Sean’s POV

“Unnngghhh.” I groaned as I woke up, trying to get my tongue to move through the cottonmouth. It felt like the time my roommate had played a prank on me when I fell asleep during movie night, and put a paper straw wrapper in my mouth. Damn thing wicked all the spit out of my mouth and left it like a desert for a while.

“Here, have a few sips of this. Hydracea tea really is the best for countering red poppy extract.” I heard a familiar male voice. I gratefully took the cup and started drinking, trying to get my brain to fire up for the day. The brew had a kick similar to cinnamon, but not quite as potent. Not bad for something to perk you up in the morning.

“Ah, thanks for that. Now, can I get an explanation as for why D’Vorak, D’Vaen, and Guildmaster Brian are all here in my room and why Elendria isn’t? Not that I dislike you guys, but I much prefer waking up to her.”

“I can do that, but you gotta take-“ D’Vorak started, only to be interrupted by Brian.

“I had a rather troublesome vision late last night. There were three things that I could tell, and two of them weren’t that alarming. First, I could see you standing next to the tower. Unfortunately, the third thing wasn’t the city around the tower, but rather a poisoned crater. You can understand my concern, and also why I took the preemptive step of placing some mithril restraints on you.”

“I see. Do your visions have a sense of urgency when they are close to coming to pass?” I asked, leaning back against the headboard and examining the restraints. They were two silver bands that seemed to have to clasp or hinge, and a strange flowing script that seemed to be two rows of writing intertwined.

“They do.” Brian nodded. “And this one was incredibly imminent.”

“I see. Well, what’s the story?”

“Elendria went to the tower and left you this note. Before she left, she dosed you with a bit of red poppy extract. All it does is give you an extra deep night’s sleep. Here, take a look at the note.”

I gently took the note, and slowly read through it. It didn’t take long, but the more I read it, the higher I felt my anger rising. One in three chance of surviving? How could she go off with those kinds of odds! There had to be something we could do!

“And there it is. The reason why we had to restrain you.” Brian explained, his eyes giving away that he was watching the future. “You are planning on trying to breach the tower. I’m telling you, it’s impossible. No matter what you try-“

“YOU DON’T KNOW THAT!” I screamed, staring right at him. “THERE’S A ONE IN THREE CHANCE SHE LIVES! I’LL DO WHATEVER IT TAKES, BUT I WILL-“ I was interrupted by him slamming me back against the headboard, and a sensation of sudden doom being just a wrong movement away descending into the room.

“No Sean, you don’t understand. Diamond tipped drills, acetylene torches, plasma arc cutters, depleted uranium rounds. All of this I’ve seen fail as it flashes through your head. Each one more destructive, more powerful than the last. You can’t even get in by your astral wandering powers. I’ve even seen you nearly kill yourself as you do something that causes a mushroom shaped cloud and poisons the land for generations, and still the tower stands. So now I need you to listen to me, and to really drive it home I need to slip off this affable guildmaster persona you think is my only one.” He leaned back and stared at me, making sure I wasn’t going to try to move. Suddenly, he was different. It was subtle, but there was a ruthlessness where there used to be laughter. “Foresight is one of my gifts, but it isn’t my only one. There is a reason that I was chosen Sean. I am the Protector of the Tower, Guardian of Outpost. Here, where the dangers are highest, is where I dwell.” As he spoke, the candlelight seemed to dim, and the room took on a strange glow. There was a strange red light emanating from his hands, that suddenly resolved itself into a string that went straight into my chest. “See, I have an unrivalled power. Behold, the red strand of fate.” He gave it a gentle stroke, and I felt it through my soul. “You felt it? Good. Then you understand that I don’t lie when I say this. It may cost me everything, but I can guarantee that none shall endanger this town and tower while I live. Your long future is rife with possibilities, but that means nothing against my power. Depending on my enemy’s power, I can sacrifice my life force to cut their fate. The absolute least I lose will be ten years, but my enemy will die. With someone as powerful as you, I can at the very least assure mutual destruction. So, what’ll it be? Do we die here, or will you calm the fuck down?” He snarled the end, and I could faintly see the outline of a reaper in the shadows behind him, scythe poised to slash both of us down.

I sighed and relaxed my body as much as I could, giving up any thought of attacking the tower. So far I had no verification that Brian’s visions could be flawed, and he did give a fairly good progression of technology from my world that he should have no idea about. Looks like I wasn’t getting in to the tower until Elendria came out. “Alright, I give up.”

Just as suddenly as he was gone, the friendly guildmaster was back. “Good, doing that really takes a number on me.”

