teleporting them at an almost perpendicular angle to the route they had been taking before. And yet, almost immediately after the explosion, Rain saw the telltale dot of motion in the distance - it was back on their trail.
If it was tracking them, how would it be doing so? What distinguishing features did their group have?
Theory one: it could detect the use of mana.
Harry discarded that immediately - there were probably thousands of people using mana all across the continent, and that wouldn't have led it to trace them from Havath to Sica. It would have to be something more specific than this.
Theory two: it could sense the ectoplasm that comprised Zorian's simulacra.
Theory three: Rain apparently drew heavily on the local aether to supply him with vast quantities of mana. Perhaps it was possible to use this to find him?
Theory four: it could detect their use of magics alien to this world.
Both theories three and four were difficult to test. Rain could shut off his aether scoops, but then he wouldn't be able to keep supplying Zorian with mana for long. They could stop using magic from their own worlds, but without it they'd be caught almost immediately, and also fall from the sky. Harry was proud of the efforts he'd made with his carbon affinity, but there was no way he was going to be able to hold all of their weight with it yet.
Still, they could distinguish between theory two and, and theories three and four.
"Zorian, we need to split up. One of -"
They teleported into a gust of wind, which snatched away Harry's words as they left his bubble-charm.
"One of your simulacra takes Rain, another takes me. We need to find out how they're following us so we can lose them."
<Can't. I need to stay with Rain. I'll run out of mana fast without him.>
"How fast?"
<About twenty teleports total.> Zorian's mental communications were terse, and he paused to focus each time they teleported.
"We split up, going three different directions. We meet up after six jumps at most each. We see which one gets followed."
Zorian must have agreed, because he felt a simulacrum take a hold of his shoulder. Two teleports later, and the ocean was much closer - he could see the wind whipping water away from the tip of each swell. Then they were skimming along the surface, each teleport taking them further out to sea, the shoreline vanishing in the distance.
A moment later, the leading edge of their pursuer's sonic boom rolled across them. The noise was thunderous. The accompanying wave of pressure briefly flattened the nearby swells and almost knocked Harry off his feet. He felt some kind of cushioning magical force hold up his limbs. He pressed a hand to his face to keep his glasses from falling off.
Zorian must have been running out of mana, because their path arced upwards, and after a moment they must have rejoined the others - Harry felt an invisible hand reach out and hold him steady.
<It's following Rain.>
Ah. So either it was tracing simulacra, and had just chosen one to follow arbitrarily, or it was following Rain specifically, or there was some other factor he hadn't considered. Rain had plenty of features which made him unique. It could be his aether consumption, his armour, his mana output… which apparently made him light up like a beacon to Zorian's mana sight.
"How long before your mana reserves fill up?" Harry asked Zorian.
<They already have.>
Harry noted with a lump in his throat that their pursuer had made up about half the distance between them.
"Rain, turn off your essence well. Zorian, change directions and keep jumping."
The teleports changed direction, so he assumed they were following his plan. The next two jumps took them far over the ocean, and the land was barely visible on the horizon.
Almost immediately, the dot in the distance changed direction to follow them.
Alright, that was one hypothesis gone.
Maybe…
"Rain, flare your Purify beacons."
Rain must have heard him above the rushing wind, because a sphere of white light grew from the dot following them, moving almost faster than the eye could follow. Zorian was teleporting them faster now, once every four seconds, but each time, the sphere of light got closer.
"It's got an anchor it's using to follow us. Rain, destroy them!"
The sphere of purifying light behind them flickered out, then on again. Rain must have been cycling through each of his aura anchors to check which one their pursuer held.
A hand removed itself from his shoulder, and he saw a ripple in the air float off their disc. Another simulacrum, giving itself up to buy them time?
Rain's shout was barely audible above the wind. "I need to put enough mana through the Purify anchor to burn through its durability. I need to use aura focus - I'll lose all senses. Keep me safe."
There was barely a moment's notice before Harry felt Rain slump down by his side, sitting down on their invisible disc. Then, the rapidly approaching dot that was their pursuer began to glow with purifying light.
Not like an aura, gently glowing the way Harry had seen before.
Like the sun.
For the second time, Harry saw Rain's raw power on display. He shielded his eyes, looking downwards, then regretting it - even the diffuse reflection of the light from the ocean was painful to look at.
Each time Zorian teleported, the massive orb of light shrank into the distance, then swelled again as their pursuer made up the distance. It felt like being in the path of an on-rushing train, just barely being whisked away before being crushed.
And then it went out. Rain must have poured enough mana through the anchor to burn through its durability.
Zorian responded immediately, and the next teleport went sharply upward, then another took them high enough that Harry would have been having trouble breathing without his bubble-head charm.
The roaring edge of their pursuers' sonic boom passed them by, and was replaced by the rushing of the stratospheric winds. They waited, and there was stillness.
None of them said anything for a few minutes. Then, when Rain reported he couldn't see or sense anything nearby, Zorian opened a gate, and they stepped through to the snow-capped mountains near Skyhold University. On the other side stood a simulacrum, who looked nervously at the sea air through the portal before closing it.
"My other simulacrum says that Locke's army is returning to Havath City. It worked."
Harry took a deep breath. "We should get inside the university. Whatever that was, I'd rather be closer to Kanderon - and besides, I think we deserve some more answers."
The simulacrum reached out, and the world twisted around them once more. Harry found himself at the base of a massive mountain. They must have been at the Western edge of the mountain range, because they were no longer in an alpine landscape - instead, this peak rose up from a sea of sand, stretching far into the distance. The area around them had been carved to resemble a harbour, and anchored around the perimeter of the mountain were a number of sailing ships with broad wooden hulls, resting on the sand.
Either this world had bizarrely extreme tides, or these ships were designed to cross the sandy desert. The winds were certainly strong enough for that - even here, sand crystals whipped up by the air currents whistled around them and stung at Harry's exposed flesh. He pulled his robes closer and shivered a little.
There were only a few people in the harbour-like area. In the distance, a few of the strange ships were being unloaded, and the cargo hurriedly transferred into the bulk of the mountain.
He focused, reaching out with his still-developing affinity sense. At this point, purified carbon was all he could precisely feel, but large clumps of carbon-rich compounds still registered as a faint signal, like an out-of-focus image.
His skills were growing rapidly, but not nearly fast enough to keep up with what was necessary. He sorely needed some new tricks. Because of the distances and speeds involved, his magic had been entirely useless during the pursuit, aside from granting him a few breaths clear of bugs. And that was with the Elder Wand in hand! As much as Harry was proud of being able to think clearly and quickly, there were certain situations in which no amount of quick thinking could compensate for differences in raw power.
By his side, he could feel Rain and Zorian - the simulacra didn't show up to his affinity senses at all, of course. In the distance, near one of the tunnels into the mountain, Harry felt four presences he thought might be moving. He really wasn't sure they were people though - for all he knew, they could be sacks of potatoes on a conveyor belt, or dogs, or something.
"I think there's an entrance there." He gestured, and their group began to walk. "It should be clear that we're not enemies, but be on your guard, just in case."
They didn't have to wait long for their presence to be noticed. After walking for a few metres, the sand under their feet drifted away, forming into a perfect circle surrounding them. The individual crystals of sand assembled themselves into a solid ring of perfect crystal - only a foot high, so no real barrier - but still a clear signal: Wait here.
Harry, who at present was barely managing to hold the weight of a single diamond, was vaguely envious of the skill and strength that necessitated.
They waited for a minute or so, then a cluster of people emerged from the tunnel up ahead. Although he'd never seen them in person, Harry recognised them from the images Zorian's simulacrum had transmitted to him during their 'meeting' with Kanderon.
Godrick led the way - or at least, the lump of carbon he could sense inside the person-shaped stone golem was probably Godrick. Sabae strode by his side, wind rushing around her limbs and torso.
Harry remembered the sight of the person she'd killed in Ithos - the image of a human body smeared across a stone roof came to him unbidden, and he forced it from his mind.
Hugh and Talia walked behind them. A crystalline spellbook darted around Hugh's shoulder before moving back to hide behind him. Harry realised with a start that the crystal circle around them was probably Hugh's doing, not Kanderon's. That was promising - if someone as young as Hugh, who only seemed a few years older than Harry himself, could pull that off, then Harry would be building his own diamond shields in no time.
Talia's electric-blue tattoos stretched across her body from her face down to her bare arms. All four of them wore the purple, iridescent fire circlets that must have been her doing.
For the sake of good communication between their groups, it was quite useful that Kanderon's people believed themselves safe from Zorian's mind magic. In order to preserve that impression, Harry and the others had already agreed to carefully avoid mentioning that if it became necessary, they suspected that Rain could simply reverse his Immolate aura and suppress all fire within his range, putting out the circlets in an instant.
Alustin's apprentices halted a few metres away, and Sabae stepped forward. "Welcome back to Skyhold. Is it done?"
Harry shared a quick glance with his compatriots and responded, his voice croaky from yelling above the wind. "It's done. The Intertwined have been released, and Locke's army is retreating to Havath City. We need to speak with Kanderon. Now. Please."
Sabae nodded. "Come with us."
The apprentices led them back into the broad stone tunnel. Sabae took the lead, Zorian and his pair of simulacra by her side. Harry followed, walking a little faster than usual in order to keep up with Hugh and Talia. Rain and Godrick brought up the rear.
Surprisingly, given the intensity of their initial meeting, the apprentices launched almost immediately into friendly banter.
"So, yeh really are on our side, eh?" The stone around Godrick's head melted away into the rest of his armour, and revealed a handsome, broadly grinning face. "Yeh know, we were worried fer a while, what with yer antics over Ithos and all. But getting Havath's army to back off, well, yer good enough lads in my book."
Rain responded, vanishing his own helmet in response - perhaps he felt some kind of natural kinship with the other heavily armoured figure? "Whatever keeps people safe. It'd be a shame if we showed up and the only people we knew in this world were immediately killed in a siege, you know?"
Talia walked up to Hugh's side. She was quite short for her age, but still a few centimetres taller than Harry. "So Harry, you decided to join us in person this time?"
Harry laughed. "I suppose that trick couldn't stay secret forever in a world like this. How did you know?"
She gestured at her chest. "Bone affinity. I saw right through you!" She cackled slightly at her joke.
"Ah. Figures. You're not going to mess with our skeletons, are you? I'd rather keep mine intact, and this is the second time this week I've been unusually concerned about that."
She sniffled. "Nah, don't worry about it. I can't really do anything to the bones inside other people, just sense them a little. That's why I carry these around." She reached into a bag at her side and retrieved what looked like part of a dried-out femur.
"Charming."
Talia looked rather pleased at his reaction.
Up ahead, Zorian and Sabae were speaking quietly. Harry thought he caught a word or two - 'great powers', and something about a storm.
They approached what looked like a dead end, but Godrick waved a hand, and the stone barrier melted away. Behind it, they stepped out into a larger hall, stacked with crates of food, and barrels of water. Various kinds of weaponry and ammunition were scattered across a series of long tables.
Skyhold really had been preparing for a siege.
Harry looked up at the semi-transparent spellbook hovering at Hugh's shoulder. "So, you're a crystal mage?"
Hugh nodded, still looking a little suspicious. The taller boy's long strides meant Harry had to awkwardly speed-walk to keep up.
Harry pulled the diamond out of his pocket and hovered it unsteadily above his hand. "I'm new to this. Any tips?" He wasn't planning to reveal the precise nature of his carbon-affinity, but there might be some overlap between crystal magic and his own ability to affect diamonds.
Hugh tilted his head, clearly curious. With an ease that surprised Harry, Hugh seized control over the crystal, and pulled it to orbit over his own hand in a perfect circle. The older boy focused, and the crystal stretched into a flat disc, shaped like a CD without the hole. It began to spin about its axis, looking like a tiny buzz-saw.
"If you're starting out now, your affinity is probably fairly weak. Stay in the rear, away from fights, and let your bulkier team-mates soak up enemy attention. Both in combat and in social interaction. That's what I usually do."
"Ah, quit bein' so darn self-effacin', Hugh!" Godrick called out from behind them, and reached forward to gently shove Hugh in the shoulder, who laughed softly and ducked away. The stone-mage clearly knew his own strength well - with that much mass behind the movement, he could easily have punched through walls. Godrick looked seriously at Harry. "One ah the many things Hugh's good at is undersellin himself. There are few people I'd rather have by my side."
Sabae led them out of the hall and into another tunnel, this one dimly lit by periodic glyphs carved into the ceiling. It sloped sharply upwards, with stone steps artfully cut (or perhaps moulded with a stone affinity?) at regular intervals. Most of his companions ascended rapidly with ease, and Harry had to push himself to keep up. Harry was grateful that he wasn't the only laggard - although Zorian's simulacra didn't show any signs of exertion, Zorian's original body was breathing a bit more heavily than usual.
Hugh returned the diamond to its original shape, and sent it floating back into Harry's hand. "Seriously though, stay as far away from combat as you can. Unless people age differently on your world, you're even younger than we are. If you have the aptitude for it, you should pick up warding, and make sure you prepare as much as possible. Sometimes, preparation can make all the difference."
Harry looked up at the crystal mage. He hadn't noticed until now, but Hugh's eyes glowed a faint green, and here in the dark, his pupils were contracted to thin vertical slits, like a cat's. "Warding?"
"You know, imprinting spellforms into objects and imbuing them with mana so they have enduring effects. You don't have that where you're from?" Hugh paused, and held out his palm pointing toward the wall. After a moment, a patch of stone where Hugh was pointing reshaped itself slightly. Patterns of lighter crystal formed from the dark stone, angular lines arranged in a rough runic-looking circle. It began to glow.
"That's just a simple ward. It'll glow for an hour or so before going out, but you get the idea. They're useful for a lot of things."
Harry was grinning ear to ear at the prospect. "I bet they are. We should make some time to talk about them - actually, do you have any books on the subject?"
Hugh shrugged. "Yeah, there's loads of books about it in the library. Be careful though, you don't want to get lost in there - about twenty people die in there each year."
Harry's grin didn't diminish - despite himself, he felt more at home than ever. "Excellent, I'll check it out. Is there some kind of magic that helps you find books about specific topics, or do you have to do it by hand?"
Hugh scratched at his chin. "Well, you can usually just ask the Index. The library itself is semi-sapient, and can guide you to what you're looking for."
Harry nodded with emphatic approval. Finally, someone knew how to properly design a magical library.
Behind them, Hugh's hovering crystal spellbook was getting used to the newcomers and had started trying to nibble at Rain's gauntlets. The aura mage didn't look annoyed, and was teasing the book with his fingers like he was playing with a cat. "What's its name?"
Hugh turned back toward them and rolled his eyes at the playful spellbook. "Talia calls him Mackerel, and I think at this stage the name is going to stick. I wish I could say he's usually better behaved, but he really isn't. Don't leave any books unattended around him - he gets a bit territorial and sometimes tries to eat them."
Rain laughed, vanishing his gauntlets and scratching along the back of Mackerel's spine. "I'm not sure if you're lucky or unlucky there, actually. I've got one a bit like this back home - a crystal slime named Dozer. Eats filth and grime, leaving things spotless. I wonder if they'd get along?" A musing look came over Rain's face. He stopped talking, and looked thoughtfully off into the distance until Mackerel distracted him by nipping at his beard.
The tunnel around them grew wider and levelled out, and eventually they reached another massive hall. At the opposite end, dominating the otherwise empty space, was Kanderon, resting her bulk on a raised dais.
She raised her head, and the rumble of her voice travelled equally well through the stone beneath them as through the air.
"Havath's forces retreat. You've held up your end of the bargain."
Harry shared another look with his friends, and stepped forward towards the crystal sphinx, and spoke as loudly as his complaining lungs would allow. "We were pursued. Something magically traced us and followed us at nearly five times the speed of sound, something that was unfazed by anything we threw at it. Do you know what it was?"
He heard intakes of breath from the apprentices around him, and Sabae muttered under her breath. "A thunderbringer."
Kanderon's eyes locked onto Harry, and he saw that they were glowing with the same strange kind of light as Hugh's.
"This was always a risk. Havath does not stand alone."
Harry put a hand up to his face and sighed quietly. "That seems like information which would have been useful before we antagonised them to this degree." He turned back to Kanderon. "What do you mean?"
Kanderon pressed a paw into the stone floor of her dais, and a series of strange runes lit up near the entrances of the hall, then faded.
"What I tell you now, you must tell no-one. I say this only because you have potentially averted a war, and have earned a measure of my respect. Understand?"
Harry and the others nodded, although he carefully noted that Kanderon wasn't requiring them to swear any kind of binding oath.
"You have disturbed a game being played at a level you could scarcely imagine. The Havathi Empire is only the latest regime being protected and guided by a particular multiversal faction. The Ithonian Empire, too, was one of their projects before it was shattered. In an attempt to prove their ideology dominant, they wish to see an empire triumph of its own accord, and dominate this world. They rarely, if ever, interfere directly, unless it is to prevent the interference of other multiversal powers."
Her eyes flickered between the three of them.
"I was hoping they would not see your actions as the interference of other worlds, since none of you are here of your own accord, nor are you representatives of the dominant factions of your worlds. I was wrong."
Harry's jaw was rapidly clenching and unclenching. So, in attempting to prevent a war on this world, they'd managed to unintentionally enter some multiversal proxy war of unknown scale.
"What does this mean?"
"It means," Kanderon responded, stepping off her dais and padding towards them on her gargantuan cat-like paws, "that as long as you remain on this world, the three of you will be hunted. Multiversal factions do not take kindly to interference. If they find you, they will kill you. And they will be looking."
"You promised us a pathway home," Rain said. "We've done what you asked."
"Indeed you have. And in return, you will have what I promised."
She stepped forward again, and from this close distance, the scale of her massive sphinx-body blocked half of Harry's view of the ceiling. He gripped his wand in his hand, and he felt Rain tense up beside him. Still, Kanderon did nothing aggressive, and instead reached out with an upturned paw. Mackerel, Hugh's crystalline spellbook, fluttered forward, and settled onto one of the soft pads. For the first time, Harry noticed a peculiar stone set into its greenish-crystal cover.
"A guide home."
There was another sudden intake of breath around him, and no-one said anything. After a pause, Hugh spoke with a sense of growing realisation. "You mean… Mackerel's labyrinth stone. Because it's taken from inside a labyrinth, it should be able to guide us through? But Mackerel can't go without me, and…"
Talia threw a tattooed arm over Harry's shoulder. "Ha! I hope you like us!" The red-headed teenage girl was grinning broadly. "Cause it looks like we're going to be spending quite a bit more time together."
The pursuer continued its search above the Anastan sea, but found nothing.
The stones it had been using to trace the offworlders were gone, burnt through in a blaze of expended mana. The tell-tale traces of their magics were only faint, and after criss-crossing the ocean sky a dozen times, it was clear they were no longer here.
It travelled quickly back to Havath City, seen by no-one, and returned to the reality from which it had come.
Someone was waiting for it. A fist-size sphere with a metallic sheen. Space around it seemed to warp and twist, as if pulled toward its surface.
"The Intertwined are dead, and Havath is retreating. The intruders achieved their goals. I didn't catch them."
The sphere pulsed, contracting and expanding. It hummed in quietly communicated displeasure.
"There's something else. Two of them fought me, with magics from other worlds. The other did nothing, only watched. I was close enough at the end to see this in their soul."
The pursuer held out its hand, palm up, and a bright projection of Harry's soul winked into existence above its hand. The projection shrank and turned, until it focused in on a particular section of the shell.
The sphere stopped pulsing.
"I thought they had abandoned other realities. If the Bearer of the Line of Merlin is here, then…"
The surface of the sphere rippled.
"We must be cautious. We cannot risk being caught in the shockwave of their return. If the Atlanteans have ended their isolation, there will be consequences."
The pursuer turned to re-enter Anastis. They had a planet to search.
Given the importance of his work, Simulacrum Number Three had permission to use as much mana as he wanted.
As a consequence, there were no minute-long pauses between his rapid teleportations. The repeated wooshing of the world unfolding before him was merging into one continuous noise. Because he was only in one place for a few seconds, he'd even eschewed the standard force-disc beneath him, instead opting to use unstructured magic to maintain his altitude.
In a small necklace hanging in front of his ectoplasmic chest were two of Rain's aura anchors - Detection and Purify. Both of those were utility auras, neither offensive nor defensive, which meant that if the simulacrum ran into a problem, he was on his own.
Not that this prospect worried him too much. In fact, much to the original's chagrin, Simulacrum Three was somewhat looking forward to a potential confrontation. None of Zorian's doubles had had a chance to flex Rain's torrent of mana in combat, and Simulacrum Three had high hopes that he might be the first.
He was heading to the right place for that, at least. He was rapidly approaching Havath City.
Last time Zorian had sent simulacra here, they had drawn attention to themselves. It hadn't really been avoidable - it's hard to directly ask questions without being noticed, and lifting memories from people's minds is much harder without externally prompting them for the information you want. Still, Simulacrum Three was going to be much less noticeable.
This time, rather than walking through the main gates, he teleported directly into an empty warehouse his predecessors had scouted for this exact purpose. Then, he stepped out onto the streets.
Unlike in Cyoria, in Havath invisibility wasn't sufficient to be unseen. The chances that a passing guard had a wind affinity, or could sense the crystal aura anchors he was carrying, or heavens forbid, had some kind of cognition affinity that could sense the presence of his mind, were simply too high. Hoping to avoid that, the simulacrum was lightly touching the minds of the people he passed, ensuring that they noticed nothing out of the ordinary. He was ready to take control at a moment's notice if it became necessary.
There was always a chance that a lich was watching, but there wasn't anything the simulacrum could really do about that.
The decision to end the Intertwined was not one they had made lightly. Harry, in particular, had been deeply uncomfortable with the idea of ending the lives of seven functionally immortal beings. But, after Kanderon had told them about the Havathi army approaching Skyhold, their timeline had abruptly grown extremely short. Even Harry had agreed by the end of their discussion. In the end, seven lives were simply outweighed by the apparent thousands on the line if the armies faced each other outright.
Not to mention the fact that if Kanderon herself fell, they might also lose their only lead on how to travel through labyrinths and find their way home.
A mental missive back to their camp confirmed that Rain was watching through the crystal anchor hanging around his neck. Although Zorian's teleportation and mind magic gave him the edge in terms of scouting abilities, mapping out a system of pipes beneath a major city was definitely somewhere Rain had a clear advantage. If necessary, Zorian could construct a web of mana threads around him to sense space and objects moving through it, or summon an invisible arcane eye for scrying purposes, or any number of other creative solutions. None of them, however, were quite as efficient as simply receiving a three-dimensional map of everything within a hundred metre radius.
Speaking to the original Zorian back in their forested glade, Rain confirmed that he'd identified a number of tunnels beneath Havath City.
Closest, just beneath the simulacrum and the aura anchor he carried, were the cellars and basements of the nearby buildings. As in any city, space was at a premium, and some of the buildings had two stories buried in the marble substrate of the city.
Below that were the water supply, sewers, and minor alchemical supply pipes. Despite the lack of flexibility of magic in this world, the simulacrum had to admit that the specialisation of mages here allowed for impressive feats of civil engineering. Fluids rushed through the pipes at prodigious speeds, despite the lack of mechanical pumps within Detection's radius.
Deeper below that, buried so low that even artillery magic fired at the city would struggle to damage it, were the arterial pipes they were looking for. Toxic alchemical reagents flowed through the marble and bronze that formed the domain of the Intertwined. According to Kanderon, this acted like life-blood for the peculiar magical beings. If this constant flow were sufficiently interfered with, death might not come instantly - but it would come soon.
Although it wasn't the primary purpose of this journey, Zorian was very interested in learning more about the internal mechanics of Anastian liches. There were several obvious advantages and disadvantages when compared with liches from his world, and it wasn't yet clear if the two states of being had more in common than just their name.
From here in the warehouse, Detection could only glimpse a fraction of this network of pipes. So the simulacrum began to walk. Under the cover of invisibility, Simulacrum Three criss-crossed the city. Personally, he had no idea where he was going, but Rain relayed instructions through the original.
Somewhat to the simulacrum's disappointment, no sword-wielding figures dropped from the sky to confront him, and the first part of his scouting mission passed without incident. Several mages, instinctively observing their surroundings with their affinity senses, did begin to notice that something strange was happening, but that was easily rectified with some gentle mental nudges. The simulacrum was careful to avoid sending mental tendrils downward; even if this was a mercy mission, it was best if the Intertwined remained unaware of their plans.
The fortified centre of the city was the hardest to map. There were no open pathways for citizens to walk in, and the great bronze doors were warded in an esoteric way the simulacrum couldn't easily figure out. So, he'd simply resorted to staying outside, and using unstructured magic to levitate the aura anchor over the walls and through the inner sanctum. Whatever impressive magic had created these wards, they apparently hadn't been designed to trigger when a single small rock crossed the boundary.
With that, the scouting was done. Now, it was time for the real test.
Simulacrum Three walked back to a less busy part of the city, and into an industrial-looking maintenance depot. Usually, this sort of place would be well guarded, but the guards had just now decided to visit the bathroom all at the same time. That was strictly against protocol, but in a stunning coincidence, their commanding officer had gone on her lunch break early today - something she hadn't done in thirty years, and would be unable to explain afterwards.
The entrance to the pipes was clean and well-maintained. The hatch was thoroughly secured and airtight, but easy to use, and opened to reveal a marble access tunnel with a bronze ladder. The simulacrum descended, and after a minute of climbing, found himself in a wide tunnel. There were thin marble walkways on either side, and in the centre flowed a veritable river of greenish liquid.
Kanderon hadn't been kidding when she said these materials were volatile. Even the vapours in the air were stinging at the simulacrum's ectoplasmic flesh, and if he had a sense of smell or taste, he was sure he'd be retching. Still, he had work to do, best to get it done and get out of here.
He bent down, and held a Purify anchor as close to the liquid as possible, his hand just above the liquid and protected from splashes by a small unstructured kinetic shield. They were operating under the assumption that the more liquid they evaporated, the greater the chance the Intertwined would notice - so it was important to keep the total volume of the river intersecting with the Purify radius to a minimum.
None of them were quite sure how this test would go. Normally, Purify would easily take care of toxic chemicals. These toxic chemicals, however, were arguably someone's blood, which Rain insisted he'd never been able to evaporate - at least while it was inside people. On the other hand, the entity this liquid was keeping alive was in significant pain - would that help Rain's mind think of it as material which ought to be removed? Or perhaps it would simply be too difficult for Rain to wrap his head around the idea that a city-sized, faceless entity with no apparent organic biology could be truly alive.
By his own admission, Rain didn't actually know how his magic categorised which materials would evaporate under Purify's effects, and which wouldn't. Apparently, it could even change with his preferences and beliefs about the world - alcoholic drinks, for example, would either be affected or unaffected depending on whether or not Rain was planning to get drunk.
The simulacrum was reminded of his drinking competitions with Zach. The other, more boisterous time looper had been impressed with Zorian's alcohol tolerance - until the moment he realised Zorian was using a simple spell to remove the alcohol, and was basically just drinking juice.
He felt a small pang of homesickness before reminding himself to focus on the task at hand. With a message to the original, he signalled for Rain to begin.
An instant later, a tiny sphere of concentrated light shone from the gem in the simulacrum's palm. The effect was immediate - within the sphere, the toxic fumes ceased to damage the ectoplasm of his arm. And crucially, where the bright sphere intersected with the river below, there was now a void where the chemicals had disappeared.
He felt a rush of excitement - their plan might work.
Just as he was pulling back his hand, before he even had a chance to take more than a single step away from the rushing liquid, the stone beneath his feet ceased to support him, and he sank up to his neck into the marble, which gave way to his body as if it had become a liquid. It solidified again, and he was stuck, his hand only inches above the torrent of fluid. None of the marble pierced his ectoplasmic flesh, though, so this clearly hadn't been intended to be lethal. Simulacrum Number Three decided not to dismiss himself yet, and instead resolved to wait and see what was happening.
It appeared the Intertwined were paying some attention, at least, to the goings on in their domain.
The marble of the tunnel wall curved and rippled, and a humanoid shape composed of marble and bronze stepped out. Its statuesque face was expressionless. It looked like it was about to speak, but the simulacrum spoke first, blurting out an observation which surprised him more than casual manipulation of stone.
"You're not in pain anymore!"
The figure froze as if the animating force had abandoned it. There was a long pause.
Despite the rocks constraining his body, the simulacrum flinched a little as the vast mind surrounding him changed. Starting slowly, but gradually increasing, he could sense the deep, scarring pain returning within the lich.
The stone statue spoke, sound being produced by some kind of magic in lieu of vocal chords. "Pain is not a fact of our existence. It is a weapon wielded against us by our masters to keep us in line. We choose to feel it again now to keep this conversation private from those who would keep us as servants."
The statue knelt down to be closer to the simulacrum's face, which was now at ground level. "You come here with a stone which can destroy our blood. You are surprised to see that we are not in pain. We are not fools. You are here to kill us."
The simulacrum teleported, moving only a short distance - enough to be free of the stone encasing his body, and faced the statue. "And yet I'm still alive, if a little compressed. You could obviously have killed me then, and yet you didn't."
The original was mentally shouting at him to escape, to get out and away from the lich-avatar, but the simulacrum refused. This conversation was promising - telling the truth had worked quite a few times on this world, perhaps this would be another. Of course, the original had the final say - he could always dismiss the simulacrum's body directly, but then there would be a considerable delay as he sent another simulacrum to Havath City.
The lich-avatar responded. "We would rather rule this city than be destroyed. If you assist us in this, you will find us useful allies."
The simulacrum considered the proposition, but then slowly shook his head. "We seek to halt the Havathi Empire's expansion, and prevent the next great war. Even if you took control of Havath City, it's likely the returning army under Duarch Locke would besiege the city to take it back. Tens of thousands would die."
Another one of Zorian's simulacra was trailing the Havathi army travelling toward Skyhold, and was gently probing the minds of the weaker battlemages for information, like the name of their commanding officer.
The stone figure stood, rising slowly from its kneeling position. The void where the simulacrum had been imprisoned melted back into seamless stone. "You seek to avoid casualties. Would your destructive sphere not also kill indiscriminately as you used it to drain us of our lifeblood?"
Simulacrum Three almost laughed at the misunderstanding, which paralleled his own fears when he'd first encountered Rain. "No, although I can see why you might think that. This power does not harm humans, nor other conventionally living beings."
Reaching out with mental tendrils, he found and controlled a rat living in a nearby tunnel, and commanded it to run toward them. He needed to look surprisingly far - apparently a city in which the ground was sentient and could swallow up living beings was quite good at pest control. A moment later, with the rat cooperatively nestled in his hand, he instructed Rain to activate Purify again.
The sphere of light spread out, washing over the rat and leaving it unharmed, and cleaner than almost any rat had ever been before. The simulacrum released it, and it scampered away, largely confused by the experience.
The stone lich-figure nodded slowly, pausing for a moment in thought. "If you will not help us take the city, releasing us from our pain while leaving the city unharmed is the next-greatest gift you could give. We will help you."
Somewhat smugly, Simulacrum Three noticed that the original's commands to flee had halted. He cast a quick spell to check for external listeners, but there were none that he could detect.
"Is anyone listening?"
The stone figure shook its head. "The same process that causes us pain denies our masters access."
"Good."
For the first time on this world, Zorian began to cast the Gate spell.
In the tunnel, space began to warp and twist. Initially focused on a single point, the air began to rip, a cut in the fabric of reality. It grew till it was about the size of a fist, then stabilised. On the other side was a simulacrum, casting the other half of the spell from a safe distance from their forested glade. As soon as the portal opened, dozens of tiny stones shot through, propelled by unstructured magic - each of them identical to the Purify anchor in Simulacrum Three's hand, the fruit of Rain's labour over the last two days. After coming through the Gate, their speed rapidly reduced, and they came to a stop hovering above his outstretched palm.
The portal grew wider, large enough to fit a person, and three simulacra passed through the Gate.
The portal closed.
With the help of the Intertwined, placing the anchors was fairly straightforward. The marble liches formed detailed maps of the underground network into the wall. Combining this with Rain's three-dimensional image, Simulacrum Three had a better overview of the tunnels than any human living in the city above. He had identified a number of critical points - pumping stations, input points for the chemicals themselves, and storage tanks, which held the majority of the liquid.
The quartet of simulacra now spread across Havath City assembled a small swarm of rats. It took far longer than it would have in Cyoria, and the resulting rodent army was smaller than the simulacrum had hoped - but it was enough. Entrusted with one aura anchor each, the rats followed mental commands to place the crystals in unobtrusive, difficult to reach locations near these critical junctions. Simulacrum Three felt a little nostalgic - near the beginning of the time loop, he'd defended Cyoria from an invasion supported by cranium rats. Now, he was in the reverse situation - organising and mobilising rats to invade a foreign city. Still, this invasion would be far more pleasant to experience than the brutal monster raids and accompanying artillery bombardment he'd endured as a novice mage.
According to their calculations, when Rain activated the Purify beacons, it would only take around a minute for the vast majority of the alchemical fluids to drain into the critical locations and be evaporated by the aura. That wasn't too long, but there was still the chance of some kind of rapid response. That was why the four simulacra were now waiting underneath the largest pumping stations, ready to defend against any attempt from Havath City's defenders to seize control of the stations and destroy the anchors.
There wasn't much chance of holding the pumping stations indefinitely, but they didn't need to - they just needed to hold them long enough. The Intertwined had confirmed that even a few minutes without the vital fluids was enough to kill them.
All four of the simulacra were accompanied by an avatar of the city-spanning marble lich. Despite the claims that they were in fact seven separate individuals, the avatars of the Intertwined looked very similar - golems of marble, with non-descript facial features outlined in bronze.
Simulacrum Three looked questioningly at the avatar standing by his side. The lich nodded.
It was time to begin.
With a mental signal to the original, he indicated to Rain to start the process.
Across the city, dozens of small crystals began to blaze, bathing their surroundings with purifying light. Vast quantities of mana radiated from the anchors, evaporating tonnes of alchemical fluids every second as an entire city's network of tunnels drained into a few key locations.
The stone in the simulacrum's hand glowed, leaving a sphere of tunnel around him cleaner than it ever had been.
At first, there was calm. Then, Simulacrum Three saw the avatar by his side tense.
"They're coming."
Noises came from the access tunnel by their side, and the simulacrum could sense a handful of minds at the top. They weren't typical minds either - they were like Valia, the soldier who had apprehended Simulacrum One and Two a few days ago - their minds were bonded with the living weapons and tools they held.
The lich-avatar turned its head to face the vertical tunnel, and it collapsed in on itself. The marble walls pinched together, forming a seal, and the bronze ladder coiled up to reinforce it with a lattice from beneath.
It wasn't a moment too soon. The ground around them shook as some thunderous force slammed into the seal, partially crumbling the marble.
Around the city, the other simulacra were reporting similar responses. A massive dragon, dwarfing the ones Rain had killed above Ithos, had landed atop the pumping station near Simulacrum Five, and was tearing chunks out of the marble. Above Simulacrum Six, a powerful fire mage with a simple but strong mind shield was resisting their mental probes, and was pouring a torrent of white-hot flame into the tunnel - Six was draining their reserves fast just to hold it back.
Havath was waking up.
A thread of mental connection dropped away as Simulacrum Ten was torn apart, along with the most of a city block.
By Simulacrum Three's side, the lich-avatar suddenly doubled over. "They know," it managed to choke out between spasms of pain. The marble walls of the tunnels quivered in rhythm with the waves of agony the simulacrum could feel radiating from the vast conglomerate mind. The avatar fell to the ground, curling up in foetal position. "End this. Please."
They were in terrible pain, even more so than their reactions indicated. It was difficult to watch. The simulacrum's resolve strengthened - whoever was inflicting this pain on the lich deserved to lose whatever power they had.
The tunnel by his side thundered again, and the lich's blockade began to crumble. A furious face protruded through a gap.
Simulacrum Three reached out and clamped down on the soldier's mind like a vice. It was a strange experience - the mind inside the soldier's sword kept sending mental signals back through to the man, imploring him to wake up. The simulacrum could have pressed harder and forced him unconscious anyway, but there was a simpler solution. He grabbed at the sword with unstructured magic, sending it flying down the tunnel and out of sight. Separated, the two minds were much weaker, and the soldier fell limp. The body was rolled aside, and an arrow shot through the gap. It ricocheted off the outer layers of his shields, but the impact drained far more mana than it should have.
The glow from the Purify anchor seemed to intensify, the brightness almost blinding in the underground space. They must be getting close now, surely - how long had it been?
<Forty seconds,> came the response from the original. Of course he was calm, he was hundreds of kilometres away.
