Shards of Old

I stepped carefully around the water and towards the cave, letting my light orb fly first to brighten up the surroundings. Let’s say, that was one unusual cave to say the least.

First thing that I noticed was a large rock formation at the back end of the cave, or more like a large slab of sandstone. It was almost perfectly square, with a polished surface. Right in front of it, there was a boulder, about quarter the size of the slab, but that one was almost completely round, only its top part was flattened.

What caught my attention though, was what was placed on the larger one - a notebook. And not just some notebook, it looked eerily similar to ones we had at the lab. It WAS from the lab - the black cover still was sporting the logo of the MIRE.

Someone was here.

And not that long before me, in fact, judging by the fact that I was right next to the water and the notebook looked like it was in a pretty decent shape.

I quickly approached my discovery and almost immediately got disappointed. What from afar looked like a nice, thick notebook, was just a singular page and a cover - the rest was torn out and nowhere to be found. With mixed feelings, I started reading.

To whoever is going to find this note - I guess we are in the same situation. I have been in this place for the past three months - there is no escaping this stupid bowl. Believe me, I tried. I’ve explored every single tree here and besides some ruins and this stream, there is nothing here. The forest is completely surrounded by the mountains, the exact same you see by the entrance of this cave - impossible to scale.

But I think I found one way out. The stream outside is forming a lake - under the water there I see a passage. Where it leads though, I have no idea. It might even be a dead end.

I must warn you though. If you are someone who knows a bit about the arcane, you are aware of how dangerous this water can be, hell, you might not be, but you might have tried touching the water already. If you aren’t - let me just tell you that it’s not a good idea for your long or short-term well-being to swim in it.

I had enough of this place and the solitude so I am willing to take my chances and dive. If you are a mad man like me, you’ll either find my corpse in there, or the way out.

Good luck.

There was no signature.

The bowl, eh? I guess, if he, or she for that matter, was indeed right and this place was surrounded by those cliff-like walls, that was a fitting name. It was also clear that they had at least a decent amount of knowledge about magic.

More importantly though - who left this thing here?

Was it possible that it was someone from the MIRE? Then why did they leave me there? They assumed I was dead? I guess that was possible… I probably would say the same after seeing myself armless and all…

For once in my life I started cursing the digitization of everything. I had no idea how my coworker’s, bah, even friends’ handwriting looked like, so it could be any of them, or none for that matter. It could even be some poor victim of teleport accident for all I knew.

I left the cave and took a better look at the lake, lowering the light orb right next to the surface of the water. It was not that deep, maybe two meters right at the edge of the mountain. From where I was standing, it was hard to tell if there actually was something down there, but it was definitely possible.

I was not going to take my chances though, I still had another possible way out - up.

I tried casting the flight spell and instantly got reminded why that spell was deemed not safe for public use. The instant I started chanting, I noticed something was going wrong - instead of slow and steady buildup of rushing air, I barely was feeling anything. I managed to successfully finish the invocation, but instead of being able to fly well above the canopy, I barely was able to lift off the ground.

-Work, you piece of… - I started muttering, while dropping the spell and trying to cast it again.

But the more I tried, the less effective it was - the second time, I didn’t even manage to stay above ground for more than a few seconds, the third time, I didn’t even lift off. All the subsequent tries did was just produce a gust of air that made waves appear on the pond next to me.

That was how my attempts at flying ended.

I had to start reconsidering my options. Suddenly, the suicide mission mentioned in the notes started looking appealing. I went back to the cave to check if I missed anything that would help me in this predicament, but found nothing. I sat next to the slab and the notebook, thinking. Should I trust this note? I couldn’t see why someone would leave something like this here and lie in the contents, so maybe? I silently cursed the experimental flight spell once more - if I at least had that, I would be able to check if I indeed was trapped here. The worst part was, I was running out of time. I haven’t eaten for a while now, and even though I have not felt any hunger, I was pretty sure that was just an after effect of that mana surge I felt when I touched the water. Would I be able to verify this “bowl theory” before succumbing to hunger? I heavily doubted that, since apparently someone wasted three whole months trying. They managed to get by somehow, but would I be able to? I guess I could try gathering… or hunting… but should I?

