A Second Generation Whateley Academy Adventure

Lady of the Ring

by

MaLAguA

 

Part 4

 

Saturday, November 5, 2016 - 5:29 pm
The tunnels, Forgeroom 5 (B1)

“Come on, come on… Where are you?” Caro muttered, spending what felt like too long kneeling hunched over the forge’s gutter, with her phone’s camera hanging upside down casting a light into it. There was a broken knife, a couple of coins and a lump of lead that was probably leftover material improperly disposed of -but no golden ring.

“Do you see it?” Morgana asked Caro, trying unsuccessfully to peer over her shoulder.

“I don’t,” Caro answered. It was already upsetting to not see her new ring in the immediate vicinity of the gutter and if her pet didn’t come back with it, she might as well consider the thing as lost, which was particularly frustrating. “Two hundred bucks…” slipped off her lips

“Down the gutter?” Morgana chimed in only to get a frown from Caro. “I mean, at least it’s cheaper than I thought it would be.”

“Yeah… but it’s not normal to just fork out that number. I’m not in Melville,” Caro sighed, pushing herself back to lean against the wall. It wasn’t just the money that bothered as much as the mess she’d made… and that her creation had run off.

“And it didn’t go easily…” Morgana muttered seeing the dented tray that had fallen off the table and the scorch marks that now stained the anvil. “And at least, you still have the spare, right?”

“Oh, I still do,” Caro muttered as she reached into her pants’ pocket to produce the second ring. A cute thing that was soft to the touch and smooth on its surfaces. Grimma did such a wonderful job giving it those finishing treatments. “I’ll have to figure out what went wrong first… Though I would prefer if we could find the one we just enchanted.”

“Can’t you just summon Grimma and have her do what she did with the hammer?” Morgana suggested.

“I thought of it,” Caro muttered, pushing herself up after slipping the ring back into the pocket. She held her words to let the silence seep in for a few seconds before answering. “But I can’t hear Grimma at the moment.”

“Is she okay? I think I saw her step in between us at the moment of the blast.”

“She’s okay,” Caro reassured, looking at her hand as some of her magic was called forth. Whether Grimma being gone or not would deny her the power, she was unsure. “Apparently, the blast has sent her away scattered or maybe she’s just hanging back waiting for the moment to make a dramatic appearance…”

“What is it?” Morgana said, noticing how the sophomore had trailed off, her gaze drifting to the gutter.

“My pet is back,” Caro said as she stepped back with hope as a rat peeked its head and climbed out the gutter. From first glance it was apparent that it wasn’t a real creature. Of unnatural pitch black fur, it exuded black and green dust in every bit of movement.

Caro picked up her conjured mascot with a bit of uneasiness, even if the critter was a manifestation by her powers. She would’ve preferred some other animal, but given the size and the environment, a rat was the perfect one.

The rat stood tranquil in Caro’s hands staring into her eyes with its own green beady ones. As if the two were exchanging information without uttering a word. Though Morgana could see that the rat wasn’t carrying a ring, the report was predictable.

“Alright… thank you,” Caro said. Upon the utterance of a word, the critter bowed as its body dissolved into the soot and darkness that created it.

“No ring?” Morgana asked.

“No ring…” Caro said, dusting off her fingers. “It searched down the gutters around the forge but didn’t find it. It could’ve only slipped into a connecting pipe that apparently housed some AC system. Needless to say, my soot rat couldn’t step in.”

“Well, at least it's somewhere,” Morgana muttered. “Are you gonna go looking for it?”

“And what? Try to break the pipes to get the ring?” Caro thought, not dismissing the idea.

“Well, worse things have happened around here… I’ve heard. But, more importantly, I don’t feel comfortable letting what did this,” she said, raising up the dented tray, “be left within the pipeline.”

“I know…” Caro muttered. There was bitterness in her voice as she clearly didn’t want to go through this entire hunt down the tunnels for the lost ring, but there was no choice. If it was both unstable and powerful, she feared the worst-case scenarios would range from tainting the school’s water supply to a sudden explosion.

“Well, then we can only go hunt for it. Just try to keep track of it, hoping that it’s stuck somewhere in the pipeline or ended up in the lower reservoirs. At which point our only concern is to get it out,” Caro said as she picked gold sticks that were a byproduct from the casting and threw them back into the melting pot.

Morgana raised an eyebrow. “And it won’t explode again?”

“Don’t remind me of that… I want to say it won’t. What happened was the expected release of energy once the enchantment was complete. But I won’t know for sure until I get my hands on it. Now can you please add in a little of your blood here?” she said.

“Again?” Morgana sighed.

“Sorry, but the scrying spell will be much more useful if it has in it the elements of what we’re searching for. We have the gold and my mana, now we need your blood,” Caro said as she recited a quiet spell upon the flames of the forge and saw them surge through.

“Okay, okay, fine. Let me handle the fiery part, at least.” Morgana offered as she took over. “So, I pour some of my blood in it, anything else?”

“Yeah…” Caro noted as she reached into the back area of the forge and produced two simple metal sticks. “Some hammering and this should do for a dowsing rod.”

“I guess there could be worse ideas,” Morgana joked.

“Once the gold is melted, we’ll dip the tip of these in,” Caro said as she moved the pieces of metal over to the anvil with the largest hammer she was allowed to wield.

Before starting, she took a moment to check her phone. “My friends should be over here soon; they could help us search.”

“I don’t think we have enough gold for multiple scrying items,” Morgana said, looking into the pot at the molten gold.

“We’ll have to figure something… hm… Suddenly I have no signal,” Caro muttered. Being a regular of the tunnels, she knew that, while strained at times, she should still get some coverage, thanks to the spread out web of routers. This was somewhat unsettling, but it couldn’t possibly be connected to her, right? She was dealing with magical forging, not something that would eat up the wi-fi.

“Ahem,” Morgana said as she moved closer to the anvil with the pot burning under her hand.

"Right on it."  Caro rested the rods on the anvil and began to hammer them.

Saturday, November 5, 2016 - 5:38 pm
The tunnels, security booth, (B2)

“Hm… any answer?” Gwen asked as she tapped the blast doors, only to hear the echoing thunk of the thick metal.

“No… No signal yet,” Chris muttered, fiddling with her phone settings.

“Think something is wrong?” Gwen sighed.

After a long afternoon traversing the parkour lab’s new configuration and hitting the shooting ranges, the two girls were expecting to meet up their friend at her forge to bear witness to her new creation: the supposed one ring. And, in Chris's case, actually try it out. And then, hopefully, a mellow afternoon watching movies and making plans for the next week.

Imagine their puzzlement when they dove into the tunnels and found their path blocked at the security checkpoint in the annex. In the path leading to Caro’s lab which wasn’t far from where the rented forge was. With the new guard on duty panicking within his booth as he tried to make some contact with the system. Which, in turn, prompted Gwen and Chris to try to contact their friend only to, predictably, discover that their phones weren’t getting any sort of read. And they weren’t the only ones: around were a bunch of students who were drawn in by curiosity also confirming that strange interference. Because of the lack of access to the Internet, many retreated back towards the surface.

“It doesn’t feel like the tunnels being weird…” Chris noted. Sure sometimes, the less traversed paths in this area could flip and switch, but creating a lockdown using the security’s checkpoints felt like a new one… The more plausible explanation was that students were having some sort of secret grudge match, probably a devisor that had learned the age-old tradition of the blackout protocol… And Caro just happened to get caught in between.

Chris turned towards Gwen, and both, seemingly on the same wavelength, nodded. As far as they knew, their friend hadn’t pissed off any devisors or gadgeteers as of recently, at least they imagined. But they needed to reach her.

The girl’s considerations were interrupted as the security guard emerged from his booth. He was a fresh face around here, as far as the girls could tell, and was feeling the pressure of someone who was way over his head in this trouble. With his phone in hand, a taser holster strapped onto his thigh and pouch to his belt, they surmised he was thinking of moving away from his post.

“No answer?” Chris asked, echoing their previous conversation when they first arrived.

“No. I can’t reach the other booths… So, I’ll have to go there myself and report on what’s going on,” The guy said.