“Understandable.” I nodded. “So, now that I have agreed not to go to the tower, any chance I can take these off? I have a bit of training I want to do.”

“Nope.” He said with a smile. “Those stay on for at least a day. I know you have a bit of training to do, but you need to read up on some of those summoning books first. We’ll be leaving those on for the rest of the night. I’ll take them off in the morning, and you can start training then.”

“Damnit, alright.” I grumbled. “Am I under house arrest?”

“No, but without your magic you really shouldn’t leave the city. I’ll see you in the morning.” Brian said, standing up and heading out.

“Look, Sean. I’m sorry-“ D’Vorak started.

“Don’t.” I interrupted, holding up a hand. “Brian was right. I was probably going to do something incredibly stupid. Even now, I still get the urge to head out there and try it. Give me a few hours to distract myself, and I’ll eventually calm down enough to realize that you all were right. Though I doubt I could make an atomic explosion like he said he saw.”

“Atomic explosion?” D’Vaen asked from his corner, standing up. I didn’t really hear him, lost in thought. Could I make an explosion like that? What did I know about those bombs? Uranium 238 was used, and they compressed it with an explosion first somehow. Could I sub that with a mana shield? Simply contract it down to get what I need?

“Sean?” D’Vorak asked, breaking my thoughts.

“Huh? Sorry, got sidetracked. Why don’t you guys go train, and I’ll stay here and go over those summoning books. Maybe that’ll give me a hint on my astral wandering as well. I promise I won’t leave the inn, and I won’t try and get anyone to take off the bracers.”

“Good. Because Brian said if you do, they are spelled to electrocute the both of you until he gets here to disarm them and reattach them to you.” D’Vorak said with a chuckle. “I like how that guy plans.”

Once the demon brothers headed out to train, I headed downstairs and picked a table by the window so I would have some light to read by. Though it was a bit boring, a steady supply of water and a sound barrier made sure I wasn’t too distracted. I did get some interesting ideas about the nature of things.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

I stood looking at the clearing, feeling satisfied with it. I had spent the entire previous day as Brian had suggested, and come up with a few ideas that might help with Elendria’s summoning problem. In order to test it in a somewhat safe manner, I had gone nearly five miles west of Outpost and created a clearing nearly a hundred feet across. I assumed that would be safe enough, but then again how safe can you actually be when you are bending the laws of reality? In any case, Brian hadn’t stopped me and had also taken off the bracelets, so I could use my magic again.

“Right. First things first, let’s see if we can locate those otters.” I muttered, sitting down to meditate. It only took seconds to locate the tracker I had placed, and to feel that it was still about three days travel away. Ever so carefully, I started by feeling the branes I would need to cut through to get to their world. Six wasn’t too bad, and would cut down on the number of options I had to test out. Figuring that the outer branes would give me the least bang for my buck, I started with the inner branes. Ever so gently, I would see if I could slide one while leaving the others intact.

It was incredibly difficult and exacting work. I could get a small wrinkle to form, but it would almost immediately propagate to the next levels and skew the results. One thing I did notice, was that the brane on my end seemed more than happy to stay anchored. The other one was a struggle, one I would have happily fought with all day until I suddenly got an epiphany.

“Idiot! Of course the other brane wants to move, that’s where the other end of the gate is going to form!” I muttered six hours into practicing. “Ok, let’s go ahead and start it over then. New theory. The first brane I must slice through can’t move, as it is in the same dimensions as I am. In order to change where the endpoint is, I can slightly alter where I slice into the subsequent branes. This means instead of the most movement available being in the middle, the most movement should be available on the final brane on the other side.” Going slowly, I started shifting all the branes except the one near me. I couldn’t help but smile as I realized that it was working!

While it was working and peaceful, I needed to develop this as much as I could. I started with figuring out the limits of movement for the nearest brane, stopping when I started to feel a resistance to the movement. I could probably have gotten an extra ten percent more movement if I was willing to force things, but that seemed like an excessive risk. Locking that one in place, I started on the next brane. To my surprise, it didn’t require nearly as much to move it, but the more I experimented the stranger things got. Directions in the branes didn’t match up at all. Picture it like this. Each brane is a 2-D plane with a compass, North pointing straight up. Moving North on the second brane might move you North on your destination, but moving North on the third brane could send you vertically into the air. Each one was different, but there were two trends that I noticed. First, each new brane was able to move exponentially more than the previous one. This also carried through to the distance it changed the final destination. Each distance of movement in a brane would be exponentially higher in a higher brane.

Experimenting with that allowed me to find a route to the otter village that would put us a ten minute walk away. I didn’t want to go closer, so as not to startle the fellas. All that experimenting took me to sundown, so I packed up and headed back to Outpost for the night. Brian was standing on the wall waving at me, so I dropped down to see what he needed.

