The Floor is Lava

By the time that the third eruption of steel had missed them, each new burst of metal tendrils a few inches closer as Killjoy dashed across the cityscape, John managed to orient himself at least well enough to think about what was happening.

"This has to be Adantia."

John's first thought was a simple one – despite Killjoy's skepticism, it seemed that Himiko's intel was to be just as respected as the woman herself. What John didn't understand was what kind of mage could control steel cables like this and topple buildings from so far away that even Layla couldn't feel her precise location.

Perhaps she was close and hiding herself, but Layla had been very certain that the mana signature within the cables reached so far that it was outside of her detection range. Further, if Adantia could simply hide her mana signature, why not use the same spell or source to conceal the aura of the metal tendrils and skewer John and his allies without a chance for them to dodge?

"There's something weird about this," John **** out, holding himself against Killjoy's grip well enough to get his words out clearly. "We need to find out where and how we're being attacked."

"Yeah, no shit," the redheaded mercenary responded, not breaking stride as she turned left and dashed down a barely-wide-enough corridor between two buildings, narrowly dodging a tidal wave of broken rebar that emerged from the ground where she'd been about to step.

"You're changing our direction too much," John noted, thinking back over their steps as best as he could. It wasn't easy – at the speeds Killjoy was moving, actually understanding their position was difficult, even more so in such unfamiliar territory. "We need to head for the inner parts of the city; we're being pushed toward the outskirts, which-"

"Listen, you hired me to protect you – if you're right and this is Adantia, I'm not going to stand a chance of getting you anywhere near her," John's escort responded in terse fashion. "If you're wrong, this is a mage with unknown abilities and power who bypassed my strongest detection runes. Either way, we don't have the time to play around with this sort of power. One wrong move and we're dead. We need to fall back for now, and regroup when we know what we're dealing with. Give me a few days to-"

"I don't have a few days," John shouted, shaking his head. "I need to get things moving! This journey has already taken too long!"

"You hired me to keep you safe, so that's what I'm doing. Even dodging these is taking a lot of effort; there's no chance we can push further in with any reasonable safety. I need time to develop countermeasures and figure out what exactly we're up against."

"I can handle it," John insisted, fighting against Killjoy's grip. Her arms were like iron, but John could **** himself free if he really wanted to – the danger being that doing it so bluntly would throw off both of their balances.

"If you get yourself killed, I'm keeping your deposit," the redhead said, with a roll of her eyes so exaggerated John expected her head to spin with them.

"Deal. Get Layla to safety and if I do die, you can consider your duties fulfilled and yourself released from your contract," John twisted one of the rings upon his hand the moment that his escort signalled her assent to his seemingly suicidal request.

"Wait, John I-"

John wasn't expecting the pang of guilt he felt as he was abruptly set down on the ground, but Layla's eyes were so shocked and hurt that it struck all the same. Thankfully it was brief – once John was set down on his own two feet, Killjoy was gone so quickly John barely saw the blur of her movement as she faded away through the streets.

Not that he had long to focus on the disappearing mercenary. John had learned from his past brashness – he didn't ask to be set down out of some stubborn refusal. He had a plan; it might not have been a cohesive one due to the brief time he'd had to ponder it, but he was confident that it had enough escapes for him to risk.

"Vallya, I need your soul."

John waited as long as he dared risk after saying those words, giving just the briefest moment for them to sink in on the other end of the ring. He couldn't risk time for a response; already he was sure he was a few moments away from a burst of steel and fury from below. All John could do was focus his mana and begin to run.

Summoner's Warp Activated!
Twin-Soul Resonance: Mind Activated!

For just an instant a white flash of light appeared beside John in what was at best a rough outline of his Kitsune creation. It only formed for him to satisfy the technique's requirements – the playful eyes of the Kitsune met his own for just an instant. Then the light started to collapse into his body, and John's mind expanded rapidly as he felt an overwhelming stimulation, not dissimilar to a direct injection of adrenaline or high-grade stimulants straight into each of his senses.

"Let's show 'em what we're made of! Starlight!"

The rush of disorientation that overcame John as his ability activated was more than he'd anticipated, but not enough to throw him completely off his game. John's vision sharpened and warped in focus, objects shifting around him as if his depth perception was momentarily wavering. His hearing was mostly thrown off already by the formerly silent city being occasionally punctured by the metallic ringing of emerging spikes and tendrils, but even with the strange background spikes, he noticed a massive increase in his hearing and ability to discern directional sounds. He could actually hear the earth vibrating underneath his feet as he started to run – right before a metal spike pierced his lower calf.

