∗ ∗ ∗
"Irta'afa"
A rasped, throaty voice commanded from some distance away, though it rang, whispered, directly upon his ear. Husky, breathy, erecting the fine hairs on the nape of his neck. He knew the voice, and it was giving him a secret buzz.
Aoi had been sunbathing in a conspicuously tortoise-shaped imprint of flattened grass in the meadow of puerile Spring. A neighbor draped in an albescent, fallen blossom frock, a carved, unripe, plum helm hung too large atop their head, muzzling all but a smile and wide shining eyes. Adorable beyond words, she gifted him a seed, and flitted amorously around his raised hand when the incantation crawled leisurely upon Aoi's skin.
The warm afternoon sun was no match for the inviting chill that ran along the lengths of his body as the theurgy took hold of him.
Then, he was light.
Lighter than air, specifically. His clothes ceased to merely lay upon him, they rose; swept up in a soft, imperceptible breeze. Tingling along his spine, it ran into the strands of his pale loosely coiled hair then to his fingertips and toes. He was enthralled.
With all the grace and dignity of a bubble, he was suspended off the ground. Floating peacefully, a wicked smile painted across his face.
"Master Oru! Master Oru! Finally you're back! Did you bring me any books?!"
His teacher walked closer.
"I'm not your master. You are."
The Mage's battle-worn voice waltzed directly from his generous lips to Aoi's curious ears; the faintest patinated yellowing of his front teeth and a slight gap commemorated his words.
"How many times have I told you?"
"How many books did you bring me?"
The smell of hearty tobacco, deep earth and cinder had already sung in the air long before Salamander crawled over Mamoru's shoulder to lick a flame onto the end of the cigarette waiting unlit in the corner of his mouth.
He took a long pull.
"You need to get hold of your fuckin' mana.."
The curse rang low and deep as it stirred in the secluded glade that was now commanded into ownership by the man who spoke it.
His teacher, apparently short tempered, grabbed Aoi's foot; his hulky grip was diminishing yet tender as he spun Aoi around. Face to face now, for Aoi, hanging in equilibrium, had begun to orbit in place.
"Kid."
"What happened to your eye?"
He was merely curious.
"My what?"
The wild man of beastly origins looked puzzled and serious until the sad realization of his disfigurement set in his gaze.
"Healed, now…a fuck up on a hunting trip years ago, lot's of years ago kid.." His face betrayed a smile.
"A hunting trip." Aoi's eyes lit with realization, his teacher's face melted stoic. "…in a dungeon!" he shrieked then corrected himself.
"Um, perchance?"
"Maintain your shroud first."
"You know, that scar wasn't there the last time I saw you, Mister Mamoru."
"Properly."
Swirling ambers, Mamoru's gaze burned into Aoi, contemplative, gentle — but something deeper, darker, suddenly swelled and then just as suddenly left.
He was nearly unreadable. All brawn, square jawed, rugged, and unkempt. Sun-darkened terra-cotta skin, wrinkled around his heavy lidded eyes. In memory they were intense, naturally, a fine aged whisky and the unadulterated yellow of a dying ember. He was lupine and dangerous with the addition of a blackened laceration through the left ocular. A curse emanating from the scar, or so it looked.
A gorilla in motion; Mamoru reached his sturdy, forever bandaged arms out toward Aoi and rested it on his shoulder. Static discharge spread along the meeting place of the man's paw and his own shoulder as, together, they rose above the meadow. Slowly and deliberately leaving all he had known down below them, on the ground where the rest of the world affected by gravity lived.
Must be this.
They were standing atop clouds.
Yea this.
"See how quiet it is up here, kid. No birds, no sounds. Neighbors, fae, but never a single anima–"
"Stewart, Zero, Kujou, Maggi, Bai–"
"You are a beacon," He pulled a long slow drag as he glared into Aoi, effectively muzzling him, for now.
"As you are now. Mask your presence, or be hunted. Understand?"
"Teach me how to fly!"
"Kid, listen to me. If you're hunted, then whatever is hunting you will be led here, to your friends, and B. You're putting them in danger, even now."
Aoi's happy-go-lucky grin faded with the horror of–
"And when something comes for you you need to be prepared to take its life."
He finished his smoke, the last of his cigarette licked and swallowed by his reptilian friend.
"But you gotta know: that death's on you. You had the power to prevent it."
"Yes sir I understand!"
