The Abyss Stares Back

The new surveillance room that Zulli and Sen had been escorted to what much like the one Sen had woken up in. The only difference Sen could notice was two exam tables instead of one. The Magic Society officials that had escorted them to the room asked them both to lie supine on the exam tables, and Sen and Zulli had conceded to the request.

“Mister Senadin.” Sen crooked his neck upward to set his gaze on Varnus, though it was unnecessary to know it was Varnus speaking to him in his monotone voice.

Sen had an algebra teacher that sounded just like Varnus in high school. Sen set his head back down on the thin pillow and closed his eyes. While he was laying on the table, he felt the deja’vu of falling asleep in class back in those days as Varnus’ voice droned on.

“I’m aware that you may not know fundamental aspects of magic, or even the vocabulary and nomenclature used. You have absorbed a certain kind of magic known as an essence.” Varnus told him as he walked over to Sen’s exam table. He turned to two of the other researchers. “Get a normal set of vitality readings, as well as resonant and astral readings on her...” He pointed at Zulli with his tablet. “…While we conduct these tests on him.”

“I have seen that, but not I’m not familiar with what an essence is.” Sen told Varnus, peeking one eye open to see Varnus standing over him. “…But I’m hoping this isn’t going to turn into the probing kind of test. I’m shy when it comes to that kind of stuff.” He said coyly.

Varnus’ face didn’t change, but Sen didn’t care if Varnus noticed the sarcasm in his voice or not.

“We will try to stay away from any invasive procedures. But that isn’t going to change the fact that this might be an uncomfortable experience for you. Know that I, as a respected member of the Magic Society, am only doing this for the safety of the people, and the knowledge we are attempting to glean is integral to that safety.” Varnus said.

Sen nodded, his lips pursing as his eye shut again.

“As I was saying, you have an essence, which is a physical manifestation of a certain kind of magic, there are thousands of different kinds, but it is not very often that we come across a new one.”

“And I have a new one.” Sen surmised.

“I cannot speak to whether or not it is new, but you have one.” Varnus told him. “Our initial readings from Vance Cour’deLain’s amateur tests are unable to identify it. More specifically, the tests identify it as nonexistent.” Vance said.

Sen raised his head again to look for Vance, though it seemed like he wasn’t invited into the exam room. Sen looked at the mirrored windows, wondering if Vance was outside watching him. He caught a look at the man in the leather armor as his eyes scanned the room.

“Who’s the muscle?” Sen asked as he let his head down on the exam table again.

“I’m with the Adventure Society.” The man said in a gruff, but dignified voice. “That’s all you need to know.”

Varnus looked at the man and then back at Sen. “We’re going to do some more intricate tests to see if we can identify your essence using a ritual given to us some time ago by Knowledge.”

Sen scoffed. “Isn’t everything given by knowledge in one way or another?”

“The goddess, Knowledge.” Varnus corrected.

“Ah, cool. Rituals. Goddesses.” Sen said, becoming increasingly frustrated with the number of revelations he was bombarded with. “I think I just need to start making a list of what isn’t real rather than what is.”

Varnus looked over at another man in plain Magic Society robes, who was waiting patiently near the double-doors of the exam room. “You may begin setting up the ritual.” Varnus told him.

The man began walking forward and pulled out an ashen-gray colored wand from the sleeve of his robes. He waved it toward the ground, swishing and flicking it as streaks of blue light began to materialize under Sen’s bed, falling to the floor and leaving a residue much like chalk in their wake.

“…And you’re watching Disney channel.” Sen said under his breath as he watched the man wave the wand.

“You know you can just ask?” Sen asked Varnus as the ritualist finished his ritual circle, stuffing the wand back into the sleeve of his robes.

“About your essence? And you can just lie.” Varnus told him. “Research is done not only by questioning, but by confirming and verifying. I also do not need ignorant guesses, which is all you have, tainting our already mixed assumptions about your situation.” Varnus said.

Varnus placed several crystals of different colors in the air, and some floated in the air while others set themselves in fixed locations on the ritual circle underneath Sen. He stepped away from Sen’s exam table and looked at the two researchers who had set up their own crystals around Zulli’s exam table. They nodded to Varnus that they were ready to begin and were waiting by the wall.

“You shouldn’t feel much, just some tingling.”

