As he walked, Mike felt Ishare put a hand on his shoulder, then the feeling of the Shadow camouflage spell enveloping him. He looked to Ishare but the dark-skinned man didn’t cast the same spell over himself, though he did seem to blend rather seamlessly into the shadows anyway, perhaps a different spell?

Ishare started signing as soon as he removed his hand from Mike's shoulder. “I’m curious how you managed to distract the guardian last time, the Gilded ones were certainly baffled as to how it was done and were readily willing to accept that it was something I had done to aid you.”

Mike almost winced at the mention of his previous clumsy attempt at escape, he then tried to think about replying in sign language, he hadn't in his cell because the door had covered everything but his face for Ishare. He started to raise his hands with the intent of doing so, but nothing happened, seems the language skill didn’t help with performing sign language, only reading it. He whispered instead, “It was a pretty cheap trick, I don’t know if it will work again, the Guardian may have learned from its previous mistake.”

“No need to worry about that, the poor creature is under so much mental influence that I imagine it has little enough autonomy to eat and drink, but the Gilded ones can only condition it against instincts that they know of. Please distract it long enough for me to find the weak points on this ward as well.” Ishare signed in response.

Mike nodded as they reached the end of the hall and Mike poked his head around the corner to see the same golden jaguar curled up in the light of the orb. So following Ishare’s instruction he put out his hand and made the same grandiose gesture, ordering the Light mana in the between (He had to think of a better name for that) to coalesce on his fingertip and shine out in a ray as it had before.

It worked just as it had then, the red dot the size of his fingertip appearing on the ground before the jaguar. In an eerily similar manner to before the jaguar’s eyes opened and panned the room, passing over himself and Ishare as if they weren’t there, then settling on the dot, Its head rose and tilted once again, in the same motion as last time.

Mike glanced to Ishare as he flicked the dot just out of the jaguar’s reach and heard the cat's paw slap the stone where it had been, Ishare had his head tilted back and was silently laughing, his eyes slightly lidded in mirth but still fixed on the creature as Mike began to slowly lead it down the hall with quick movements of the laser pointer.

Ishare calmed down from his pantomimed laughter after the jaguar had pounced past them on its merry chase, he ghosted silently past Mike towards the door. Mike followed him walking backwards and keeping his eyes on the jaguar, he glanced back once they had reached it and saw that Ishare was pouring Dark mana out of his fingertips and coating the door in a layer of it, seemingly intently studying the ward’s reaction.

Mike continued to jerk the dot around for a few minutes, long enough for his wrist to actually getting tired his eight whole endurance was reaching its limits, apparently. As he was thinking this he felt Ishare tap him on the shoulder, glancing back at the Dark elf he saw that once again there was a rune in front Ishare that was emitting lines of darkness to disrupt the ward, Mike glanced down the hall at the Jaguar and lead it down as far as he could before turning the laser pointer off, leaving the big cat looking around in confusion.

Moving up to the door, Mike looked it over then spoke to Ishare in a whisper, “last time I did this it was kinda flashy if I can you block the light from being seen down the hall?”

Ishare nodded and waved backwards, Dark mana pouring from his hand and creating a shadowy curtain between them and the rest of the hall. How much mana did the Dark elf have? He had been pouring it out non stop, Mike could barely control enough to cast the light orbs and illusions, how much was Ishare putting into each spell he had seen him cast so far?

Focusing back on the task Mike reached out with his attunement and control as once again, feeling for the Light mana, he grasped the mana nearest one of the weak points and pulled it through to the Mortal realm under his control as he had before, he immediately sensed both the ward and Ishare’s spell.

The ward felt similar to the last, it was a pane of transparent light mana in front of the door, this one was more densely interwoven with something else that wasn’t quite mana, it must have been interacting with it more deeply this time, because this ward didn’t have a repelling function, it was more of an alarm, if something crossed the ward that wasn’t supposed too, it would set off that bright flash of light, that was all that the Light Magic portion of the ward did though, the rest of the details were handled by the other portion that he couldn’t understand.

Ishare’s spell was entirely different, he could sense it unlike the strange portions of the ward but it was so different as to be incomprehensible, was it because he didn’t have Dark Magic equipped?

Not dawdling any longer though, Mike found one of the weak points of the ward with his mana. It was being disrupted by Ishare’s spell just like the last one. He shoved his Light mana into it and felt the ward shatter much as the last one had, absorbing all of the Light mana under his control in the process.

As the sound of shattering glass faded Mike felt the tattoo alerting him of a notification. He wouldn’t be surprised if that was a Magic aspect level up, and that would be his sixth total level too, so an Average Level as well. He didn’t have time for that now as Ishare had stepped forward and started to push open the doors.

