Chapter 6
“The resulting century of war as the Varaelfin shook off their chains was apocalyptic. Billions were slain. Planets were cracked. Even the stars themselves were sundered. But despite the price, the Varaelfin, now barely more than a legion in strength, eventually reached their victory and shattered the last Ponadar upon the mountains of Alvarhain, heralding the age that we all live in now. An age in which the God Reavers’ pacts and deeds have been purposefully lost to time, and a vigilant eye remains to ensure they are never again discovered.”
—Classified Manuscript #1564, Part Three, Author Redacted
Lines of blood trickled from the hundreds of tiny wounds he’d suffered on his fight through the labyrinth, stretching out into thread-thin lines of red as the gravity well on the far wall pulled on them. That blood, it was him, just as surely as his magic was him and his body was him. Which meant it was his to command.
Snarling, he swept his arms to one side, and the blood leapt to follow. Each line of it was him, so each line of it could be invested with all the weight that he could direct into any given part of his body. As the blood hit the stone, it carved through. One leg, then two, then all of the legs holding the closest of the spider constructs gave way under the crushing pressure concentrated down into the thinnest of lines. The spells it had been trying to muster dissolved into nothing, the embedded leg holding it in place on the floor lost its grip as it lost its tip, and the carved remains went tumbling back to crush the small constructs scrambling to get out of its way.
He flung it back the other way with the very same force, the crushing weight of all the gravity he could impart on his blood refined down to a slender line of force. The other spider construct suffered the same fate as the first, shattered apart into a rain of chunks. All the smaller constructs caught in the path of the blood fell apart, too, and after raking it across the mass of them, from side to side, there were only a few twitching remnants of them left over. What should have been a battle had become a massacre.
Alright, darling, I can’t guarantee that there isn’t going to be any interference, but I do believe that I’ve mapped enough of the layout to place a good bet on our way out.
“Point me to it.” Sylvas drew the blood back into his body, letting his wounds close, refusing to think about what he’d just done. What he was now capable of doing.
An image projected onto his vision of the predicted exit. It was directly up, not just the few floors that they had descended since arriving but a half-dozen more.
The air pressure and gravity are consistent with us being a significant distance underground, so I assume that our exit is—
“Up.”
Sylvas gathered his power and began to cast. It started with a gravity shear, then he began to introduce elements of a gravity spike into the spell, specifically the narrow range of effect that he achieved with the focused version. All of which was fine and well, but it still lacked the final vital component that he wanted to bestow on it. The world spun, it rotated through space, and that had something to do with gravity. He just hadn’t quite worked out how to manifest it.
He was able to fake it through inequal distribution of weight, or by throwing some kinesis into the casting, but he knew that there was something in gravity that allowed him to create this spin he wanted this spell to have, and he paused there, in the midst of his grand escape, to tinker with the spell, to feel out where the rotation could be found, and to alter the words of power that he spoke to incorporate it. Then, when it was all done, he christened the new spell: Gravity Drill.
He launched it up, holding his hand steady above his head as he poured mana into the spell. It wasn’t as efficient as he knew he’d eventually make it, but it did what he needed it to for now. As it spun, he drifted slowly upwards until it bit into the stone overhead. Dust rained down, but caught in the spin of the miniaturized shear, it was flung out around Sylvas instead of falling down onto him. He’d initially believed that the spell would need more mana once it encountered resistance, so he was surprised to discover that it went on spinning and digging exactly the same regardless of whether it was moving through solid stone or open air.
Where the cone of spinning force touched stone, the stone was abraded away, surface fragments dragged into a whirlwind spin around the outside of it, abrading off bigger and bigger pieces, using the stone itself to form the drill that would break apart the stone. Sylvas surged up, pushing harder and faster, just waiting for resistance he’d have to brute force past, but it didn’t arrive. The stone parted before his spell like butter around a hot knife, and he rose, bursting first into an open passageway that looked suspiciously like the dozens he’d toured while on the first level of the labyrinth, then on again, heading straight up towards the exit without a second thought as to what he was destroying on the way. If they hadn’t wanted him to tear their ancient labyrinth apart, they shouldn’t have trapped him inside it. Bursting through onto the next level revealed an entirely new aspect to the place, everything shimmering and crystalline. Rainbows refracted through the constructs that came skittering across towards him, forged not from stone as their predecessors had been, but from beautiful transparent crystal, each one looking like the pinnacle of the art of glass blowing. Magic rippled around them as they prepared their spells, but Sylvas barely spared them a second look before continuing up into the roof above.