-First things first - I announced aloud, standing up after a long while - Let’s check that escape route of yours.

I went outside and guided my light orb as close as I could to the water surface, to maybe hopefully see something. While the water was crystal clear, it was not hard for me to see the bottom. It was similar to the one of the lake I’ve seen in the middle of the woods, but this one had a lot less flora, to the point where I could almost see the raw rock beneath.

I hesitated for a moment. I wanted to lower my orb even more - let it go underwater to maybe see if there is something deeper, or under the layer of that strange green grass. The question was though, what happens if you submerge a spell in, what effectively is, a massive mana source?

I could think of a few possibilities.

One, the spell gets amplified, absorbing mana from the environment. That would not be that bad - besides potentially blinding me for a second, it would prove annoying at worst.

Two, absolutely nothing. The spell just does what it was supposed to and that’s it. Also a favorable outcome.

Three, the spell destabilizes itself and explodes in the process. That was the worst case scenario and its effect could range from slight injury to being fatal.

In my time I’ve seen all of those results, but every time it was in mostly safe, laboratory conditions. As far as I could remember, it depended on the spell and the potency of the environment. I was going to use a light spell, so the risk should be minimal, since the light can’t really hurt you like for example fire or lightning. It was not completely safe though, it was still water of unknown mana potency - if high enough the blast alone could be strong enough to break a bunch of bones.

-Well, no risk, no reward - I said, lowering the light orb below the water.

Alas, nothing happened. While I doubted that the worst scenario would come to pass, I still was a bit nervous, so I welcomed the silence with open arms. As I lowered the orb deeper and deeper into the lake, the spell was consistently the same, so I could focus on looking for the supposed passageway instead of trying to control the expected sudden surge of power.

All this time, the water was completely still, not even interacting with the spell itself, but that was just thanks to the element I used - it’s not like water, infused or not, would be an obstacle for the light itself - I could easily manipulate it and move it around, just like in the air. It was also handy in finding out the edges of the basin - since the light would straight up stop at the walls and the bottom, sometimes half disappearing in that strange grass and shining through it with a green hue. It got to the point where I was scraping at the ground, or maybe rock, under the grass. I honestly did not think I was going to find anything, besides maybe the corpse or the skeleton of that note’s author, but to my surprise, right at the edge, near the base of the mountain, my orb suddenly dove under the greenery and disappeared somewhere deeper.

There was something there.

I closed my eyes and started focusing more on the spell. Since the orb was already out of my sight, there was no point in trying to look for it - I instead wanted to feel it.

That was the other function of my spell - while not really intended, it was possible to use it as a very primitive mapping tool. If you cast a spell, whatever it might be, you always can keep track of it, if you focus hard enough. That, combined with the fact that the orb would not be able to pass through the solid walls, made it possible for me to “feel” where the opening in the lake bed led, at least roughly. I just had to keep it moving and whenever the spell would just refuse to move, change the direction. Kneeling at the edge of the water, I started tracing the route it was taking with my finger in the ground.

That was pointless though - the tunnel was pretty simple - a “U” shaped path that ended with some open space. A rather large one to boot, since I managed to make the orb float maybe two meters away from me, before it hit the wall - the other side of the one I was right next to.

-Curious… - I muttered to myself and approached the clifface, to get as close as I could to the wall and the spell. As I leaned on it, I could feel it less than a quarter meter away from me - the wall was pretty thin. I made it roam a little bit around that new found cave. As far as I could tell, it was larger than the one I found the notebook in, but was tightening towards the back end and transforming into some sort of tunnel about ten meters in. What was deeper I had no idea, since that was as far as I was able to make my orb go before starting to lose control of the spell.

I dismissed the spell and sat at the edge of the lake, thinking. The path was actually real and even looked like it led somewhere. It was even large and short enough for me to swim through without much of a problem, which, considering my lack of one arm, was incredibly fortunate. There was one issue though - the water itself. I very well remembered what happened when I just dipped my fingers in it upstream. To swim in it was definitely not a good idea.