As the doors swung inwards Mike peeked between to see what this item that would get them out of here looked like. Before he could see anything though there was the sound of a fucking gong being struck, he could have sworn he felt the ground shake it was so loud.

“What the fuck!” he shouted in surprise and alarm as his hands shot to his ears to protect them from the near-deafening sound. Ishare had made a similar motion, after a second of standing there with their ears covered, Ishare moved his hands down to continue to push open the door, more urgency in his motion now.

Mike entered the room hot on Ishare’s heels. It was a large square room with a few very interesting contents, the most immediately eye-catching of them being something huge that was covered in what looked like a huge curtain. To the right side of the room was the next most interesting thing, a two-metre wide bronze gong, it didn’t look nearly big enough to have produced the sound they had heard, but the hammer that was resting against its centre and the ropes and pulleys connecting it to the open door was highly suggestive of what had happened.

Ishare sighed, looking to Mike and signing, “A non-magical alarm was not expected, we must hurry, I imagine this is the object that will facilitate the exit?” He pointed at the huge covered object.

Mike didn’t know, He approached the object and grabbed a handful of thick fabric that had been used to cover it and pulled, it took a few steps backwards before he had pulled the cover entirely off the monolith. He looked up and examined it.

It looked like a huge chunk of shattered glass, though that didn’t even touch on its oddity, it looked like a flat surface, but it had appeared at least vaguely conical while it had been covered, Mike could see the entire room reflected in it, he could clearly see himself, despite knowing that he was still covered in the Shadow Camouflage. the other wall was lined with tables, covered in implements and devices that Mike didn’t recognize, except for... “Wait,” Mike said.

He looked past the huge chunk of reflective glass and saw on one of the tables to the side of the room was a pile of clothing. Mike walked around the strange object, noticing that no matter where he looked at it from it appeared to be a flat surface like a mirror.

He quickly approached the table and looked down at what he had hoped he had seen, his clothes! The jeans, t-shirt and even socks he had been wearing when he laid down to try out Discovering Magic. He immediately grabbed the t-shirt off the top of the pile and pulled it on, as he did, he felt the Magic of the Camouflage quaver and break, so altering his appearance enough cancelled the spell. He heard Ishare approaching from around the other side of the odd glass object, avoiding looking at it. Ishare nodded to a leather pack just a bit down from Mikes clothing, “That is mine, bring it over here with you, we need to escape,” there was a fast urgency to Ishare’s gestures.

Mike nodded and grabbed the pack finding it constructed not unlike a backpack from Earth he swung one of the straps over a shoulder and grunted at its weight. He approached Ishare to once again stand in front of the huge chunk of broken glass, or behind it, from the perspective of the door.

Ishare signed to him, “Your companion said that your way out was in this room?”

“I’m pretty sure this is what it meant, I’ll ask it what to do now. Quest: Escape,” he said, willing the screen to appear with a minor illusion spell, despite Ishare’s Presence.

Quest: Escape!

You have reached the point of no return before you lies the cause of your predicament, this is a Shard, a broken piece of the dimensional barrier between the Mortal and Spiritual realms, It has manifested in the Mortal realm due to the slow decay of this barrier over millennia. There are many types of shard but this one has the power to reach across dimensions to fulfil the Desires of its user, you can use it in two ways to complete this quest.

Touch the surface of the Shard with your Right Hand and look into your reflection, wish to escape from this place to somewhere else in this realm.

Rewards:

The Class system.

The Plunder system.

Not being invasively mindread until you are a vegetable.

OR

Touch the surface with your left hand and Imagine going home.

WARNING: The chances of this returning you to Earth safely are less than 10%. The Trip will once again expose you to Chaos, the AI and your mind are more stably connected than the last time, however, it is using the magic of this Dimension, this magic may not function on Earth. You may end up in a similar state upon your return as you did on your arrival. It is unknown whether methods exist on Earth that could treat you in that state.

CHOOSE NOW

As Mike finished reading he heard a feminine shout of rage coming from outside the room and echoing towards them down the hall. “ISHARE!”

Mike looked to the Dark elf and saw that urgency wash from his face, a twinge of a small apologetic smile forming on his lips, he looked mike in the eyes and signed, “This is my fate, for my offering Pain commanded me to have you escape from here before Ailish arrived. The High Elves and Light cannot be allowed to have you,” as he made the sign for offering his jaw flexed as if in remembered pain, “I am sorry I lied. Seeking their counsel was necessary and contacting them is done in very specific ways. They told me how you may escape, but did not tell me I would escape with you, I fear this is the end of my journey.” as he signed Mike felt an immense aura of Light mana coming toward them fast.

As he finished his hands shot out, not superhumanly quick but fast enough for Mike to not have time to react. He grabbed Mike's right wrist and pressed his palm against the cold surface of the Shard, his other hand grasping the back of his head and forcing him to look into the icy blue of his reflection's eyes.