Monday, June 15, 2015

Dyson

“Are you sure we're in the right place?” Tony asked me.
“No idea,” I replied. “All I have to go on is a vague description of the place from Ben, and I don't exactly have my eldritch super senses anymore.”
We were standing outside an old, abandoned building, which I assumed was the right place, but I couldn't be sure until I went in to investigate. So I approached the front door and opened it up.
“Um, you read the sign right?” Tony asked me.
“Course I did,” I said.
“You know what 'condemned' means, right?” he asked.
“Of course I do,” I replied. “It means 'come on in, there's candy'.”
Tony sighed and followed me in The place was pretty much vacant from the look of it, and was starting to fall apart. We walked down some stairs into the basement and found ourselves in a small room. It was empty as well. But that didn't mean it didn't have its secrets.
“Time to see if this works,” I said, reaching into my bag and drawing out a small hand mirror.
I had received it a while back, and it was time for it to see some use. I looked in the mirror, and began rotating, so that I could get a look at each walls reflection. I found what I was looking for. Smiling to myself, I lowered the mirror and approached the wall, placing a hand on it. It felt normal, like drywall covered in cheap wallpaper, but I knew there was nothing normal about it.
You're not real, I thought.
The wall seemed to ripple before my eyes, before it faded away, revealing a hidden staircase behind it. I could no longer feel the wall there. I reached forward, and my hand passed through empty air. Tony walked forward to stand beside me and placed his hand against the wall. After a moment, he moved his hand forward as well, and blinked a couple times as he too perceived the staircase.
“One hell of an illusion, huh?” I asked.
“Black magic that forces all five senses to perceive something that's not there,” Tony said. “But once you understand that there's nothing there...”
“The illusion no longer affects you,” I finished for him.
You see, my mirror is special. It only shows what's real. Illusions don't show up in it So by looking at each walls reflection in it, I could see that one of them was fake.
“So this really is Dyson's hideout,” Tony commented.
“Let's go deeper,” I said starting down the staircase.
“Better brace yourself,” Tony said.
“Right,” I said, summoning Burner to my hand.
We proceeded down the stairs until we came to a ritualistic chamber. There were scorchmarks all along the walls, scrolls scattered everywhere, ruins carved into the ground, and at the center of it all, Dyson Malrick laid there, unconscious. He has bruised, and had some noticeable burn marks on his skin and robes. I wushed over to him and tried shaking his shoulder to wake him up.
“Dyson!” I yelled, panicked. “What happened? Wake up! Who did this to you!?”
“Wish I could say it was me,” came a familiar voice from beside the stairs. “But he was already like that when I got here.”
I spun around. Damien Monroe was standing there, leaning against an oversized falchion he had stabbed into the floor. He stared at me, with a hungry smile spread across his face. I met his gaze with as much anger in my expression as I could muster.
“Tony,” I said, rising to my feet “Take care of Dyson.”
Tony didn't question it.. He ran forward and dragged Dyson's body to the opposite wall and began trying to wake him up.
“You've been waiting for me?” I asked.
“I saw your blog,” he replied. “Knew you'd be coming here.”
“Figures,” I said, drawing my sword. “I can already guess what you want with me.”
“You guess correctly,” he said, yanking his sword from the ground and taking a fighting stance.
“Let's get this over with,” I said.
We charged at each other, weapons flying. It was a blur of flashing steel at first, and I couldn't keep track of it very well He was the first to break out of swordplay, by firing an energy blast from his eyes. I saw it coming a split second in advance, and ignited my sword, using it to deflect the blast to one of the walls. We clashed again, and he launched a blast of red light from his hand, striking me in the chest and knocking me back. I crashed into a wall to the right of the staircase, and slumped to the ground. My chest was burning from where his energy blast had hit. He charged at me, swinging his sword. Before he could reach me, Burner appeared before me, in all his bizarre blurry glory, and blocked Damien's attack with his naginata.
“Whoa,” Damien said, taking in the large ephemeral spirit that had appeared between us. “That's new.”
“Yes,” I said, letting my sheath slip from my left hand and drawing my gun. “It is.”
I fired at him twice, hitting him once in the chest and once in his left color bone. He can regenerate, but it's a slow, painful process for him, so inflicting debilitating injuries can still work against him. He'd have trouble using that arm for a little while. I got back to my feet and charged at him. We clashed blades again, and Burner joined in, giving him two opponent's to deal with. But Damien is no push over. He didn't back down, and kept fighting against us both. As Burner attempted to impale him, he deflected the attack and got a hit in his his laser vision, hitting me in the shoulder. I cried out in pain, dropping my gun and almost dropping my sword. Burner angrily stabbed his naginata forward, grazing Damien's ribcage, and Damien responded by swinging his blade full force, knocking Burner away from him. Burner, wounded, slumped to the ground and faded away. Damien got back up, and readied his sword for another attack.
“GET! OUT!” Rang Dyson's voice throughout the chamber.
We both turned to see Dyson awake again, kneeling on one knee. He was wounded and weak, but still noticeably angry, and all that anger was aimed in Damien's general direction. Dyson raised both of his hands. In his left hand, a cloud of darkness appeared, and in his right hand, a shining light was emitted. He fired both of them at Damien, and as they flew, they twisted around each other. They remained distinctly separate, but I noticed something. It was subtle, but between those two energies, there was a soft, silver light sparking into existence.
It lasted about a second, before the two blasts met with Damien's torso, throwing him back against the staircase. He hit with tremendous force, and started coughing up blood. Afterward, he raised his head just enough to see the anger in Dyson's eyes, before vanishing through one of his hellgates.
Dyson slowly made his way over to me, and placed a hand over my wounded chest.
“This may take me a moment,” he said, as warmth flooded my senses. “I'm not very proficient with light magic.”
I looked around the room as he healed me, recalling that brief flash of silver as he hit Damien with both light and dark mana, and suddenly the damage to the room and dyson's wounds took on a whole new meaning.
“You've been trying to recreate chaos magic down here,” I said.
“Failing,” he said. “I've been failing.”
Chaos magic is the perfect combination of light and dark magic. Only two people has successfully mastered it. The Ace Of Chaos and Benjamin Malkator. No one else has done it because dark and light magic tend to reject each other with explosive force when blended together. Which explains the scorch marks. The Ace Of Chaos managed to find a way around that, and it sort of just came naturally to Ben.
Dyson finished healing me and then slumped down.
“Now,” he said. “I'm sure you both have very important business to discuss with me, but right now, I...”
His voice trailed off as he fell unconscious again. I guess trying to blend magic forms together is more exhausting then one would think.
“Let's let him rest,” Tony said. “He's been working hard.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
But I'm still worried. Dyson Malrick is trying to master chaos magic. And from that attack I witnessed earlier, I'd say he's getting close. This is serious.

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