After the festivities of the morning, it was a pretty uneventful trip to pick up the chaos emeralds. She was surprised to find that the ambient mana of the spooky spots had lowered considerably. Only the one around her apartment really seemed like it qualified as a spooky spot at all anymore. But, the chaos emeralds were charged. That’s all that mattered.

Lily did make one last stop by La Mancha while she was in the area, although it was mostly just to check and make sure her dead man spells were still intact. They were, so she patted Donk a few times and headed home.

They rode mostly in silence. There was nothing that really needed to be said, and they’d already partied themselves out for the day. Star took a quick nap, and Lily focused on the task at hand.

Which led them back home, and inevitably to standing outside the elevator, staring at it.

“Well. This is it. Are you ready?”

“I am ready. We will easily clear this trial, and continue forward with our lives together Master.”

“Hah, don’t you sound confident.”

“I am.”

“How? We have no idea what will happen down there!”

“I know what will happen down there.”

“Wait, really? What do you mean?”

Star looked up at her, and a bit of his confidence seeped into her soul.

“We will work together, and whatever happens, we will keep each other safe. Nothing else matters.”

“What if we fail?”

“Then we fail, and we will face the consequences together.”

“But what if–”

Star barked, and it surprised Lily into silence. Then he spoke again.

“No. We will protect each other. Do what you must do, Master. I will help how I can.”

Lily smiled, then nodded. After a second of hesitation, she reached down and pressed the button. The elevator doors opened. She stepped inside with her companion, and began the descent.

The basement was just as she remembered it. As she turned on the lights, and they flickered to life she was in a large empty space with a giant spell circle laid out on the floor. Lily could already see where the emeralds would slot in to activate the spell.

“Well, nothing left to do but go for it.”

Between the two of them, they started placing the emeralds where they belonged. It was surprisingly anticlimactic. Lily could swear she’d seen a number of movies, TV shows, and books where there had been a scene like this. In all of them, the protagonists quickly slotted the keystones in the sockets or whatever. It only occurred to Lily now that they usually used clever editing to avoid those awkward moments that involved walking across a vast space holding a lot of large stones and figuring out which one went where.

Despite that, only a few minutes later, Lily was standing above the last little alcove holding the purple chaos emerald.

“You know, that always seemed weird to me.”

“What, Master?”

“I stole the name Chaos Emeralds from a game– er, a story type of thing that I like. But emeralds are a specific stone that’s usually green.. It turns out in the language that the story came from, ‘emerald’ can be a generic name for any gem. But when it’s translated to my language, it seems weird. This is probably more like a chaos amethyst you know?”

“What I know is that you are nervous, so you are stalling by getting into your own head about something that doesn’t matter.”

“Hah, you know me so well.”

Lily put the stone down. Magic began to flow from it. Then, it stopped.

“Huh?”

In fact, none of the chaos emeralds were discharging more than what it took to fill the circles they were sat in. Lily looked around the circle curiously.

“That’s weird. How do I actually activate it then? It’s powered up. Hmm.”

So, she traced one of the lines leading to the chaos emerald she was standing next to, and found it lead all the way to the center of the circle. There, in small filigree she noticed something she hadn’t before.  It was ornate, and not designed in the more uniform circuits she used, but it was definitely similar.

“Oh. This is a logic gate! Wait, it only lets the spell activate if I put a tiny bit of mana in? Aw man, does that mean I didn’t invent magical circuitry? That’s a bummer. And this is way prettier than my design too. Seems to do the same thing though.”

She took a close look making sure she wasn’t missing anything.

“This is fucking genius!”

A voice came from the dog beside her.

“What is it, Master?”

“It needs me to put a little mana in to actually activate the spell, but it’s charged up. Tensed. Like, uh. The best example I have is a mantis shrimp. Ugh.”

“What is a mantis shrimp, and what does it have to do with this magic?”

“They’re these little guys that live in the water, but they can punch super super hard. See, how they do it is, they have this little like, latch in their arm. Basically, instead of winding up, they close the latch, and then strain their muscles. Then they open the little latch and their arm immediately moves at full speed rather than having to accelerate.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Or.. Maybe it’s the same as snapping my fingers. Here, look at this. When I snap my fingers, like this, the snapping sound is caused by my finger hitting my palm, see?”

