Everyone gathered around Ryan.
The clan leader, the high priest, and the forge master all stood there with the equipment Ryan had requested. Ryan looked at them, "Alright. Get the kids out of here. You guys get back to a safe distance. If this works, it won't last long, and..." He picked up one of the healing potions out of its carry satchel, "Chances are I'm going to die."
The priest looked good with this. Olof looked concerned, "What are you going to do?"
Ryan gestured, "I'm going to use what mana I have to push the rock drill through, back filling in the hole with ice as I go. I'm going to feed the dragons blood into the center of the ice to make a long thin line of the stuff. I'm going to detonate it to give myself the space I need to do..."
He took a deep breath, "Something very stupid that's likely to kill me."
He gestured to the healing potions, "So I'll be chugging them as my body falls apart to keep from dying long enough for everyone to get out."
The priest blinked, "That's impossible. You don't have enough mana. Nobody does."
Ryan started stripping off his broken pieces of armor to reveal his heavily tattooed skin, "Oh. You are right about that." He pointed at the mountain, "However, the All-father has blessed me. I can tap into any form of mana." He paused, "Including demonic mana. The cave is full of it."
The Clan leader's jaw dropped open, "What? I don't know much about mana cores, but what I do know means that those two form of mana are incompatible!"
Ryan tapped his tats, "I got these! They'll act as a buffer and a converter. I should be able to hold it together for a few minutes. Long enough to open a tunnel and have everyone run out."
Olof stepped up to Ryan, "You'll need someone to hand you the healing potions. You might not be able to reach them yourself."
Ryan looked back at the kid. They were about the same hight and oddly enough, maybe about the same age. Ryan nodded, "If this goes south and the tunnel collapses, run. Chances are this little stunt will bring the rest of the mountain down." Olof nodded and looked both grim and committed. The look on his face said he was going to do whatever it took to help, even if it meant getting buried under a landslide in the process.
The forge master shook his head, "I'll stay here with you as well. There might be something I can do to help when you get the tunnel open." Ryan squinted at him, then shrugged, "Suit yourself." He looked at the clan leader, "Get everyone else back and..." He looked at the priest, "Try praying. It couldn't hurt at this point."
Everyone else got back while the three got to a good position to begin. While Ryan was mentally preparing himself he thought back to the tunnel the demons made to burrow their way in under the stadium. There were odd sigils on the walls that were holding the tunnel up back then. He had tried to figure them out, but he couldn't. They operated on an entirely different type of magic system that was... oily. Slippery. However, now that he was going to tap into demonic mana directly, maybe...
He closed his eyes and stretched out his hands, letting his blessing from the All-Father take over. The calculations ran through his head. How to blow open a hole and use that as the wedge to then tap the demonic energy. His knowledge of magic circles and spheres scrolled through his head as he worked out theoretical means of combine it with the demonic sigils. He remembered the combination of sigils and circles the demonic assassin used to keep everyone out of the king's court.
They swirled and morphed in his head as rejected combination after rejected combination appeared in his head. Over and over, dozens then hundreds of possible solutions came to mind and were dismissed. The others looked at him, "Are... you going to do this?"
Ryan closed his eyes tighter, "Hold... On... All... most..."
Suddenly, one final formula appeared in his mind. A blending of his blue water magic and red demonic energy. The sigils were a blending of both into a strange purplish hue.
Ryan's eyes flared open as he sheathed the rock drill in water and the cask as well. The cask shattered and he increased the surface tension of the water to make sure it did not mix with the dragon's blood. It started out as a black glob in water that slowly stretched out into a watery pseudopod with a thin black line down its core. The tendril of water attached itself to the back of the rock drill which plunged into the pile of shattered rock before them.
