Emily gives her friends a brief overview of her situation, from her awakening to her attempted brainwashing. She mao hold in her anger with the help of a f squeeze from Juliana as she speaks about Herber’s death once more, but the pitying expressions on her friends’ faces don’t help. Her friends hang on her every word till the end, listening to her in sileil she finishes.

  “That’s disgusting!” Dante growls, righteous indignation burning in his gaze.

  “It is,” Enzo agrees, anger in his gaze along with a calg glint. “But do you really o bee an outw? Oscar seems ied in scouting you, even if just as an ally, and I’m sure his family will happily take the excuse to destroy the Mandragos and take over their resources.”

  Emily pauses for a moment before responding, taking a deep breath and sidering her words, months of frozen time having dulled the edges of the truth, making it easier to front.

  “No, I probably don’t have to bee an outw,” she admits, gazing off into the darkness as she eborates. “However, I don’t want to stay in The Dome. I want to travel, to explore different magical phenomena, to find strong oppos to fight. I want freedom tress.”

  “You’d have freedom in The ant if you got out from the Mandragos' influence,” Hester points out.

  “Yeah! If you receive a family name you’ll be able to do whatever you want while using The Dome as a free trading hub,” Dante adds, his anger bleeding away as Emily shifts to a tone of acceptand resolution.

  “Maybe,” Emily acquiesces with a nod. “But I don’t pn on dealing with this quietly. It wouldn’t satisfy my anger if they just vanished and they have allies who’d probably keep making life difficult for me. I think it’s unlikely even their enemies will be too happy for Modo to lose a fourth circle mage. The idea of dang through politics sounds like a massive headache to me: I’d rather leave the try, probably even the ti, until I’m strong enough that they wouldn’t even think of b me. Besides, there are plenty of other iing pces on the p for me to explore.”

  Her friends sider her words, showing mixed reas to her pns.

  “That said,” Emily tinues before anyone else say anything, a touch of uainty creeping into her tone. “I’m still not sure what I’m going to do after going badon. I may end up back at The Dome for all I know. But, my main priority is meeting up with Anna again. Everything else go from there.”

  Nobody argue with her final statement, nodding along with reluce as an air of mencholy settles over the group.

  “Your sister’s safety takes priority,” Ivns with resped uanding, the others nodding along.

  “I’d avoid politics too if I were you,” Dante says with a visible shiver.

  “Of course you would,” Enzo says, leaping on the ce to lighten the mood a little. “You’d avoid anything you ’t blow up if given the choice.”

  There are a few subdued ughs as everyone slowly moves towards their sleeping bags, sensing the end of the versation and preparing to turn in for the night. After everyo Emily and Juliana has settled in their sleeping bags, Tom speaks again, breaking the silence of the camp.

  “We’ll miss you, you know. The Dome won’t be the same without you,” he says.

  “Yeah, and if you ever find yourself near orm while on the run, you’re wele to e hide in our family’s museum,” Hester adds, humour ione.

  “It’s been fun fighting with you,” Dante mumbles, his face already buried in his pillow.

  “I hope we meet agaiually,” Enzo says. “It would be a shame not to get to see yic again.”

  A small smile parts Emily’s lips as she listens to the heartfelt words of her friends. A light tapping oone floor draws her attention, and she turns her head to see Ivor sitting up in his sleeping bag, staring straight at her.

  “It’s been a pleasure. If you ever need help, let me know. I still owe you my life,” he signs seriously, his eyes glistening with tears, surprising Emily.

  “Just make sure J stays safe,” Emily signs back with a tearful smile.

  “You have my word,” Ivor finishes with a nod before l himself down to sleep.

  Emily turns back to face the fire, leaning her head against Juliana’s as a fortable siletles once more, no more words needed between them. A bubbling warmth fills Emily’s chest as she sits there, touched by her friends’ sideration and feeling a hint ret at the idea of leaving them.

  ***

  The m, they pack up camp and head into the nearby cavern.

  “There’s a tunnel uhis ke eg to the upper level,” Emily expins as they pause on the shore, looking out into the pool of dark water. “The current is weak, so we shouldn’t have any trouble going up, and it’s wide enough to fit three people at a time, so we’ll gh together.”

