Book 2: Chapters 11: Entry

  There was no warning right before. They were just about to call it a night and start settling in to get some rest when it finally happened.

  A sudden flash, and then a change in the light around Holly’s form where she sat cultivating. The wind picked up, not like weather, intentional like the lungs of a giant were filling with air and sweeping along the world with it. Wind spiraled, tight and focused, around Holly’s body where she sat meditating. Aether shimmered in the air, the translucent streaks of soft teal and silver coiling upward in a spiral and then meeting at the gate at the back of her neck.

  Alex stood up slowly. The others had noticed too and were all standing as well. Even Devon stopped mid-stroke on an aether crystal in his hand.

  “What the hell...” Garret breathed.

  Strangely, the wind didn’t buffet them. Instead, it avoided them. Every gust, every pulse of Wind Aether spiraled only around Holly, drawing toward her and wrapping around her form. Then something stranger happened.

  Golden light flared to life in the air above her head. It crackled and pulsated erratically like divine static, the glow was bright enough to leave afterimages burned into their vision. The light acted unlike any illumination Alex had seen before, it wasn’t warm, and it wasn’t cold. It was almost... alive.

  Alex felt a chill in his spine just looking at the energy.

  During this whole scene, Holly’s feet lifted off the ground by an inch. Her body now hovered, still cross-legged, suspended by aether currents alone. She looked as a beautifully detailed and yet scarily posed human-sized marionette, her form suspended skyward by strings that were hidden away from their mere mortal eyes. Her hair floated and danced weightlessly around her as though she were underwater, her face remained perfectly calm, her breath slow and rhythmic.

  It didn’t take any guesswork for Alex to know what was going on. She was crossing the threshold. The point between Mortal and the Adept Tier.

  The energy crescendoed. And then—

  Obby screamed.

  Well, not exactly screamed. Not audibly at least. But inside Alex’s mind, the little rock's voice surged with such intensity it felt like his skull would split open.

  "THE GOLD ENERGY. NOW. TAKE IT. TAKE IT. YOU HAVE TO!"

  Alex staggered from the sudden mental attack, clutching the side of his head. “Shut up. Obby, what the hell are you doing?”

  "CAPTURE IT! STORE IT! BEFORE IT DISPERSES! WE NEED IT."

  Alex looked at the arcs of golden energy spiraling from the sky and around Holly. It wasn’t stable energy. It came and went, flickering like the remnants of some kind of broken, dying star. His hand hovered over his left bracer, where the two aether gems sat waiting. It had held plenty of energy before, in each of the gems. He drew on that energy in fight when he needed, for his spells, or fueling his body. But, he had no idea if it could handle this. The energy that flashed over Holly seemed far beyond just Adept Tier aether, he didn’t even know if it was aether at all, or something else entirely. But the tone in Obby’s words...it wasn’t just desperate. It almost felt afraid.

  Alex hesitated.

  “What’s wrong?” Allie asked quietly beside him.

  But by then the moment had passed.

  The golden light flickered one final time and vanished. The wind ceased. Holly lowered back to the ground, her eyes fluttered open slowly. A ripple of energy burst out from her core, subtle but sharp like the whole kobold camp flinched at once.

  Her Mage Core had changed. She had changed. The clearing remained quiet for a breath.

  Is this what my change felt like? No, I don’t remember any golden energy. Any pulse. The others would have felt something like that. This is what the process is like for people with Mage Cores, mine is definitely different.

  Then Garret clapped. “HOLLY! Hell yes! Did you feel that? You were floating! That was some anime-level shit right there!”

  Thanks to Garret’s antics, the tension broke. Allie rushed in and hugged Holly before she could even stand. Even Henry cracked the faintest hint of a smile.

  “Holy hell,” Devon muttered. “That was the Adept breakthrough, wasn’t it?”

  Holly looked dazed. “I... I think so. I didn’t force it. It just... happened. It felt like the wind itself was calling me forward. Like the sky wanted me to step up.”

  They all were poking and prodding, looking Holly over like a strange zoo exhibit. Eventually Holly checked her System logs. Sure enough, a new notification had appeared on Holly’s Status Sheet.

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  “It says, “Mage Core Tier Advanced: Adept – Air Attunement Confirmed. Mage Core – E Grade; Air (33%)”,” Holly read off the notification for everyone.

  The stat distribution, though, was the real surprise. Just like Alex’s own progression with his aether attuned body ability, Holly’s breakthrough rewarded her with stat increases. It wasn’t nearly as much as Alex had gotten, but his were also spread out over time slowly, Holly seemed to get all her’s at once. But that wasn’t the only difference.

  “Wait,” Devon said, mouth hanging open as he ran the numbers on his head, “this isn’t like Alex’s balanced boost that he told us about. This is weighted.”

  Holly raised an eyebrow. “You’re right, my stats didn’t all go up equally. Weighted how though, what’s the criteria?”

  “Well, your Agility and Intelligence just spiked. Like a lot. Everything else got a smaller nudge. I think the System prioritizes stats based on your elemental attunement.” Alex added, once he too, did the quick math.

  “Wind being... speed, reaction, awareness?” Cole asked.

  “Exactly. Makes sense in a terrifying kind of way.” Alex shrugged.

