Hope

And so, two weeks have passed. Yet their slums were not the same in the wake of the Blackburg agents; the one-eyed Star’s thug they had just finished speaking with was proof enough of that.

“It do be fucked that Pat got done in like that,” Waylan commented.

“Language,” Irwyn tried half-heartedly, pondering the implications. The turf war was forcefully interrupted not long after starting when the Blackburg agents captured and burned at stake several of both gang’s influential figures. Then they went directly to the leaders to enforce the ‘eye tax’ as many had already dubbed the horrific demand. The Stars paid it while the Snakes they had fought against had become headless instead. Not that either choice was very good considering that the Stars now had a lot of members who knew that their boss essentially chose himself over them.

Old Crow predicted that the Stars would have new leadership by the end of the year. What that meant for their alliance with the Tears remained a dangerous mystery; though there was little Irwyn knew to do to affect the actual outcome.

Either way, that was not what Irwyn and Waylan had set out to deal with. Instead, they were out because of their ‘trials’. Usually, those would have happened right after the Solstice, however, the extreme events had put them back this far; they had actually only begun the day prior.

“According to the star, he was last seen entering the dead-end alley over there,” Irwyn said. It had taken them a while to track this much information down.

“And how does he know dat?” Waylan questioned as they entered. The alley was between two buildings of seemingly haphazard materials and ended with a surprisingly well-made stone wall; probably something from before this place became the slums while the houses came later.

“Wanted to rob him, saw the badge and thought twice,” Irwyn answered, the alley was a dead end after all. “Probably lied about changing his mind but either way, no one left afterward.”

“Climbed over the wall?” Waylan suggested, stepping closer. He inspected it for a few moments before concluding: “Nah, too smooth.”

“No blood or signs of struggle visible around,” Irwyn opinioned. “Look for a secret entrance.”

“Maybe he used a rope?” Waylan guessed.

“Look around first, I don’t think we gave him one,” Irwyn shrugged and looked around. The walls of the alley seemed like a pretty hollow mishmash of wood and stone but who knew where there could be a crack that the 12 years old could have slipped through. Irwyn’s eyes wandered around the wall when he felt a kind of strangeness. It wasn’t quite a hunch but it told him that there was something beyond a specific wall. So he approached and touched it, realising what that feeling was:

The wall was enchanted.

“Over here,” he muttered for Waylan and tried to feel what was going on. The enchantment was a bit strange, as if obscured. Perhaps that was why he hadn’t noticed it sooner. He tried to pierce through it but didn’t really know how to. His magical sense was something he used instinctively rather than really understood. Whatever the enchantment was, it was blocking his senses from entering at all, with minimal leaks that even let him know there was something. Perhaps he…

“Here,” Waylan interrupted Irwyn’s course of thought as he pushed a half-broken stone slab which sunk into the wall. The next moment a roughly door-shaped section moved outwards, forcing Irwyn and Waylan to take a step back, and revealing a stairway down.

“I suppose that works,” Irwyn nodded and reinspected the enchantment. Now that the door was opened it was no longer hidden. And it was quite complex. On a scale where 1 were the best enchantments the Tears ever managed to snatch and 10 was Calm’s Blackbox, this was 3 or 4. The magic had the intent of isolation albeit it was not very distinct. He could also tell that there were multiple sections, some of which were no longer functional. The why might be explained by the next thing he noticed: The enchantment was low on magic. However, looking at it the whole thing connected to something further down and felt overall capable of holding a lot of power. In other words, it might not have been recharged for a long time, perhaps years.

“I think whoever built this has either abandoned or forgotten about it,” Irwyn commented as they descended the stairs after having closed the door behind them. It would have been completely dark if Irwyn hadn’t summoned a few orbs of bright light. What the light revealed were spiderwebs and moss along the stone stairwell, some of which had been disturbed by someone really short very recently. Probably the person they were looking for, though if they had been stuck there since yesterday it didn’t bode well.

At the bottom of the surprisingly long stairway lay an antechamber with a withered metal table and rubble all around it. Despite the thick trails of dust, there was a book visible on top of the table, someone had swiped away some of the dust to reveal the title:

“The nature of the Named, by Magelord Viriterus von Lonera,” Irwyn read out loud, his heart beating faster with a spark of desire. Books written by actual casters possibly about magic were something he had always wanted to get his hands on but never could. Moreover, he could feel the slightest hint of the book being enchanted in some way. Looking around the table more he noticed an old ink well, some black sediment that probably used to be ink at the bottom covered by a layer of dust. Was this place built by the magelord who was writing this book?

“I think there is more underneath this,” Waylan pointed to the big pile of rubble in the corner he had been inspecting in the meantime. It was all finely cut pieces of something, probably half-decayed wood.

“Wow,” Irwyn gasped, feeling its magic. “The Book of the Name, probably in full edition.”

“Don’t ya already have that one?” Waylan raised an eyebrow.

