Chapter 64: Cost of the Casting

  "We need to move," I shout over the groan of the settling earth. "The dampener grid is destroyed, but that just means the big guns can use their toys now."

  Vrex steps out of the dust of the Aggregate Pit. He looks magnificent and terrifying. His new, darker stone skin—compressed by the grinding wheel—gleams under the emergency lights. He resembles a walking fortress wall.

  "They will secure the elevator," Vrex rumbles, scanning the ceiling.

  "The elevator is jammed," I say, patting the stolen shock-baton at my hip. "I broke it. The ventilation shafts are our best bet."

  We sprint toward the maintenance ramp. My Egress (15) makes me feel weightless, but I throttle my speed. Vrex brings up the rear, his footsteps heavy enough to shake the dust from the ceiling.

  We hit the sub-basement landing. The blast doors ahead glow cherry-red.

  "Welding," I realize. "They are sealing us in."

  "Stand aside," Vrex orders.

  He lowers his shoulder, the Mantle of the Stubborn Earth flaring with amber light. He hits the heated blast doors at a full sprint.

  BOOM.

  The metal shrieks and buckles. The doors fly off their hinges, tumbling down the corridor like massive, glowing coins.

  We spill out into the main processing junction.

  And stop.

  Three figures wait for us.

  They float three feet off the ground in a perfect triangle formation. They wear robes of deep midnight blue, embroidered with silver constellations that move across the fabric. They hold orbs, wands, and in the case of the one in the center, a book made of floating slate pages.

  [Entity: Spire Magister]

  [Magnitude: Unstable]

  "Specimen 894," the center Magister says, his voice bored. "And the construct. You are causing significant property damage."

  "Put it on my tab,"

  "Tactical assessment," Vrex rumbles, stepping in front of me. "We are outmatched. Kaelen, support only. Do not engage directly."

  The Magister on the left raises a glass orb. "Incinerate."

  A beam of concentrated fire, white-hot and thin as a needle, lashes out.

  Vrex raises his arm. The beam hits his compressed stone skin. It deflects, carving a scorch mark across the wall behind us.

  "Move!" Vrex roars.

  The fight explodes.

  Vrex charges, a juggernaut of stone. The Magisters scatter, floating apart with eerie grace. They rain magic down on him—blasts of force, arcs of lightning, gouts of acid. Vrex takes it all, tanking damage that would vaporize a tank, his health chipping away in chunks of granite.

  I stay on the periphery, moving constantly.

  Egress. Slide. Jump. Roll.

  A bolt of lightning cracks where I stood a microsecond before.

  I reach into my Locus. I pull out a Standard Healing Draught.

  "Vrex! Catch!"

  I hurl it like a fastball. Vrex snatches the vial out of the air mid-charge, crushes it in his hand, and lets the liquid soak into his stone skin. The cracks on his chest knit together instantly.

  "Annoying," the Magister with the book notes. He turns a page. "Suppress the support."

  He points a finger at me.

  Gravity seizes me. A localized inversion yanks me into the air, flailing.

  [Kinetic Grasp]

  I pull a loose pipe from the wall and fling it at the Magister's face.

  He flinches, his concentration breaking. The gravity spell stutters.

  I drop, landing in a roll.

  "You're going to have to try harder than that!" I taunt, sprinting behind a pillar as a shard of ice the size of a coffin slams into the stone floor.

  I act as the distraction. Every spell they fire at me is one less spell hitting Vrex.

  I pull another potion. "Big guy, nine o'clock!"

  I throw it. Vrex catches it, slamming into the Magister with the orb. His hammer—summoned from his Locus—cracks the mage's shield with a sound like a thunderclap.

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  We are winning. Or at least, we are surviving.

  I see an opening. The Magister on the right—the one with the wand—focuses a long incantation on Vrex. His flank is exposed.

  My Void-Knife is ready. And I have Egress.

  I can interrupt him, One hit.

  I break cover. I surge forward, closing the distance in a blur. The Magister remains facing Vrex, seemingly unaware of me.

  I raise the Void-Knife, aiming for his ribs.

  Just as I swing, the Magister flicks his wrist. He makes a small, cutting gesture with his wand toward the empty air.

  A two-dimensional plane of force, infinitely thin, slices through the space I occupy.

  My Kensho screams a split-second too late.

  Dodge.

  I twist my body, throwing my weight backward.

  The baton hits the invisible wall of force. The steel shears cleanly in half. The top half falls to the floor with a metallic clatter.

  Then, the pain hits.

  A sudden, shocking absence of sensation strikes me, followed immediately by a rush of cold agony that makes my vision white out.

  I stumble back, my boots skidding on the stone floor. I look down.

  My left hand is lighter.

  My pinky and ring finger are gone. They lie on the floor next to the broken weapon, severed cleanly at the knuckle.

  The cut is so fine, so perfect, that my body takes a second to realize the breach.

  Then, the red comes. A torrent of it.

  I grit my teeth, a guttural sound of frustration and pain escaping my throat. My Horizon (15) kicks in, keeping the shock from collapsing my knees. I stand. I stare at the damage with a cold, detached clarity.

  The Magister finally turns to look at me. He smiles, a cold, thin expression. "Precision, anomaly. Learn it."

  He raises his wand for the killing stroke.

  "KAELEN!"

  Vrex erupts.