Simulacrum Five reported that the dragon had broken through. He'd managed to bloody its eyes with a volley of invisible magic missiles, but had been forced to retreat deeper into the tunnel network to avoid the torrent of viscous fire jetting from its mouth. It hadn't been enough, and he'd resorted to collapsing the roof above to block off access entirely.
By his side, the lich-avatar's movement began to slow. To the simulacrum's mind-sense, the great mind began to falter and fade - the Intertwined were dying.
Another arrow whistled through the hole in the access tunnel, and he barely managed to dodge out of its path. He seized a huge chunk of rubble with unstructured magic and used it to block the gap.
Another signal lost. Simulacrum Five was dead; something had carved a gash through his torso, leaving the two halves of his ectoplasmic body to dissolve on the ground. Where had the attack come from? There had been no minds nearby.
It felt like an ocean wave cresting. The huge souls of the seven beings that had become one, finally released, tearing apart and dissipating into nothingness.
At Simulacrum Three's feet, the marble floor twisted and reshaped itself into a single, delicate marble flower, growing from the stone. It was done.
Shouting voices echoed from either side of the tunnel, but they were too far away - they wouldn't make it here for a few more minutes. Simulacrum Three slumped against the wall. It had been tough work, but they had done it. He was preparing to dismiss his own ectoplasmic body when he felt a gust of wind, and the cracking noise of an object moving faster than sound.
He felt a hand gripping his throat.
He opened his eyes.
A sneering face. "And you're not even really here, either. We'll find you, little one."
And then there was darkness.
Harry
Harry felt a little left out.
Rain was sitting cross-legged, his eyes shut. Visually, he didn't seem to be doing anything, but Harry knew his auras were acting at a distance, cleansing the tunnels under Havath of the last of the blood of the Intertwined.
Zorian was also sitting, his attention focused on his copies, far away. Meanwhile, there wasn't much for Harry to do. He was nervously pacing around the edge of the clearing, with a single diamond hovering above his left hand. The conjured gemstone was floating up and down, up and down. It wobbled periodically at the upper and lower ends of its motion.
His right hand was gripping the Elder Wand.
Until now, their group had largely avoided the attention of the great powers of this world. Whether or not their efforts today were successful, an act like this… they were undeniably announcing their presence to the world. There was no telling how it would react.
Zorian's eyes snapped open and he leapt to his feet. Harry jumped in response to the sudden motion.
<We need to move. Now.>
"Why? What is it? Have the Intertwined been dealt with?"
<Yes, but there's something else. All of my simulacra in Havath are dead.>
Rain clambered to his feet. "Teleport us?"
Zorian nodded, and the three of them, along with three simulacra, grouped up on a disc of force. There was a rushing noise, and the clearing vanished and they were a hundred metres above the forest. Six more teleports followed, and the varied landscapes flashed beneath them. Forest gave way to deeper jungle, which petered out as the land flattened into a broad plain. Mountains loomed in the distance, but grew closer with each jump, until they hovered above one of the peaks.
Eventually, Zorian lowered them to the ground.
<We're in the outer territories of Sica, one of the major geopolitical rivals of Havath. Hopefully they'll think twice about following us here.>
Harry took a moment to get his bearings, feeling his feet firmly placed on the rough stone of the mountain, rather than Zorian's oddly slippery disc of force.
Unlike the snow-capped summits of the Skyreach Range, here, trees stretched almost up to the rocky peaks, and the undergrowth was thick and bushy. The carbon-based cellulose of the trees registered as a dull buzzing to his nascent affinity senses. The ocean was just visible in the East.
One of Zorian's simulacra conjured a disc of his own, cloaked himself in invisibility, and rose back into the sky. <I'm keeping watch, in case anything's coming.>
Harry turned to Zorian. "So, the Intertwined are dead. Any news from your simulacrum with the army approaching Skyhold?"
Rather than speaking out loud, Zorian continued to respond mentally. <They know what we've done. The army has stopped moving.>
"Good. We shouldn't move to Skyhold yet - if Locke's army decides to attack anyway, the University will be one of the most dangerous places on the planet."
There was a moment's pause as the four of them admired the view from their vantage point at the summit. A few rays of sunlight pierced through the grey clouds, shedding light on a landscape below, which reminded Harry of Tolkien's Mirkwood - massive gnarled trees spreading across rolling hills. For all the dangers on this world, it was certainly a beautiful place.
"So what's next? We camp here until we're sure Locke's retreating, then use a Gate to travel to Skyhold?"
Rain turned away from the view. "Sounds good to me. I hope we did the right thing today."
<We didn't have much choice in the matter. Unless we wanted to try to navigate the labyrinths ourselves, working with Kanderon was the only way to avoid a war.>
Harry breathed in, and out. The cold mountain air was refreshing after so long in the humid jungle. "It's usually better to end a war before it starts."
Rain looked at his armoured palms. "After so long making Purify anchors, it feels strange to be done." He looked back out across the plains, and did a double take. "Can you see that?"
Harry squinted, and readjusted his glasses. "What?"
Rain grabbed them both by the shoulders. "We need to teleport. Now."
Zorian summoned a disc beneath them, and reached out. His third simulacrum dropped out of the sky to join them. The last thing Harry saw before the world vanished again was movement in the distance - something in the trees. Something very, very fast.
Then they were teleporting again. The only way Harry could keep track of their disorienting motion was by catching glimpses of the ocean to their right. They must be moving north, then.
The mental voice of one of the simulacra sounded in his mind. <It's still coming. Look.>
Harry craned his neck to look behind them. There, near the horizon, but approaching rapidly, was a plume of dust. The world flickered, and the plume was smaller, barely visible. The world flickered again, and Harry expected it to be gone, but somehow it was larger now, getting closer despite their constant teleports.
That was… exceedingly impressive. They were teleporting once every six seconds or so, and coarsely estimating from the shape of the coast, each jump was about ten kilometres.
Whatever was following them was moving at a little under five times the speed of sound.
Harry strained his voice to be heard over the ocean winds. "Zorian! We won't outrun them, at least not quickly. They're travelling along the ground - try to lose them by gaining altitude."
Zorian mentally assented, and their next two teleports took them upwards at roughly a thirty degree angle. Meanwhile, one of his simulacra must have wrapped them in a sphere of invisibility, because Harry could no longer see his hands in front of him.
The plume of dust behind them vanished. There was a moment of reprieve before Rain sucked in air through his teeth. "It's still coming. It can airwalk, or something."
<We do not want it to get close. It tore through my simulacra before they knew it was there.>
"Can you teleport us back to the glade?"
<I can only teleport that far to a permanent teleportation circle, and the one I set up in the glade is too weak to function at this range.>
The air at this altitude whipped at Harry's hair and clothes. "Zorian, cast the Gate spell."
<I can't cast that without staying still for a moment, and it'll catch us if I stop teleporting.>
More than ever, Harry wished he had learned to apparate under his own power.
This… entity, whatever it was, had found each of Zorian's simulacra beneath Havath. It had traced them to Sica. And now, despite their invisibility, it was following them, moving through the sky at speeds that wouldn't quite break airspeed records, but would definitely give them a run for their money.
They needed time, time to think, to plan, to run. "Can you send a simulacrum back to delay that thing?" Harry asked, his mind sinking into familiar cold patterns.
Harry jumped a little as a simulacrum behind him responded out loud. "I don't know how long I can hold it back."
"You-" The world twisted again, cutting Harry off just as he was about to speak.
"You just need to buy us some time. Take this."
Harry reached into his Bag of Useful Items and nearly fell over with the motion. He wasn't used to coordinating his movements while rapidly teleporting across the countryside. It was surprisingly disorienting to have your entire visual perspective shift every few seconds. If his vestibular system had a voice, it would be complaining right now. Something invisible put a steadying hand on his shoulder and Harry shot a grateful look into empty air.
After a moment he had the object he was looking for in his hands. "Light the fuse with fire or lightning." He handed over the 5 kilograms of TNT, almost his entire supply.
To his surprise, the Simulacrum (at this point he was struggling to keep his numbering straight) took the bomb with only slight hesitation, lifting it and pushing the TNT into an expanded space in his robes. "Got it." The simulacrum nodded, and then vanished.
Harry reached up to cast a quick bubblehead charm on himself, and then breathed out. It was time to think.
Simulacrum Number Nine
Now invisible on his own stationary platform suspended in the air, Simulacrum Number Nine didn't need to teleport toward their pursuer. No, it was coming to him.
In the few seconds he had before the pursuer reached him, he cast a powerful hasting spell on himself, accelerating his movement and response rate. Then, he conjured a stratified wall of force, sheets of hexagons layered on more interlocking hexagons, carefully positioned to distribute forces evenly across the field. Given how easily his predecessors had been dispatched, he wasn't opting for his usual more elegant renewable shield pattern, settling on something to soak up simple brute force instead. He now existed solely to delay.
A plan was rapidly communicated telepathically between the simulacra via their shared soul. He backed a fair way away from his shield-wall. Now that he was hasted, the Simulacrum could make out the silhouette of the creature pursuing them. It was humanoid, not much larger than Rain in his armour, but glowing. In fact, it seemed to Simulacrum Number Nine that he wasn't actually seeing the creature at all, but rather just the glow of superheated air in front of it as it travelled. He prepared himself, pulled Harry's bomb out of the little pocket dimension in his robes, and then attacked.
He didn't quite drain their shared reserves (the original still needed to teleport, after all), but the volley of spells he released made quite a dent. Homing functions were layered into concentrated manifolds of force, fireballs and disintegration beams arced into the path of the oncoming enemy.
Most missed entirely, left in the wake of their fast-moving target. A few of the faster spells with homing functions splashed harmlessly against it, and even the single disintegration beam that struck home seemed to sink into the pursuer with no effect.
The barrage served its purpose, though. The pursuer slightly changed course, its trajectory altering toward him, rather than where the original was teleporting into the distance.
And then it was here.
Simulacrum Number Nine was quite proud of his wall. Most of the original's shields were built with efficiency in mind, given Zorian's relatively small mana reserves, but Rain had changed the game. In the few hasted moments he had, Simulacrum Number Nine had poured a frankly frightening amount of power into the gargantuan shield. He doubted even Zach could have got through it, even with time. And yet, two strikes from his pursuer's glowing fists was all it took for the entire construction to shatter. The entity shot towards him, accelerating back to its previous speed in moments.
Simulacrum Number Nine hadn't wasted these precious seconds. Just before the pursuer reached him, he finished casting his final spell.
High in the sky above the Anastian seas, a gate opened.
The original couldn't risk staying still long enough to cast a gate - if the stranger sped up and caught them, or could attack at range, staying in one place for too long would spell doom.
Simulacrum Number Nine was not long for this world, and he knew it. He had no such constraints.
The other side was maintained by Simulacrum Number Two, a few kilometres away from where he had been monitoring the Havathi army in the Skyreach Ranges, far across the continent.
The pursuer arced through the sky toward the gate, propelled by its supersonic momentum. Simulacrum Number Nine grinned a little at the trick, and prepared to close it as soon as his target went through.
And then the pursuer simply… stopped. Centimetres from the gate, its momentum just gone. A blast of superheated air passed around the gate and washed over Simulacrum Number Nine. He had just enough time to push an unstructured bolt of lightning into Harry's bundle of red sticks before the pursuer floated around the gate and casually put its fist through his head.
Harry
Harry could barely make out the tiny speck of light as his TNT detonated near the horizon, and he privately thanked Simulacrum Number-Whatever as it winked out. As far as he was concerned, that was a living mind that had just willingly gone to oblivion to buy him a few seconds to think.
Zorian had changed direction, teleporting them at an almost perpendicular angle to the route they had been taking before. And yet, almost immediately after the explosion, Rain saw the telltale dot of motion in the distance - it was back on their trail.
If it was tracking them, how would it be doing so? What distinguishing features did their group have?
Theory one: it could detect the use of mana.
Harry discarded that immediately - there were probably thousands of people using mana all across the continent, and that wouldn't have led it to trace them from Havath to Sica. It would have to be something more specific than this.
Theory two: it could sense the ectoplasm that comprised Zorian's simulacra.
Theory three: Rain apparently drew heavily on the local aether to supply him with vast quantities of mana. Perhaps it was possible to use this to find him?
Theory four: it could detect their use of magics alien to this world.
Both theories three and four were difficult to test. Rain could shut off his aether scoops, but then he wouldn't be able to keep supplying Zorian with mana for long. They could stop using magic from their own worlds, but without it they'd be caught almost immediately, and also fall from the sky. Harry was proud of the efforts he'd made with his carbon affinity, but there was no way he was going to be able to hold all of their weight with it yet.
Still, they could distinguish between theory two and, and theories three and four.
"Zorian, we need to split up. One of -"
They teleported into a gust of wind, which snatched away Harry's words as they left his bubble-charm.
"One of your simulacra takes Rain, another takes me. We need to find out how they're following us so we can lose them."
<Can't. I need to stay with Rain. I'll run out of mana fast without him.>
"How fast?"
<About twenty teleports total.> Zorian's mental communications were terse, and he paused to focus each time they teleported.
"We split up, going three different directions. We meet up after six jumps at most each. We see which one gets followed."
Zorian must have agreed, because he felt a simulacrum take a hold of his shoulder. Two teleports later, and the ocean was much closer - he could see the wind whipping water away from the tip of each swell. Then they were skimming along the surface, each teleport taking them further out to sea, the shoreline vanishing in the distance.
A moment later, the leading edge of their pursuer's sonic boom rolled across them. The noise was thunderous. The accompanying wave of pressure briefly flattened the nearby swells and almost knocked Harry off his feet. He felt some kind of cushioning magical force hold up his limbs. He pressed a hand to his face to keep his glasses from falling off.
Zorian must have been running out of mana, because their path arced upwards, and after a moment they must have rejoined the others - Harry felt an invisible hand reach out and hold him steady.
<It's following Rain.>
Ah. So either it was tracing simulacra, and had just chosen one to follow arbitrarily, or it was following Rain specifically, or there was some other factor he hadn't considered. Rain had plenty of features which made him unique. It could be his aether consumption, his armour, his mana output… which apparently made him light up like a beacon to Zorian's mana sight.
"How long before your mana reserves fill up?" Harry asked Zorian.
<They already have.>
Harry noted with a lump in his throat that their pursuer had made up about half the distance between them.
"Rain, turn off your essence well. Zorian, change directions and keep jumping."
The teleports changed direction, so he assumed they were following his plan. The next two jumps took them far over the ocean, and the land was barely visible on the horizon.
Almost immediately, the dot in the distance changed direction to follow them.
Alright, that was one hypothesis gone.
Maybe…
"Rain, flare your Purify beacons."
Rain must have heard him above the rushing wind, because a sphere of white light grew from the dot following them, moving almost faster than the eye could follow. Zorian was teleporting them faster now, once every four seconds, but each time, the sphere of light got closer.
"It's got an anchor it's using to follow us. Rain, destroy them!"
The sphere of purifying light behind them flickered out, then on again. Rain must have been cycling through each of his aura anchors to check which one their pursuer held.
A hand removed itself from his shoulder, and he saw a ripple in the air float off their disc. Another simulacrum, giving itself up to buy them time?
Rain's shout was barely audible above the wind. "I need to put enough mana through the Purify anchor to burn through its durability. I need to use aura focus - I'll lose all senses. Keep me safe."
There was barely a moment's notice before Harry felt Rain slump down by his side, sitting down on their invisible disc. Then, the rapidly approaching dot that was their pursuer began to glow with purifying light.
Not like an aura, gently glowing the way Harry had seen before.
Like the sun.
For the second time, Harry saw Rain's raw power on display. He shielded his eyes, looking downwards, then regretting it - even the diffuse reflection of the light from the ocean was painful to look at.
Each time Zorian teleported, the massive orb of light shrank into the distance, then swelled again as their pursuer made up the distance. It felt like being in the path of an on-rushing train, just barely being whisked away before being crushed.
And then it went out. Rain must have poured enough mana through the anchor to burn through its durability.
Zorian responded immediately, and the next teleport went sharply upward, then another took them high enough that Harry would have been having trouble breathing without his bubble-head charm.
The roaring edge of their pursuers' sonic boom passed them by, and was replaced by the rushing of the stratospheric winds. They waited, and there was stillness.
None of them said anything for a few minutes. Then, when Rain reported he couldn't see or sense anything nearby, Zorian opened a gate, and they stepped through to the snow-capped mountains near Skyhold University. On the other side stood a simulacrum, who looked nervously at the sea air through the portal before closing it.
"My other simulacrum says that Locke's army is returning to Havath City. It worked."
Harry took a deep breath. "We should get inside the university. Whatever that was, I'd rather be closer to Kanderon - and besides, I think we deserve some more answers."
The simulacrum reached out, and the world twisted around them once more. Harry found himself at the base of a massive mountain. They must have been at the Western edge of the mountain range, because they were no longer in an alpine landscape - instead, this peak rose up from a sea of sand, stretching far into the distance. The area around them had been carved to resemble a harbour, and anchored around the perimeter of the mountain were a number of sailing ships with broad wooden hulls, resting on the sand.
Either this world had bizarrely extreme tides, or these ships were designed to cross the sandy desert. The winds were certainly strong enough for that - even here, sand crystals whipped up by the air currents whistled around them and stung at Harry's exposed flesh. He pulled his robes closer and shivered a little.
There were only a few people in the harbour-like area. In the distance, a few of the strange ships were being unloaded, and the cargo hurriedly transferred into the bulk of the mountain.
He focused, reaching out with his still-developing affinity sense. At this point, purified carbon was all he could precisely feel, but large clumps of carbon-rich compounds still registered as a faint signal, like an out-of-focus image.
His skills were growing rapidly, but not nearly fast enough to keep up with what was necessary. He sorely needed some new tricks. Because of the distances and speeds involved, his magic had been entirely useless during the pursuit, aside from granting him a few breaths clear of bugs. And that was with the Elder Wand in hand! As much as Harry was proud of being able to think clearly and quickly, there were certain situations in which no amount of quick thinking could compensate for differences in raw power.
By his side, he could feel Rain and Zorian - the simulacra didn't show up to his affinity senses at all, of course. In the distance, near one of the tunnels into the mountain, Harry felt four presences he thought might be moving. He really wasn't sure they were people though - for all he knew, they could be sacks of potatoes on a conveyor belt, or dogs, or something.
"I think there's an entrance there." He gestured, and their group began to walk. "It should be clear that we're not enemies, but be on your guard, just in case."
They didn't have to wait long for their presence to be noticed. After walking for a few metres, the sand under their feet drifted away, forming into a perfect circle surrounding them. The individual crystals of sand assembled themselves into a solid ring of perfect crystal - only a foot high, so no real barrier - but still a clear signal: Wait here.
Harry, who at present was barely managing to hold the weight of a single diamond, was vaguely envious of the skill and strength that necessitated.
They waited for a minute or so, then a cluster of people emerged from the tunnel up ahead. Although he'd never seen them in person, Harry recognised them from the images Zorian's simulacrum had transmitted to him during their 'meeting' with Kanderon.
Godrick led the way - or at least, the lump of carbon he could sense inside the person-shaped stone golem was probably Godrick. Sabae strode by his side, wind rushing around her limbs and torso.
Harry remembered the sight of the person she'd killed in Ithos - the image of a human body smeared across a stone roof came to him unbidden, and he forced it from his mind.
Hugh and Talia walked behind them. A crystalline spellbook darted around Hugh's shoulder before moving back to hide behind him. Harry realised with a start that the crystal circle around them was probably Hugh's doing, not Kanderon's. That was promising - if someone as young as Hugh, who only seemed a few years older than Harry himself, could pull that off, then Harry would be building his own diamond shields in no time.
Talia's electric-blue tattoos stretched across her body from her face down to her bare arms. All four of them wore the purple, iridescent fire circlets that must have been her doing.
For the sake of good communication between their groups, it was quite useful that Kanderon's people believed themselves safe from Zorian's mind magic. In order to preserve that impression, Harry and the others had already agreed to carefully avoid mentioning that if it became necessary, they suspected that Rain could simply reverse his Immolate aura and suppress all fire within his range, putting out the circlets in an instant.
Alustin's apprentices halted a few metres away, and Sabae stepped forward. "Welcome back to Skyhold. Is it done?"
Harry shared a quick glance with his compatriots and responded, his voice croaky from yelling above the wind. "It's done. The Intertwined have been released, and Locke's army is retreating to Havath City. We need to speak with Kanderon. Now. Please."
Sabae nodded. "Come with us."
The apprentices led them back into the broad stone tunnel. Sabae took the lead, Zorian and his pair of simulacra by her side. Harry followed, walking a little faster than usual in order to keep up with Hugh and Talia. Rain and Godrick brought up the rear.
Surprisingly, given the intensity of their initial meeting, the apprentices launched almost immediately into friendly banter.
"So, yeh really are on our side, eh?" The stone around Godrick's head melted away into the rest of his armour, and revealed a handsome, broadly grinning face. "Yeh know, we were worried fer a while, what with yer antics over Ithos and all. But getting Havath's army to back off, well, yer good enough lads in my book."
Rain responded, vanishing his own helmet in response - perhaps he felt some kind of natural kinship with the other heavily armoured figure? "Whatever keeps people safe. It'd be a shame if we showed up and the only people we knew in this world were immediately killed in a siege, you know?"
Talia walked up to Hugh's side. She was quite short for her age, but still a few centimetres taller than Harry. "So Harry, you decided to join us in person this time?"
Harry laughed. "I suppose that trick couldn't stay secret forever in a world like this. How did you know?"
She gestured at her chest. "Bone affinity. I saw right through you!" She cackled slightly at her joke.
"Ah. Figures. You're not going to mess with our skeletons, are you? I'd rather keep mine intact, and this is the second time this week I've been unusually concerned about that."
She sniffled. "Nah, don't worry about it. I can't really do anything to the bones inside other people, just sense them a little. That's why I carry these around." She reached into a bag at her side and retrieved what looked like part of a dried-out femur.
"Charming."
Talia looked rather pleased at his reaction.
Up ahead, Zorian and Sabae were speaking quietly. Harry thought he caught a word or two - 'great powers', and something about a storm.
They approached what looked like a dead end, but Godrick waved a hand, and the stone barrier melted away. Behind it, they stepped out into a larger hall, stacked with crates of food, and barrels of water. Various kinds of weaponry and ammunition were scattered across a series of long tables.
Skyhold really had been preparing for a siege.
Harry looked up at the semi-transparent spellbook hovering at Hugh's shoulder. "So, you're a crystal mage?"
Hugh nodded, still looking a little suspicious. The taller boy's long strides meant Harry had to awkwardly speed-walk to keep up.
Harry pulled the diamond out of his pocket and hovered it unsteadily above his hand. "I'm new to this. Any tips?" He wasn't planning to reveal the precise nature of his carbon-affinity, but there might be some overlap between crystal magic and his own ability to affect diamonds.
Hugh tilted his head, clearly curious. With an ease that surprised Harry, Hugh seized control over the crystal, and pulled it to orbit over his own hand in a perfect circle. The older boy focused, and the crystal stretched into a flat disc, shaped like a CD without the hole. It began to spin about its axis, looking like a tiny buzz-saw.
"If you're starting out now, your affinity is probably fairly weak. Stay in the rear, away from fights, and let your bulkier team-mates soak up enemy attention. Both in combat and in social interaction. That's what I usually do."
"Ah, quit bein' so darn self-effacin', Hugh!" Godrick called out from behind them, and reached forward to gently shove Hugh in the shoulder, who laughed softly and ducked away. The stone-mage clearly knew his own strength well - with that much mass behind the movement, he could easily have punched through walls. Godrick looked seriously at Harry. "One ah the many things Hugh's good at is undersellin himself. There are few people I'd rather have by my side."
Sabae led them out of the hall and into another tunnel, this one dimly lit by periodic glyphs carved into the ceiling. It sloped sharply upwards, with stone steps artfully cut (or perhaps moulded with a stone affinity?) at regular intervals. Most of his companions ascended rapidly with ease, and Harry had to push himself to keep up. Harry was grateful that he wasn't the only laggard - although Zorian's simulacra didn't show any signs of exertion, Zorian's original body was breathing a bit more heavily than usual.
Hugh returned the diamond to its original shape, and sent it floating back into Harry's hand. "Seriously though, stay as far away from combat as you can. Unless people age differently on your world, you're even younger than we are. If you have the aptitude for it, you should pick up warding, and make sure you prepare as much as possible. Sometimes, preparation can make all the difference."
Harry looked up at the crystal mage. He hadn't noticed until now, but Hugh's eyes glowed a faint green, and here in the dark, his pupils were contracted to thin vertical slits, like a cat's. "Warding?"
"You know, imprinting spellforms into objects and imbuing them with mana so they have enduring effects. You don't have that where you're from?" Hugh paused, and held out his palm pointing toward the wall. After a moment, a patch of stone where Hugh was pointing reshaped itself slightly. Patterns of lighter crystal formed from the dark stone, angular lines arranged in a rough runic-looking circle. It began to glow.
"That's just a simple ward. It'll glow for an hour or so before going out, but you get the idea. They're useful for a lot of things."
Harry was grinning ear to ear at the prospect. "I bet they are. We should make some time to talk about them - actually, do you have any books on the subject?"
Hugh shrugged. "Yeah, there's loads of books about it in the library. Be careful though, you don't want to get lost in there - about twenty people die in there each year."
Harry's grin didn't diminish - despite himself, he felt more at home than ever. "Excellent, I'll check it out. Is there some kind of magic that helps you find books about specific topics, or do you have to do it by hand?"
Hugh scratched at his chin. "Well, you can usually just ask the Index. The library itself is semi-sapient, and can guide you to what you're looking for."
Harry nodded with emphatic approval. Finally, someone knew how to properly design a magical library.
Behind them, Hugh's hovering crystal spellbook was getting used to the newcomers and had started trying to nibble at Rain's gauntlets. The aura mage didn't look annoyed, and was teasing the book with his fingers like he was playing with a cat. "What's its name?"
Hugh turned back toward them and rolled his eyes at the playful spellbook. "Talia calls him Mackerel, and I think at this stage the name is going to stick. I wish I could say he's usually better behaved, but he really isn't. Don't leave any books unattended around him - he gets a bit territorial and sometimes tries to eat them."
Rain laughed, vanishing his gauntlets and scratching along the back of Mackerel's spine. "I'm not sure if you're lucky or unlucky there, actually. I've got one a bit like this back home - a crystal slime named Dozer. Eats filth and grime, leaving things spotless. I wonder if they'd get along?" A musing look came over Rain's face. He stopped talking, and looked thoughtfully off into the distance until Mackerel distracted him by nipping at his beard.
The tunnel around them grew wider and levelled out, and eventually they reached another massive hall. At the opposite end, dominating the otherwise empty space, was Kanderon, resting her bulk on a raised dais.
She raised her head, and the rumble of her voice travelled equally well through the stone beneath them as through the air.
"Havath's forces retreat. You've held up your end of the bargain."
Harry shared another look with his friends, and stepped forward towards the crystal sphinx, and spoke as loudly as his complaining lungs would allow. "We were pursued. Something magically traced us and followed us at nearly five times the speed of sound, something that was unfazed by anything we threw at it. Do you know what it was?"
He heard intakes of breath from the apprentices around him, and Sabae muttered under her breath. "A thunderbringer."
Kanderon's eyes locked onto Harry, and he saw that they were glowing with the same strange kind of light as Hugh's.
"This was always a risk. Havath does not stand alone."
Harry put a hand up to his face and sighed quietly. "That seems like information which would have been useful before we antagonised them to this degree." He turned back to Kanderon. "What do you mean?"
Kanderon pressed a paw into the stone floor of her dais, and a series of strange runes lit up near the entrances of the hall, then faded.
"What I tell you now, you must tell no-one. I say this only because you have potentially averted a war, and have earned a measure of my respect. Understand?"
Harry and the others nodded, although he carefully noted that Kanderon wasn't requiring them to swear any kind of binding oath.
"You have disturbed a game being played at a level you could scarcely imagine. The Havathi Empire is only the latest regime being protected and guided by a particular multiversal faction. The Ithonian Empire, too, was one of their projects before it was shattered. In an attempt to prove their ideology dominant, they wish to see an empire triumph of its own accord, and dominate this world. They rarely, if ever, interfere directly, unless it is to prevent the interference of other multiversal powers."
Her eyes flickered between the three of them.
"I was hoping they would not see your actions as the interference of other worlds, since none of you are here of your own accord, nor are you representatives of the dominant factions of your worlds. I was wrong."
Harry's jaw was rapidly clenching and unclenching. So, in attempting to prevent a war on this world, they'd managed to unintentionally enter some multiversal proxy war of unknown scale.
"What does this mean?"
"It means," Kanderon responded, stepping off her dais and padding towards them on her gargantuan cat-like paws, "that as long as you remain on this world, the three of you will be hunted. Multiversal factions do not take kindly to interference. If they find you, they will kill you. And they will be looking."
"You promised us a pathway home," Rain said. "We've done what you asked."
"Indeed you have. And in return, you will have what I promised."
She stepped forward again, and from this close distance, the scale of her massive sphinx-body blocked half of Harry's view of the ceiling. He gripped his wand in his hand, and he felt Rain tense up beside him. Still, Kanderon did nothing aggressive, and instead reached out with an upturned paw. Mackerel, Hugh's crystalline spellbook, fluttered forward, and settled onto one of the soft pads. For the first time, Harry noticed a peculiar stone set into its greenish-crystal cover.
"A guide home."
There was another sudden intake of breath around him, and no-one said anything. After a pause, Hugh spoke with a sense of growing realisation. "You mean… Mackerel's labyrinth stone. Because it's taken from inside a labyrinth, it should be able to guide us through? But Mackerel can't go without me, and…"
Talia threw a tattooed arm over Harry's shoulder. "Ha! I hope you like us!" The red-headed teenage girl was grinning broadly. "Cause it looks like we're going to be spending quite a bit more time together."
The pursuer continued its search above the Anastan sea, but found nothing.
The stones it had been using to trace the offworlders were gone, burnt through in a blaze of expended mana. The tell-tale traces of their magics were only faint, and after criss-crossing the ocean sky a dozen times, it was clear they were no longer here.
It travelled quickly back to Havath City, seen by no-one, and returned to the reality from which it had come.
Someone was waiting for it. A fist-size sphere with a metallic sheen. Space around it seemed to warp and twist, as if pulled toward its surface.
"The Intertwined are dead, and Havath is retreating. The intruders achieved their goals. I didn't catch them."
The sphere pulsed, contracting and expanding. It hummed in quietly communicated displeasure.
"There's something else. Two of them fought me, with magics from other worlds. The other did nothing, only watched. I was close enough at the end to see this in their soul."
The pursuer held out its hand, palm up, and a bright projection of Harry's soul winked into existence above its hand. The projection shrank and turned, until it focused in on a particular section of the shell.
The sphere stopped pulsing.
"I thought they had abandoned other realities. If the Bearer of the Line of Merlin is here, then…"
The surface of the sphere rippled.
"We must be cautious. We cannot risk being caught in the shockwave of their return. If the Atlanteans have ended their isolation, there will be consequences."
The pursuer turned to re-enter Anastis. They had a planet to search.
Yes, although we don't see much of them in canon Mage Errant.
- Location
- San Diego, California
Always good to see Zorian. Haven't read the other crosses tho. Guess I need to get to those.
Love this. This is epic. I wonder how getting a labyrinth is effecting the HP world. The substantially increase in magic and danger have to be noticeable. End of secrecy and the division of muggle/magical world.
Feel like Zorian and Rains world wouldn't think the existence of the labyrinth would be anything special... though more mana for Zorians world would make the city more desirable.... if more dangerous.
Love this. This is epic. I wonder how getting a labyrinth is effecting the HP world. The substantially increase in magic and danger have to be noticeable. End of secrecy and the division of muggle/magical world.
Feel like Zorian and Rains world wouldn't think the existence of the labyrinth would be anything special... though more mana for Zorians world would make the city more desirable.... if more dangerous.
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This reminds me of the latest chapter of Delve where it is confirmed most runes and spell structures are effectavally calling the system functions to use those same spells and it is possible to use mana in a less structured manner at extreme risk
9 - Descent
Berix
Toa of Twilight
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Rain
It was clear that Kanderon wanted them off this world.
Rain was sure the only reason she hadn't shoved them into a labyrinth personally was that she was giving their guides time to prepare and say their goodbyes.
Apparently, the key to navigating through the mazes which formed passageways between worlds was Hugh's adorable animated spellbook Mackerel. But they couldn't take the book alone, because it was 'pacted' with Hugh, whatever that meant. And of course, Hugh's friends wouldn't let him go alone, so that meant Sabae, Godrick, and Talia were coming along. And Kanderon didn't want to let them go without adult supervision, so their teacher, the paper mage Alustin, and Godrick's father, Artur Wallbreaker, were coming too. Apparently they'd already encountered Artur once before - he had been the mage inside the gargantuan stone giant in the battle for Ithos.
Although he'd enjoyed Alustin's company and the others seemed friendly enough, the prospect of bringing so many people on such a dangerous journey did nothing to calm Rain's nerves.
The last time he'd gone delving with Ameliah and Tallheart, he'd been by far the weakest member of their party of three, and even then he'd felt anxious about keeping his friends safe in the darkness and tension of the depths. He wasn't looking forward to trying to protect so many others, especially people he hadn't had time to get to know in any depth - including children, for that matter.
Rain was aware on some level that both Zorian and Harry technically qualified as children as well, but after the last few days that had somehow stopped mattering. Seeing Zorian's simulacrum sacrifice his life to slow down their pursuer had left a deep impression on Rain.
And when Harry spoke, although there were flashes of child-like idiosyncrasies, the overwhelming impression was of an experienced and battle-hardened wizard, not of a twelve-year-old. If push came to shove, Rain knew he would be able to trust Harry in a crisis - as long as their goals remained aligned.
Now, having left Kanderon behind in her strange quasi-throne room, the three of them were walking along a broad, well-lit corridor they'd been told would lead them to Skyhold's library.
Zorian's simulacra had quietly stepped away a while ago, and according to the images they were intermittently sending to Rain's mind, were hovering above Skyhold, keeping watch for any plumes of dust in the distance.
If something unexpected happened, Harry, Rain, and Zorian would be better prepared this time. After the close call above the Anastan sea, they had agreed to adopt the habit of keeping up constant threads of mental communication.
The idea of keeping up a line of information-exchange with a master mind-mage would have made yesterday's Rain deeply uncomfortable, and he knew the Warden was going to lay into him next time they spoke. Strangely, it didn't seem to bother him now. When he tried to picture Zorian betraying him and seizing control, his mind instead went back to the last messages from Zorian's simulacrum high above the Anastan seas.
Whether or not the simulacra were Zorian in any true sense, they were created in his exact image. And this one hadn't hesitated for a moment before giving up its life to save them. As far as Rain was concerned, from here on out, Zorian was a friend.
Since neither Rain nor Harry could reach out of their own accord, Zorian needed to actively transmit their thoughts, but that clearly wasn't a problem for the enigmatic mage. As a result, Rain was receiving periodic flashes of imagery from Zorian's four extant simulacra - two hovering above the Skyreach Range, one stationed near the retreating Havathi army, and another which was rapidly approaching Ithos. He was also privy to whatever thoughts Harry or the original Zorian chose to share.
It would have been a lot of information for a typical mind to handle - perhaps too much. To Rain, it merely meant he would flicker into his soul every few seconds to digest the images at his own pace. He was walking a little slower than usual to practise the rapid soul-manipulations. So far, he'd managed to handle the resultant momentary loss of physical senses reasonably well - Detection wasn't a replacement for a sense of touch, but it helped.
Harry was visibly struggling. He'd insisted on at least attempting to parse the torrent of sensory information, and his physical coordination wasn't coping quite as well. Zorian was walking behind him, and had stopped him falling over or walking into walls at least a dozen times now. His eyelids were flickering intermittently, as if he was dreaming.
None of them were speaking out loud. Just as they'd spent the last few days conversing solely in Ithonian to improve their language skills, now they were practising mental communications. It was a strange way to communicate, but Rain could clearly see the advantages. It reminded him of how Ameliah had used Message before the Warden closed off his soul to others.
Now, the main impressions he was getting from his companions was Harry's frustration at his difficulty interpreting the flashes of imagery, and wry amusement from each of Zorian's five minds.
At a mental suggestion from Zorian, they paused briefly.
<Harry, could you transfigure me a pair of thin metal discs?>
Harry nodded, and after a moment of concentration, a piece of wood he produced from his bag became two flat metallic discs. He passed them over to Zorian, who immediately began carving tiny lines into the metal with his magic.
<What for?> Rain asked, curious.