  Everyone buzzed with questions about how the process felt, theories of the stat distributions for other elements, and of course congratulations for Holly.

  Everyone except Obby.

  He sulked and seethed inside Alex’s mind. Alex could feel the tiny rock’s mood like a migraine with claws. He was a consciousness in the form of an angry honey badger throwing a tantrum inside Alex’s soulspace.

  “You hesitated. You failed.”

  Alex tightened his fists. You’ve never acted like that before, Obby. You were screaming, panicking.

  “And now we’re behind. You think this was just about her? That energy was loose, available. You were supposed to take it. That moment won’t come so easy again.”

  Alex turned away from the group, from the smiles and excitement of all his friends as they still whooped and hollered around the wind mage. His eyes trailed to the patch of grass where the gold had vanished.

  Whatever that energy was, it wasn’t just part of the System. It was something else. Alex couldn’t say how he knew, or what exactly he had felt while watching Holly’s breakthrough. But his sixth sense regarding aether energy told him that golden power was different. Deeper. Wilder.

  And Obby wanted it badly.

  Which scared the hell out of him.

  ***

  Dim torchlight flickered along the rocky walls, casting shifting shadows out over the entire room. The cavern just in front of the Dark Den Dungeon’s entrance was abuzz with nervous energy. They had their packs checked, weapons tested and cleaned, aether crystals double-checked and glowing steadily in the low light.

  The mouth of the stone-carved serpent head loomed just ahead of them all. Giving the image of a yawning black wound in the stone, ringed all around with remnants of half-dead moss and old kobold-style carvings.

  One by one, the squad stepped forward. Garret hummed a battle song under his breath, his performance off-key, nervous. Devon was muttering spell sequences like a mantra, looking over the aether crystals Alex had help him etch. Allie silently practiced the aether cycle patterns for her spells. Peter pulled at the collar of his robe. Even Kate fidgeted with her gloves, just once.

  They were ready, and they were not ready. And that was the point.

  Alex stood back from them, arms crossed, watching. He didn’t move, didn’t speak. At least not yet. His instinct screamed to call them back. That they wouldn’t make it, not without him there. To go in first. To shield them, and lead them, but this wasn’t his dungeon.

  Not this time.

  “Alright,” Eric said, stepping forward, his tone carrying just enough authority. “Stick to the plan. No solo heroics, Garret. Watch each other’s backs.”

  Zach nodded. Lance slapped his curved sword against Garret’s shield once, for luck. Henry gave a small bow of the head. Tom-Tom adjusted the strap of his pan and whispered something like a prayer to a kobold kitchen god.

  They turned to face Alex.

  “We’ll see you soon,” Holly said, softer than usual.

  “Sooner if it’s awful in there,” Garret added. “Or if Tom-Tom eats something he shouldn’t again.”

  “No promises!” Tom-Tom beamed.

  Alex stepped forward at last. He looked at each of them, really looked. At their faces, their stances, the subtle tension in shoulders and fingers. They were scared. Of course they were. But beneath the nerves, they stood taller than they had a week ago. Stronger and sharper. Confident from the many hours of gruely training Alex had forced them through.

  Not only soldiers anymore. Not just survivors, either.

  Alex gave a short nod. “You’ve trained hard. Trust your instincts. Trust each other more. And if any of you die in there, I swear to whatever gods this place has, I’ll resurrect you just to kick your ass.”

  “Spoken like a true brother,” Lance grinned.

  They turned toward the dark.

  Devon paused just before the threshold. “You really not coming in with us?”

  Alex shook his head. “Not allowed. This dungeon doesn’t have anything for me now. I cleared it. Now it’s yours.”

  Despite all that training they did, Alex still felt like he should have helped them more. But he did everything he could. He had tried even telling them what to expect in the dungeon, give them the solutions to the second floor puzzle rooms. But he couldn’t.

  For whatever reason, when Alex tried to discuss details of the dungeon with any of them, they didn’t seem to understand his words. Apparently he just spoke gibberish to their ears. It was the same with writing it down, or any other method they could think of.

  Eventually, Alex had to just chalk it up to weird magical System fuckery, and leave it at that. So he focused on their training and cultivation instead. Leading Holly to her breakthrough last night. None of the others managed to reach the threshold, but a few were very close. Those Essence Fragments made a huge difference it seemed.

  The group stood there a moment longer, then moved forward. And Alex just watched. One by one, the shadows swallowed them. Until only silence remained. He stood there a long while after they vanished.

  The air inside the cavern rustled. A simple draft stirring, nudging the torches in the sconces. Somewhere behind him, a kobold child called for their sibling.

  But Alex stayed still.

  Letting go wasn’t easy. It didn’t feel like triumph. It felt like a hollow ache settling in his soulspace, like passing off a cherished item that had always been his, to someone else. It wasn’t about the dungeon, it was about the people who just wanted into it. He felt like he was handing off their safety to someone else after having been worried about rescuing them for so many days straight.

  Now it was just on them. But it was right. He trusted them. Trusted their will, their growth. Trusted the blood and sweat they’d spilled together. They were ready, they had to be.

  So he turned, alone now, and walked away from the dungeon's edge, leaving the next chapter of their journey in their own hands.