“Alright,” Gwen said, giving her permission.

“Wait. Isn’t there a way of manually opening this?” Chris asked.

“If there is… I wasn’t briefed on it,” The guard answered, inwardly grumbling about barely being a couple of months into the job and dealing with what could well be some sort of emergency.

“So, you’re not sure if the other routes are open?” Chris added.

“I’m not certain. Maybe?” the guy said unsure.

“Maybe they are…” Gwen noted. “Because of the changes that take place the deeper we venture in the tunnels, it’s very unlikely that every one of those paths has been blocked.”

“Regardless,” the guard chimed in as he was already making his path away from the blocked entrance. “Don’t try anything. Just wait for me to tell my superiors about this.”

And with that he picked up the pace and turned around the corner. And the rest of the interest of those nearby easily ebbed, leading the crowd to disperse.

“Do you think he’ll get help?”

“A rookie? Wandering in the tunnels, probably with the map app offline?” Chris surmised. “He’s going to take a while.”

“Think Caro is in trouble?”

“I don’t know,” Chris said as she placed her hand on the metallic surface. “But we’re going to break through and see to the bottom of it, right?”

“Yeah…” Gwen agreed, albeit begrudgingly. “Even if this has nothing to do with us, we should, as Future Superheroes, at least, assess the situation and stop anyone who’s causing trouble.”

“So, we agree that these things have to be removed, right?” Chris said, tapping the steel wall, with a bit of a grin about her.

Gwen sighed, already knowing what Chris was thinking. “Fine, we can give your idea a go. If we don’t find a solution first.”

“Yes! Tank buster shell!” Chris celebrated as if she hadn’t heard her friend’s condition. Gwen covered her mouth.

“Not here…” Gwen said, looking around the corridor. “Not enough room… and we can’t be seen destroying Whateley property… again.”

“Ev-”

“Even if the cameras are offline.”

“Alright, let’s search for a way in…” Chris suggested as she immediately led her friend down a nearby corridor, seemingly at random.

Saturday, November 5, 2016 - 5:47 pm
The tunnels, security annex, western edge (B3)

“Well shoot…” Wisp muttered. “He really locked us in…”

“Yeah… That's great…” Thumper grumbled. Before them was the same entrance they’d used to access the tunnels for the meeting with Stark. It was an open passage that rested at the back of a room which, much like all the other places on this section of the tunnels, had fallen in disuse, practically emptied. Crossing the threshold,all they needed to do was take a couple of turns and a stairway up to the surface. Instead, they found a dead end as a thick steel curtain had descended and locked in its path. “Twerp really made it hard for us to get out…” Thumper noted as she stepped back to reveal the end result of her efforts to break through, just about a dent that, if anything, would get in the way of the blast doors retraction.

“Well… we did kinda goad him into doing it,” Firestep muttered as she twisted her ankle in brief preparation before springing out for a hard fiery kick… But of course, if Thumper couldn’t do much, her impact only got the pieces of metal to rattle like concatenated gongs being rung. But still not creating an avenue through which to escape. “It’s useless…”

“What do we do?” Wisp asked, there was a sense of growing concern in her voice. “Do we go back and talk to Stark?”

“No!” the two girls answered, almost with a snarl, forcing the girl to meekly retract her suggestion.

“Okay. Okay… we don’t have to go back… but what can we do? Sit down and wait?”

“I guess that’s an option,” Firestep conceded, going back to pick up her boots. With the gross sticky pink goo clogging the exhausts on the soles and part of the inner lining, she preferred to get them cleaned before wearing them again.

“Yeah… if you’re up to dealing with security,” Thumper snorted, punching the sealed gate. “They’re going to check and, if that guy squeals on us, we're screwed.”

“Yeah,” Wisp said, feeling a growing sense of panic at the implication. “We are kinda related to what’s going on, aren’t we? What’s going to happen?”

“No, we’re not. We didn’t lock us in or send the invitation,” Firestep excused. “If anything, we’re the victims.”

“They never see it that way. I wouldn’t count on it,” Thumper frowned.

Silence fell upon the group as they each tried to focus on different details. Wisp was uneasily watching her phone, hoping that at any second their internet would return; Thumper delivered a couple of punches onto the blast door, but to no avail whilst Firestep gazed down the corridors that were annexed to this room.

“Then we’ll just have to move around the tunnels. Hope we find a way out or a secret passage through which we can slip through, right?” Firestep set off down one of the side corridors, getting both Wisp and Thumper to reluctantly follow.

“I suppose that, at some point, whatever devisor magic he used will break down and these will open, right?” Wisp chimed in, trying to make small talk while constantly looking behind her.

“I just hope we don’t end up stuck.”

“We could go downstairs,” Firestep muttered. “This section of the tunnels, the tangle, I think they called it, shifts and changes every now and then, so the deeper we go, the more chaotic it gets. There’s no way the school has managed to secure that area with checkpoints. We could…”

“No! I don’t want to get lost down there!” Wisp called it.

“It’ll be plan B… Let’s hope walking around gets us out of here,” Thumper conceded, rubbing her knuckle as she followed.

Suddenly, she stopped on her tracks as they hit an intersection. Her gaze went between the new pathway to the one they came from as if searching for something.

“You coming?” asked her friends, already a couple of steps ahead.

“Right… Must’ve been nothing.” Thumper muttered as she followed.

“What was?” Firestep asked.

“Didn’t you hear anything?”

“Hear what?”

“Sounded like fire, like embers…”

“I didn’t hear anything,” Firestep grumbled.

“I swear… it was like pops and cracks that were drawing ever so closer…Crackle… and then crackle and then crackle and then….” She began the imitation with a whisper that subtly grew louder and louder until…

“Stop that!” Wisp squeaked. “I can’t take that! This place creeps me out!”

“It’s getting to me too,” Firestep agreed as they traversed the tunnel, which opened to a different unused room, this one appeared empty for the most part. The thought of making a map crossed her mind and as it did, it reminded her of the app they had to download to navigate this section. “It’s so weird when you don’t see anyone else walking by,” she said offhandedly to keep the conversation going.

“It’s like we’re in a horror movie,” Thumper said, her voice carrying a bit of a tease.

“P-please stop. I can’t handle horror!” Wisp squeaked as she immediately threw herself into Thumper’s arms, much to the larger girl’s bemusement as they walked into the empty room.

“Tsk… here too,” Firestep said, turning her gaze from the loading phone over to her left where the wall also featured another blast door blocking the path.

Pop. Pop. Crack. Came the sound to their right. One that had been aptly described by Thumper. Embers, like the ones that exploded from brittle logs in the fireplace.

“Did you hear that?” Thumper asked, whilst Wisp stifled a scream and hugged her fellow Poesie tighter.

“I did too…” Firestep paused in her tracks as the lights of the vicinity flickered for a moment, as the hallway of origin. Each light in the path appeared to go out, one by one as if something approached.

Wisp let out a startled shriek as lightbulbs sizzled and burned out, casting a section of room into a sort of twilight before reviving themselves.

“Who’s there!?” Firestep assumed her fighting stance, as they made out the outline of a figure within the dark of the corridor. With every step it took grew more and more defined, and it wasn’t long before it became familiar-ish. It was definitely smaller than what their minds had made it seem at first.

Then, it stepped into the light and all fear vanished from the eyes of the girls. Except for Wisp, who was still within her ‘horror story’ mindset, and dreading what might come to happen.

“Phew…” Firestep and Thumper exhaled in relief.

“Got yourself all cried out?” Thumper mocked as Stark cracked his knuckle, the one she’d stepped on. His eyes were concealed by the prevalent shadow.

“It’s just you,” Firestep said. As much as she hated to debase herself before the guy she just beat up, she could see the more straightforward solution to the dilemma. “Hey, can you undo whatever lockdown you’ve triggered?”

“You asking him?” Thumper snorted.

“Girls?” Wisp whispered and pointed towards Stark, who’d slowly tilted from side to side. His gaze was directed downward, steps slow and shambling. “Why is he acting like a zombie?”