<Normally my telepathic connections can only reach a relatively short distance - around a kilometre at maximum. I'm going to make these discs into relays, which should extend the range at which we can communicate to a few hundred kilometres. The devices won't last that long without crystallised mana, but it's better than nothing.>
That was a good answer. Rain didn't expect Zorian to leave his side anytime soon - the young mage was eagerly making use of every drop of mana Rain fed him via Essence Well and Winter, and those only worked within a small distance - but it was always good to be prepared.
As they continued walking, Harry made an interesting suggestion.
<We need to think through the recent crisis in detail, and determine where we could have done better.>
That… was probably a good idea. The three of them had almost died, and things could easily have gone much worse than they did. Rain sank into his soul for a moment to review his memories, and came out with one standout conclusion.
<I need to trust you both more. I could have descended into my soul much earlier, and had far more time to think. I've made a habit of trying to keep my physical senses active as much as possible around you, Zorian, even though you've given me no reason to distrust you. It almost got us killed. I'm sorry.> It was difficult to keep the regret and emotion from his mental communication.
Zorian's response was somewhat hesitant. <It's not… uncommon for people to feel uneasy around me. It's not the first time something like this has happened. Besides, your mana was the only reason I could teleport us so many times.>
<That's a good start.> Harry's thoughts were precise, as if he was analysing a chess position rather than a life-or-death crisis the three of them had experienced less than an hour ago. <First off, we need to have a faster crisis response. Zorian, you have simulacra stationed around the continent. At the first sign of trouble nearby, you should cast a Gate spell and take us somewhere very far away.>
<That's not enough> came Zorian's response. <If that… thing can get close to us without our knowledge, then we're already dead. Rain, how are your reaction times, and how fast can you move?>
<Not as fast as our pursuer, at least not with any control, but well above the speed of sound. Reaching a speed isn't the problem though - it's surviving while I'm going that fast. There's no damage limit here, so if I collide with something at mach 3, it might kill me instantly. Reaction times depend on whether or not I'm in my soul when something happens. If I am, then I have more time to plan what I'm going to do, and can emerge and do it immediately. Ballpark is probably about half normal human reaction time.>
<Good. In that case, it's safest if we maintain a Gate at all times, and you throw us through it if anything happens. I can close it much faster than I can open it.>
Harry interjected with a note of consternation. <I'm not sure if that's a good idea. There are clearly dangers which move between worlds, and Kanderon seems to think that our presence here, in particular our foreign magic, might lure them here. If I were a multiversal force hell-bent on wreaking destruction on any world that came to my attention, a permanent Gate defying Euclidean space might act like a beacon. Our momentary use might not have caused any issues so far, but I'd prefer not to push our luck by keeping a Gate open at all times. There's also a chance that a Gate would allow the pursuer to find us again.>
<Good point. How long does it take you to make a permanent teleportation circle that you can reach from a greater distance, Zorian?>
<Days, minimum. My simulacrum near the Havathi army is working on one there, but if we leave this planet at the rate Kanderon wants us to, it won't be finished by the time we're gone.>
Depends on how long this labyrinth takes us, Rain thought. From what Kanderon says, it's nothing like the delves back home... but there's always a chance. He'd only been gone from Ascension for a few days, but without Ameliah or even Dozer, it felt like much longer.
The question of Dozer was an interesting one. Ever since the Essence Slime had managed to find his way into Rain's soul, the mental connection to the tamed monster had been there, easy to access and ready to either summon Dozer back, or to keep him safe inside his soul.
The thing is, Dozer had been outside his soul, playing with Carten, when he'd been taken by the Exile Splinter. And now, in this world, the connection to Dozer felt… not frayed, exactly, but somehow strained, as if the bond had been trapped in a higher energy state. He hadn't been able to talk to Dozer, and hadn't heard any of the slime's characteristic ⟬clean-need⟭ either. There was a chance that he could fetch Dozer from the other world, and bring him here, but what then? This world was undeniably more dangerous, and although Dozer had courage in spades, that wasn't a risk Rain was willing to take. The thought of the plucky little slime caught in the shockwave left in the wake of their otherworldly pursuer, or torn apart by a gravity mage, or…
No, it was better for now that Dozer was safe with Ascension. And so Rain hadn't even tried to tug at the thread of soul-connection, and consequently hadn't resolved his itching curiosity about whether or not he'd be able bring a creature across the boundaries between worlds with a mere thought.
The three of them arrived at a broad pair of wooden doors, reinforced horizontally with iron brackets.
There weren't any signs saying what was inside, but Rain supposed that would have ruined the whole medieval aesthetic anyway. <I figure this is the library.>
<Hugh said it was dangerous. We should stay on our guard,> Harry sent. His thoughts were a mixture of giddy excitement and nerves.
Rain stepped forward, and threw the doors open with perhaps a little too much force. They swung open, revealing…
A space which was much larger than ought to have been possible, even inside a mountain this large. Endless leagues of tomes and grimoires embedded into shelves stretched out before them. Ship-sized shelves bearing thousands of books floated of their own accord, drifting lazily around the stacks. A central shaft descending into the depths glowed blue - the colour of Kanderon's wings. Hundreds of individual books darted about - some with wings, some without, blurring the corridors between the shelves.
<On second thoughts, maybe this isn't the ideal way to organise a library.> Whatever he claimed to think, Rain could tell that Harry approved both of the aesthetic and of the sheer scale.
Zorian stepped forward, briefly gesturing with a hand to telekinetically deflect an onrushing atlas, and picked a book from a nearby shelf at random. <A Treatise on the Use of Water Affinities in Managing Hydrocephalus. Huh.> He turned and picked up another. <Advanced Wardcraft.> A third: <A Beginners Guide to Dealing with Demons. This one has some blood on it. Not sure if that's a good sign.>
Rain narrowed his eyes. <There's around twenty books on each shelf, and the bookshelves are around ten shelves high. We can see around a hundred bookshelves from here, but that's probably only a tenth of what's on this floor. So that's around two hundred thousand books per floor.>
Flaring Velocity, he dashed over to the edge of the central shaft. The library itself stretched around the chasm, and on the other side, Rain could see that the floors of the library stretched downward until they disappeared into a dimly glowing mist… <And it looks like there's at least fifty more floors, if not more. So that's at least ten million books.>
Harry was breathing a little heavily. <It will be quite a bit of work to bring all this information with us. We need to be quick. There's no telling when Kanderon's people will be ready to leave, and we want to get off this world as soon as possible.> He ran his fingers through his dark hair, once again exposing the strange scar that ran down his forehead. <Rain, you have a perfect memory, right? How quickly can you read?>
Rain wrinkled his eyebrows. <Great question. There's not a lot of reading material where I come from, so I haven't been challenged like that in a while. I think my mind could contain all the information here, the problem is getting it all in there.>
Running too fast was definitely a concern - he needed to stay controlled to avoid collisions with the stationary bookshelves, to say nothing of the roaming ones. So he braced himself, dialled the stat bonuses from his rings to send his Clarity into the stratosphere, and limited himself to a little over half the speed of sound.
And… go.
His fingers flickered through the pages at inhuman speeds, constrained by what he could do without tearing apart the paper. Vellum was more resilient - when he picked up a leatherbound book, it took less than half the time. Each page was inscribed with dense, symbolic language. Most of it was in standard Ithonian, and slid easily into his memories, but it wasn't just text. There were complex charts, runic diagrams, schematics, as well as books in dozens of languages he'd never seen before.
He didn't try to understand it. They could do that later, when they were under less time pressure. Now was the time for data collection. And collect data he did - flitting between the bookshelves like some kind of maniacal robot librarian, memorising the contents of another book every second.
After a few minutes, Zorian pulled some carbon-nanotube reinforced frames from a pocket dimension in his robes, and constructed a pair of simulacra, who began to help. They used some kind of finely controlled levitation magic to lift hundreds of books at once into a wide floating grid, so that Rain could see them all at once, and turned all of the pages roughly once every second. It was a nice gesture, and did help speed things up. He only needed to briefly turn back to face the grid to memorise all the currently visible pages, and could otherwise continue flipping through books himself.
A typical human would barely be able to focus their eyes in that span of time - let alone take in the information from hundreds of floating books at a considerable distance. Rain, however, relished the challenge - his Perception-boosting accolades combined with his enhanced Clarity to allow him to take in far more information than would usually be possible.
Every now and then, a book reacted poorly to being read at two hundred metres per second, and barfed up a cloud of knives, or tried to bite off his arm. None of the tricks were particularly threatening, especially while Rain was already moving this quickly, but they did tend to slow him down a little.
Harry, meanwhile, apparently hadn't thought of any clever tricks to speed-read an entire library, and had instead started querying the Index for books on particularly interesting topics, and stuffing them into his Useful Items bag.
<Kanderon won't be happy you're taking her books.>
Harry's mental response was cautiously optimistic. <I'm planning to learn from them, and will soon be travelling through extremely dangerous environments with some of her most favoured servants, who I will be better able to protect if I'm more magically skilled. I figure it's fair game - I'm going to treat the books very well, of course, and intend to return them if I ever return to this world.>
Presumably the bag reached capacity at some point, because he then pulled up a chair alongside the Index Node and continued querying - not looking for specific books, but rather trying to understand the scale and contents of the library itself, as well as the limits of the Index's sentience.
Rather than finishing the first floor entirely, Rain began work on the second floor when Zorian told him that a greater proportion of the books there were bound with leather, which meant he would be able to read them more quickly. He was part way through when Harry interrupted.
<They're here. Zorian, has your simulacrum reached Ithos?>
<Yes.>
<How much of the library have we got?> Zorian queried.
<I'll have to count more carefully later, but I think I've memorised around fifteen thousand books.> Rain did some quick mental arithmetic. <That's less than ten percent of a single floor, and about a tenth of a percent of the whole library. And we didn't get any of the ones that were swimming around in the weird aquarium thing.>
<It'll have to do, for now. We should go. As much as I hate to interrupt this, every minute we spend on this planet is a risk.>
Rain nodded, and climbed the thin winding staircase which led up to the floor where Harry and Zorian were waiting. Near the door, Harry was getting up and stowing Advanced Wardcraft in his bag. Zorian's simulacra returned the levitated books to their original positions, and flew through the open space in the middle of the library rather than taking the stairs. They floated gently to the floor beside Zorian's original body.
Before them stood the people who would be their companions for the dangerous journey home.
Alustin stood at the front, looking more confident than ever. His nondescript brown robes were clean and tidy, which contrasted with the ever-tousled brown hair partially obscuring his dreamfire circlet. He was carrying a simple leather bag, although it wasn't clear why - he probably had more than enough storage space in the pocket dimension anchored to the tattoo on his arm.
Beside him was a massive dark-skinned man who must have been Godrick's father, Artur. He must have been around seven feet tall, and the skin visible at his neck and hands was interlaced with deep scars. He was smiling broadly and holding up a hand in greeting.
Just behind him stood his son Godrick, who was only slightly shorter, flanked by Hugh, Talia and Sabae. And of course, the reason they were all here - Hugh's crystalline spellbook, dubbed Mackerel, was surreptitiously trying to nibble at the ends of Sabae's white hair.
All six of them were wearing Talia's dreamfire circlets around their heads. Rain felt a pang of guilt at the implicit deception. While it was better for everyone if Kanderon's people believed themselves safe, concealing his ability to invert Immolate and put out flames had him feeling a little two-faced. They knew about Suppression, since he'd used it to douse Talia's dome in their meeting, but because they didn't require active mana input from an individual, it had left the circlets alight. Inverted Immolate would simply extinguish all flames within its radius, regardless of their source.
Rain stepped forward, dismissing his helm and gauntlets, and grasped Artur's outstretched hand in greeting.
<Please to meet…>
<You have to speak out loud to them, Rain,> Zorian reminded him dryly.
Oh, right.
"Pleased to meet you in person, Artur. And thank you all for joining us. I'm Rain, this is Harry, and they're Zorian." Rain gestured at his companions.
"Ah, we should be thankin' ye!" Apparently Artur shared Godrick's thick accent as well as his stature and stone affinity. "There's no tellin' what would a happened here if ye hadn't diverted the Havathi armies."
Alustin clapped his hands together. "Galvachren's Guide, of which I have a copy here," he tapped his leather satchel, "says the connection to your homeworlds should be through the Ithonian labyrinth, which makes sense, given that's where the Exile Splinter was deployed. Zorian, when you took me back to Skyhold, you brought me alongside while you teleported, and covered the distance in several jumps. That should speed up our journey significantly, especially since sandships can't cross the Skyreach Range." He leant forward, almost conspiratorially. "Now, how many people can you take along at once? Will we need to make multiple trips to bring everyone along? My apprentices are an equal mixture of apprehensive and curious about the experience."
Zorian shook his head. "We won't be teleporting today."
Alustin drew back, surprised, and cocked his head to one side as if he were trying to read some text at an angle. The apprentices behind him looked at each other with confusion.
"It's too slow."
Now they were really confused.
"Please stand back."
Their seven new companions nervously backed away through the doors, and looked in curiously. Mackerel must have been especially curious, because the spellbook kept trying to dart past them. Talia eventually sat on it to stop it moving.
Zorian began a series of complex hand gestures, and after a few seconds, a tiny tear began to form in the fabric of reality. Stretching wider by the moment, the shimmering boundary of the Gate grew.
This was the first time Rain had seen Zorian cast the Gate spell without some crisis occurring at the same time, so he very much shared the curiosity their new friends were displaying.
Just looking at the Gate was enough to confuse the senses. It wasn't a single portal with some kind of opaque rear side, like the ones from Portal - instead, it was double sided. Rain moved around to look at it from other angles, and it was clear that entering into the Gate's space from either side would take you to its destination. Interesting.
Twenty seconds passed, and Zorian gradually expanded the boundary until it was large enough for even Artur to be able to pass through. Then, without another word, he jumped in, and vanished from the library entirely.
There was a long pause, in which no-one moved.
Zorian stuck his head back out, looking a bit amused at the delay. "You coming?"
"Yep." Rain breathed in, and stepped through.
Zorian
His simulacrum had chosen the roof of the deserted villa as their point of arrival. From here, the ruined city of Ithos was beautiful in the fading sunset light. Unlike when they'd first arrived, there was no storm, but there was still a patch of thick, dark clouds above them, and tiny droplets were beginning to fall.
Simulacrum Four, who had opened the Gate from the Ithonian side, waved a hand cursorily, and a wide transparent dome came into being, which sheltered the Gate from rain as the rest of their group emerged. Zorian and Rain stood side by side, facing the Gate as Kanderon's people crossed through.
Artur came through first, stepping very carefully to avoid the edges of the Gate. That wasn't necessary, of course. The edges weren't dangerous - Zorian's Gate spell was carefully designed to collapse gracefully if the boundary was tampered with. An expression of wonder tempered with caution spread across Artur's face as he exited.
Zorian's instinctive mental feelers once again flinched away from the chaotic energies of Artur's dreamfire circlet. The iridescent droplet of suspended flame glinted in the dimming light, serving to remind Zorian and his simulacra of their allies' (perhaps justified) caution.
It made Zorian feel a little better that their rudimentary defences wouldn't amount to much, if it came to it. Even if it turned out that Rain couldn't simply extinguish the purple-greenish flames with a thought, there were always other options - many of them.
The headbands didn't look particularly well fastened - only a thin leather strip fixed the finger-tip sized crystal container to the centre of their foreheads. If necessary, unstructured telekinesis could easily tear them away before anyone had a chance to react, leaving their minds undefended. And that was only required if Zorian actually wanted to seize control of their minds - if he just wanted them out of the picture, there were a myriad of other possibilities. It seemed unlikely that any of their affinities could deflect or easily block a series of homing, invisible force-missiles, or severing discs. Simulacra could grab them and teleport them kilometres into the air. And if all that failed, Harry's improvements to his simulacrum frames had resulted in a significant increase in their durability and effective strength - if it came to it, there was always the option of grabbing them and physically tearing them apart.
Not that Zorian was planning on doing anything like that unprovoked, of course. As long as Kanderon's people stayed cooperative, there was no reason for any hostilities.
Talia was the next to leave the portal, her short red hair and freckled, white skin eerily lit up by both the circlet on her forehead and her glowing blue tattoos. Her presence here was understandable, if frustrating. Despite the decent craftsmanship, it was clear from the tiny amounts of mana leaking from the crystal casing of the circlets that they wouldn't last forever - probably just a day or two, without recharging. And judging by the inflexibility of the mages from this world, recharging these devices probably required a dreamfire affinity.
Her brash confidence reminded him a little of Taiven - but mainly the parts of Taiven that he found confusing and somewhat annoying.
Godrick came through next. Even without his usual thick stone armour, the young mage was surprisingly large. His eyes were darting about, taking in the ruined buildings and broken boulevards. Zorian once again felt frustrated at his inability to read even their surface thoughts. He'd grown so used to having some idea of what people were thinking that operating without that ability - being normal, he supposed - just felt wrong.
Then came Hugh, with his absurdly named crystal spellbook hovering at his side. The mind inside Mackerel was odd - not quite a magical construct like a golem, and not quite an independent sentience, but somewhere in between. For all Zorian's experience understanding alien minds, he couldn't make head or tail of the thought processes in the odd spellbook - it was all abstract toruses and topological structures, without any hint of meaning he could discern.
Along with the circlet, Hugh's eyes glinted slightly in the sunset, reminiscent of Kanderon. Did he have some kind of cat-like ability to see in the dark? Mackerel looked like he was trying to eat part of the Gate, and Hugh was clearly using his crystal affinity to hold him back.
Then came Sabae, long white hair cascading past the dark skin of her exposed collarbones. As she carefully stepped over the boundary, Zorian noticed currents of wind playing through her fingers. He frowned slightly. Wind magic, like Sabae clearly possessed, was a near perfect counter to his own invisibility. Unlike Talia, with her frequent idiosyncrasies, at least Sabae had been quite pleasant to talk to in the walk to meet Kanderon. Without his mind-sense, Zorian had to admit that he wasn't the best conversationalist. She'd reacted well to his questions about local politics, and had volunteered a surprising amount of information about her grandmother, who apparently controlled the winds of half the continent from her storm-throne hundreds of kilometres away. She'd asked a few pertinent questions of her own: Were all mages from his world as powerful as he was? (No.) What made them decide to work with Kanderon? (Necessity.) What power structures dominated his world? (Hereditary kingdoms, although noble families held some power, and in recent years civil institutions had grown to wield significant influence.) Did he think these power structures were the best possible ones, or had he thought about challenging them?
He'd struggled answering the last one, and part of his mind was still mulling on the question.
Alustin jumped through, landed dexterously, and walked over to the edge of the shimmering dome protecting them from the steadily increasing rain. He playfully put his fingers through, and drew them back. "Check this out!" He turned to his apprentices. "And they don't even have a water affinity!"
Finally, Harry and the simulacra brought up the rear, and Zorian curled his fingers into a fist to collapse the Gate.
"Welcome back to Ithos. Your turn, labyrinth-guides."
Zorian looked out at the city spread out before them. Even after centuries of disrepair in the void, most of the buildings had remained somewhat intact. Now, after the three-way battle between Kanderon's Librarians Errant, the Havathi forces, and their own little faction, most of the city was in ruins. The adjacent building was half-collapsed, and in the middle of the street, the crater-footprint of Artur's gargantuan stone armour was clearly visible.
"Actually, that's something we need to ask you." Hugh stepped forward to Zorian, Mackerel currently inactive and slung over his shoulder by a leather strap. "You're from three different worlds, right? Where are we going first?"
They'd had this conversation before launching the attack on Havath City - when it had become clear there was a path home soon.
Zorian sent a mental query to his companions, and said out loud, "Give me a moment to think about that."
<We're still planning to head to Harry's world first, right? Any objections?>
Rain responded first. <I'd obviously like to get back to my homeworld and my friends as soon as possible, but I don't want to leave you two unprotected. Like I said before, Zorian and I can probably handle ourselves, but I'd prefer to take Harry home first. No offence - you're a great asset, but your skills aren't the best suited to survival.>
<None taken. Thank you both - I appreciate this.>
There was an undercurrent of… something in Harry's mental communication. It was clear he wasn't telling them everything. The young boy's mental protections were of an odd kind, but were still strong enough that he would know if Zorian intruded.
Still, there was clearly no hostile intent. Unless Harry had cognitive defences that far oustripped those of anyone on Zorian's world, and the ability to create a simulated mind capable of fooling him (very unlikely), then he wasn't planning to betray them. Zorian figured the younger boy could keep his secrets for now.
One of his simulacra realised the original was distracted, and stepped in to respond to Hugh's question in his stead. "We're going to Harry's world first."
Alustin grimaced. "I was hoping you wouldn't say that. Galvachren said the journey there was dangerous, and this is the first time any of us have tried to use a labyrinth to move between worlds."
Hugh held up a hand. "That's not quite true. The book said the journey was difficult, not dangerous. That's different."
Alustin rolled his eyes. "Well, I certainly hope we'll have to solve a particularly challenging puzzle which isn't at all life-threatening, but somehow I doubt it."
"In that case, let's get moving. The sooner we can leave this world, the better. I presume we're starting at the site of the Splinter?" Alustin nodded, and Rain jumped off the roof in a single superhuman bound. He hit the ground next to the crater in the middle of the street.
Sabae followed, wind propelling her high into the air, and slowing her fall as she landed. Her white hair fanned out behind her as she moved. The rest of them turned to the stairs, but Artur held out a hand to stop them.
"Tha whole buildin' is unstable. We should leave this way." He looked at the edge of the marble villa, and the stone walls began to reshape themselves. Within a few seconds, the edge of the roof melted away, merging with the walls to form a narrow, but sturdy looking staircase. Artur led the way, apparently confident in the structural integrity of his creation. The rest of them followed.
It was a short walk - less than a hundred metres - to the former location of the Exile Splinter. His simulacrum had chosen their arrival point well.
The site where the splinter had originally been placed looked fairly ordinary now - or as ordinary as a city plaza could look if it had been bombarded by lava and partially crushed by a stone giant. The bones, of course, had been cleared away by Rain when the city was still in the void, but some dirt and dust had accumulated over the last few days, thinly coating the marble paving.
No-one else was here, which was a blessing. After the confrontation in Havath City, Zorian had a healthy respect for the force the Empire could bring to bear.
At the very centre, just below where the Splinter had once been anchored, was an oddly textured section of stone. Thin ridges of stone spiralled inward - it looked a little like the fossil of a massive sea snail. Their group stopped in front of it, and Mackerel fluttered over to rest in the centre.
"He wants us to… go underneath?" Hugh sounded uneasy. Apart from the boundary between the marble and the spiral section, the plaza was seamless - there was no way down.
"Alright. Godrick, Artur, you're up." Alustin stepped back, and gestured for the others to back away as well.
The father and son stepped forward onto the spiral, and knelt to place their hands on the ground.
"Alright laddy, reach out with yeh affinity senses. What do ye feel?"
Godrick closed his eyes to focus. "I think… there's ah vacuum - an open space, ten metres deep? I'm not sure, but I think it connects to ah tunnel."
"Good. Ladder or staircase?"
Godrick furrowed his brow. "The steepest manageable angle is the inverse tangent of two, which is about eighteen hundredths of a revolution. There's just about room for ah steep spiral stair."
"Well done. Let's get started."
The two of them closed their eyes, and the stone around the edges of the spiral began to reform, melting down in a circular pattern. Excess stone, which presumably needed to be ejected to make room for the staircase, was pushed outward away from the group, and formed a large seamless cube with precise, sharp edges. Zorian shook his head - to someone from a world without stone affinities, the sharp edges and smooth faces of the cube looked like the result of hours of painstaking craftsmanship, even for a competent mage-craftsman. Artur and Godrick had made it in a matter of seconds, and it wasn't even their actual project.
Zorian peered over the edge, and saw a steep descending staircase spiralling into a black void. Just as Godrick had promised, the stairs were about as steep as they could get before you'd start calling them a ladder. There wasn't a single stair which stretched across the whole staircase - instead, there were separate stairs for your left and right feet, which let the whole structure descend much more rapidly. It reminded him of the stairs to the attic back in his family's house in Cirin.
As a child, his brother Fortov had tried to egg Zorian on to climb the stairs into the crawl space above, but even at the age of eleven, he'd known better than to trust his older brother.
The stone stopped moving, and Artur stood. He beckoned to the rest of them. "Alright, let's get movin'."
<We should be cautious,> came a thought from Harry, and he reflexively relayed it to Rain. <Once we enter the stone tunnels, if they choose to betray us, we're very much in their domain.>
<Force Ward is active, which should give us a moment to respond,> Rain reassured them. <Besides, I don't expect anything bad from these people - they seem genuine in their desire to help.>
Zorian wasn't so sure - his simulacra had spent long enough inside Alustin's mind to know that what they'd done to Havath City wouldn't be enough to satisfy his bloodlust. Alustin was a strange character - outwardly, he seemed charming and friendly. On the inside, however, Alustin's thoughts returned uncomfortably often to dreams of revenge - of Havath City in flames, and its people suffering the way his people had suffered.
The short glimpse he'd had into Artur's mind in the battle for Ithos, at least, did reassure him. Artur was not a simple man - he'd had his fair share of battles, and had personally ended many lives - but his dedication to keeping his son and his friends safe was the driving motivation behind his every action. As long as their group stuck together, and there was the possibility of a conflict putting Godrick in danger, Zorian was sure that Artur wouldn't cause any problems.
<Artur won't attack us. Force Ward should be enough to keep us safe from Alustin, if he tries anything.>
<Good enough for me. I'll light the way with Purify.> A dim light began to radiate from Rain, and he started the journey into the darkness. Mackerel fluttered by his side, the crystal pages flickering back and forth. Hugh followed, and one by one, the rest of them filed down Godrick's stairs, and entered the labyrinth.
Artur came down last. The stone stairwell melted away and the gap in the ceiling closed as he stepped into the tunnel. That was a good idea, Zorian supposed. There was enough danger ahead - it was better if they didn't need to worry about anyone following them.
The dark was oppressive, and despite the headbands, Zorian could still feel waves of anxiety coming from Kanderon's Librarians. Given that they were supposed to be the leaders here, that only served to put Zorian more on edge.
They'd only managed a short walk into the broad stone tunnel before Zorian began to feel the connections with his simulacra flickering and fading. He stopped immediately, and clutched his head. The two simulacra by his side sprang into action, pushing the others away and throwing up layers of prismatic shields.
<What's going on?> Harry's wand was in his hand, and above his Useful Items bag, near-invisible threads glinted in the dim light of Rain's aura.
Zorian was frantically trying to repair the fraying ties to his simulacra. The connections to the ones by his side remained strong, but the threads which connected his soul to the more distant copies felt like they were being torn apart.
One of the simulacra clarified for the group. "We're not physically under attack. The connections to our other simulacra are being suppressed, likely by the labyrinth."
The others relaxed somewhat. Alustin scratched his head. "I've never heard of anything like this happening, but then again, I've never met anyone with simulacra before. We know the labyrinth builders wove in protections against certain kinds of entities travelling through, like the Cold Minds. It's possible you're being inadvertently caught in that filter too? I'm just theorising, though - it could be something else entirely."
The mana here felt strange in other ways, too. In the Dungeon, on Zorian's homeworld, the deeper you went, the more challenging it became to shape your mana, especially over larger distances. Teleporting more than a few metres, for example, was close to impossible once you reached a certain level. Here, the effect was even more pronounced. They'd only barely entered the labyrinth, and he could already feel the pressure on his mind - the same way he felt in the Dungeon.
As a test, one of the simulacra tried to teleport to the surface. The attempt fizzled immediately. Maybe a shorter distance would work?
The simulacrum vanished, and reappeared on the other side of their group. Sabae jumped in surprise. Zorian sighed. At least short-distance teleportation would still work, as did his nearby simulacra. After even a few minutes without a connection to the original, his simulacra elsewhere would fade away. For now, at least, their group was uniquely vulnerable - no long-distance teleports to escape, and no Gates across the continent in the event of a significant emergency.
Zorian shook his head. Time to focus on the here and now.
"My simulacra elsewhere are dispersing. I need to create some more here. Wait for me for a moment."
As requested, the others paused while he conjured the necessary ectoplasm onto a new trio of golem-frames he fetched from his bag. One by one, the additional simulacra stood up, their eyes gazing warily into the dark, their minds roving across the nearby tunnels, searching for threats.
A few minutes later, flanked by five simulacra, he was ready to continue. "Let's keep moving. I want to get out of here as soon as possible."
The others nodded, and they continued into the dark.
Harry
The tunnels around them gradually changed as they walked.
At first, the stone had matched the colours of Ithos - pinkish marble, immaculately clean. As they continued, following Mackerel along a precise path through twists and turns of the endlessly branching tunnels, up and down flights of stairs, marble became granite, increasingly wet, with patches of dark greenish-purple moss dotting the walls. The spellbook didn't hesitate for a moment at any of the junctions, and darted forwards into the chosen tunnel each time.
Occasionally, the tunnels opened up into a larger space. Massive halls of stone, vaulted with columns, or vast rough-hewn caverns with water dripping from the stalactites above. Hugh, acting on instructions from Mackerel, hurried them past those, keeping them in the smaller tunnels as much as possible.
As they walked, Harry mused on the situation. In here, it seemed Zorian's magic was greatly constrained - no teleports, and no simulacra at a distance. Still, the combination of affinity senses, Rain's Detection, and Zorian's mind-magic should give them significant forewarning if anything happened.
Harry was taking the time to practise with his newly-developing carbon affinity. The people walking alongside him were gradually beginning to show up more clearly, as he learned to interpret the fuzzy signals. He was increasingly able to tell the shape of their bodies - where their arms were positioned, how large the shape was, things like that. Artur and Talia, as the extreme examples of contrast in size, were easy to tell apart.
Unlike earlier, the simulacra currently with Zorian weren't purely ectoplasm - they were all based on Harry's improved titanium and carbon nanotube frame design. The purity of the carbon lattice layered around their titanium bones shone brightly to his affinity sense.
Although they'd proven themselves trustworthy allies so far, the power differential between himself and his two companions had been causing him some concern. Whether or not it was intentional, the inclusion of purified carbon in Zorian's simulacra did help to redress that inequality - even though his ability to affect large amounts of matter was still limited, Harry was confident that if it came to it, he would easily be able to tear apart the simulacra from inside. The usual difficulties of affecting other mage's internal organs wouldn't apply - the simulacra were mere extensions of the original, and had no aetherbodies of their own. Even if he didn't intend to do so, mutual collaboration with Zorian and Rain felt easier now that he was holding at least some of the cards.
That wasn't the only trick Harry was preparing. Layered carefully into the seams of his robes, with more ready inside his Useful Items bag, were more than fifty long strands of braided carbon nanotubes, each strand a single molecule. It was the same approach he'd used in the graveyard, not long ago. Now, however, with the added control and strength granted by his affinity…
He'd tested it in the campsite, before they'd started the attack on Havath City. He'd taken one of the strands, wrapped it around a small-looking tree, and pulled toward him with his affinity.
The wooden trunk had presented almost no resistance. Even a small amount of force, when distributed across a tiny cross-section, represented a huge amount of pressure.
That was probably the principle behind Alustin's surprising strength as a battle-mage. Few people would expect paper to be particularly dangerous. And yet, if a piece of paper could be precisely controlled, the thinness of the paper, which the naive might perceive as a weakness, would become its strength.
Still, braided nanotubes were obviously superior. Their tensile strength meant that Harry wouldn't even need to apply the force himself - he would only need to wrap the strands around an enemy at strategic locations, and their own struggles to escape would cut them apart.
He was hoping to avoid using any of the weapons at his command, but since his arrival on Anastis, he'd felt compelled to act - to prepare, and grow stronger. Not by his Vow - Voldemort had gone to great lengths to ensure that the Vow would not induce him to act recklessly - but by his sense of moral duty. If there was a possible future in which he lived, he strongly preferred to go down that path. Preventing the end of the World was far easier if he was still alive, and so he would stay alive - because it was necessary.
They paused, and Alustin fetched a wide, thick book from his bag. 'The Guide', presumably.
Harry's interest hadn't abated, and he crowded behind Alustin to read alongside him. Looking over his shoulder, Harry could see that the section of text on Earth was far longer than the excerpt Kanderon had read to them. Large chunks of the text - almost all of it, in fact, had been 'redacted'. It wasn't simply blacked out, like old CIA documents. Instead, the text had been blurred somehow. When Harry tried to look at it, it felt like his eyes refused to focus, and bringing his eyes closer to the text resulted in a spike of pain that forced him to look away.
The unredacted sections were still some of the most interesting content Harry had ever read.
Galvachren went into quite a bit of detail describing the climate and weather systems of Earth, albeit from a decidedly alien perspective. He lingered on specific things - the odd coincidences of Earth's moon (there's only one, and it's precisely the same angular size as the sun!), the huge variety in the types of spiders on Earth's surface (although he lamented that only a tiny minority were 'particularly intelligent'), and the consistency of what he called 'aether'.
Two sentences, casually dropped between observations of the Amazon, burrowed into Harry's mind like a parasitic worm.
Almost unique among human-settled worlds, virtually all sentient creatures here have been bound - their souls fettered by their progenitors. Some were granted a limited ability to manipulate the aether, the others were entirely cut off.
He should have realised sooner. He'd visited new worlds, and heard of more. Now that he could see more of the picture, it was almost obvious.
Here on Anastis, and the other worlds he'd heard about from Alustin and the Index Node, the default state of the human species was that with practice and training, they could tap into the aether and use it as a source of strength.
On his world, only a privileged few in the wizarding world were able to cast spells. The vast, vast majority were Muggles - ignorant of the true nature of the world, and unable to understand it if it was right before them. That was the magical tradition left behind in the wake of Atlantis.
But the Atlanteans hadn't begun on a unique world, on which nearly all humans were unable to use magic.
They'd made one.
Given that they were working on designing the soul shell, it would have been near trivial to create a modified version with no external functions at all. For a civilisation with the sheer resources of the Atlanteans, it would have been no trouble at all to impose their will on the vast majority of the populace - to shackle their souls, and leave them with no connection at all to what could have been their most powerful tool.
Harry thought of his parents, unable to look at the animated suitcase he'd brought home at Christmas without flinching away, their minds refusing to comprehend what they were seeing. Of Hermione's parents, who'd blathered on about a forsaken career in dentistry while their daughter was reshaping reality and forging the future before their eyes.
It hadn't been the natural course. It had been imposed.
And yet, it had worked, hadn't it? Despite the best efforts of human civilisation in constructing new and more powerful methods of killing, life still persisted on Earth. If eight billion people had access to magic, would that still be the case? Perhaps the Atlanteans had made the right choice - some freedom for some people, rather than oblivion for all…
That deserved further thought.
Alustin and Mackerel were seemingly satisfied, and he stowed the book back into the leather bag by his side. "We're getting close to the boundary. We should make it into your world's labyrinth by tonight, Harry."
Harry nodded, his mind elsewhere, as the group continued walking.
Ahead of them, Mackerel stopped, abruptly enough that Hugh almost bumped into it. At the same time, Rain whispered quietly, but loud enough that they could all hear:
"There's something ahead."
Near where Mackerel hovered, their narrow tunnel entered a massive cavern. Unlike most of the spaces they'd moved through, this one was mostly occupied by a wide lake. From here, it was difficult to see how deep the water was.
On either side of the lake, a thin winding path looked like it would lead an intrepid adventurer around the obstacle, to another tunnel which exited the cavern in the far distance. Of course, walking on narrow ledges above a steep fall was not the kind of dramatic activity their group needed to do - one way or another, most of them could fly, and even if that was for some reason impossible, Artur and his son could probably construct a four-lane highway across the water for them.
No, that wasn't why they were stopping. They'd stopped, presumably, because of the presences he could feel underneath the water with his affinity. Three large, slowly moving presences.
"Do we have to go this way, Hugh?" Harry asked.
Hugh nodded, and swallowed in apprehension. "Mackerel insists. A path around would be much more dangerous."
"Zorian - can we teleport to the other side?" Rain asked.
Zorian shook his head grimly. "The labyrinth's interference is even stronger here. I doubt I'd be able to teleport more than a few metres."
Rain nodded decisively. "Right, in that case we'll probably have to go through. Detection shows three entities, categorised as 'monsters' by my skills. They're very large, but that's about all I'm getting."
Harry responded. "I mirror those observations. I can also report that each of them have four limbs, and are roughly humanoid in structure. I'm not great with detail yet, but I think… they have a lot of muscles, and like, really big heads?"
Alustin pressed a finger to his temple and shut his eyes. It would have been a decent impression of Professor X if Alustin's messy brown hair hadn't ruined the image. "There are three creatures in the lake. The water makes the image less clear, but I think they're… massive frogs?"
So that was what Alustin's 'Farseeing' affinity did. He was a lot more dangerous than Harry had originally assumed.