But it kept bothering me. Considering it was that strong, why did my spell not freak out, even just a little bit? I mean, yes, of course, it was as basic as it gets, but still, that was unusual to say the least.

That is, if the water was still as powerful as upstream.

Usually, the natural streams like that tend to keep their infusion level somewhat the same, but they are also a lot less potent than this one. What about a man-made one though? Would it behave like the regular one?

My curiosity got the better of me - I kneeled at the side of the lake and, as carefully as it was possible, I touched the water, with just a singular finger.

I expected to feel another sudden jolt of energy, but nothing like that happened. I definitely could tell that the water was still mana infused, but the condensation was nothing like the one upstream. Slowly, I moved my hand and submerged more of my finger. There was no change, but now I could actually feel the warmth of the water - it was completely different than the one before. Instead of almost burning, I felt a pleasant warmth. Even after submerging my whole hand, the feeling was still the same.

I moved my hand away and checked up on my crystal, and ,as expected, it was glowing, albeit not as brightly as before, absorbing the mana slowly and steadily.

Scratching my chin, I started thinking again. Suddenly, the idea of checking the route described in the note was looking sort of appealing. One thing bothered me though. Was the author of the note just mistaken? Judging by the feel, the water was completely safe. Did it lose potency in time? Was that even possible? No, that would not make sense - it would’ve meant that our lab was here for a very long period of time already, oozing mana and infused water.

I started wandering about, thinking. Should I try it? It seemed low risk, and not like I had any other leads that would help, but I still kept having a feeling that I was missing something.

Nevertheless, no better idea came to my mind, so I started preparing for a swim.

Not even a minute later, I was already packing all my clothes into my bag and hoping that the enchantment would at least work a little bit. Once more, I summoned the light orb, moved it towards the entrance hidden under the layer of green and started slowly walking into the lake.

First steps were quite uneventful and pleasant even. It felt like I was just walking into a nice, big and warm bath. No wonder they use that stuff in spas. The first minor snag happened when the water finally reached the crystal in my side. The shard suddenly lit up, and as it did, the light orb followed suit, getting brighter and brighter. I resolved the issue quickly though, just had to focus on the spell a little bit more. The orb was still brighter though and my side was still glowing. The same thing happened again, when the water reached the other piece of the crystal. This time I was expecting that and, even though I actively tried to reduce my mana usage even more, I did not manage to dim the light even a little bit, so I just cut the spell completely. I was a bit worried about diving down without light, but the problem resolved itself - as I cut the spell, the glow from the crystals in my body did not disappear - I was now a walking, or rather swimming glowstick. The light was not as good as the one from the orb, so I had to pay attention to my surroundings even more, but it was enough.

As the water reached my chin, I could feel the gap under my feet - the opening. Taking a deep breath, I dove down.

The sides of the tunnel were mostly bare, in comparison to the bed of the lake. The underwater weeds and grass were still present, so between them and occasional stalactites and stalagmites I was able to grab onto them and push myself forward, deeper into the tunnel. It was short enough for me to not worry much about lack of air - not even 15 seconds later I broke the water surface and emerged on the other side of the wall.

About half of the cave was taken over by the lake itself. Thanks to the glow coming from both myself and the water, it was bright enough for me to see without much of a problem. In contrast to the outside wall, it looked absolutely normal and natural - full of different kinds of rock formations and damp. I crawled out of the water onto some rock and checked my bag. Disappointed, I started pulling out my clothes. I already knew that the spell on the bag was almost useless, but still, I had my hopes. Sadly, it only prevented the clothes from being completely soaked - instead, they were “just” damp. Well, considering that I just swam through the underwater tunnel, I shouldn’t complain. Sighing heavily, I laid my clothes on the stone floor nearby, in a poor attempt at trying to dry them.

Seeing that it was going absolutely nowhere, I had an idea. Why not make a small orb of fire to dry faster? Not like I needed firewood for that.

Just to be safe, I turned away from my clothes, turned towards the outer wall of the cave and tried summoning a fire orb.

-Usc fi geksu.

That’s when the second little snag happened. Or rather a major one.

