Andrew pressed his ear to the door as he murmured to himself, "{Locate: Familiar}"

 

 

 

 

 A moment later, he sensed Miriam's presence down the hall, approximately sixty feet away, likely at the opposite end of the cell block. ~Okay. When I do this, I can't risk being seen in the hallway, so... I'm going to have to...~ He winced internally, thinking, ~Oh man, this is going to suck, isn't it?~ Stepping back from the door, he quickly made some mental calculations, ~Including travel time, I'll need... I reckon about... twelve seconds.~ He squinted, then shrugged, "Fudge it. How bad could the side effects be?"

 

"{Rapidity} {Temporal Recall}"

 

Rapidity augmented Andrew's actions, but it didn't provide him with additional spells, which were essential for his intended course of action. This limitation was a common flaw in most  methods of boosting speed, as circumventing the rule of casting one spell every six seconds was exceedingly challenging. Overcoming this obstacle necessitated time manipulation, a specialty of psionics. While the heightened speed made swift traversal to the end of the hallway a breeze, Andrew required the ability to cast Time Skip upon arrival, not once, but twice. This is where Temporal Recall came into play—a time-based power granting extra spell actions.

 

However, Temporal Recall came with a significant catch—it borrowed time from the immediate future. At Andrew's level, he could borrow a maximum of twelve seconds, just two spells, but the repayment was steep. Afterward, he'd be frozen and completely incapacitated as his present was effectively sent into the past. This exchange was far from favorable; sacrificing all his actions within six seconds block for just a single extra spell. It was a high-stakes gamble, where success could mean victory, but failure often resulted in death. During the repayment period, Andrew was utterly defenseless against any assailant who seized the opportunity to strike while he was temporally incapacitated.

 

There was a rule about being able to one shot any enemy who was completely helpless. As long as you could do at least a single point of damage, the enemy was vulnerable to critical hits, and you did nothing else for six seconds, you could basically slit someone's throat. This didn't work on enemies like the undead, for exmple. It also didn't work on anyone over ten levels higher than you, and for all his power, Andrew was technically only sixth.

 

On a bad day, your average house cat could one shot Andrew.

 

You see, being a power that manipulated time, Temporal Recall carried similar side effects to Temporal Velocity, notably chrono-psychosis. This debuff was precisely why Andrew had refrained from using the power before. In the game, chrono-psychosis was a mere temporary debilitation, a simple numerical penalty. In a "real" situation, however, Andrew was reluctant to risk experiencing its effects firsthand. Coupled with the loss of actions, Temporal Recall was a power usually reserved for situations where the outcome could be meticulously calculated or times when desperation compelled its use.

 

The universe slowed to a crawl.

 

"{Time Skip}," Andrew muttered, his hand brushing against the door, causing it to vanish. With a blur of motion, he dashed down the hallway, his instincts guiding him unerringly to Miriam's location. Coming to a sudden halt in front of her room, he swiftly invoked another Time Skip causing the door to vanish. Stepping inside, he found Miriam's cage positioned in the center of the room. Without hesitation, he reached out and touched the cage for a third displacement, causing it to vanish into the future. With Miriam in his arms, Andrew moved as a blur, racing back to his room. Just as he crossed the threshold, his cell door reappeared behind him, and the temporal debt he owed came due.

 

Andrew found himself trapped in a prison of his own flesh.

 

He was immobilized, devoid of movement, sight, and sound. Though his thoughts persisted, they lacked coherence. Instead, he was overwhelmed by an omnipresent sensation of entrapment. He was ensnared in a state of absolute sensory deprivation, incapable of action or vocalizing his mounting terror. Each passing moment felt interminable, stretching into eternity. How long had he been trapped in this torment? Was it supposed to last this long? Was this dreadful predicament normal? Did he screw up somehow? Was he trapped for all eternity in a living hell of nonexistence? Would he ever manage to break free, or was this his ultimate-

 

"HEY!" Miriam flicked him in the nose, "What's wrong with you?" Miriam was holding onto his arm. She had climbed up it to try and snap him out of his fugue state. She looked more than a little worried.

 

Andrew abruptly grabbed Miriam and held her in one hand while he looked around, trying to get his bearings, "Holy crap! How long was I out?"

 

Miriam let out a soft oof, "I dunno, about... ten seconds, give or take. You okay? You look white as a ghost!"

 

Andrew rubbed his face with a trembling hand and took several gulps of air as he held Miriam protectively to his chest, "Goddamn crap on a cracker I am never doing that again. That felt WAY longer than twelve seconds!"

 

Miriam let out a muffled 'ack' and pushed herself away from his chest, "You're crushing me! What is wrong with you?" She looked up at him, now looking EXTREMELY worried.