“I’ve seen zombies before. Not that scary,” Firestep said dismissively before turning towards Thumper to continue the dialog. “I’m sorry, do you have an easier solution? Maybe a super special attack that you haven’t tried against the blast door?”

Thumper frowned. “Maybe we just need to beat him up and take that clicker thing.”

“And what makes you think you can handle devisor technology like that?” Firestep snorted.

“It’s a matter of principle. Amazon principle. You’re going soft on this guy,” Thumper chided just as Stark’s figure began to jerk. It started with a small chuckle that gained more volume in every pause until it accumulated into a maniacal laughter that stirred some concern in the girls -especially Wisp who took a cowering step behind her friends.

“Not only will I bring you down to your knees and make you beg for my apology, I mean, beg for my forgiveness! But I will make sure that none of the other members of the bitch army will ever dare to take me on.”

“Shut up, you jerk,” Firestep snapped.

“He’s dricking out…”

“Nah, he was dricking out before… Something is not right.”

“Dricking out is just huge hollow confidence. That’s all I see! Someone who needs to be taken down a couple of notches.” Thumper laughed as she stepped in closer with hastened steps. Stark tried to defend himself, but her hand was faster in reaching for the collar of his shirt and raising him off the ground. So, the guy gripped her arm and wrist, trying to pry her off, already feeling the vibration of her PK field activate to ward off his touch.

“See?” the brick girl mocked. “It means nothi- ack!” Her words turned into a scream as she was forced to release the boy and immediately jump back.

“Gayle! What happened!?” Wisp called out.

“Bitch burned me…” Thumper blurted, visibly confused as she recognized the sensation. The skin of her wrists was reddened with the outline of two handprints clearly visible on her skin.

“I’ll let you get that one, this time. But from here on, I’ll be the one doing the beating,” Stark said smugly as he adjusted his shirt’s neck.

“You… don’t get cocky,” Firestep retorted as she prepared for the fight, throwing her boots aside so as to keep her hands free. “Just because we didn’t see the tech on you doesn’t mean we can’t deal with it.”

“You can’t,” Stark added mockingly. “I don’t believe it’s something you can deal with. You can't even be sure that it’s tech that is at play.”

“It’s a shame. All we wanted was to get out of this place you locked all into... but now we’re going to have to go at it on a round two. And this time, without pity.” Firestep turned to Wisp, just behind her, and softly whispered, “It’s probably some sort of forcefield. We’re doing the Beckham.”

“Call it round two, I call it my revenge with interest. When I’m done with you, you’ll be thankful I let you keep the use of your legs. Then I’ll convince you to turn yourself in to Security, issue a public apology that will have the Headmaster's attention. While you’re off getting served your sentence, I, in the meantime, will receive a public apology from security and the rest of the staff! You know I also had to deal with the entire blame for that burst pipe!? My friends got mad at me as they had to traverse the place…”

“He’s off his mind…” Wisp cried out, even as her suspicions about something supernatural horror related were nudged aside, there was no ignoring how unsettling this all sounded.

“I know,” Firestep muttered. A tap from her friend on the back told her the attack was ready.

Out from behind Wisp’s back, a manifested orb of hard light and energy emerged, flying around in an arc to set itself forward, all the all the while fire exuded from Firestep’s bare feet.

With her powers activated, her acceleration in such a short distance was remarkable. As she approached the point where the orb would pass, she pulled back her leg before swinging it to deliver a powerful kick that sent the construct flying ahead with the speed of a cannonball.

“You know I don’t like how the kicks feel…” Wisp muttered, dazed. But it was a necessary thing to give her attack the needed explosive burst. With her link still present, she was at the helm of its trajectory, making sure the attack wouldn’t miss as it curved in the air after Stark’s chest.

But with the distance, the attack curving and with Wisp’s reluctance on the attack, Stark saw it coming and was ready enough for his counter attack. Clasping both fists together and placed them like an excellent volleyball libero, he swung in for the reception.

The ball met his arms with a meteoric impact that should’ve broken them, but, much to their surprise, he reacted as as if it was nothing. He batted the orb of energy and sent it flying towards one of the room’s entrances, the one they came from, whereupon it exploded, releasing a hard scorching shockwave that collapsed it into rubble.

As they recovered from the wave of heat and dust, both Firestep and Wisp were startled by the development. There was nothing in their experience to prepare them for this. Even Stark appeared shocked, though he bore a large dumb grin on his face as the pieces of rubble stopped falling. Thumper seized the momentary distraction to try to land her attack whilst Stark’s arms were pointing somewhere else.

She came in swinging, seeking to strike his head and stomach. They connected and the impact was enough to send the scrawny kid staggering back… but not to knock him down.

Stark raised his gaze, dementedly with a trail of blood slipping off the corner of his mouth. Eyes whose pupils appeared to have a hint of red narrowed in a mischievous glare that spelled the words: “My turn.”

The air around them became scalding as he launched his attack after managing to block one of the brick’s hits and driving a fist down to her stomach. Even with the rippling effect of her PK barrier, she still felt both the force and heat. One to stun, the second to send her flying back.

“Gayle!” Wisp screamed.

Strength that was unlike someone like Stark was supposed to wield. With seeming ease, he’d managed to overpower Thumper, the strongest member of the team.

And he appeared aware of this as he looked down at his hands, with the hint of a laughter wanting to leave his mouth. He then turned to the girls with a mocking expression as fire began to slip off from around his exposed arms. “See! I can take you all down. This is my revenge for everything. I’m invincible now!”

Saturday, November 5, 2016 - 5:57 pm
The tunnels, the next security annex - corridor, western edge(B3)

Dammit!

This was why she didn't help people anymore. The techie was nuts, going all out trying to take the girls' heads off. It was something that felt so out of place when compared to the boy that had been crying in the middle of a wrecked room.

Watching the mayhem, Shisa realized the guy's newfound power and confidence had to do with that almost crystal-like sound she heard back then. At the time, something fell into the room, something she couldn’t see from her hiding place. But the kid appeared interested… even overly so to the point it got her to consider just running away. His attitude had changed as a confident laugh escaped his lips. A stark contrast, Shisa thought

He had picked himself up, cradling the little thing that had fallen with both hands. Almost just to itch Shisa’s curiosity. What the holy shots had just fallen out of  the sky!?

She wanted to know. No, she needed to know… Needed? Maybe? Shisa shook her head. By the time she peeked around the corner, the techie had pushed himself up and walked over to the annexed hallway. From all the warning she got from the RAs about techies, gadgeteers and devisors needing their gear to fight, watching him leave on his own was oddly alarming.

“What is that…” Shisa muttered. This was something that would suit Helsing or Emiko. Those two liked dealing with possessions and weird crap. She just went along with them for something to do.

With no other clearer option, she had followed after and did so ever so quietly. As the lights began to flicker in his presence, she swallowed nervously. She hated magic. It had nearly killed her before, and she couldn't wrap her head around it.

And now he was trying to kill the three bullies. Fantastic.

As the girls fought the possessed techie, Shisa wondered what she should do. No one even knew she was there.  The girls were too focused on fending off the superpowered techie to look into the dark corner, and he was only interested in fighting them. She could do almost anything and no one would notice. She could hit him in the back and take him out, then she'd be home free having done her ‘good’ deed for the day.

Reaching into her mind she forced the energy in her to move to her hand. Making a fist, she raised her arm, preparing to strike.

Cursing again, she put her hand down. This kid wasn't a murderous supervillain, a monster or a criminal. She'd probably kill him by accident if she hit him hard enough to get past the power he was using.

He raised his fist, ready to smash it into the girl's face.

Instinctively she reached out, miming grabbing his arm. Her power reacted, encircling his arm and holding it in place for a second before the TK field vanished. The short delay gave the girl time to move out of the way of the punch.

“Fly, you fools!” she snarled.

She immediately facepawed as she realized what she'd said. Helsing was rubbing off on her.

Saturday, November 5, 2016 - 5:59 pm
Somewhere in the tunnels, close by (B2)

“Is it really working?” Morgana asked, peeking over Caro’s shoulder. In the girl’s hands were the two pieces of metal, hammered and bent into L shapes, being held by the shortest length. It was an amateur’s job and incredibly shoddy, considering she didn’t rely on Grimma to make them, but it was clear what they were supposed to be: dowsing rods.

