by Eric Vall
I caught Braden’s eye as he took in the sights.
“I forgot you haven’t seen it from this end yet,” I said with a grin.
Braden nodded, and a smirk curled onto his thick lips. “It’s certainly an interesting view.”
“Yeah, it is,” I agreed. “Just wait until the good stuff starts.”
My friend chuckled and continued to look around until the mysterious announcer man made his comeback.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen! Are you ready for round two?” he asked, and the crowd roared in response. He let the hype die out before he continued. “Tonight we have a whole new set of Takers ready to set out to pass the Magicae Nito. Please join me in giving a warm welcome to our next team: John Childs, third year, air elementalist, Tibby Mouser, fourth year, banisher, Layla Bethel, first year, summoner, and Stella Brahm, third year, augmenter.”
The Takers lined up as Braden’s squad had the night before outside of the mock rift gate. Layla was tiny compared to her teammates. Even the other two girls were tall, maybe even as tall as I was. I knew Layla was sturdy and could hold her own, but I still worried.
“Vanguard, on your marks!” The announcer guy called, and Layla and this John guy put on their masks. I watched as Layla checked her pouch one last time before she took a deep breath and nodded. She raised her arm to signal she was ready, and John did as well.
“The Magicae Nito begins in three… two… one!” the announcer yelled, and the crowd hollered as fireworks exploded into the sky above us. Layla and John entered the Shadowscape, and the dome changed to mimic the inside so that we could see what they saw.
“It’s different from the one I was in, I think,” Braden gasped.
It was. Whereas Braden’s Shadowscape looked like a rundown, abandoned city or, at the very least, a well-established village, Layla’s looked to be more scenic. Geysers erupted from all sides, and there were cracks in the ground that dropped off into steep waterfalls. It was awesome to look at, but I imagined territory like that was terrifying to battle in. It was unpredictable and, from the looks of it, unstable.
“It’s to keep spectators who are also participating in the Magicae Nito from having any kind of advantage,” Nia explained. “It keeps the exam fair for everyone.”
I looked over at Braden, and we nodded in unison. “That makes sense.”
They had been in there for less than a minute and barely scoped the area before John motioned for Stella and Tibby to follow after them.
“What is he doing?” Nia questioned skeptically. “He didn’t even check the perimeter. That’s the whole point of the vanguard.”
“It’s not our exam.” I shrugged. “I just hope it works out for them and doesn’t negatively affect Layla.”
Nia hummed skeptically and kept a close eye on the squad. The other two girls entered, but as soon as they had, the water that had rushed alongside the gate began to flow more quickly. In fact, all the rivers that ran through the cracks had begun to flow faster, and towards a common destination: the waterfall.
“Oh, that’s not good.” I heard Cyra mutter from the other side of Maelor, and the rest of us nodded. The Shadowscape shook violently, and from the depths of the runoff emerged a giant, watery fiend. The more water it gathered, the more massive it grew, until the top of its head reached the peak of the cliff. Limbs and appendages made of liquid created a solidified golem with no face.
“I wonder what they are going to do?” I gasped as my heart hammered in my chest. I was normally calm and collected when my own life was on the line, but I couldn’t help but fear for my friends when I couldn’t protect them.
“It wouldn’t be an issue for me,” Nia commented quietly. I could tell she wanted to boast that she had the ability to redirect and produce lightning, so something like this was more like a giant, walking target for her, but she didn’t want to take away from the potentially dire situation Layla was in.
“She could use her venotox and maybe poison the water supply,” Braden suggested. “If the supply is poisoned, maybe the monster itself will become poisoned as well.
Nia nodded as she considered that option. “It could have the reverse effect, though. There’s a chance that the monster would take on the venom as an additional property, and then the golem just becomes an expansive pool of toxic acid.”
I huffed and ran my hands through my hair. Of all the things for Layla to go up against, it was this golem thing. Why couldn’t it have been a pyrewyrm? At least I knew she could handle that.
I watched as Layla pointed toward the outside right. There was a small, discreet path that bridged over the river that dropped off into a waterfall. Whether that was the direction the catalyst was in remained to be determined, but it was the only visible path over the gap, and the banisher seemed adamant that it was on the other side.
The banisher and the augmenter slipped away toward their goal, and only Layla and John remained to deal with the looming threat. To Layla’s left, John cockily smirked and drew closer to the edge, and thusly, the water golem. Layla looked displeased at whatever conversation had transpired, and she rolled her eyes. She drew a crystal from her pouch and tossed the crystal that contained her hippocrans to the ground. It sprang into existence and dipped low enough for Layla to climb onto its back.
She rode the armored mammoth monster like a steed through rupturing geysers and avoided the crevasses in the earth like a champion rider. They came to a skidding stop at the edge of the cliff where the water golem simply looked at them. Well, “looked” was an assumption, as it didn’t have eyes to see with, but its blobby head was tilted toward her location.
Slowly, it reached a hand up, and its fingers wiggled as though it was excited to grab hold of something, anything. Layla turned her hippocrans and backed off without an attack. I was about to question why when I realized that she was doing what John had failed to in the first place: canvas the area.
