She must have somehow increased the density of the clone’s face to make it feel real, he thought to himself. Otherwise, the blow would have given away the gambit, passing through the clone’s face or not offering enough feedback. Although, that indicated a terrifying level of control. It seemed the other A-listers had been just as busy as Finn.
He turned his gaze back to the floating screen. Vanessa stood beside Zane’s corpse as the elemental panned around her. The water mage’s eyes glowed a cold sapphire, and blood stained her robes as she observed Zane’s body dispassionately.
If he made it through his own fight, this was what he would face.
As though reading his mind, Kyyle glanced at Finn, and their eyes met. They didn’t need words to communicate what they were both thinking. They were up next. And if that match had been anything to go by, this was going to be one hell of a fight.
Chapter 35 - Soiled
“Finn and Kyyle,” Nefreet called out, his voice echoing across the field.
Despite knowing that they were up next, Finn could still feel his stomach lurch at the sound of the headmaster’s voice. He stood, forcibly shoving the emotion aside. He wasn’t willing to give in to the enticing warmth of his mana just yet.
Both Julia and Brutus gave him a wordless nod as he met their eyes. There was nothing more to say at this point. Then the pair wound their way through the crowd, the other mages parting to let them pass and an excited hum filling the air as the students anticipated the next battle.
All too soon, Finn and Kyyle stood on the dais in front of Nefreet facing one another. The headmaster handed each of them a glowing token. Finn’s thumb rubbed at the surface reflexively as Nefreet launched into another spiel, addressing the crowd.
Kyyle’s eyes locked on Finn’s. He offered a hand. “Good luck,” he said quietly.
“You too,” Finn grunted, accepting his grip but wincing internally. He really wasn’t looking forward to killing one of the few tolerable people he had met in this magical prison.
Without warning, the earth mage tugged Finn closer, whispering into his ear. “Don’t hesitate or go easy on me. I still think there is something weird going on here. My guess is that it has to do with you.”
Kyyle stepped back, the gesture going unnoticed by the crowd. Although, Finn noted that Abbad was watching the pair closely. Finn looked at Kyyle with some uncertainty. He had to admit that some pieces still didn’t add up, even with the last-minute setup of the final duels.
But what would make Kyyle think that Finn was at the center of this?
A more skeptical, jaded part of Finn’s mind briefly considered that the young man could be messing with him, trying to throw him off his game. But that didn’t really seem like Kyyle. Besides, he was explicitly telling Finn not to hold back.
Finn wasn’t given time to consider this further. Nefreet’s words suddenly penetrated the cluster of questions that swam through his head. “Now, without further ado, let us start the second competition of our semi-finals!
“Finn. Kyyle. Good luck.”
That was their signal, and the pair reached forward. As their tokens touched, a flash of light enveloped Finn, and the world around him bled away, soon replaced by bottomless darkness.
***
It took Finn a moment to realize that he had arrived. He squinted, just barely making out the dark, blurry outline of the walls around him as his eyes tried to adjust to the sudden gloom. He resisted the urge to summon a Fireball and instead backed against what he assumed was a boulder, summoning his Magma Armor. There was no sense in giving away his position. The warm energy soon slid down both arms and glowed with a faint orange-and-red light – the dull glow hopefully too dim to draw attention.
In the time it had taken him to summon the spells, Finn’s eyes had begun to adjust to the darkness, and he realized he could now see relatively well. He was standing inside a subterranean cavern, the ground a broken cluster of boulders, ravines, ridges, and large stalagmites. No sunlight trickled into the room. Instead, large patches of mushrooms and moss dotted the ceiling and walls, glowing with a sickly green-and-blue light. It was this bioluminescent fungus that made it possible to see.
As he surveyed his new battleground, Finn frowned.
His fire mana now simmered in his veins, and Finn was able to review his brief conversation with Kyyle with greater clarity. This cave lent some credibility to the young man’s whispered words. The arena seemed to be tailor-made for an earth mage. It was possible it was simply a coincidence – this cave could have been chosen at random.
