72. The Barrier (Patreon)

I was moving towards the stairwell up to Diamondias when I noticed something odd shimmering in the corner of my eye.

I paused and turned, observing the strange, distinctive pattern present in the Astral.

There was a figure there, enshrouded in billowing flickers. It was impossible to make out any of its features. The thing was human-ish and also impossibly tall, long and slender, like a person that was warped, stretched, peeled apart into several dimensions.

I took a step back, my heart pounding in my chest.

The figure flickered to the side, transgressing through physical reality like a freaky ghost. It was here, clearly present amidst the ancient passageways of the catacombs, but also somewhere deep in the Still Forest.

"Holy shit, what the hell is that thing?" I whispered.

The eerie, uncanny figure turned towards me, and I felt a cold chill run down my spine. It was as if all the warmth in the world had been sucked out, leaving only a frigid void in its wake.

"Dawn? You see this thing, right?" I gulped.

"I do," the painting answered from my chest.

"What is that?" I asked.

"I do not know," the Astral Tree answered. "You are the first to bring one of my eyes to the catacombs beneath Illatius and above Undertown. It is not an Astral Phantom, I can tell you that much. It is something... completely different. Be careful."

I stared at the long-limbed creature, trying to understand what it was exactly.

The figure flickered again, moved without moving properly. 

It was suddenly looming right in front of me as if it leapt towards the spot where I stood in an instant.

I yelped and stumbled backwards, nearly tripping over a loose stone. The figure towered over me, impossibly tall, grotesquely elongated. I felt like a child looking up at a parent.

"What do you want?" I sputtered, my voice unsteady.

The figure didn't answer. 

It simply peered down at me, a face without an expression or features examining me as if it was trying to understand exactly what sort of a bug I was.

Then, it reached out towards me. A long, spindling hand shifted through the air, settling over my face. The motion spooked me, felt threatening. 

My fingers wrapped tightly around Endy's handle.

Time slowed, a second stretched into two as my magic processor kicked in. 

I stared at the gangly thing in the Astral, defining all of it as a single concept. As I did, the freaky slender ghost became more visible, clearer. It had no eyes and no skin. Every centimeter of it crawled, wriggled like little worms… no, like moving fingers.

The inhuman hand uncurled with far too many digits to count. A moth filled with what looked like fingers opened up, sucking the warmth out of the air.

I made a decision - this thing was a threat to me. Something in me feared it, wanted me to flee. 

I moved with precise swiftness of a chimera, struck the slender ghost right in the center of its wriggling, warped palm.

Endy sank deep into the abomination with a hiss.

The figure flinched with a wail, sounding like stone scraping against stone. It detonated, fell apart into silver swirls of spilling magic.

[+50 XP]

"That's right! Know your place," I growled out. "That'll teach you to grab people, Mister Slendyhands!"

"Run," Dawn suddenly yelped.

"Wha..." I turned, trying to spot the danger.

"RUN!" Dawn screamed. "NOW!"

I felt an awful, magic-draining chill rushing through me, numbing my body as I leapt forward.

Thousands of massive, ancient hexagrams within the black, eroded, gothic halls ignited like brilliant furnaces. Disturbed by their sudden activation, the Astral Ocean around me warped, bubbled as if it was made from physical fluid.

I wasn't fast enough to reach the stairwell to Diamondias.

Hundreds of long-limbed figures manifested into existence all around me, emerging from nothing, coming out of some priory hidden dimension exposed by the boiling Astral currents.

I tried to leap away, but there were far too many of them coming from all directions.

Endy sang in my hand as I slashed at the grotesque limbs reaching out towards me, my experience ticking upwards.

I fought like a wild thing, like a cornered animal. But there was only one of me and far, far too many of the spindly monstrosities. 

With each touch, they dragged me down, their glacier-like fingers numbing my body, clawed digits pulling, tearing the anti-phantom armor that protected my delicate soul.

I struggled against them, tried to fight. But it was futile.

