I was waiting inside the sewer pipe when the lockdown slammed into place above me, trapping us all inside. Mana fields shimmered everywhere outside the thick iron walls, humming with enough voltage to turn a clone into a puff of vapour.

  I checked the spiritual tether connecting me to the Inventory. I could feel the disruption inside—the arrival of Grace, the spike of panic. Minutes later, the connection shuddered violently. Every clone, even the meditators in the tannery and the logistics clone inside the Inventory, was forcibly dispelled as my original body dove into the Void to escape the Prime.

  I was the last piece on the board.

  A note was added to the inventory outbox. A note for me.

  I pulled it out. The handwriting was jagged and frantic, written in a hurried scrawl. MAKE ESCAPE. NEED MEDICAL ATTENTION. FIND PIPPA. POST HASTE

  The instructions were clear.

  I flipped the paper over. I didn't have a pen, but I had plenty of industrial filth. I dipped a clawed finger into the thick, black runoff pooling at my feet and scratched a reply onto the back of the parchment.

  UNDERSTOOD.

  I focused on the paper and triggered the Store command. It vanished instantly, flashing back to the safety of the Void to let them know I was moving.

  The only way out was the way we came in.

  I dived right in, and the filth swallowed me. It was thick, viscous, and warm in a way that suggested active chemical decomposition. A normal man would be dissolving right now, his skin blistering from the alchemical runoff, but a Green Core mage with black-scaled skin simply registered the acidity as a mild tingle.

  I had to adapt.

  I stretched my arms out in front of me, palms flat against the oncoming darkness. I opened two palm-sized portals connected to the Inventory’s vacuum function.

  The sludge didn't hit my hands; it vanished into them. The fluid resistance at the front disappeared instantly, creating a low-pressure zone that pulled me forward.

  I opened two corresponding exit portals on the soles of my feet. The physics were brutal and simple. The gallons of heavy, viscous fluid entering my palms were compressed and fired out of my heels at roughly ten times the intake pressure. The best part was that it didn’t drain any stamina—I wasn't moving the water; I was just acting as the conduit.

  But speed is useless if you crash into a wall. The sludge was opaque, a wall of black grit and oil.

  I needed to see where I was going.

  I focused the Art on my face and opened two micro-portals, hovering two millimetres in front of my eyeballs.

  The effect was instantaneous. The dirty water rushing toward my eyes was sucked into the portals before it could touch my pupils. It created a permanent, invisible air gap—a vacuum shield that kept my vision perfectly clear.

  I blinked. I could see everything for almost three meters. It doesn't sound like much, but it was more than enough to navigate with.

  Finally, the air supply. A small valve at the back of my throat opened, drawing cool, clean inventory air into my lungs.

  I took a deep breath of the Void while submerged in a river of poison. Complete functionality was restored, so I tightened my posture, turning myself into a rigid arrow cutting through the muck.

  Banking hard off the pipe wall to avoid a rusted grate, the water blasting from my heels flaring to correct the drift. The pipe widened ahead. The flow slowed as it dumped into the main city waterway. I cut the pressure, letting my momentum carry me into the open water of the canal.

  I didn't breach. That would be suicide.

  The Voss Estate bordered the industrial canal, and they didn't leave their backdoor unguarded.

  Through the murky green water, I saw them. Four shapes in the water, patrolling the canal bed, moving with the eerie, silent grace of predators. They weren't the clunky, brass sentries of the surface. These were Hydro-Golems—sleek, eel-like constructs made of segmented copper and glass, designed for underwater salvage and security.

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  Their searchlights cut through the gloom, sweeping the canal floor.

  One of the lights snapped onto me.

  The eel-golem pinged—a sound that carried instantly through the water—and surged forward, its jaws unhinging to reveal rows of spinning, serrated blades.

  "Too slow," I thought.

  I re-engaged the heel portals, but this time I poured mana into the output. A jet of high-pressure water exploded behind me, launching me forward.

  The eel-golem was fast, but it was swimming. I bypassed it completely, spiralling through the water to avoid the vortex of blades.

  The other three golems turned, their internal mechanisms whining as they gave chase. They were closing in, their sleek bodies cutting the drag better than my humanoid form could.

  I needed a distraction, so I summoned a dozen Shadow Clones. "Scatter," I commanded.

  The clones burst from my position in every direction.

  The Hydro-Golems faltered. Their thermal sensors were suddenly overwhelmed by twelve identical heat signatures darting into the gloom. The lead golem snapped its jaws at a decoy, but we were too fast. The others peeled off to chase the phantoms into the labyrinth of the district's drainage tunnels.

  Clear.

