AO 4 Ch 8 (Patreon)

Chapter 8

The sewer grew quiet as the splash of our boots echoed around eerily through the giant stone pipe.

Miles and I both kept spheres of light up that illuminated our surroundings, though the smooth stone walls were anything but interesting. Round stone walls encompassed us and the murky water in the channel was stagnant. It continued to rise even as the channel got deeper.

Aurelia held up a fist for us to stop. “Something ahead.”

I strained my ears and only then did I hear a low clicking above the noise of the water. “More?” My voice came out barely a whisper.

She nodded and we all exchanged glances as our order shuffled around. The six anchors moved in front of the four mages rather than encircling them.

I dimmed my light and Miles followed suit, but I wasn’t entirely sure it would help us sneak up on them. The ones earlier had sensed us long before we had seen them.

The sudden slapping of dozens of webbed feet told me we’d had company again.

“Cover your eyes.” I warned and my orb of light became blindingly bright. In the light, I could see the veins of my eyelids clearly before I dialed it back to something that would allow our anchors to fight in full visibility but not blind them.

Deep hisses came from the monsters as Aurelia shot through them, ice rippling off her blade as she cut into several of them while the other anchors followed through behind her.

With the monsters blinded for several seconds, they were dispatched quickly.

“Not bad. Try that again.” Aurelia pulled a little notebook from her leathers and scribbled something down.

“Notes?” I asked, it was hardly the time to be taking notes.

“It’s my duty to record what I can and report it back.” She said, tucking it away. “There are only two instances of this monster type being seen before. If I can provide insight to save future generations, then I will.”

I still didn’t fully understand her commitment to duty. However, that was just another thing for me to work on in order to keep her around. Maybe I could teach the manticore to love.

Everything in the sewer was quiet until my light caught something glimmering in the distance.

I focused the light forward and gasped.

Coiled and ready to strike was a crocodile even larger than the one I’d seen in the ocean. No, this was a Creslin.

We were both shocked for a moment as its ambush was interrupted.

The monster had rough scales so blue they were almost black. The scales began to move, drawing my attention.

It took a moment more of staring before I realized smaller Creslins crawled over the surface of the water, their heads turned my way and their eyes caught the light.

I surged light magic into the floating orb. “Eyes!”

Everyone shielded their vision and I felt a rush of air as the anchors jumped back.

They moved just in time as the massive Creslin snapped and its jaws closed in the place they’d just been.

The monster thrashed and let out a guttural roar. Its head slammed into the sewer, cracking the pipe and sending a small cascade of rocks from the ceiling.

“Back up.” Sienna shouted. “Miles, hold the walls together.”

Aurelia shot forward, her sword clanging as it struck the massive Creslin and failed to penetrate its scales.

A smaller monster snapped at her and she froze its jaw before shattering it with a kick.

The large one, threw its body to the side, using its sheer bulk to try and crush the anchor.

“Ard, try death magic down its throat.” She shouted as she flipped backwards and slid on the wet stone.

Maribelle grabbed my waist and pulled me forward to be within range of my death magic. I didn’t hold back, throwing one hand forward while grabbing my arm with the other as I pumped out the sticky black death magic in undulating waves.

The Creslin breathed out its own death magic that crashed into mine, ripping it apart.

Maribelle jerked me back out of range as the monster’s death magic, leaving the magic to splash harmlessly on the stone.

But then I heard Miles’ anchor scream, his leg turning a deathly black.

“Bring him.” I told Maribelle.

She snatched the anchor and threw him at my feet before she launched herself over the creslin’s open mouth and wound up a punch.

I grabbed the anchor as the cavern boomed with Maribelle’s punch. She forced the monster’s maw shut and used her daggers to carve up several smaller creslins before dodging back as the larger one tried to use its bulk again.

The sewer shook and more cracks formed in the side walls.

Sienna was straining, working her magic to keep the sewer from collapsing. “Do something.” She glanced down at Miles’ anchor.

I put my hands on the man and flooded his body with life magic, causing the deathly pale creeping up his leg to stop and begin to fall back.