  Her friends all give signs of aowledgement and sit down to start removing their shoes, Juliana gnervously at Emily as they do, but Emily stops them.

  “That won’t be necessary,” she says with a grin, snapping her fingers.

  A flood of green and blue runes flows from Emily at her and, ing around the group to form a dang barrier of colour. Tens of twisting lines spring from her feet, eg the runes in a swirling pattern around them, joining at a single point directly in the tre of the barrier, above Emily.

  Everyone shivers as they feel a twisting breeze form, brushing against them and rustling their robes as the runes around them pulse. Water droplets start appearing around them, quickly bending and joining together in a stantly shifting, rotating balloon of water.

  “Woah!” Tom excims, reag out to touch the barrier. “Is this another defence spell? Why are you using it now?”

  “I call it windpool. It does work as a defensive spell,” Emily excitedly expins, stepping up to the water’s edge auring for her friends to follow. “But it’s only as strong as a sed circle spell on that front. The main draw is in its utility.”

  She steps forward, out into the water, but her foot doesn’t sink. Instead, it stops against the barrier, allowing Emily to walk along the surface without trouble. Her friends are all shocked by the oute, eagerly stepping forward to join her oer.

  “This is amazing!” Juliana marvels as they walk to the tre of the ke. “Does it work uer?”

  “That’s the whole point,” Emily responds, gesturing for everyoo stop and trolling the windpool, slowly l them below the surface. “We do our whole journey back up and stay dry!”

  As the barrier dips below the surface, the dark water around them mixes with the outer yer, turning into a twisting vortex desding through the ke with them held safely within. The orb of light floating above Emily’s head illumihe inside of the barrier, only releasing a few twisted beams of light into the water around them.

  Juliana quickly buries her fato Emily’s shoulder as they lower into the darkness, while the others look out into the water with i. Approag the kebed, they start to spot glimpses of the looming corpse in the darkness, barely able to dis its outline.

  “Is that the titan?” Tom asks, leaning close to the edge of the barrier and squinting, trying to get a clear view.

  “Yeah. Wan?” Emily asks, calmly stroking Juliana’s hair.

  Tom nods enthusiastically, so Emily jures a sed light and sends it out of the barrier, p mana into it to illumihe water. The forceful burst of light reveals the massive dead beast, sprawled across the kebed and taking up a majority of it.

  “Woah!” Tom excims, joined in his wonder by the others as everyo Emily and Juliana move to the edge of the barrier to admire the dead creature.

  “How did you kill it?” Enzo asks after notig the ck of obvious wounds.

  “I shot through its hearts,” Emily responds, narrowing her eyes as she spots a few shifting bck masses trying to blend into the corpse. “Like this.”

  She quickly unholsters the Spitter, popping out the magazine and sliding in another with a water droplet carved on the side. She raises the gun, aiming at one of the creatures tched to the corpse and flicks it into burst, squeezing the trigger. Three bullets fly out, passing through the barrier and slig through the water outside. The blue runes delicately engraved into each bullet glow and they barely slow down ier, gliding forward and pung three holes in the wriggling bck mass.

  Everyoches as the small, sed circle archite floats down to the riverbed, limp.

  “I thought bullets didn’t work uer,” Dante says with a sceptical gowards Emily’s gun.

  “They don’t normally,” she responds with a smug grin, putting away the gun and ign the other archites happily g themselves on their brethren’s corpse.

  Emily turns her focus to the hole below them, only wide enough for three people, and starts moving her hands, bending the spell around them. The twisting winds gently shift, raising Tom, Hester, Dante, and Enzo above Emily, Juliana, and Ivor, holding them in three tiers on solidified yers of air. Emily ighe excmations of her friends and carefully lowers them all into the tunnel, watg ahead to make sure nothing is approag them from below.

  They slowly sink lower without issues. Emily only has to cast a few aqua bolts to remove two archites in their way, and the tunnel soon levels out, allowing them to walk fain as Emily settles the barrier on the ground, dissipating the solid sheets of air keeping her friends afloat. She g her mana as they quietly walk through the tunnel, noting it’s fallen to half thanks to the rge expenditure of the barrier.

