Left Turn at Nothing

  There was a flash of light and I stumbled blind for a moment. I was among a crowd of people, and as my vision returned I knew I was back in my tower, on the first floor, surrounded by people. I glanced down at my HUD- the mana bar was visibly overcharged, but wouldn’t stay that way long. I saw my friends notice my arrival, stand up from sitting and nudge their neighbors awake, and I proceeded.

  “We have to leave now, mana’s running out as we speak,” I said, and I immediately began walking towards the exit. Will and Anna ran up to me, while the rest were more casual, if still eager in getting a move on. No one was intent in sticking around for any longer than they had to.

  “What’s going on?” Anna said.

  “There’s some trouble back at the- fuck, that’s a whole story- let’s say at the Guild. We’ll have to get there and save their asses,” I said.

  “Do they, like, expect you to solve every problem?” Will said.

  “Actually, this time they expect Anna, to solve it. You have that enchantment burning ability still available?” I said.

  “You heard about that? Yeah, it’s a bitch to use safely, but I have it,” Anna said.

  “Well, there’s some enchantments that need burning or something. Anyways,” I said, as I swung the door wide open and raised my staff aloft. I had set all of my staff charges to invisible barrier today, an I cast three immediately, making the rough outline of a flat-surface ship or something. It just felt right.

  “Anna, conserve your mana, we might need to do the spellrod maneuver mid-trip. I think I have the juice, but I’m unsure,” I said.

  “Got it. Let’s get out of here,” Anna said.

  “Where’s Adam? I don’t know where the hell I’m going,” I said.

  I saw the man-shape wrapped in strange bandages press through the crowd towards me. He’d changed- much of his old, mundane seeming bandages had been replaced by the runic ones we’d looted in the Rock Toad Caverns.

  “Your plan, it worked then?” Adam said.

  “Mostly. I’m not as juiced up as I’d like, but we should have enough for what we discussed,” I said.

  “Very well,” he said, paused as if sniffing the air, then pointed up at a slight angle, “That way.”

  I conjured the invisible hands that would move our vessel just as the last of the people here were getting on board, and as soon as everyone was there I began moving the craft away from my tower. I looked back on it as we disappeared into the darkness of Nothing and hoped that I would return. Thinking about it, I took out a spare notebook from one of my pockets and made sure to make proper notation of our angle of departure. As long as I had the stone at least I could return to it, even if would be little more than a comfortable hidey-hole that was very difficult to leave.

  These folks who’d been lost in Nothing for nearly a week moved without my direction, making sure that those closest to the edge of the ship were the ones with the best ranged attack options. Several bore weapons of that strange black material that they’d looted from the creatures here. Black, spiked bows of what looked like glass or obsidian, thread by string so transparent that they seemed like nothing all unless you took a closer look, large crossbows of similar make with jagged black bolts, they were ready for an attack to come from the Nothing this time.

  It ended up being a very good idea too, as we were attacked several times on our brief trip. The creatures were thankfully nothing like the monstrous boss creature we’d encountered on our way to what ended up being my tower, and a volley of bolts and spells from Anna dispatched them quickly. I held all of my attention on the barriers and movement thereof, seldom daring as much as to look up from my focus. Last time I’d spent mana to fight, and it had ended with me nearly dying. Twenty minutes later Adam spoke.

  “We are approaching. There is an issue,” he said.

  I looked up and I thought I saw the problem. There wasn’t an obvious exit, though I hadn’t really expected that. What was there was a strange cylindrical structure, reminiscent both of a vault door and the interior of a key mechanism. It was made of the same black obsidian-like material that most of the material reality of Nothing was made out of, and from a distance it seemed to have random dots of dark purple, almost ultraviolet light glowing in the dark. Indeed, these lights were the only thing that made the object visible. The whole structure was large, some dozen feet in diameter for the circular part, and indeterminate as to how long it was, as it quickly disappeared into the eternal darkness of Nothing.

  “What is it?” I said.

  “I cannot be certain. However, I have found access points before. This does not look like it. More precisely, it looks like an additional structure built on top of an access point. Worst case scenario would be that it is a seal or a vault lock of some description,” Adam said.

  “I’m approaching 100 mana quickly. After that we’ll have two, three minutes. I don’t have the juice to get us back,” I said.

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  “Indeed. That would be an issue,” Adam said.

  I said “Fuck,” and kept us floating closer to the object. Maybe we could at least land on top of it, if it was long enough then we would at least have a space to stand on while we thought of solutions. I took the barriers in to the top of the cylinder and had Chum cast the hellfire halo on me.

  “Just a moment,” I said, getting off of the platform. The cylinder was, at least, solid and glass-like under my feet. The biggest risk standing here would be slipping. I took a few steps forward and, well, it got confusing. It wasn’t that the cylinder ended exactly. But a dozen steps away from the strange light behind me it started to meld in with the rest of Nothing. Until I was eminently unsure if taking another step would mean falling, or walking into something else entirely. I rushed back to the platform.