“What I have is a transcript written in ink. But on the very first page of that, it is clearly mentioned that just mortal letter cannot capture its full nature. It is the book about Ignis and the creation of everything after all,” he looked around some more and came to a conclusion when looking at the surrounding rubble that looked kind of like pieces of shredded wood and paper which were then left to rot. “I think this might have been a bookshelf. But someone or something cut it apart, probably a spell, and only the enchanted book survived unscathed,” he crouched down and after a few seconds found a bit of paper with a half of a faded word on it. Not that it was particularly useful.

“We can figure dat out later,” Waylan said, pointing at the door leading out of the antechamber. “If it has magic shit it might have magic traps and wat-not.”

“Language, but you have a point,” Irwyn nodded. “Let’s move on,” And so they opened a wall, revealing a large hallway, Irwyn going first on guard for magical traps.

“I think there is something,” Irwyn said as they moved through the hallway towards a door at the other end. There was nothing there, not even light as that had to be provided by Irwyn. But he felt magic of some kind getting progressively stronger as they ventured further. The magnitude of it was revealed when Irwyn touched the doorknob. He shot Waylan a hand sign to be careful as he pushed into the room that he once again felt was isolated to obscure the great amount of magic coursing within.

What lay beyond was a massive hall. Too massive in fact to be hidden underground like this. Logic dictated that the high ceiling should poke into the street and the large area should one way or another interfere with the sewage system. Yet this place had laid undiscovered for who knows how long. There they also found who they had been looking for: A boy of maybe 12 years old standing upright without moving, facing away from them.

“Tom,” Waylan shouted and almost stepped around Irwyn who stopped him with a wave of his hand. Something wasn’t right. There was a lot of magic in the air but some of it felt different. There were bubbles of all sorts around the place. To see what they did Irwyn took the smallest coin he had on him and threw it into the closest one he could sense. The coin flew on its arch and then completely stopped midair as it reached the bubble.

“I think this is some kind of Time/Space magic gone awry,” he said approaching the bubble. Then raised his finger and tried inserting his own magic into it. There was no reaction at first but with enough increased input it suddenly imploded, essentially bursting. “Good, I think I can remove it without damaging the inside. We just need to be caref… damn,” just as it finished bursting, Irwyn felt 2 new disturbances just a few steps away from them. They were different from the other bubbles at first but just a second later they formed fully, becoming just like the rest. “Ok, there are bubbles of probably frozen time or space all around us and 2 new ones just popped in as I removed the last one. I can feel it about 2 seconds in advance so stick right next to me and be ready to jump.”

“Noted, he’s stuck in one of dem, right?” Waylan confirmed since Irwyn had neglected to explain that part.

“Oh, yes,” Irwyn nodded and they approached. There were two smaller bubbles in the way which they avoided with a wide berth as they approached the frozen boy. Irwyn had the opportunity to also finally properly inspect the room. Not that there was much to see, there was rubble everywhere, or more like dust with pieces of rubble. It was all cut so finely it might as well have been dust; whatever had shredded the assumed bookshelf had also done its work here. Or rather it looked like may have come from here in the first place. Then as they approached he noticed the single undamaged object had been hidden from sight by the time-frozen boy: A pile of pearly white bones from a human skeleton, fully intact and barely decayed with the exception of a single flower growing out of a crack in the forehead; a beautiful petalless teal bloom, swaying gently.

“Get ready,” but then they were in front of the frozen boy and Irwyn had to focus on that. He raised his hand and slowly, carefully, pushed his own mana in. Then the bubble popped and he tackled Waylan to the ground. A moment later a new bubble formed exactly where they had just been standing, two more appearing nearby.

“Don’t move!” Irwyn yelled, mostly at the just unfrozen boy who seemed a bit dazed.

“Irwyn, Waylan?” he asked, confused.

“Don’t move,” Waylan reiterated. Irwyn stood up and helped Waylan do the same. Then they maneuvered around the bubbles and started to bring the boy towards the exit.

“Do you know what exactly happened? How did you find this place?” Irwyn asked, careful about new bubbles popping up randomly.

“Well, I mostly stumbled into it… I kind of followed a rat into the alley and then leaned on the wall. Then it kind of opened so I went here to get a look. I see the totally badass skeleton with a flower so I come closer and the next thing I know you are shouting at me to not move. How did you even get here right behind me?”

“You were gone for ton longer than dat,” Waylan explained. “Some sorta magic-time-wat-not.”

“Good thing it was the two of us who went after you,” Irwyn said as they finally got out of the expanded hall. “The Trials are already worse than usual, it was very reckless of you to come down here. Just imagine if it was an active secret hideout or something along those lines. You would be another kid not coming back without a trace.”

“Sorry,” the boy replied averting his gaze. “But I did finish my job. Good and clean, no one even noticed me until I was long gone.”

“That is good, though you should be more careful of approaching literal skeletons,” Irwyn nodded. “That being said, I am about to do the exact opposite.”