The ritual circle began to glow with a blue light and the glowstones lighting the room dimmed in response. The researchers studied their tablets while Varnus kept his eyes on Sen. Sen could instinctively feel the magic swelling and deflating in the area around him, as if certain parts of it were being rewritten and changed by the ritual circle. The familiar feeling of his own magic resurged inside him once again, begging to be released. Sen stifled the feeling, trying to conform and abide by what the Magic Society wanted from him. He suspected that if he released the magic inside of him, there could be some kind of backlash that would ruin the ritual or worse. His discipline and control over his own magic was not enough. He couldn’t help but release the magic building up inside him. When he did, an unexpected calm flowed over his immediate area. It didn’t fill the entire exam room, but the area around him and Zulli went completely silent, and the light coming from the ritual circle seemed to dim. One of the crystals floating around Sen fell to the floor, making a muffled clinking sound inside Sen’s aura, and Varnus raised his chin in curiosity, watching from the edge of the room.

Sen felt much more comfortable after releasing his own aura. The chaos of this different world transformed into a calming order as he let it out. He closed his eyes once more, allowing his physical body reflect the calm presence of his aura. The calm created by his aura soothed him, allowing him to relax despite the brilliant glow emanating from underneath him, and the crystals floating around him. Sen could feel Zulli inside his aura, who was also calm and falling into a restful state.

“Now, Mister Niles.” Sen could hear Varnus say, though it seemed muffled and far away.

Sen felt another aura crash into his, the same as when he was in the cafeteria. His eyes shot open and he grunted as he tried to fight it, pushing back with the miniscule amount of power he had in comparison. He felt it completely envelope his own aura, and it squeezed hard until Sen’s aura shrank into nothing. As this happened, the blue light emanating from the ritual circle changed to a blinding, brilliant white, with rays of blue and gold. The light filled the room for a few moments before dimming and then disappearing completely. Everyone in the dark room stood in silence until the magic in the area regulated itself, and the glowstones on the wall returned to their previous non-intrusive luminescence.

Sen lay on the exam table, breathing heavily and exhausted from pushing back against the powerful aura. He let out another grunt as his hands reached up to grasp either side of his head. “You said I wouldn’t feel much.” He said aloud, the pounding in his head berating him.

“It was your own doing. You expended the miniscule amount of mana you have.” Varnus told him as he walked over. “Most of your stamina too, drink this.” He told Sen as he held out a small glass vial with a blue liquid inside. “It’s a mana recovery potion.”

Reaching out with one hand and still cupping his head with the other, Sen grabbed the vial and inspected it. It was a deep blue that shimmered in the light of the glowstones. From Sen’s own experience with magic and potions in video games, and assuming they had no real reason to poison him, it seemed like a legitimate potion. He flicked off the stopper, letting it fall to the floor, and drained the contents of the vial in his mouth, which seemed to have an instantaneous effect. His headache quickly dissipated but was still left with a minor amount of exhaustion.

At the same time, Vance came through the double doors, confirming Sen’s theory that he was watching from outside. He walked straight to Sen’s bed and stood next to Varnus, looking Sen over before setting his gaze on Varnus. “You had no way to know his essence wouldn’t backfire against a divine ritual.” Vance said, a stern look on his face. “We don’t experiment on living people.”

Varnus simply stood staring at Vance with dull eyes. “The Adventure Society and Magic Society both considered this a calculated risk. Better to do it here than let him go and have dead innocents on his hands and ours.” He told Vance in his monotone voice before exiting the exam room, motioning for the rest of the researchers to follow.

Mister Niles, the adventurer in the leather armor, stared at Sen for a few moments before following the researchers out and leaving the room to Vance, Sen, and Zulli.

“Zulli?” Sen asked, not quite ready to move his body from his supine position.

“I’m just fine.” Zulli said, raising herself to a seated position on her exam table, her feet swaying lightly. “I’ve had to come in for a few tests myself, but nothing as extravagant as that. They must be really afraid of whatever essence you have.”

Sen was going to ask Zulli if she had any essences, but was cut off by Vance.

“Sen, what essence do you have? What did the tablet say when you took it from me?” Vance asked Sen, seemingly impatient for answers.

Sen sighed. He was almost embarrassed by the power he had. He knew where it came from, what it took to get it, and could only guess the reason he was gifted with it, which was something he didn’t like talking nor even thinking about.

“Void.” He said after a few moments of silence. “Essence of the Void. It said I’m a Voidwalker. I just now realized what it meant when it said Aura. That’s the kind of power I got from the essence.”

Vance put a hand to his chin as he contemplated the information Sen gave to him. He nodded as he paced the room, putting things together in his mind.

“So we can hypothesize that’s why we were unable to read your essence. It’s the manifestation of nothingness, so it gives us nothing. But void essences have been recorded before, surely we could have recognized some kind of pattern in it.” Vance said, speaking loud enough for both to hear, but mostly talking to himself.

“That’s pretty cool.” Zulli told Sen.