The tips were dipped in the last remaining bits of enchanted gold. Now they swiveled and turned as if with a mind of their own, always pointing in a certain direction. Sometimes waving and rattling, but always in seeming agreement.

“Of course, it is… I mean, it’s pointing towards something…” To that she turned one of the rods to see it steadily fixate itself downward at an angle yet defying the will of gravity. “Something that is a floor below us…”

“Yeah, finding your way around the tunnels is not the easiest way around,” Morgana noted. “Especially considering I didn’t download the map.”

“You didn’t either?” Caro said as she swiveled the rods around to confirm the direction, especially when they arrived at an intersection before picking a path. “Well, neither of us expected to go about exploring past the first level.”

“Do you think this’ll take long?”’

“Do you have plans?” Caro asked, concerned.

“Nothing urgent,” Morgana replied dismissively as she followed the girl’s path, turning around into the seemingly samey corridor only to find the stairs.

“If you want, I can go at it on my own. My friends might be on their way here anyway.”

“I already said I was seeing this through. It’s not much of an issue. Really. All I’m worried about is getting lost.”

Fortunately, the deviations of the tunnel weren’t as bad on the first couple of levels. However… “I really hope the ring doesn’t make it to the bottom of the tunnels.”

“Do you know what’s at the bottom?”

“At the bottom? No. I mean, I know that beneath-beneath us is some sort of canal for water, but some people say there’s even deeper levels,” Caro shuddered. “Again, I really hope we don’t have to travel that far.”

 “Well… it’s just a ring, how far could it have gotten?” Morgana mumbled, minding her step as she followed down to the third basement. “Seriously, how far?”

“Must’ve fallen into the ventilation shaft or the water pipes… somehow.”

“Will we find it in a toilet?”

Caro shuddered. “If we’re lucky, it’ll end up stopping in the pipeline or fallen off onto the ground.... If not, we’ll follow it deeper down. The middle ground would be it’ll end up stuck on a pipe or a filter, which would mean breaking off pipes. And while I’m not that keen on breaking the school’s property, if what’s going on with the signal is what I think it is, it might just happen to be our lucky day.”

“Lucky,” Morgana shook her head. “It already feels dreadfully unlucky when an unexpected explosion just happens to have the ring fall into the gutter.”

“Yeah… I found it horribly inconvenient, perhaps a bit too much.”

“About that, not that I’m trying to shade you, but what happened? I don’t remember anything on the instructions about spontaneous explosions.”

“That caught me by surprise too,” Caro said as her feet touched the third basement. “There is nothing in my spell about out of control explosions… much less anything about having it roll over as if having a mind of its own,” she said, holding her tongue and letting them fall into silence, at least until she found a way of tactfully boarding her theory.

“When you spilled your blood onto the ring, Grimma told me you’re not a pure dragon.” She was getting impatient.

"Of course, I'm not, Thulia didn’t replace all my DNA, it sort of got absorbed and modified.”

Thulia, the name seemed vague but evidently nonstandard. Caro imagined that was the influencing aspect into Morgana that she’d heard before. “The ring isn’t a DNA test. It should’ve accounted for it, lest there was something in that sample that shouldn’t have been there. I guess my question should have been, is Thulia a dragon?”

Morgana looked somewhat shifty. "I don't actually know exactly what she is."

“Well, according to Grimma, your… ahem, patron is a dragon, combined with other things,” Caro shook her head.

“Oh… I didn’t know,” Morgana said somewhat ashamed of the outcome. Evidently taking it as her fault. “I’m still finding things out about myself.”

“No… I’m the senior student, should’ve done my research.” Caro noted. “You said dragon. I just assumed there would be no intermixing, or rather didn’t account for it.”

Morgana quietly nodded. “So, what happened?”

“Well, you read the spell. How it works and what it does. It has the ring extract the essence within the blood and store it within. It binds, pleasantly binds, the dragon side and allows whatever wielder to tap into its power. So far so good. The issue is that, apparently, if the blood isn’t pure and you have something else within, like, say, an efreet or an elemental, the spell causes an imbalance within the core and that can have… unpredictable or volatile effects.”

“So, you think that’s what happened?”

“I don’t know. I’m just making up the explanation that makes the most sense,” Caro defended. “That’s the best I have… I just hope it won’t cause any more troubles. We’ll just find the ring lying on the floor, away from whatever mayhem is causing this signal blackout.”

Saturday, November 5, 2016 - 6:03 pm
The tunnels, security annex, western edge(B3)

Thumper tried, once again, to make her stand, tried to salvage the confidence that this fight was but a fluke. But Stark just knocked her aside with what felt like an offhand slap. She raised her fists in defense, imagining the opening to deliver back the hit, but his touch was like being struck by a red iron, with the heat it radiated, exacerbated by her forcefield’s protection. That plus the strength behind the hits that came before had her reflexively balk by the third exchange. Exposed, all that was needed was an angered shove to send her to the ground.

And with that, Stark shifted his target. His mind was set on taking down Firestep, whom he considered the main offender for the cavalcade of misfortunes he’d suffered. Furious steps, threatening mumbles, he chased after. Yet the girl was a speedster, which made it easy to put distance between the two… However, in doing so also ran deeper into the room, where the blast doors blocked the only exit path for her. Still, her eyes furtively looked at her friends, giving away what her concern was at the time, to give them an opening to escape through the two unblocked corridors.

That was what Stark predicted. Even in his addled, rage-fueled smugness, he was still aware of the tactics at play. He searched his belt and produced another of his shoddy, speed-made grenades. After briefly tweaking some of the archaic buttons on the surface, the device was thrown up against the wall where it exploded in goo, creating a splash that, almost unrealistically, froze in the air as its surface turned into the grey, concrete-like material. It would’ve been quite a beautiful and entrancing spectacle, if it weren’t for it blocking an exit.

Thumper was slowly recovering from the recent scalding and Firestep’s legs could take her farther than Stark’s could if he managed to miss her… so the only option was the girl with the magical orbs.

And that was something Wisp became aware of the moment the devisor’s red eyes fixated on her. He sprinted after the girl, doing so with surprising speed and a fiery shimmer appeared to cover the air around his arms, something that startled Firestep as it didn’t feel as dissimilar to her own powers.

“Get away!” Wisp backpedaled desperately, only to stumble on her own feet as she hit the wall. Downed and in terror, she lashed out with a startled shriek. Two of her manifested hard-light orbs appeared in the air and flew towards Stark.

Yet the powered up devisor wasn’t caught off guard. He repeated the same volleyball moves as before, swinging his arms to send the orbs flying to opposite ends of the room where they exploded in shockwaves. One almost struck Firestep as she moved to intercept them.

Stark didn’t stop, though. His hand grasped Wisp’s wrist and forced her up and with the arm behind her back. The girl still struggled to respond with an attack. She used her remaining energy to create another orb of energy and sent it up against his face, but the proximity stripped it of any significant momentum and impact, mitigated further by whatever was protecting the devisor.

In the end, it was more like seeing someone getting poked by an insistent blob, which only served to test Stark’s patience further. Knowing that Thumper was getting up, Firestep would be there soon, and the girl just kept on screaming and squirming, the little stresses mounted up really quickly.

By the fifth ball prod, he was at wit’s end, “Stop it!” With a snarl of frustration, he threw the girl to the ground and clasped the orb between his hands. The manifested construct resisted the pressure and instead tried to fly off, but found resistance to be futile

It was just for a couple of seconds but felt like it stretched for far longer. Stark let out a vicious scream as a strange power slipped from the pores of his skin and fingers, releasing a hard red shimmer and light wherever he touched the orb. And before long, like the revving of a bike, the fire began to exude from his skin.

Startled, Wisp's control of the orb waned. As that happened, cracks formed themselves on the surface. Uncertain of the nature of the girl’s powers, Stark just threw the orb in Firestep’s direction.