My life magic continued to pour in, overtaking the brief exposure to death magic.

“Thank you.” He clung to my arm.

Death magic was terrifying. Even for an anchor it was fatal without a healer nearby.

“Your family missed something if you didn’t know about the death magic!” I shouted at Aurelia and formed three more manticore claws, spinning them up and throwing them at the creslin’s eyes.

It blinked and my adept spell only left small cuts on the thin skin.

“That’s why we must live and report this.” Aurelia cut down two smaller ones and landed beside me. “Though I hate to suggest it, we might want to retreat. It’s not going anywhere.”

“Huh?” I asked.

She pointed behind it. “There’s a partial blockage of the pipe. This one’s too big to get out. We could bring your mother down here—“

The creslin drove its hard snout into the ceiling as Maribelle positioned her daggers on the tip.

She used the monster’s own strength to drive the daggers through its scales.

In the process, she was crushed against the ceiling and blood spurted out of multiple wounds.

“Maribelle!” I admonished her. The thought of retreating disappeared from my mind for the moment.

The crazy maid glanced back at me with a battle fervor in her eyes that bordered on manic. “Aurelia, you said the last one that was killed used a lance. They pierced through it to deal damage, right? Tada, I made our lance opening with my daggers.” She landed by my side and cracked her neck as all the cuts healed over before my eyes.

“The sewer is about to collapse. Do something.” Sienna was preoccupied, as were the other two Graystone mages.

“Cyam!” I shouted and fed the horse living in my shadow magic.

He rushed out, stamping out several of the smaller monsters before crashing into the large monster. The monster pulled the daggers away from it before squashing the horse back into shadow with its bottom jaw.

The horse whinnied a complaint and came back out of the shadows kicking mad.

I reached out to the stone and tried to repair the structure, but the giant creslin thrashed again and this time the sewer didn’t hold up.

A section collapsed behind us. The area we were fighting in only held because three mages were all supporting this stone.

“Finish it, and let’s go. Seline, Aurelia, distract it. Maribelle, get me close.” I was expected to lead as the mage of the group. “The rest of you keep the little ones from harming your mages.”

Maribelle wrapped her arm around me and carried me forward.

Yet despite Aurelia’s flashy attempt to distract the monster, it seemed to possess some intelligence, ignoring Cyam and the other anchors.

It refocused on Maribelle and I as soon as we got close, opening its maw and spewing death magic at us, tracking us with the spray to prevent us from closing in.

Maribelle kicked off the wall and pulled me back out of range before she grabbed my face and pulled me down for a kiss.

She practically sucked the magic out of me.

All of the excess fire magic from my using ice and the excess death from healing the other anchor filled her as she let me go and shot off on her own.

“What?” I asked dumbly as she narrowly dodged the death magic and landed on its snout, grabbing her dagger and grounding all of that excess magic.

Fire erupted underneath the creslin’s skin, expanding it and making it glow before death magic tore it apart and she blew off a quarter of the monster’s top jaw. The air around it exploded and threw her against the ceiling.

She landed on the ground and dodged out of the way as it thrashed harder than before smashing its head, tail and feet repeatedly into the sewer walls as it let out bellows of pain.

Maribelle’s maid outfit was torn and scorched in multiple areas. “It was too dangerous to bring you that close.” Her skin went from angry red to normal over the course of several seconds.

“It’s going to bring the sewer down!” Sienna was red faced as she exerted as much magic as she could to protect us.

I didn’t have to be an earth mage to see the issue. The walls and ceiling of the sewer were covered in cracks.

Any more of this thrashing and it wouldn’t matter that we had stopped the monster; we’d all be buried.

I reached out with my magic and tried to aid the Graystone mages only to feel the damage was growing worse faster than I could repair.

It wasn’t just the sewer walls; the earth above had been shifted and was bearing down on us.

I threw up several pillars to support the ceiling as the Graystone mages rapidly tried to repair the structure.

Yet the creslin’s thrashing destroyed half of the work they did in just moments.

