105. Down in the Dark (Patreon)

They climbed through the trees. The night passed into day, and the day passed into night again. Ike lost count of time, lost track of direction, everything. Time simply flowed. They moved, and the forest stretched on, forever.

At last, Wisp slowed to a halt. Ike almost ran into her, too used to moving to quickly stop. He jerked to a stop.

“We’ve arrived.”

He lifted his head. A break in the trees gave way to a cleft in the earth. It dropped into truly black darkness, darkness so deep there was no bottom to it. A cold wind whipped by, throwing Ike’s hair and the tails of his bandanna into a flurry. It cut straight through his clothes and skin, down to his bones. He shivered. Not just from the cold, either. From a pure, sheer horror. A fear of something unknowable. The terror of ultimate emptiness, of a hole without a bottom. A gash in reality itself. He gazed into it, and felt a thousand unknown, unseeable eyes gazing back.

“What is this?” Ike asked.

“The Abyss. Or… what used to be known as the Abyss, before the city lord set his barriers over the current Abyss,” Wisp said quietly. She glanced at Ike. “I didn’t know about this place at first. A monster even older and stronger than me showed it to me, before they left the Abyss behind forever.”

“What’s down there, at the bottom of it?” he asked.

“Who knows? Even I’ve never been to the bottom. Halfway down, the pressure began to crush me. I had to turn back,” Wisp said.

“Oh,” Ike said quietly.

“I might not know what’s at the bottom, but I know what’s in between us and the depths. And that, is a vast quantity of aether. Pure, primordial aether. If you want to learn how to use aether, there’s nowhere better.”

“Really? I can’t feel anything different,” Ike said.

Wisp scoffed. “You wouldn’t. When aether reaches the surface of the earth, it’s emitted as mana, lunam, solam, or some other energy. Only under the earth, or the sea, can you find pure aether. And this is one of those rare vents.”

“Once I’m in there, it’s only aether?” Ike confirmed.

Wisp nodded. “Pretty much. There’s so little of anything else that it’s basically non-present.”

Ike took a deep breath. He let it out, slowly. “What about monsters?”

“Don’t remember any. We stay away from the Abyss. The pressure it gives off…” Wisp shuddered.

“Does it feel bad? I don’t feel anything,” Ike commented. Not in its pressure, anyways. But on an instinctive level, I get it.

She snorted. “Hard to believe that, but you humans sense things differently than us. All my instincts are screaming for me to run away. You won’t find many monsters in there.”

Ike stared down into the darkness. “If I do, will you help?”

“Sure. Don’t worry, though. You shouldn’t run into anything.”

He looked at the sides of the cleft. Unlike the larger Abyss, this one had perpendicular, purely sheer walls. There wasn’t even a hint of an angle to them. “How do I get in there?”

“I’ll lower you on my string. If you need to get out of there, pull twice,” Wisp said.

“What if something throws fire at me?” Ike asked.

She scoffed. “Won’t happen.”

“If it does?”

Wisp sighed. “Will it make you feel better if I give you a ball of emergency thread?”

Ike considered for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, actually. It would.”

She laughed. “Fine, fine. You’re really getting the top tier experience here. The VIP training course.”

“What, is safety only for VIPs?” Ike asked.

Wisp shrugged. “Seems to be the case from what I’ve seen.”

Ike opened his mouth to protest, then shrugged. “I can’t argue with that.”

“Right. So. You wanna get started?” Wisp asked. Looking around, she clapped, then spread her hands at him. “Might as well get moving. No reason to wait.”

“What’s the first step, pushing all the mana out of my body?” Ike asked.

“Yep, you guessed it!” Wisp said. “You get working on that while I set up the ropes.”

“Got it.” Ike pulled out Rosamund’s head.

Wisp stared. “What the hell is that?”

“Oh, this? It’s a…” Ike looked at Rosamund.

Rosamund glared back at him. She narrowed her eyes.

Ike shrugged. “…well, it’s a mana repository. I usually draw mana from it, but I figured I might be able to store mana in it, too. Seemed like a decent shot. Better than throwing my mana away.”

“Yeah, better than throwing mana away. I didn’t know you mages made things like that. Never seen anything like it,” Wisp commented. She tilted her head to get a better look and leaned in.

Rosamund bared her teeth. She tried to spit through the gag, but failed.

Wisp chuckled. “She’s got a personality on her. I didn’t know you were that kind of guy.”

“Huh? I—oh, no, no. She, uh, she used to be a whole puppet. Like the field of puppets I drew mana from, but moving around and stuff… er, well, anyways, I didn’t make her. I just found her. Adapted her a little bit. It’s not—it’s not my taste, or anything…” Ike grimaced. He pressed his lips together. I’m just making it worse.

The more he talked, the wider Wisp’s grin grew, until at last she laughed aloud. “Yeah, yeah. Hey, whatever you do in your own time is your own problem. All mages end up weirdos eventually. You just got a jump start on it, huh?”

Ike grimaced. “Wisp, come on.”

“You gotta admit, that’s pretty weird.”

“It’s weird, it’s just…” He looked at Rosamund’s head and sighed. “I was planning to keep her around until I could use her against her father, but maybe I should forget that. Just get rid of her.”

Rosamund’s eyes widened. She shook her head.

“I dunno. Looks like she’s not too fond of that.” Wisp thumped him on the shoulder. “Anyways, get on with it. The sooner we do this, the sooner your mana signature is suppressed, the sooner you hide from the Abyssal mages.”

“Right.” Ike took a deep breath. He tipped Rosamund over and nudged the sealing rock out of the way. Pressing his hand over her neck hole, he focused. Here we go. Let’s try and use this mana storage in the other direction!