From behind them, Zorian managed to stifle a laugh. "I thought their minds felt familiar! I've seen these creatures before. One of them wandered into the Dungeon in my world. Here's the short summary: they're not particularly perceptive, and we can probably sneak past invisibly. If a conflict does arise, be careful - they're very, very tough - although they can be hurt with fire. That's how I originally killed the one in my world. These ones appear to be quite a bit larger though."
At that, Harry saw Talia crack her knuckles.
"Do not let them get close. I saw one tear apart a metal golem with its hands. Their eyes are a weak point. They also have prehensile tongues, and are liable to try to eat anything that moves. They particularly like eating giant spiders, in case that somehow becomes relevant."
Harry allowed himself a brief snort of amusement. Giant frogs eating giant spiders. Figures.
"Can you influence their minds, Zorian?" If he could, that would be a quick win.
Zorian shrugged apologetically. "Unfortunately not. More powerful creatures tend to have stronger natural resistances, and while these creatures are crude and functionally non-sentient, they're definitely powerful. I'll cloak us in invisibility, and they shouldn't notice us as we float across to the exit on a disc."
The group nodded, and clustered onto the disc of force where Zorian gestured. This one was broader than any Harry had previously seen, and could easily fit all five simulacra, along with the nine flesh-and-blood humans and their animated spellbook guide. Working in their usual eerie unison, the simulacra wrapped the now-hovering group in successive layers of slightly shimmering shields. One of them cast a spell of invisibility, and to his natural senses, it felt like his companions simultaneously vanished.
His carbon affinity served to make the experience even stranger. Although he could no longer see the others, he could still feel them. Eight fuzzy lumps of carbon stood tensely by his sides, and the five simulacra took up positions by the edges of the disc, ready for action. Because of the pure carbon in their skeletons, Harry could easily sense their exact configuration, which helped him orient himself despite his current inability to physically see his body.
Before they got moving, Harry pulled his broomstick from his bag. With a bit of luck, it wouldn't be necessary - but it always paid to be prepared.
Slowly, the disc rose higher, and moved forward to enter the vast cavern. Gradually increasing in speed, the disc floated in a high arc, giving the lake a wide berth. The mossy paths around the lake looked exceedingly slippery from here - Harry was very glad they didn't need to walk.
They were less than a third of the way to the exit when something unexpected happened.
Harry felt one of the frogs beginning to move more quickly. It wasn't obviously aggressive - in fact, it was directed at another frog. It was a sort of swimming, splashing motion, and might have been intended to be playful. However, at their scale, even a playful motion resulted in a lot of movement.
The upswing of the frog's leg hit the surface of the water, and sent curtains of water careening through the air - high enough to hit the ceiling of the cavern, and therefore high enough to hit their bubble.
To his credit, Zorian and his simulacra reacted quickly - they grabbed hold of everyone and attempted to short-range teleport the whole bubble to the other side of the sheet of approaching water. Unfortunately, probably due to the dampening effects of the labyrinth, it didn't take them quite far enough. They managed to avoid the first layer of water, but the second one impacted their shields and was diverted around them, as if it had impacted a transparent glass marble. Although the invisibility had held, their position was revealed.
And all at once, the cavern exploded into activity.
The three frogs moved first, reacting bizarrely fast. Huge quantities of water slid off their bodies as they emerged, allowing Harry to see them with his eyes, rather than just with his affinity.
They looked like giant frogs, albeit ones which had somehow been interbred with cave trolls. They were each at least eight metres tall, and most of that was thick knots of muscle covered by greenish mottled skin. They varied slightly in size and colouration- the largest one had a patch of yellow skin across its head. The smallest one was darker-coloured, and although Harry was no expert at reading frog-expressions, it looked somehow hungrier than the others. The last one was decorated with bright green and blue banding, and if it had been a typical size for a frog, Harry would have guessed it was poisonous. Unlike a typical frog, their limbs ended in elongated claws.
<Fantastic.> It seemed Zorian kept his dry sense of humour even while under pressure.
The largest frog leapt at the closest wall, and ricocheted off it toward their bubble, claws outstretched. The smallest one stayed partially underwater, but its tongue rocketed out toward them. The last frog launched itself at them directly.
Not a moment too soon, their group scattered.
Harry leaped onto the broom in his hand, and curved its path down toward the tunnel from which they'd arrived, skimming the surface of the water. His wand found its way into his right hand, and he fired off a cutting hex at the closest frog. It might have made an incision, but Harry couldn't see anything from this distance, and the frog didn't even react. Hrm.
Behind him, he felt Artur throw himself downward, out of the bubble. Looking back, he saw the mountain of a man stretch an arm upwards. A huge chunk of stone detached itself from the roof of the cavern and sped towards him. It fell faster than he did, drawn to him by his stone affinity. As it reached him, it wrapped itself around him the way a droplet of water would wrap around an ant - covering every part of him, as if driven by surface tension. Almost immediately, the mass of stone began to develop limbs - crude arms and legs, and the beginnings of a head.
And then, the huge lump of stone slammed into the upwards-jumping blue-banded frog, the force of the impact sending shockwaves across the cavern and shaking dust from the ceiling. The two figures, now intertwined, crashed into the mossy edge of the lake, partially submerged.
Not all of their group could fly, and it appeared Zorian had remembered that fact. Simulacra grabbed Hugh, Talia and Godrick, and teleported them a few metres in random directions, out of the path of the largest frog. Sabae dodged away from the simulacrum which tried to grab her, and instead blasted herself toward the exit, wrapping herself in a protective layer of spinning air. She launched a series of gusts of wind toward the nearest frog. It flickered its eyes toward her in irritation.
Rain stepped out of the shield-sphere of his own accord, his helmet and gauntlets phasing back into place. He stood there, alone and static amidst the chaos of the cavern, presumably suspended by his own ability to Airwalk.
Across the surface of the frogs' skin, almost imperceptible unless you knew what to look for, water began to boil.
At the same time, dozens of sheets of paper whistled out of Alustin's storage tattoo, and wrapped themselves around him in what looked like a precise imitation of medieval armour. There was only a thin slit left to expose his eyes. Although the paper appeared mundane to Harry, he was confident it would be far stronger than it looked. Additional sheets latched onto his back, and Alustin took off. The paper wings served both to precisely guide his flight, and to provide thrust by some mechanism Harry couldn't discern. A further series of artfully folded triangles of paper darted out of his tattoo, and sped toward the eyes of the yellow-headed frog.
Harry didn't have time to see the result, because the cavern filled with some of the brightest light Harry had ever seen - it was only for an instant, but it rivalled the Purifying sphere Rain had produced to burn through his aura anchor.
He squinted to close his eyes, then opened them as the light abated. He didn't think he was permanently blinded, but a bright spot covered most of his retinas, and it was hard to make anything out. He thought he could see Hugh, no longer invisible, standing on a small disc with a simulacrum. He had a single arm stretched out, and the remnants of the burst of light was fading from his fingers. Mackerel was inactive, slung over his back like an ordinary crystal spellbook.
It looked like the bolt of light had been directed at the smallest frog - the darker-coloured one partially submerged in the lake, because one of its eyes was now a blackened, smouldering crater. It emitted a noise - not quite a croak, not quite a roar - and leapt out of the water toward its attacker.
It was part of the way toward Hugh, propelled by the massive muscles in its hind legs, when a torrent of white-hot flame blasted it to the side. It came from an otherwise empty patch of space, but Harry could feel the carbon-laced skeleton of the simulacrum which must have been its source. The frog awkwardly tried to redirect its motion, and bounced off the cavern wall back into the lake. It splashed into the water, and bursts of steam emerged where it made contact.
The yellow-headed frog, distracted by Alustin's cloud of paper, finally reached its objective, and began furiously tearing into the protective shields of the now-empty bubble they'd originally been travelling in. That was good, Harry figured - it would probably take it a minute to realise there was no-one in there.
Talia, meanwhile, had been busy. She was standing on a small disc near the roof of the cavern with a simulacrum, and a veritable swarm of dreamfire droplets were manifesting around her. A strange grin on her face, she gestured with a closed fist, and the sparks of flame shot downward, arcing toward the blue-banded frog still grappling with Artur's stone form. The flames made a sizzling noise on impact, and bit deep into the frog's flesh. It looked like part of the charred muscles were turning into clouds of flies and buzzing away. Very strange.
Some unseen force detached a stalactite from the cavern's ceiling and propelled it toward the yellow-headed frog which was still grappling with the shielded sphere. Even with the tip somehow sharpened, it didn't penetrate deep, and instead lodged itself in the frog's outer musculature with a dull thud.
Below him, Artur was getting the upper hand - the features of his stone golem looked more defined, and it was growing every second as it absorbed stone from the walls of the cavern. Dust filled the air around it. One of the golem's huge fists had pinned the blue-banded frog to the ground, and the other was repeatedly slamming into its head. After the third strike, the frog's entire body burst into flame, and the next blow pounded its head into ash. Artur's golem paused for a moment, and although Harry couldn't see his face, he seemed momentarily confused. It was clear to Harry what had happened, though - Artur's blows must have weakened the frog enough for Rain's aura to finish it off.
The yellow-headed frog abandoned the now-empty shielded sphere for more interesting prey, and leapt toward Sabae. Alustin sent reams of paper to intercept, but they did little more than bloody its surface as it continued the jump. Just in time, a burst of wind from her armour sent her out of its path. She must have left some kind of wiring behind, because an instant later, a bolt of lightning arced through the air along some kind of guided path, and dissipated into the frog's flesh. The frog spasmed, and losing control, crashed into the surface of the lake, sliding in the shallow water until it impacted the wall.
One of the simulacra teleported a few metres, and arrived dangerously close to the frog's head. The long, sticky-looking tongue flickered out, but the simulacrum raised a hand almost contemptuously, and the tongue was deflected into the water. He made a complex hand-motion, and although nothing visible happened, the frog began to writhe, clawing desperately at its own chest hard enough to pierce the skin. A moment later, it too burst into flames, and its movement ceased.
Although his vision was still hazy from the sudden light, Harry's affinity could feel the smallest frog move beneath the surface of the lake. It was on its guard now, and its motions were precise. It swam til it was only perhaps twenty metres away from him, and coiled its legs preparing to jump.
Now that the other two frogs were dead, the rest of his group was beginning to relax. As the final frog erupted from the water like a submarine-launched ICBM, barely any of them had time to react.
He received an urgent thought from Zorian. <Get out of the way!>
Harry didn't move.
Rain dropped from his perch at the top of the cavern, accelerating quickly toward him. One of Zorian's simulacra teleported to his location, and Harry could feel the energies building as he prepared to whisk him away to safety.
None of it would have been fast enough. And none of it was necessary. Because as the final frog rushed toward him, its body abruptly split into six pieces, each of which continued their parabolic motion.
"Protego."
A shimmering shield sprang into being, and the remnants of the creature were deflected around him. Blood gushed from the perfectly fine cuts left behind by the nanofibres, and the pieces fell into the lake below.
<Was… was that you?> Zorian sounded slightly impressed, which was unusual.
"Alright," Harry said out loud, flexing his affinity to collect the nanotube strands back into his robes - they were too thin to have gathered any blood. He steered his broomstick toward the exit tunnel. "Next time, try to warn me before you blind us, Hugh. Let's move on."
Proceeding across the lake by various mechanisms, the group collected itself at the exit tunnel. No-one could sense anything else dangerous nearby, so they began to relax a little. Hugh attempted an apology for his 'starbolt', and showed Harry a neat trick which more than compensated for his blurry vision. If he visualised a particular pattern, or 'spellform', in his mind's eye, and pushed mana into it with his carbon affinity, he could achieve certain useful results unrelated to his intrinsic affinity type. Hugh called them 'cantrips', or at least that was how Harry was translating the unfamiliar Ithonian word. It didn't take long to learn the principle, and apparently Hugh knew a wealth of cantrips which might be useful.
The first one he showed Harry, appropriately, was a simple one designed to shield the eyes from sudden bursts of light. It took Harry a few tries to get it right, but he was sure it would come in handy - he'd seen more blinding lights in the last few days than in the rest of his life put together. There were levitation cantrips, heating cantrips, sweat-cleaning cantrips, evaporating cantrips, and more.
Alustin walked behind them through the tunnels, watching with pride as Hugh corrected minor elements of Harry's technique. He stepped in occasionally to give pointers; true to his professorial manner, Alustin was an excellent teacher. Harry insisted Hugh teach him everything he knew, and they only stopped when Harry felt his mana reservoirs reach about half their maximum capacity.
As far as Harry understood it, because he'd placed the carbon affinity pattern across the exterior of his soul-shell, the same reservoir of magic was fuelling both his Anastan and wizarding magics - so it was very important that he wasn't out of mana when he might need it.
Meanwhile, the rest of the group swapped information on the techniques they'd used during the battle. It seemed Sabae had used something that roughly translated to a 'galvanic anchor' to channel her lightning, which she could otherwise only use at touch range. Alustin's paper armour could fly under its own power indefinitely. Talia was strangely annoyed by Rain's auras - ("Seriously? You just stand menacingly in place, and set everything on fire? How is that fair?"). Her jealousy had only intensified when he explained why he'd chosen to only affect the frogs, and not the surrounding environment - instantly boiling the lake in an enclosed space like this cave would have resulted in a massive steam explosion.
Both Harry and Zorian only explained their techniques in the briefest of detail. Despite the fairly effective collaboration so far, it was good to keep some cards close to the chest.
As they finished the impromptu lesson, the tunnels around them began to narrow, and the air around them grew humid and hot. After a few minutes of sweating, Rain activated one of his auras, and the temperature dropped immediately to comfortable levels. Their group quietened, and they walked in silence through the crisscrossing tunnels, following Mackerel's erratic movements. Hugh, acting on instincts transmitted from his spellbook, occasionally pointed out traps - lava pits, falling spikes, that sort of thing. It was nothing Artur couldn't handle.
The silence gave Harry some time to think about their destination.
Rain and Zorian had clear candidates for the location of the labyrinths on their worlds - Zorian's buried deep inside the Dungeon, Rain's at the epicentre of a magical storm called the Maelstrom. But they were heading for Earth.
Harry had a number of candidates for the labyrinth on Earth in mind, but one stood out as particularly likely.
The Atlanteans favoured elegant and flexible solutions - building the soul shell into humanity rather than enforcing constraints externally, psychologically diverting murderous intent rather than denying it, designing spells to serve as administrator keys when used in a certain way. How would they have protected their world from external contact?
Perhaps they would have wanted to maintain limited contact - exiling dangers from their own universe into others, or retrieving useful tools they deemed safe from other worlds. If so, there was one device Harry knew of which matched such a description.
The Mirror of Noitilov.
A Mirror which reflected itself perfectly, and as such was absolutely stable. Its characteristic power was said to be to create and make contact with alternate realms of existence, though it allowed access only to what could be seen in the mirror itself.
Quirrell had claimed that the Mirror, alone of all magics, possessed a true moral orientation - just the kind of safety feature you would want to build into a device capable of connecting your homeworld to the rest of the infinitely dangerous multiverse. It was blind to personality or identity, and would treat all who come before it by the same rules. And it was said, on some level, to be Good, with a capital G.
He'd also said that phoenixes, like Fawkes, had come to Earth from a world evoked in the Mirror.
That was Harry's chief suspect as to the labyrinth on Earth. If he was right, then at the same time as they'd sealed off their world from any others, the Atlanteans had built the Mirror as a way to reap the benefits of a cosmos they were unwilling to face as a whole.
And somewhere inside the hidden inner worlds of the last great work of Atlantis, sealed by the final machinations of Lord Voldemort and by Harry's last great failure, was Professor Dumbledore.
It was clear that Kanderon wanted them off this world.
Rain was sure the only reason she hadn't shoved them into a labyrinth personally was that she was giving their guides time to prepare and say their goodbyes.
Apparently, the key to navigating through the mazes which formed passageways between worlds was Hugh's adorable animated spellbook Mackerel. But they couldn't take the book alone, because it was 'pacted' with Hugh, whatever that meant. And of course, Hugh's friends wouldn't let him go alone, so that meant Sabae, Godrick, and Talia were coming along. And Kanderon didn't want to let them go without adult supervision, so their teacher, the paper mage Alustin, and Godrick's father, Artur Wallbreaker, were coming too. Apparently they'd already encountered Artur once before - he had been the mage inside the gargantuan stone giant in the battle for Ithos.
Although he'd enjoyed Alustin's company and the others seemed friendly enough, the prospect of bringing so many people on such a dangerous journey did nothing to calm Rain's nerves.
The last time he'd gone delving with Ameliah and Tallheart, he'd been by far the weakest member of their party of three, and even then he'd felt anxious about keeping his friends safe in the darkness and tension of the depths. He wasn't looking forward to trying to protect so many others, especially people he hadn't had time to get to know in any depth - including children, for that matter.
Rain was aware on some level that both Zorian and Harry technically qualified as children as well, but after the last few days that had somehow stopped mattering. Seeing Zorian's simulacrum sacrifice his life to slow down their pursuer had left a deep impression on Rain.
And when Harry spoke, although there were flashes of child-like idiosyncrasies, the overwhelming impression was of an experienced and battle-hardened wizard, not of a twelve-year-old. If push came to shove, Rain knew he would be able to trust Harry in a crisis - as long as their goals remained aligned.
Now, having left Kanderon behind in her strange quasi-throne room, the three of them were walking along a broad, well-lit corridor they'd been told would lead them to Skyhold's library.
Zorian's simulacra had quietly stepped away a while ago, and according to the images they were intermittently sending to Rain's mind, were hovering above Skyhold, keeping watch for any plumes of dust in the distance.
If something unexpected happened, Harry, Rain, and Zorian would be better prepared this time. After the close call above the Anastan sea, they had agreed to adopt the habit of keeping up constant threads of mental communication.
The idea of keeping up a line of information-exchange with a master mind-mage would have made yesterday's Rain deeply uncomfortable, and he knew the Warden was going to lay into him next time they spoke. Strangely, it didn't seem to bother him now. When he tried to picture Zorian betraying him and seizing control, his mind instead went back to the last messages from Zorian's simulacrum high above the Anastan seas.
Whether or not the simulacra were Zorian in any true sense, they were created in his exact image. And this one hadn't hesitated for a moment before giving up its life to save them. As far as Rain was concerned, from here on out, Zorian was a friend.
Since neither Rain nor Harry could reach out of their own accord, Zorian needed to actively transmit their thoughts, but that clearly wasn't a problem for the enigmatic mage. As a result, Rain was receiving periodic flashes of imagery from Zorian's four extant simulacra - two hovering above the Skyreach Range, one stationed near the retreating Havathi army, and another which was rapidly approaching Ithos. He was also privy to whatever thoughts Harry or the original Zorian chose to share.
It would have been a lot of information for a typical mind to handle - perhaps too much. To Rain, it merely meant he would flicker into his soul every few seconds to digest the images at his own pace. He was walking a little slower than usual to practise the rapid soul-manipulations. So far, he'd managed to handle the resultant momentary loss of physical senses reasonably well - Detection wasn't a replacement for a sense of touch, but it helped.
Harry was visibly struggling. He'd insisted on at least attempting to parse the torrent of sensory information, and his physical coordination wasn't coping quite as well. Zorian was walking behind him, and had stopped him falling over or walking into walls at least a dozen times now. His eyelids were flickering intermittently, as if he was dreaming.
None of them were speaking out loud. Just as they'd spent the last few days conversing solely in Ithonian to improve their language skills, now they were practising mental communications. It was a strange way to communicate, but Rain could clearly see the advantages. It reminded him of how Ameliah had used Message before the Warden closed off his soul to others.
Now, the main impressions he was getting from his companions was Harry's frustration at his difficulty interpreting the flashes of imagery, and wry amusement from each of Zorian's five minds.
At a mental suggestion from Zorian, they paused briefly.
<Harry, could you transfigure me a pair of thin metal discs?>
Harry nodded, and after a moment of concentration, a piece of wood he produced from his bag became two flat metallic discs. He passed them over to Zorian, who immediately began carving tiny lines into the metal with his magic.
<What for?> Rain asked, curious.
<Normally my telepathic connections can only reach a relatively short distance - around a kilometre at maximum. I'm going to make these discs into relays, which should extend the range at which we can communicate to a few hundred kilometres. The devices won't last that long without crystallised mana, but it's better than nothing.>
That was a good answer. Rain didn't expect Zorian to leave his side anytime soon - the young mage was eagerly making use of every drop of mana Rain fed him via Essence Well and Winter, and those only worked within a small distance - but it was always good to be prepared.
As they continued walking, Harry made an interesting suggestion.
<We need to think through the recent crisis in detail, and determine where we could have done better.>
That… was probably a good idea. The three of them had almost died, and things could easily have gone much worse than they did. Rain sank into his soul for a moment to review his memories, and came out with one standout conclusion.
<I need to trust you both more. I could have descended into my soul much earlier, and had far more time to think. I've made a habit of trying to keep my physical senses active as much as possible around you, Zorian, even though you've given me no reason to distrust you. It almost got us killed. I'm sorry.> It was difficult to keep the regret and emotion from his mental communication.
Zorian's response was somewhat hesitant. <It's not… uncommon for people to feel uneasy around me. It's not the first time something like this has happened. Besides, your mana was the only reason I could teleport us so many times.>
<That's a good start.> Harry's thoughts were precise, as if he was analysing a chess position rather than a life-or-death crisis the three of them had experienced less than an hour ago. <First off, we need to have a faster crisis response. Zorian, you have simulacra stationed around the continent. At the first sign of trouble nearby, you should cast a Gate spell and take us somewhere very far away.>
<That's not enough> came Zorian's response. <If that… thing can get close to us without our knowledge, then we're already dead. Rain, how are your reaction times, and how fast can you move?>
<Not as fast as our pursuer, at least not with any control, but well above the speed of sound. Reaching a speed isn't the problem though - it's surviving while I'm going that fast. There's no damage limit here, so if I collide with something at mach 3, it might kill me instantly. Reaction times depend on whether or not I'm in my soul when something happens. If I am, then I have more time to plan what I'm going to do, and can emerge and do it immediately. Ballpark is probably about half normal human reaction time.>
<Good. In that case, it's safest if we maintain a Gate at all times, and you throw us through it if anything happens. I can close it much faster than I can open it.>
Harry interjected with a note of consternation. <I'm not sure if that's a good idea. There are clearly dangers which move between worlds, and Kanderon seems to think that our presence here, in particular our foreign magic, might lure them here. If I were a multiversal force hell-bent on wreaking destruction on any world that came to my attention, a permanent Gate defying Euclidean space might act like a beacon. Our momentary use might not have caused any issues so far, but I'd prefer not to push our luck by keeping a Gate open at all times. There's also a chance that a Gate would allow the pursuer to find us again.>
<Good point. How long does it take you to make a permanent teleportation circle that you can reach from a greater distance, Zorian?>
<Days, minimum. My simulacrum near the Havathi army is working on one there, but if we leave this planet at the rate Kanderon wants us to, it won't be finished by the time we're gone.>
Depends on how long this labyrinth takes us, Rain thought. From what Kanderon says, it's nothing like the delves back home... but there's always a chance. He'd only been gone from Ascension for a few days, but without Ameliah or even Dozer, it felt like much longer.
The question of Dozer was an interesting one. Ever since the Essence Slime had managed to find his way into Rain's soul, the mental connection to the tamed monster had been there, easy to access and ready to either summon Dozer back, or to keep him safe inside his soul.
The thing is, Dozer had been outside his soul, playing with Carten, when he'd been taken by the Exile Splinter. And now, in this world, the connection to Dozer felt… not frayed, exactly, but somehow strained, as if the bond had been trapped in a higher energy state. He hadn't been able to talk to Dozer, and hadn't heard any of the slime's characteristic ⟬clean-need⟭ either. There was a chance that he could fetch Dozer from the other world, and bring him here, but what then? This world was undeniably more dangerous, and although Dozer had courage in spades, that wasn't a risk Rain was willing to take. The thought of the plucky little slime caught in the shockwave left in the wake of their otherworldly pursuer, or torn apart by a gravity mage, or…
No, it was better for now that Dozer was safe with Ascension. And so Rain hadn't even tried to tug at the thread of soul-connection, and consequently hadn't resolved his itching curiosity about whether or not he'd be able bring a creature across the boundaries between worlds with a mere thought.
The three of them arrived at a broad pair of wooden doors, reinforced horizontally with iron brackets.
There weren't any signs saying what was inside, but Rain supposed that would have ruined the whole medieval aesthetic anyway. <I figure this is the library.>
<Hugh said it was dangerous. We should stay on our guard,> Harry sent. His thoughts were a mixture of giddy excitement and nerves.
Rain stepped forward, and threw the doors open with perhaps a little too much force. They swung open, revealing…
A space which was much larger than ought to have been possible, even inside a mountain this large. Endless leagues of tomes and grimoires embedded into shelves stretched out before them. Ship-sized shelves bearing thousands of books floated of their own accord, drifting lazily around the stacks. A central shaft descending into the depths glowed blue - the colour of Kanderon's wings. Hundreds of individual books darted about - some with wings, some without, blurring the corridors between the shelves.
<On second thoughts, maybe this isn't the ideal way to organise a library.> Whatever he claimed to think, Rain could tell that Harry approved both of the aesthetic and of the sheer scale.
Zorian stepped forward, briefly gesturing with a hand to telekinetically deflect an onrushing atlas, and picked a book from a nearby shelf at random. <A Treatise on the Use of Water Affinities in Managing Hydrocephalus. Huh.> He turned and picked up another. <Advanced Wardcraft.> A third: <A Beginners Guide to Dealing with Demons. This one has some blood on it. Not sure if that's a good sign.>
Rain narrowed his eyes. <There's around twenty books on each shelf, and the bookshelves are around ten shelves high. We can see around a hundred bookshelves from here, but that's probably only a tenth of what's on this floor. So that's around two hundred thousand books per floor.>
Flaring Velocity, he dashed over to the edge of the central shaft. The library itself stretched around the chasm, and on the other side, Rain could see that the floors of the library stretched downward until they disappeared into a dimly glowing mist… <And it looks like there's at least fifty more floors, if not more. So that's at least ten million books.>
Harry was breathing a little heavily. <It will be quite a bit of work to bring all this information with us. We need to be quick. There's no telling when Kanderon's people will be ready to leave, and we want to get off this world as soon as possible.> He ran his fingers through his dark hair, once again exposing the strange scar that ran down his forehead. <Rain, you have a perfect memory, right? How quickly can you read?>
Rain wrinkled his eyebrows. <Great question. There's not a lot of reading material where I come from, so I haven't been challenged like that in a while. I think my mind could contain all the information here, the problem is getting it all in there.>
Running too fast was definitely a concern - he needed to stay controlled to avoid collisions with the stationary bookshelves, to say nothing of the roaming ones. So he braced himself, dialled the stat bonuses from his rings to send his Clarity into the stratosphere, and limited himself to a little over half the speed of sound.
| Velocity (15/15) 2041% boost to speed for all entities Range: 0 meters Cost: 9.75 mp/s |
And… go.
His fingers flickered through the pages at inhuman speeds, constrained by what he could do without tearing apart the paper. Vellum was more resilient - when he picked up a leatherbound book, it took less than half the time. Each page was inscribed with dense, symbolic language. Most of it was in standard Ithonian, and slid easily into his memories, but it wasn't just text. There were complex charts, runic diagrams, schematics, as well as books in dozens of languages he'd never seen before.
He didn't try to understand it. They could do that later, when they were under less time pressure. Now was the time for data collection. And collect data he did - flitting between the bookshelves like some kind of maniacal robot librarian, memorising the contents of another book every second.
After a few minutes, Zorian pulled some carbon-nanotube reinforced frames from a pocket dimension in his robes, and constructed a pair of simulacra, who began to help. They used some kind of finely controlled levitation magic to lift hundreds of books at once into a wide floating grid, so that Rain could see them all at once, and turned all of the pages roughly once every second. It was a nice gesture, and did help speed things up. He only needed to briefly turn back to face the grid to memorise all the currently visible pages, and could otherwise continue flipping through books himself.
A typical human would barely be able to focus their eyes in that span of time - let alone take in the information from hundreds of floating books at a considerable distance. Rain, however, relished the challenge - his Perception-boosting accolades combined with his enhanced Clarity to allow him to take in far more information than would usually be possible.
Every now and then, a book reacted poorly to being read at two hundred metres per second, and barfed up a cloud of knives, or tried to bite off his arm. None of the tricks were particularly threatening, especially while Rain was already moving this quickly, but they did tend to slow him down a little.
Harry, meanwhile, apparently hadn't thought of any clever tricks to speed-read an entire library, and had instead started querying the Index for books on particularly interesting topics, and stuffing them into his Useful Items bag.
<Kanderon won't be happy you're taking her books.>
Harry's mental response was cautiously optimistic. <I'm planning to learn from them, and will soon be travelling through extremely dangerous environments with some of her most favoured servants, who I will be better able to protect if I'm more magically skilled. I figure it's fair game - I'm going to treat the books very well, of course, and intend to return them if I ever return to this world.>
Presumably the bag reached capacity at some point, because he then pulled up a chair alongside the Index Node and continued querying - not looking for specific books, but rather trying to understand the scale and contents of the library itself, as well as the limits of the Index's sentience.
Rather than finishing the first floor entirely, Rain began work on the second floor when Zorian told him that a greater proportion of the books there were bound with leather, which meant he would be able to read them more quickly. He was part way through when Harry interrupted.
<They're here. Zorian, has your simulacrum reached Ithos?>
<Yes.>
<How much of the library have we got?> Zorian queried.
<I'll have to count more carefully later, but I think I've memorised around fifteen thousand books.> Rain did some quick mental arithmetic. <That's less than ten percent of a single floor, and about a tenth of a percent of the whole library. And we didn't get any of the ones that were swimming around in the weird aquarium thing.>
<It'll have to do, for now. We should go. As much as I hate to interrupt this, every minute we spend on this planet is a risk.>
Rain nodded, and climbed the thin winding staircase which led up to the floor where Harry and Zorian were waiting. Near the door, Harry was getting up and stowing Advanced Wardcraft in his bag. Zorian's simulacra returned the levitated books to their original positions, and flew through the open space in the middle of the library rather than taking the stairs. They floated gently to the floor beside Zorian's original body.
Before them stood the people who would be their companions for the dangerous journey home.
Alustin stood at the front, looking more confident than ever. His nondescript brown robes were clean and tidy, which contrasted with the ever-tousled brown hair partially obscuring his dreamfire circlet. He was carrying a simple leather bag, although it wasn't clear why - he probably had more than enough storage space in the pocket dimension anchored to the tattoo on his arm.
Beside him was a massive dark-skinned man who must have been Godrick's father, Artur. He must have been around seven feet tall, and the skin visible at his neck and hands was interlaced with deep scars. He was smiling broadly and holding up a hand in greeting.
Just behind him stood his son Godrick, who was only slightly shorter, flanked by Hugh, Talia and Sabae. And of course, the reason they were all here - Hugh's crystalline spellbook, dubbed Mackerel, was surreptitiously trying to nibble at the ends of Sabae's white hair.
All six of them were wearing Talia's dreamfire circlets around their heads. Rain felt a pang of guilt at the implicit deception. While it was better for everyone if Kanderon's people believed themselves safe, concealing his ability to invert Immolate and put out flames had him feeling a little two-faced. They knew about Suppression, since he'd used it to douse Talia's dome in their meeting, but because they didn't require active mana input from an individual, it had left the circlets alight. Inverted Immolate would simply extinguish all flames within its radius, regardless of their source.
Rain stepped forward, dismissing his helm and gauntlets, and grasped Artur's outstretched hand in greeting.
<Please to meet…>
<You have to speak out loud to them, Rain,> Zorian reminded him dryly.
Oh, right.
"Pleased to meet you in person, Artur. And thank you all for joining us. I'm Rain, this is Harry, and they're Zorian." Rain gestured at his companions.
"Ah, we should be thankin' ye!" Apparently Artur shared Godrick's thick accent as well as his stature and stone affinity. "There's no tellin' what would a happened here if ye hadn't diverted the Havathi armies."
Alustin clapped his hands together. "Galvachren's Guide, of which I have a copy here," he tapped his leather satchel, "says the connection to your homeworlds should be through the Ithonian labyrinth, which makes sense, given that's where the Exile Splinter was deployed. Zorian, when you took me back to Skyhold, you brought me alongside while you teleported, and covered the distance in several jumps. That should speed up our journey significantly, especially since sandships can't cross the Skyreach Range." He leant forward, almost conspiratorially. "Now, how many people can you take along at once? Will we need to make multiple trips to bring everyone along? My apprentices are an equal mixture of apprehensive and curious about the experience."
Zorian shook his head. "We won't be teleporting today."
Alustin drew back, surprised, and cocked his head to one side as if he were trying to read some text at an angle. The apprentices behind him looked at each other with confusion.
"It's too slow."
Now they were really confused.
"Please stand back."
Their seven new companions nervously backed away through the doors, and looked in curiously. Mackerel must have been especially curious, because the spellbook kept trying to dart past them. Talia eventually sat on it to stop it moving.
Zorian began a series of complex hand gestures, and after a few seconds, a tiny tear began to form in the fabric of reality. Stretching wider by the moment, the shimmering boundary of the Gate grew.
This was the first time Rain had seen Zorian cast the Gate spell without some crisis occurring at the same time, so he very much shared the curiosity their new friends were displaying.
Just looking at the Gate was enough to confuse the senses. It wasn't a single portal with some kind of opaque rear side, like the ones from Portal - instead, it was double sided. Rain moved around to look at it from other angles, and it was clear that entering into the Gate's space from either side would take you to its destination. Interesting.
Twenty seconds passed, and Zorian gradually expanded the boundary until it was large enough for even Artur to be able to pass through. Then, without another word, he jumped in, and vanished from the library entirely.
There was a long pause, in which no-one moved.
Zorian stuck his head back out, looking a bit amused at the delay. "You coming?"
"Yep." Rain breathed in, and stepped through.
Zorian
His simulacrum had chosen the roof of the deserted villa as their point of arrival. From here, the ruined city of Ithos was beautiful in the fading sunset light. Unlike when they'd first arrived, there was no storm, but there was still a patch of thick, dark clouds above them, and tiny droplets were beginning to fall.
Simulacrum Four, who had opened the Gate from the Ithonian side, waved a hand cursorily, and a wide transparent dome came into being, which sheltered the Gate from rain as the rest of their group emerged. Zorian and Rain stood side by side, facing the Gate as Kanderon's people crossed through.
Artur came through first, stepping very carefully to avoid the edges of the Gate. That wasn't necessary, of course. The edges weren't dangerous - Zorian's Gate spell was carefully designed to collapse gracefully if the boundary was tampered with. An expression of wonder tempered with caution spread across Artur's face as he exited.
Zorian's instinctive mental feelers once again flinched away from the chaotic energies of Artur's dreamfire circlet. The iridescent droplet of suspended flame glinted in the dimming light, serving to remind Zorian and his simulacra of their allies' (perhaps justified) caution.
It made Zorian feel a little better that their rudimentary defences wouldn't amount to much, if it came to it. Even if it turned out that Rain couldn't simply extinguish the purple-greenish flames with a thought, there were always other options - many of them.
The headbands didn't look particularly well fastened - only a thin leather strip fixed the finger-tip sized crystal container to the centre of their foreheads. If necessary, unstructured telekinesis could easily tear them away before anyone had a chance to react, leaving their minds undefended. And that was only required if Zorian actually wanted to seize control of their minds - if he just wanted them out of the picture, there were a myriad of other possibilities. It seemed unlikely that any of their affinities could deflect or easily block a series of homing, invisible force-missiles, or severing discs. Simulacra could grab them and teleport them kilometres into the air. And if all that failed, Harry's improvements to his simulacrum frames had resulted in a significant increase in their durability and effective strength - if it came to it, there was always the option of grabbing them and physically tearing them apart.
Not that Zorian was planning on doing anything like that unprovoked, of course. As long as Kanderon's people stayed cooperative, there was no reason for any hostilities.
Talia was the next to leave the portal, her short red hair and freckled, white skin eerily lit up by both the circlet on her forehead and her glowing blue tattoos. Her presence here was understandable, if frustrating. Despite the decent craftsmanship, it was clear from the tiny amounts of mana leaking from the crystal casing of the circlets that they wouldn't last forever - probably just a day or two, without recharging. And judging by the inflexibility of the mages from this world, recharging these devices probably required a dreamfire affinity.
Her brash confidence reminded him a little of Taiven - but mainly the parts of Taiven that he found confusing and somewhat annoying.