It came crashing to the ground where, like a glass ball, it shattered in an explosion of energy that sent Firestep tripping in the middle of her run. “You…” Stark finally said to Wisp. “You’ve been interrupting me over and over and over. With your dumb attack balls! Just getting in the way of my payback!”

“I’m sorry! I really am!” Wisp sputtered, though that hardly got Stark to relent.

“You lie!” If anything, he just imagined she was just acting… trying to stall to get a chance to attack him. So, in an angered lash, he reached into his ruffled belt pouches for a means to leave her out of combat. But his plan was sidetracked as a red blur moved up to his side.

“Leave her alone!” Firestep shouted, taking a sprinting leap from her run. Her body spun in the air with her leg outstretched, with trails of flames from her feet, before coming down for an unrestrained impact on Stark's arm. A kick like that, she compared it to that of a horse’s, albeit a fiery one. She had no time nor peace of mind to hold back and almost expected to break his arm.

But the impact, much to her dismay, was stopped just as easily by the devisor’s outstretched arm. Even as the fire coated her feet, which would’ve easily singed his skin, he endured it as if nothing. She tried to raise the intensity, but it just slipped off with Stark barely flinching.

His own arm lit up with his own flame and she felt it. Even for a girl who called herself Firestep, who enjoyed some degree of heat resistance, she was starting to feel pain from contact. There was no denying that the fires Stark was producing were really something… and that also there was something about them that felt unnatural. Was it even some sort of devise? It felt more like magic rather than mad science.

How? she wondered in the brief instance of panic before her leg was pulled and the rest of her was almost left breathless as she was met by Stark’s full-body tackle that threw her down. She tried to steady herself, avoiding the fall but the impact had been hard, and the momentum led her to miss the proper step, twisting her ankle before touching the ground.

“Corrine!” Wisp gasped as she struggled to push herself up. Whether trying to run, face him or summon orbs with energy she didn’t seem able to have, Stark opted to not risk it and immediately threw his crafted grenade at her.

The same container as the one before it exploded upon impact against Wisp, sending her against the wall. It immediately covered her in a light layer of the devised substance that hardened shortly after. The girl could barely finish letting out her scream as she found herself plastered up against the wall, with an arm free but alas unable to do anything.

Thumper’s attack was far from subtle, and she bet on that, hoping that Stark would prioritize her, even as she was making haste to cross the room.

There was still a lot of distance between the two, so Stark made a calculated, if not sadistic choice as he delivered a kick to Firestep’s strained ankle, leaving her screaming for a moment and unable to get up as he tended to the brick.

Drunken with power, his first action was to try to take a step forward and deliver an attack of his own to the enraged Thumper. She, however, foresaw it and immediately dodged the guy’s effort before hastily throwing him to the side.

His fall was awkward but also tempered his hubris and sobered him up, especially as Thumper was just a couple of steps away. He tried to get back up, hastily, but she’d already caught up to him to push the assault. Strikes that he was forced to block, almost desperately. And in that moment when his arms endured most of the punches, his gaze went over to the golden band around his finger. He whispered, asking for something, and then both arms were thrust forward.

The result was a surprising stream of flames spread too thin to actually do anything but heat up, but it was enough of a surprise to force Thumper to stagger away, giving him an opening.

Inexperienced in a fight, Stark threw himself up against the taller girl without a plan. But with enough strength to topple her over and with his arm already pulled back to launch repeated impacts. The first two were enough to stun and wear down her PK field. With the third one, he managed to pierce through with a scorching hit that left the girl out of the fight.

“How’s that for a wimp? Who’s the bitch now?! Tell me!” The guy was drunk with power as he relished that the girl had been knocked out by his hand. He would’ve said more hadn’t Firestep called out an aghast. “Oh shit…” at the sight of what just happened. That was enough to get him to remember her.

Even with her energizer based healing, she was still down for the count in the moment that mattered, all she could do was try to drag herself out of the way. Like that, she wouldn’t be fast enough to avoid Stark as he approached her. His legs almost appearing to conjure fire in midair around them.

She tried to defend herself, but Stark easily overpowered her, pulling her by the throat up against the wall, getting her feet off the ground with strength that he shouldn’t have.

“You…” Firestep grumbled, almost expecting to feel her throat burned. But it never came.

“You did this. Just remember you caused everything to happen” He began, visibly holding back his fist, whether deliberate to scare her or out of genuine internal turmoil, it still got Firestep to visibly flinch and relent. “You could’ve stepped back… You could’ve told your friends not to get in the way. You could’ve tried to talk and apologize. Instead, you go and cause this. Break my devices, punch and kick me! It’s not fair! It won’t even be fair after I’m done with you.”

Stark’s fist pulled itself back, this time not a feint, to launch itself decisively when…

“Stop! Stop!” Firestep cried out. And Stark’s swing stopped just before it could touch her. “H-How… How could you do all that? How did you get that strong? It… it wasn’t…”

“It wasn’t supposed to be like that?” Stark completed, sounding more infuriated, “I was supposed to be the weakling. I was meant to just take the beating and surrender to whatever you want? It’s always been like that. In my old school, in my family. Even after I came here. Do you think I don’t notice the other guys looking down at me? You have girls like Laura who already have a bright future making bank with their abilities, something that I can’t do! But now… “And in that moment, he turned to look at his closed fist, spying the golden band wrapped around his index finger.

That was a dead giveaway, as Firestep's attention was drawn towards it. Something that hadn’t been there before, that laid nestled between his reddened skin, exuding power in the form of fiery red lines that reached out into the air. An alluring movement and spelling out an appealing message that almost uttered the words: ‘power’… ‘all you might wish for’ ‘It’s me’.

“It’s that ring…” Firestep muttered as her hand reached for it, even if it was around his digit, only to get slapped away by the user’s heated back hand. “You cheater! That’s what’s giving you your powers! Give it!”

“Yes… it is,” Stark said confidently, holding up his fist closer to her gaze. “I don’t know what this is. But it chose me. Only me to hold its strength. Now I’m far more powerful than anyone, and as such, not only can I take your petty efforts but I can also dish it back harder!”

Firestep seized her chance and made another effort. Pressing herself harder against the wall to get some degree of movement, she tried to swing her leg to meet his arm. Her goal was to, in the best case, have him punch himself with his own fist; in the worst case, give herself an opening to escape. Neither of those came to happen. With not enough space to move, her attack came in as feeble as it could against Stark’s empowered body.

Already having enough of this, he thrust the girl back, raising his fist. This time, he was ready to swing it to her face when…

“Stark!” called out a voice from the entrance he’d used, the only uncovered one.

“Why!? Why does everyone keep getting in the way!?” Stark groaned as he turned towards the entrance to find two girls. The one standing at the front had two horns that curved themselves around her head and upwards on her temples, in an elegant manner. An attribute for which it took him hardly a second to recognize her. She was the girl that had done him the favor of delivering the note. And judging by Firestep being at his mercy, he would’ve given her the thanks had she showed up at a different time.

Next to her was, much to Stark’s surprise, a girl he recognized as the alluring Brit that he saw every so often in the labs, visiting Laura. It was Morgana. The known mage with alleged draconic powers. Whether it was because of his current state or because the girl just walked up to him whilst he was in the middle of a tense rant, he was immediately shy. Though not distracted enough to weaken the grip on Firestep, who was still struggling to break free.

“Stark!” Morgana repeated, stepping forward. Her hand gestured towards Caro that she was going to handle it. “What are you doing?”

“What am I doing? I’m getting payback. That’s what! Making sure no one will bully me again.”

“I get that. Everyone does…” Morgana said, her gaze turning towards the other people in the room: the knocked down bruised Thumper and the concrete bound Wisp by the wall. As much as she disliked the expected outcome- that of the bully prevailing- there was obviously something wrong with the scene here, a first year devisor with only a tool belt beating up three first years that were evidently more physically or combat apt than him. “You… you shouldn’t have gotten bullied. But this isn’t the answer?”

