What We Do to Survive

In the fraction of a second between sensing the wave of mana and the shockwave itself, I managed to snatch Cayla by the wrist and wrap both of us in a flimsy mana barrier. It was nothing compared to the barriers I had been developing and practicing over the past few months, worse even than what I had managed during my terrified flight from the berserk demon, but it was something.

Then everything became a blur of light and color. I pulled Cayla in against me and did my best to shield my head with my free arm, too disoriented and overwhelmed to even try and cast a spell. Someone was screaming. Maybe me, maybe her, maybe someone else, or perhaps it was all of us.

The initial impact shattered my shield like a soap bubble, but it did its job blunting the force somewhat. I felt like I’d been kicked by a dragon regardless, my circulation-reinforced body aching from the impact. Worse, I could feel the mana-core in my chest shudder as it was buffeted by overwhelming waves of hyper-dense mana. It took every shred of effort I could muster to hold my core in place against the tide, my soul screaming as it fought to keep foreign mana out and failed.

The entire carriage, horses and all, was picked up and thrown clear across the road. Enchanted wood crumpled, wheels shattered, and horses groaned and neighed in pain. Thankfully, Cayla and I were thrown from the carriage before it hit the ground. We careened wildly through the air and came down hard on a row of well-trimmed flower bushes at the edge of the road.

The impact knocked what breath remained from my lungs and my head slammed back against woody roots, branches and leaves cracking and tearing from the force of our collision. My teeth clacked together, just barely missing my tongue and sending a wave of sharp pain echoing in my skull.

Cayla fared slightly better than I did, but not by much. My body cushioned her crash, her face slamming into my belly and nearly making me vomit up the remains of my lunch, but I could hear something in her leg crack violently where it hit the granite road. She was unconscious, her body a limp weight pressing me down into the ground, but I could feel her heartbeat and see the faint rise and fall of her chest.

For some moments I just lay there dazed, my entire body one massive bruise and my soul a whimpering mass of pain that rubbed against my mind and only exacerbated the concussion I had no doubt just sustained.

Then the Call cut through the pain. Gone was any sense of subtlety. A wordless voice roared inside me, beckoning me, calling me, commanding me to come forward. I moved through the pain, my body protesting every twitch and shift as I sat up, then pushed myself shakily to my feet. I took one ragged footstep, then a second, and then my muscles simply gave out and I collapsed down onto my knees.

There was a massive rift in the sky, a ragged tear with crackling edges that made my eyes ache just looking at them. It was as long as a town square and nearly as wide, like someone had sliced a long gash in the fabric of our world and then tore it wide open. Something was moving in the blackness beyond the tear. Something huge, surrounded by dozens of tiny wriggling things I couldn’t see but felt like knives scraping along my brain.

For a moment, I felt a shred of hope colored by alien despair as I saw thick chains of ethereal light ripple just beyond the opening. Miles of chain, each link shining like a star of molten gold, bound tentacles and shapeless limbs. The thing in the darkness shifted and the chains followed. It grew and shrank, twisted and warped, writhed and thrashed against them, but through it all it remained tightly constricted.

Another wordless scream echoed inside my skull, the force of it darkening my vision and making me slump sideways onto the ground. My shoulder slammed painfully against the granite road, but I managed to shield my head in time to avoid another direct impact. I slumped bonelessly across the street, my eyes still glued to the portal.

Every passing moment burned my eyes and made my soul shudder inside my body, but I couldn’t muster the strength to turn my head or close my eyes. I felt so tiny, so utterly insignificant. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the carriage driver that had passed me just minutes ago. His prone body lay utterly still a few feet away from his overturned carriage. Despite the situation, I couldn’t help but wonder what had gotten him in the end. The force or the wave of mana? Without a mana core, his soul might have simply been torn from his body by the force of the wave, or maybe he simply died on impact, his brain unable to withstand the sudden starts and stops.

Four gleaming points of light rose from behind the half-demolished manor and rushed through the opening. One after another they slammed against the golden chains and with each impact vast swaths of chain simply fell apart into golden dust that rapidly dispersed into the nothingness between worlds.

For the third time I could feel that same scream, more a shaking in my bones and a quiver in my muscles than a sound, but this time it sounded like victory. A dozen column-like tentacles forced themselves through the portal and rushed towards the ground. Hundreds more caught the edges of the rift and began to push, tearing the gap wider and wider with impossible strength.

The earth beneath me shook as the first tentacle hit the ground, and then it simply didn’t stop shaking. Cracks zigzagged across the granite road. The wards around the building finally failed completely, though whether it was the creature’s arrival that overwhelmed them or if some crucial runic array was shaken out of place I couldn’t say.

The world erupted with color as the auras of a dozen powerful mages suddenly appeared behind the crumbling building. Three of them winked out just as suddenly, then two more a second later. A massive burst of fire erupted towards the rift and then a sixth aura vanished as well.

More and more of the vast creature beyond the rift began to push and tear its way into reality. As it did, a number of smaller things followed in its wake. Comparatively tiny monsters wriggled past eyes and tentacles that dwarfed their entire bodies and dropped into the world.