Godrick came through next. Even without his usual thick stone armour, the young mage was surprisingly large. His eyes were darting about, taking in the ruined buildings and broken boulevards. Zorian once again felt frustrated at his inability to read even their surface thoughts. He'd grown so used to having some idea of what people were thinking that operating without that ability - being normal, he supposed - just felt wrong.
Then came Hugh, with his absurdly named crystal spellbook hovering at his side. The mind inside Mackerel was odd - not quite a magical construct like a golem, and not quite an independent sentience, but somewhere in between. For all Zorian's experience understanding alien minds, he couldn't make head or tail of the thought processes in the odd spellbook - it was all abstract toruses and topological structures, without any hint of meaning he could discern.
Along with the circlet, Hugh's eyes glinted slightly in the sunset, reminiscent of Kanderon. Did he have some kind of cat-like ability to see in the dark? Mackerel looked like he was trying to eat part of the Gate, and Hugh was clearly using his crystal affinity to hold him back.
Then came Sabae, long white hair cascading past the dark skin of her exposed collarbones. As she carefully stepped over the boundary, Zorian noticed currents of wind playing through her fingers. He frowned slightly. Wind magic, like Sabae clearly possessed, was a near perfect counter to his own invisibility. Unlike Talia, with her frequent idiosyncrasies, at least Sabae had been quite pleasant to talk to in the walk to meet Kanderon. Without his mind-sense, Zorian had to admit that he wasn't the best conversationalist. She'd reacted well to his questions about local politics, and had volunteered a surprising amount of information about her grandmother, who apparently controlled the winds of half the continent from her storm-throne hundreds of kilometres away. She'd asked a few pertinent questions of her own: Were all mages from his world as powerful as he was? (No.) What made them decide to work with Kanderon? (Necessity.) What power structures dominated his world? (Hereditary kingdoms, although noble families held some power, and in recent years civil institutions had grown to wield significant influence.) Did he think these power structures were the best possible ones, or had he thought about challenging them?
He'd struggled answering the last one, and part of his mind was still mulling on the question.
Alustin jumped through, landed dexterously, and walked over to the edge of the shimmering dome protecting them from the steadily increasing rain. He playfully put his fingers through, and drew them back. "Check this out!" He turned to his apprentices. "And they don't even have a water affinity!"
Finally, Harry and the simulacra brought up the rear, and Zorian curled his fingers into a fist to collapse the Gate.
"Welcome back to Ithos. Your turn, labyrinth-guides."
Zorian looked out at the city spread out before them. Even after centuries of disrepair in the void, most of the buildings had remained somewhat intact. Now, after the three-way battle between Kanderon's Librarians Errant, the Havathi forces, and their own little faction, most of the city was in ruins. The adjacent building was half-collapsed, and in the middle of the street, the crater-footprint of Artur's gargantuan stone armour was clearly visible.
"Actually, that's something we need to ask you." Hugh stepped forward to Zorian, Mackerel currently inactive and slung over his shoulder by a leather strap. "You're from three different worlds, right? Where are we going first?"
They'd had this conversation before launching the attack on Havath City - when it had become clear there was a path home soon.
Zorian sent a mental query to his companions, and said out loud, "Give me a moment to think about that."
<We're still planning to head to Harry's world first, right? Any objections?>
Rain responded first. <I'd obviously like to get back to my homeworld and my friends as soon as possible, but I don't want to leave you two unprotected. Like I said before, Zorian and I can probably handle ourselves, but I'd prefer to take Harry home first. No offence - you're a great asset, but your skills aren't the best suited to survival.>
<None taken. Thank you both - I appreciate this.>
There was an undercurrent of… something in Harry's mental communication. It was clear he wasn't telling them everything. The young boy's mental protections were of an odd kind, but were still strong enough that he would know if Zorian intruded.
Still, there was clearly no hostile intent. Unless Harry had cognitive defences that far oustripped those of anyone on Zorian's world, and the ability to create a simulated mind capable of fooling him (very unlikely), then he wasn't planning to betray them. Zorian figured the younger boy could keep his secrets for now.
One of his simulacra realised the original was distracted, and stepped in to respond to Hugh's question in his stead. "We're going to Harry's world first."
Alustin grimaced. "I was hoping you wouldn't say that. Galvachren said the journey there was dangerous, and this is the first time any of us have tried to use a labyrinth to move between worlds."
Hugh held up a hand. "That's not quite true. The book said the journey was difficult, not dangerous. That's different."
Alustin rolled his eyes. "Well, I certainly hope we'll have to solve a particularly challenging puzzle which isn't at all life-threatening, but somehow I doubt it."
"In that case, let's get moving. The sooner we can leave this world, the better. I presume we're starting at the site of the Splinter?" Alustin nodded, and Rain jumped off the roof in a single superhuman bound. He hit the ground next to the crater in the middle of the street.
Sabae followed, wind propelling her high into the air, and slowing her fall as she landed. Her white hair fanned out behind her as she moved. The rest of them turned to the stairs, but Artur held out a hand to stop them.
"Tha whole buildin' is unstable. We should leave this way." He looked at the edge of the marble villa, and the stone walls began to reshape themselves. Within a few seconds, the edge of the roof melted away, merging with the walls to form a narrow, but sturdy looking staircase. Artur led the way, apparently confident in the structural integrity of his creation. The rest of them followed.
It was a short walk - less than a hundred metres - to the former location of the Exile Splinter. His simulacrum had chosen their arrival point well.
The site where the splinter had originally been placed looked fairly ordinary now - or as ordinary as a city plaza could look if it had been bombarded by lava and partially crushed by a stone giant. The bones, of course, had been cleared away by Rain when the city was still in the void, but some dirt and dust had accumulated over the last few days, thinly coating the marble paving.
No-one else was here, which was a blessing. After the confrontation in Havath City, Zorian had a healthy respect for the force the Empire could bring to bear.
At the very centre, just below where the Splinter had once been anchored, was an oddly textured section of stone. Thin ridges of stone spiralled inward - it looked a little like the fossil of a massive sea snail. Their group stopped in front of it, and Mackerel fluttered over to rest in the centre.
"He wants us to… go underneath?" Hugh sounded uneasy. Apart from the boundary between the marble and the spiral section, the plaza was seamless - there was no way down.
"Alright. Godrick, Artur, you're up." Alustin stepped back, and gestured for the others to back away as well.
The father and son stepped forward onto the spiral, and knelt to place their hands on the ground.
"Alright laddy, reach out with yeh affinity senses. What do ye feel?"
Godrick closed his eyes to focus. "I think… there's ah vacuum - an open space, ten metres deep? I'm not sure, but I think it connects to ah tunnel."
"Good. Ladder or staircase?"
Godrick furrowed his brow. "The steepest manageable angle is the inverse tangent of two, which is about eighteen hundredths of a revolution. There's just about room for ah steep spiral stair."
"Well done. Let's get started."
The two of them closed their eyes, and the stone around the edges of the spiral began to reform, melting down in a circular pattern. Excess stone, which presumably needed to be ejected to make room for the staircase, was pushed outward away from the group, and formed a large seamless cube with precise, sharp edges. Zorian shook his head - to someone from a world without stone affinities, the sharp edges and smooth faces of the cube looked like the result of hours of painstaking craftsmanship, even for a competent mage-craftsman. Artur and Godrick had made it in a matter of seconds, and it wasn't even their actual project.
Zorian peered over the edge, and saw a steep descending staircase spiralling into a black void. Just as Godrick had promised, the stairs were about as steep as they could get before you'd start calling them a ladder. There wasn't a single stair which stretched across the whole staircase - instead, there were separate stairs for your left and right feet, which let the whole structure descend much more rapidly. It reminded him of the stairs to the attic back in his family's house in Cirin.
As a child, his brother Fortov had tried to egg Zorian on to climb the stairs into the crawl space above, but even at the age of eleven, he'd known better than to trust his older brother.
The stone stopped moving, and Artur stood. He beckoned to the rest of them. "Alright, let's get movin'."
<We should be cautious,> came a thought from Harry, and he reflexively relayed it to Rain. <Once we enter the stone tunnels, if they choose to betray us, we're very much in their domain.>
<Force Ward is active, which should give us a moment to respond,> Rain reassured them. <Besides, I don't expect anything bad from these people - they seem genuine in their desire to help.>
Zorian wasn't so sure - his simulacra had spent long enough inside Alustin's mind to know that what they'd done to Havath City wouldn't be enough to satisfy his bloodlust. Alustin was a strange character - outwardly, he seemed charming and friendly. On the inside, however, Alustin's thoughts returned uncomfortably often to dreams of revenge - of Havath City in flames, and its people suffering the way his people had suffered.
The short glimpse he'd had into Artur's mind in the battle for Ithos, at least, did reassure him. Artur was not a simple man - he'd had his fair share of battles, and had personally ended many lives - but his dedication to keeping his son and his friends safe was the driving motivation behind his every action. As long as their group stuck together, and there was the possibility of a conflict putting Godrick in danger, Zorian was sure that Artur wouldn't cause any problems.
<Artur won't attack us. Force Ward should be enough to keep us safe from Alustin, if he tries anything.>
<Good enough for me. I'll light the way with Purify.> A dim light began to radiate from Rain, and he started the journey into the darkness. Mackerel fluttered by his side, the crystal pages flickering back and forth. Hugh followed, and one by one, the rest of them filed down Godrick's stairs, and entered the labyrinth.
Artur came down last. The stone stairwell melted away and the gap in the ceiling closed as he stepped into the tunnel. That was a good idea, Zorian supposed. There was enough danger ahead - it was better if they didn't need to worry about anyone following them.
The dark was oppressive, and despite the headbands, Zorian could still feel waves of anxiety coming from Kanderon's Librarians. Given that they were supposed to be the leaders here, that only served to put Zorian more on edge.
They'd only managed a short walk into the broad stone tunnel before Zorian began to feel the connections with his simulacra flickering and fading. He stopped immediately, and clutched his head. The two simulacra by his side sprang into action, pushing the others away and throwing up layers of prismatic shields.
<What's going on?> Harry's wand was in his hand, and above his Useful Items bag, near-invisible threads glinted in the dim light of Rain's aura.
Zorian was frantically trying to repair the fraying ties to his simulacra. The connections to the ones by his side remained strong, but the threads which connected his soul to the more distant copies felt like they were being torn apart.
One of the simulacra clarified for the group. "We're not physically under attack. The connections to our other simulacra are being suppressed, likely by the labyrinth."
The others relaxed somewhat. Alustin scratched his head. "I've never heard of anything like this happening, but then again, I've never met anyone with simulacra before. We know the labyrinth builders wove in protections against certain kinds of entities travelling through, like the Cold Minds. It's possible you're being inadvertently caught in that filter too? I'm just theorising, though - it could be something else entirely."
The mana here felt strange in other ways, too. In the Dungeon, on Zorian's homeworld, the deeper you went, the more challenging it became to shape your mana, especially over larger distances. Teleporting more than a few metres, for example, was close to impossible once you reached a certain level. Here, the effect was even more pronounced. They'd only barely entered the labyrinth, and he could already feel the pressure on his mind - the same way he felt in the Dungeon.
As a test, one of the simulacra tried to teleport to the surface. The attempt fizzled immediately. Maybe a shorter distance would work?
The simulacrum vanished, and reappeared on the other side of their group. Sabae jumped in surprise. Zorian sighed. At least short-distance teleportation would still work, as did his nearby simulacra. After even a few minutes without a connection to the original, his simulacra elsewhere would fade away. For now, at least, their group was uniquely vulnerable - no long-distance teleports to escape, and no Gates across the continent in the event of a significant emergency.
Zorian shook his head. Time to focus on the here and now.
"My simulacra elsewhere are dispersing. I need to create some more here. Wait for me for a moment."
As requested, the others paused while he conjured the necessary ectoplasm onto a new trio of golem-frames he fetched from his bag. One by one, the additional simulacra stood up, their eyes gazing warily into the dark, their minds roving across the nearby tunnels, searching for threats.
A few minutes later, flanked by five simulacra, he was ready to continue. "Let's keep moving. I want to get out of here as soon as possible."
The others nodded, and they continued into the dark.
Harry
The tunnels around them gradually changed as they walked.
At first, the stone had matched the colours of Ithos - pinkish marble, immaculately clean. As they continued, following Mackerel along a precise path through twists and turns of the endlessly branching tunnels, up and down flights of stairs, marble became granite, increasingly wet, with patches of dark greenish-purple moss dotting the walls. The spellbook didn't hesitate for a moment at any of the junctions, and darted forwards into the chosen tunnel each time.
Occasionally, the tunnels opened up into a larger space. Massive halls of stone, vaulted with columns, or vast rough-hewn caverns with water dripping from the stalactites above. Hugh, acting on instructions from Mackerel, hurried them past those, keeping them in the smaller tunnels as much as possible.
As they walked, Harry mused on the situation. In here, it seemed Zorian's magic was greatly constrained - no teleports, and no simulacra at a distance. Still, the combination of affinity senses, Rain's Detection, and Zorian's mind-magic should give them significant forewarning if anything happened.
Harry was taking the time to practise with his newly-developing carbon affinity. The people walking alongside him were gradually beginning to show up more clearly, as he learned to interpret the fuzzy signals. He was increasingly able to tell the shape of their bodies - where their arms were positioned, how large the shape was, things like that. Artur and Talia, as the extreme examples of contrast in size, were easy to tell apart.
Unlike earlier, the simulacra currently with Zorian weren't purely ectoplasm - they were all based on Harry's improved titanium and carbon nanotube frame design. The purity of the carbon lattice layered around their titanium bones shone brightly to his affinity sense.
Although they'd proven themselves trustworthy allies so far, the power differential between himself and his two companions had been causing him some concern. Whether or not it was intentional, the inclusion of purified carbon in Zorian's simulacra did help to redress that inequality - even though his ability to affect large amounts of matter was still limited, Harry was confident that if it came to it, he would easily be able to tear apart the simulacra from inside. The usual difficulties of affecting other mage's internal organs wouldn't apply - the simulacra were mere extensions of the original, and had no aetherbodies of their own. Even if he didn't intend to do so, mutual collaboration with Zorian and Rain felt easier now that he was holding at least some of the cards.
That wasn't the only trick Harry was preparing. Layered carefully into the seams of his robes, with more ready inside his Useful Items bag, were more than fifty long strands of braided carbon nanotubes, each strand a single molecule. It was the same approach he'd used in the graveyard, not long ago. Now, however, with the added control and strength granted by his affinity…
He'd tested it in the campsite, before they'd started the attack on Havath City. He'd taken one of the strands, wrapped it around a small-looking tree, and pulled toward him with his affinity.
The wooden trunk had presented almost no resistance. Even a small amount of force, when distributed across a tiny cross-section, represented a huge amount of pressure.
That was probably the principle behind Alustin's surprising strength as a battle-mage. Few people would expect paper to be particularly dangerous. And yet, if a piece of paper could be precisely controlled, the thinness of the paper, which the naive might perceive as a weakness, would become its strength.
Still, braided nanotubes were obviously superior. Their tensile strength meant that Harry wouldn't even need to apply the force himself - he would only need to wrap the strands around an enemy at strategic locations, and their own struggles to escape would cut them apart.
He was hoping to avoid using any of the weapons at his command, but since his arrival on Anastis, he'd felt compelled to act - to prepare, and grow stronger. Not by his Vow - Voldemort had gone to great lengths to ensure that the Vow would not induce him to act recklessly - but by his sense of moral duty. If there was a possible future in which he lived, he strongly preferred to go down that path. Preventing the end of the World was far easier if he was still alive, and so he would stay alive - because it was necessary.
They paused, and Alustin fetched a wide, thick book from his bag. 'The Guide', presumably.
Harry's interest hadn't abated, and he crowded behind Alustin to read alongside him. Looking over his shoulder, Harry could see that the section of text on Earth was far longer than the excerpt Kanderon had read to them. Large chunks of the text - almost all of it, in fact, had been 'redacted'. It wasn't simply blacked out, like old CIA documents. Instead, the text had been blurred somehow. When Harry tried to look at it, it felt like his eyes refused to focus, and bringing his eyes closer to the text resulted in a spike of pain that forced him to look away.
The unredacted sections were still some of the most interesting content Harry had ever read.
Galvachren went into quite a bit of detail describing the climate and weather systems of Earth, albeit from a decidedly alien perspective. He lingered on specific things - the odd coincidences of Earth's moon (there's only one, and it's precisely the same angular size as the sun!), the huge variety in the types of spiders on Earth's surface (although he lamented that only a tiny minority were 'particularly intelligent'), and the consistency of what he called 'aether'.
Two sentences, casually dropped between observations of the Amazon, burrowed into Harry's mind like a parasitic worm.
Almost unique among human-settled worlds, virtually all sentient creatures here have been bound - their souls fettered by their progenitors. Some were granted a limited ability to manipulate the aether, the others were entirely cut off.
He should have realised sooner. He'd visited new worlds, and heard of more. Now that he could see more of the picture, it was almost obvious.
Here on Anastis, and the other worlds he'd heard about from Alustin and the Index Node, the default state of the human species was that with practice and training, they could tap into the aether and use it as a source of strength.
On his world, only a privileged few in the wizarding world were able to cast spells. The vast, vast majority were Muggles - ignorant of the true nature of the world, and unable to understand it if it was right before them. That was the magical tradition left behind in the wake of Atlantis.
But the Atlanteans hadn't begun on a unique world, on which nearly all humans were unable to use magic.
They'd made one.
Given that they were working on designing the soul shell, it would have been near trivial to create a modified version with no external functions at all. For a civilisation with the sheer resources of the Atlanteans, it would have been no trouble at all to impose their will on the vast majority of the populace - to shackle their souls, and leave them with no connection at all to what could have been their most powerful tool.
Harry thought of his parents, unable to look at the animated suitcase he'd brought home at Christmas without flinching away, their minds refusing to comprehend what they were seeing. Of Hermione's parents, who'd blathered on about a forsaken career in dentistry while their daughter was reshaping reality and forging the future before their eyes.
It hadn't been the natural course. It had been imposed.
And yet, it had worked, hadn't it? Despite the best efforts of human civilisation in constructing new and more powerful methods of killing, life still persisted on Earth. If eight billion people had access to magic, would that still be the case? Perhaps the Atlanteans had made the right choice - some freedom for some people, rather than oblivion for all…
That deserved further thought.
Alustin and Mackerel were seemingly satisfied, and he stowed the book back into the leather bag by his side. "We're getting close to the boundary. We should make it into your world's labyrinth by tonight, Harry."
Harry nodded, his mind elsewhere, as the group continued walking.
Ahead of them, Mackerel stopped, abruptly enough that Hugh almost bumped into it. At the same time, Rain whispered quietly, but loud enough that they could all hear:
"There's something ahead."
Near where Mackerel hovered, their narrow tunnel entered a massive cavern. Unlike most of the spaces they'd moved through, this one was mostly occupied by a wide lake. From here, it was difficult to see how deep the water was.
On either side of the lake, a thin winding path looked like it would lead an intrepid adventurer around the obstacle, to another tunnel which exited the cavern in the far distance. Of course, walking on narrow ledges above a steep fall was not the kind of dramatic activity their group needed to do - one way or another, most of them could fly, and even if that was for some reason impossible, Artur and his son could probably construct a four-lane highway across the water for them.
No, that wasn't why they were stopping. They'd stopped, presumably, because of the presences he could feel underneath the water with his affinity. Three large, slowly moving presences.
"Do we have to go this way, Hugh?" Harry asked.
Hugh nodded, and swallowed in apprehension. "Mackerel insists. A path around would be much more dangerous."
"Zorian - can we teleport to the other side?" Rain asked.
Zorian shook his head grimly. "The labyrinth's interference is even stronger here. I doubt I'd be able to teleport more than a few metres."
Rain nodded decisively. "Right, in that case we'll probably have to go through. Detection shows three entities, categorised as 'monsters' by my skills. They're very large, but that's about all I'm getting."
Harry responded. "I mirror those observations. I can also report that each of them have four limbs, and are roughly humanoid in structure. I'm not great with detail yet, but I think… they have a lot of muscles, and like, really big heads?"
Alustin pressed a finger to his temple and shut his eyes. It would have been a decent impression of Professor X if Alustin's messy brown hair hadn't ruined the image. "There are three creatures in the lake. The water makes the image less clear, but I think they're… massive frogs?"
So that was what Alustin's 'Farseeing' affinity did. He was a lot more dangerous than Harry had originally assumed.
From behind them, Zorian managed to stifle a laugh. "I thought their minds felt familiar! I've seen these creatures before. One of them wandered into the Dungeon in my world. Here's the short summary: they're not particularly perceptive, and we can probably sneak past invisibly. If a conflict does arise, be careful - they're very, very tough - although they can be hurt with fire. That's how I originally killed the one in my world. These ones appear to be quite a bit larger though."
At that, Harry saw Talia crack her knuckles.
"Do not let them get close. I saw one tear apart a metal golem with its hands. Their eyes are a weak point. They also have prehensile tongues, and are liable to try to eat anything that moves. They particularly like eating giant spiders, in case that somehow becomes relevant."
Harry allowed himself a brief snort of amusement. Giant frogs eating giant spiders. Figures.
"Can you influence their minds, Zorian?" If he could, that would be a quick win.
Zorian shrugged apologetically. "Unfortunately not. More powerful creatures tend to have stronger natural resistances, and while these creatures are crude and functionally non-sentient, they're definitely powerful. I'll cloak us in invisibility, and they shouldn't notice us as we float across to the exit on a disc."
The group nodded, and clustered onto the disc of force where Zorian gestured. This one was broader than any Harry had previously seen, and could easily fit all five simulacra, along with the nine flesh-and-blood humans and their animated spellbook guide. Working in their usual eerie unison, the simulacra wrapped the now-hovering group in successive layers of slightly shimmering shields. One of them cast a spell of invisibility, and to his natural senses, it felt like his companions simultaneously vanished.
His carbon affinity served to make the experience even stranger. Although he could no longer see the others, he could still feel them. Eight fuzzy lumps of carbon stood tensely by his sides, and the five simulacra took up positions by the edges of the disc, ready for action. Because of the pure carbon in their skeletons, Harry could easily sense their exact configuration, which helped him orient himself despite his current inability to physically see his body.
Before they got moving, Harry pulled his broomstick from his bag. With a bit of luck, it wouldn't be necessary - but it always paid to be prepared.
Slowly, the disc rose higher, and moved forward to enter the vast cavern. Gradually increasing in speed, the disc floated in a high arc, giving the lake a wide berth. The mossy paths around the lake looked exceedingly slippery from here - Harry was very glad they didn't need to walk.
They were less than a third of the way to the exit when something unexpected happened.
Harry felt one of the frogs beginning to move more quickly. It wasn't obviously aggressive - in fact, it was directed at another frog. It was a sort of swimming, splashing motion, and might have been intended to be playful. However, at their scale, even a playful motion resulted in a lot of movement.
The upswing of the frog's leg hit the surface of the water, and sent curtains of water careening through the air - high enough to hit the ceiling of the cavern, and therefore high enough to hit their bubble.
To his credit, Zorian and his simulacra reacted quickly - they grabbed hold of everyone and attempted to short-range teleport the whole bubble to the other side of the sheet of approaching water. Unfortunately, probably due to the dampening effects of the labyrinth, it didn't take them quite far enough. They managed to avoid the first layer of water, but the second one impacted their shields and was diverted around them, as if it had impacted a transparent glass marble. Although the invisibility had held, their position was revealed.
And all at once, the cavern exploded into activity.
The three frogs moved first, reacting bizarrely fast. Huge quantities of water slid off their bodies as they emerged, allowing Harry to see them with his eyes, rather than just with his affinity.
They looked like giant frogs, albeit ones which had somehow been interbred with cave trolls. They were each at least eight metres tall, and most of that was thick knots of muscle covered by greenish mottled skin. They varied slightly in size and colouration- the largest one had a patch of yellow skin across its head. The smallest one was darker-coloured, and although Harry was no expert at reading frog-expressions, it looked somehow hungrier than the others. The last one was decorated with bright green and blue banding, and if it had been a typical size for a frog, Harry would have guessed it was poisonous. Unlike a typical frog, their limbs ended in elongated claws.
<Fantastic.> It seemed Zorian kept his dry sense of humour even while under pressure.
The largest frog leapt at the closest wall, and ricocheted off it toward their bubble, claws outstretched. The smallest one stayed partially underwater, but its tongue rocketed out toward them. The last frog launched itself at them directly.
Not a moment too soon, their group scattered.
Harry leaped onto the broom in his hand, and curved its path down toward the tunnel from which they'd arrived, skimming the surface of the water. His wand found its way into his right hand, and he fired off a cutting hex at the closest frog. It might have made an incision, but Harry couldn't see anything from this distance, and the frog didn't even react. Hrm.
Behind him, he felt Artur throw himself downward, out of the bubble. Looking back, he saw the mountain of a man stretch an arm upwards. A huge chunk of stone detached itself from the roof of the cavern and sped towards him. It fell faster than he did, drawn to him by his stone affinity. As it reached him, it wrapped itself around him the way a droplet of water would wrap around an ant - covering every part of him, as if driven by surface tension. Almost immediately, the mass of stone began to develop limbs - crude arms and legs, and the beginnings of a head.
And then, the huge lump of stone slammed into the upwards-jumping blue-banded frog, the force of the impact sending shockwaves across the cavern and shaking dust from the ceiling. The two figures, now intertwined, crashed into the mossy edge of the lake, partially submerged.
Not all of their group could fly, and it appeared Zorian had remembered that fact. Simulacra grabbed Hugh, Talia and Godrick, and teleported them a few metres in random directions, out of the path of the largest frog. Sabae dodged away from the simulacrum which tried to grab her, and instead blasted herself toward the exit, wrapping herself in a protective layer of spinning air. She launched a series of gusts of wind toward the nearest frog. It flickered its eyes toward her in irritation.
Rain stepped out of the shield-sphere of his own accord, his helmet and gauntlets phasing back into place. He stood there, alone and static amidst the chaos of the cavern, presumably suspended by his own ability to Airwalk.
Across the surface of the frogs' skin, almost imperceptible unless you knew what to look for, water began to boil.
At the same time, dozens of sheets of paper whistled out of Alustin's storage tattoo, and wrapped themselves around him in what looked like a precise imitation of medieval armour. There was only a thin slit left to expose his eyes. Although the paper appeared mundane to Harry, he was confident it would be far stronger than it looked. Additional sheets latched onto his back, and Alustin took off. The paper wings served both to precisely guide his flight, and to provide thrust by some mechanism Harry couldn't discern. A further series of artfully folded triangles of paper darted out of his tattoo, and sped toward the eyes of the yellow-headed frog.
Harry didn't have time to see the result, because the cavern filled with some of the brightest light Harry had ever seen - it was only for an instant, but it rivalled the Purifying sphere Rain had produced to burn through his aura anchor.
He squinted to close his eyes, then opened them as the light abated. He didn't think he was permanently blinded, but a bright spot covered most of his retinas, and it was hard to make anything out. He thought he could see Hugh, no longer invisible, standing on a small disc with a simulacrum. He had a single arm stretched out, and the remnants of the burst of light was fading from his fingers. Mackerel was inactive, slung over his back like an ordinary crystal spellbook.
It looked like the bolt of light had been directed at the smallest frog - the darker-coloured one partially submerged in the lake, because one of its eyes was now a blackened, smouldering crater. It emitted a noise - not quite a croak, not quite a roar - and leapt out of the water toward its attacker.
It was part of the way toward Hugh, propelled by the massive muscles in its hind legs, when a torrent of white-hot flame blasted it to the side. It came from an otherwise empty patch of space, but Harry could feel the carbon-laced skeleton of the simulacrum which must have been its source. The frog awkwardly tried to redirect its motion, and bounced off the cavern wall back into the lake. It splashed into the water, and bursts of steam emerged where it made contact.
The yellow-headed frog, distracted by Alustin's cloud of paper, finally reached its objective, and began furiously tearing into the protective shields of the now-empty bubble they'd originally been travelling in. That was good, Harry figured - it would probably take it a minute to realise there was no-one in there.
Talia, meanwhile, had been busy. She was standing on a small disc near the roof of the cavern with a simulacrum, and a veritable swarm of dreamfire droplets were manifesting around her. A strange grin on her face, she gestured with a closed fist, and the sparks of flame shot downward, arcing toward the blue-banded frog still grappling with Artur's stone form. The flames made a sizzling noise on impact, and bit deep into the frog's flesh. It looked like part of the charred muscles were turning into clouds of flies and buzzing away. Very strange.
Some unseen force detached a stalactite from the cavern's ceiling and propelled it toward the yellow-headed frog which was still grappling with the shielded sphere. Even with the tip somehow sharpened, it didn't penetrate deep, and instead lodged itself in the frog's outer musculature with a dull thud.
Below him, Artur was getting the upper hand - the features of his stone golem looked more defined, and it was growing every second as it absorbed stone from the walls of the cavern. Dust filled the air around it. One of the golem's huge fists had pinned the blue-banded frog to the ground, and the other was repeatedly slamming into its head. After the third strike, the frog's entire body burst into flame, and the next blow pounded its head into ash. Artur's golem paused for a moment, and although Harry couldn't see his face, he seemed momentarily confused. It was clear to Harry what had happened, though - Artur's blows must have weakened the frog enough for Rain's aura to finish it off.
The yellow-headed frog abandoned the now-empty shielded sphere for more interesting prey, and leapt toward Sabae. Alustin sent reams of paper to intercept, but they did little more than bloody its surface as it continued the jump. Just in time, a burst of wind from her armour sent her out of its path. She must have left some kind of wiring behind, because an instant later, a bolt of lightning arced through the air along some kind of guided path, and dissipated into the frog's flesh. The frog spasmed, and losing control, crashed into the surface of the lake, sliding in the shallow water until it impacted the wall.
One of the simulacra teleported a few metres, and arrived dangerously close to the frog's head. The long, sticky-looking tongue flickered out, but the simulacrum raised a hand almost contemptuously, and the tongue was deflected into the water. He made a complex hand-motion, and although nothing visible happened, the frog began to writhe, clawing desperately at its own chest hard enough to pierce the skin. A moment later, it too burst into flames, and its movement ceased.
Although his vision was still hazy from the sudden light, Harry's affinity could feel the smallest frog move beneath the surface of the lake. It was on its guard now, and its motions were precise. It swam til it was only perhaps twenty metres away from him, and coiled its legs preparing to jump.
Now that the other two frogs were dead, the rest of his group was beginning to relax. As the final frog erupted from the water like a submarine-launched ICBM, barely any of them had time to react.
He received an urgent thought from Zorian. <Get out of the way!>
Harry didn't move.
Rain dropped from his perch at the top of the cavern, accelerating quickly toward him. One of Zorian's simulacra teleported to his location, and Harry could feel the energies building as he prepared to whisk him away to safety.
None of it would have been fast enough. And none of it was necessary. Because as the final frog rushed toward him, its body abruptly split into six pieces, each of which continued their parabolic motion.
"Protego."
A shimmering shield sprang into being, and the remnants of the creature were deflected around him. Blood gushed from the perfectly fine cuts left behind by the nanofibres, and the pieces fell into the lake below.
<Was… was that you?> Zorian sounded slightly impressed, which was unusual.
"Alright," Harry said out loud, flexing his affinity to collect the nanotube strands back into his robes - they were too thin to have gathered any blood. He steered his broomstick toward the exit tunnel. "Next time, try to warn me before you blind us, Hugh. Let's move on."
Proceeding across the lake by various mechanisms, the group collected itself at the exit tunnel. No-one could sense anything else dangerous nearby, so they began to relax a little. Hugh attempted an apology for his 'starbolt', and showed Harry a neat trick which more than compensated for his blurry vision. If he visualised a particular pattern, or 'spellform', in his mind's eye, and pushed mana into it with his carbon affinity, he could achieve certain useful results unrelated to his intrinsic affinity type. Hugh called them 'cantrips', or at least that was how Harry was translating the unfamiliar Ithonian word. It didn't take long to learn the principle, and apparently Hugh knew a wealth of cantrips which might be useful.
The first one he showed Harry, appropriately, was a simple one designed to shield the eyes from sudden bursts of light. It took Harry a few tries to get it right, but he was sure it would come in handy - he'd seen more blinding lights in the last few days than in the rest of his life put together. There were levitation cantrips, heating cantrips, sweat-cleaning cantrips, evaporating cantrips, and more.
Alustin walked behind them through the tunnels, watching with pride as Hugh corrected minor elements of Harry's technique. He stepped in occasionally to give pointers; true to his professorial manner, Alustin was an excellent teacher. Harry insisted Hugh teach him everything he knew, and they only stopped when Harry felt his mana reservoirs reach about half their maximum capacity.
As far as Harry understood it, because he'd placed the carbon affinity pattern across the exterior of his soul-shell, the same reservoir of magic was fuelling both his Anastan and wizarding magics - so it was very important that he wasn't out of mana when he might need it.
Meanwhile, the rest of the group swapped information on the techniques they'd used during the battle. It seemed Sabae had used something that roughly translated to a 'galvanic anchor' to channel her lightning, which she could otherwise only use at touch range. Alustin's paper armour could fly under its own power indefinitely. Talia was strangely annoyed by Rain's auras - ("Seriously? You just stand menacingly in place, and set everything on fire? How is that fair?"). Her jealousy had only intensified when he explained why he'd chosen to only affect the frogs, and not the surrounding environment - instantly boiling the lake in an enclosed space like this cave would have resulted in a massive steam explosion.
Both Harry and Zorian only explained their techniques in the briefest of detail. Despite the fairly effective collaboration so far, it was good to keep some cards close to the chest.
As they finished the impromptu lesson, the tunnels around them began to narrow, and the air around them grew humid and hot. After a few minutes of sweating, Rain activated one of his auras, and the temperature dropped immediately to comfortable levels. Their group quietened, and they walked in silence through the crisscrossing tunnels, following Mackerel's erratic movements. Hugh, acting on instincts transmitted from his spellbook, occasionally pointed out traps - lava pits, falling spikes, that sort of thing. It was nothing Artur couldn't handle.
The silence gave Harry some time to think about their destination.
Rain and Zorian had clear candidates for the location of the labyrinths on their worlds - Zorian's buried deep inside the Dungeon, Rain's at the epicentre of a magical storm called the Maelstrom. But they were heading for Earth.
Harry had a number of candidates for the labyrinth on Earth in mind, but one stood out as particularly likely.
The Atlanteans favoured elegant and flexible solutions - building the soul shell into humanity rather than enforcing constraints externally, psychologically diverting murderous intent rather than denying it, designing spells to serve as administrator keys when used in a certain way. How would they have protected their world from external contact?
Perhaps they would have wanted to maintain limited contact - exiling dangers from their own universe into others, or retrieving useful tools they deemed safe from other worlds. If so, there was one device Harry knew of which matched such a description.
The Mirror of Noitilov.
A Mirror which reflected itself perfectly, and as such was absolutely stable. Its characteristic power was said to be to create and make contact with alternate realms of existence, though it allowed access only to what could be seen in the mirror itself.
Quirrell had claimed that the Mirror, alone of all magics, possessed a true moral orientation - just the kind of safety feature you would want to build into a device capable of connecting your homeworld to the rest of the infinitely dangerous multiverse. It was blind to personality or identity, and would treat all who come before it by the same rules. And it was said, on some level, to be Good, with a capital G.
He'd also said that phoenixes, like Fawkes, had come to Earth from a world evoked in the Mirror.
That was Harry's chief suspect as to the labyrinth on Earth. If he was right, then at the same time as they'd sealed off their world from any others, the Atlanteans had built the Mirror as a way to reap the benefits of a cosmos they were unwilling to face as a whole.
And somewhere inside the hidden inner worlds of the last great work of Atlantis, sealed by the final machinations of Lord Voldemort and by Harry's last great failure, was Professor Dumbledore.
Great chapter and excellent fight scene. Really interesting seeing the magic systems interact the frogs felt surprisingly dangerous.
I won't harp on it much but i would be grateful for the atlanteans actions. Magic is a crutch and we as a civilization has benifited immensely from lacking it, literally every other world is quasi medival while we got nukes and the internet.
Was MOR an evil Dumbledore story. Thats always the worse but i expect you will do well in handeling it.
Also i see the structural problems withe stories premise. Rain and zorian are from near the end of their stories which means their chracter devolpment is mostly done, meanwhile MOR doesn't even know the spelling of characterision. So understand why he is the quasi protagnists while the other guys are more mentor type roles. Completely makes sense. It just sucks because harry sucks so much, again no insult to the writing you were given faulty clay.
I have questions, aside from the Dumbledore question, are more crossovers planned?? Cause i would recommend frieren cause i been loving tbe anime and its magic system is also neat and makes warriors cool as well.
I have more thoughts but thats enough for this comment.