But it sure as hell didn’t feel like it.
Not that this did anything to help him with the current fight.
Finn stayed crouched down behind the boulder, giving himself a moment to think. Kyyle knew at least four earth magic spells – Stone Spikes, Stone Skin, Dissolve, and Slow. However, after watching the battle between Zane and Vanessa, it seemed safe to assume that Kyyle’s sponsor had likely taught him one or two more journeyman spells. Finn also knew that the earth mage used a traditional staff, which gave him a single channel. That meant Kyyle would likely try to stay at a distance and use the environment to his advantage.
In contrast, Finn needed to get close and stay close to use his knives. He also couldn’t be sure how much Kyyle knew about his abilities. Although one thing was abundantly clear – the kid was observant as hell. If Finn were a betting man, his money was that Kyyle knew at least part of Finn’s abilities, either from studying him directly or by talking to the other students.
To make matters worse, anything that Finn could cast would make him stand out in the dark cavern. His eyes drifted to the glowing blue orb that drifted through the top of the cavern, recording the fight. Maybe he could wait and hope Kyyle made the first move.
However, as the seconds ticked by, Finn couldn’t hear any movement from deeper within the cave. It seemed that Kyyle was waiting for him to strike first. Finn was also concerned that the earth mage could slowly terraform the environment if given enough time. It was possible that Kyyle might be able to use Dissolve without creating much noise.
I need to move.
“Daniel,” Finn whispered.
The AI immediately flashed into existence nearby, a ball of flame that shone brightly in the dark cavern. “Go immediately. Fly through the cavern, winding through the boulders about four feet above the ground.”
“Yes, sir,” Daniel chirped and then sped away.
Then Finn started moving. He sprinted away from the position where he had been crouched, trying to put as much distance between himself and the initial flash of orange light as he could. He likely only had a few seconds.
It wasn’t a moment too soon.
Finn heard a rumble and looked back to see that a pit had opened up where he had been crouching. It seemed that Kyyle hadn’t been fooled by Finn’s ruse with Daniel. Instead, he’d focused on the original source of the trail. Finn could still see Daniel in the distance, winding between the boulders.
Damn, the kid is too smart for his own good. With his fire mana surging through his veins, this only amped up Finn’s excitement. Now this was a real opponent!
However, he hesitated as he saw Daniel’s light suddenly flash erratically, and then the AI flew up into the air, his voice echoing through the air. “Danger! Ambient mobs are present!”
It took Finn a second to see what the AI was yelling about. They were just dark blurs along the walls of the caverns, their bodies barely illuminated by the mushrooms. As Daniel flitted past one, Finn saw that it was some kind of beetle, except it was about the size of a large dog, its face adorned with cruel-looking pincers.
As Daniel sped past, the beetles seemed to sense him, turning to look in the AI’s direction.
Infrared vision? Finn wondered. Fuck.
Starting in an underground cave was bad enough, but there were also giant heat-seeking beetles down here? This only bolstered Kyyle’s conspiracy theory.
His thoughts were int
errupted as he felt the soil give way below him. He acted quickly, his fingers gripping at the edge of the pit and vaulting over the edge in a single move – the reflex only possible after hours spent sparring with Julia. He glanced down in the hole and saw large spikes erupting from the bottom.
Dissolve and Earth Spikes make a pit trap. Noted.
Then Finn finally caught sight of Kyyle. The young man had found a small ledge on the far side of the cave, using that vantage point to survey the room, and cast freely. Meanwhile, Finn could see that the beetles were starting to swarm after Daniel, the AI floating along the walls and attempting to stay out of reach.
As more pits began opening around him, Finn started running, weaving between the boulders, and trying to throw off Kyyle’s aim. A pit opened up in front of him, and he doubled back, perching behind a series of boulders to give himself a brief respite.
His thoughts were racing. This was a shit environment for him. If he used his abilities, he gave away his location more easily to Kyyle and would likely attract the beetles. Right now, the poor lighting was the only thing that allowed him these brief moments to pause. However, if he didn’t do something soon, Kyyle would likely turn the whole damn room into one giant pit trap. The longer he ran, the worse it would become.