She demonstrated a few times.

“But if I don’t start with my thumb, and I just move my middle finger as fast as I can to hit my palm, it’s a lot slower. Because when I do it properly, I’m building up tension against my thumb before it moves out of the way.”

Star stared at her hard for a few seconds, then replied lazily.

“What does this have to do with the spell, Keeper of Duck Feet?”

“Don’t worry, I packed those by the way. Anyway, see, the spell is charged up. It’s cycled a few times, draining mana from the chaos emeralds, and it’s just waiting to get this signal to start. That means it’s probably going to go full force and use a ton of mana the second it starts, rather than having any wind up time like a lot of my spells do. To put it simply, when I cast my light ball spell, it slowly comes into being. If I did it like this, I could probably turn it on and off like a light switch. Isn’t that cool?”

“Master, we’re not down here so you can marvel at spell design.”

Lily pouted.

“Ugh, fiiiine. Let’s do it then.”

Without skipping a beat, Lily reached down and poured a little mana into the spell. Sure enough, it followed the connection and activated the gates holding the spell from starting.

A sudden jolt sent her to the floor. It took a second for her to realize that nothing had pushed her. The ground had shifted. It also wasn’t done. The ground was shaking in ways she’d only ever seen in videos of strong earthquakes from around the world. The house groaned on top of her.

“What is happening, Master?”

“I– I think the spell is just doing what it’s supposed to! Brace yourself!”

The feeling of static in the air was building in the room. She could feel it. She could smell it. It was like right before lightning struck. It was flowing through her.

This was magic. Everything Lily had done with spells up until now was put into perspective in a second. Even the spell that gave her scars had been nothing compared to this. This was power. Raw and coursing, pouring through the room. It was the difference between a bathtub and the ocean. It was the difference between a candle and a forest fire. This was what magic was really capable of.

And it was also tearing apart the room. Lily got a grip and forced herself to pay attention to her surroundings. The house above her was still groaning, bits of drywall were falling off the walls and disintegrating. Disintegrating?

Lily realized with horror, the spell was breaking them down into mana. It was absorbing things outside the spell to activate!

“Star! Don’t leave the circle for any reason! It’s dissolving things into mana!”

Like a monster let loose, it was devouring everything around it. The walls were losing structure! Lily frantically thought about what she could do. She tried to reach out to see about putting a circle up on the walls, even though she couldn’t think of anything that would help, and instantly felt mana flowing into her from the absurd pressure of it all around her. It hurt! She gave up immediately, and searched for something else to do. Star was standing near her protectively, but he was equally unsure.

A terrible tearing sound began above her. Lily looked up in horror as the spell began eating through the ceiling over her head.

“No no no no no! The house might come down! Get to the edge of the circle, but not outside it! If stuff starts coming down, try to find the spot most secure against falling things! One big piece could take either one of us out, and I can’t cast!”

“Understood!”

They made their way to the edge of the circle, and watched as the ceiling above them started bowing in. Lily was desperate for anything she could do to keep herself safe, but nothing was working! A levitation spell like with the concrete slab? Not without using the mana of the circle, and last time she did that she got poked full of holes from the inside out! Could she turn off the spell? No, now that it was running, the switch that started it wasn’t going to do anything! There had to be something she could do!

A section of flooring from the room above broke off and fell into the circle. There was an explosion of wood dust and hopefully not fiberglass. Lily coughed as it settled. Something she could use? It was in the circle! She had it!

She ran forward and threw down her backpack. Digging around in it for a second, she came out with her spell chalk.

“Inscriber of power, don’t fail me now!”

She couldn’t cast with her own mana, but she could cast if she used something else! Her hands flew across the wood, drawing circle after circle. It felt like instinct was taking over. Like she was hardly even thinking about what to draw, it was just pouring out of her as a pure magical expression.