My anti-phantom armor came apart, divested away like an orange peel under their combined assault.

The gangly ghosts pulled me down into the darkness, into the cold embrace of the Astral. I heard Dawn's yell and then with a twang my soul ripped from my body.

As I flailed, drowning in the murky void of the Still Forest, I saw my awful enemies with far greater clarity. These things were neither dead nor alive. They were not separate creatures. They were akin to a gargantuan web, a vast entity woven from human-like, stretched, ossified, fibrous, clawed fingers. Myriads of them rushed towards me, binding me, smothering, ripping apart the light and very essence of my soul.

As I looked up into the void beyond, I understood that my struggle was utterly futile. 

I witnessed an entity that spanned a thousand kilometers in size, each of the ghosts but a tiny digit of the abominable colossus. 

I was but a tiny, insignificant mote that had been plucked away from the physical and was now being torn apart by the endless feelers of this behemothic organism.

Endy and I fought till my hands came apart, no longer able to grasp the blade.

One by one the vile legion of digits ripped out my threads, sheared my soul, tearing everything that composed me away.

I knew nothing but pain and terror as the light of my core became exposed to the chilling, life-smothering currents of the Astral and burned away to nothing.

. . .

[-1 Infinite Mirror]

I fell to my knees, my eyes filling with tears. My chest ached horribly. There was a gnawing emptiness there, one of regret, recent pain and loss.

"Juni? What's wrong?" Dawn inquired. "Why are you crying?"

"I... I just died," I pushed the words out of my throat with a choke.

"A premonition?" Dawn gasped.

"Another me… just made a mistake, died. Something... some kind of an Astral… creature got me," I wept. "I made a wrong choice and I died."

"What did you do?" The painting petitioned.

"I don't know. I saw a warped ghost... an imprint in the Astral," I described the stretched entities to Dawn. I told her how I attacked one of them and how thousands upon thousands of them suddenly manifested and dragged me into the Astral.

"You said that there were hexagrams that lit up on the walls?" Dawn asked.

"Yeah," I nodded. "Really old ones."

I tried to recall what I had seen and looked around. My heartbeat intensified as I saw one of them. It was barely lit, flickering ever so slightly.

"There!" I barked. "That one! It's that one!"

"Hrm," Dawn muttered. "That's an ancient barrier... shield. An old hexagram to keep phantoms out of the city. I think I understand..."

"Do you? Hurry up and enlighten me," I rushed the painting.

"Astral phantoms," Dawn mulled. "They're drawn to life. To living things. They want to consume souls. But, they can't cross certain boundaries - certain magic keeps them away. I think... that what you encountered was an Astral expression of barrier magic. A millennia-old belief of humanity in the power of the Illatius Barrier Shield, made manifest!"

"Barry," I said, laughing nervously. "F-fing hell. A Barry just freaking killed me!"

"Did you just give a barrier manifestation a human name?" Dawn asked. I was certain that she was frowning at me from beneath my armor.

"Yeah, I did," I said. "It's my thing. Naming things makes them less scary. I dealt with one Barry and then his pals went through my soul-shield like it was nothing. Damn hoodlums."

I tried to stop my hands from trembling. It was incredibly difficult to do, but I managed to contain my panic. As I continued to nervously stare at the barrier hexagram, my hands pulled out my notebook. I rapidly sketched the hexagram onto the page.

Dawn sighed.

"What do you think I should do?" I asked with a shudder. "I'd rather not go through that again. That hexagram is flashing at me in a way that I do not like."

"The question is - why would an anti-phantom shield attack you?" Dawn asked.

"Because I'm an Astral Phantom," I sighed. "Well... some of me anyway. The System definitely defines me as one."

"So the barrier was trying to get rid of you because you're an Astral Phantom?" Dawn asked.

"Yes," I said. "It makes sense, in a way. I'm not entirely human. I think... the barrier was just trying to protect Illatius and itself. I did stab a Barry with my knife. I get it… the Barries were just doing their job. I simply got in the way.”