“Hey Brian, what’s up?”

“I’m glad you had a successful day. I just wanted you to know, that according to everything we know about those who try what Elendria is doing, if Elendria is going to fail it will be on the third day. If you want, I can sit with you and wait. The shackles will be optional.”

“I.” I started, stopping to think things over. After a few moments, I answered, “I think I would like that. And the shackles might as well be a good idea.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

While the third day was exhausting to my nerves, I was more than glad to have Brian there by my side. He kept me distracted, and helped keep me from worrying too much. Thankfully the shackles weren’t needed, and the dawn of the fourth day met me already at my clearing, with a lighter heart. Going off of what I had learned earlier from the otter experiments, it only took a few hours to map out a passage to where the wolves were. Once again I stopped a few minutes walk away, but this time I held it for a moment. Something was off. No, not off. Just different. Ever so carefully, I set up the transport to the otters. Once I did, the difference was glaringly obvious. I could faintly sense the hostility of the wolves’ environment. It was far colder, and there was a lot more wind blowing. Wind that somehow carried a piercing element to it.

“Well, that’s good to know.” I muttered, rocking back on my heels as I let both of the spells return to normal. “Hmmm, but now that brings me to the fun stuff. How do I weaponize Astral Walking?”

My first test was to see if I could make a moving doorway on this brane. One that I could close at will. It was tough, tougher than finding the otters. No matter what I tried, the nearest brane just wouldn’t open and move at the same time. The more I tried it, the harder it resisted, until I started to hear a creaking. Fearing that I was about to rip open a tear in reality and let dark things through, I immediately backed off and relocated to a different portion of the circle. None of the stories I had ever read ended with good things coming through breaches in reality, and constantly wearing one area thin just didn’t seem like a good idea either.

Wait a second. Maybe I was going around this the wrong way. Gateways by definition were locked into place. Instead, I wanted something similar to a portal. Something that wasn’t anchored. But that brought out the hardest question yet. How? And where do I send the portal to? I sat down to think about it, after doing a quick check to make sure that nothing dangerous was nearby.

Ok. Portals are out of my league. I needed something different. Something I could touch, and alter. Gateways can’t move, so those are out of the question. The only other thing I could reach at all times was the same thing that I was trying to avoid. The void. Could I weaponize the void? I started by reaching out to the void itself, finding it oddly eager to answer my call.

“OH SHIT!” I cried out, dropping it after a fraction of a second. That’s all it took to open up a small portion and to drain off a decent chunk of my mana. Even if I manage to develop this into a skill, it won’t be a cheap one.

So, my new skill was going to need a few things. First, limited duration. This skill was going to be dangerous, and there had to be a limit to it. So I would have to cut off the power to it, most likely at a set distance. Second, I wanted to be able to cast it without any indication. In a perfect world, my attack would be at most a thin black line. Incredibly hard to notice, especially in a pitched battle. Last, well. If it was going to be connected to the void, it was going to be devastating.

Plan outlined, I started making marble sized void circles and firing them off. My goal was to find out how much energy I could input into the spell before it would fizzle out. It took nearly half a day to figure that out, and then the next step was just as painstaking. I had to figure out how much energy was consumed based on the shape and size of the construct. Luckily it turned out that shape didn’t matter, only size did. Specifically, surface area. In the end, the system awarded me three spells, something I wasn’t about to complain about.

New spell: Void Shot

Cost: 50 mana per meter traveled

Summon a small sphere of the void and fire it at your opponent. Anything it contacts is immediately transferred into the void and is irrecoverable.

New spell: Void Bomb

Cost: 25 mana per inch radius

A truly heinous spell. You litter the battlefield with small pockets of mana. Once these are interrupted, they summon a momentary flash of the void. Anything caught within their radius is immediately transferred to the void and is irrecoverable.

New spell: Void Slash

Cost: 250 mana per meter traveled

Launch a one-dimensional blade of void at your opponent. This attack ignores all physical armor and defenses. Anything it touches is sliced cleanly. Anything that isn’t wider than the blade length will be completely severed.

Tests of these spells were well and truly devastating. The shots would leave a perfectly circular tunnel through whatever they hit. The bombs were flashes of black that seemed to have a delayed bang as the air rushed to refill what was sent to the void. But the slash. Oh, the slash was going to be my favorite. If it didn’t completely bisect a tree, you could barely see the wound left. With these three new spells, I almost didn’t think I would need my explosives. The only thing I had to work on was the slash. With my current skill, if you weren’t looking at it straight on you could see a slight crescent to it.