-327 HP!

"Fuck, that's strong," John screamed, the pain nearly causing him to stumble. Gamer's Body saved his life as it had uncountable times before; rather than being caught on the piercing spike of steel, John was able to tear his limb free - and the resulting spray of blood was immediately repaired as his magical ability restored his leg, rather than leaving him crippled and nearly immobile. Because of that, John was able to continue running almost unimpeded as his stats and skills finished increasing from the fusion, narrowly avoiding the second fan of metal spikes that followed the first. A few steps later and John was sprinting at full pace, leaving behind the gory metalworks.

"Vallya, we need to move, help me hide us away," John thought direly, trying to focus his eyes. His vision had steadied, but seeing the way that his creation did had never become easy for John. Vallya's sensory abilities weren't like Layla's; they were a born-in feature of her biology. Vallya saw mana the same way that most saw light, except that because of the very nature of mana, more powerful sources could be seen through solid objects, and sometimes even other mana constructs. In some ways it was helpful – John could actually see the tendrils below them, the long coils of metal ready to **** him as they positioned themselves for each strike. In other ways, the discoloration of blue, yellow, red, green, purple... the various hues and shades of mana John saw from different distances and angles were difficult for his mind to process, given that he'd only ever spent a few minutes combined with Vallya in this way over the course of the last year.

"Not a problem at all, Master. It'll be like we were never even here. Just follow my lead."

John felt a chill pass through his body, a ghostly presence that stimulated and pushed the mana within his body along paths he had never led it down before. Vallya's soul resonated with his, and the Kitsune's wily bag of tricks opened to John's mind.

Lightbend Activated! -10 Mana/Minute
Aura Distortion Activated! -20 Mana/Minute

John's body vanished even to his own eyes, hidden away as the very light that revealed his physical form was curved around his body. The Aura Distortion even affected Vallya's eyes, preventing him from detecting his own magic. It was something he'd never figured out about her – how the Kitsune always seemed so comfortable while moving around totally cloaked from all senses still eluded him. Apparently even sharing her senses didn't give the answer easily.

But despite hiding his physical form and magical signature, it wasn't long before another eruption of metal assailed John. This time they were spread out more, covering a much wider area and not nearly as focused. It was a good thing, in that John wouldn't be completely eviscerated if he were too slow and got hit, but as he slid between two of the spikes while they quickly retracted into the ground, John wondered how he was being detected at all.

"Don't panic, Master! They spread out their attacks when we hid ourselves away. They can't pinpoint us. Either they can still sense us, but not as well, or they have some other way of detecting us... Now, what could they be feeling besides our aura?"

Vallya's voice was teasing, but surprisingly calming – and the addition of her stats onto John's own helped him think faster and more clearly about their situation. It was true; if Adantia had adjusted her **** after the concealment spells were cast, it meant that she was having at least a moderate amount of difficulty pinpointing them. Either she was still able to sense their aura vaguely, or...

"It's the ground."

John's thought came as he twirled to the left, nearly twisting his ankle as he rolled to avoid a burst of metal from below, a tangled mess of cables piercing what might well have been his heart had he not adjusted when he noticed the rumbling below. It made too much sense – the attacks had always come from the ground, the metal cables were using the ground as cover while they moved, and if something was capable of sensing the vibration of John's footsteps, it would be notably less precise than an exact sensing of his magical signature or anything visual.

"Good deduction, Master. Now what are you going to do about it?"

"I only know how to do it with wings, I'm going to need your help on this one, Vallya. Show me what the world looks like to a Star Guardian."

"Oooh, now we're talking."

John felt the mana surge in his core, his body responding to his own will and Vallya's shared knowledge. Using techniques he'd never known before as if they were second nature was still a shockingly strange feeling to him. It was rather similar to a dream, one in which the dreamer understood some background, past, or ability of their own without ever having used it before. John's body and mana moved at his command, but almost with a will entirely their own, as he began to levitate off the street and rapidly ascend until he was towering over most of the ruined buildings around him.

John watched the metal tendrils flail about wildly for a few moments, before they finally settled down, leaving the streets a ruined mess even worse than they had been – even accounting for Killjoy's shockwave that had shattered a good portion of the main road. When at last they were retracted fully and no more struck out at his lofty position, John allowed himself the slightest sigh of relief.