It was a good thing that I turned away from my stuff, or it definitely would be gone in a blink of an eye, because what emerged instead of a small orb was a massive ball, the size of my torso, of roaring fire. Before I even realized what was happening, it touched the water and it was already too late.

You’d think when water comes in contact with fire, it would just get smothered and go out, right? Well you would be mostly right, if it was not a spell, and the water was not infused with mana. The lake instantly started boiling - and I am not exaggerating. To make matters worse, not only the liquid was being evaporated, but mana along with it. I quickly wanted to cut the spell short, but it was already out of control - it did not need my mana, it had plenty of it now in the steam from the lake. Not wanting to get caught in the imminent explosion, I quickly grabbed my clothes and ran towards the other end of the cave, looking for somewhere to take cover. Behind me, I could hear sizzling starting to intensify even more. I didn’t even have to turn back to see the red glare on the walls of the cave - it was almost as bright as it would be outside on a sunny day. That plus the red tint.

BOOM

Right as I ducked behind a set of stalagmites, the cave was shaken by a massive explosion. Some rubble started falling from the ceiling, including rocks that were large enough to murder someone if they were to hit directly, and the bright red light of the fireball was replaced by a dimmer one, much more natural.

Then, there was silence.

I slowly poked out my head from behind the rocks. What I saw definitely made me glad that I managed to duck behind cover in time.

The whole wall, along with the lake, was completely gone. The spell managed to completely evaporate and absorb the large portion of the lake, and bury the remaining part under the rubble. The river was now ending about five meters away from what now was the entrance to a cave, on a rather large piece of rock, which blocked its old path. Instead now, the water was going the other way, towards the cave where I found the notebook and was slowly starting to form a lake a bit further away, flooding some trees in the process.

The explosion also managed to scorch the sides of the cave, and, more importantly, set ablaze a bunch of surrounding trees and bushes.

As soon as I realized that the fire was still going, I ran out of my hiding spot and extended my hand towards the flames.

-Fytu fi elwu!

I immediately realized my mistake - the spell went wild once more. Instead, what was supposed to be a soft spray of water, to hopefully quickly douse the fire before it gets out of hand, I got basically a water hose. Considering all that happened, it actually was not the worst outcome, so I just went with it and started putting out the flames.

I was not even halfway through, what effectively was roleplaying a firefighter, before the spell started to lose on power and slowly turned to what it actually was supposed to be. Spraying the remaining embers, I also noticed that my crystals also were not glowing any more, but I couldn’t shake off a weird feeling that they got larger.

-I guess that could’ve gone worse… - I muttered to myself, evaluating the aftermath of the incident. - At least the fire didn’t spread…

After that spectacular failure, I decided I probably should try and do things manually for a change. I mean, mostly.

Getting firewood and setting up a small campfire in my newly made cave didn't take even a few minutes. I was planning on exploring the deeper parts of the cave and the tunnel as soon as possible, but I had to at least wait for my clothes to dry up.

This time, while casting a spell to light a bonfire, I deliberately turned towards the cave and not the lake or the forest, just to be safe, but it was pointless. The overflow power from the lake that my crystal absorbed was already spent. Sitting by the bonfire and letting my clothes dry, I had some time to think about this place. It was sort of terrifying knowing that you are surrounded from every direction by a wall whose height you can't even fully grasp, but I couldn’t help myself. I was excited. This place looked like it was straight from some fantasy. I was also curious about the fate of my predecessor, after all, I did not find their… well, remains, so he had to at least survive the swim and went further down this path, wherever that leads.

After my clothes dried up to the state you would call wearable, I gathered my things and cleared the signs of my campsite. Not like it was likely for anyone to find them, but better safe than sorry. Getting ready to delve into the underground, I took one of the sharper rocks from the rubble I created earlier. Trying it out on the wall of the cave, I tried scratching it a little bit. As expected it was good enough to leave a mark. Since I didn't want to use magic to do everything, I wanted to use it to mark my way while traveling through the caves.

-Well I'm as ready as you can be in this situation… - I said to myself, walking towards the back of the cave and summoning a light orb.

-This is gonna take a while I feel.