Star tackled her from the side just in time to prevent the sofa from falling down the hole onto her. Lily dove forward again, driving the chalk imprints as fast as she could.

Draw mana from around her, limit that with a gate based on how much it consumed so it didn’t take everything from the basement spell, levitate the section of flooring, reinforce it so it draws more mana if it needs more to stay right where it is. As the section of floor rose, Lily rolled under it and called Star to join her.

“If it’ll fit bring the sofa! It might help hold up the rubble!”

“I’m on it, Master!”

Star began pulling the sofa under their makeshift cover. Lily laid on her back and began drawing on the underside of the floorboards. Another spell. This one to push anything that lands on top of their cover to the sides, so it doesn’t get weighed down until the spell breaks.

Another spell, using the new technique she just learned. Let it fill with mana until she activates it, and when she does a fully charged push spell would launch their floorboard cover as high into the sky as it could with all this power around them. Hopefully giving them time to crawl out.

Another! This time to draw in any electricity nearby and make sure that none of the live wires would be burning or electrocuting them if they were trapped down here.

Lily was about to start another circle when the chalk vanished. It dissolved from her hand like it was made of dust.

“Huh?”

“Master?”

“Something’s happening!”

She turned to get more from her backpack just in time to see that dissolving away too. Was it turning into mana? Or being teleported? Or what? She didn’t know. A surge of fear coursed through her. And then–

For a second, Lily was floating. She wondered if she was dead. Floating on her back, in an empty sea. Like her first night after everything changed, only without the boat. A void. An abyss, as big as the universe with only her.

Then, sensation came flooding back. Cold. She was so cold! Freezing! But her body wouldn’t move. She was briefly thankful to be feeling anything at all, but her body wouldn’t move even a little bit. It was like being roused from a deep sleep. Like that feeling in a really bad dream, where something horrific is happening and you’re only slightly aware of your body but you can’t make it move, or fight, or even scream. She tried. She tried with all her might. She could feel it bubbling up inside her. She was freezing! It hurt! She had to do something!

Lily screamed and sat up.

She was in the snow. It came up above her waist, even as she sat up. At least two or three feet deep. It was dark. So very dark. She could faintly see the difference between the branches above her and the night sky. Wait, branches? She felt around and found the trunk of a tree. Smooth bark coated with a thin layer of frost. It seemed like she had burst forth from the snow here. Had she been sleeping there a long time? No that’s impossible, she’d be dead if she had.

Her T-shirt and jeans were not cutting it in this cold. She stood up as quick as she could, feeling her skin hurt as the snow fell on it.

She looked around. Thankfully with the snow being white she could make out a little bit despite the dark. There was a lump next to her. Lily frantically dug away the snow only to find– Her backpack. Well, it was something. She opened it up and pulled out her jacket, but it was still so cold. Her teeth were already chattering. She had to do something or she was going to freeze to death fast.

“Star?!”

Silence answered her.

“Star! Can you hear me!?”

Nothing. Maybe he didn’t land right next to her? He would be better suited to this weather at least. It wasn’t likely to be quickly fatal for him. She’d find him. But first, she had to do something. Cast a spell! Anything!

She found chalk in her backpack and turned back to the tree trunk. 

“Heat spell first. Gotta do a heat spell.”

She drew on the tree trunk with her chalk. A simple spell, gather ambient mana and heat. Even if the tree burned, she could figure things out from there.

Nothing happened.

“Huh? What the hell?”

She put her hand up to the tree right over where heat should be gathering. It did feel… slightly warmer?

Fine then! She was getting better at this. No ambient mana? She’d use her own! She conjured a flame in front of her from her own mana, and powered it by pushing her own power into it. The flame sprang to life. Lily breathed a sigh of relief. But, holding the flame in this cold was hard. And in seconds, it was out again.

“Oh god. Oh god. What do I do? Start a fire, right? I have to s-start a fire!”

She took one more deep breath, and yelled as loud as she could.

“Star!? Entity B!? Anybody!?”

With a shiver, she tried to conjure her flame one more time. It flickered in her hands, and guttered out.

“Anybody…?”

The howl of the wind was her only answer.