  Juliana removes her solid grasp on Emily as they start walking again, the enclosed walls and roof of the tunnel seeming to help calm her fear. They shift around as they walk, movier to the front to help Emily deal with archites ahead as they push on through the tunnel.

  It doesn’t take long for them to clear the path, killing the entire remaini and arriving at the sharp upward bend leading to the yer. Emily shifts the barrier once more, carrying them up in aor of wind and water.

  They break through the water’s surface, arriving in the light of the sparkling crystals overhead. They move to the shore, stepping onto solid ground and allowing Emily to finally disperse her barrier. A collective sigh is released by the group, gd to be out of the oppressive darkness of the deepest yer.

  “Take a break here for a little bit,” Emily says, reag her hand into a pouch at her belt. “I’m going to mark this tuo try to make it easier to find The Abyss if I e back.”

  Everyone spreads out iunnel. Enzo, Dante, and Ivor position themselves slightly upstream, just in case something attacks them, and Tom aer sit against the wall, watg Emily work. Juliana sits down beside Emily, also watg with i as she pulls out ah crystal, space crystal, k of white iron, and an ingot of bck iron.

  “Why earth and space?” Juliana asks as Emily forms the bck iron into a ft pte.

  “To handle mana gathering and location transmission separately,” Emily answers as she makes two sockets from the white iron, fusing them to the bck iron pte and starting to draw lines onto the pte with thin beads of white iron. “I’m going to bury this marker in the rock partway dowunnel so it hopefully won’t move too far from the path down. The earth crystal will help draw mana in through the surrounding rock to keep the space crystal full while it sends out a signal for the receiving space crystal to track.”

  She finishes drawing a plicated runic matrix around the pte, c the top and bottom with a delicate mix of runes and eg shapes, before dropping both crystals into pce. They instantly link to the magic circle, lighting up the white metal with a brourple glow.

  “There we go,” Emily says, pulling out a space crystal with a dull hue, g the usual lustre of the mystic gems. “Now we link them.”

  She takes out an engraving knife, gently bringing it to the dull crystal’s surfad carving a detailed set of runes. Everyone falls silent to let her focus as her hand races along the crystal in fast but precise movements, quickly f a spell on the crystal without shattering it. They all let out a collective sigh of relief as she finishes, everyone uanding the votility of even a drained mana crystal.

  Emily taps the crystal to the marker pte and a small purple strand of mana reaches out, eg to the crystal and slowly returning its vibrant glow. She holds it iil the e breaks itself, then drops the linked crystal into her belt as she stands up.

  “I’ll be right back,” she says to her friends before stepping into the water again.

  She swims dowy metres before stopping and floating over to the tunnel’s wall. Pg a palm against the rock, Emily casts a spell to soften the rock before coating her hand ih mana and pushing it forward, dispg the stone and burrowing into it.

  She keeps going for a few minutes, until her arm is shoulder-deep in the wall, before pulling it out. She pces the loarker in the back of the small alcove before starting to fill it ba again. Halfway out, Emily pauses again, holding her hand out before herself with a vicious grin.

  I don’t want any archite burrowing in to try to find those mana crystals, so let’s add a precaution.

  A faint purple mist flows up from her belt, coalesg together to form a small bck disc with silver circuits running along the surface. The tre of the disc is a disected ring holding a small, white, maion crystal and several strands of silver metal. The tral ring’s wires don’t ect to the others, twisted a quarter turn out of pce.

  ˉˉˉˉˉ

  [Mana Mine]

  [Rank:] D

  [Description:] A proximity-based magical explosive.

  [Effect:] Explodes dealing massive damage when a living being’s mana signature es within a set distance.

  _____

  This detonating should scare them off trying to burrow in for the marker for a while at least.

  She flips the mine over, revealing a rge rotating ring on the back as well, with zero to ten carved around it. She barely turns the indicator on the ring, moving it a tiny amount from zero, setting the mio go off if something es withiy timetres of it. Then she pces the mine in the hole, fag outwards.

  Emily turns the front dial terclockwise, releasing it from a tside aing off a tig inside as it slowly starts shifting clockwise bato pce. She quickly moves the stone bato pce, burying the explosive before it has finished priming. After the wall is back to normal, looking identical to when she first swam down, Emily gives a satisfied nod and kicks off, heading back towards the surface.

  KeroKeron