"How would you prevent a pointless death in the fut—"
"Proper shroud, Master Oru"
"I'm not your master. I guide you in the four exercises, full stop. Or...B, your Yaya…" He looked slightly irritated or perhaps nervous as he let the sentence trail off.
Mamoru exhaled whatever lingering nerves remained and grew in stature,
"Steel yourself, kid."
The musk of adventure and ash lit aflame his spirit as Aoi took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
"Aim to compress your mana to about one tenth of itself."
"You want me to do that up here?" Aoi's eyes dilated as the incredulity of the task before him sunk in.
"I am." Mamoru grunted, a cloud of smoke filled the air.
Aoi smiled. Admiration bleeding into apprehension as he looked to the Mage in shock at the beautiful, raging, massive, pool of mana this man was packing.
He needed to impress him; for him to take him seriously.
"Fine." Aoi grunted, impetuous.
He closed his eyes, and let his mind wander inward where he was to wrangle the raging tempest that was his own power.
I am the night which consumes the Sun. I challenge, conquer and create. I am the obsidian ocean that drinks in the stars. The crushing weight of all that isn't.
All that is, all that was, and all that will ever be must bend to my will.
Shroud.
The battle ensued unseen, but he was the victor. He allowed a moment to bask in the spoils…
Mamoru had already brought them to the ground by the time Aoi had opened his eyes. He wiped the sweat from his brow, pushed his white locks back and looked up through his nose at his teacher. Waiting.
"It's decent, kid."
Aoi burned. A smile consumed his face, eyes forced closed from his cheeks rising as high as they could manage, but almost as quickly as it had come, he forced it back.
"I'm a mage you know."
"You're barely three feet tall."
"Feet? I have two feet and I am one-hundred and thirty-five centimeters tall, I'm sure it's hard for you to see." Aoi cheekily wiped a pretend something from his own left eye.
"Ah fuck me. Some rich asshole wannabe King I know got me in the habit, it's some new thing."
"You brought me a bunch of books then?" Smiling because he knew his teacher.
"I brought books for your library."
Salamander appeared on his shoulder. He looked up into the tangling of the trees, a cool breeze blew as he held his position for a moment. The Salamander nuzzled its big bearded friend.
"Fuck it, he loves this story."
The cigarette materialized from mouth to end and the moment it was formed the mysterious vermillion, amber-eyed reptilian excitedly licked a flame to its end. Mamoru pulled in deep, the ember burning bright and began to head toward home.
∗ ∗ ∗
Huh
A narrow pale grey tunnel struggled to come into focus.
Pain.
Could be worse…wh..where am I?
Vicious fangs, splattered in red were still burned into the backs of his eyelids. Trembling, the beast who had tasted upon his flesh, envenomated and turned him carrion. She was lingering.
Oh no, I'm gunna die.
There's so much I haven't learned, and
He bit his lip.
Done.
"Steel yourself kid." He grumbled, the dark corona surrounding his vision narrowed…
Darkness.
∗ ∗ ∗
"TELL ME THE STORY ABOUT THE DUNGEON!"
Aoi was jumping like popping corn.
"…ARE THERE DRAGONS!? ARE THERE DRAGONS?!"
"I went to Kadakgali, on the First continent."
"You went to Akelbulan.." His jaw dropped.
"The southern tip, near the Darklands. Red sand dunes everywhere, more stars you could ever count, for miles and miles. I took these two other Hunters, combat ready okay." A smile cracked through his stoicism "And a Junior fuck up"
He's so cool
"We went to go see my old friend the Sangoma–"
"Shaman?"
"Sangoma Oya Ndare. She was one of the wisest elders I knew." His voice getting stern through frustration, only encouraging Aoi as he found his more gruff sound entertaining.
"Was?"
"Yeah she died, this story's an old one."
"But is it a good one?"
Salamander appeared, as if for added flair, to complete their ritual.
"Shadow Dragons? Ever heard of em, kid?"
Aoi dropped his jaw, eyes wide and shook his head.
"'Now shut up and listen, kid."
Aoi was rendered deliciously dizzy by the cloud of smoke spilling from his gapped grin.
"'Shadow Dragons are the residual mark left on the world by the unnatural death of a Dragon.' The death of a cosmic being like that leaves a scar, or so B says."
Salamander gazed into Aoi's eyes affectionately. Had they always been the color of a smoldering ember, amber as if mirroring Mamoru's own?
"Sensient Scars.."