I won't harp on it much but i would be grateful for the atlanteans actions. Magic is a crutch and we as a civilization has benifited immensely from lacking it, literally every other world is quasi medival while we got nukes and the internet.
Was MOR an evil Dumbledore story. Thats always the worse but i expect you will do well in handeling it.
Also i see the structural problems withe stories premise. Rain and zorian are from near the end of their stories which means their chracter devolpment is mostly done, meanwhile MOR doesn't even know the spelling of characterision. So understand why he is the quasi protagnists while the other guys are more mentor type roles. Completely makes sense. It just sucks because harry sucks so much, again no insult to the writing you were given faulty clay.
I have questions, aside from the Dumbledore question, are more crossovers planned?? Cause i would recommend frieren cause i been loving tbe anime and its magic system is also neat and makes warriors cool as well.
I have more thoughts but thats enough for this comment.
Interesting that you approve of the Atlanteans actions, some other commenters are very against them.
While Dumbledore and Harry didn't see perfectly eye to eye in HPMOR, it definitely wasn't an 'evil Dumbledore' story. Harry misses Dumbledore a lot and deeply regrets that he's trapped in the Mirror at the end of canon HPMOR.
I'm not intentionally making Harry the MC here. Part of it is because the group is interacting with Harry's world, and will change as that changes- and part of it is cause I messed up, and will change as I improve
No further major story crossovers are planned (although there may be future Easter eggs). 4 universes is plenty for now, I think.
Thanks for commenting! Always fun to read people's thoughts
I don't want to live in a world where roving band of rogue monsters and mages exist. And the internet alone outdoes all magic. Its just massively more impressive achievement.
Its not a mess up, its the logical course of the story and narratively satisfying. A young child dominated by the mind of a evil lord finally growing into their own person once removed from the toxic environment and given agency to finally fundamentally understand their world and define their own destiny instead of flailing in the dark. This is much better story path and good for harry. Probably should have spent a few years away to get wizard stupidity out but you can't be perfect.
Zorian is a fully realised character as far as i remember the story, he has struggled with us own internal issues and insecurties and problems and is fairly content with his life now.
Rain is still struggling and now he has a choice of going back which can be intresting drama despite his intial descision to stay in ascension and has more complex internal narrtive so there is more narrtive scope there but its subtler than harry and it makes sense to not focus on it much.
10 - Remnant
Berix
Toa of Twilight
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Harry
Whatever else could be said about their Anastan allies, they certainly had excellent physical endurance. Even after hours of trudging through narrow tunnels, marching up and down broad staircases, and shuffling carefully over brittle-looking bridges, Kanderon's people still looked ready for more. Harry, on the other hand... well, he was twelve.
In the end, Harry slowed down and gently elbowed one of Zorian's simulacra. It must have been clear what he meant, because the ectoplasmic being nodded and spread out a hand. A gentle force began to support each of Harry's limbs, and lowered him to a sitting position on a disc of force. It drifted along by the simulacrum's side, keeping pace with the group.
Harry didn't drop his focus on his carbon affinity sense - along with Alustin's far-seeing, Rain's Detection and Zorian's mind-sense, he was one of the better early-warning tools their group possessed (as long as whatever threatened them was a carbon-based lifeform, which was by no means guaranteed). Still, tired as he was, other parts of his mind began to wander…
Dumbledore had been trapped outside of Time. What did that mean?
In his first attempt to use a Time Turner on Anastis, he'd established that his methods of traversing time didn't work here. Although the experience had been extremely stressful, it was now one of the chief data points informing his thoughts about the differences between universes.
Zorian had claimed that powerful beings on his world had attempted to use time as a tool, and that their approaches tended to compress time, rather than travel through it like the Time Turner did. He had followed up with an extremely odd question, and refused to elaborate further.
He'd asked whether or not Harry's world was 'embedded in some sort of larger device'.
Since then, Harry had been pondering how his world had been constructed. If he was right about the Mirror being the entrance to Earth (and he was by no means confident in that - it was merely the most prominent among many unlikely guesses), then Zorian's suggestion rapidly became more plausible.
Suppose you're an advanced magical civilisation. You've created a device which can grant wishes by connecting to other worlds, as well as potentially conjure internal worlds of its own. Presumably, as creators of the device, you have great control over its function, and how the conjured realms behave. For example, to contain threats which you wish to purge from reality itself, you might be able to create internal worlds in which Time doesn't flow at all.
Why, then, would you stay in a fractured reality over which you have less control? Why not… move in? And if you're doing so, now that you have control over the physics and magic of your chosen world, why not make a few convenient tweaks?
Having seen the way that magic operated in other worlds, Harry was gradually building up an idea of how things worked outside his homeworld.
Energy did appear to be conserved. Whenever Artur reshaped stone, or Rain incinerated an enemy, they were drawing on an internal reservoir of energy they called 'mana', which was constantly refilling at some rate as they absorbed energy from the 'aether' around them. Now that Harry's soul shell was endowed with an affinity as well as his wizarding magics, he had a far more accurate sense of the strength of his current mana reserves. He'd run some basic tests, and observed that his wizarding spells seemed to draw on his own magic in approximate proportion to the energy required to reshape the universe in the desired way.
Transfiguration and conjuration spells were no exception. Changing the nature of a material, or creating matter from nothing, seemed to result in a temporary 'patch' over reality, but the application of magical strength could only sustain this for so long - eventually, unless new energy was provided, transformations would revert, and conjured matter would disappear.
The Philosopher's Stone, which remained a mystery to Harry, appeared to stabilise these changes. He had a number of theories as to how the peculiar stone functioned, but at present had no means to test them.
He'd been tempted to show the Stone to Rain or Zorian - both of them had better tools to understand strange magical devices - but unless the need was great, he didn't want to risk it. A universally unique device capable of permanently creating matter was a powerful prize. For now, it was better if the others believed that permanent transfiguration was a skill innate to Harry, rather than one granted to him by a tool he carried.
Allowing his mind to wander, Harry considered what it would be like, to be freed from a prison which compressed your sentence to a single instant in time. If he was able, he would of course try to free his former Headmaster as soon as possible - and on the whole, Dumbledore would only have been gone from the world for a few weeks. Even then, it would be strange, to return to a world that had mourned you as if you were dead, and had then moved on. Would he return as Headmaster, or defer to McGonagall, who had held the position while he was gone? Would he seek to return to his position at the forefront of magical Britain, or allow it to proceed without him?
That being said, at his current level of skill, the Mirror might present too great an obstacle. It might take years, or even decades, for Harry to understand it to the degree required. What then?
Harry's mind drifted. Alone, or with less capable companions, he wouldn't have risked being anything less than fully aware in the labyrinth. As it was, he relaxed onto the disc conjured by Zorian's simulacrum, with Artur and Godrick ahead, and Rain behind. Sleep came close.
Through half-open eyes, he noticed as their tunnel emerged into the side of a vast cavern. In contrast to the natural-seeming caverns they'd seen before, this one looked cleanly carved. Vast rectangular columns stretched up periodically. Above them, the light from Rain's aura barely reached the ceiling, and in the distance, the hall faded into the dark. It must have been at least a few hundred metres long - but since Harry couldn't see the end, it could have gone on forever.
Rain reached out from behind and tapped him on the shoulder. "You know Lord of the Rings?"
Harry nodded. "Moria."
Rain laughed briefly. It echoed oddly in the massive space. "Let's hope there aren't any wandering Balrogs."
By mutual agreement, they kept the light at minimal levels as they followed Mackerel through the vast space. Rain or Hugh could probably have lit up the entire hall, but it was best to avoid attracting unnecessary attention. After a while, Harry closed his eyes - there were others who were better placed to watch their surroundings - but kept his focus on his affinity sense. Apart from their group, he felt nothing - no carbon within his reach.
Despite the change in their surroundings, over time, the journey faded back into monotony. Partway through the hall, after it became clear that there were no obvious threats nearby, Zorian created a larger disc of force, and they stepped on. Moving slowly at first, they gradually accelerated, until they were travelling at least as fast as a car.
And then, in the distance, there was a light. Not daylight, nor the flickering light of a burning flame. The light was a dreadful crimson, darker than blood, somehow searingly bright, even from this great distance. At first, Harry wondered if he and Rain had jinxed them with their talk of Balrogs. Then, a twinge. Faint enough that he wasn't sure he was feeling it at all, from the emerald stone set into the ring on his finger, a sensation he hadn't felt in quite some time. A sense of Doom.
Rain
The shadows writhing in the distance flared, burning at once brighter and darker. That wasn't the main thing that caught Rain's attention.
Harry, who had reclined into a resting position onto the disc, groaned in pain. It was the first noise anyone had made since they'd taken flight on Zorian's disc.
"Are you alright?" Talia turned back to Harry, and knelt down by his side. "What is it?"
Harry stood up, gritting his teeth. "I'm fine. I think I know what that light is."
Zorian slowed the disc, and after a moment, they came to a stop. Although it was still in the far distance, the flickering crimson light continued to grow brighter.
"Well? What is it?" Alustin asked.
Harry audibly swallowed.
"The good news is that this is a supporting data point for my theory about the nature of the pathway to Earth. The bad news is that we're about to encounter one of the most powerful weapons from my world, Fiendfyre."
Kanderon's people nodded, and Alustin gestured for Harry to continue. Talia, true to form, looked somewhat eager. Rain might have felt the same, but he'd spent enough time with Harry to recognise that the look in his eyes wasn't the kind to take lightly.
Harry continued, his young voice clear and precise.
"I know of no means by which this fire might be extinguished. It can burn through stone, and is one of the only weapons on my world which could destroy almost any artefact or magical construct. When I last saw it, it took the form of a balefire phoenix, and it was under the command of one of the greatest and Darkest wizards of my world. Until seeing the flame here, I had thought it might have burned out without its master. It seems that is not the case."
There was a pause as a conflicted expression flitted across Harry's face.
"I… There is a chance that the fire will seek me, or otherwise be able to sense my location."
Zorian gave him a strange look. "Why is that?"
Harry took a deep breath. "That is a rather long story, and one that I think is prudent to keep to myself for now."
In the distance, the scarlet light grew brighter still. A low hissing noise disturbed the quiet of the hall, slowly rising in volume.
"There is a possibility that our magics can quench the fire, or otherwise hold it back. If so, we should do so without remorse or hesitation. If, as I suspect, we cannot stop the flame, then we should flee."
The light grew brighter still. The twisted reflections cast on the walls and the columns seemed to writhe in the dark, their shapes twisting wildly as the source approached them.
Zorian lowered the disc to the ground, and dismissed it. They readied themselves. Hugh stepped back, and a pair of crystals rose to orbit about his shoulders. Currents of air began to twist and spiral around Sabae's limbs, drowning out the low scorching noise. Droplets of greenish-purple iridescent flame formed above Talia's clenched fist, shedding dim light on her wicked grin.
Rain's gauntlets and helm flickered back into place. Beside him, reams of paper flooded out of Alustin's tattoo and bound itself tightly around his limbs. Stone flowed upwards, twisting around Artur and Godrick's bodies until their skin was hidden from view. Godrick's armour ceased growing when he was around two and a half metres tall, but Artur continued to absorb stone, growing larger by the second.
And then it was upon them. Crimson-burning wings swept around the nearest pillar. Where it passed close, the stone blackened and cracked under the searing heat. The light that poured out of the bird-shaped creature was deep red, the glowing colour of heated metal, but the light was far more intense than metal could be without shifting hue and becoming white-hot. Throughout were veins of deepest black, which seemed to promise oblivion.
The balefire phoenix dove, wings spread. Twisting downward in an onrushing plume of darkened flame, it fell unerringly toward Harry.
Before it made it even half the distance, Artur's massive form stepped forward. The grinding sound of stone moving against stone screeched in the air, and a fist the size of a car hurtled forward.
The stone didn't melt, or crack, or even burn, where it impacted the blackened fire. It was simply… consumed. It was as if some massive knife had moved through the stone giant's fist, and carved out a deep cylindrical chunk.
Hmm. There's a chance that my armour can briefly hold it back, but I definitely don't want to put that to the test.
Propelled by currents of air, Sabae blasted forward. Despite the wind rushing around her limbs, she wasn't the fastest among them, and Rain reached Harry first. He put one hand behind Harry's head, and another behind his spine - it was important to minimise the risk of whiplash. And then they were moving.
Rain sprinted as fast as he was willing to go with a passenger. They reached the speed of sound within a few seconds, and he began to feel the telltale pings in his interface which signalled that Force Ward was consuming mana. Probably from Harry's impacts with drifting specks of dust.
In less than a minute, the phoenix-light had faded to a speck in the distance. Rain brought them to a controlled stop, near the tunnel from which they'd entered the hall.
"Wait here. If the phoenix is coming for you, then you're in more danger than any of us. I'll be warding you with my aura anchors - you're still carrying them, right?"
Harry nodded weakly. His black hair had been blasted backward by the wind of the journey. He gestured to the necklace containing the stones.
"I need to go back and help. I'll be back for you soon."
With that, Rain turned, and ran back toward the others. What he saw when he arrived was nothing short of chaos.
The centre of the cavern was buried in a mountain of stone. Someone, probably Artur or Godrick, must have destroyed the nearby pillars, and the ceiling in the centre of the hall had collapsed under its own weight. It clearly hadn't held back the phoenix for long, because a charred and still-glowing tunnel marked the path of the phoenix through the thousands of tonnes of stone - still unerringly headed down the hall toward Harry. Now, the creature was hemmed in, surrounded by a dozen sheets of paper frozen in the air. Strange glyphs glowed on the paper, which flared when the phoenix drew close, and slowed its movement.
As Rain watched, the phoenix drew closer to one of the glyphs, pushing slowly against whatever force was repelling it. A tendril of dark stretched out, and brushed against the glyph. As one, the sheet crumpled, torn into shreds. The scraps burst into flame. The phoenix began to move once more, slowly building up speed.
A volley of iridescent droplets sprayed toward the creature, intercepting it before it could continue down the hall toward Harry. Rain turned and saw Talia with her arm outstretched.
The first of the dreamfire wasps splashed onto the phoenix's wings. Rather than biting into the mass of dark, they reacted explosively with the existing flame. The burning wings seemed to grow by an order of magnitude, expanding out to almost span the distance between the nearest pillars. The remaining dreamfire was absorbed in the expansion, and the phoenix exploded further. It reminded Rain of when firefighters had come to his primary school and poured water on an oil fire as a demonstration, just multiplied by a thousand. Thankfully, the ball of flame mostly expanded upwards, but the conflagration sucked most of the oxygen out of the air. Kanderon's Librarians turned and ran.
Talia was closest to the flames, and Sabae pushed them both away from the explosion with a gust of wind. Just barely audible over the sound of crackling flame, Rain heard her shout right into Talia's ear: "No more dreamfire!"
Rain checked his mana reserves. Heat Ward had absorbed a huge amount of damage, and drained a correspondingly large chunk of his mana. Unless they were a lot more durable than they looked, most of Kanderon's people would probably have been dead without his protection.
Alright, let's see what we can do to salvage this.
Rain poured his mana into the auras. The effect was immediate - the massive shroud of flame around the phoenix dimmed, but didn't extinguish - like a candle burning on limited oxygen. Beneath, the core of the creature - the veins of darkness which seemed to warp space around them, continued unchanged.
One of Zorian's simulacra must have found its way in front of the phoenix, because a tear in reality opened up. It was the same trick a simulacrum had tried against the otherworldly pursuer above the ocean. This time, however, their enemy didn't react quite so quickly.
Without making a sound, the remnants of the phoenix plunged through the Gate, and vanished. The Gate closed an instant later.
<Where did you send it, Zorian?>
The simulacrum responded immediately, not with words, but with the complete sensory input of the simulacrum at the other end of the Gate. Rain saw the hall, from around a hundred metres on the other side of the collapsed ceiling, and the phoenix emerging from the circular portal.
Rain turned and ran. He passed Sabae, who whirled around to follow. Then he passed Alustin, coasting toward him on wings of paper. He dashed around the mountain of rubble that had collapsed from the ceiling - and caught a glimpse of Hugh's shocked face in passing.
That was a good reminder, actually. <Zorian, tell the others to shield their eyes.>
A second later, he reached the site of the other Gate. One of the simulacra floated in the phoenix's path, raising a hand to conjure a shimmering shield. Crimson flames flickered around the void that was the creature's core, slowly reigniting. It impacted the shield, and although the phoenix shrank in size for a moment, the barrier flickered and vanished.
As Rain came into range, the dampening effects of his auras dimmed the flames once more. It seemed to swell in response, inky veins growing and twisting through the air in lieu of fire.
Rain sent a quick mental warning to the simulacrum, <I, uh, don't know if you're worried about eye damage. But maybe shut your eyes.>
The hall lit up, each stone column glaringly bright with reflected light. And yet, there was one place that was less painful to look - directly at the phoenix itself. It seemed to drink in the light, and swelled in size, writhing like a blood-gorged leech. The heat pouring outward increased by an order of magnitude, and the floor beneath it began to melt.
So Light doesn't work, how about the Dark?
The veins of inky blackness swirled, growing longer and reaching out for more matter to consume.
Right… maybe I should stop.
<I don't think I can kill this thing - I think it might be feeding on whatever I throw at it. Any ideas, Zorian?>
A trio of simulacra floated in a rough triangle behind him. <This will require a lot of mana, Rain. Please ensure we have enough.>
Rain double-checked his reserves. The constant auras and wards were a drain, but not more than he could support. So he steadily ratcheted up the amount he was feeding to Zorian with Essence Well, until the original sent him a signal to halt.
As one, power poured out of the three simulacra. The odd hand movements looked familiar to Rain - they looked similar to the gestures Zorian used to produce a Gate, but deviated in a strange way near the end.
In an instant, a shimmering sphere of distortion sprang up around the phoenix, with the diameter just large enough to encompass its wings. A second later, the creature was hidden from view, and all Rain could see was a static orb, hovering motionlessly in the midst of the hall. It was a bizarre thing to look at, like staring through a glass marble, except instead of light refracting, it was simply taking a shortcut through space.
Detection showed… it was hard to interpret. The phoenix was constantly moving forward in the same direction (still toward Harry), and constantly wrapping around to teleport to the back of the sphere.
Sabae reached them, and landed beside Rain. "What did you do? Is it in there?"
One of the simulacra gently lowered itself to the ground. "This is a variation on the standard Gate spell. Rather than a single entrance and exit, opposite sides of both the interior and exterior of the sphere are mapped together. If the creature has a mind - and I can't sense one - it might be confused as to why it can see its own flames extending forever in every direction."
Sabae attempted a low whistle, but it was clear she couldn't quite pull it off. An odd limitation for a wind mage.
Rain walked around the orb, observing it from a few angles. It was really weird to look at. From the opposite side, he saw the distorted and rotated image of Alustin and the others approaching. Rock began to crumble nearby, and Godrick hauled himself out of the floor - he must have buried himself to avoid the flames. Good thinking.
Their group stood quietly around the spherical Gate for a moment, then Talia spoke:
"So, uh, are we going to just leave it here, in there? Just one more sealed horror in the labyrinth?"
Sabae threw her hair over one shoulder, and Rain noticed that some of the long white strands were somewhat singed near the end. "Well, we can't exactly let it keep chasing us. Even if Rain can outrun it, I don't think you can take all of us with you, and it's safest for us to stay as a group."
Rain nodded. "Besides, there's no way it's safe to move that fast through uncharted sections of the labyrinth. I only felt comfortable doing that because I was retracing our steps, and even then it was a risk I don't want to take again."
One of the simulacra raised a hand. The original Zorian was nowhere to be seen, but Detection showed him thirty metres away, hovering and still invisible. "There's a problem. I can't sustain this Gate unless one of me is fairly close to it, and because we're in a labyrinth, I can't just leave a simulacrum behind."
Rain rubbed a hand over his eyes. "And because it can track Harry for some reason, we can't just leave it behind to follow us." He sighed. "I'll go get Harry, he might have some ideas."
He dashed off, and shortly afterward found himself before Harry, who was clutching his wand in what looked like a duelling posture. He lowered his wand as Rain approached.
"What happened?"
"The Fiendfyre is trapped, but it won't stay that way forever. Let's go."
This time, they travelled at less of a breakneck pace - only a few times faster than the fastest human would be able to run. In a few minutes, they made it back to the others.
Something was already happening. The Gate-bubble was still in place, but just outside it the stone of the floor was slowly reforming, bands of lighter stone crystallising out of the bedrock. It looked like Hugh was the cause this time though, rather than Artur or Godrick, since they were looking on with the same curiosity as everyone else.
Harry quietly tapped Sabae on the shoulder. "What's going on?"
Despite the look of focus on his face, Hugh answered. "We saw the Fiendfyre react oddly with Talia's dreamfire, so there's a chance it might respond to the same flame-wards we used to create the circlets."
Sabae gestured at the headband still wrapped tightly around her forehead, and Rain breathed a sigh of relief. Apparently the headbands counted as part of his allies' equipment, and were consequently exempt from the inverted Immolate he'd used during the battle, so the single dreamfire droplet suspended within was still alight. It would have been a rude shock for the Librarians if their mental protections had vanished seemingly without cause.
Looking closely at Sabae's headband, Rain could see tiny etchings in the crystal that mirrored the patterns Hugh was carving around the Gate.
Lighter crystal was gradually forming from the darker stone. Interlocking lattices of runic symbols and concentric circles began to take shape, and Hugh continued his explanation. "To create the circlets, we suspended a single droplet of dreamfire at the centre of a network of interlocking wards. Any small deviation in the droplet's position will result in a stronger counterbalancing force, ensuring that the droplet stays in the centre."
Rain raised an eyebrow. That sounded oddly like something he'd seen in a Youtube trawl a few years ago - a 'Penning trap', which could isolate a single electron in order to store a qubit, for quantum computers.
"How do we know if it worked?" Harry asked. "Rain, can you sense its position through the Gate?"
Rain nodded. "Compared to the speed it was moving when Zorian first created the Gate, it's much slower now. Can you keep stacking the same effect, Hugh?"
Hugh grimaced. "If I layer too many wards on top of each other, they'll degrade faster. And that's if they don't explode."
Alustin stepped forward and put a wiry arm around Hugh's shoulders. "We don't need the wards to last forever. The Guide says that the entrance to Harry's world should be nearby. Even if you're not going to tell us why or how it's tracking you -" (this was accompanied by a stern look at Harry) "-it seems likely that it can't find you through labyrinth boundaries. Otherwise I imagine it would have followed you into Anastis."
Talia finished the thought for him. "Then we can go into Harry's world. That's the one that's named after dirt, right? And it won't be able to trace us there."
"Right."
Hugh sighed. "I think I can cram in another ward, but it's going to get messy. Nobody tell Loarna about this."
He stood in place, and a further layer of transparent quartz crystallised from the dark stone underfoot.
Rain couldn't stop himself from pumping his fist. Detection showed that the phoenix had slowed to a crawl, and the layers of wards were pulling it back toward the centre whenever it moved too far.
He stepped forward and clapped Hugh on the shoulder. "Nice work!"
Hugh looked a bit embarrassed. "The wards won't hold for long. A few hours, maybe a day, if we're lucky."
Alustin looked positively cheery. "That should be more than enough time. If we press on, we should reach Earth's labyrinth in less than an hour."
That… that was a sobering reminder. Rain had been gone from Earth for around two years now. He'd given up any hope of ever returning there, and had then slowly lost any desire to go home either. Now he was going to get the chance to do… what exactly?
His parents were dead. He'd drifted apart from his friends in university when he dropped out to take care of his mother. Even if he saw someone he used to know, he was basically a different person now.
Rain shook his head. They weren't on Earth yet.
Hugh, Alustin and Mackerel led the way again. They reached the exit to the hall when Zorian held up a hand.
"I can't go any further than this without losing connection with the simulacrum sustaining the Gate. I hope your wards work, Hugh."
Hugh looked somehow nervous and confident at the same time. "Let's see."
Zorian closed his eyes for a moment. "The Gate is down."
Harry glanced up at Rain with a smirk.
"And the phoenix is still in place."
The group breathed a collective sigh of relief. Talia and Godrick took turns enveloping Hugh in bear hugs.
"Alright, let's move." Alustin led the way again, this time through a network of cool dry limestone tunnels, with Hugh and Mackerel by his side. No more creatures showed up in his Detection radius, and after a few minutes, Zorian constructed a disk to speed up the journey. They travelled like that for another half an hour before Hugh called for a halt.
"Mackerel says the entrance to Earth's labyrinth should be just ahead. Just around here."
Zorian gently floated them around the corner.
The broad tunnel was blocked off by a rounded wall. It was a dead end. In the centre of the tunnel was an odd construct. A full-length gold-framed Mirror (and somehow Rain knew it was a Mirror with a capital M), not so much floating as it was fixed in place, more solid and motionless than the walls themselves.
Rain was oddly reminded of the Exile Splinter.
Whatever else could be said about their Anastan allies, they certainly had excellent physical endurance. Even after hours of trudging through narrow tunnels, marching up and down broad staircases, and shuffling carefully over brittle-looking bridges, Kanderon's people still looked ready for more. Harry, on the other hand... well, he was twelve.
In the end, Harry slowed down and gently elbowed one of Zorian's simulacra. It must have been clear what he meant, because the ectoplasmic being nodded and spread out a hand. A gentle force began to support each of Harry's limbs, and lowered him to a sitting position on a disc of force. It drifted along by the simulacrum's side, keeping pace with the group.
Harry didn't drop his focus on his carbon affinity sense - along with Alustin's far-seeing, Rain's Detection and Zorian's mind-sense, he was one of the better early-warning tools their group possessed (as long as whatever threatened them was a carbon-based lifeform, which was by no means guaranteed). Still, tired as he was, other parts of his mind began to wander…
Dumbledore had been trapped outside of Time. What did that mean?
In his first attempt to use a Time Turner on Anastis, he'd established that his methods of traversing time didn't work here. Although the experience had been extremely stressful, it was now one of the chief data points informing his thoughts about the differences between universes.
Zorian had claimed that powerful beings on his world had attempted to use time as a tool, and that their approaches tended to compress time, rather than travel through it like the Time Turner did. He had followed up with an extremely odd question, and refused to elaborate further.
He'd asked whether or not Harry's world was 'embedded in some sort of larger device'.
Since then, Harry had been pondering how his world had been constructed. If he was right about the Mirror being the entrance to Earth (and he was by no means confident in that - it was merely the most prominent among many unlikely guesses), then Zorian's suggestion rapidly became more plausible.
Suppose you're an advanced magical civilisation. You've created a device which can grant wishes by connecting to other worlds, as well as potentially conjure internal worlds of its own. Presumably, as creators of the device, you have great control over its function, and how the conjured realms behave. For example, to contain threats which you wish to purge from reality itself, you might be able to create internal worlds in which Time doesn't flow at all.
Why, then, would you stay in a fractured reality over which you have less control? Why not… move in? And if you're doing so, now that you have control over the physics and magic of your chosen world, why not make a few convenient tweaks?
Having seen the way that magic operated in other worlds, Harry was gradually building up an idea of how things worked outside his homeworld.
Energy did appear to be conserved. Whenever Artur reshaped stone, or Rain incinerated an enemy, they were drawing on an internal reservoir of energy they called 'mana', which was constantly refilling at some rate as they absorbed energy from the 'aether' around them. Now that Harry's soul shell was endowed with an affinity as well as his wizarding magics, he had a far more accurate sense of the strength of his current mana reserves. He'd run some basic tests, and observed that his wizarding spells seemed to draw on his own magic in approximate proportion to the energy required to reshape the universe in the desired way.
Transfiguration and conjuration spells were no exception. Changing the nature of a material, or creating matter from nothing, seemed to result in a temporary 'patch' over reality, but the application of magical strength could only sustain this for so long - eventually, unless new energy was provided, transformations would revert, and conjured matter would disappear.
The Philosopher's Stone, which remained a mystery to Harry, appeared to stabilise these changes. He had a number of theories as to how the peculiar stone functioned, but at present had no means to test them.
He'd been tempted to show the Stone to Rain or Zorian - both of them had better tools to understand strange magical devices - but unless the need was great, he didn't want to risk it. A universally unique device capable of permanently creating matter was a powerful prize. For now, it was better if the others believed that permanent transfiguration was a skill innate to Harry, rather than one granted to him by a tool he carried.
Allowing his mind to wander, Harry considered what it would be like, to be freed from a prison which compressed your sentence to a single instant in time. If he was able, he would of course try to free his former Headmaster as soon as possible - and on the whole, Dumbledore would only have been gone from the world for a few weeks. Even then, it would be strange, to return to a world that had mourned you as if you were dead, and had then moved on. Would he return as Headmaster, or defer to McGonagall, who had held the position while he was gone? Would he seek to return to his position at the forefront of magical Britain, or allow it to proceed without him?
That being said, at his current level of skill, the Mirror might present too great an obstacle. It might take years, or even decades, for Harry to understand it to the degree required. What then?
Harry's mind drifted. Alone, or with less capable companions, he wouldn't have risked being anything less than fully aware in the labyrinth. As it was, he relaxed onto the disc conjured by Zorian's simulacrum, with Artur and Godrick ahead, and Rain behind. Sleep came close.
Through half-open eyes, he noticed as their tunnel emerged into the side of a vast cavern. In contrast to the natural-seeming caverns they'd seen before, this one looked cleanly carved. Vast rectangular columns stretched up periodically. Above them, the light from Rain's aura barely reached the ceiling, and in the distance, the hall faded into the dark. It must have been at least a few hundred metres long - but since Harry couldn't see the end, it could have gone on forever.
Rain reached out from behind and tapped him on the shoulder. "You know Lord of the Rings?"
Harry nodded. "Moria."
Rain laughed briefly. It echoed oddly in the massive space. "Let's hope there aren't any wandering Balrogs."
By mutual agreement, they kept the light at minimal levels as they followed Mackerel through the vast space. Rain or Hugh could probably have lit up the entire hall, but it was best to avoid attracting unnecessary attention. After a while, Harry closed his eyes - there were others who were better placed to watch their surroundings - but kept his focus on his affinity sense. Apart from their group, he felt nothing - no carbon within his reach.
Despite the change in their surroundings, over time, the journey faded back into monotony. Partway through the hall, after it became clear that there were no obvious threats nearby, Zorian created a larger disc of force, and they stepped on. Moving slowly at first, they gradually accelerated, until they were travelling at least as fast as a car.
And then, in the distance, there was a light. Not daylight, nor the flickering light of a burning flame. The light was a dreadful crimson, darker than blood, somehow searingly bright, even from this great distance. At first, Harry wondered if he and Rain had jinxed them with their talk of Balrogs. Then, a twinge. Faint enough that he wasn't sure he was feeling it at all, from the emerald stone set into the ring on his finger, a sensation he hadn't felt in quite some time. A sense of Doom.
Rain
The shadows writhing in the distance flared, burning at once brighter and darker. That wasn't the main thing that caught Rain's attention.
Harry, who had reclined into a resting position onto the disc, groaned in pain. It was the first noise anyone had made since they'd taken flight on Zorian's disc.
"Are you alright?" Talia turned back to Harry, and knelt down by his side. "What is it?"
Harry stood up, gritting his teeth. "I'm fine. I think I know what that light is."
Zorian slowed the disc, and after a moment, they came to a stop. Although it was still in the far distance, the flickering crimson light continued to grow brighter.
"Well? What is it?" Alustin asked.
Harry audibly swallowed.
"The good news is that this is a supporting data point for my theory about the nature of the pathway to Earth. The bad news is that we're about to encounter one of the most powerful weapons from my world, Fiendfyre."
Kanderon's people nodded, and Alustin gestured for Harry to continue. Talia, true to form, looked somewhat eager. Rain might have felt the same, but he'd spent enough time with Harry to recognise that the look in his eyes wasn't the kind to take lightly.
Harry continued, his young voice clear and precise.
"I know of no means by which this fire might be extinguished. It can burn through stone, and is one of the only weapons on my world which could destroy almost any artefact or magical construct. When I last saw it, it took the form of a balefire phoenix, and it was under the command of one of the greatest and Darkest wizards of my world. Until seeing the flame here, I had thought it might have burned out without its master. It seems that is not the case."
There was a pause as a conflicted expression flitted across Harry's face.
"I… There is a chance that the fire will seek me, or otherwise be able to sense my location."
Zorian gave him a strange look. "Why is that?"
Harry took a deep breath. "That is a rather long story, and one that I think is prudent to keep to myself for now."
In the distance, the scarlet light grew brighter still. A low hissing noise disturbed the quiet of the hall, slowly rising in volume.
"There is a possibility that our magics can quench the fire, or otherwise hold it back. If so, we should do so without remorse or hesitation. If, as I suspect, we cannot stop the flame, then we should flee."
The light grew brighter still. The twisted reflections cast on the walls and the columns seemed to writhe in the dark, their shapes twisting wildly as the source approached them.
Zorian lowered the disc to the ground, and dismissed it. They readied themselves. Hugh stepped back, and a pair of crystals rose to orbit about his shoulders. Currents of air began to twist and spiral around Sabae's limbs, drowning out the low scorching noise. Droplets of greenish-purple iridescent flame formed above Talia's clenched fist, shedding dim light on her wicked grin.
Rain's gauntlets and helm flickered back into place. Beside him, reams of paper flooded out of Alustin's tattoo and bound itself tightly around his limbs. Stone flowed upwards, twisting around Artur and Godrick's bodies until their skin was hidden from view. Godrick's armour ceased growing when he was around two and a half metres tall, but Artur continued to absorb stone, growing larger by the second.
And then it was upon them. Crimson-burning wings swept around the nearest pillar. Where it passed close, the stone blackened and cracked under the searing heat. The light that poured out of the bird-shaped creature was deep red, the glowing colour of heated metal, but the light was far more intense than metal could be without shifting hue and becoming white-hot. Throughout were veins of deepest black, which seemed to promise oblivion.
The balefire phoenix dove, wings spread. Twisting downward in an onrushing plume of darkened flame, it fell unerringly toward Harry.
Before it made it even half the distance, Artur's massive form stepped forward. The grinding sound of stone moving against stone screeched in the air, and a fist the size of a car hurtled forward.
The stone didn't melt, or crack, or even burn, where it impacted the blackened fire. It was simply… consumed. It was as if some massive knife had moved through the stone giant's fist, and carved out a deep cylindrical chunk.
Hmm. There's a chance that my armour can briefly hold it back, but I definitely don't want to put that to the test.
Propelled by currents of air, Sabae blasted forward. Despite the wind rushing around her limbs, she wasn't the fastest among them, and Rain reached Harry first. He put one hand behind Harry's head, and another behind his spine - it was important to minimise the risk of whiplash. And then they were moving.
Rain sprinted as fast as he was willing to go with a passenger. They reached the speed of sound within a few seconds, and he began to feel the telltale pings in his interface which signalled that Force Ward was consuming mana. Probably from Harry's impacts with drifting specks of dust.
In less than a minute, the phoenix-light had faded to a speck in the distance. Rain brought them to a controlled stop, near the tunnel from which they'd entered the hall.
"Wait here. If the phoenix is coming for you, then you're in more danger than any of us. I'll be warding you with my aura anchors - you're still carrying them, right?"
Harry nodded weakly. His black hair had been blasted backward by the wind of the journey. He gestured to the necklace containing the stones.
"I need to go back and help. I'll be back for you soon."
With that, Rain turned, and ran back toward the others. What he saw when he arrived was nothing short of chaos.
The centre of the cavern was buried in a mountain of stone. Someone, probably Artur or Godrick, must have destroyed the nearby pillars, and the ceiling in the centre of the hall had collapsed under its own weight. It clearly hadn't held back the phoenix for long, because a charred and still-glowing tunnel marked the path of the phoenix through the thousands of tonnes of stone - still unerringly headed down the hall toward Harry. Now, the creature was hemmed in, surrounded by a dozen sheets of paper frozen in the air. Strange glyphs glowed on the paper, which flared when the phoenix drew close, and slowed its movement.
As Rain watched, the phoenix drew closer to one of the glyphs, pushing slowly against whatever force was repelling it. A tendril of dark stretched out, and brushed against the glyph. As one, the sheet crumpled, torn into shreds. The scraps burst into flame. The phoenix began to move once more, slowly building up speed.
A volley of iridescent droplets sprayed toward the creature, intercepting it before it could continue down the hall toward Harry. Rain turned and saw Talia with her arm outstretched.
The first of the dreamfire wasps splashed onto the phoenix's wings. Rather than biting into the mass of dark, they reacted explosively with the existing flame. The burning wings seemed to grow by an order of magnitude, expanding out to almost span the distance between the nearest pillars. The remaining dreamfire was absorbed in the expansion, and the phoenix exploded further. It reminded Rain of when firefighters had come to his primary school and poured water on an oil fire as a demonstration, just multiplied by a thousand. Thankfully, the ball of flame mostly expanded upwards, but the conflagration sucked most of the oxygen out of the air. Kanderon's Librarians turned and ran.