"So, they can't see past your illusions, but they can detect us in a lot of unexpected ways. Possibly multiple mundane ways as well as magical," John noted mentally, not even feeling confident speaking as they flew above the cityscape. "Vallya, how well can you sense auras? We have to find Adantia without setting foot in the streets below... maybe even on the buildings."

"Well, my abilities aren't nearly as sharp as your future lover back there, but I think we'll manage."

John ignored Vallya's comment, choosing not to dwell on which of his two allies she was referring to. Instead he turned his eyes forward, focusing on the odd confidence in Vallya's voice. The reason for it became obvious fairly quickly.

Though Killjoy had mentioned trying to avoid the deeper sections of the city, John didn't realize just how little she had watched over the place until his eyes cast over the horizon. There was a glistening orb of magic surrounding a massive chunk of a central section of the city, so bright and golden it was impossible to miss – and then it was gone. And then it was there again, flickering in and out of view in a strange, rapid-fire hyper-coloration.

"Why is it flickering like that? Nothing else we've seen is that unstable," John noted.

"Because it's an illusion. I know one when I see it," Vallya said, giggling even within John's mind. "Normally it would take a little more effort and some finesse to find them, but... for some reason, this one isn't very strong. Why don't we go take a closer look?"

"Exactly what I planned to do."

John angled his body forward and flew along the skies above the cracked and forlorn streets of Paix.

"It actually makes sense for this illusion to be so weak. It takes familiarity with Illusion magic to cast it that's relatively similar to the knowledge required to see past it. If this Adantia is so powerful as you seem to think, then she'd surely be able to see past my illusions. If she can't, she's either unskilled in Illusions or she's weak. Judging by the flawed nature of this illusion before us, I'd say it's the former. If Adantia was good with Illusion magic, we'd probably be skewered by now."

"Very reassuring, Vallya," John noted, rolling his eyes.

"Less sarcasm, more focus, Master! See past the illusion. When you can see the mana, it's failing, but still blocking your view. When you can't see the mana, the illusion is working. See past the mana, don't let it obscure your vision. Let me help you."

Vallya was right – unlike most of the other auras and magical residue that the Kitsune's vision let him see, the hemisphere of mana that surrounded that section of the city was completely opaque when he could see it, and the city underneath it seemed unremarkable when the mana was faded. But as she guided the very flow of the magical energies that surged into his irises, John saw past the illusion and down to something new underneath. Or more accurately, something very old.

"By Gaia... is this what Killjoy saw when she lived here? It's beautiful."

John didn't actually know what to have expected from a Paix from the past, but when his eyes settled on the sights that lay below, he got his first look at a proper Abyssal city.

The buildings were relatively similar to the ones he knew, but unlike the ruined city outside the protected area, the buildings here were rife with grandiose and often arcane extravagances. Windows were still intact, streets uncracked, the buildings were neither toppled nor collapsed. Benches stood at street corners with glistening metal armrests as fresh as if they'd been constructed that very day, not even dust clinging to the wooden planks of their seating. Stone statues and metallic structures stood in full glory, and though John didn't recognize the figures, he could certainly note the fine detail in their construction.

More impressive were the actual magical enhancements. Rather than gilded decor or particularly inspiring architectural decisions, most of the city's most obvious extravagances lay in the glistening mana leylines flowing through almost every surface. They travelled along the traffic lights, through the buildings, along the streets, and even seemed to flow down into the sewers. The glistening mana was visible to Vallya's enhanced vision, but John could easily see it was also very much visible to the naked eye.

The patterns were undeniable, yet when John glanced over the ruined city surrounding the sealed-off area, he could see no indication of similar enchantments along the fallen city. Whatever destruction had been wrought upon this civilization by Suula, it had been thorough enough to eradicate even the smallest traces of magic. He could only imagine how many aspects of the fallen civilization's incredible advancements were due to the mana trenches embedded within the city itself. Basic cleanliness? Structural integrity? Complete magical function brought about by mana crystals? It boggled the mind to consider how much magic must have flowed through there to justify full mana leylines, or what that mana might have been used for when the city was properly functional.

”But not everything is as it once was, is it?” John noted. ”It's not just the missing people. There are no cars, the exposed ground is bare where there should be trees and plants. And... the colors are all wrong.”