"You mean sentient."
"B's taxonomy's a mess, but you know she's probably right. You wanna hear it or not?"
Aoi closed his mouth and inhaled Mamoru's words:
"'We are of the dirt, the bush, the grass, the lion, the gazelle. We are Alkebulan'" he said, eyes misted. "She introduced herself, she was a badass like B. We were in the desert, at the Dungeon she guarded, The Crossing"
"Wait...a dungeon connec–"
Mamoru raised his eyebrows "is the bridge between Akelbulan and the Darklands…fuckin whacked huh"
He conjured another cigarette.
"The wyrmlings' lacerations approach along the cross to the Other, the tumult I will cause in defense.' She was crying" He held out an arm and pointed right at Aoi as he continued, Aoi was gripped. "This one will come to harm. Bloomed long ago, an everlasting bud" She pointed at the fuck up. And you know?"
Aoi couldn't answer, just managing to shake his head, eyes wide.
"She was right, the half-elf dick almost got killed in the battle, that's why I always listen to her. She read him." A beguiling laugh trailed..
The curious Salamander, on cue, hopped into the air above the raconteur's shoulder, his vermillion countenance shifting from adorable bite-sized salamander to something more vicious. Claws and fangs replaced padded fingertips and a toothless smile.
"They Attacked!"
The raging dragon who replaced Mamoru's long time docile companion was ferocious and the size of a dormouse. He was adorable!
"Listening now huh?
"Good. You can always hear them coming."
"Make your blood ice at the sound, the uh monsters–.
"I'm not sold on the idea they really are Monsters, Master, and neither are you."
Mamoru looked down, then looked at him, pondering.
"They are probably just sad.." He bit his lip, he was unsure, at first, when the word they left his cherubic mouth, but they rang truer with each passing moment, having been manifested into belief Aoi, spoken truth to power, he was now sure.
"...so the story doesn't have Dragons?"
"Yes, it does."
"But are Shadow Dragons really dragons or..?"
"Good question isn't it."
"What a let down."
He kicked the grass as he prepared his attack.
"So the books you brought me, any grimoires or theoretical essays on translocation as it relates to the unique mana within and surrounding the Dungeon phenomena, or transmutation…of the body perhaps?"
Mamoru stumbled, and held his silence, stunned.
"I'm a reader." The pride beamed from his face as he spoke. "and Yaya's written nearly every book on magical theory, she implied that you are a master of transmutation."
"They say Transmuter now."
Snarl.
Mamoru grabbed Aoi and pulled him from the emaciated Dire Wolf that stalked in from the wood. Quickly he constructed the most elegantly swirling cerulean and indigo conjured hexagons, each with an indecipherable looping script, continuously writing and rewriting itself while trailing the edges. Had the great beast's fur not been mangy and matted in dried blood, it would have been just as stark white as Aoi's hair. Its eyes were wild and its rearing jaw dripped saliva.
"Aenocyon dirus!" Aoi, smiling wide, was attempting to escape the apelike grapple.
"Kid.."
"Can you help, friend?" Aoi closed his eyes.
A row of reaching trees broke through the earth around the wolf's feet, gently ensnaring her in its embrace, blooming bright blossoms of pure white. She surrendered to the wonder and the magic in the air, in the tangle of breathtaking trees that kindly restrained her.
Blossoms of snow white, reflecting the blues and indigos of the aegis spell fell like flurries as the forest surrounding them seemed to exhale.
"..ume.." Mamoru whispered longingly as tears welled in his brooding amber eyes.
He drank in the beautiful image of the tree and the wolf both shimmering with blue and purples.
"Ume? Huh what's that?" Aoi asked, genuinely curious at the unfamiliar and enticing word.
The prodigious, azurian wall crumbled.
"Huh?" His thick brow was lower than Aoi had seen.
Salamander appeared on his shoulder to lick a flame to an already waiting cigarette in the corner of Mamoru's devilish smile. He pulled in deep.
"That" He began.
"Was fucking magic." A delicious cloud of smoke containing all manner of hypnotic ensorcellments escaped through the chink in his smile as he guffawed.
Aoi was overcome, bright red and holding back tears as he took a big inhale from the cloud gathered around them.
"I think they'll grow plums before she will get herself down."
Aoi watched him drop his head.
"Oru, don't worry — these ones'll grow soft and sweet and yummy. "
"Of course they will kid."
