Chaotic Craftsman Worships The Cube

A brief flash of disorientation and Rook didn’t know where he was.

One moment he was walking to another boring meeting when he got what felt like a bit of luck. He wasn’t used to being so disrespected and seeing the brat alone without the princess around to save him felt like the perfect way to kill some stress and finally get a chance to turn the girl to a better option. He would teleport behind him and then teleport the guy farther into the deeps, with the water hopefully serving the goal of getting him out of his way and failing that, letting the currents do it for him.

It was what he’d intended at least, but what he got was the nearly instantaneous sight of the other man’s arm warping backwards, pressing something into him and leaving him somewhere new and unfamiliar.

Of course, it would have been utterly impossible to call wherever he’d ended up a normal location when he was inside what by all accounts looked like an endless black void, the only things it held being him, a small light, and a sheet of paper.

Both things he instantly ignored in favour of trying to get away. He didn’t know what sort of trap he’d fallen into but he wasn’t a space mage for nothing, it was the skill he trained in the most to ensure he’d always be able to escape a hint of trouble if need be and he instantly put it to the test as he reached out with his mana, trying to feel beyond the confines of his strange prison but coming back with more than nothing.

Not just an unseen wall and not an endless void either, as he stretched out his mana he felt it coming back at him, destroying his sense of scale and giving him no way to judge the size of his confines.

Impossible.

It didn’t make sense which meant there was some trick to it, he just needed to find it. There was no such thing as a room without end and even if he was being suspended in the air he could still propel himself with his power, moving out for what could only have been a few feet before his perspective changed, bringing him back to face the light and the letter once more.

“I’m being teleported,” He finally said, feeling like he’d gotten the trick of it and only growing in his rage for that fact. “That brat thinks he can best me, a ninth-leveled space mage, with some cheap enchantment of my magic! THAT ASSHOLE! How dare he, when I get out of here…”

His mutterings went on while he went, straining space itself in every way he could think to and failing again and again, still not understanding its construction, nor how it was keeping him in place, endlessly looping him back again.

He didn’t feel any magic in the act but knew that had to come down to a matter of skill in the enchantment, even if he didn’t want to acknowledge it, but that skill only went so far. He may not have known much but he knew that an enchanter needed to hold the magic they were aiming to enchant with and if the brat had held space magic at a high level he wouldn’t have needed to be saved each time Rook attacked him. He was obviously on the low end no matter how much he was able to compensate it by having his enchanting awakened which meant it couldn’t actually be that powerful, only being a matter of breaking his way out.

That meant overpowering it and as much as he didn’t want to, Rook sat after that, letting his mana regenerate all he could before striking out with a far grander attack, trying to break beyond space itself and still coming up empty, leaving him on the edge of mana exhaustion with nothing to show for it.

Not wanting to pass out, feeling like it would be playing entirely into the other’s hands, he finally gave in and did the only thing he could do, reaching out to grab the letter, reading it by the small light for whatever clues it might contain.

—

My dear Rook,

If you’re reading this, that means you haven’t given up. You couldn’t accept that you’ve been rejected… Well, that you never had a chance with Thera to begin with, and you continued to refuse to act your age, so as the more responsible one between the two of us, I’ve made the difficult choice to place you in a time-out for a while.

How long is a while I hear you asking as you read this? Well, it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks and you happen to be a very, very old dog so I’ve decided that a week of nothing to do but float and reflect would be for the best. As someone who’s been trapped before as well, I’d say to hold onto this letter no matter how much you want to tear it up, eventually, this is going to be the only bit of stimulus you’re going to have so you better appreciate it.

Now, if you make the very inadvisable decision to ignore this by the time you get out, to attack me and make an attempt on my life or to harass Thera some more then you will live to regret it for one simple reason. I know what you fear.

It doesn’t help that you made it obvious. With space magic being the only skill you have above the seventh level despite having had centuries to grow into something that could actually help the world given what you knew had to be coming, tied into the fact that you stepped back when Thera threatened to hit you into space, you fear the only thing it makes sense for an immortal to fear. Being stranded.