“Oh, you clever girl.” I smirked.
Nia glanced at me. “You see it, too?” she asked.
I nodded, pleased with myself, and with Layla.
“See what?” Braden looked between the two of us, confused.
“See him?” I pointed to the water golem, and Braden nodded. “He isn’t going anywhere.”
Rocky terrain surrounded the water golem on all sides, and with the water supply from the river basin and waterfall completely sucked up, there were no resources left that would allow it to grow anymore. It reached up in an attempt to climb from the pit, but there wasn’t enough purchase to grasp or step onto without immediately sliding back. As long as it remained in the pit, it was trapped, and Layla and the rest of the squad would have the advantage of the high ground. It left them plenty of time for the banisher and augmenter to seek and destroy the catalyst. All Layla and John had to do was hold out. Easy.
Layla rode the hippocrans away, back to the gate, and rendezvoused with John. They talked for a moment, presumably to devise a plan of action when the water golem brought its fist into the side of the cliff nearest them.
The ground shook, and Layla gripped her hippocrans for dear life as she tried to keep it under control. Again, the water golem punched the side of the cliff, cracking stone and sending more tremors through the battlefield. Then again, and again, until finally, it got what it had been aiming for.
All that time, despite Layla’s desperate attempts to get John’s attention with waving arms and shouts, the elementalist seemed fine with simply waiting.
The golem had created a massive hole in the side of the cliff, but more importantly, it had found a secondary water source. Maybe a pocket of groundwater hidden behind the rock, or maybe another unseen river. At first, it was only a trickle, but suddenly, it gushed water like a broken dam.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I groaned into my palms. There was no organization to the team and no sense of urgency, despite Layla’s desperate attempts to take action and form some sort of plan.
The ground beneath thei
r feet rumbled again as the now-enlarged water golem slammed a gigantic hand down on the crag and began its climb out of the pit. Layla gritted her teeth, snapped something at John, and then rode off atop her hippocrans once again. When she was still a good distance away from the water golem, she balanced herself atop its back and stood. Then she plucked another crystal from her pocket and took a long, steadying breath.
In one swift, fluid motion, she brought her hands together and smashed the crystal. A silvery light billowed from between them, and then there was nothing. Nothing happened.
“What the hell?” I gestured wildly to the dome.
“Did she buy a faulty crystal?” Nia asked.
I shrugged. I didn’t even know if that was possible. I knew that there were crystals that were used simply for jewelry or decoration, but I had never heard of an essence crystal that didn’t have anything in it. She would have been able to tell. After all, summoners can feel the presence of monsters within them before they’re ever summoned.
“Look closely,” Cyra said as she suddenly squirmed up at my other side, and she pointed to the area above Layla’s head. The three of us leaned closer and peered hard into the mock Shadowscape. It took me a minute to see it finally, but when I did, I was blown away. It wasn’t a large monster, at least, not on a scale in comparison to the water golem, but it moved so fast that it appeared to be able to teleport. For all we knew, it could.
“It’s invisible!” I exclaimed and also pointed as if that would suddenly make it visible to everyone else. In reality, the only visible part of it was a faint, silvery outline of a large bat, and what appeared to be purple and yellow static electricity buzz around its wings.
“Keichims,” Cyra called them. “They’re actually more like familiars rather than monsters. They can shrink and grow in size.”
“Like Kalon?” I asked. As if on cue, the tiny silver dragon poked its head out from beneath Cyra’s collar with a yawn.
“Yup. Exactly like Kalon.” Cyra snorted and dragged the tip of her finger over the top of the dragon’s little head.
I smiled a little but was quick to turn my attention back to Layla. She still didn’t look as though she had any real plan, but she had such a fierce look of determination on her face that I almost didn’t recognize her.
She brought her arms up, and suddenly she was lifted off the top of her hippocrans by the keichim. She screamed something, and her mammoth hippocrans was recalled.
The water golem finally climbed from its rocky prison and began its advance on Layla. It bowed its head at her and unleashed a stream of water from the top, like a water spout. Layla and the keichim were able to dodge it with ease, and it was a good thing they did. As the water made contact with the ground, it began to bubble and create steam. It melted anything it touched on contact and essentially turned it into boiling mud.
“Gross,” Nia commented and grimaced.
I rolled my eyes teasingly. “That is not the nastiest thing you’ve seen a monster do.”
“That’s not the point,” Nia argued and twisted her hands together. She was nervous for Layla, too.
As Layla hung onto the feet of the keichim, it shot a bolt of ball lightning at the water golem. It hit the monster square in the chest, and it staggered back as the electricity coursed through its liquid body.
“Yes!” I cheered, but it turned out to be pre-emptive. The water golem shook it off after a moment and shot another stream of water from the top of its head. Layla and the keichim were able to dodge again, but they wouldn’t be able to keep up the game of cat and mouse for long.
Out of the corner of my vision, I saw John race toward Layla’s location with a renewed sense of vigor. He’d used the surrounding air to propel himself across the Shadowscape’s cracks and crevasses, almost flying in the process. When he finally reached her, he shouted something to her, and she nodded.