“Kill it.” Maribelle looked at me as if she expected me to snap my fingers and do it. “Like you destroyed the table in your mother’s office.”

Huh? I paused, realizing she meant soul magic.

I was not very good at it. When I destroyed the table, I was simply trying to lift it.

To manipulate reality with my soul.

The same way gestures helped mages, I focused on the creslin and raised my arm, putting the full conviction of my soul into the words. “Rise.” I genuinely believed the monster would lift off the ground, suspended in air.

At least, that’s what I told myself.

I made the gesture, expecting it to levitate, and definitely not expecting what happened.

The monster’s eyes bugged out of its head. I’d remember that look for the rest of my life.

A creature as horrifying as this was shocked and terrified for a moment before it flipped inside out.

Its ribs expanded outwards, ripping its guts open as its maw flipped backwards, breaking every inch of the remaining bones as it split down the edge of its lips and folded both backwards and inwards on itself in a giant gory mess.

Then it all sank inward like a giant was squeezing it into a smaller ball.

I let go of the pressure that was throbbing inside of me and the monster exploded, painting the walls, myself and everyone present in blood.

The floor slipped to the side and the ceiling inverted until Maribelle caught me, her face covered in blood but she smiled in glee.

“Ugh.” Was about all I could get out. It felt like Cyam was dancing on top of my head at the moment. Speaking of the horse, I felt him slip back into my shadow and nuzzle my back.

“It’s okay. It is dead; take a moment to rest.” She stroked my face, an expression of devotion in her eyes.

The softness of her thighs greeted my head as she knelt down and gave me somewhere to rest.

“Not to be picky, but we could use a little help here.” Sienna’s face wasn’t red but still strained.

“Shut up.” Maribelle snapped at her.

I put a hand on the maid’s arm to stop her. “Calm down. I can help.” My focus was abysmal, but several crude pillars shot out of the ground and into the ceiling as I helped them support all of the weight crushing down on the sewer.

As soon as I did that, I collapsed back into Maribelle’s comfortable lap.

Sienna collapsed as well and Selina caught her. “I think it’ll hold for a few minutes. What was that Ard?”

I chuckled a little loopy from the pain in my head. “Special four sphere magic. I tried to lift it.”

“Your special four sphere magic needs a little work, because you certainly didn’t lift it. Instead you… twisted it in on itself.” Sienna looked over where the corpse should be with a grimace and swallowed before looking away.

“Aurelia, can you ensure none of the small ones remain?” Maribelle asked my other anchor. “It would be best that our mage take a moment to relax. That took quite a bit out of him.”

“Same as the table?” Aurelia asked.

I shared everything with my anchors, including mishaps with new magic.

“Worse.” Maribelle stroked my head, her fingers finding my temples and giving them a gentle massage that relaxed muscles in my head and neck that I didn’t even know I had. “He’ll need several minutes before he can move.”

Selina was glancing between the two of them with her brows pressed down. “That wasn’t like any magic I’d ever seen.”

Sienna waved the question she was about to ask away. “Miles, Karen, swear right now that anything you saw today will stay behind your lips for the rest of your lives. Your anchors too.”

“On my honor.” Miles sounded weary, but I couldn’t turn my head enough to see him. “He saved our lives today. Isn’t that right Karen?”

“Yes. I won’t mention his special four sphere magic.” She agreed.

“Thank you both. Now, Aurelia, stop looking like you are going to silence them the rough way.” Sienna admonished my anchor.

I grunted. “It’s going to be fine. If they are anything like another Graystone that I know, they take other people’s secrets very seriously. Don’t harm them.”

“As you wish.” Aurelia came into view, her eyes kept glancing out over the corpses.

“Hey, you match your hair.” I smiled thinking it was the funniest thing ever.

She rolled her eyes. “It hurt your head that much?”

“Feels like Cyam’s dancing on it.” I winced, just talking was painful. Yet, I swore I had the funniest joke at the tip of my tongue.

Maribelle’s fingers eased the tension with more slow circles. “Close your eyes for just a minute.”

“Rest before you say something you’ll regret.” Aurelia added.