“Then what? Take this to security only for them to get off with a slap of the wrist, only to try again later once the waters have calmed down? Maybe while I get sanctioned for using my inventions against Again!?” Stark snapped. “Is it supposed to be a rule of three thing? I have to get beaten up three times for every bully before security decides to penalize them? How many times in total do I have to endure my inventions getting broken!” Delving in his pains and grudges, Stark snapped, pulling back his fist again. This time, flames came out from the back of his fist, burning as if kindled by the boy’s emotion.

"Morgana - he's wearing the ring!" Caro pointed out, having taken a couple of steps to the side only to see the dowsing rods point in Stark’s direction.

"I can see. Why is he manifesting flames? He isn't supposed to be doing that, is he? Let me handle this; you aren't fireproof."

Before the dragon girl could get close enough, Stark, be it through his upset state of mind, or paranoid influence, had a rather clear idea as to what the girls were up to without even saying a word.

He drove a light, restrained fist to Firestep’s stomach before sending her to the ground. With the wind knocked out of her, the girl would just flop and flounder.

“Easy there, Stark. We just want the ring,” Morgana warned.

“And I want to keep it… It’s mine. It chose me,” Stark raved as he assumed a fighting stance. But when he noticed Morgana’s gaze went over to the ring, he closed his fist and pulled the hand behind his back, not planning to make it easy.

“You don’t get to decide that!” Morgana said as she launched herself after the boy. Her hands reached to clasp upon Stark’s arms, trying to creep their way up to his right hand for the enchanted trinket.

Subconsciously seeing Stark as a devisor with no added strength to him, she tried to go easy and light on him so as to not hurt him. But much to her surprise, he pushed back, and hard. The fires that exuded from his wrist and arms flared out as he called for greater strengths.

“I’m not the same weakling as before! This ring is my new power,” Stark said smugly towards Morgana. She was, in turn, biting her lip, inwardly debating how much she should up the pressure at the risk of dealing some serious damage, especially as she saw the reddened skin around Stark’s hands. She dreaded the idea of her friend’s lab-buddy breaking apart.

“Morgana! It’s only a couple of drops of you. He shouldn’t be stronger than you,” Caro called out as she fished a thin booklet from her pocket.

“I know that!”

“I am far stronger!” Stark blurted out. But as he snapped at Caro, and maybe even try to release the same stream of flames to scare her, he suddenly stopped.

His eyes landed fixated on Caro for a moment and in a sudden attempt, he threw his body forward, shoving a still tittering Morgana aside just enough to take a couple more strides towards the horned girl.

“You! You made this ring, right?!” Stark blurted out as he picked up the pace. “That means, you can make more!”

“I…” Caro blurted out, in panic as she forced herself to take a step back, just to keep herself out of reach from his attempt to grab her with the ringless hand. Just an opportune dodge as his fingers manifested lines of fire throughout the air.

And it would’ve come back with a follow-up but, fortunately, Morgana seized the chance and managed to grab Stark’s other wrist, the one bearing the ring. With a mighty pull, she forced him to backpedal until his body was up against hers, in the best restraining position she could manage without seriously hurting him.

It wasn’t a good one, though. With a hand and both feet freed, even if he couldn’t turn around to face Morgana head on, there were avenues for fighting. But his mind was so focused on keeping the ring within his hand that all he could do was awkwardly reach in defense, which made it easier for Morgana to wrestle with.

Caro quickly flipped through the pages of her booklet until she found the spell she was looking for. Like all of the other pages at hand, this one was experimental, a stream of consciousness paragraph that might need refining. Still, she decided this would be its trial by fire as she recited the lines. “The ground as a character, wills for no one more step for it to feel. Until it is the decree by the caster. I order everyone else’s stand where their feet remain,” she read as fast as she could, paying for the added cost it entailed.

The book’s spine glowed further as the lines of the spell, conditions and specifications were listed and read in the abridged format. The magic at play and the effects were immediately felt. From Caro’s feet, a magical pulse spread out, imbuing the ground below with the enchantment.

And it came not a moment too soon as Stark was about to raise up his leg in an effort to stomp on Morgana’s foot. However, finding himself suddenly glued to the ground, all that did was have him take a false step that had him topple forward and back against the girl. And that in turn made it easier for both her hands to clasp the ringed fist.

“I’m stuck!” Morgana blurted out soon after, realizing what just happened and finding herself also trapped by the spell

“Sorry. It’s the only thing I could think that might help you,” Caro muttered.

Morgana couldn’t come up with a snarky comeback. Instead, she was more focused on the retrieval of the ring. By then, her fingers developing the draconian scales as her hands became stronger, far more than Stark under the influence of the enchanted item. Even with the guy’s struggles, she still managed to force Stark’s fist open, only to realize there was another problem. “Caro! Do you have something to get the ring out? Something like oil or a bar of soap? Because I don’t want to break fingers!”

“No! It’s mine!” Stark cried out as he tried to fight, but Morgana’s focus and her advanced position meant she could see any of the feeble attacks coming for now.

“Something to loosen the ring? I have it right here!” Caro muttered. She almost fell over, briefly forgetting she too was under the effect of her own spell. She searched her pocket and produced a silvery rod that split itself evenly into two parallel lines: a tuning fork.

“When the silver voiceless one sings, do loosen,” She recited, hoping that the spell would still respect that part of the enchantment as she carefully knelt down.

“Hurry! You have it?” Morgana asked.

Without giving an answer, Caro tapped the silver fork against the concrete ground. Normally, the resonance provoked from it would go unnoticeable. But the magic of the enchantment at play amplified the effects, into what felt like an almost bone chilling degree.

And no-one felt that more than Stark, whose body stiffened in Morgana’s hold, already feeling something off. It wasn’t long before he realized what it was. The ring was slowly starting to grow in diameter, pushing the fingers apart and giving the trinket more and more space to slip off.

Yet, even as Morgana saw it and seized her chance to steal it, Stark fought on, even with waning powers. All in vain. As less of its gold touched his skin, the weaker he would get, and with a little bit of effort from the freshmen dragon it would inch itself away from the fingertip.

Stark wrestled, still determined to keep the thing. As a result, he accidentally, and unchivalrously, drove his elbow into Morgana’s breast with the ebbing powers from the ring for a new type of pain that the girl hadn’t experienced in a while. He threw his weight back, tipping off the girl’s balance, all in hope to keep it. But the ring, ever fickle, slipped from his finger in the middle of the swing, sending itself flying away.

With the source of the extra power gone, the flames that had been exuding from Stark’s arms began to dissipate, fortunately leaving the boy without any serious scar or lasting mark, outside from a bit of redness.

“Enough!” Caro called out, demanding her grounding spell to dispel, allowing both students to hit the ground without getting their ankles broken.

But in the interim, Firestep had a head start. With her feet not planted onto the ground as the spell was cast, she was never magically glued. Instead, she laid down, pretending to be knocked out, watching the entire scene, hoping for something. But that’s when it happened. She saw the ring fall and hit the ground. Rolling ever so temptingly on the ground, almost in a mesmerizing dance before it settled, just a couple of strides away.

She saw what the ring could do. She saw how it turned a no-one like Stark into a threat and her mind was already wondering what it could do for her. Someone who was more in tune with fire. It had to be hers. She wanted it.

All the ring had to do was whisper to her a quiet word and she was immediately throwing herself after it.

In what felt like the blink of an eye, she scampered forth, her hand swiping the ring off the ground and then she was scrambling her way towards the wall sealed by the hardened concrete-like splash. She did so despite her injured ankle that forced her into a limp every two steps.

“Hey! Stop! Corrine!” Caro tried to make the girl obey, but she wasn’t able to improvise a spell faster than a speedster could run, much less intercept her on foot.

Morgana, in that moment of distraction, lost her grip and attention of Stark, and the manic devisor saw his opening to make his escape. He slipped out of her grasp and scampered out of the way with clumsy steps until he found his stride.

“Wait! Where are you going!? That ring is mine!” Stark called to Firestep as he chased after, even if he knew there was no way he could catch up with her as her feet were leaving scorch marks down on the concrete ground. The fiery speedster carried in collision towards the clogged entryway. Momentum, strength and fire coalesced in a kick that broke down the degrading blockade.

With that, Firestep disappeared down the corridor and, soon after, a reckless Stark followed.