  I hauled myself up the stone embankment a mile downstream, well outside the Voss perimeter. I stood on the cold stone and opened a micro-portal across my skin, the Inventory sucking away the oil, slime, and canal water instantly until I was bone-dry.

  I checked my internal clock. We were losing time.

  I started running. I moved through the backstreets, a featureless obsidian blur that blended perfectly with the shadows. I bypassed the main gates of the Academy—too many guards—and went for the perimeter wall near the faculty housing.

  I sprinted at the wall and vaulted the parapet, landing silently on the Academy grounds.

  The dorm was dead silent. I scaled the exterior masonry of the girls' dormitory, finding the familiar window on the third floor. It was locked, naturally.

  I pressed my hand against the glass. I didn't break it. I simply phased my hand through the pane, unlocked the latch from the inside, and slid it open.

  I slipped into Pippa’s private quarters.

  She was fast asleep, a nest of brown hair barely visible above her House Vermilion quilt. The room smelled of dried herbs and antiseptic.

  I paused. If I woke her up looking like a featureless, black-scaled demon, she would scream the house down before I could get a word out.

  I focused on the Mimicry. The scales receded, the obsidian skin softened to flesh, and Murphy's familiar features moulded back into place. I summoned a set of basic clothes—pants and a shirt—to cover myself.

  I sat on the edge of her bed and shook her shoulder gently.

  "Pippa. Wake up."

  She bolted upright, her teal eyes wide and confused. She looked at me, then at the window, her breath hitching in that familiar prelude to a panic attack.

  "Murphy?" she whispered, clutching the quilt to her chin. "Why are you in my room? It’s... It’s the middle of the night. If the Matron finds you..."

  "Pippa, listen to me," I said, keeping my voice low and steady. "A friend has been badly hurt. He needs your help right now. To get to him, we need to use a spatial teleportation Art. We don’t have time for explanations. I need you to trust me."

  "Hurt?" Her medical instincts flared, momentarily overriding her terror. She reached for her glasses, her hands shaking. "Who? Where? I need my satchel, I need my diagnostic crystals—"

  "We have everything you need," I said, standing up and pointing to the full-length mirror in the corner of her room.

  I walked over to it and placed my hand on the glass. The reflection rippled, then vanished, replaced by a swirling, stable portal to the Inventory.

  "You have to step through. Right now."

  She stared at the mirror, her face paling as the reality of the magic kicked in. "Is that... a teleportation portal? Murphy, I can't. That’s high-level spatial magic. I’m not a combat medic. I’m just a student! I’ve never teleported before, what if...”

  "You're the only one who can knit him back together, Pip," I said, looking her in the eye. "I know you're terrified. But if you don't step through this door, he doesn't make it to morning."

  She looked at the swirling vortex, then back at me. She swallowed hard, her knuckles white as she gripped her wand.

  "We’d better hurry," she said, her voice trembling but resolute.

  She stepped forward, her bare foot crossing the threshold of the mirror portal. There was a soft shlurp as the Inventory accepted her Living Spark. One moment, she was in her bedroom; the next, she was inside the inventory.

  ---

  Pippa scrambled to her feet, gasping.

  Her eyes darted around, trying to process the impossible data. She wasn't in a room. She was standing in a sun-drenched meadow. Rolling hills of emerald grass stretched to the horizon, and above her, a blue sky filled with swirling white mana clouds lit up the world with a soft, divine glow.

  "Where... what is this place? Murphy?"

  She spun around, and the scream of wonder she’d been holding back finally died in her throat, replaced by a soft, horrified gasp.

  I was propped up against the leather armchair—which sat incongruously in the middle of the field—my hands pressed against my midsection as if I were trying to hold my soul inside my ribs. My leather armour was buckled and torn, soaked in a horrifying amount of red. Every time I breathed, a wet, rattling sound echoed in the silence of the Void.

  Grace was hovering over me, her face pale, holding a bowl of water that was rapidly turning pink.

  "Pippa," I wheezed. The effort of speaking felt like dragging a serrated blade across my throat. "Sorry for the late-hour medical call... but I seem to have misplaced a few pints of blood."

  "Murphy!" Pippa scrambled over, her terror momentarily eclipsed by her healer’s instinct. She dropped to her knees in the grass, her hands already beginning to glow with a soft, pale-blue light. "By the Light... you’re shredded. Your ribs—they’re not even in the right place!"

  "Grace, hold his shoulders!" Pippa commanded, her voice regaining its professional steel. She didn't ask why I was dying, she didn't ask about the world we were in. She just went to work.

  "I've got him," Grace whispered, her hands trembling as she pinned me back against the chair.

  I felt the warm, rhythmic throb of Pippa's healing Arts beginning to knit the bone and seal the broken tissue. The physical pain began to recede, dulling into a manageable ache.