  Seeing me hurt flips a switch in the gargoyle's core. The amber light of his runes turns a blood-red crimson. He ignores the other two mages. He ignores the lightning scarring his back.

  He activates [Tectonic Sunder].

  He throws his hammer.

  The stone weapon breaks the sound barrier. It slams into the Magister's shield, shattering it like sugar glass. The impact throws the wizard across the room, crumpling him against a support pillar.

  The room shakes. Dust rains down.

  "Go!" Vrex bellows, rushing toward me.

  He grabs my good arm, his grip hard enough to bruise but grounding in the spinning world. He hauls me forward, using his momentum to get me moving.

  "Run,"

  He lowers his shoulder and runs straight through the wall next to the ventilation shaft, bursting into the service tunnels.

  We run.

  I force my legs to pump, my Egress firing despite the blood loss. We tear through the maze of pipes until the sounds of battle fade into the distance.

  Vrex stops in a dark alcove.

  I slide down the wall, my breath coming in ragged gasps. I look at my left hand. I clamp my wrist with my right hand, but the blood still soaks my tattered coat.

  "Let me see," Vrex says, his voice tight with a rare note of panic.

  "It's fine," I manage, my voice steady despite the tremors in my body. "Just... structural damage."

  I hold it out.

  My hand looks too narrow. The gap where the fingers used to be pulses with angry, wet heat.

  "I need to seal it," I say.

  I close my eyes. The pain is white noise in my head, making it hard to focus on the Locus. The interface flickered.

  "Focus, Kaelen," I whisper to myself.

  I force the mental door open. I grab a Standard Healing Draught.

  I uncork it with my teeth and spit the cork onto the floor.

  "This is going to suck," I mutter.

  I pour the red liquid directly over the stumps.

  It hisses. Smoke rises from the wound as the alchemical accelerate burns the flesh to knit it back together.

  The sensation rivals dipping my hand in molten lead.

  I slam my head back against the metal pipe behind me, grinding my teeth together so hard I think they might crack. A sharp, high-pitched whine of agony escapes through my nose, but I hold the hand steady.

  The magic works. It stops the bleeding. It knits the skin over the bone. It seals the wound.

  The fingers remain gone.

  I stare at my hand. The skin is smooth, pink, and scarred where the digits had been. I flex. The phantom sensation of the missing fingers twitches, grasping at air.

  "It is sealed," Vrex says quietly, his stone hands hovering, unsure of what to do with a fragility he cannot fix.

  "Yeah," I whisper, wiping the sweat from my forehead with my good hand. "It's sealed."

  I look at the severed baton still clipped to my belt. I look at my hand.

  Too close.

  I stand up, using the wall for support. My legs are steady.

  "Come on," I say, checking the hallway. "We're not out yet."

  Vrex looks at me, his golden eyes searching my face for signs of breaking. He finds only the hard, cold calculation of a survivor.

  "Understood," he rumbles.

  Inquisitor Valerius’s POV

  The tea is excellent.

  Valerius sits in his high-backed chair, watching the steam curl from the porcelain cup. The morning sun streams through the crystal windows of the upper Spire, painting his office in rainbows.

  The room is silent, save for the rhythmic ticking of a mana-clock on the wall. Valerius sits motionless. He breathes, letting the warmth of the sun hit his face, savoring the stillness of the high altitude.

  Minutes pass.

  Finally, the heavy oak door creaks open. Thomas, the scribe, enters. He looks pale, his hands trembling as he clutches a datapad. He looks like a man walking to the gallows.

  "Sir," Thomas squeaks. "Report from the... from the lower levels."

  Valerius takes a slow sip. He sets the cup down perfectly in the center of the saucer with a soft clink.

  "The riot? Has it been contained?"

  "The dampener grid is destroyed, Inquisitor. The containment fields are offline in sectors 4 through 9. And..." Thomas swallows hard, his eyes darting to the floor. "A Response Team of Magisters engaged the targets in the sub-basement."

  "And?"

  "Magister Kael was hospitalized with severe blunt force trauma. Magister Ron is in shock. The targets... escaped."

  Valerius stares at the steam rising from his cup. He watches it twist and dissipate.

  "Escaped," he repeats softly. The word hangs in the air, heavy and suffocating.

  "They breached the ventilation network. We lost them in the old tunnels."

  Valerius stands up.

  He walks to the window, his movements fluid and precise. He looks down at the sprawling city below, a chaotic grid of industry and magic. He thinks about the report from the Oubliette. The volatility spike. The way the grid collapsed from a feedback loop.

  "The anomaly," Valerius murmurs, his reflection ghosting against the glass. "The one who thinks he is a filter."

  "Sir?"

  "He weaponized the lock, Thomas."

  Valerius turns. He walks to the coat rack in the corner. He runs his fingers over the fabric of his heavy, white cloak before lifting it off the hook. He drapes it over his shoulders, fastening the clasp with a deliberate click.

  He opens a drawer. Inside, resting on velvet, is a small, gold embedded tuning fork. Different one. He picks it up, weighing it in his hand. He strikes it gently against the desk.

  Hmmmmmm.

  The sound is pure, sharp.

  "Prepare my personal skiff,"

  "You... you are going down there, Inquisitor?"

  "Of course, We have a weed that refuses to be plucked. And now, it has thorns."

  He walks toward the door, his shadow stretching long across the floor.

  "It seems I must do the pruning myself."