“Are you okay?” Caro asked as she ran up to Morgana.

Morgana nodded, looking embarrassed and still reeling as she got to her feet. “Sorry about that.” Whilst muttering something about pain she hadn’t felt in a while whilst massaging her chest.

“I think there's a demon in you… If the ring can have that influence over everyone who sees it. Might be a part of temptation? I don’t know,” Caro said, trying to make sense of it.

“Yeah… That checks out,” Morgana said, trying to sound sheepishly as she pushed herself back up. “So… it will tempt everyone who sees it? And give anyone powers like… like that?”

“I’m afraid it will.” Caro theorized.

“Just about great… What are we supposed to do?” Morgana said as she approached Wisp, the lithe girl that had been plastered against the wall with a concrete like material. She appeared to have been knocked out from the brunt force of the impact. Carefully, Morgana’s enhanced fists and claws began to peel off the degraded remains, helping the girl out.

“Is she okay?” Caro asked as she checked on Thumper. “This one is out cold.”

“Wisp is too,” Morgana said, recognizing the girls.

“Do you know them?” Caro asked as Morgana dragged Wisp over, laying her alongside Thumper. “I only know the girl that ran off as a freshman from Whitman. The other two, I think I’ve seen them hanging around the cottage recently.”

Morgana shuffled and pointed towards the exit. “The guy that ran off, Stark, is a workshop mate of a friend. A devisor that often dricks out big-time when he has a flash of inspiration.”

“I see… and the two girls?”

“They’re from Poe.”

“Friends of yours?” Caro said as she moved the two girls to face different directions, with their arms pulled behind their backs.

“Not really, no?”

“Ah… a cottage enemy or something”

“Hm… let’s just say they don’t like me… for weird reasons.”

“Huh. I’m no stranger to school conflicts,” Caro muttered as she reached into her pocket for a piece of chalk and began to draw something on the ground between the two unconscious girls’ wrists. “It’s just so weird that it appears often in Poe… I mean, Chris and Gwen have had similar issues with cottage mates and I think they still do and never tell me why.”

“Heh… yeah. Weird thing. So, what are you doing with these two?” she asked, recognizing more and more what appeared to be Caro’s arcane writing arranged in a sort of circular shape.

“Call it a precaution. After seeing what the ring did to Stark and Corrine, I mean Firestep. I don’t want to take any chances,” Caro said, producing a pocket knife and pricking her finger to leave a red mark on the ground next to the inscriptions.

“I make my payment asking for aid,

So that neither of them will interfere,

Hold them down until the undo is said.

Bindings to keep wrist and ankles near.”

“Quite a brief one.” Morgana noted.

“Sometimes I take my time, others I’m just desperate enough that I’m willing to pay the extra.” Caro said as the effects began to happen. The lines used to create the spell began to glow and raise themselves into the air, like eels in the water, reaching for the ankles and wrists of the knocked out girls. Upon contact, they weaved and wrapped themselves around into a knot before hardening themselves into becoming solid.

The spell pulled Wisp's and Thumper's wrists and ankles together, forcing them back to back in a pose that would make it incredibly hard for either to brute force their way out.

Morgana wanted to note the nature of Wisp’s powers, but quickly realized that Caro’s setup pretty much fixed that by leaving the spell’s core within her blind spot that would take the girl’s magical orbs some effort to target.

“There we go, that should keep them out of trouble.”

“From joining the Gollum imitators. I suppose it’s a fortune there aren’t many people in this area of the tunnels”

“Yeah… fortune,” Caro muttered. In the back of her mind, she was already praying that Gwen and Chris hadn’t actually made it to this side of the lockdown.

Morgana took a moment to look at her T-shirt, at charred spots Stark’s fire had touched. “I don't suppose you have a spell for mending clothing, Caro?”

“Ah. Not at hand. I could try and make one up?”

The redhead shook her head. “Maybe later. Best to save essence… I can work with this,” she said before muttering. “It’s always the same. This is the third one this week…”

Saturday, November 5, 2016 - 6:04 pm
The tunnels,??? (B5)

“How long has it been?” Vic wondered out loud as he trudged through the canals in the lower levels. According to his phone, it was slightly over an hour since he fell down to the fifth level, about one and a half since he made the decision of going exploring on his own.

It didn’t feel like the best of ideas, especially doing so alone, but he’d dared to go ahead and try , so this was the result.

He wandered the tunnels around the first two levels and managed to find that strange critter that he’d seen around the campus, even managing to capture a snapshot of it. And then, the tunnels became a horror ride. The lights blinked in a coordinated, almost lifelike manner, while the darkness encroached from every corridor. Exits disappeared and corridors opened themselves where there once were walls. In the panic of the chaotic spiral, the floor got pulled from under him and he found himself falling and screaming until he touched the water of the canals below.

Once the light stream of curses left him, he resolved himself to treat this as a quest for the exit, just to avoid letting the panic set in. And so he set off to carry on with his explorations while, at the same time, hoping he couldn’t fall any deeper.

It certainly felt like it’d lasted much longer than an hour, almost to the point the experience was starting to stop being scary and just becoming a nuisance. Not that it was uneventful, certainly a dozen degrees much more interesting than a leisurely walk.

The first problem he found was that knee high water level, which, while fortunately clean and recently filtered, was a slog to trudge through. Fortunately for Vic, his powerset was perfect for it. All he needed was to focus and force the water away from his feet, creating an imaginary barrier that pushed the water wherever he headed, all managed from a tendril of water that served as his controlling connection.

So more often than not, he tried to make light of his situation, treating it as a game. He used his connection to try to splash about out of leisure.

“This is the S.S. Aquaman hailing for help… Hello!?” he said at one point, in what was the apex of his boredom and fun, and reaching the point where he realized that he could be as loud as he wanted, enjoy the echo around, hoping it would reach the ears of someone else. “What is that?” he said as down the path, an empty bottle of water, the one he carried rose up “on its own.”

“An enemy! Open fire!” And at the utterance of the order, tubes projected themselves from the wall of moving water, pretending to be canons. From each, a concentrated shot launched itself in a splashing barrage until the target was made to wobble and pretended to sink.

Which caused the water to sink it and Vic to make a small celebration.

This would be mortifying if any of his friends were there to see, but it was something he needed to keep himself calm and amused. Not to mention he seldom got the chance to practice with his powers at this level.

The thought did cross his mind that he hadn’t really trained endurance with his power, so how long he would be able to hold up it would be anyone’s guess. So, one of his early goals was to find places to rest.

Luckily, he did soon. The canals had small pockets and tunnels that just happened to be above the water level, a slight reprieve from the soaked walk. Climbing up at every chance, Vic hoped that any of those paths would lead him to an exit, however that wasn’t the case.

There were pathways and doors before him, but nothing that could be considered particularly helpful. Most of them were locked and Vic wasn’t about to start breaking into rooms and getting into trouble for the exit… yet. But those that were open were abandoned and derelict. One did have what appeared to be a ladder that appeared to lead towards a lower level which was an instant refusal, while another appeared to have some sort of colorful slime sponges creeping about.

With no way up in sight, he backed away from scavenging or fighting the strange amorphous creatures and went back to trudging through the water until he could find another path.

Eventually, he came across another set of tunnels that also had some more strange and curious rooms. One appeared to be a sort of lab that had been forgotten by its owner. With the lights out, all he could see were dusted vials containing fluids and machines that appeared to be connected to power because of the dimmed single lights but were turned off. Another room was more designed like a dungeon, with cells and chains with manacles hanging on the wall. It had also been claimed by the slime sponges that trudged about the place at a snail’s pace…

And then he came across a room that appeared from the outside to be a dark medieval horror fantasy. A stone altar laid at the center of the shadowy area. Around it, and up against the wall, were strange markings that made Vic think of pentagram, adjacent sigils, and runes drawn in red markings… hopefully just paint. But judging by the chipped knife that rested atop it all, that suddenly felt unlikely.

Without saying a word, Vic slowly closed the door, jammed a sharpened piece of concrete under it and then ran back into the water of the canal to continue trudging along.