 

Andrew held her further away from his body as he relaxed his grip, "Sorry! Debuff side effects." He shook his head to clear it, "We need to get going." He started walking over to the wall furthest from the door, "Fortunately, I already know where." He loosened the sash he used to tie his robes closed and stuffed Miriam inside, "You'll need to stay in there. Earthbind will still be in effect when we get outside."

 

Miriam cried out as she was unceremoniously shoved into Andrew's armpit, "HOLD IT! How are you doing this? This whole floor is under an antimagic field!"

 

Andrew grinned at his companion, "But I'm not using magic, now am I?" He pointed a finger at the outer wall, "{Molecular Disruption}" Wind started to fill the prison cell as a ten by ten-foot section of the wall vanished showing off a wonderful view of the now setting sun. Andrew stepped up to the edge and looked down a quarter of a mile to the city below.

 

Miriam dug her fingers into Andrew's chest, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING??? IF I CAN'T FLY, YOU SURE AS HELL CAN'T EITHER!"

 

Andrew let out an exasperated sigh, "Clever Gladiator is based off the Martial Artist class. I got everything a martial artist gets. {Locate: Backpack}" With that power manifested, he counted to six before he stepped out and dropped.

 

As he plummeted, Miriam let out a scream and buried her face against his chest, "And I Was Just Getting Used To The Prime Material Plane!"

 

Andrew kept track of the angle of detection toward his backpack as they dropped.  Just about as it leveled out, indicating they had reached the right floor, he reached out and touched the wall, "{Molecular Bonding}" His hand stuck to the wall and he abruptly came to a stop.

 

Miriam slowly peered out and looked down, up at Andrew's hand, then turned to Andrew, "Why wasn't your arm ripped off?"

 

Andrew looked at Miriam like she was asking an obvious question, "I told you. I'm  effectively an over twentieth-level martial artist. Immunity to fall damage? Ring any bells?" He eyed the wall as he calculated what needed to happen next, "Okay. We might have to fight when we get in there, so get ready. I'm gonna throw you at anyone inside there, so sting the crap out of them."

 

"You are going to what now?"

 

Andrew kicked away from the wall to give himself some momentum as he pointed a finger at the wall and disintegrated everything from his hand down. This exposed most of the room, and a two-foot section of the room below as well. The ten-by-ten-foot section didn't quite match up with the floor, unfortunately. There was still enough room for him to swing inside and dispel molecular bonding thus landing in a crouch on the floor of the tower's impound room. As he did, a rather surprised-looking elven clerk looked up from his desk.

 

Andrew reached inside his robes, grabbed Miriam, and tossed her in the elf's face, "Miriam, I choose you!" A moment later the elf was out cold.

 

"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR-" Miriam fluttered into the air. She paused as she looked around, forcing herself to calm down, "Seems we're out of the earthbind effect in here." She muttered while trying to keep her temper under control.

 

"{Wizard Lock}" Andrew pointed at the vault door that appeared to be the only other way into and out of the large storeroom they were currently in. Andrew smirked, "And we're out of the antimagic field."

 

Miriam crossed her arms, "Don't do that again. That was embarrassing."

 

He homed in on his equipment and proceeded to suit back up, starting with his backpack and finishing with his enchanted blindfold. "Okay. First, You'll need to put these on." He handed Miriam two black gloves just her size, "You may have noticed I leveled up. Therefore, so did you. These are those gloves I told you about and with you now having the titan capstone, they should be a breeze to use."

 

Miriam took the gloves and admired them after putting them on, "These those gloves with the massive hammers you talked about?"

 

"Mauls. Massive Mauls. And yes." He pulled out two tubes and a box. Out of the tubes, he pulled two five-by-five rugs. As he did, a strange clear yet silvery substance that coated the rugs evaporated, leaving no trace it had ever been there. Each rug was unrolled and laid out on the floor in sequence, leading up to the hole. From the room below, People had begun shouting. They had noticed that a two-foot gap had appeared in the outer wall for no apparent reason. They seemed to have a problem with that and were raising quite a ruckus.

 

Miriam eyed the rugs, "Wait a sec... I remember those. You had me cast a spell on one of those. Symbiote something-something secret weapon?"

 

Andrew nodded, "Good memory. I put them in tubes of ectoplasmic time for a rainy day and it is currently pouring."

 

Miriam glanced around to check if they were in any immediate danger before turning back to Andrew, "Wait. We need to talk." She held up her hands, "I get it. I made a mistake pushing you to trust her. I thought we were doing the right thing. I-"

 

Andrew cut her off, "I overheard the guards. They scheduled you for execution."

 

Miriam went silent.

