by Peri Akman
He knew one-story places existed—part of the Academy was only one story tall—but it was still just odd to see them like that on their own, with no add-ons.
Then again, Kole was probably ecstatic. No stairs. There was only a slightly raised platform for the well and houses, which made up the foundation.
Quinn peered into one of the houses. It was dark, dusty, cluttered and utterly untouched. Like it had to have been fled extremely quickly.
Suddenly Li paled and made an audible noise of terror.
The two turned to look at her.
“I forgot that I would need to go back alone,” Li whispered, mortified. “I did not think this through.”
Kole quickly signed something to Li, and she calmed down immediately, and smiled.
“Oh, thank you very much!” she exclaimed.
Quinn looked at Kole with a raised eyebrow.
“We’re walking her back, and then coming back. Or at least, I am. You going to come?” Kole asked.
Quinn looked in the distance, at the flickering demons.
“Yeah, I’m definitely walking with you.”
Kole gave a snort. “At least you’re not running around like a headless chicken.”
“Why aren’t they attacking us?” Quinn practically whispered, as if the demons could selectively hear them.
“They’re waiting for a good opportunity to strike. Demons like to fancy themselves as smarter than humans. Which is funny, because if they just swarmed us we would probably lose,” Kole observed.
“So they really are the opposite of monsters?” Quinn asked.
“Yep. Monsters never plan. Demons plan too much. Both are perfectly able to be dealt with when experienced. Both are perfectly able to catch you off guard and leave you a bloody corpse,” Kole said casually. It was like they weren’t surrounded by creatures that wanted to eat their essence.
“You don’t seem worried,” Quinn observed.
“I have the power of 40 empaths, two nature wielders, two healers, one internal, one external, a clairvoyant, a clockmaker, a ’true’ healer, and that terrible woman’s energy convergence. Also I can summon things. I’m doing pretty well at the moment,” Kole said cheerfully.
“A clock maker?” Quinn asked.
“Time-sensitive is the official term, but ’clockmaker’ is a common slang term. They’re capable of knowing exactly how much time has passed, down to the millisecond,” Kole explained as they walked back to the stone garden.
“That… doesn’t sound too useful,” Quinn admitted.
“Oh, so now you’re quantifying skills, eh? Well, let me put it this way, they know exactly how long they have before something hits them, and are capable of utilizing that time incredibly well. They can easily master most time-based activities. They can have hours’ worth of thinking within a split second of time, if they so choose. This one’s an internal type, so it mostly only affects them, but if you ever meet an external clockmaker… which I think the statistics are… two in the last century? Then you are facing an extremely powerful individual, because then they mess with your perception of time. And then no matter how good you are, you lose.” Kole stomped her walking stick on the ground, as if to make a point.
Quinn recalled the hypnotic statue, and shivered slightly. Leave it to Kole to change his mind. What had seemed like a boring ability now seemed like one he felt envious for not having. There was such… variety… out there. Being able to summon swords seemed to have lost its novelty.
Gods, he must sound like such a whiner! Kole had told him that he had a lot of potential, but here he was complaining he didn’t have some other skill.
He knew why. The fact was, most skills seemed to come with an inherent competence. Summoning… summoning meant nothing unless he himself was good at using whatever he summoned. He could summon the best weapon in the world, and not only would he have to study it immensely to make it properly, he would then have to practice with it to become good with it.
It was an annoying amount of work.
He pictured the white monster attacking the guard for the hundredth time, only this time it was out of desire to analyze, as opposed to justifying. Maybe that really was him… maybe that was a good thing…
His thoughts were interrupted by Li giving a shriek.
She whipped around and stared at Quinn.
Oh right.
She was a mind reader.
Oops.
Li went to open her mouth, but Kole was faster.
Kole leaped towards Li, and grabbed her head. Li’s words were cut off silently, and her eyes flashed, as if something had happened.
And then Li dropped to the ground.
Quinn’s eyes widened. “What… what did you… why?!!”
“You thought about that monster!” Kole snapped. “Right in front of a mind reader, no less! Do you have any idea what could have happened?”
“Did… did you just kill her?!” Quinn sputtered.
“No! I erased her memories and caused an overload to make her pass out. There’s a big difference!” Kole practically spat out.
“Was that necessary!?” Quinn cried out, as he went towards the now completely passed out Li, rather horrified.
“Well, actually, no, but I panicked, okay?” Kole muttered. “She was reaching bad conclusions so I did the first thing that came to my mind!”
“How in the WORLD was that the first thing to come to your mind?!” Quinn practically roared.
“Shhh!” Kole hissed. “She’s passed out, not soundproof. Quiet down.”
Quinn stared at his master in utter disbelief. “You… are a crazy lady.” he said with a sense of finality.
“Oooh, never heard that one before. Real mature, Quinn. What do you think would have happened if we hadn’t convinced her she had misheard your brain waves, hm?” Kole asked, leaning into Quinn.
“Nothing, because we didn’t do anything wrong. A guard was killed by a monster,” Quinn snapped.
“Oh come off it, Quinn. I can read your mind too, you know. I know what you were thinking. You were thinking you caused it. That you summoned the monster!”