“I suppose it is pretty cool.” Sen said, looking over at her from his lying position on the table. “Vance, I told you that I wouldn’t mind doing tests later for a fair bit of compensation. Getting taken away from…” Sen’s voice trailed off as he remembered the single square of chocolate frosted cake that was now all alone at the table, or worse, placed in a trash bin. “…My dinner…” Sen finished in a frustrated tone. “…And forced to comply to the Magic Society and Adventure Society does not give me the best first impression of either.”

“I am sorry.” Vance told him in a somber tone. He strummed his thin mustache with a thumb and forefinger. “We don’t usually take people like this unless it’s some kind of dangerous situation. And while I do not think you are a dangerous person, Sen, I couldn’t prove to them that you weren’t.”

Sen nodded, now moving himself up to a sitting position like Zulli. “And what about her? Why did she have to come?” He asked.

“When you two made physical contact with each other, we’re guessing you shook hands when you met, there was a ripple in the ambient magic.” Vance told him, leaning against Sen’s exam table. “It didn’t hurt anyone, and only those with good magical sensory abilities would notice it, but as you can imagine, there are a lot of those people in the Magic Society. We noticed it, and when we went to a security room to survey the details of the ripple, it contained three different kinds of magic: Resonant, Disruptive, and Transcendent.” He told them, counting the three types on his fingers. “Resonant and disruptive are very normal types of magic, though not usually mixed, but transcendent magic is incredibly rare, and usually only seen in divine magic from the gods, or powerful high rank abilities.”

Sen rolled his eyes. “Gods.” He mocked. “What are they? Like extremely powerful magic users that call themselves the masters of the concepts they symbolize?”

Vance smirked, being all-too versed in the rebellious attitudes that most outworlders exemplified against the gods of his world. “They are very much gods, Sen. They have never been mortal, and have always existed, at least as long as their concepts have been conceived, and sometimes, they were the ones to conceive them.”

Sen looked at him skeptically, not willing to accept his answer but taking it at face value. “We can talk about them later, and if there’s a god of frosted cake, they have some explaining to do. Anyways, me and Zulli made some crazy kind of magical reaction when we shook hands?”

“Yes. The deputy director of the investigative branch was notified, and you met him shortly thereafter; Varnus Ezebal. He’s not a bad person, but he takes his research very seriously. Much like other researchers, he’s lost some empathy along the way.”

Sen lowered his head, then raised it again, reaching up to touch Vance’s arm. “Thanks for not being like him, Vance. I hope you don’t lose yours along the way. This would be an entirely different situation if you weren’t here. Like an Entrapment kind of situation, and I didn’t want to have to stop Zulli from going all Catherine Zeta-Jones on you guys.”

“I’m not even going to ask what that means.” Vance told him. “I’m sure it’s something from your world and I wouldn’t even understand if you explained it to me.”

“It wasn’t the best reference anyway.” Sen said. “So, they’re probably going to want us to shake hands again, I bet?”

“It shouldn’t be necessary. The divine ritual should give us enough data to understand everything completely.” Vance assured him.

“Why don’t we do it anyway?” Sen asked as he hopped down from the exam table and walked over to Zulli. She had her hands resting on the table with her arms locked where she sat, intently listening to the two men talk.

“You said something about the Astral last time didn’t you Zulli?” Sen asked her as he held out his hand.

Zulli didn’t say anything but also didn’t hesitate in grabbing his hand. Vance held out a hand to say something, but after they acted so hastily, he pulled out his tablet to collect what data he could.

Sen could feel the same pulling feeling as he had last time he held her hand. It lasted a scant few seconds before dissipating. He looked at their clasped hands, then up to Zulli, then back down at their hands. “It’s gone.”

“Yeah it just stopped.” Zulli confirmed.

“Hm.” Sen pondered as he let go of her hand and turned to walk back to his exam table. “Well there you go Vance. I’m guessing you have this on camera? That nothing happened?”

“What’s… Oncamra?” Vance asked. “If you are asking if it was recorded, the answer is yes.”

Sen nodded, putting a hand up to his jaw and tapping his lips with his forefinger. “Vance, if you can get me one of those tablets, I’ll be able to work with you on the nature of my essence.”

Before Vance could respond, the double doors opened again, the solo adventurer entering with a purpose. He swiftly stomped over to Sen, who raised an eyebrow as the man entered Sen’s personal bubble. “August Niles.” He told Sen curtly. He was holding a small translucent crystal and lifted it to eye-level with Sen. Waving it slowly back and forth in front of Sen’s face, it glowed brightly as it got closer to Sen and dimmed as it moved away, but eventually cascaded into a solid dark purple hue.