It wasn't a simple observation to make, given that John had never been to the city before, but even he could tell that the color schemes were rather disturbed. Though the buildings seemed to have been largely restored structurally, large parts of them were colorless, or even different colors where it didn't make sense for the color to change. It was less like seeing the buildings brought back to their former glory, and more as if someone had tried to do an artist's reimagining of what the city might have looked like... that, or whoever had created the barrier was colorblind.

There were a few other subtle differences in the recreation, less obvious but still noticeable. John had to look a second and third time before he realized that the metal poles emerging from some of the roofs were where billboards would once have been, but now stood empty. The signs and banners in front of the commercial buildings were usually present (at least so far as John could tell), but were either heavily damaged or sometimes completely blank.

”Interesting. Why would they go to such pains as to rebuild an entire section of the city but hide it away, never tell anyone... and not even get the colors right? So gauche.”

John ignored Vallya's last remark, instead focusing on her very relevant questions. It had to be Adantia, didn't it? But if she lived in the city, there was no reason for such a discolored recreation.

"Killjoy searched this entire city. There's no chance this illusion was strong enough to fool her, or any of the other mages helping to search, right?"

"I might be an expert when it comes to illusions, but... let's be honest, Master. If this fooled Killjoy for even a second, she had no right to be escorting you around. This is like "Baby's First Illusion" material here. Even the Barrier surrounding it is obvious."

"There's a Barrier?"

"I have so much to teach you about how I see things," Vallya said, the amusement obvious in her voice. "Try focusing a little more. See the way everything in there is glowing? You can look past that, if you want."

John did as Vallya suggested and tried to glance down past the glow. He'd actually assumed the slight gray aura around the buildings within the sealed area was another maintained or restored element of what had once been an incredible Abyssal society, but as Vallya guided the mana within his eyes, he saw a bit more of what she was referring to.

Seeing past the illusion had allowed John to see through the opaque mana surrounding the section of the city, but it wasn't until Vallya pointed out the Barrier and guided John's mana that he was able to identify the Barrier and see both sides of it. The mundane world had a ruined landscape not unlike that of the city surrounding it. The place John had seen, the Abyssal perfected society with all the trimmings of an advanced populace, was actually a hidden layer. The glow he'd noticed was apparently how Vallya's vision interpreted looking into a Barrier from the outside.

”I see,” John noted simply, angling his body to coast downward.

”Yes, now you do,” Vallya added, giggling as they soared toward the entrance to the Barrier. ”But this Adantia... she doesn't seem the most gracious of hosts. What's your plan to get her to help you? Do you even have a plan to stop her from trying to kill us on sight, like she did before?”

”Well...” John noted, grimacing as he slowly descended toward the city below, ”let's deal with that when we get there. Himiko seemed to believe that Adantia was the only person who could help us defend against the Northern Ashes. I don’t believe she would send me here to die.”

”And how long do you plan on letting others control you so thoroughly that you rely on their judgement to determine whether you live or die?”

”Ironic to say that while passing such harsh judgement yourself. I wish I was more self-reliant - then I wouldn’t have to listen to you so much,” John griped as he finally completed his descent, hovering only a few inches above the pavement.

”Ooh, feisty. I love it when you hit back, Master.”

”Focus, Vallya. We have to find Adantia. I'm not seeing anything that looks like what I'd expect such a powerful individual to look like. Where do we start?” John and Vallya’s combined form floated in the center of a crossroads, surrounded by stores, clubs, and other fixtures of what must have once been a bustling downtown. They remained there, just high enough to ensure that they wouldn’t accidentally disturb the ground. This Barrier contained a reconstructed version of the city, and John had his doubts as to whether those cross-Barrier tendrils would disturb the ground here… but there was no sense in taking any chances.

”Well, suppressing one's power is much simpler than casting illusions to hide entire Barriers. This woman might not be particularly skilled with illusions, but I suppose she at least knows how to be reasonably subtle... it won't be so easy to find her, if she's trying to remain hidden. I can sense auras, but not as well as that obsessed woman.”

"Her name is Layla, and she-”

”So I will have to get closer to find her, if she's trying to remain hidden,” Vallya finished, ignoring John's objection. ”How long do we have left with this ability, Master? I can't see your menus in the same detail you can, even fused like this.”

John opened up his status screen reluctantly, mentally brushing past Vallya's intentional barbs.