Ryan's brow broke out in sweat as he burned through what little mana reserves he had. He needed to make contact with the demonic mana building up inside the cave, or all of this would be a waste of time, and a death sentence for those trapped within. The drill went deeper and deeper. It was talking much longer than Ryan thought it should. He was having to focus more and more on keeping the borehole open the deeper he got. He almost ran out of mana when the drill head broke through.
He felt the watery tendril connect with the accumulating suffering within the mine. As soon as it did, he could sense the mana pour back down the tendril of ice and water to flow into him. His tattoos took on an unholy glow as they literally burst into an orange-red glow. The power was amazing, Heady. Addictive. Like mainlining crystal meth. However, as soon as the drill head broke through, something happened that he did not anticipate.
The appearance of the drill gave the people in the cave hope.
There was only a little hope, but it was like a lump of ice in a bonfire. If enough accumulated, it would cut off the demonic mana in the cave and thus the power source Ryan was tapping into.
Ryan felt a vein burst in his nose. As the blood started to trickle out, he knew he was on borrowed time. Ryan grabbed a healing potion and knocked it back with one hand as he flicked open his lighter. He created a line of hydrogen and oxygen through the air to carry the flame to the dragons blood. As the leaping flame found it's target, the thin line of dragons's blood detonated.
It didn't create that big of an area, but it didn't need to be. Ryan just needed room to put in the initial magic sigil circles. They started as purplish magic spheres in a chain and expanded rapidly. The Rock itself morphed and melted away, not so much being pushed aside, as simply vanishing, perhaps being pushed into some sort of extra dimensional space or something. It didn't matter how it was working.
Ryan was making a tunnel.
It wasn't as wide or as big as he wanted, but he was running out of time. He could feel that his very success was going to be his undoing. As those trapped inside got free, they would feel relief, and the energy Ryan was tapping into would vanish. In this moment, as he felt the incomparable energies surge inside him, pooling for some reason around his heart, he suddenly understood why the demonic assassin had been so fixated on being cruel to the him and the king. He wasn't just being sadistic.
He was refueling his mana pool.
Just then, the Forge master rushed into the tunnel, barking out orders as he went. The first dwarves to enter the tunnel were not the women, but other forge workers. They lined up inside the tunnel standing off to the side, alternating from side to side, but trying to space themselves out. They reached up with their hands to hold the roof of Ryan's improvised tunnel. Ryan could feel them using the same power he used when he would modify things with his hands. They were using their innate power to shape objects to help reinforce the tunnel... to strengthen it.
Which was a good thing, because that was when the women started streaming out.
As they fled the cave, hope rose, the available energy fell, and Ryan's concentration wavered. He stretched out with both trembling arms to focus better as he slipped down to one knee. The bleeding was much more intense now. He could feel his body trying to reject this combination of magic. It was a very odd sensation. There was this deep thumping beat that came from deep inside Ryan, calling out to him. He had heard this beat before. It was begging him, pleading with him to just... relax.
Give in.
Allow the tunnel to collapse.
FEAST.
It didn't make any sense to Ryan. He dismissed it out of hand. He had this nagging feeling that something was going on he didn't quite understand. The headmaster's theory about how he was able to function in the anti-magic field at the stadium made sense at the time, but now he was not so sure.
However, that would be something to consider another time. Ryan needed to remain focused on the task at hand. Olof was forcing another potion into his mouth, but the truth was, it didn't seem to help much. At best it was just giving him a few extra seconds, not that he was going to tell Olof to stop.
The dwarves kept streaming out. Olof was holding Ryan up at this point. They were almost there. He just needed one more minute. He could feel that all the Demonic energy was gone now. He had nothing left to tap into. The Forgers were still in the tunnel. Twelve dwarven men stood there, holding up the roof of the tunnel by sheer force of will. They waited until they were the last. Everyone else had made it out.
The forge master shouted out an order. The one in the very back stopped holding up the roof first and broke into a run. That seemed to be the plan. From the back to the front, they would run out, one at a time. They would only need one more minute.
Ryan had run out of minutes.