Almost immediately, they broke through again, more crystal-lined walls, this time illuminated from within by a crackling red lightning. The constructs now seemed less like spiders or machines and more liquid. They slithered around, taking up positions to catch Sylvas in the crossfire of their spells before he once again vanished, heading straight up into the ceiling.
None of the constructs seemed to have a behavior determined for when their prey vanished into the ceiling, and the delay as they tried to work out what the hell had just happened was more than sufficient for Sylvas to get himself entirely clear of the whole mess. Floor by floor, they leapt to attack as he passed through and found no opportunity before he was gone again. One level was entirely flooded, and he passed through it in a swift whirlpool of motion, dumping the rest of the water back down the shaft he’d dug up and washing any constructs foolish enough to give chase up into the higher levels back down into the depths where they belonged. Onward and upward through crystal and stone, graceful carvings, intricate murals, beautiful bastions of history, he shredded them as he passed. The fragmentary stones ripped from the ceiling above embedded in the embellishments as he gave not a single backwards glance.
Through thicker strata of stone, he continued to rise, touching only briefly on what seemed to now be the outer limits of the labyrinth. An alien place compared to the first few floors, all white marble and golden lightning trapped within it. Pillars wrapped in gold circlets of entwined wire shattered and unleashed the storm in his wake as he rose from amongst them, but that same lightning was drawn into the tempest he’d conjured overhead. The lightning leapt, only for the whorl of gravity to snare it and drag it into orbit around the drill. He rose through that trap meant to keep him from digging his way out with as much ease as he had all the previous layers, and as he rose, he just went on gaining speed. The next floor that he hit was more fully occupied than those he’d encountered before, and unlike the animate statuary that he’d faced off with down in the deep basements, these were living, breathing creatures—presumably the creation of someone with a life affinity, given how little the winged reptilian forms seemed to match up with any known animal.
They swept in at him, less coordinated than the automatons but infinitely more vicious and voracious. They had no care for their own survival, just a desperate need to kill him. Unfortunately for them, a little more care for their own survival probably would have served them better. There was a churning lightning storm surrounding Sylvas now, all the discharged power of the floor below, and as the little brightly colored lizards darted in, baring their venomous fangs, they hit that umbrella of electricity and went from delicate greens to blackened husks as they tumbled away. On Sylvas went, still rising, still feeling no need to stop and contend with anything that had been arrayed against him.
As the dried-out blood of the lizards spattered against the walls and floor, that strange sensation returned within Sylvas. Spilled blood seemed to awaken the eidolon that he had bound inside. He ignored it. He tried to force Strife out of his thoughts and out of his awareness, but while he could use his Paradigms to filter it out and pretend it wasn’t there, he realized it was too dangerous a course. Ignoring the enemy within would just give it free rein to do as it pleased.
You didn’t seem to mind giving it a little loose leash when you were doing your little blood puppetry a moment ago.
Sylvas had no time to speak to her. Not when he had the spell to maintain. He didn’t want the eidolon, but if it gave him power, he’d be stupid not to use it. Just until he found a way to excise it from his soul.
Floor by floor, he blasted up through the labyrinth’s endless layers until finally, there were no more floors to break through, just a solid expanse of stone giving away to dirt, then tangled roots, pipes and wires, and concrete foundations. He burst through the surface of the planet like a star falling in reverse. He exploded through the street, sending elves screaming and scattering away from him as he rose. He let the spell fall away, casting a glance around the terrified strangers he’d just emerged amidst. They were running, screaming. Children were being scooped up in their parents’ arms and carried away. He was the monster that would haunt their nightmares, just as the eidolons had plagued his.
He caught only a brief glimpse of it all—the frightened civilians, the opaque and intricate architecture of what was clearly an elven planet with a pale green sky—and then he was swallowed up in a teleportation spell. Delivered back into absolute darkness for just an instant before the floor gave out beneath him, dumping him back into the cell where he’d begun.
The metal grating beneath the entrance was all too familiar at this point. The labyrinth had not been the first of the tests inflicted on him. Kaya hurried forward to help him up, even as Malachai tried to fling himself up into the airlock that had just dropped him. The necromancer was too slow, just as he always was. His outstretched hand scraped over the rusted metal as the only way into the warded cell snapped shut again. He landed by Sylvas’ side, cursing.
Kaya clapped a hand on his back. “Welcome home, stanzbhur.”
