Magic Breaker Ch 10-12

Chapter 10: Heights

[Suppression 3 > 4]

The night passes and [Suppression] levels up again. With my enhanced senses I can see what changed. The way the mana moves changes a little. In fact, each time I cast it, I manually adjust the flow a bit, just to see what changes. 

Now, with another level, it crashes down on the little parasite even harder. It can barely move under my skin anymore. “Get rekt, little fricker,” I whisper.

Eventually, my party members wake up, one after another. 

Thatch is the first. A single ray of sunlight comes through the window, hits his face, and he wakes up. Does [Piercing Gaze] let him see through his eyelids? It definitely let him see through my skin. Is it passive or active?

Questions upon questions. 

I see him stir, stretch, yawn, and get up. He looks around, and spots me. “Whoa,” he says, first. “Holy fucking shit.”

I tilt my head. “What’s up?”

He looked around. “Holy shit!”

A small smile spreads on my face again. “Thatch. I got no idea what you’re seeing.”

“Right,” he mutters. “Right!” Then he turns to me. “Snow, I-”

“Urrrrgh,” Inu groans. She stirs awake. “It was hard enough to fall asleep, Thatch. Quiet down. Please.”

He flinches a little. “Right. Sorry,” he whispers. “Snow can we…” he gestures for the door.

Smiling softly, I nod. “Of course.”

We head outside so as to not wake the others. As soon as the door snaps shut again behind us, Thatch breaks out into a wide grin. “The world’s so different from yesterday, Snow. I can see everything. I can see… beneath your skin, y’know? I can see that dark blob, I can see your nerve clusters, I can see the way mana flows through you.”

I tilt my head a little. “Thatch? Have you been… peeking?”  

“Huh?” he asks, confused. Then, as I move to cover myself, it dawns on him. His face turns bright red. “I- No!! Absolutely not!” he says, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “You know I’d never, I’m not like that!”

Sagely, I nod, stifling a smile. “Right,” I say, putting as much doubt into my voice as possible. “Of course.”

He turns even more red. “You’re such a jerk,” he says, then laughs, quietly. “But… it’s weird.  I couldn’t see as much yesterday.”

“Things changed overnight. Adjusted sensory parameters,” I tell him.

“What does that mean?” he asks.

I shrug. “Don’t know much more than you. I can sense mana, though. Not yours. Well, not passively. If I focus… Yeah. I can feel it coursing through you.”

“That’s wild,” Thatch says. 

Then, the door opens, and Inu steps out. Her hair is a bit of a mess, and she’s rubbing one eye. “Yeah, no,” she says. “Not sleeping. I can feel your excitement through the walls. Stupid frigging empathy skill.”

Thatch gives her a sheepish grin and scratches the back of his head. “Sorry!”

Inu just rolls her eyes, uncrossing her arms. “It’s fine.” She looks to me. “Snow. Your goals right now are Opal and Sylves, right?”

I nod.

“Think we could reach them if we like… stormed a radio tower? Deal out a broadcast?”

For a moment, I consider the idea, then shake my head. “I doubt it,” I say. “The eyes seem to be messing with satellite signals, and there was apparently some terraforming during the night.”

“Terraforming?” she asks. “Wait. Did you not sleep?”

“No,” I say. “Hard to when there is something actively eating me from the inside.”

“Oh, fuck,” Inu says, eyeing my side. [Empathy] must be telling her where the pain is coming from. 

“Working on it,” I assure her, and she gives a small nod. “But yeah. I was up. During midnight, there were two notifications. First, our senses were changed and our limits removed. I think humans can now grow… well, pretty much infinitely stronger with working out. Same for our minds. Second message was about being fused with a different planet. Maybe multiple.”

“Shit,” Inu says.

“Yeah,” I nod. “It’ll make finding Opal and Syvles hard.”

“Where would they go?” Thatch asks. “If we can get in their heads…”

“Opal would run into a dungeon headfirst, probably,” I say. They look at me with confusion. “Right. Dungeons are a thing, apparently.”

Inu nods. “Like a game.”

“Exactly. Syvles… I think she’d go looking for us.” There weren’t many places for her to go. She’d grown up in an assisted living facility, since her parents were abusive. She was still in contact with the caretakers from back then, but she’d long since moved out. 

Thatch hums to himself a little. “Maybe…” he starts, unsure. I give him a look, and he continues. “Maybe if I get to a high place. Somewhere we can see all the city from. I could find them?”

It’s not exactly great odds, but there is a chance. A high point. There are some observation towers nearby. But to really see everything… well, given the terraforming, things might have changed.

I nod at the suggestion. “Alright. We’ll do that.”

With the decision made, we head back inside. Inu wakes up her parents, and Thatch shakes his mom awake. Norman makes sure to complain about his back as he wakes up, even though he’d taken the bed. Bay seems relatively fit, and Jess is quiet, as usual. Inu and Thatch explain what happened during the night.