The keichim flew up high above the water golem with Layla still grimly holding on to its feet. Its wings began to flicker back and forth from purple to yellow as it gathered energy in its wings. Meanwhile, on the ground, John closed his eyes and started to rotate his arms in front of him in a circular motion. I couldn’t make out what he was doing initially, but after I took a moment to study his movements, it occurred to me that the air above the water golem had also begun to rotate.
As the wind pattern shifted, the water that the golem was comprised off started to become unstable within its solidified confines. The churning water created waves and started to spiral and rotate along with the air current.
The water golem stopped its advance. It must have realized that its integrity had been compromised. With an enraged stomp, the water golem shook the ground, but John was unphased. I thought that was odd, but then I saw why. He wasn’t on the ground. He had managed to keep himself afloat while he created what essentially looked like a natural disaster.
Above them, Layla’s keichim had gathered enough energy that it surrounded them in a giant ball of lightning, and I swore that I could hear the buzz of the static even from out here in the stands. The keichim flapped its wings wildly to keep from getting sucked into the storm that brewed from the ground up.
Finally, a dark cloud formed between the keichim and Layla and the water golem. It started to collect the water and trap it inside like any other cloud would do on an overcast day. Before long, the water golem had turned from a giant monster with the intent to kill to a swirling water cyclone that was being controlled by the air elementalist.
When the cyclone was nice and tight, the keichim reared back and dove toward the eye of the storm at full speed. Its large wingspan somehow cut through the wind shear with no trouble.
The ball of electrical energy collided with the rapidly spinning water. Lightning raced along the current and spider-webbed until it encompassed the cyclone. All the energy from the storm now tightly spun into a giant mass, and it had nowhere to go but out.
The whole Shadowscape shook violently as the storm exploded outward. Hundreds of more cracks split the tortured earth, and spots that used to be geysers in the ground turned into large lakes of hot water in one violent flash.
Amidst the destruction, though, I only had one thought.
“Where is Layla?” I asked, and my voice sounded different to my own ears.
I looked at Nia, who seemed to realize that she also hadn’t seen her get away from the explosion, then to Braden, then Maelor and Cyra. My stomach lurched.
“Really? No one has seen her?” I asked again, this time more frantic. No way. No way did she stay on that bat thing with the knowledge it was going to cause such a massive explosion.
For a split second, before the catalyst was destroyed and the mock Shadowscape was filled with light, I saw the outline of Layla’s keichim dive for the ground, and the faint image of Layla mid-descent holding out her arms. Then everything went blank, and I couldn’t see a thing.
As soon as the rift closed and the Shadowscape vanished, I was on my feet. I didn’t wait for anyone to follow, nor did I heed them when they called after me. Hell, I didn’t even give the announcer a chance to declare that the round was over before I was halfway down the stairs. My heart raced, and my hands shook.
“Please let her be okay,” I chanted over and over again in my head as I rounded the corner to the arena dome entrance.
My breath lodged in my throat. There she was. Layla Bethel was alive. She was bloody, surely bruised, and definitely sapped of mana, but she was alive.
I didn’t wait for anyone to tell me I couldn’t be there, nor did I care if I was allowed to be or not in the first place. I jumped the arena fence, rolled on the ground, and sprang to my feed before I rushed to her.
She took a few shaky steps towards me and then smiled as I caught her in my arms and held her as tightly as I could.
“Crazy girl,” I whispered in her ear as I hugged her.
“Hey, just trying to be more like you,” she laughed softly, and then her eyes closed.
Chapt
er 8
As I held Layla in my arms, tension that I hadn’t realized built up along my spine began to relax, and I started to sag as I cradled her head to my chest. I was suddenly ambushed with a wave of unpleasant thoughts, like trying to remember the last time I had held her and simply existed in the same space as her without any sexual context or expectations. What if that time had been the last time? What would I have done?
My relief gradually shifted to anger though not towards Layla. When I looked up, my eyes caught John’s, and I stiffened again. It was because of him that her life was put in danger in the first place. Not just Layla’s even, but his life and the rest of his team’s, too.
I bristled, and John seemed to notice. He averted his gaze, but I knew he could still feel my eyes on him.
“Mr. Gryff, step aside.” I barely registered my name as Meriden’s voice drew my attention away from John. I moved on autopilot and did as she asked so that she could check over Layla. When she was done, Meriden signaled to have a few of the other medics come over.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. My voice still sounded distant. I felt Nia and Braden step up beside me.
“Relax, Mr. Gryff.” Meriden smiled softly, and I did feel more at ease with the knowledge that whatever it was wasn’t serious. “Her mana is pretty low, but not at a dangerous level yet. We’re going to get her some rest and a couple revitalizing tonics, and she’ll be good as new.”
I closed my eyes with a long, quiet sigh.
“Thanks, Meriden.” I smiled as I opened my eyes again.
Meriden patted my shoulder as she scooted by and helped usher Layla along before she tended to the other members of her squad.