"So don't attack the barrier this time with your magic-killing knife," Dawn said. "Don't look at its manifestations. Don't acknowledge it. Pretend that it doesn't exist. The barrier doesn't hurt people. Be a person. Keep your Phantom-eyes closed."

"And you?" I asked.

"My eye is an artifact," Dawn explained. "People carry artifacts on them all the time. This type of a barrier should not react to me."

“R-right,” I trembled, pulling magic from my eyes. "Just gotta be human."

"Yes," Dawn said.

“Hi, Barry. I'm just a simple human girl, passing through. Name's Grogs!" I nervously laughed again, waving my hand at the now invisible hexagram.

I wanted to look at the barrier manifestation again. Knowing that something was out there, invisible and feeling out for me with a million fingers was extremely unnerving.

Barries… now I knew that they were there. 

Dawn was right. Barry came at me because I saw, acknowledged, defined him and destroyed one of his appendages.

The catacomb tunnels no longer seemed empty. There was hidden tension in the air. I quietly rushed past the spot where I had spotted Barry in my last, life-ending run. I shuddered, expecting to be struck down. Nothing happened.

“Did you see him?” I whispered as I turned a corner.

“Mhm,” Dawn acknowledged. “I see it. A point of magical focus, a feeler of... something. The barrier suspects that you are here. It’s definitely bothered by your presence. Just keep moving. Don't agitate it.”

I nodded, gulping.

The dim, yellow, crystal light of the stairwell up to Diamondias welcomed me.

“Is Barrie following?” I asked.

“No,” Dawn said. “It... gave up.”

I exhaled, taking a step upwards to the shopping district. So much for some relaxing urbex. I had forgotten where I was. I was warned about manifestations by Eunice! My mind clicked. If all chimera cendai were astral phantoms like me, then there was a reason why they didn't scout the sewers beneath the city. This place belonged to Barry!

No matter how powerful and old the cendai were, they could not compete with a manifestation this massive and widespread. Barrie owned, filled the tunnels beneath the city with his presence, I was certain of it now. Barrie grew big by feeding on the power of the Infinite Dungeon, getting stronger in the dark tunnels beneath Illatius for millennia.

. . .

I recognized Agatha's distinctive long, silver-blue hair and also Voltara's maid dress. The map given to me by Inspector Pomegrad worked well with my armacus' pathfinder and guided me to the right shop without any further issues.

"Guess who!" I wrapped my hands around Emerald's eyes.

"Juni?!" Emmy laughed. "How did you get into the shop?! The front doors are locked. I thought you were going to call me to be let in!"

"I have dark and mysterious powers," I said with a serious face.

The eldest princess and two maids emerged from the shelf aisle. Each of the maids had oversized suitcases on wheels with the logo of Nemendias on them.

I noticed that Agatha was staring at me intensely.

"Yeees?" I asked.

"Did you cut the lock on the door with your bullshit knife or something?" She demanded. 

"No," I said. "How's things here?"

"Scriveners are waiting outside," she sighed. "I was waiting for you to come and put makeup on me again to leave without being harassed. Seriously though, how did you get past the shop's shield? The owner assured me that we would not be disturbed by anyone! I expected you to come to the front door."

"Are you done buying bags?" I asked.

The two princesses nodded.

"Let's go then," I said. "Follow me."

I led my group of friends to one of the shelves in the back and tapped it with my armacus. The shelf clicked and swung open.

"What?!" I heard Agatha's noisy exhale as I dove into the priorly concealed tunnel.

I grinned at her as everyone filled up the dim tunnel. I tapped a rune on the wall and the shelf closed behind us.

"Welcome to the backrooms of Diamondias," I declared. "Watch out for Barries! They bite!"

Voltara stared at the long, branching tunnel with curiosity.

"Barries?" Emerald blinked at me.

"They hunt Astral Phantoms," I explained. "Barrie just killed me. It was an accident though, so I don't hold a grudge."

Agatha's eye twitched.

I laughed at her extremely bothered expression.