“So?” Quinn flailed his arms in indignation. “It was an idle thought! You said it was probably wrong! Is it a crime to speculate now?”
“Nothing was a crime, Quinn!” Kole hissed. “But if she knows that you thought that, then she’d spread the information out of worry and concern. Then the temple finds out, and then you just led to a mass moral panic!”
“Nng…”
The warlock and apprentice froze as Li stirred, rubbing her head.
“Wait—stop!” Quinn yelped as he saw Kole begin to ready herself.
The second Li opened her eyes, Kole lunged, grabbed her head again, and Li was back on the ground, passed out.
“Was that time ALSO out of panic?” Quinn whispered venomously.
“Yes!” Kole hissed back.
“You can literally alter your perspective on TIME, and this is your go-to solution?” Quinn flailed his arms, practically aghast.
“Yes!” Kole insisted.
Quinn knelt by Li to wake her up. He began to shake her gently.
“Quinn, no—” Kole protested.
“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t!” Quinn shot back.
“What will we tell her when she wakes up? We attacked her!” she exclaimed.
“The truth! That you’re a paranoid jerk, and panicked when she read our minds!” Quinn hissed.
“No. That’s absurd. She’ll kick us out!” Kole protested.
“Well, good, we deserve to be kicked out if you’re going to assault random people,” Quinn yelled back.
Li began to stir, and Kole lunged for her before she even began to wake. Quinn dashed in front of her, shield ready to defend. Kole grounded to a halt, her hand a millimeter away from the shield.
“Quinn,” Kole pleaded. “She’s going to panic.”
“So?” Quinn spat out. “Look, you’ve been letting me make decisions, and
that’s my decision, we tell her. Or you erase my mind too, because I’m not budging.”
Kole reared back, as if Quinn had just stabbed her.
“D—don’t be ridiculous! I would… I would never erase your memories. That would be immoral!” Kole recoiled with horror.
“And her mind is okay?” Quinn cried out in confusion.
“Li is not bound to my very will. I’m not Li’s guardian, guide, and source of food and shelter. Li is not fifteen years old. There is a very big difference,” Kole said quietly, almost wilting. Quinn’s act of rebellion had apparently shocked her more than he had thought.
“Yeah well… I disagree,” Quinn said flatly. Li started to sit up, and this time Kole did not lunge at her.
“What just happened?” Li muttered confused.
Quinn quickly signed the words ‘Kole’ and ‘stupid’, some of the few vocabulary words he still remembered. From there he turned to Kole.
“Right, you’re gonna need to tell her,” Quinn admitted.
“Lovely,” Kole seethed under her breath.
However, when Quinn turned back to Li, her eyes were wide with horror as she looked on in the distance.
“Monster…” she whispered, trailing off.
Had she remembered that easily? Or had Quinn been thinking about it? Well either way they would have to calm her—
Thud
—down.
What?
Quinn whipped his head in multiple directions trying to find the source of the sound. This time it was not Kole’s staff across Li’s head; unfortunately, this time he wished it was. His eyes followed Li’s, who was fixed on a singular direction. The demons in the area were gone, leaving the area vacant. Then Quinn noticed the problem: the flowers and grass were vibrating.
“Aw, no…” Kole muttered hoarsely. “That’s bad.”
Quinn began to ask what was bad, but his question died in his throat.
His shield vanished.
Across the mountain top, visible from very far away, was a dark gray monster, easily thirty feet tall. It stamped its feet on the rocks, shaking the ground for miles.
Even worse, however, was the large visible rope entwined across its mouth, looped around to its head, almost as if it was being guided by something much smaller and harder to see.
Instincts roared out in Quinn’s head—demons. The monster was being ridden by demons. Oh gods oh godsohgodsohgodsohgods!
“This is their plan.” Kole’s voice quivered ever so slightly. Suddenly, he felt it, the immense energy surrounding him, not wanting him to cast anything, like a weight on his shoulders.
So much for them being stupid.
Quinn went to wrest all of his energy into summoning a sword, but Kole’s hand reached out and seemed to countersummon it, leading to a mere poof of nothing.
Kole shook her head.
“Run.”
As she said it, she signed the words.
Li appeared to be frozen to the spot, trembling with horror.
Quinn grabbed Li without even thinking and bolted away, dragging her away from the scene. He heard the monster roar, and the chattering giggling noise of the demons.
And then another roar, overlaid with another one. Multiple monsters. Oh gods. Don’t look back.
Don’t look back.
He heard thunderous footsteps, and for the life of him he couldn’t wrest any ability to look behind him. Was the monster a foot behind him or twenty feet? He could be dead or doomed or very lucky and he would have no way of knowing.
Li began to slow down, desperately panting for breath.
“I… can’t run… like this…” she rasped.
Quinn skidded to a halt. His head whipped around. His eyes widened at the scene.
There were at least five of them. All obscenely huge, making the ground shake. One was bucking around, trying to wrest off the near-invisible riders. Another was rolling on the ground, covered in dirt and greened fur.
Three of them surrounded Kole as she fought them off.