They take longer to get ready than I’d like. I quickly sling my backpack around myself, suppressing a wince at the movement. As I wait on the others, I play around a little more with mana.

Moving the tiny thing I solidified around, for example. I can control it and the way it moves through the air. I move it around myself, seeing just how fast I can spin it, until we’re ready to move. 

Inu signals me with a nod, and I open the door. “We’ll be looking for a point of elevation today,” I tell them. “To find out if Thatch can find Opal or Sylves with one of his skills.”

There is some grumbling at that, namely from Norman. “Another hike,” he complains.

“Yes,” I say, loudly. “Another hike, Norman. The world is ending. There’s probably aliens out there. More monsters, new sapient species. We know nothing about them. Right now, everything is on the table. Mental manipulation, slavery, other species that hunt humans for sport, Norman.”

He flinches, but I don’t let up.

“So, we’re going to go out there. Because right now, our odds are best. This isn’t going to get any easier, alright? People will level. I’m not letting other humans get ahead of me.”

At that, his face firms up. He nods, just once, then looks away. “I get it,” he says. “I get it, okay? Let’s move already.”

Without replying, I turn around, walking down the stairs.

- - -

The world outside has changed.

Buildings and rubble are pushed further apart. Between them there are lakes of emerald water and forests of blueish plants. It looks a little like a patchwork puzzle, half festering into each other.

Pieces of concrete and road work are in between trees. Vines climb up grocery stores and car wrecks. Shattered glass gathers on the shores of the small lakes.

I looked around, for a high point, and there are a few. Observation towers, hills, distant dunes of sand… But one sticks out above all. In the middle of the city, where the botanical garden used to be, there was a hill. It was high, higher than anything around it, and at the very top of that hill, there was a castle.

It was made from grey stone, with walls, ramparts, an enormous gate, the whole works. “That… seems to be the highest point,” I say.

Inu pokes me with her elbow. “You’re smiling again,” she says.

There’s no reason to defend myself, so I don’t bother. Instead, I just nod. “Yeah,” I say. 

“It’s a friggen castle!” Thatch says. “You usually only see those in Europe! Even there, most were bombed in the last war!”

Bae furrows her brows. “I don’t know if that’s safe.” Jess nods to agree.

“I’m pretty positive it’s a dungeon,” Inu notes.

Again, I nod. “Let’s go, then.”

People groan, but follow. I’m unsure if the adults know what dungeons mean. I look back at them for a moment. Would all of them survive? My eyes go to Inu, then Thatch. 

I’d make sure they lived, at least. And hopefully their parents, too. Wouldn’t want my friends to feel bad. 

Chapter 11: Groups

Humans are tribal creatures. I’ve always thought so, and my belief gets affirmed again when we try to leave the house.

The outside is a mess by now. The corpses don’t seem to stick around, instead slowly dissolving. It’s like they’re despawning, but only piece by piece. I see goblins, blood and flesh decaying into faint blue particles that soon turn invisible to my eyes and mana sense.

What surprises me is that it also happens to human corpses. The air feels… almost a little painful on my skin. 

In fact, I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels it. Inu absentmindedly scratches the wound on her shoulder. Thatch seems to shudder. And all around us, there are huddling and walking groups of survivors.

The city streets are bustling again but it’s noisy. Hostile. People glare at each other, looking combative. I look around, too. 

Men and women are huddled around small fires, having scavaged wood from the bits of greenery in the city. There’s sirens in the distance. I ignore them, and am tempted to put on my headphones again. There’s a reason I don’t leave the house without them, after all.

Worst case, I might have to steal some, as a backup. I notice a girl with some earbuds in…

“The hell’s up with you, bitch?” a man asks me. “Stop looking at my girlfriend like that. Fucker.”

I tilt my head, my eyes drifting to the woman’s earbuds again. Do I need a backup? 

Inu grabs my shoulder. “C’mon Snow. Don’t mind them,” she says, glancing at the man. “We don’t want any trouble. Just spent the night.”

He frowns, but nods. “Fine then. Be on your way.”

I turn to walk.

“Actually, wait!” someone else calls out. This is another guy, tall, handsome, brownish-blond hair and warm eyes. He wears a jeans-jacket and a pair of khakis. I look at my own ragged clothing, the half-melted sweater and a long sleeve I stole from Opal’s closet. It’s too big, but it’s comfy, and covers all my skin in a way that doesn’t make me wanna scratch it off, so I don’t mind. 

“Yes, what’s up?” Inu asks, looking at him. 

He smiles at her. I tighten my grip more. Just to be sure, I [Select] him. I don’t think he notices. “Hey. Name’s Vincent. We wanted to ask if you’d like to join our group,” he says, pointing behind him. There are a few people with him, mostly adults. “We’re trying to camp out this whole situation, y’know? Wait ‘till things are normal again.”