  “Adam, you’re the expert. Check if it is safe,” I said. He stepped off the platform without a word, and proceeded ahead, dropping to his knees and touching the material with his hand only a few steps ahead.

  “Come on, what are we thinking? I have seconds of juice left,” I said.

  “Fuck. Alright, alright, lower it to the entrance,” Anna said. She was fiddling with something in her black torn robes.

  “What?” I said.

  “I just didn’t want to use it here. But if it’s a fucking emergency, I can help us out. Go on, wizard boy,” she said.

  My mana was now visibly depleting and I didn’t have the time to argue. So I lowered the platform until it was directly opposite the, uh, vault door… thing.

  “To be clear, I didn’t even think about it until you got your tower up. I wasn’t intentionally holding out,” Anna said.

  “I’m basically out of mana, do it now, whatever it is,” I said.

  And Anna dropped a token onto the platform, the same kind of a wooden token that my tower had sprung out from.

  This time the token had a lot harder time materializing. Or, perhaps I was in a better state to appreciate the Tower’s magic working something into Nothing. There were arcane sparks, flashes of imagery of the complete creation, the ground created by the token expanded and contracted in rapid, jarring motions. But after only a few seconds something white and granular spread out underneath our feet creating a solid foundation. I let go of my concentration just as there was enough ground under everyone’s feet and we dropped onto what felt like dirt or gravel. I bent down to touch the material, and it did feel like tiny white stones.

  Then it all expanded in an act of explosive creation. The ground burst out a hundred feet in every direction, creating a circle of land in the middle of the oceanic nothingness of the Nothing. Then, pathways began forming out of coal-black stones, meandering and winding all across this new island. Then it was time for the plants. None of them looked anything like any plant I’d ever seen- deep purple trees with silver leaves; black, sponge-like shrubs, black and white tendrils of lichen in place of grass sprouted all across the growing garden. And finally it was all joined by benches, an intricate abstract fountain flowing with pure water, and floating arcane lights lighting the scene.

  “Woah. Yeah, I take it back. Don’t regret this at all. No way,” Anna said.

  “Yeah. Damn,” I said, “Doubt it would look like this by the Swinging Donkey.”

  I heard a drop coming from the direction of the cylinder.

  “Good. It would have been unwise to try to continue atop it. This way we can work. This looks lovely, Anna,” Adam said.

  “I too am rather impressed, Ms. Anna, Mr. Vorhal, but if it is all the same to you, I believe the people here are rather curious about our next steps,” Clarence said, clearly capturing the mood of the others here. They’d been stuck here for weeks and eager to leave. The faces around me were content and grateful, but among the crowd I could see several that were trying very hard indeed to stay that way. What was more notable was that aside from giving each other a little more personal space than what they’d had on the barrier craft, the whole of the Lounge group stood there doing nothing. I got the wonder off my face, brushed down my robes and got serious once again.

  “I’m not sure. But now that we have solid ground to stand on, we can inspect that seal over there,” I said.

  By which, really, I meant that I would bring Adam over to it and let him examine it.

  We walked up to it and now could see the massive stone structure up close. The dots of ultraviolet light resolved into runes. These were much more familiar to me in style if not meaning than the ones we’d seen in the woods near Checkpoint. They reminded me the intricate, precise work I’d seen all the way back on the third day of the first challenge in the inscriptions on the stone I’d got as a reward- the writing was the same tight, minuscule, precise in shape; the patterns were as strange and geometric. The differences were that this was clearly an active enchantment, and that while the stone had been a small part of an almost inconceivably massive spell, this was simply a spell construct that was larger than I could readily imagine. It was spiraling towards a central point, and enveloping itself inside a circle that was both its boundary and a part of it.

  “Xem’s work,” I said.

  “I believe that you are right, friend. I have not had the chance to confirm it in person, thankfully, but the architect of this place does seem to have directed the creation of a few of the arcane constructs in the Tower. This seems to be one such place,” Adam said.

  “So, what is it?” Anna said.

  “Give me just a moment,” Adam said.

  We stood there, as he went over the runes line by line, tracing them with his fingers, brushing certain pieces of his bandages against it. Everyone stood there with bated breath, waiting for an answer. Some ten minutes later Adam spoke up.

  “Fascinating. I believe that what we are standing in front of is, indeed, some sort of a door,” Adam said.

  “Er, that’s it?” Will said.

  “Certainly,” Adam said, as he turned to us, with a posture that suggested pride. When he saw our faces that ranged from fallen to frustrated he continued, “Oh, obviously this will take several hours to work out. I recommend you rest, unless you have the capacity to be helpful.”