That meant he would likely only get one chance to attack Kyyle.
Finn saw Daniel flit past above him, and a plan began to form in his head. He needed to poke at Kyyle a little to get a better sense of his abilities, but he was going to need to be discreet. He doubted the earth mage had revealed his full hand yet. To top it all off, Finn should try to be as circumspect with his own abilities as he could. He still needed to fight Vanessa – assuming he somehow managed to win this.
Finn brought up his in-game console, dashing out a short message to the AI. Daniel’s movements changed, and he began to weave an intricate pattern along the walls, staying a few feet away from the rock surface and out of the reach of the throng of beetles that now littered the walls. Finn didn’t want a stray Earth Spike to take him out.
Then he swept the terminal aside. This next part was going to suck.
Finn’s fingers wound through the gestures of a Fireball, the orb of flames soon igniting in the air beside him. Yet his hands kept going, summoning another until a pair of flaming spheres orbited him slowly.
Immediately, another pit began to form beneath Finn, but he was already moving. He dashed directly toward Kyyle, sprinting as hard and as fast as he could. The ground dissolved around him and Finn weaved from side to side to avoid the crumbling earth. As he closed in, he hurled the two Fireballs at the mage.
With a swift series of gestures, a wall of earth erupted from the ground in front of Kyyle, and the flames crashed against it, rolling across the condensed earth and charring the soil. A few seconds later, Kyyle broke apart the wall, providing line of sight on the cave once more.
Shit. Finn had no idea what to call that spell, but it seemed like the reverse of Dissolve.
Finn was already analyzing this new ability. It had taken Kyyle a moment to form the wall, and the Fireballs almost made it through the barrier. Yet within a few seconds, the soil had thickened, creating a nearly impenetrable wall about a foot thick. That gave Finn an opening – albeit a small one.
The ability to both dissolve stone and soil and erect new barriers also meant that Kyyle could terraform the environment at will. This had just gotten more difficult. Finn suspected that Kyyle had used that combo to win his previous fights. All he would need to do was drop the ground out from beneath a player. Even if the spikes didn’t kill them, he could seal off the pit and wait until they suffocated.
Finn dove to the side as another pit opened up below him. He was going to have to change his plan a bit. He chucked another Fireball at Kyyle to buy himself a few seconds and then turned on his heel and sped backward away from the mage, making a beeline toward Daniel. He and the AI needed to regroup near the southern edge of the cave, but he also needed to make sure to keep his distance, or he might accidentally attract the beetles. He wove and leaped through the cavern as pits formed around him, all the while keeping a watchful eye on his stamina.
When Finn saw the telltale flicker of the AI in the corner of his vision, he changed course. He began weaving back through the room, staying on the one side of the cave. Meanwhile, Daniel started arcing back on the other side of the cave, each of them slowly circling their way back to Kyyle’s ledge on the far end of the room.
The earth mage seemed to realize what was about to happen. He shifted his attention away from Finn for a moment, and the pits abruptly stopped forming. Finn couldn’t see what Kyyle was up to in the gloomy cave – not while he kept up with his frantic pace.
As he neared Kyyle’s location, his hands began moving. Flames soon wrapped around his knives as they slid from their sheaths. Finn’s UI updated automatically, his control range now glowing in a circle around him.
He still needed to be closer – much closer.
Finn raced headlong toward Kyyle but slowed slightly as he saw an empty expanse of darkness now lingering along the base of the ledge. The young man had diverted his attention to create an effective moat around his location. The ravine was nearly twelve feet across, leaving only a sheer cliff face along the other side. This trapped Kyyle in place, but also made it a royal pain in the ass to reach him.
Damn it. Finn couldn’t afford to stop.
His eyes darted to the wall to his right. Kyyle hadn’t messed with that surface. He probably didn’t expect Finn to suddenly turn into a spider. A crazy plan raced through Finn’s mind and his mana burned in response. He could see Daniel arcing along the other side of the room – speeding along the path that Finn had fed him.
