The basement. Again. It was time. Whatever was going on down there was pulling in magic, and Lily wasn’t about to be living on top of a giant bomb or something. She wasn’t stoked about having to take an elevator down to whatever it was, but at least she knew enough magic to get it to go up or down without electricity if need be. If something went terribly wrong mechanically and it didn’t instantly kill her, she was at least pretty sure she wouldn’t be trapped forever.

Somehow, she still wasn’t exactly full of confidence. She probably had time to prepare. But without knowing what was down there at all, what was she supposed to prepare? She could bring chalk. Water. Her phone. What else? A weapon? Could she even use a weapon?

No, she’d be more likely to hurt herself than something else. Plus, she was a magic user now. She’d figure it out if she had to. 

Probably.

Really most of her preparation was mental. She really wasn’t ready for another trial like the pit. But, it was entirely possible that there was nothing bad down there. Or that she could take a look and then decide how to deal with it carefully, rather than throwing herself into the bottom of a death trap and then working her way out. Before anything else though, it was time to try and explain to Star what she was going to do. She called him over and sat down with him, petting his head gently.

“So. Under the house is something magical. I don’t know what, but I can’t just let it sit. I have to go deal with it. Ugh, I wish I knew how much of what I’m saying you understood. Danger, but important! Understand?”

Star’s ears flattened, and he looked at her with an expression that made her think he at least understood danger. He pawed at her leg gently.

“I have to go. You don’t have to go. Do you want to stay up here, or go with me?”

He barked and stood to attention. Well, that was pretty clear at least. Lily sighed, and hugged him around the chest. 

“Good boy. Alright, I’m going to get Bay for emotional support and some basic supplies. Then we’ll go.”

---

A girl stood in front of an elevator. In one arm, a plush seal. In the other, a small bag full of miscellaneous supplies. Next to her, a puppy that was starting to look too large to still be shaped like that. She had been standing there for several minutes now, working up the courage to open the door.

“I don’t wanna open it.”

Star whined. Lily could see her reflection in the chrome doors of the elevator. She didn’t look ready. She didn’t feel ready. Her mess of brown hair looked disheveled and tangled. She was wearing durable work clothes that hung ill fitting on her body. And she looked like she was going to cry. She felt like she was going to cry too. But, for at least right now she was keeping it together.

“I just need to push the button and go in, that’s not so hard is i– HEY!”

Star jumped up and pressed the button on the panel, then turned to her looking proud of himself. Lily was angry for a second, but couldn’t help laughing when she saw his face. The door opened. It was an elevator. The mood was somewhat lighter though, so Lily rolled her eyes and took a cautious step in.

It was carpeted with a short deep red carpet. There were guard rails to hang on to, made of a brass color, and the walls were still chrome. It looked like it belonged in a movie theater, really. Not a pleasing style at all. Lily filed the rest of the way into it.

“Now’s the time when the cable snaps and I plummet into the basement for another life or death adventure, right…?”

But, nothing happened. Lily stood nervously in the elevator. On the panel, something caught her eye. There, stuck right on the basement button was something that hadn’t been there before.

“What the hell?”

A sticky note. It had a simple message, written in a neat printed font.

‘My final gift to you.’

Lily froze. Her first thought was about how creepy it was that someone might have been here, but then she realized it might have just appeared. Then she fully took in the text.

“Final? As in, this is the last time I’m going to hear from entity B? Or just the last time they’re going to help me? Or… that I’m going to die down there?”

She shook off the last one. The girl stood in the elevator, staring at the sticky note for a long time. Star sniffed at it, and turned to look at her, tail wagging.

“Don’t you get too happy. We don’t know how true this is. But, entity B called it a gift and they’ve given me helpful things before. I guess all that’s left is…”

Lily reached out and hit the big B button. The elevator doors closed, and it started moving downward. It felt like forever before it came to a stop, but it had to only be about ten seconds. There was a soft ‘ding’ and the doors opened up into a very large, very dark space. Lily immediately fumbled around the wall just outside the elevator for a light switch, but she didn’t find one immediately.

So, she flicked on her phone and turned on the flashlight. There were some kind of stripes on the ground, like the painted lines of a basketball court or something. But, she could check that out after she got the lights on. Star immediately started forward, sniffing around.

“Be careful! We don’t know what’s in here…”

Lily found the light switch and flicked it. Instantly, the room flooded with light. Lily blinked, her eyes adjusting. The room was about as big as the floor plan above, only it was a single space. And it was mostly empty, save for a few things.

There were some rocks or crystals or something at various points around the room. But what immediately caught Lily’s attention was—

“A spell circle? What the hell? It’s huge!”

The largest spell circle Lily had seen by a wide margin. It looked like it had been carved into the floor, and then filled in with a silvery metal like a cast. It was extremely ornate. Not to mention, complicated! Many circles nested within one another, sometimes many layers deep. The spell covered almost the entire floor space of the room, with only four or five feet around the edges to walk around.

Suddenly worried, Lily felt out the mana in the area. But the circle didn’t seem to be activated at all. There was nothing going on. It was silent.

“Okay… Is this going to suddenly activate when I step on it, or can I go take a look around?”

Lily carefully put a hand in the space above the circle. Nothing happened. She giggled to herself.