Thatch shakes his head. “Sorry, man,” he says, “no can do. We’re still looking for some of our friends.” 

“We could help you look, if you’d like!” the handsome guy suggests. A few members of his group roll their eyes. 

“Thank you, but we’ll manage, I’m sure,” Inu says. 

“Oh come on, doll-” he starts.

I step forward, interrupting his speech. He’s taller than me. Bigger. Stronger. And yet, I’m not scared of him. Wonderful what a few knives and a bit of magic will do. “Back off,” I tell him.

He raises his hands defensively, giving a disarming smile. “Hey now, don’t worry, friend! I wasn’t doing nothing. Just trying to help.” He smells of flowers and iron and sweat. Rancid.

“We turned you down,” I tell him.

“Yeah, I was just saying-”

“We turned you down,” I repeat.

At that, his brows crease. “C’mon, hear us out. We gotta stick together, don’t we? People helping people.”

I look at him. “Scram,” I say.

“What?” he asks, confused. “You really don’t needa be so hostile-”

He reaches out to grab me, in the casual way that people so often do.

It would be a light touch, just my shoulder. Just a little bit of one. 

Fucking disgusting.

[Suppression] slams into him, and I shoot forward one of the rice-grains of solidified mana I keep with me. It stabs into his hand, just like a tiny needle, and then I disintegrate it.

My mana spills forth in the middle of his body. It clashes against his, destabilizing his skills, briefly making him wobble, and my skill does the rest. [Suppression] is like a physical weight on him, and the man gasps, robbed of breath by the sudden weight. 

Without hesitation, I kick his shin, and he stumbles to his knees. I press the butt of my axe against his forehead. “I’m particular about my personal space,” I tell him calmly. “Please don’t try to touch me.”

He doesn’t answer, stunned by the sudden violence, I’m guessing. I give him a moment to gather his bearings. When he tries to talk, I press the pommel against him harder. “Close your mouth,” I say. “Scram.”

For once, he seems to think, and just grimaces. I take a step back, and he gets up, stumbling back to his group. They look at me with confusion, but overall don’t seem to take me too seriously, laughing at the guy for getting so suddenly trounced.

None of them felt or saw my skill activate. I deselect him, focussing both my skills on the pain in my side again. The little critter took its chance to wriggle.

Thatch looks at me and I shoot him a faint smile. “C’mon,” I say. “Let’s go.”

- - -

On the way to the castle, the “adults” try to lecture me on violence for a little bit, but I ignore them. Inu and Thatch are on my side. They both saw that the guy’s vibes were fucking rancid. 

Adults don’t always get that. He was just a little older than me, maybe two or three years. But the overly familiar act? Gross. What a weirdo. 

Norman tries to put a hand on my shoulder, too, but Inu catches his wrist and pulls him back. That makes me smile. She must’ve talked with them about boundaries before, I’m sure. 

Honestly, I’m glad they have a distraction from the way the world is changing. With my sensitivity unlocked, I can feel the mana in the air. Just faintly, a tingling in the back of my mind, but I reach out to it, and try to find it.

The sensation of pin pricks against my skin returns, but it’s stronger. Still, my own mana courses inside my body, stopping the needle-like probing from going any further. I think that it’s this kind of external pressure that may be assimilating the corpses.

It makes me think. Are we supposed to craft in this world? Our bodies have clearly changed, and it said our limits were removed, but what else? Magical items seem reasonable to assume, but how do we make them? Do materials not despawn if harvested? Do we have some kind of inventory?

My clothes and backpack aren’t disintegrating, so clearly the mana acts with some sort of nuance. Does it recognize ownership of some kind? Do the monsters drop something when fully disintegrated? 

I wanna know more. I think of dissecting a few goblins, but trying on the half-disintegrated corpses seems… pointless, somehow. Like they’re already lost. Would any promising materials just survive the erosion?

“Snow?” Inu asks me, stopping my train of thought.

“Yeah?”

She nods forward. More people. It’s a crossroads and a plaza, now filled with humans. They huddle around improvised tables, eating rations, talking. There are barricades along the edges, made from metal scrap. I almost wanna laugh. 

Two days. It took two days of the end of the world before things came to this. 

“Is there a way around it?” I ask.

“No. Thatch checked. Most nearby roads are blocked the same way. Seems people are being led here by police for some kinda announcement,” she says.

I nod, faintly, and keep solidifying grains of mana, collecting them in a pocket. There are a few dozen of the things by now, all slowly withering away. I think they can last maybe a day. Which makes them useful as little disruption pellets.

“Let’s see what they’re about then,” I say, walking forward some more.