“Na.” I grunted. “It’s fun teasing pretty women.” With that statement, I did follow their instructions and closed my eyes letting myself rest while Maribelle massaged my head.

There was a slow dripping noise echoing in the sewer, otherwise there wasn’t much more than a few soft grunts from the rest of the group.

While we waited, I imagined my soul, that castle that Eva had me build. Slowly my consciousness faded into the world of my soul. Unlike before it was crisp, still formed.

Yet, instead of a strong castle, I found one that looked like it had been laid to siege.

Walls crumbled like it had been smashed and wreckage was strewn about all the way up to one of the spires.

Maribelle stood on that spire atop her serpent sphere gazing out over the wreckage and standing guard.

Was this a representation of the damage I’d just done to myself by misusing this magic? If so, then I was worried how much worse it could have been if I’d pushed any harder.

This was my world, so I put the pieces back together, waving my hand and pulling the wrecked stone back up on the walls and sealing it together once again.

The buildings that had collapsed were restored and several cracks in the center castle were sealed.

The work went by quickly, because here it was almost as if I were a god. My soul was mine and I could do with it as I pleased. I felt a small sliver of my soul vibrate with that desire and with a will my world continued to repair itself.

I opened my eyes feeling relief from the pounding headache.

“Better?” Maribelle asked, still holding me in her lap.

“Much. How long was I out?” My eyes scanned the surroundings and found no change.

“About ten minutes.” She helped me up. “You look better, less pale.”

I glanced around. The rough pillars I had made were cracked, but standing while the ceiling was mostly whole and the walls were a shattered mess where some of the pressure had caused earth to slide down the edges before settling.

It looked like it could all come down any second.

Yet, dipping into my magic told me that it was stable, for now. The street above had likely collapsed and hopefully no one was stupid enough to put more pressure on that spot.

I had been avoiding looking, but where the creslin had been was now a pile of bloody meat and intestines. It was completely unrecognizable from the monster that we had been fighting. “Remind me to not do that to anything I like.”

“Why would you?” Sienna was being helped up by Selina now that I was back on my feet.

I scratched my cheek. “Because I was just trying to move it, not…” I gestured vaguely at the mess of meat. “Do that.”

“So help us all.” Sienna rubbed at her brow. “Now that you are feeling better, want to help us get out of here before we all suffocate?”

“Right, that’s a thing.” I hadn’t even considered that problem yet my mind was still putting its priorities in order. “Okay, magic time.” Stretching out my fingers, I waved to the pillars and refined them into neat columns of stone before pushing up into the ceiling and mending the cracks there while also pushing on all the dirt above us and evening it out.

Next came punching a hole straight up through it all, so we didn’t suffocate. That was now a fear lodged in the back of my brain that wouldn’t go away until I made that shaft.

The walls smoothed out as I used the mounds of soil to fill any and all cracks before converting the dirt to stone.

“It’s pretty great watching him do all of this.” Karen said, a touch of appropriate awe in her voice as she admired my work.

“Don’t say that too loudly. It’ll go to his head and he’ll get stuck down here with how big it gets.” Aurelia cracked a joke.

She was learning!

I was so proud of her for making jokes. One day I’d corrupt her completely.

“No. It’s fine. Let them bask in my glory!” I threw my arms out to the side and let a little pillar of stone spin and lift me off the ground as I made a sphere of light above me for effect.

“See what you’ve done?” Sienna pointed at me. “That’s why we just let him be impressive without praising him too much.”

I sank the pillar back down to the ground and dimmed my sphere of light. “No fun. Maybe this is why Missy puts on the grand show she does. It would make sense.” I dismissed the idea after another moment of thought; she was just a pouty goddess.

“You should be nicer to her.” Maribelle said from the side and dipped her head. “Thank you goddess for seeing us through this disaster once again. I thank you every day for Ard’s magic.” She shot off a quick prayer.

“I’m the one with the magic.” Determined to prove just that, I went about fixing the collapsed parts of the sewer now that I’d made the current area stable and ensured that I’d have air to breathe.