 

Andrew nodded slowly, "Yeah. That's right. So screw these guys. We're getting the hell out of dodge." He put Miriam on top of his head, "We'll try to keep the damage to innocent bystanders to a minimum, but I'm not going to let them kill you. Got it?"

 

Miriam only nodded.

 

Andrew backed up just as he heard people pounding on the door. He glanced at it, then rolled his eyes upward to look at Miriam, "When we hit the ground, pull out those hammers, and use them to help clear a path. Focus on physical obstructions. The mauls do massive structural damage and should cut through most barriers like hot knives through butter. We gotta get out of the city and get clear of the city-wide teleport trap." He paused to tap the side of his sensory blindfold, "Before we can holy recall out of here. Got it?"

 

Miriam just nodded again. Her demeanor was much more subdued than normal. It bothered Andrew, but he realized he didn't have time to deal with Miriam's feelings. Instead, he moved for the hole in the wall.

 

He stepped on the first carpet.

 

Earthbound is a feature that lets you modify spells so that they can be triggered by stepping into a five-by-five square. While Andrew was in the forest, he had dark chaos shuffled out his crafting feature to Earthbound for a few days to craft these two wicker mats. The square has to have earth in it, so the carpet Andrew was using had a lot of ground in dirt, thus qualifying it as a target. Unfortunately, Any spell cast onto the square needed to be triggered within an hour before it faded.

 

That's why he used ectoplasmic time to freeze the carpet for later use, a process that creates the ultimate in preservative substance. Suspended animation in the form of viscous, semi-transparent goop. Stick something in and it remains frozen until you take it out. In the case of earthbound, all you have to do is step on the right spot and all the spells trigger at once. There is no apparent limit to how many spells you can cast on a single square, just how many spells you can cast within an hour. The first mat had all the protective spells that Andrew might need on a moment's notice, cast at max power, one after another. Most of the spells would last for thirty minutes, although a few would only last three minutes, and a few more would last for hours.

 

The second square contained only one spell, but it was a doozy.

 

Ectoplasmic Puppet.

 

This particular power was the psionic version of summon monster. It summoned an ectoplasmic critter. Just one, mind you. What is an ectoplasmic critter, you may ask? Anything you want. There were limits on how strong it could be, but there was a laundry list of powers to choose from. The real question was how much power you wanted to dump into the creature at the time of summoning. There is the law of diminishing returns, unfortunately. The more you pump into it, the less of a return you get, but if you can precast it, then there is no reason you shouldn't give it everything you have.

 

In this case, Andrew imagined the Ectoplasmic Puppet to appear as a four-armed mech suit that he could ride inside with a spot on top for Miriam. You know, so she could stick her arms out and take a swing at people. Now, you might think that this meant that there were now three in their group, but that would be incorrect.

 

Miriam's ability to be any race or any subset is an absolutely broken ability. In this case, casting the spell through Miriam, Andrew had the spell stored as if is going to bond with a symbiote. Symbiotes can become one with a host creature. Because the spell was frozen in time, whoever triggered the spell would be treated as a symbiote and bond with the puppet. Therefore Andrew would be considered a symbiote to the ectoplasmic puppet. Normally this meant that the puppet would be the one in charge, but ectoplastic puppets are mindless and can only follow orders that are given by its summoner mentally. So, while the puppet was technically 'in charge', it still had to follow Andrew's orders, because it lacked free will.

 

You might think that's an odd way to go about it, but it has the advantage that it makes the ectoplasmic puppet the host, thus the primary target of magical attacks. An ectoplasmic puppet, being a construct, is immune to a whole laundry list of effects, most important of which would be mental attacks.

 

Good luck trying to one-shot Andrew.

 

Standing there, crouched down before the hole, Andrew pulled out the box he had retrieved from his backpack. He opened it up to reveal it was full of squares of cloth and a flask. Andrew pulled a string on the flask causing some sort of reaction in the glass beaker. He closed the box and unceremoniously tossed it out the opening and waited for the box to fall.

 

"What's that?" Miriam asked as she watched the box drop out of sight. At the same time, an alarm started to go off. Someone had finally noticed that the pair had escaped.

 

"There's a spell called Item." Andrew replied, "It lets you turn inanimate objects into squares of cloth. They revert back when the cloth is ripped or damaged. That little flask is going to explode on impact." Just before the box hit the ground, Andrew stepped out of the hole and started to fall to the earth on the heels of the plummeting projectile. He wasn't watching the box, however. He was using his sensory blindfold to watch for magical traps that were likely to be triggered when he got close to the ground.

 

 

"So what did you item?" Miriam shouted over the sound of wind rushing past.

 

 

Andrew answered in an off-handed way as he prepared to counterspell.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Remember that lake we used to camp next to?"