Talia was closest to the flames, and Sabae pushed them both away from the explosion with a gust of wind. Just barely audible over the sound of crackling flame, Rain heard her shout right into Talia's ear: "No more dreamfire!"
Rain checked his mana reserves. Heat Ward had absorbed a huge amount of damage, and drained a correspondingly large chunk of his mana. Unless they were a lot more durable than they looked, most of Kanderon's people would probably have been dead without his protection.
Alright, let's see what we can do to salvage this.
| Refrigerate (15/15) 22612-25842 cold (fcs) damage per second to entities and environment Sufficient damage causes slow Range: 102 meters Cost: 2400 mp/s Inverted Immolate (15/15) 22612-25842 heat (fcs) damage per second to foes Banishes flame from the environment Range: 102 meters Cost: 2400 mp/s |
Rain poured his mana into the auras. The effect was immediate - the massive shroud of flame around the phoenix dimmed, but didn't extinguish - like a candle burning on limited oxygen. Beneath, the core of the creature - the veins of darkness which seemed to warp space around them, continued unchanged.
One of Zorian's simulacra must have found its way in front of the phoenix, because a tear in reality opened up. It was the same trick a simulacrum had tried against the otherworldly pursuer above the ocean. This time, however, their enemy didn't react quite so quickly.
Without making a sound, the remnants of the phoenix plunged through the Gate, and vanished. The Gate closed an instant later.
<Where did you send it, Zorian?>
The simulacrum responded immediately, not with words, but with the complete sensory input of the simulacrum at the other end of the Gate. Rain saw the hall, from around a hundred metres on the other side of the collapsed ceiling, and the phoenix emerging from the circular portal.
Rain turned and ran. He passed Sabae, who whirled around to follow. Then he passed Alustin, coasting toward him on wings of paper. He dashed around the mountain of rubble that had collapsed from the ceiling - and caught a glimpse of Hugh's shocked face in passing.
That was a good reminder, actually. <Zorian, tell the others to shield their eyes.>
A second later, he reached the site of the other Gate. One of the simulacra floated in the phoenix's path, raising a hand to conjure a shimmering shield. Crimson flames flickered around the void that was the creature's core, slowly reigniting. It impacted the shield, and although the phoenix shrank in size for a moment, the barrier flickered and vanished.
As Rain came into range, the dampening effects of his auras dimmed the flames once more. It seemed to swell in response, inky veins growing and twisting through the air in lieu of fire.
Rain sent a quick mental warning to the simulacrum, <I, uh, don't know if you're worried about eye damage. But maybe shut your eyes.>
| Refrigerate (15/15) 22612-25842 cold (fcs) damage per second to entities and environment Sufficient damage causes slow Range: 102 meters Cost: 2400 mp/s Radiance (15/15) 22612-25842 light (fcs) damage per second to entities Brightens environment Range: 102 meters Cost: 2400 mp/s |
The hall lit up, each stone column glaringly bright with reflected light. And yet, there was one place that was less painful to look - directly at the phoenix itself. It seemed to drink in the light, and swelled in size, writhing like a blood-gorged leech. The heat pouring outward increased by an order of magnitude, and the floor beneath it began to melt.
So Light doesn't work, how about the Dark?
| Refrigerate (15/15) 22612-25842 cold (fcs) damage per second to entities and environment Sufficient damage causes slow Range: 102 meters Cost: 2400 mp/s Shroud (15/15) 22612-25842 dark (fcs) damage per second to entities Darkens environment Range: 102 meters Cost: 2400 mp/s |
The veins of inky blackness swirled, growing longer and reaching out for more matter to consume.
Right… maybe I should stop.
<I don't think I can kill this thing - I think it might be feeding on whatever I throw at it. Any ideas, Zorian?>
A trio of simulacra floated in a rough triangle behind him. <This will require a lot of mana, Rain. Please ensure we have enough.>
Rain double-checked his reserves. The constant auras and wards were a drain, but not more than he could support. So he steadily ratcheted up the amount he was feeding to Zorian with Essence Well, until the original sent him a signal to halt.
As one, power poured out of the three simulacra. The odd hand movements looked familiar to Rain - they looked similar to the gestures Zorian used to produce a Gate, but deviated in a strange way near the end.
In an instant, a shimmering sphere of distortion sprang up around the phoenix, with the diameter just large enough to encompass its wings. A second later, the creature was hidden from view, and all Rain could see was a static orb, hovering motionlessly in the midst of the hall. It was a bizarre thing to look at, like staring through a glass marble, except instead of light refracting, it was simply taking a shortcut through space.
Detection showed… it was hard to interpret. The phoenix was constantly moving forward in the same direction (still toward Harry), and constantly wrapping around to teleport to the back of the sphere.
Sabae reached them, and landed beside Rain. "What did you do? Is it in there?"
One of the simulacra gently lowered itself to the ground. "This is a variation on the standard Gate spell. Rather than a single entrance and exit, opposite sides of both the interior and exterior of the sphere are mapped together. If the creature has a mind - and I can't sense one - it might be confused as to why it can see its own flames extending forever in every direction."
Sabae attempted a low whistle, but it was clear she couldn't quite pull it off. An odd limitation for a wind mage.
Rain walked around the orb, observing it from a few angles. It was really weird to look at. From the opposite side, he saw the distorted and rotated image of Alustin and the others approaching. Rock began to crumble nearby, and Godrick hauled himself out of the floor - he must have buried himself to avoid the flames. Good thinking.
Their group stood quietly around the spherical Gate for a moment, then Talia spoke:
"So, uh, are we going to just leave it here, in there? Just one more sealed horror in the labyrinth?"
Sabae threw her hair over one shoulder, and Rain noticed that some of the long white strands were somewhat singed near the end. "Well, we can't exactly let it keep chasing us. Even if Rain can outrun it, I don't think you can take all of us with you, and it's safest for us to stay as a group."
Rain nodded. "Besides, there's no way it's safe to move that fast through uncharted sections of the labyrinth. I only felt comfortable doing that because I was retracing our steps, and even then it was a risk I don't want to take again."
One of the simulacra raised a hand. The original Zorian was nowhere to be seen, but Detection showed him thirty metres away, hovering and still invisible. "There's a problem. I can't sustain this Gate unless one of me is fairly close to it, and because we're in a labyrinth, I can't just leave a simulacrum behind."
Rain rubbed a hand over his eyes. "And because it can track Harry for some reason, we can't just leave it behind to follow us." He sighed. "I'll go get Harry, he might have some ideas."
He dashed off, and shortly afterward found himself before Harry, who was clutching his wand in what looked like a duelling posture. He lowered his wand as Rain approached.
"What happened?"
"The Fiendfyre is trapped, but it won't stay that way forever. Let's go."
This time, they travelled at less of a breakneck pace - only a few times faster than the fastest human would be able to run. In a few minutes, they made it back to the others.
Something was already happening. The Gate-bubble was still in place, but just outside it the stone of the floor was slowly reforming, bands of lighter stone crystallising out of the bedrock. It looked like Hugh was the cause this time though, rather than Artur or Godrick, since they were looking on with the same curiosity as everyone else.
Harry quietly tapped Sabae on the shoulder. "What's going on?"
Despite the look of focus on his face, Hugh answered. "We saw the Fiendfyre react oddly with Talia's dreamfire, so there's a chance it might respond to the same flame-wards we used to create the circlets."
Sabae gestured at the headband still wrapped tightly around her forehead, and Rain breathed a sigh of relief. Apparently the headbands counted as part of his allies' equipment, and were consequently exempt from the inverted Immolate he'd used during the battle, so the single dreamfire droplet suspended within was still alight. It would have been a rude shock for the Librarians if their mental protections had vanished seemingly without cause.
Looking closely at Sabae's headband, Rain could see tiny etchings in the crystal that mirrored the patterns Hugh was carving around the Gate.
Lighter crystal was gradually forming from the darker stone. Interlocking lattices of runic symbols and concentric circles began to take shape, and Hugh continued his explanation. "To create the circlets, we suspended a single droplet of dreamfire at the centre of a network of interlocking wards. Any small deviation in the droplet's position will result in a stronger counterbalancing force, ensuring that the droplet stays in the centre."
Rain raised an eyebrow. That sounded oddly like something he'd seen in a Youtube trawl a few years ago - a 'Penning trap', which could isolate a single electron in order to store a qubit, for quantum computers.
"How do we know if it worked?" Harry asked. "Rain, can you sense its position through the Gate?"
Rain nodded. "Compared to the speed it was moving when Zorian first created the Gate, it's much slower now. Can you keep stacking the same effect, Hugh?"
Hugh grimaced. "If I layer too many wards on top of each other, they'll degrade faster. And that's if they don't explode."
Alustin stepped forward and put a wiry arm around Hugh's shoulders. "We don't need the wards to last forever. The Guide says that the entrance to Harry's world should be nearby. Even if you're not going to tell us why or how it's tracking you -" (this was accompanied by a stern look at Harry) "-it seems likely that it can't find you through labyrinth boundaries. Otherwise I imagine it would have followed you into Anastis."
Talia finished the thought for him. "Then we can go into Harry's world. That's the one that's named after dirt, right? And it won't be able to trace us there."
"Right."
Hugh sighed. "I think I can cram in another ward, but it's going to get messy. Nobody tell Loarna about this."
He stood in place, and a further layer of transparent quartz crystallised from the dark stone underfoot.
Rain couldn't stop himself from pumping his fist. Detection showed that the phoenix had slowed to a crawl, and the layers of wards were pulling it back toward the centre whenever it moved too far.
He stepped forward and clapped Hugh on the shoulder. "Nice work!"
Hugh looked a bit embarrassed. "The wards won't hold for long. A few hours, maybe a day, if we're lucky."
Alustin looked positively cheery. "That should be more than enough time. If we press on, we should reach Earth's labyrinth in less than an hour."
That… that was a sobering reminder. Rain had been gone from Earth for around two years now. He'd given up any hope of ever returning there, and had then slowly lost any desire to go home either. Now he was going to get the chance to do… what exactly?
His parents were dead. He'd drifted apart from his friends in university when he dropped out to take care of his mother. Even if he saw someone he used to know, he was basically a different person now.
Rain shook his head. They weren't on Earth yet.
Hugh, Alustin and Mackerel led the way again. They reached the exit to the hall when Zorian held up a hand.
"I can't go any further than this without losing connection with the simulacrum sustaining the Gate. I hope your wards work, Hugh."
Hugh looked somehow nervous and confident at the same time. "Let's see."
Zorian closed his eyes for a moment. "The Gate is down."
Harry glanced up at Rain with a smirk.
"And the phoenix is still in place."
The group breathed a collective sigh of relief. Talia and Godrick took turns enveloping Hugh in bear hugs.
"Alright, let's move." Alustin led the way again, this time through a network of cool dry limestone tunnels, with Hugh and Mackerel by his side. No more creatures showed up in his Detection radius, and after a few minutes, Zorian constructed a disk to speed up the journey. They travelled like that for another half an hour before Hugh called for a halt.
"Mackerel says the entrance to Earth's labyrinth should be just ahead. Just around here."
Zorian gently floated them around the corner.
The broad tunnel was blocked off by a rounded wall. It was a dead end. In the centre of the tunnel was an odd construct. A full-length gold-framed Mirror (and somehow Rain knew it was a Mirror with a capital M), not so much floating as it was fixed in place, more solid and motionless than the walls themselves.
Rain was oddly reminded of the Exile Splinter.
Berix
Toa of Twilight
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I already expect the "harry is a burden" comment. There's a game where I agree with them and delta does not lol.
Uhhhhhhh, maybe? We chatted about this but couldn't come to a conclusion within the group, I don't think. Basically decided to wait for people with more Mage Errant knowledge to chime in (so if you consider yourself a Mage Errant scholar, please consider chiming in) before anything gets changed.
I wanted a forum crosspost and delta obliged me lol. It'll probably get mentioned on the ao3 thread once it gets caught up.
Apologies if i have been an asshole about this.
Not at all! I'm always happy to hear people's opinions, and it's fun seeing how different people see the story.
This isn't quite accurate. I think Harry provides a lot of value to the group (permanent transfiguration for arbitrary material gathering, additional information-gathering via carbon affinity senses, some useful planning and thinking) but both Harry and I acknowledge that he's far, far weaker in combat than Rain and Zorian (and some of the Anastans, possibly).
There's a bit of an implicit question here - why did the Exile Splinter take people of such different capabilities? Why did it take Harry?
This may or may not be discussed in future chapters.
Yep. I haven't posted it there yet because I don't want people to come here with spoilers.
It would, yes. I haven't gone into detail on spellforms and usage yet - there's a few edits I intend to make. In particular, there's a similarity between Occlumency and Anastan spellforms (in that they both involve lots of mental visualisation) that would give Harry a bit of a leg up. I also intend to edit in a scene or two in which Alustin tutors Harry, and one where he studies from the books they found in Skyhold's library.
11 - Reflection
Berix
Toa of Twilight
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Harry
Harry's mouth was set in a grim line as the Mirror came into view. It stood here, buried deep within the labyrinth, the broad limestone chamber perfectly reflected in its golden frame. Harry had the strange feeling that he wasn't seeing another instance of the Mirror, or somehow looking at a copy. Instead, it felt like looking at the same Mirror he'd seen in the Hogwarts dungeons, just from… another angle.
The last time he'd seen the artefact, it had given up its hidden treasures to Earth's greatest dark wizard, and simultaneously imprisoned one of the only people who could have stood in his way.
This time, at least, there was less time pressure. This time, Harry intended to approach the Mirror with the appropriate level of caution.
<Zorian, stop the disc. Do not let us be reflected in the Mirror.>
The floating disc on which their group was moving jerked to a sudden halt, a few metres before they would have seen their own reflections. Sensing the tension in Harry's mental communication, Zorian gently moved the disc back around the corner until the Mirror was no longer visible. He then lowered it to the ground, and dismissed it.
Harry turned to face his companions. "The Mirror of Noitilov is one of the only surviving artefacts of Atlantis. It has power over whatever is reflected. I conjecture that it serves as the gateway to Earth, coalescing all other pathways into one, and serving as the gatekeeper."
Alustin scratched his chin. "How does it work? Do we just walk into it?"
Harry shook his head emphatically. "I strongly suspect that will not work."
Voldemort had sent the Fiendfyre surging into the Mirror to demonstrate its stability. It had wound up here. So it seemed likely that walking into the Mirror from Earth really would send you outside the Atlantean's sheltered homeworld, and into the labyrinthine multiverse in which he now found himself.
The journey back to Earth, however, seemed extremely unlikely to be quite that simple.
There wasn't a lot Harry knew about the Mirror - just what he'd been told by Voldemort. That being said, he knew of exactly one thing which had come from the Mirror into Earth - phoenixes. If the Mirror was in some way judging the alignment, or risk, of potential entrants, and the only known example of a successful entrance to Earth was phoenixes…
Although their sense of morality was clear to all who beheld them, the resplendent flaming birds really didn't seem to have agency in the traditional sense. They would call to those who might rise to the challenge, and empower them to face down dangers they would not otherwise survive, but Harry had never heard of a phoenix taking action on its own behalf, rather than acting through a witch or wizard.
At this point, Harry felt fairly confident both that the sign of his effect on the universe was positive by his own metrics, and that its magnitude was likely to be relatively large. That being said, he could only guess at the Atlantean utility function and the extent to which it overlapped with his own. Even though he was originally a native of Earth, it felt plausible that a device like the Mirror would judge him as far too risky, and refuse him entry.
Then what would happen if someone walked into the Mirror? Would it instantly incinerate someone it deemed to be a threat? That didn't seem to mesh with the general Atlantean approach.
"Would it be dangerous if I tried to interface with it, like I did with the Exile Splinter?" Rain asked.
Harry frowned. Dumbledore's exile had come as the result of a process he himself had set in motion - Voldemort had called it 'Merlin's method of sealing'. It seemed unlikely that a similar process would occur without deliberate guidance, and they did need to explore the Mirror's properties at some point, regardless…
"I think it should be safe, but I'm by no means certain. If any functions do present themselves, please do not use them without consulting with me first."
Rain nodded, and grasped the simulacrum by his side by the hand. "Zorian?"
The simulacrum nodded, and a moment later, Rain was on the other side of the Mirror. He stepped forward, and touched a gauntlet to its golden rear face.
There was a moment of silence, as they all waited to see if Rain would vanish, or be incinerated, or shout in surprise. He did none of those things, merely stood with his eyes shut, as if meditating.
Harry took the opportunity to turn to Kanderon's Librarians. "Now, if we do indeed reach Earth, there are certain things I need to make very clear. Earth is not like Anastis. War and violence are very rare, and the standard approach to resolving conflicts is to cordially discuss the matter. If that fails, it is to seek mediation before a neutral third party or authority. Under no circumstances should you use physical violence unless you are confident that lives are already in danger, and even then I recommend that you show as much restraint as possible."
Talia rolled her eyes.
Harry stepped a little closer and spoke again. "I would like to be perfectly clear. This world is under my protection. Any threats to this world, or to its people, will be dealt with. Is that understood?"
Talia met his gaze for a moment, then nodded and looked away.
"Secondly. The existence of other worlds is not public knowledge on Earth. Nor is the information I've told you about Atlantis, or the full extent of my own capabilities. If you encounter any natives of this world, please do not mention any of this. In fact, it would be best if you avoid conversation with anyone you might encounter, and avoid allowing anyone to see your abilities - let me do the talking wherever possible. I also advise that you continue to wear the dreamfire amulets at all times. Mind reading, or legilimency, as it's called on my world, is not common, but it is present."
There was silence, then Rain spoke. "I'm getting… something. It's not really like the Splinter at all. The Splinter wasn't crude, exactly - it just wasn't designed for anyone to communicate with it. It was like I was looking at the outside of a Mars rover, or something like that. The Mirror is different - it's trying to understand me. It's continually rewriting the interface."
A strange expression came over his face. "I think it wants to help me."
Harry turned to face Rain. "What do you mean?"
Rain furrowed his brow, clearly trying to communicate something very confusing. "At first, it was completely incomprehensible. I sent it a few signals, and it almost immediately adapted to my language and communication format. It's showing me two pathways - two options."
Harry immediately held up a hand in caution. "Don't select either yet. Can you tell what the pathways are? What options is it offering?"
Rain closed his eyes again and breathed in and out deeply. The air in front of his face was lightly misted with the condensation of his breath.
"One of them is 'Enter', I think. It's the one I think the Mirror wants me to choose. It's hard to say - the parts of the system that I brought here with me are struggling to interpret what the mirror has to say. I'm not sure what it means by 'Enter', but I think it would be safe to choose - at least, that's what the Mirror wants me to think."
Harry's pulse increased. "And the other option?"
Rain exhaled again. "Authenticate."
Harry swallowed.
Rain withdrew his hand from the mirror and opened his eyes.
"And there's nothing else? Can you ask further questions? Can you ask it to explain the options further?"
Rain shook his head. "The Mirror is helping me understand it, but it's… not human. I mean, it's not sentient the way humans are. There's intelligence here, but it's deeply alien. When I ask for clarification, it's just repeating the options - 'Enter' or 'Authenticate'."
Sabae shrugged. "We want to enter, right? To go to Earth?"
Now that the Mirror had failed to disintegrate anyone, or lock anyone in a timeless prison, Harry's heart rate was beginning to return to its usual pace.
Would 'Enter' take them to Earth? That didn't seem likely. If it was that simple, why hadn't more labyrinth travellers wandered into Hogwarts?
Then again, maybe it was only offering the option to Rain because he was originally from Earth. Despite the alien magic now surrounding his soul, at its core there might still be a remnant of the shell designed by Atlantis, acting as a key.
There was a way to test that.
"Zorian, can a simulacrum try? If it offers you the option to 'Enter' as well, then it's almost certainly not going to take us to Earth."
The simulacrum by Rain's side nodded, and raised a hand to touch the golden back of the Mirror. There was a long pause as everyone waited in suspense.
And then Zorian vanished. All of him - not just the simulacrum who had interfaced with the Mirror, but also the ones scattered throughout the room, and the original standing by Harry's side. They simply winked out of existence in a single instant.
Harry's wand jumped into his hand, and the others leapt into action too, but no other threats presented themselves.
Sabae's face was twisted with concern. "Did the Mirror take him?"
Harry raised a hand to stop her from charging into the Mirror immediately. "Realistically, there is a very good chance he was frozen in Time, or instantly killed. Even if the Mirror took him somewhere else - which I admit, looks possible at this point - then charging into the Mirror is the exact opposite of what we should do. There is some chance he has arrived on Earth, as desired, but there is also a significant probability that he has been contained."
That earned him a strange look from the others.
"Zorian is not from Earth. He is a mind mage of prodigious skill, with the capacity to create independently-acting images of himself, and no shortage of destructive capabilities. He is a threat. If the Atlanteans built this device to protect their home, they might have wanted to do so without indiscriminately destroying those who failed to enter. If so, there is a chance that Zorian is inside somewhere, unharmed but unable to act, or to reach Earth itself. If we enter, then we might be deposited in a similar protective zone with no ability to reach Zorian either."
Talia gestured questioningly. "Alright then, what do you think we should do?"
Harry's eyes flickered between Kanderon's Librarians and the Mirror itself. "I'm not sure. Rain, can you try the 'Authenticate' option?"
Rain raised a hand to press it against the Mirror, and lowered it almost immediately with a forlorn look on its face. "The Mirror… it's telling me I'm not safe, whatever that means."
Despite the inconvenience of that result, Harry couldn't bring himself to disagree. It was extremely good fortune that Rain was friendly - if the strange man put his mind to it, he could probably have exterminated Muggle civilization in a few days.
Harry stepped forward, face set. "I'll try."
He walked down the tunnel toward the Mirror, and walked carefully to avoid appearing in the too-perfect reflection.
He pressed his palm against the gold of the frame. It felt cool, as if its heat capacity was so immense that it wouldn't change temperature even if bathed in flames.
Like Rain had said, he could somehow feel the two options the Mirror was presenting. Rain's version of this interaction was probably a lot clearer, thanks to the system-built interface in his soul, but the meaning of the two paths still felt obvious, and he was interpreting them the same way Rain had.
Harry took a deep breath. How would the Mirror respond to the bearer of the Line of Merlin Unbroken?
Almost immediately, he felt the stirrings of a strange kind of intelligence, scanning his thoughts and mind as if he were transparent. And in less than an instant, he felt the response.
The Mirror was almost apologetic, in an alien way. He now understood what Rain had meant when he'd described the alien intelligence - it wanted to help. Not the way a human would want something, but rather the way a current wanted to flow between varying electrical potentials, or the way a stone wanted to roll downhill. And yet it was unable.
Harry knew why - the Mirror had told him.
Like Rain, he wasn't safe.
For a moment, he felt a flicker of regret. Then his conscious mind took over from instinctive responses, and he remembered the data points available to him. Phoenixes had passed through, but there were no other known examples of successful passage. In all probability, a lobotomy would be the minimum requirement for the Mirror to deem a human 'safe'.
Even so, he was still going to run the obvious experiment. One by one, under Harry's instruction, Kanderon's Librarians stepped forward, and placed their own hands against the golden surface, and one by one, they turned away. Each time, despite having known them only for a few days, Harry recognised the strange expression on their faces. It was a kind of regret. Not the kind one has when one disappoints a mentor or friend, rather the regret of disappointing ones' self.
Harry did not fail to notice that Alustin and Talia seemed less affected than the others. Alustin merely looked grim, as if he'd already known what the Mirror had told him, and Talia looked a little chuffed to be told she was too dangerous.
At this point, having exhausted the obvious courses of action, it became clear that there was little he could do to hold his companions back.
"Alright," Rain said. "Zorian is in there somewhere, possibly in danger. I'm going in. Would anyone like to come with me?"
Most of the Librarians nodded with confidence, and Harry couldn't help but put his palm over his face. "Are any of you familiar with the sunk cost fallacy? Whatever other possibilities there are, there is a significant chance that Zorian is dead, or otherwise permanently and unrecoverably imprisoned outside of Time itself. While rushing headfirst into the Mirror may seem like the kind of heroic action taken by characters in books, we are not in a book."
Harry didn't really expect to reach anyone with that, now that they were swept up in a display of heroic solidarity, but Talia actually seemed to hear his words. Her stance shifted to one of contemplation, and she tilted her head to its side. "That's a good point, actually. Are the books on your dirt-world any good?"
Harry gritted his teeth. "Maybe you'll get a chance to find out if you don't rush into the poorly-understood ancient artefact."
And yet, Rain was still moving, the expression on his face resolute. Maybe he had more confidence in the Mirror's desire to help, and thus didn't deem it as great a danger, maybe his interface had somehow transmitted a sense of safety and good-will that Harry hadn't quite parsed - or maybe the strange man was just under the thrall of the heroic instinct to protect his friends. Either way, he stepped forward, clearly about to raise his hand to press it against the Mirror, and -
Before Rain's hand reached the frame, Zorian reappeared. Not just his original form, but all of him - five nanotube reinforced simulacra included. He looked unharmed, more curious than anything else. He briefly raised a hand, examining it and finding it real - before he was submerged in a sea of hugging arms as the Librarians reacted to his return.
Harry let out a deep breath. Before he could even ask, Zorian sent him the memories of the last few minutes, and he sank back to silently digest them.
Zorian
Examining the Exile Splinter had been useful. Spell formulas had clearly developed in a vastly different way on Anastis. Given a few days or weeks to work with the device, the techniques used by Kanderon and the other creators of the device would have been useful additions to Zorian's repertoire.
He did not feel the same way about the Mirror.
His initial attempts to sense the internal flow of mana had been immediately refuted. The rippling sheets of energy surrounding the device had reacted instantly, swirling around them in response to his probes. It was as if he was trying to examine an object from all angles, and it constantly rotated and shifted so as to only let him see a single perspective. And that perspective was clear:
I will assist you.
Enter, or authenticate?
Zorian wasn't about to accept any kind of assistance from strange magical devices without more clarity on what it was offering. He'd pressed deeper, forcing more mana into his probes and constraining the movement of the Mirror in response. He'd tried to hold it in place so he could get a better picture of what he was dealing with.
And then it had reached past his defences, sweeping through his attempts to protect his mind. Not to destroy him, but to help him. It had found his desired destination - Earth. And it had taken him there.
The instant after he'd vanished, Zorian found himself in a small chamber, not entirely unlike the one in which he'd met Rain and Harry for the first time. This time, however, the walls were a soft white marble, lit with soft golden light by a series of flickering, floating candles.
In the centre of the room stood a simple and unornamented golden frame: the Mirror of Noitilov.
There was a door on one side of the room, but the wall next to it had been unceremoniously carved out to make an alternate entrance. The edges of the hole were blackened and melted, and there was no debris - Zorian was reminded of the gash the Fiendfyre had left in Artur's stone armour. He noted the angles and positioning of the Mirror - whoever had carved that pathway wouldn't have been reflected in the Mirror as they entered the room.
As he arrived, a series of complex wards fell into place around them. There was no visible result, but Zorian and his simulacra sprang into action to counteract their effects. Simulacrum Number Three conjured a layer of illusory information to foil a complex divination ward - probably a magical attempt to discern his identity. Simulacrum Number Two punctured a temporary hole in a field which seemed to be designed to disrupt the flow of outsider's magic, which reminded him of the shaping-disruption field he'd encountered on the train to Cyoria. Simulacrum Number One layered the boundaries of the room with a subtle dimensional barrier - invisible to the naked eye - to delay the flow of external magic into the room, and leave him with some more room to operate.
Still, the wards here were shifting and complex. There were layers of magic here that went deeper than Zorian could discern, and even now they were twisting at the edge of the dimensional barrier. Unless he took drastic actions to destroy the wards, he didn't have long before his protections broke down and he was at their disposal.
So he took a quick look around, memorising the space, and scanned the vicinity for minds. Finding none he could detect, he stepped back, and reached out to the Mirror once more.
I will assist you.
Exit, or authenticate?
So the choices were different from here? Interesting.
Exit, please. I would like to return to my companions.
The Mirror assented, and he was back, standing at Rain's side.
After a moment, Harry opened his eyes, having digested the memory.
"You were in Hogwarts," the boy said. There was a look of cautious optimism in his eyes. "The Mirror sent you to Hogwarts, and then it let you leave if you wanted."
Zorian nodded. "That was your home? Or your school?"
Harry was clearly deep in thought. "A bit of both, I suppose. You don't need to worry quite so much about the Hogwarts wards, I think. There are no records of the wards harming anyone, at least not that I know of. They're largely designed to protect students and inform the Headmaster of relevant goings-on."
That didn't do all that much to reassure Zorian. If the Hogwarts wards had anything in common with the Mirror, then he wasn't about to underestimate them.
Alustin looked chuffed. "So it worked, then! The Mirror wants to help, like it told us."
Rain nodded, and put an armoured arm on each of Harry and Zorian's shoulders. "It seems that way. Time to go home, Harry?"
The younger boy nodded slowly. "If leaving is as easy as it appears, then even if where you arrived isn't actually Hogwarts, it doesn't seem to be any more dangerous than the labyrinth. And we can't stay here for too long without risking another confrontation with the Fiendfyre, which we should avoid if at all possible." Harry nodded more decisively. "Let's go."
Their group linked hands, and stood together in a rough semi-circle, arrayed around the back of the Mirror. As one, they reached out, and touched their hands to the back of the frame. Zorian felt the cool golden metal, and despite the mind-shield surrounding his consciousness, he could sense the distinct and odd sensation of the helpfulness of the Mirror affecting his mind.
The options presented themselves, as they had before. Rain counted them down from three, and as the count reached one, he reached for the familiar trigger.
Enter.
And then he was inside once more, the marble room lit with soft golden light. Like last time, his simulacra were here too.
Alustin breathed out, a sound of relief. "A new world."
Artur whirled around, surveying the room. At the same time, Zorian's instinctive mental sensors swept outwards and revealed a deeply uncomfortable truth.
Not everyone had made it.
By his side stood Alustin, Artur, Talia, Sabae, and his five simulacra.
And that was all.
Zorian sighed. The wards were already trying to probe at his magic, but now that he was prepared, the simulacra were doing a better job at disrupting them. "Stay here. I'll be back in a moment."
He reached out to the Mirror, and asked its help in travelling back to the Labyrinth.
The limestone tunnels were empty, with no trace of the others.
He returned to the marble room, which held no more or fewer people than when he had left, and told the others.
Artur was already on high alert. A layer of marble armour had formed around his limbs, and he was stalking toward the room's single exit. Zorian hadn't spent a lot of time in the mind of the formidable stone-mage, but even so, his dedication to his son was clear. If they didn't recover Godrick quickly, Artur was probably going to start tearing apart castles.
Either the Mirror had rejected some of their group, and refused them entry to this place, or they had somehow been split up, and scattered elsewhere. Fortunately, Zorian had prepared for an eventuality like this.
He reached outward, pouring energy into a spike which he drove through the wards, leaving himself with an unbroken connection to the outside world. He couldn't hold it for long - maybe a minute or so, without draining himself dry - but hopefully that would be enough. He reached out, trying to contact his missing companions via the telepathic relays he'd constructed for them.
<Harry, Rain, are you there?>
Almost immediately, there was a single response - from Harry.
<I'm here. I'm with Hugh, and we're safe. I've been sent to Oxford, which is several hundred kilometres to your south - to my parents' house. I presume you're with the others, by the Mirror in Hogwarts?>
Harry's mind felt oddly calm given the situation.
<We are by the Mirror, but combining our groups doesn't account for everyone. I'm with Talia, Sabae, Alustin and Artur. We're still missing Rain, Godrick and Mackerel.>
Zorian tried again, reaching out to project the tendrils of his mind over as much of this strange new planet as he could.
<Rain?>
There was no response. The Hogwarts wards, reconfiguring themselves into a form better suited to suppress his magic, collapsed his spike of access to the outer world.
He relayed the information to the others. "Harry and Hugh are somewhere called Oxford several hundred kilometres south of here. Rain, Godrick and Mackerel are unaccounted for."
Artur stopped at the door to listen, then turned away as Zorian finished. More stone was pouring into his armour, which was growing in stature by the second.
Peering through the hole in the wall, Zorian saw Artur rip the next door in his path off its hinges. Even if he couldn't sense any minds within his range, it wouldn't do to have Artur start a war with the local government over a misunderstanding. With a sigh, he turned to follow.
Rain
WIth his palm against the golden rear face of the Mirror, Rain counted down for the others. On the prearranged signal, he reached out to the alien intelligence in the Mirror and asked for its help.
Enter.
The Mirror assented, and in an instant, he was on Earth.
Familiar walls rose up on all sides, although the space seemed far smaller than he remembered it. The bed looked different, and it was pressed up against a different wall. With the additional height from his armour, his head almost reached the ceiling. By his side, Godrick was stooping to fit into the small space, and Mackerel flitted around them in confusion.
The biggest difference between what he saw before him and his recollection, of course, was that his mother wasn't lying in the bed, slowly wasting away as he tried to care for her.
It took less than a second for Rain to put together what had happened. He turned to Godrick with a pained expression on his face.
"I'm sorry, this is exactly the kind of thing I should have considered when touching an alien teleporting machine."
Godrick was reeling, looking in every direction to take in every detail of his first visit to another world. "Where are the others?"
Rain grimaced. "I think that I've led us astray because of my existing connections with Earth. That's just a theory, though."
Godrick was still turning on the spot, taking in details of the shabby apartment and staring out the windows.
Rain went on. "While I was touching the Mirror, I was thinking of going to Earth, and I thought of here. I lived here for most of my life... This room is where I took care of my mother."
Godrick looked up at Rain. From the sudden change to his demeanour, it looked like he'd picked up most of the story from Rain's facial expression. "I'm sorry," he said, managing to sound genuinely apologetic despite his clear excitement.
That's a relief. I didn't want to have to explain.
Rain looked across the room. He and Godrick looked comically out of place in present-day Earth. Rain was wearing the Myriad Plate Tallheart had made for him, while even without his characteristic stone armour, Godrick's clothes made him look like some kind of medieval reenactor, or a ren faire attendee.
Not that they needed to worry about being found or interrupted, even though they were intruders standing in the centre of what was now clearly someone else's apartment, judging by the unfamiliar pictures on the wall.
Because, despite their location near the centre of one of Canada's larger cities, there were no people within Rain's Detection radius.
That doesn't make sense. Regardless of the time of day, there should be people around.
"Something's wrong. It shouldn't be this quiet. Come with me."
Godrick and Mackerel followed as he left the apartment and took the elevator to the ground floor. Rain gave the crystal spellbook a thorough scratching along the spine as a reward for its good behaviour. Godrick and Mackerel were both endlessly fascinated by the elevator. Godrick, reaching out with his steel affinity, fairly quickly figured out the mechanical components, and was particularly intrigued by the electrical power supply and control mechanisms. Rain attempted an explanation, but his heart wasn't in it, and his mind was elsewhere.
The elevator's still working, so there must be electricity. But where is everyone?
Mackerel, for his part, tried to eat the elevator buttons - but since they were set into the elevator's wall, rather than protruding, the angles didn't quite work out, and the spellbook couldn't do much more than press a few buttons by accident.
After a few Mackerel-scheduled interruptions, they reached the ground floor of the building, and stepped out under an overcast sky. In the year since Rain had been taken from Earth, it looked like not much had changed. Construction on the building opposite had finished, and the restaurant next-door had changed names.
The road wasn't empty - there were dozens of cars sitting stationary. A few of them looked like they'd been abandoned mid-drive, and had crashed into one another, or into parked cars. The city was oddly silent - the only noise Rain could hear was the sound of a few idling engines.
There were still no people. Nor were there any bodies. Beyond that, the space seemed perfectly normal to both his magical and mundane senses.
Rain's fingers were starting to tremble.
What happened here?
Despite their obvious excitement, Godrick and Mackerel could tell that something was deeply wrong.
It was probably time to do a more thorough search. Detection did seem to be working, since it correctly returned the positions of the nearby cars, concrete and food items.
"Can you wait here for a moment? I need to do a more thorough check of the city."
Godrick nodded.
"I'll be back in around ten minutes."
Rain stepped upwards, holding himself up with Airwalk. Despite the incongruous surroundings, his skills seemed to work normally here, and in a few seconds he'd reached the height of the tallest buildings.
The essence here was rich, far more concentrated that it was on the surface near Fel Sadanis, where he'd started his journey on another world. On some level, Rain wondered how he'd never noticed it before - how nobody had ever noticed it before.