Small green fruit had already begun to grow where the petals had fallen.
"Hey, Oru?"
"Yeah, kid."
"You think that asshole's gonna be king don't you?"
∗ ∗ ∗
"Waah!"
He was already soaked from sweat, covered in drying crusted blood as he rose in a panic. Overwhelmed fully but the whirlwind of this unpleasant portion of his life, he puked, or rather, he gagged as what little bile he still possessed escaped from his mouth.
He was in a friggin Dungeon! But he was also missing nearly half of his calf while a potent toxin ate away at his nervous system. But why was he not dead? How is it that his blood had stopped gushing to only barely flow as a soft trickle?
He pulled himself up, his pain must've been dulled by the same phenomenon.
Unexpected symptoms of the venom? Maybe–The mana is completely stagnant
He braced and grabbed what was left of his leg, leaning in closer to the wounds as he inspected.
The bleeding has almost stopped.
Aoi's vision was nearly clear of obfuscation, somehow.
What's changed–
He gleaned his surroundings for not a moment when it came to him.
"I bet it's this place, Dungeon Magic."
Resolute in his conjecture, he willed the hidden secrets of the stagnant magic within the dungeon to reveal themselves to him. He closed his eyes so that he could better see the magic around him.
I am Feeling, attuned to the rhythm of this world and its inhabitants. I am Transmission, mighty Wind which spreads seed; my silent messenger. I am the cosmic tapestry pulsing beneath the earth. Divine eyes blind, I see all.
Sense.
Intricate and complex, spells, enchantments, glyphs and unknown forces made up the once stratified but now entangled witchery that was in essence, its own life force. It was impenetrable to him. Evading his perception even, slightly.
Dungeon Magic is nearly the most supreme form of creation magic
Not originating from a God.
He watched as the unique mana gathered at his wounds, and seeped through where they were exposed. It was infiltrating past his own mana with ease, but how? The symptoms from the venom were; gone?
The chamber, or corridor, stretched long and narrow, winding serpentine, walls of unknown material rising twenty meters high on either side, the interior of a titanic artery. The teal tracings pulsed beneath the surface branching in networks racing along, before slowing once more into a lambent stillness.
Aureate depictions of great serpents, massive figures descending into the rivers of the underworld, Warriors carrying suns, skeletal kings growing roots a wash in a red eclipse. Dragons slumbering beneath mountains.
My bleeding is slowed,
My symptoms are…fever? The venom feels neutralized.
These biological processes are slowed…exponentionally.
He moved his hand through the air, the mana thick and sluggish, it coated his skin.
Atmospheric viscosity.
It clung.
Necrosis is stalled, infections are halted but all my wounds are still..
He bit on his lip in anticipation as he forced the ball of left hand into one of the large gashes that perforated his leg.
"mMMMFGgg"
Here
His pain, though great, was thankfully muted.
It's not healing me, that's not it. But what does that mean for me…right now?
My blood is struggling to leave my body while toxins are struggling to spread
"Hmm" he bit his lip.
Pain signals struggle to propagate
My cells, they're struggling to die…
"Increased metaphysical inertia."
Not swimming in a blizzard, floating in a suspension.
This is good.
He scanned his surroundings again, the chamber, he decided, the narrow chamber was unchanged, as it were. There weren't any supplies he could use.
If I use the rest of my pants I can make–
"A friggin bandage." His simper wide and hopeful.
If I just keep supplying my own mana to this spell, I should be able to continue the increased inertia, actually possibly distilling it.
Yes, and applied directly. I think this can work.
"I could kiss myself."
Fresh inspiration washed over his triumphant smile.
∗ ∗ ∗
Gather; air and space converge. Cover; lay sweetly upon thy dream. I, the Weaver, cast as web.
Aoi took a deep breath.
"Eiligilthelit"
A soft, coral light at the end of his outstretched left hand, bathing his wounds in a soothing breeze as his hand hovered over the devastation that was his leg. Delicately constructing itself from Aoi's memory, an array of fine interlocking weaves, soft delicate glyphs.
The air had begun to blur. Increasing its viscosity until it was no longer of liquid but of cloth. A minimal wave of his hand and the makeshift bandage of stagnant dungeon mana, air and atmosphere had secured itself. Instantly Aoi felt the dread leave his stomach as his dulled pain was dulled even further.
Aoi exhaled–
"KILLLMEEE! MAKE IT STOP!"
∗ ∗ ∗