PoV: Amelie Ehrenherz - Spider
Snow is a maniac.
The fourth floor smells like rot. Like decay. Like corpses. Occasionally, there are impacts, when bodies fall down from a higher floor, from the floating islands up there. But our bunker? The labyrinth Bile is digging?
It smells of iron. Blood.
The earth around Snow is stained red. I look over at the hunched figure, currently devouring a book, eyes staring unblinkingly at the pages. For a moment, I wonder if Snow is more like the undead on this floor than a human. I compare the frail shape to that of a wraith, their dark mantle to that of a revenant.
Bloodshot eyes turn to me, and Snow smile’s. I shiver when Snow’s lips part, and blood spills out. For a moment, I see surprise written across that face. I see that mouth snap shut, and a golden wave of healing spread across pale skin. And then, noise.
“I have the next inscription prepared,” Snow says, voice hoarse. It sounds like a dead frog, like someone’s last rasp on the deathbed.
“Drink some water, for the love of all that is worthy,” I say, exasperatedly, pressing that refilling bottle forward. For a moment, Snow just seems confused, but after blinking a few times, the weirdo takes the phial and gulps down a few mouthfuls of water.
“Will you work with me now?” This time, the voice comes out calm, collected. Raspy, but not near-death.
I sigh, suitably dramatically, and nod. “If I must,” I agree, then look to the inlay we’ve prepared.
There’s been a change since I came to this floor. My class has taken almost naturally to it, and so did I. It feels strange, to be so at home between shambling ghouls, and yet, they don’t scare me. The yellow-white buildings feel comfortable to me. The stale air is familiar.
Perhaps it’s because I, too, am a rotten thing. The thought makes me snicker, and I look at the inlays again. My job has evolved on this floor, after I took an apprenticeship. My talents are respected here. Summoners or controller-types apparently often spend months on the fourth floor - or so the compendium says.
And so, seeing my puppeteering, an elderly necrobuilder took me under their wing. They’re a scithian, and almost scary, but the silks wrapped around them are exquisite.
[The Bonetwister eagerly awaits your next work.]
And, of course, I gained a fan. I sigh, activating my new skill, and get to work.
[Boneweaving 3 > 4]
One of the skeletons we’d dug up and dispatched comes apart. It’s bizarre to look at, even now. The bones that construct its body come apart, unravelling into strings. It takes a good bit of time, and I use my hand to draw out more of the material, then give it to Snow.
The bone-string is soaked in mana, and our anti-mage takes to it like a fish to water. Snow places the strings, defly integrating them into the lattice they’ve built.
In our underground bunker-labyrinth, there is a sprawling construction. Square meters of densely webbed thread, layering inscriptions and enchantments. The material adheres to itself fluently, allowing it to be worked almost as if 3D-printing something by hand. Snow shapes it, creating thin plates to inscribe, or enchantments that are woven themselves.
Mana pours out from that endless vessel. There seems to be always more mana in there, and it sends a shiver down my spine. Even I’ve invested a good bit into heart, to keep my body together. Mana is heavy. It doesn’t want to be caged. And yet, Snow doesn’t seem to leak much. Instead, everything about the mana coming from them is almost mundane. Average.
But it never stops.
Magic pours from their fingers unceasingly, and the threads twist in Snow’s hand as I spin more of it. Seconds turn to minutes, then a full hour, until we’ve undone yet another body, added yet another segment to the enchantment.
“Thank you,” Snow tells me with a nod, looking at the newly added part with satisfaction. “It didn’t explode. That’s good.”
I stare. “Excuse me, please do not do explosive experiments around me,” I note drily, but with a good bit of offense in my voice.
Slowly, the uncaring bastard turns to me, then blinks those bloodshot eyes. “Right,” Snow says. “Yeah. I’ll get some sleep. Can you make me more thread?”
“Fine,” I say. “Look out for your-”
Before I finish, the undignified cretin is already asleep. I feel my eye twitch in fury, then I take a deep breath, and calm myself. I discard the rage, and push my wheelchair up the ramp into the base, and to the wall. “Ungrateful little…” I stifle the words, biting down on them as I make my way to work.
Despite everything, I know Snow wants me safe. Despite everything, I find myself liking the coldhearted critter. And I could not be more angry that Opal is right. Because no matter how angry I get, somehow, I cannot bring myself to hate Snow.
But I am a little afraid of that enchantment. Just a little.
- - -
PoV: Snow Okiyama - Ion
[Inscription 17 > 18]
A tapestry of runes sprawls out in front of me. My vision is blurry, and I wipe the blood from my eyes, casting another heal on myself. Every single limb of mine aches, squished by the cruncher, but I endure. I can feel my body growing stronger, so I intensify the pressure with each day. My mind grows, and so I increase the strain on it.
Nowadays, I work on modifying the spells in my archive at the same time as I work on the enchantments. It makes my eyes bleed, but what else is new? The working is important. It’s by far the biggest thing I’ve ever made, and I could not have done it on my own.
Bile is creating the space. Amelie is providing me with mana-conductive bone, in both thread and plates, letting me carve and weave the enchantments. Norman is hiding the whole thing from the people above, and Opal keeps bringing me more books about runes. Richard keeps me fed, and the meals are so heavy in calories that small snacks can sustain me for a day.
We all work together to prepare. I wear my mind ragged with experimentation, with an enchantment that’s a specific gift for a specific person. I weave and work, coldly, calmly, steadily. Unwavering.
Blood drips onto the enchantment, lifeblood leaching into the ground, and I blink redness from my vision. I craft more runes, I inlay them, stacking circles atop each other. It’s a butchered thing, but I learn as I work.
[Job Up! Imbuer 14 > 17]
More mana enters my vessel, kept low by my attunement loop. It pours out of me in a steady stream as I weave and carve and inscribe. Essence fuels me from advancing my job over level 15, and it guides my hand as I learn from it, taking the lessons apart.
“Ah,” I mutter. “So that’s how to properly stack runes…”
Instantly, I adjust my work, layering the inscriptions more heavily. I carve runes, then place another bit of bone-weave on top, the lattice that fuels this entire place growing thicker. More blood spills from my eyes as my brain fizzles and sputters, and I direct more healing to it, patterns of mana fueling me.
Even the steady flow of mana from my vessel is almost too much to endure with how much mana I have in comparison to my physical stats. But I don’t stop. When the inside of my skin burns, I heal it.
The slow trickle of red and blue contrasts each other. And the ground underneath me stirs.
“Oh,” I say quietly. “I think blood may attract the undead.”
How lovely. I was almost out of bones to work with.
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