“Do as you peach,” Waylan shook his head with a knowing smile as if those words actually meant anything. Irwyn did not answer the blatant provocation.

Instead, he stepped into the room, leaving the doorway open for Waylan and the boy to keep looking. He oriented around the bubbles without issue but kept his guard. He inched closer and closer until he was just a few steps away. Then he jumped back. Just as he had half-expected, a new bubble formed when he got too close. Or rather, one disappeared at the far end of the room and reappeared where he had just stood. He had no real idea about the why though. Moreover, it was now also clear that the skeleton and flower were themselves stuck in a particularly large bubble. The main reason he hadn’t noticed at first was because the damn flower was somehow swaying ever so slightly in spite of that; which only served to reinforce that it was clearly magical and likely very valuable.

Seeing the situation Irwyn had 2 options: Either back off and leave the flower where it was or try to take it along with the involved risk. He was considering and inspecting the enchantments when he realized a slight problem.

“Hey, one question,” he shouted at the doorway. “How come you could see the skeleton or even get here if there are no lights?”

“Huh?” the boy said, “There were definitely lights when I came through though, although they were real dim.”

“Alright,” Irwyn nodded, focusing on the enchantment. Just as he had suspected, the whole thing had lost a significant amount of the already diminished stored mana. And it probably lost more every time a bubble formed or moved. “You should move back into the antechamber.”

“Ante-what?” they both said at once.

“The room we came through,” Irwyn grimaced attaching a ball of light to Waylan’s shoulder. It would dissipate quickly without his direct control but it should last for a few minutes. Waylan and the boy nodded and left Irwyn to do his thing.

Irwyn took a few deep breaths as they left and looked at the flower. It was a bit greedy but if Irwyn had realised anything recently, it was that he was wholly insufficient. He needed more power and more understanding of magic. The stronger he became the safer he would be. But to get there he needed to take some risks. This one seemed like it could be a relatively safe one, depending on how his next experiment turned out.

He called upon his mana once more, but this time it formed into a knife of flames. He tried stabbing the bubble in front of him; it visibly contorted but did not pop. So he withdrew the knife, waited for it to stabilize again and then engulfed it in a wave of flames. It burst instantly, 3 more forming nearby. Reacting quickly, he moved his wave of flame to where one of the new ones was forming causing it to instead vanish and reappear a lot further away just a moment later. With that confirmed he felt genuinely confident and so went for it.

He rushed through his own flames popping the bubble surrounding the skeleton as well as the new one that had tried to stop him. He grabbed the flower and gasped as it tried to fight back with mana of its own. That did not make him hesitate though as he overwhelmed it in an instant and ripped it out. Then he made for the door, 6 new bubbles having already formed, completely blocking his way out. For each he popped 3 new appeared, seemingly intentionally trying to block him in. With no other choice, he kept popping them as he made a beeline for the door rather than maneuvering around as he had initially planned. And as he dashed the 3 for each popped turned into 4. Then 5. By the time he was 3 quarters of the way out, the mana in the enchantment was dipping dangerously low. Still, he ran and ran.

It was at the moment he reached the doorstep that the enchantment finally cracked. With a deafening thud, the room contorted and then compressed in on itself. What had been a hall just a few moments was suddenly a barricade of crushed stone rubble, the force of the escaping air sending Irwyn flying. That might have been a good thing though as he avoided all the fragments thanks to that.

It took him a few moments to calm down enough to stand up and a few more to regain his hearing. When he returned to the antechamber, Waylan and the boy were already waiting for him, having gathered the 2 enchanted books for him.

“I am starting to suspect you suddenly enjoy causing commotions, Irw,” Waylan cackled, seemingly unbothered by the impact.

“Yes, very funny. Let us leave before anyone comes to check out what happened and somehow finds us,” Irwyn grinned back, looking at what was left of the flower: The stem had completely withered away while the petalless bloom had solidified, turning into a borderline gem concealing magic within, isolating it much like the enchantments; he put it in his pouch for now. They went back up the stairs, this time Waylan in the front. When they reached the secret door Waylan stepped out first to confirm the situation.

“Sooo, good and bad news,” Waylan said as he returned. “The cunt we met on solstice dat wanted to rob us? He be waiting for us outside with 12 lads. The good is he is leaving 'cause ‘a fucking building just sunk into the ground, boss, you gotta go see for yourself’.”

“Didn’t they see you?” the youngest boy worried only for Waylan to wave his hand without worry.

“Nah, don’t ya know? I am invisible when I wanna ‘cause no one ever spots me, ever.”

“Like the guards at the Solstice raid who definitely did not see you as they chased us,” Irwyn shot him a grin.

“That was on purpose I keep telling ya’all. Distractin’ and wat-not”

So they waited for a bit longer until most of the Stars gangster left before moving out, using a well-timed beam of blinding ‘sunlight’ to escape the two leftover guards they barely slipped away. Unnoticed.