At one point, he realized he’d walked in a circle back to the first tunnel he discovered.

Where was the map app in all this time? It was still at work, drawing around the places where Vic had been… however it didn’t last long and a couple of turns around the corner later, the recorded path began to delete itself. According to it, the pathways above were still pitch black as if no one was there and that meant there was no telling where the stairs were. “Is there no one up there?” he thought.

After that realization, he couldn’t take it anymore and pressed the panic button. But nothing happened. Effectively, the button was pressed, and a window appeared that was the app trying to connect itself with the nearest security booth. A check that went for so long before suddenly closing without giving out a proper answer.

“This doesn’t look good,” Vic said out loud. “There has to be a way around here unless….” His gaze moved up to the curved ceiling. In between the poor lights around was a simple concrete ceiling that appeared to have nary a crack about… yet Vic knew he’d fallen through a hole that closed itself shortly after the fall.

“If you’re going to be so stubborn, how about I pierce you through?” Vic thought to himself as he raised up his hand, the one that was tied to the water by a liquid cord. Upon his command, a tentacle of the liquid raised itself, swaying like a scorpion prepared to reach out and strike. “I’ve heard and seen people use water to carve through solid stone.”

Vic’s eyes glowed as they fixated on a point in the concrete, and the rest of the water fell still as he gathered focus.

But just like that, he loosened his grip and the tentacle fell down, splashing and making ripples. “Nah…” he muttered, shaking his head, listing the reasons. “There could be powerlines there and I don’t want to get electrocuted. Besides, how much effort would it take me to break through and lift myself up. My upper limit is just under a hundred kilograms.”

A few more shakes followed. “Though, to be fair. I feel like I’ve been able to do much more lifting than that.” Vic sighed. “And who knows, this might enrage the tunnel and get it to swallow me the moment I take my next step.”

Eventually, he pulled himself out of the water, having reached another tunnel pathway. This one felt promising, he thought, as he had from the previous times. However, this time, his wishful thinking turned true as he spotted, in the distance, a light that was coming at a downward angle: it was a path up!

“Yes!” Vic exclaimed as he reached it. It was an annex to a stairwell: a small room with a stair hugging the wall to a higher level. The only problem was a barred division that stood in the way, with a closed door in his path. The lock was big and quite old when compared to what he imagined of the school, and it wasn’t electronic.

To Vic this wasn’t an issue. Lockpicking wasn’t a skill he wanted to brag about but it just happened to be something he excelled at. It’s what put money in his pocket and food on his table when he'd lived on the run, working as an outside agent for a local gang. The leader of the team, Urresti, valued him for it and did whatever he could to foster that ability for the convenience of the operations. So, during that time, Vic happened to have plenty of locks in his room, not for safekeeping but for practice.

This didn’t take long. Water off the bottle and onto his hand was pushed up against the lock. Visualization of the mechanical structure took up to the count of three, and by the count of five, the lock cracked itself open and the hinges of the door squealed as it was pushed open. And right after, he was making the climb up the steps, his eyes fixated down to his phone to confirm that he’d made it to the fourth basement.

“Now, all I have to do is get back up before the floor decides to swallow me again. Just that, walk up and - Gaah!” Vic blurted out startled. As he turned the corner, he was immediately made aware of a strange figure slipping into his line of sight. A creature that was about the size of a wolf, with a thin but at the same time lethal frame and a long, thick, whip-like tail, it was dark enough to blur itself with the low light of the corridor, but at the same time, making itself present by the reptilian shine that came from its eyes. Striding on all fours and opening its maw in seeming preparation for an attack, Vic resolved himself to act. He raised up his arm, still holding onto the water that he’d used to pick the lock and shaped it into a spike aimed to the creatures head.

“Wait! Wait!” came a girl’s voice from down the corridor. “Don’t kill my construct!”

“What?” Vic said, staying his hand in the last moment, just as the creature at his feet reacted to his aggression with some of its own. Its canine-like muzzle peeled itself to reveal its fangs and it prepared itself to jump when…

“Warg! Sit!” the girl ordered and, like the most obedient creature, it obeyed the order, banishing any hint of aggression or harm intent from its face before it sat down on its haunches with a neutral, if not blank expression

“Thank you,” the girl said, prompting Vic to face the stranger emerging from one of the connecting hallways. It was an older girl, judging by her height, either a junior or a senior, dressed up in a casual outfit that didn’t appear to be suited for this sort of exploration: a simple hoodie jacket and a pair of jeans and sneakers that made Vic guess she was also someone who took a detour from their usual path.

She was pretty at first glance. Of auburn hair that was tied up in a tomboyish style and a cute face that appeared somewhat unconcerned from the appearance that she might be giving. Vic was quick to trust her, mainly because he’d spent a long time on his own…

“No… no problem,” Vic said, somewhat relieved. Truth be told, he’d never tried to pierce something with a water spike before, so his attack was, for the most part, a bluff.

“What are you doing here?” she asked as she snapped her fingers in a signal, getting the creature to get up and trot over to her side under the tunnel’s installed lights.

“What is that thing?” Vic blurted out surprised now that he could get a better look from the creature. An odd mixture between dog and lizard, with a thin but agile body that was covered in scales instead of fur, and a thick long tail that waved itself behind. There was something about it that reminded Vic of the creatures in the movie Gremlins. The skin was scaled but with the colors and pattern that could be assumed was taken off a frog, and the ears were large and pointy, attached to a mast of thick cartilage that stood out from the canid body.  They were perked, as if constantly searching.

“It’s my construct. They call me Summoner,” The girl said. She sounded a bit annoyed that Vic bypassed her question… but was understanding about it. “That’s what I do. Need a basic pet for anything, I’m your person.” She looked over at the ‘dog’ by her side and added. “I usually make them bigger… but Warg here would be having a hard time treading the narrow corridors.”

“That’s cool,” Vic noted as he moved from side to side, inspecting the creature while the water on his hand crept back into the bottle.

“Who are and what are you doing here?” Summoner asked again.

“I’m Victor Rivera. Tidestriker,” he said, wincing slightly as he still hadn’t grown fond of his own codename. “And I got lost.”

“I can imagine…” Summoner said understandingly as she moved closer to Vic’s spot and leaned in down the path he came, getting a glimpse of the stairs leading down to the fifth basement, canals. A roll of her eyes and a frustrated groan escaped her lips.

And reminding himself of the situation, he was quick to go to the topic that mattered. “Do you know where the stairs are?! I’ve been down here for a while…”

“Sorry,” Summoner shook her head, casting her thumb over her back. “I’ve been wandering around for quite some time after the path through which I came suddenly disappeared.”

“You walked down the stairs?” Vic inferred. “Why? This place is a maze.”

“I’m… I’m looking for something,” Summoner said, bitterness clear in her voice. “Some girl played a really really really really mean prank on me and hid something of mine down in this place… Giving me only a photo and a map to guide myself. Despite knowing that the place here can’t stay still for more than ten minutes.”

“Well, if you need help, maybe I can tag along?” Vic offered. Right now, he really would prefer not to have to wander down the corridors on his own.

“No thanks,” Summoner said, almost automatically. “This… this is something that I have to find alone.”

“Are you sure?” Vic asked.

“Positive,” Summoner said, sternly enough that Vic got the ‘I don’t want you nearby’ message. “I’ll find my lost item and be on my way… Maybe if we run into each other again, I’ll tag along. But for now. I need to do this alone.”

“Alright,” Vic muttered, somewhat disappointed.

“Sorry,” she shrugged before looking over her shoulder down the path she came from. “But you know… if I recall correctly, I came down in that direction… so the stairs could potentially be there.”

“Thanks. I’m just glad I made it up one level,” Vic said with some renewed hopes as he set off in that direction. “Hope you find what you’re looking for.”

“Thank you. Hope you can find the way out soon,” Summoner waved as she walked in the opposite direction.

“I’ll make my way out,” Vic sighed as he continued walking. He checked the time on his device. It was already six in the afternoon. This little trip was taking much more than he’d expected. Hopefully, it wouldn’t outlast his phone’s battery.

 

To Be Continued