“You put your left foot in, you put your left foot out, you put your left foot in, and shake it all about. Is the hokey pokey about testing the dangers of magic circles?”

Star was staring at her, and she could swear there was a hint of judgement. So, she focused. Well, there was only one thing to do. She took a step into the circle. Nothing happened. Lily breathed a sigh of relief.

“If I’d gotten suddenly vaporized that’d have been the most anti-climactic death ever.”

Star stepped into the circle too, and started sniffing around it. Lily bent and examined one of the nodes more closely. Sure enough, the node was a complicated circle in and of itself, with a few more complicated circles nested in nodes inside of it. The smallest of which was done in tiny metal filigree. 

None of the glyphs were particularly recognizable. But she could read some of the radicals. The symbol for mana was all over, naturally. But she saw bits of other ones she recognized too, and plenty more she didn’t. Well on the plus side, she’d have a ton of new ones to test.

“But what do you do? And why are you not doing it?”

A clattering sound caught her attention. Star had dropped a large circular crystal next to her ankle. Or was it a gem? What was the difference anyway? In either case, it must have been worth a ton. It was the size of her fist! She looked at him. He was clearly proud of himself. Was it because he thought he was helping, or because he brought her the ball?

“Hey, how am I supposed to know where this goes huh? Where’d you get it?”

He looked a little put out, but he got up and walked over to a spot before sitting down again. Lily wandered over after him. There, sat a circle within a node that she was pretty sure she understood. In fact, she’d seen three of the glyphs before, on her everburning flame. If this is where the ball had belonged, this part of the circle was designed to draw mana from it.

“Huh. So, it’s a battery? Oh my god, don’t tell me crystals and gems can store a bunch more mana or something. That’s such a cliche! Why would it even work that way?”

Lily glanced around the room. There were seven of them, all spread pretty evenly around the circle. She narrowed her eyes.

“Does Entity B have a sense of humor? Is it familiar with pop culture? Is it playing a prank on me? Because either this is a coincidence, or a subtle nod to dragon balls or chaos emeralds.”

If it was a reference, it had all the subtlety of a school principal trying to pretend to be cool for the children. Lily looked down at the sphere in her hands. It was purple. Amethyst, maybe? The others were all different colors. This was an expensive joke, if it was one. But, if it was just a matter of charging up the dragon balls and placing them properly in the circle she could do that.

The main question was, what would happen if she did?

“I guess I just have to read the circle, huh?”

Her eyes swept over the vast formation of esoteric magical symbols and patterns.

“Easy, right?”

---

Lily had spent the next couple hours with a pen and a notepad, jotting down every single glyph she could find on the circle. When she had found common elements between more than two, she’d written them down as radicals too. Now she was sitting on her living room floor with the pages splayed out in front of her. There was so much to go over! It wasn’t fair! Like being given a pop quiz on material that was assigned to you not ten minutes ago. Lily groaned.

Earlier today she’d been complaining that she had weeks worth of things she wanted to test out with magic. Now, she was pretty sure she’d still be learning from this circle for years.

She still had no idea what it did. Absolutely none. It seemed just as likely that it’d bring everyone back or that it’d spit out the perfect hamburger conjured into being. She just couldn’t read enough of the glyphs to know. But, she had a pretty good idea of where to start.

First, she wanted to try some of the most common radicals as solo glyphs and see if she could figure out what they described. Then, she wanted to play with the glyphs that seemed to be the largest focus on the circle. The largest ones towards the center.

Finally… Well, this was more of a side goal but, she needed to charge up the Dragon Balls. Dragon Emeralds? Chaos Balls? She didn’t know what to call them yet. They were somewhere in the middle of those two ideas, but she suspected they were just really good mana batteries. So, the sooner she got them charging, the better.

But it’s not like just putting them in the front yard was going to work well. After all, if she just had a bunch of ambient mana gathering spells, they’d all be slurping from the same pool. It was time to track down some more spooky spots, and set each one to charge from one of those. Then when they were all charged up, she could come back, plug them in and… What?

Did she even want to activate this spell? Entity B had called it a final gift. Did that mean it was a way to get back to a normal life? Or was it more like a gun with a single bullet in a zombie apocalypse movie? Or–

“Ugh! I have no idea! What are you trying to give me? Is it just for collecting magical knowledge? Am I gonna power it and a little message will pop up like ‘oh congratulations Lily, achievement unlocked?’ Huh? Or is Shenron gonna appear and grant me a wish? Do I become super Lily? What IS the gift? Couldn’t spare the printer ink to tell me? Pretty cheap for a powerful supernatural being!”

Lily wanted to scream. But, in truth she was at least somewhat relieved. She wasn’t living over a bomb. It was going to take her a good while to figure out what to do with the gigantic magical working under her house, but it was at least something good. It was something good, right?

She sighed. Lily flopped down onto her couch and let Star jump up and lay on her. He really was heavier. She was pretty sure normal puppies didn’t come in this size.

“And you. How big are you gonna get huh? Thanks for coming with me. I was less scared with you there.”

He nuzzled into her, and she rubbed behind his ears.

“Well, the next steps just got somehow more complicated. Are you ready for it?”

She heard the steady thump of Star’s tail wagging and grinned.

“Good boy.”