He didn’t have time to second-guess himself.
He only had one shot at this.
Finn’s world funneled until all he could focus on was each footstep and the flaming blades that drifted around him. The lip of the ravine approached swiftly, the stone floor ending in darkness. He had no doubt that some very sharp spikes rested at the bottom.
Finn leapt over a newly formed pit as he approached the chasm. He stumbled slightly, but quickly regained his balance, continuing his headlong sprint. He didn’t slow down. He couldn’t afford to.
As he reached the chasm, Finn didn’t hesitate. He leapt into the air above the dark ravine, feeling the bottom drop out of his stomach at his sudden weightlessness. Then his foot landed on the hilt of a knife, the blade embedded in the stone wall. He leapt again, his other knife slamming into the cavern wall even as his first retracted and raced ahead of him, forming a makeshift staircase up the wall.
In his peripheral vision, Finn could see Kyyle’s eyes widen, and his hands began to move. If he dissolved sections of the wall, Finn was going to have some problems. Yet the earth mage hesitated as Daniel sped past his head. The chitter of chitin striking stone was loud now, sounding like muted machine gunfire.
Kyyle turned and saw the horde of beetles sweeping across the wall behind him, chasing after Daniel. With a grimace, Kyyle was forced to shift strategies. His incantation and gestures changed subtly. Finn recognized them now. He had been watching the earth mage’s movements as he dodged around the room. He was about to build some walls and let the beetles handle Finn – which was his best move.
Finn only had a window of a few seconds.
His foot touched another blade, and he pivoted, kicking against the cavern wall as hard as he could. Finn flew forward even as a new barrier of stone and dirt began to drift out of the ground around Kyyle. He tucked his head down and rotated so that his armored shoulder slammed against the earthen barricade that was still forming. It was just enough to punch a small hole in the wall.
And a single flaming blade sped through.
Finn’s other blade stabbed into the wall of the cavern. Finn flipped backward off Kyyle’s stone wall, barely managing to land nimbly on the other blade with one foot, wobbling unsteadily. He stood there, sus
pended precariously about twenty feet above the pit below, his muscles burning in protest and his stamina beginning to bottom out.
Yet his other hand hadn’t stopped moving.
I’m sorry, Kyyle.
Seconds ticked past, the on-rushing horde of beetles still skittering forward.
Yet Finn waited.
A moment later, the earth mage’s half-formed barrier began to crumble and break apart. What it revealed was Kyyle crumpled in the center of his miniature fortress, blood leaking from dozens of stab wounds and staining his robes a dark crimson. He let out a single gasping breath before going still.
Even with his fire mana surging in his veins, Finn felt a wave of nausea strike him as he looked at Kyyle. He hadn’t been able to see inside the barrier, and so he had been forced to strike at random. The carnage was gruesome. Kyyle’s face was awash in blood, and his unseeing eyes were still wide – staring directly at Finn.
Yet he couldn’t stop now.
Finn clung to the warmth of his mana, letting it burn away the gnawing doubt and horror that twisted at his stomach. He forced himself to look away from Kyyle, only to see that the swarm of beetles was still approaching.
His eyes darted to Kyyle’s body. He needed that token.
Moving quickly, Finn’s other blade stabbed into the wall, and he jumped from blade to blade, running along the edge of the wall and directly toward the horde. Using the very last of his stamina, he dove forward, rolling across the ground. Kyyle’s still-warm blood splashed his shirt and arms. Finn fumbled inside the earth mage’s robes, his fingers slippery as he looked for that damnable token.
The chittering had grown even louder, the beetles only a few feet away now. They seemed to sense Finn’s body heat, changing course until they were headed directly toward him, a roiling mass of chitin and gnashing pincers.
Then Finn’s hand closed around a familiar object.
He ripped it from Kyyle’s pocket, his hands drenched in blood. He managed to touch the token to his own just as claws sliced through his tunic, leaving a line of burning marks along his chest and neck.
Awaken Online: Ember (Tarot #1) Page 37