It felt unbearably strange, to be here, somewhere he'd once called home, and for everything to be so different. Using his skills here felt improper, somehow. On Earth, people were supposed to get around with planes and trains and that sort of thing, not by expending magical energies to hold themselves aloft between eight-storey buildings.
Regardless, he didn't have time for that now. Pouring mana into Velocity, he began to pick up speed. It wasn't long before he found himself above what should have been a bustling square in the central business district. Some of the news-screens were still functioning, and one was displaying the results of some election somewhere - although the usual seats in which the anchors would sit were empty.
The square itself, both to the naked eye and to Detection, was devoid of humans - dead or alive.
Rain took a circuitous route back to Godrick, lingering above the university and the other locations where he might have seen someone familiar - his friends' houses (if any of them would have remembered him, which was doubtful) and his old school (which would at least have records of his existence).
A strange kind of fog was beginning to descend over Rain's mind. He'd spent so long in a world that seemed fantastical, and had often wondered if he was in a particularly vivid dream or hallucination. Now that he was back on Earth, it felt more like a dream than ever.
I'll give you this, subconscious. If this is your work, then you're being very creative.
A few minutes later, he landed near Godrick, who had popped the hood of an idling car and was poking at the exposed engine. Mackerel had discovered the car's radio antenna, and was repeatedly bending and releasing it, making an odd twanging noise. Godrick smiled at Rain as he approached.
"What's the news?"
Rain frowned. "Same story everywhere. The world seems to have been going on as normal until fairly recently, when every single human in the city vanished, presumably at the same time."
Godrick looked awkwardly at his feet. "Well, not that I'm not enjoying your company, but me da is probably getting worried. We should try to find the others."
Rain turned to them. "If the others went to the same place as Zorian, then I think we're probably very far away from them."
Godrick grimaced. "How far?"
Rain waggled a hand, estimating. "About five thousand kilometres."
Godrick said something that might have been a swear word. "Me da is gonna kill me."
Rain smiled sadly for a moment. "Honestly, I'd be more worried about everyone else. If there is anyone else on the planet, that is."
Rain rubbed his eyes. This was feeling more like a dream every minute. "I mean, I can only really guess where they are. I obviously should have asked Harry more details about where he lived and where he was from, in retrospect. As it is, I only have some very basic guesses about where they might be."
"Alright," Godrick said encouragingly, and Mackerel nudged at Rain's arm in what might have been an affectionate gesture. "Where do you think they are?"
Keep it together, Rain. There are people depending on you.
"Judging from Harry's accent, I'm pretty sure he's English. 'Hogwarts' is what he called his school, which sounds totally made-up, but I think that's just how they name places over there. From the memories Zorian sent me, that's probably where he is."
Rain pulled the telepathic relay from one of his pockets, and sighed with relief.
Godrick looked a little confused, then they both paused to wrestle Mackerel away as he tried to eat the thin metal disc.
"What is that?"
"It's a communication device Zorian gave me. If it works on this world, then it means we don't need to find Zorian's exact location. If we get within a few hundred kilometres of him, he should be able to contact us."
"Nice!" Godrick slapped him on the shoulder in encouragement. "So then we just have to get to this 'Britain' place, right?"
Rain half-laughed at that. "Yeah." He paused to think for a moment. "You have a steel affinity, right?"
Godrick nodded.
Despite himself, Rain grinned.
"This is going to sound a little crazy, but I think I have an idea that might work."
Not quite the same as an airship, but it's close enough.
Harry
As soon as his hand touched the back of the Mirror, he knew he was making a mistake.
Long ago, he'd once pondered the instruction, passed down in hushed words between precocious primary school students, not to think about a pink elephant. 'Resonant doubt' was the term that came to mind. If there was something he was trying to avoid thinking about, then there was little his mind could do to instruct itself to look away. In fact, his strong predisposition was to do the opposite. If instructed to avoid thinking about something, Harry's mind would instead seek it out, and try to understand this thought in its entirety, rather than distracting itself with falsehoods. It was why he was incapable of casting an animal patronus - his mind simply wasn't capable of looking blindly away from the truth.
Now, as he touched the Mirror, and it looked through him with its overwhelming injunction to help, he couldn't stop himself. He thought of the people he cared about - Hermione, Draco, Neville - and he thought about the places he'd left behind on Earth - the Hogwarts library, and the overflowing bookcases of his parents' house.
And so it was that he found himself, with Hugh by his side, standing in the living room of his parents' house in Oxford.
Every inch of wall space was covered by a bookcase. Each bookcase had six shelves, going almost to the ceiling. Some were stacked to the brim with hardback books, others had layers of paperback science fiction.
This was the living-room of the house occupied by the eminent Professor Michael Verres-Evans, and his wife, Mrs. Petunia Evans-Verres.
Right from the moment of his arrival, their adopted son, Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, knew that something was horribly, horribly wrong.
Dust caked most of the bookshelves. The walls were different, too. On almost every wall, there were images of Harry. Framed photographs - mostly standard Muggle colour images, faded and yellowed with age, although there were a few moving pictures that had clearly been cut from the Daily Prophet.
Harry stepped through into the kitchen, reaching out with his carbon affinity. He wasn't sure exactly what his range was, but at this point it was approaching a few hundred metres.
He could sense the neighbourhood in surprising clarity. A scarce few trees dotted the back-yards of nearby houses, and a collection of graphite-based mechanical pencils were scattered across his parents' house, not to mention dozens of other items. There was one conspicuous absence, however.
There were no people. Not in this house, nor in the next. Nor anywhere within his reach.
Hugh followed him, looking uneasy, as Harry slammed open the door of his father's study. There, on the wall. Harry grabbed the calendar from the wall and gripped it tightly enough in his hands that it began to tear at the edges.
The most recent date Harry remembered was June 16th, 1992. That was when the Exile Splinter had taken him from Hogwarts.
His eyes weren't focusing enough to read the month or the date. He only needed to see the year, at the top of the page.
2020.
Hugh was saying something in the background, but Harry wasn't listening. There were too many problems to solve now, all at once.
He'd turned around to face Hugh, when a mental signal came through - from Zorian:
<Harry, Rain, are you there?>
Before Harry could answer, another signal came through.
<I'm here. I'm with Hugh, and we're safe. I've been sent to Oxford, which is a few hundred kilometres to your south - to my parents' house. I presume you're with the others, by the Mirror in Hogwarts?>
Harry started. It was undeniably a mental communication from himself, but he hadn't sent it.
At least, he hadn't sent it yet.
Wordlessly, Harry gestured for Hugh to come closer. He fetched a device from his bag, draped the chain around both of their necks, and spun the hourglass five times.
Harry's mouth was set in a grim line as the Mirror came into view. It stood here, buried deep within the labyrinth, the broad limestone chamber perfectly reflected in its golden frame. Harry had the strange feeling that he wasn't seeing another instance of the Mirror, or somehow looking at a copy. Instead, it felt like looking at the same Mirror he'd seen in the Hogwarts dungeons, just from… another angle.
The last time he'd seen the artefact, it had given up its hidden treasures to Earth's greatest dark wizard, and simultaneously imprisoned one of the only people who could have stood in his way.
This time, at least, there was less time pressure. This time, Harry intended to approach the Mirror with the appropriate level of caution.
<Zorian, stop the disc. Do not let us be reflected in the Mirror.>
The floating disc on which their group was moving jerked to a sudden halt, a few metres before they would have seen their own reflections. Sensing the tension in Harry's mental communication, Zorian gently moved the disc back around the corner until the Mirror was no longer visible. He then lowered it to the ground, and dismissed it.
Harry turned to face his companions. "The Mirror of Noitilov is one of the only surviving artefacts of Atlantis. It has power over whatever is reflected. I conjecture that it serves as the gateway to Earth, coalescing all other pathways into one, and serving as the gatekeeper."
Alustin scratched his chin. "How does it work? Do we just walk into it?"
Harry shook his head emphatically. "I strongly suspect that will not work."
Voldemort had sent the Fiendfyre surging into the Mirror to demonstrate its stability. It had wound up here. So it seemed likely that walking into the Mirror from Earth really would send you outside the Atlantean's sheltered homeworld, and into the labyrinthine multiverse in which he now found himself.
The journey back to Earth, however, seemed extremely unlikely to be quite that simple.
There wasn't a lot Harry knew about the Mirror - just what he'd been told by Voldemort. That being said, he knew of exactly one thing which had come from the Mirror into Earth - phoenixes. If the Mirror was in some way judging the alignment, or risk, of potential entrants, and the only known example of a successful entrance to Earth was phoenixes…
Although their sense of morality was clear to all who beheld them, the resplendent flaming birds really didn't seem to have agency in the traditional sense. They would call to those who might rise to the challenge, and empower them to face down dangers they would not otherwise survive, but Harry had never heard of a phoenix taking action on its own behalf, rather than acting through a witch or wizard.
At this point, Harry felt fairly confident both that the sign of his effect on the universe was positive by his own metrics, and that its magnitude was likely to be relatively large. That being said, he could only guess at the Atlantean utility function and the extent to which it overlapped with his own. Even though he was originally a native of Earth, it felt plausible that a device like the Mirror would judge him as far too risky, and refuse him entry.
Then what would happen if someone walked into the Mirror? Would it instantly incinerate someone it deemed to be a threat? That didn't seem to mesh with the general Atlantean approach.
"Would it be dangerous if I tried to interface with it, like I did with the Exile Splinter?" Rain asked.
Harry frowned. Dumbledore's exile had come as the result of a process he himself had set in motion - Voldemort had called it 'Merlin's method of sealing'. It seemed unlikely that a similar process would occur without deliberate guidance, and they did need to explore the Mirror's properties at some point, regardless…
"I think it should be safe, but I'm by no means certain. If any functions do present themselves, please do not use them without consulting with me first."
Rain nodded, and grasped the simulacrum by his side by the hand. "Zorian?"
The simulacrum nodded, and a moment later, Rain was on the other side of the Mirror. He stepped forward, and touched a gauntlet to its golden rear face.
There was a moment of silence, as they all waited to see if Rain would vanish, or be incinerated, or shout in surprise. He did none of those things, merely stood with his eyes shut, as if meditating.
Harry took the opportunity to turn to Kanderon's Librarians. "Now, if we do indeed reach Earth, there are certain things I need to make very clear. Earth is not like Anastis. War and violence are very rare, and the standard approach to resolving conflicts is to cordially discuss the matter. If that fails, it is to seek mediation before a neutral third party or authority. Under no circumstances should you use physical violence unless you are confident that lives are already in danger, and even then I recommend that you show as much restraint as possible."
Talia rolled her eyes.
Harry stepped a little closer and spoke again. "I would like to be perfectly clear. This world is under my protection. Any threats to this world, or to its people, will be dealt with. Is that understood?"
Talia met his gaze for a moment, then nodded and looked away.
"Secondly. The existence of other worlds is not public knowledge on Earth. Nor is the information I've told you about Atlantis, or the full extent of my own capabilities. If you encounter any natives of this world, please do not mention any of this. In fact, it would be best if you avoid conversation with anyone you might encounter, and avoid allowing anyone to see your abilities - let me do the talking wherever possible. I also advise that you continue to wear the dreamfire amulets at all times. Mind reading, or legilimency, as it's called on my world, is not common, but it is present."
There was silence, then Rain spoke. "I'm getting… something. It's not really like the Splinter at all. The Splinter wasn't crude, exactly - it just wasn't designed for anyone to communicate with it. It was like I was looking at the outside of a Mars rover, or something like that. The Mirror is different - it's trying to understand me. It's continually rewriting the interface."
A strange expression came over his face. "I think it wants to help me."
Harry turned to face Rain. "What do you mean?"
Rain furrowed his brow, clearly trying to communicate something very confusing. "At first, it was completely incomprehensible. I sent it a few signals, and it almost immediately adapted to my language and communication format. It's showing me two pathways - two options."
Harry immediately held up a hand in caution. "Don't select either yet. Can you tell what the pathways are? What options is it offering?"
Rain closed his eyes again and breathed in and out deeply. The air in front of his face was lightly misted with the condensation of his breath.
"One of them is 'Enter', I think. It's the one I think the Mirror wants me to choose. It's hard to say - the parts of the system that I brought here with me are struggling to interpret what the mirror has to say. I'm not sure what it means by 'Enter', but I think it would be safe to choose - at least, that's what the Mirror wants me to think."
Harry's pulse increased. "And the other option?"
Rain exhaled again. "Authenticate."
Harry swallowed.
Rain withdrew his hand from the mirror and opened his eyes.
"And there's nothing else? Can you ask further questions? Can you ask it to explain the options further?"
Rain shook his head. "The Mirror is helping me understand it, but it's… not human. I mean, it's not sentient the way humans are. There's intelligence here, but it's deeply alien. When I ask for clarification, it's just repeating the options - 'Enter' or 'Authenticate'."
Sabae shrugged. "We want to enter, right? To go to Earth?"
Now that the Mirror had failed to disintegrate anyone, or lock anyone in a timeless prison, Harry's heart rate was beginning to return to its usual pace.
Would 'Enter' take them to Earth? That didn't seem likely. If it was that simple, why hadn't more labyrinth travellers wandered into Hogwarts?
Then again, maybe it was only offering the option to Rain because he was originally from Earth. Despite the alien magic now surrounding his soul, at its core there might still be a remnant of the shell designed by Atlantis, acting as a key.
There was a way to test that.
"Zorian, can a simulacrum try? If it offers you the option to 'Enter' as well, then it's almost certainly not going to take us to Earth."
The simulacrum by Rain's side nodded, and raised a hand to touch the golden back of the Mirror. There was a long pause as everyone waited in suspense.
And then Zorian vanished. All of him - not just the simulacrum who had interfaced with the Mirror, but also the ones scattered throughout the room, and the original standing by Harry's side. They simply winked out of existence in a single instant.
Harry's wand jumped into his hand, and the others leapt into action too, but no other threats presented themselves.
Sabae's face was twisted with concern. "Did the Mirror take him?"
Harry raised a hand to stop her from charging into the Mirror immediately. "Realistically, there is a very good chance he was frozen in Time, or instantly killed. Even if the Mirror took him somewhere else - which I admit, looks possible at this point - then charging into the Mirror is the exact opposite of what we should do. There is some chance he has arrived on Earth, as desired, but there is also a significant probability that he has been contained."
That earned him a strange look from the others.
"Zorian is not from Earth. He is a mind mage of prodigious skill, with the capacity to create independently-acting images of himself, and no shortage of destructive capabilities. He is a threat. If the Atlanteans built this device to protect their home, they might have wanted to do so without indiscriminately destroying those who failed to enter. If so, there is a chance that Zorian is inside somewhere, unharmed but unable to act, or to reach Earth itself. If we enter, then we might be deposited in a similar protective zone with no ability to reach Zorian either."
Talia gestured questioningly. "Alright then, what do you think we should do?"
Harry's eyes flickered between Kanderon's Librarians and the Mirror itself. "I'm not sure. Rain, can you try the 'Authenticate' option?"
Rain raised a hand to press it against the Mirror, and lowered it almost immediately with a forlorn look on its face. "The Mirror… it's telling me I'm not safe, whatever that means."
Despite the inconvenience of that result, Harry couldn't bring himself to disagree. It was extremely good fortune that Rain was friendly - if the strange man put his mind to it, he could probably have exterminated Muggle civilization in a few days.
Harry stepped forward, face set. "I'll try."
He walked down the tunnel toward the Mirror, and walked carefully to avoid appearing in the too-perfect reflection.
He pressed his palm against the gold of the frame. It felt cool, as if its heat capacity was so immense that it wouldn't change temperature even if bathed in flames.
Like Rain had said, he could somehow feel the two options the Mirror was presenting. Rain's version of this interaction was probably a lot clearer, thanks to the system-built interface in his soul, but the meaning of the two paths still felt obvious, and he was interpreting them the same way Rain had.
Harry took a deep breath. How would the Mirror respond to the bearer of the Line of Merlin Unbroken?
Almost immediately, he felt the stirrings of a strange kind of intelligence, scanning his thoughts and mind as if he were transparent. And in less than an instant, he felt the response.
The Mirror was almost apologetic, in an alien way. He now understood what Rain had meant when he'd described the alien intelligence - it wanted to help. Not the way a human would want something, but rather the way a current wanted to flow between varying electrical potentials, or the way a stone wanted to roll downhill. And yet it was unable.
Harry knew why - the Mirror had told him.
Like Rain, he wasn't safe.
For a moment, he felt a flicker of regret. Then his conscious mind took over from instinctive responses, and he remembered the data points available to him. Phoenixes had passed through, but there were no other known examples of successful passage. In all probability, a lobotomy would be the minimum requirement for the Mirror to deem a human 'safe'.
Even so, he was still going to run the obvious experiment. One by one, under Harry's instruction, Kanderon's Librarians stepped forward, and placed their own hands against the golden surface, and one by one, they turned away. Each time, despite having known them only for a few days, Harry recognised the strange expression on their faces. It was a kind of regret. Not the kind one has when one disappoints a mentor or friend, rather the regret of disappointing ones' self.
Harry did not fail to notice that Alustin and Talia seemed less affected than the others. Alustin merely looked grim, as if he'd already known what the Mirror had told him, and Talia looked a little chuffed to be told she was too dangerous.
At this point, having exhausted the obvious courses of action, it became clear that there was little he could do to hold his companions back.
"Alright," Rain said. "Zorian is in there somewhere, possibly in danger. I'm going in. Would anyone like to come with me?"
Most of the Librarians nodded with confidence, and Harry couldn't help but put his palm over his face. "Are any of you familiar with the sunk cost fallacy? Whatever other possibilities there are, there is a significant chance that Zorian is dead, or otherwise permanently and unrecoverably imprisoned outside of Time itself. While rushing headfirst into the Mirror may seem like the kind of heroic action taken by characters in books, we are not in a book."
Harry didn't really expect to reach anyone with that, now that they were swept up in a display of heroic solidarity, but Talia actually seemed to hear his words. Her stance shifted to one of contemplation, and she tilted her head to its side. "That's a good point, actually. Are the books on your dirt-world any good?"
Harry gritted his teeth. "Maybe you'll get a chance to find out if you don't rush into the poorly-understood ancient artefact."
And yet, Rain was still moving, the expression on his face resolute. Maybe he had more confidence in the Mirror's desire to help, and thus didn't deem it as great a danger, maybe his interface had somehow transmitted a sense of safety and good-will that Harry hadn't quite parsed - or maybe the strange man was just under the thrall of the heroic instinct to protect his friends. Either way, he stepped forward, clearly about to raise his hand to press it against the Mirror, and -
Before Rain's hand reached the frame, Zorian reappeared. Not just his original form, but all of him - five nanotube reinforced simulacra included. He looked unharmed, more curious than anything else. He briefly raised a hand, examining it and finding it real - before he was submerged in a sea of hugging arms as the Librarians reacted to his return.
Harry let out a deep breath. Before he could even ask, Zorian sent him the memories of the last few minutes, and he sank back to silently digest them.
Zorian
Examining the Exile Splinter had been useful. Spell formulas had clearly developed in a vastly different way on Anastis. Given a few days or weeks to work with the device, the techniques used by Kanderon and the other creators of the device would have been useful additions to Zorian's repertoire.
He did not feel the same way about the Mirror.
His initial attempts to sense the internal flow of mana had been immediately refuted. The rippling sheets of energy surrounding the device had reacted instantly, swirling around them in response to his probes. It was as if he was trying to examine an object from all angles, and it constantly rotated and shifted so as to only let him see a single perspective. And that perspective was clear:
I will assist you.
Enter, or authenticate?
Zorian wasn't about to accept any kind of assistance from strange magical devices without more clarity on what it was offering. He'd pressed deeper, forcing more mana into his probes and constraining the movement of the Mirror in response. He'd tried to hold it in place so he could get a better picture of what he was dealing with.
And then it had reached past his defences, sweeping through his attempts to protect his mind. Not to destroy him, but to help him. It had found his desired destination - Earth. And it had taken him there.
The instant after he'd vanished, Zorian found himself in a small chamber, not entirely unlike the one in which he'd met Rain and Harry for the first time. This time, however, the walls were a soft white marble, lit with soft golden light by a series of flickering, floating candles.
In the centre of the room stood a simple and unornamented golden frame: the Mirror of Noitilov.
There was a door on one side of the room, but the wall next to it had been unceremoniously carved out to make an alternate entrance. The edges of the hole were blackened and melted, and there was no debris - Zorian was reminded of the gash the Fiendfyre had left in Artur's stone armour. He noted the angles and positioning of the Mirror - whoever had carved that pathway wouldn't have been reflected in the Mirror as they entered the room.
As he arrived, a series of complex wards fell into place around them. There was no visible result, but Zorian and his simulacra sprang into action to counteract their effects. Simulacrum Number Three conjured a layer of illusory information to foil a complex divination ward - probably a magical attempt to discern his identity. Simulacrum Number Two punctured a temporary hole in a field which seemed to be designed to disrupt the flow of outsider's magic, which reminded him of the shaping-disruption field he'd encountered on the train to Cyoria. Simulacrum Number One layered the boundaries of the room with a subtle dimensional barrier - invisible to the naked eye - to delay the flow of external magic into the room, and leave him with some more room to operate.
Still, the wards here were shifting and complex. There were layers of magic here that went deeper than Zorian could discern, and even now they were twisting at the edge of the dimensional barrier. Unless he took drastic actions to destroy the wards, he didn't have long before his protections broke down and he was at their disposal.
So he took a quick look around, memorising the space, and scanned the vicinity for minds. Finding none he could detect, he stepped back, and reached out to the Mirror once more.
I will assist you.
Exit, or authenticate?
So the choices were different from here? Interesting.
Exit, please. I would like to return to my companions.
The Mirror assented, and he was back, standing at Rain's side.
After a moment, Harry opened his eyes, having digested the memory.
"You were in Hogwarts," the boy said. There was a look of cautious optimism in his eyes. "The Mirror sent you to Hogwarts, and then it let you leave if you wanted."
Zorian nodded. "That was your home? Or your school?"
Harry was clearly deep in thought. "A bit of both, I suppose. You don't need to worry quite so much about the Hogwarts wards, I think. There are no records of the wards harming anyone, at least not that I know of. They're largely designed to protect students and inform the Headmaster of relevant goings-on."
That didn't do all that much to reassure Zorian. If the Hogwarts wards had anything in common with the Mirror, then he wasn't about to underestimate them.
Alustin looked chuffed. "So it worked, then! The Mirror wants to help, like it told us."
Rain nodded, and put an armoured arm on each of Harry and Zorian's shoulders. "It seems that way. Time to go home, Harry?"
The younger boy nodded slowly. "If leaving is as easy as it appears, then even if where you arrived isn't actually Hogwarts, it doesn't seem to be any more dangerous than the labyrinth. And we can't stay here for too long without risking another confrontation with the Fiendfyre, which we should avoid if at all possible." Harry nodded more decisively. "Let's go."
Their group linked hands, and stood together in a rough semi-circle, arrayed around the back of the Mirror. As one, they reached out, and touched their hands to the back of the frame. Zorian felt the cool golden metal, and despite the mind-shield surrounding his consciousness, he could sense the distinct and odd sensation of the helpfulness of the Mirror affecting his mind.
The options presented themselves, as they had before. Rain counted them down from three, and as the count reached one, he reached for the familiar trigger.
Enter.
And then he was inside once more, the marble room lit with soft golden light. Like last time, his simulacra were here too.
Alustin breathed out, a sound of relief. "A new world."
Artur whirled around, surveying the room. At the same time, Zorian's instinctive mental sensors swept outwards and revealed a deeply uncomfortable truth.
Not everyone had made it.
By his side stood Alustin, Artur, Talia, Sabae, and his five simulacra.
And that was all.
Zorian sighed. The wards were already trying to probe at his magic, but now that he was prepared, the simulacra were doing a better job at disrupting them. "Stay here. I'll be back in a moment."
He reached out to the Mirror, and asked its help in travelling back to the Labyrinth.
The limestone tunnels were empty, with no trace of the others.
He returned to the marble room, which held no more or fewer people than when he had left, and told the others.
Artur was already on high alert. A layer of marble armour had formed around his limbs, and he was stalking toward the room's single exit. Zorian hadn't spent a lot of time in the mind of the formidable stone-mage, but even so, his dedication to his son was clear. If they didn't recover Godrick quickly, Artur was probably going to start tearing apart castles.
Either the Mirror had rejected some of their group, and refused them entry to this place, or they had somehow been split up, and scattered elsewhere. Fortunately, Zorian had prepared for an eventuality like this.
He reached outward, pouring energy into a spike which he drove through the wards, leaving himself with an unbroken connection to the outside world. He couldn't hold it for long - maybe a minute or so, without draining himself dry - but hopefully that would be enough. He reached out, trying to contact his missing companions via the telepathic relays he'd constructed for them.
<Harry, Rain, are you there?>
Almost immediately, there was a single response - from Harry.
<I'm here. I'm with Hugh, and we're safe. I've been sent to Oxford, which is several hundred kilometres to your south - to my parents' house. I presume you're with the others, by the Mirror in Hogwarts?>
Harry's mind felt oddly calm given the situation.
<We are by the Mirror, but combining our groups doesn't account for everyone. I'm with Talia, Sabae, Alustin and Artur. We're still missing Rain, Godrick and Mackerel.>
Zorian tried again, reaching out to project the tendrils of his mind over as much of this strange new planet as he could.
<Rain?>
There was no response. The Hogwarts wards, reconfiguring themselves into a form better suited to suppress his magic, collapsed his spike of access to the outer world.
He relayed the information to the others. "Harry and Hugh are somewhere called Oxford several hundred kilometres south of here. Rain, Godrick and Mackerel are unaccounted for."
Artur stopped at the door to listen, then turned away as Zorian finished. More stone was pouring into his armour, which was growing in stature by the second.
Peering through the hole in the wall, Zorian saw Artur rip the next door in his path off its hinges. Even if he couldn't sense any minds within his range, it wouldn't do to have Artur start a war with the local government over a misunderstanding. With a sigh, he turned to follow.
Rain
WIth his palm against the golden rear face of the Mirror, Rain counted down for the others. On the prearranged signal, he reached out to the alien intelligence in the Mirror and asked for its help.
Enter.
The Mirror assented, and in an instant, he was on Earth.
Familiar walls rose up on all sides, although the space seemed far smaller than he remembered it. The bed looked different, and it was pressed up against a different wall. With the additional height from his armour, his head almost reached the ceiling. By his side, Godrick was stooping to fit into the small space, and Mackerel flitted around them in confusion.
The biggest difference between what he saw before him and his recollection, of course, was that his mother wasn't lying in the bed, slowly wasting away as he tried to care for her.
It took less than a second for Rain to put together what had happened. He turned to Godrick with a pained expression on his face.
"I'm sorry, this is exactly the kind of thing I should have considered when touching an alien teleporting machine."
Godrick was reeling, looking in every direction to take in every detail of his first visit to another world. "Where are the others?"
Rain grimaced. "I think that I've led us astray because of my existing connections with Earth. That's just a theory, though."
Godrick was still turning on the spot, taking in details of the shabby apartment and staring out the windows.
Rain went on. "While I was touching the Mirror, I was thinking of going to Earth, and I thought of here. I lived here for most of my life... This room is where I took care of my mother."
Godrick looked up at Rain. From the sudden change to his demeanour, it looked like he'd picked up most of the story from Rain's facial expression. "I'm sorry," he said, managing to sound genuinely apologetic despite his clear excitement.
That's a relief. I didn't want to have to explain.
Rain looked across the room. He and Godrick looked comically out of place in present-day Earth. Rain was wearing the Myriad Plate Tallheart had made for him, while even without his characteristic stone armour, Godrick's clothes made him look like some kind of medieval reenactor, or a ren faire attendee.
Not that they needed to worry about being found or interrupted, even though they were intruders standing in the centre of what was now clearly someone else's apartment, judging by the unfamiliar pictures on the wall.
Because, despite their location near the centre of one of Canada's larger cities, there were no people within Rain's Detection radius.
That doesn't make sense. Regardless of the time of day, there should be people around.
"Something's wrong. It shouldn't be this quiet. Come with me."
Godrick and Mackerel followed as he left the apartment and took the elevator to the ground floor. Rain gave the crystal spellbook a thorough scratching along the spine as a reward for its good behaviour. Godrick and Mackerel were both endlessly fascinated by the elevator. Godrick, reaching out with his steel affinity, fairly quickly figured out the mechanical components, and was particularly intrigued by the electrical power supply and control mechanisms. Rain attempted an explanation, but his heart wasn't in it, and his mind was elsewhere.
The elevator's still working, so there must be electricity. But where is everyone?
Mackerel, for his part, tried to eat the elevator buttons - but since they were set into the elevator's wall, rather than protruding, the angles didn't quite work out, and the spellbook couldn't do much more than press a few buttons by accident.
After a few Mackerel-scheduled interruptions, they reached the ground floor of the building, and stepped out under an overcast sky. In the year since Rain had been taken from Earth, it looked like not much had changed. Construction on the building opposite had finished, and the restaurant next-door had changed names.
The road wasn't empty - there were dozens of cars sitting stationary. A few of them looked like they'd been abandoned mid-drive, and had crashed into one another, or into parked cars. The city was oddly silent - the only noise Rain could hear was the sound of a few idling engines.
There were still no people. Nor were there any bodies. Beyond that, the space seemed perfectly normal to both his magical and mundane senses.
Rain's fingers were starting to tremble.
What happened here?
Despite their obvious excitement, Godrick and Mackerel could tell that something was deeply wrong.
It was probably time to do a more thorough search. Detection did seem to be working, since it correctly returned the positions of the nearby cars, concrete and food items.
"Can you wait here for a moment? I need to do a more thorough check of the city."
Godrick nodded.
"I'll be back in around ten minutes."
Rain stepped upwards, holding himself up with Airwalk. Despite the incongruous surroundings, his skills seemed to work normally here, and in a few seconds he'd reached the height of the tallest buildings.
The essence here was rich, far more concentrated that it was on the surface near Fel Sadanis, where he'd started his journey on another world. On some level, Rain wondered how he'd never noticed it before - how nobody had ever noticed it before.
It felt unbearably strange, to be here, somewhere he'd once called home, and for everything to be so different. Using his skills here felt improper, somehow. On Earth, people were supposed to get around with planes and trains and that sort of thing, not by expending magical energies to hold themselves aloft between eight-storey buildings.
Regardless, he didn't have time for that now. Pouring mana into Velocity, he began to pick up speed. It wasn't long before he found himself above what should have been a bustling square in the central business district. Some of the news-screens were still functioning, and one was displaying the results of some election somewhere - although the usual seats in which the anchors would sit were empty.
The square itself, both to the naked eye and to Detection, was devoid of humans - dead or alive.
Rain took a circuitous route back to Godrick, lingering above the university and the other locations where he might have seen someone familiar - his friends' houses (if any of them would have remembered him, which was doubtful) and his old school (which would at least have records of his existence).
A strange kind of fog was beginning to descend over Rain's mind. He'd spent so long in a world that seemed fantastical, and had often wondered if he was in a particularly vivid dream or hallucination. Now that he was back on Earth, it felt more like a dream than ever.
I'll give you this, subconscious. If this is your work, then you're being very creative.
A few minutes later, he landed near Godrick, who had popped the hood of an idling car and was poking at the exposed engine. Mackerel had discovered the car's radio antenna, and was repeatedly bending and releasing it, making an odd twanging noise. Godrick smiled at Rain as he approached.
"What's the news?"
Rain frowned. "Same story everywhere. The world seems to have been going on as normal until fairly recently, when every single human in the city vanished, presumably at the same time."
Godrick looked awkwardly at his feet. "Well, not that I'm not enjoying your company, but me da is probably getting worried. We should try to find the others."
Rain turned to them. "If the others went to the same place as Zorian, then I think we're probably very far away from them."
Godrick grimaced. "How far?"
Rain waggled a hand, estimating. "About five thousand kilometres."
Godrick said something that might have been a swear word. "Me da is gonna kill me."
Rain smiled sadly for a moment. "Honestly, I'd be more worried about everyone else. If there is anyone else on the planet, that is."
Rain rubbed his eyes. This was feeling more like a dream every minute. "I mean, I can only really guess where they are. I obviously should have asked Harry more details about where he lived and where he was from, in retrospect. As it is, I only have some very basic guesses about where they might be."
"Alright," Godrick said encouragingly, and Mackerel nudged at Rain's arm in what might have been an affectionate gesture. "Where do you think they are?"
Keep it together, Rain. There are people depending on you.
"Judging from Harry's accent, I'm pretty sure he's English. 'Hogwarts' is what he called his school, which sounds totally made-up, but I think that's just how they name places over there. From the memories Zorian sent me, that's probably where he is."
Rain pulled the telepathic relay from one of his pockets, and sighed with relief.
Godrick looked a little confused, then they both paused to wrestle Mackerel away as he tried to eat the thin metal disc.
"What is that?"
"It's a communication device Zorian gave me. If it works on this world, then it means we don't need to find Zorian's exact location. If we get within a few hundred kilometres of him, he should be able to contact us."
"Nice!" Godrick slapped him on the shoulder in encouragement. "So then we just have to get to this 'Britain' place, right?"
Rain half-laughed at that. "Yeah." He paused to think for a moment. "You have a steel affinity, right?"
Godrick nodded.
Despite himself, Rain grinned.
"This is going to sound a little crazy, but I think I have an idea that might work."
Not quite the same as an airship, but it's close enough.
Harry
As soon as his hand touched the back of the Mirror, he knew he was making a mistake.
Long ago, he'd once pondered the instruction, passed down in hushed words between precocious primary school students, not to think about a pink elephant. 'Resonant doubt' was the term that came to mind. If there was something he was trying to avoid thinking about, then there was little his mind could do to instruct itself to look away. In fact, his strong predisposition was to do the opposite. If instructed to avoid thinking about something, Harry's mind would instead seek it out, and try to understand this thought in its entirety, rather than distracting itself with falsehoods. It was why he was incapable of casting an animal patronus - his mind simply wasn't capable of looking blindly away from the truth.
Now, as he touched the Mirror, and it looked through him with its overwhelming injunction to help, he couldn't stop himself. He thought of the people he cared about - Hermione, Draco, Neville - and he thought about the places he'd left behind on Earth - the Hogwarts library, and the overflowing bookcases of his parents' house.
And so it was that he found himself, with Hugh by his side, standing in the living room of his parents' house in Oxford.
Every inch of wall space was covered by a bookcase. Each bookcase had six shelves, going almost to the ceiling. Some were stacked to the brim with hardback books, others had layers of paperback science fiction.
This was the living-room of the house occupied by the eminent Professor Michael Verres-Evans, and his wife, Mrs. Petunia Evans-Verres.
Right from the moment of his arrival, their adopted son, Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, knew that something was horribly, horribly wrong.
Dust caked most of the bookshelves. The walls were different, too. On almost every wall, there were images of Harry. Framed photographs - mostly standard Muggle colour images, faded and yellowed with age, although there were a few moving pictures that had clearly been cut from the Daily Prophet.
Harry stepped through into the kitchen, reaching out with his carbon affinity. He wasn't sure exactly what his range was, but at this point it was approaching a few hundred metres.
He could sense the neighbourhood in surprising clarity. A scarce few trees dotted the back-yards of nearby houses, and a collection of graphite-based mechanical pencils were scattered across his parents' house, not to mention dozens of other items. There was one conspicuous absence, however.
There were no people. Not in this house, nor in the next. Nor anywhere within his reach.
Hugh followed him, looking uneasy, as Harry slammed open the door of his father's study. There, on the wall. Harry grabbed the calendar from the wall and gripped it tightly enough in his hands that it began to tear at the edges.
The most recent date Harry remembered was June 16th, 1992. That was when the Exile Splinter had taken him from Hogwarts.
His eyes weren't focusing enough to read the month or the date. He only needed to see the year, at the top of the page.
2020.
Hugh was saying something in the background, but Harry wasn't listening. There were too many problems to solve now, all at once.
He'd turned around to face Hugh, when a mental signal came through - from Zorian:
<Harry, Rain, are you there?>
Before Harry could answer, another signal came through.
<I'm here. I'm with Hugh, and we're safe. I've been sent to Oxford, which is a few hundred kilometres to your south - to my parents' house. I presume you're with the others, by the Mirror in Hogwarts?>
Harry started. It was undeniably a mental communication from himself, but he hadn't sent it.
At least, he hadn't sent it yet.
Wordlessly, Harry gestured for Hugh to come closer. He fetched a device from his bag, draped the chain around both of their necks, and spun the hourglass five times.
Note that this isn't general time travel- it's HPMOR time travel, which has a lot of special rules which make it less setting-breaking (eg: no matter what you do, there's no way to travel more than six hours back in time. There's also no way to travel forwards).