“Essence of the Null. It’s very nature is to be nothing. I’m taking your aura reading back to the adventure society.” August told him as he stuffed the purple crystal into a small pouch on his hip. “We will want you there for questioning within the week. Complying with the request is your choice, but you will be questioned either way.”

Sen narrowed his eyes at August. “It’s essence of the Void, the tablet told me so, when my aura power reacted to the tablet, and I’d trust my power over some manipulative higher being’s tool they gave you.” He said.

Sen was a few inches taller than August, but he was slightly slouched and leaning against the exam table, giving the impression that they were the same height, and both held their chins directly at each other. Sen knew at any moment that August could press down on him with his aura. More than that, August could most likely wrap Sen up like a pretzel if he wanted. Sen wondered what would happen if he figuratively poked the bear with his own aura, but quickly perished the thought.

“Essence of the Null doesn’t sound as cool, and I don’t think it’s completely accurate.” Sen said

August watched Sen, said nothing, stepped away from him, and walked out the double doors as quickly as he came in. Varnus and his two research assistants arrived in the room as August left, as if on a cue.

“We have identified your essence and you are both free to go.” Varnus told the group. “But before you do I have a few questions of my own. I want to know how you came across this essence, where it came from, and your previous connection to miss Zulli.”

Sen thought for a moment, wondering if he should go into detail about the time he spent in the void, at least what he could remember. The memories of the Void were now fragmenting just as dreams would, especially after being bombarded with one new concept of reality after another.

“I honestly do not know.” He said. “There are things I do know that I can’t tell you, because I need to process them properly, but as for my connection to Zulli.” Sen said, looking over at her and then back at Varnus. “I’ve never met her before in my life. We just met a couple hours ago.”

Varnus’ face played no signal as to what was happening in his mind. He stared blankly as Sen. “Eventually, we will need to know what you know, mister Senadin. We will figure it out either way, but it would be a more direct scholarly route if you would work with us.” Varnus said, his monotone voice sounding even more monotone.

Sen clocked this as Varnus’ frustrated voice, and a smile played on his lips before schooling his expression.

“It’s my dilemma, Varnus, not yours, not yet. If I hand it off to you, I don’t get to reap the benefits of carrying it. I will work with the Magic Society, but I’ll give you only what I can tell you with certainty, and I’ll only work with Vance.” Sen told him. Vance gave Sen a warm smile before schooling his expression as well. “But I need help in return. I expect a fair exchange.”

Varnus looked Sen over inquisitively. “Outworlders.” Varnus scoffed. “You’re always so full of yourselves, and always have a need for control because of the lack of it you are burdened with.” Varnus said.

Sen was slightly affronted. Varnus had read him like a book, and Sen realized too late that being affronted was all the confirmation Varnus needed.

“You two, go now, I must have a word with your friend.” Varnus told Sen and Zulli as his attention rested on Vance.

They left the exam room, confirmed their way back with two guards the stairs, and slowly walked through the hallway.

“You seem to just roll with the punches, Zulli.” Sen finally said to her as they walked in silence for a while. “Do you not…” Sen’s voice trailed off, not sure how to finish the question without seeming rude.

“I just showed up a few weeks before you did.” Zulli said, taking over the conversation as Sen trailed off. “And while I have a vast amount of universal knowledge at my disposal, I have no experience with people, or societies, or even worlds for that matter.” She told Sen as they continued walking. “I have no idea what to expect from anything that happens, so I just let it happen.” She said to him, shrugging her shoulders. “From what I’ve seen, I think we should stick together. This has been the most interesting thing I’ve seen so far. Well, second most interesting. Somebody threw something in the chili pot at the cafeteria. It exploded.” She said with a chuckle.

Sen smirked. “That’s funny. Good to hear some people on this world might know what a good prank is. And good to know that there’s chili here. I think I’d like to stick with you, too. I’m guessing I’m going to have to create a team and start working with this Adventure Society. How would you like to be my first draft pick? Two outworlders ought to turn some heads.”

“Might as well.” She said coyly, holding back her excitement. “What about you? You seem to roll with the punches as well.” She inflected the expression with an adroit cadence, despite never using it before.

“I lost everything.” Sen told her matter-of-factly, no positive or negative tone playing on his words, as if he was tired of saying it. “I didn’t, really, but it felt like it. First my mom, then my girlfriend, then my dog. One after another. And I don’t mean they just up and left, I really lost them, and there was nothing I could do to change any of it. I was left with this void in my heart too great to fill, and I’ve just been taking it day-by-day ever since.”

Zulli nodded, she glanced at Sen who was just staring straight ahead, emotionless, as they walked through the hall. She chose not to say anything, as she didn’t have the social experience to understand his plight. They walked together to their rooms in silence.