One of them, which at a passing glance seemed to have at least ten eyes, three limbs, and a very large tail, practically slammed its head onto the ground in an effort to pin Kole down. Another slammed about four different arms onto the ground, trying to catch her off balance. The third kept running around and stumbling, making sure that Kole couldn’t leave.
Within a second Quinn took in all of this information, and within a second his blood turned to ice.
His peripherals informed him that Li was beginning to stagger off towards the castle, but they were still a ways off. Not long enough to rush back, get Uleyn or someone else, and come back.
Not long enough.
Not enough time.
His heart pounded as he tried to think, tried to process, but all he could think was ‘not enough time.’
That clockmaker’s skill seemed like the most desirable ability in the world right now.
“Quinn!” Li yelled, and he whipped back around.
A few demons were surrounding them, chattering and taunting. Some of it was unintelligible, some of it was vulgar and coarse, yet understandable.
Quinn summoned his shield again, his mind slamming through the demonic blanketing, and rushed forward, practically tackling the demon in front of him to the ground, not paying it a second thought. He was surprised at how little give it had, but then he realized—these hadn’t been feeding off of Sennta. They were weaker.
Quinn halted.
They were weaker.
His shield vanished in exchange for a sword. The ‘H’ glinted in the sunlight.
“Get behind me.” He yelled, and Li seemed to understand, however slightly.
He readied his sword, and clumsily swung at the first demon to lunge.
It did not fall, nor did the sword really dig into the demon.
But the sword did not break.
Quinn stepped forward in a haphazard thrust, and this seemed to actually do something. It pierced the demon, and it gave a shriveling shriek. There seemed to be a slight break in the negative energy, although it quickly resumed. It stepped back and started to transform into some weird combination of Li and Quinn.
As the demon reacted, three more seemed to step forward. Not enough. He wasn’t strong enough.
Couldn’t fight them all at once.
Quinn motioned for Li to run, and the two took off, with Quinn taking swings at the demons that came towards them.
They kept attacking from the front, not even trying to corral the two. It was only a matter of time before they would make it to the temple. It was even in view. They were winning. Quinn plunged his sword into another demon with some sense of pride.
“Not winning,” Li yelped. “They don’t want to win.”
Quinn stared at the older woman in confusion as he pulled the sword out.
“They just want us to get away.” Li trembled slightly as she said this.
Quinn felt his world tilt.
Kole.
Oh gods. He had gotten distracted and completely forgotten about Kole.
“QUINN!” Li roared, but it was too late, Quinn had already made up his mind.
His sword disappeared, and the H shield returned. It was bigger and more pointed than normal, but Quinn barely registered such a fact.
He placed it near his head and ran back in the direction Kole was.
He heard Li yelling, practically shrieking in the distance. Some vague part of him realized his folly; Kole had a chance, but Li was most certainly doomed now.
No. Not doomed. Don’t be ridiculous, she’d be fine. Had to be. She just had to run. Like she said. Not trying to kill. Just head back.
The demons did not take kindly to Quinn going against their master plan.
They tackled him, but adrenaline surged in his veins, and he kept running. He stumbled, fell, and rolled multiple times as the demons dogpiled him, but his shield seemed to be what was needed, bashing their heads into the ground while he staggered forward.
&nb
sp; The masses of fur were visible in the distance, with the occasional flash of color.
Unfortunately, his adrenaline only took him so far. At least six or seven demons were hanging on him, weighing him down, as he struggled forward. He briefly unsummoned the shield and immediately swapped it out for something new–straps across his back, with spikes attached.
It did not stab into the demons like he had hoped, but the force of the summon caused them to go flying back. Just as good.
Out with the spikes, in with the shield. His feet dug into the ground as he continued to run.
The fight came back into a view that Quinn could comprehend.
Kole artfully dodged the attacks, dodging and riposting, striking her targets in return. Dozens of knives flooded the air as she relentlessly summoned them. The fact that she was able to be summoning a constant barrage of things while under this negative energy seemed to be near miraculous to Quinn. Maybe that’s why she was sticking only to tiny knives.
The grass and vines around the area crawled up around the monsters, trying to restrain them, but it barely did anything. It did successfully snare a few idle demons, who gnawed helplessly against the tightening plants.
Small black discs scattered the area, hitting the monsters and demons alike, leaving Quinn forced to dodge them as if he were just another enemy. As he ducked one, another hit him square in the chest, and he found himself pushed back with much force.
He landed on the ground, feeling as if the wind had gotten knocked out of him.
Meanwhile, the monsters were practically eating the discs like they were nothing.
Quinn stood up, and as he forced himself up, he realized his palms were skinned and bleeding.
He winced slightly, and rubbed them on his cloak. He would worry about that later.
Quinn began to walk towards the monsters, not even sure of what he could do—something. He could be bait. He’d be good bait. Good enough bait that the worst runner of the group wouldn’t have to fight off the monsters alone.
How had he not realized that the moment she had told him to run? How could he have been so selfish?
He took a few more steps towards the monsters, and Kole saw him. Her eyes widened, and that split second was all that was needed for the monster with the ten eyes to headbutt her full force.