I flinched when I felt something shatter, an almost imperceptible tether snapping as its anchor collapsed. Clarity rushed through me and for the first time in several minutes I was finally fully in control of my own body.

I immediately scrambled back towards where Cayla lay unconscious in the bushes behind me. If nothing else, she was the one holding the bag with all my emergency supplies. I moved quickly but smoothly, doing my best not to jostle my many injuries and to avoid looking at the horror behind me. I had a piercing, throbbing headache that made it impossible to see through my left eye and I could feel warm trails of blood trickling down from my eyes, ears, and nose.

Every bit of mana I could spare was poured directly into my healing circulations. As limited as they were, I didn't trust myself with casting anything right now, much less something as precise and fiddly as a healing spell.

The moment I was close enough, I tugged the bag open and blindly dug around until I found the right-shaped vials. One healing potion went down my throat, the pain in my head so bad that I didn’t even register the vile flavor. A second I poured over my face and shoulders, roughly rubbing the stinging goo into my skin. As before, I followed it down with a small vial of elven milk to help boost both my own mana regeneration and the effectiveness of the potion.

I found myself holding a fourth vial and froze for a moment. I couldn’t drink it, another potion so soon after the first three was a terrible idea. Instead, I hurriedly rolled Cayla onto her back, pinched her nose shut, and poured it into her mouth. It went everywhere. My hands were unsteady, some of it slopping onto her cheeks and lips. She choked and coughed, but swallowed. It was fine, better a little potion in her lunges than none at all in her stomach.

I looked around, trying to come up with a plan, but everything seemed rather hopeless. The air around me sang with not-mana, horrible writhing tendrils of it snaking across the ground towards me. The once fine mansion was almost completely buried under a massive heap of quivering, warping off-white flesh and eyes. The rift was still open, wider than ever even, and more and more of the thing’s immense body emerged from it with every passing moment.

I wasn’t sure what exactly it was, but I had some ideas. It must be some sort of titanic starspawn, the sort that was usually simply too big to slip through the dimensional boundary. The books I’d read never mentioned anything on this scale, but that seemed like the most obvious explanation. Especially since some of the smaller creatures around it very much did look like the Outsiders I was passingly familiar with.

Whatever it was, it felt absolutely terrifying. Each of its titanic coils glowed with power, more energy in a single tentacle than the entire Outsider I had captured a few weeks ago. I had my doubts that anything I could do could so much as scratch it, much less do any real damage. My only option was to get away from here as quickly as I could, and I was not really in any state to do so.

Even now, I could feel those that could rapidly retreat from the area. The wards on several neighboring buildings had also collapsed and I could sense dozens of mages, most of them as weak or weaker than I was, fleeing with all possible haste. Only a scant few people remained now, most of them completely imobile and scattered in the vicinity of the summoning. Everyone else was either dead or gone.

I glanced down at Cayla, then towards the rift, then frantically looked around again, hoping to see something I’d missed before. I was on the edge of the road. On my left was the upside-down remains of my rented carriage. On the right, the road was mostly clear except for two more damaged carriages and a corpse, but the road itself was covered in rents and jagged cracks and I wasn’t really sure how quickly I could move in my current state. At my back was a tall brick wall covered in flowering vines and still shining with the remains of defensive wards.

I looked down at Cayla again. She was still unconscious, but she didn’t look as bad as she had a few moments before. Her mana core was a steady glow in her chest, dim but stable. Then I pushed her gently into the cover of the well-trimmed bushes and slowly staggered to my feet. There was only one way I could go. I had to try. I had to go. Walk. Run. Move.

I stepped forward, my knees shaking from the exertion. I stumbled and––

A strong hand caught my shoulder and suddenly I could feel a very familiar presence standing right beside me. “I had hoped you would be slightly further away for this,” Professor Williams said softly, “but it seems the call is more insidious than I had suspected. Of course you would have something important to do around here today, hmm. Well, no matter. It will be dealt with momentarily.”

I blinked slowly, barely processing what was happening. Soft hands gently guided me down into a chair that had definitely not been there a moment ago. Gossamer strands of mana appeared in a circle around me, runes written in pure mana burning themselves into the suddenly smoothed-out granite.

“Sit tight, focus on your wounds, and enjoy the show!” I heard, and then she was gone as suddenly as she’d appeared.

I blinked again. My mind felt clearer, the pounding, burning ache in my skull reduced from a dragon’s breath to a simple bonfire. I could see tendrils of the offputting, yellowish not-mana rubbing against the runic barrier around me and failing to find any purchase on the smooth sheet of force. All of a sudden, the air in my lungs was lighter and a weight that had been crushing me was gone as well.

I was still trying to understand what had just happened––I’d felt Professor Williams’s presence, heard her voice and felt her mana, but the hows of it all escaped me––when suddenly the world became illuminated by a new star.

“There you are, beasty.” Professor Williams’s voice was cold yet playful and boomed like thunder. “How nice of you to finally come out of your shell. I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks!”