So this is what’s going to happen. I could threaten to put you in something like this permanently but that would honestly be too boring. What I am going to threaten you with is this. Not only if you do the things I’ve already said, if I die in any way other than old age, I will be calling in a favour from the great space spirit. If you know anything about great spirits, you know how powerful they are so you know your own pathetically low magic won’t stack up.

What I will be asking him to do in the event of my demise is simple as well. All he’s going to do is teleport you into the heart of a star.

Now, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you at least know a thing or two about stars. One being the size. Given you can only teleport a few hundred meters that you can see while this world’s sun makes the planet look like a pebble in comparison, you should be able to understand you’re never getting out of it. Trapped forever in an elemental forge, unable to escape.

I must confess, just the thought makes me curious enough to ask the space spirit to do it way sooner, just to test the limits of your skills. I won’t of course, I’m far too polite and well-mannered, but it would be interesting to know if even that isn’t enough to reach the limits of your skills. Oh, I hope it's not and the fact that you’d have your pair working together really leads me to believe it won’t be, I’d rather that not turn into a chance for you to escape into true godhood.

Hmm, as I write this, just to be safe I’ll be asking them to make sure they don’t pick the sun. they’ll be finding the coolest star they can (relatively of course) in the deadest region of space so that even if you do somehow escape or ascend, you won't be finding others any time soon. You will be alone with nothing but yourself to blame.

Oof, I got a little heavy there at the end, didn’t I? Sorry, I’m prone to both curiosity and getting passionate on the things that interest me so why don’t we end on a different note?

Now, as you can see there’s no food or water for you but honestly, if an immortal can die from those lacks then you really don’t deserve the name so that’s not a major concern and although you’re in an enclosed space I’m sure running out of air won’t be a major issue for you either, whatever changes your body went through will probably be able to make do one way or another, but absolute defense is a whole other issue.

See, I must confess that a couple of my skills don’t work on you because of it. It’s a little annoying but I can’t help but wonder how far it goes. It seems like your body, soul, and mind are all protected which means it lives up to its name, but it's the final aspect we’re going to look at.

You’re immune to mental attacks but does it leave you immune to the damage of your own mental processes? Trapped with nothing else to do, will it keep you from falling into hallucinations and nightmares? Will it keep you sane, even if that means it keeps you from escaping the reality of the situation you’ve been placed in?

I am genuinely so excited to find out, you’ll have to let me know but look at how long this has gotten, I’ve rambled long enough so let me end things here.

Be well and do your best to reflect on the way a person facing eternity should act.

Lots of love,

Ben Heph

—

Crumpling the paper as soon as he was done, Rook didn’t give in. It was obviously left there to scare him, to make him believe trying to escape was pointless, but he wouldn’t accept it.

And it was like the brat had said in the letter. He was immortal, meaning he had all of the time in the world to get out. The fact that he’d so easily narrowed in on something that went beyond his fears was an issue but it was one he could deal with, especially when it was so obviously a bluff.

The world had no great space spirit, even people with only a superficial knowledge of the powerful forces that made up the planet were aware of that, meaning it was nothing but an attempt to scare him. At most, he’d be able to get the archmage to do something but even then, she wouldn’t be able to carry out the threat he’d just made, it was nonsense.

No, he couldn’t let himself be tricked, meaning that he had to get out to kill him, it didn’t matter how long it would take, he’d make it happen.

At some point, he’d accepted the mana exhaustion. It didn’t last long for him, as soon as he got a single point he was awake again unlike most people and he kept letting his pool fill up again and again before emptying it in its entirety, doing everything he could think to break free and not caring how often he failed.

At least that was what he was telling himself, but with each attempt ending the same as the last his heart started to tighten, telling him he really was going to be trapped there.

But who cares? He told himself after the dozenth attempt. It’s only a week. I’ll get out of here and then I’ll make him regret ever coming to the world. Just you wait-

His thoughts were cut off by the first change since he’d gotten there with the light turning off.

Something that shouldn’t have been surprising, it had been running for hours and he hadn’t refilled the mana that powered it in that time but it left him to fumble around for a bit until he could find it in the pitch black until he eventually grabbed hold of and poured his mana in.

An action that got him nothing. Not a flicker of light, not a speck of illumination, the world around him stayed dark with the enchantment that had been placed on it broken.

In that situation, with no way to escape and no stimulation beyond himself, Rook finally screamed.