As we walk forward, I can feel the mana changing. The incessant buzzing against my ears is replaced by a more gentle ambiance. Are the other humans leaking mana? Is it somehow more tolerable than what generally exists in the world? Are we being encouraged to herd together?

Is this a ploy to manufacture some kinda slaughter?

We walk up to the square. There are people standing “guard”. They look like ragged survivors, like everyone else. Torn clothing, small bloodstains, the works. My eyes flick over them, assessing the danger. “Hey. Who are you?” they ask.

I happily let Inu and Thatch take care of it. They state their own names, those of everyone else, and so on. The guards just nod. “Right then. You here cuz the police sent ya?”

“We encountered a policewoman on our way here,” Inu says. “But we’re mostly looking for our friends.”

As if. I swipe my eyes over the crowd again. The mana here feels a little… sticky. No, there’s no way Opal or Sylves would have picked a place like this one. Sylves is too skittish, this would make her nervous, and Opal… I eye the castle. We’d be able to find Opal from there, hopefully.

“I see,” the guard says, eyes turning a little sympathetic. “Don’t cause trouble, don’t use skills on others, and stay safe. If you need food, there are tables in the middle of the plaza.”

“Got it,” Inu says with a smile. “Thank you.”

We walk in without trouble. I eye the crowd. I hope the whole “getting out” part won’t be any worse.

Chapter 12: Humans are Trouble

It’s worse. 

Of course, getting out is worse. We walk across the plaza to the other side, and the guard there looks at us, holding out a hand. “Sorry, uh, what are you doing?”

“We were planning on leaving,” Bay supplies. She’s looking impatient already.

“Ah, right, uh. Please stay until Mayor Hinterberg has given his speech,” he says.

Oh. Was that how it was gonna be?

Norman shrugged. “Well,” he said. “Guess we’re stuck.”

I looked from the guard, to him, then back to the guard. Jess smacks him with her elbow, gesturing at me, and he grimaces. Inu gives them a weak smile. “We really should work to find reliable people to team up with,” she says, trying to get her parents on board.

The guard smiles at that. “Yeah. Lots of people here. Just get talking, I’m sure you can find like minded people,” she says.

Thatch grimaces. “Not… quite what we meant. We got friends out there. That aren’t here.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. This really shouldn’t take long, though. And it’s important to see, what with digital things being unavailable,” she says.

I glance at the sky. At the eyes bearing down. Jess and Norman don’t seem to mind staying, really. Inu and Thatch are fully on my side, and Bay seems to be on board with her son. I look at the guard.

She turned to me and gives a fake smile, the kind you put on when dealing with troublesome customers. “What is it?” she asks. “Can I… help you?”

“We would like to leave,” I say. I [Select] her.

“I’m sorry, please bear with us? I can get some police staff here to help explain it if you’d like to follow me?” 

Her smile is fake. Painted on. She smells of grime. Like old oil. The sticky kind, that gets on your fingers and doesn’t wash off. I wanna know more, and my skill twists to supply me with answers.

There is something off. Very off, here. The way the mana sticks to my skin is all wrong. I trust the pinpricks out there more. 

“We would like to leave,” I say. It makes me sound silly, almost like a parrot. I don’t usually repeat myself that much, but with people like this? Being a brick wall makes me less of a target. I want out. 

She grimaces with fake empathy. “Okay, I’ll just wave someone over,” she says, raising her arm.

“Come on Snow,” Norman says. “This seems… safe. We can stay a bit.”

I glance at Thatch. My gut twists, but he looks back at me and nods. He gets it. 

A second passes, and [Suppression] smacks into the woman. Then, without hesitation, Thatch lights up with [Rage]. He barrels forward, and when she tries to stop him, she fails. I feel her try to activate a skill, but I stifle it with my will. 

Bay’s eyes widen. “Hey!” she yelps, chasing after Thatch. “That’s dangerous!”

Using the chaos, I try to slip out, and so does Inu, but the guard reaches out to grab her. My blood runs cold. I double down, triple down on [Suppression]. My mana twists and burns, and the woman gasps for air, stumbling and choking.

[Suppression 4 > 5] 

Inu slips by, and I take a relieved breath, focusing more of my skill on the creature under my skin. Jess’s eyes widen, and she moves forward too. When the guard tries to stop her, the woman [Freezes] in place. Norman just sighs, and slips by undetected.

“Trouble,” he sighs. “You kids are all trouble. Inu, what are you thinking?” he starts arguing before we’re even out of earshot.

The mana pricks my skin again. A moment passes and I shift my skill fully back to the creature under my skin, suppressing it. The guard yells behind us, and tries to chase, but her feet are stuck to the ground.

- - -

We escape. It takes a chunk of running, some use of skills, and by the end of it, I’m panting and bleeding, but we escape. Blood thrums in my ears. My breath comes hard, but we keep walking anyway. Uphill, now. Towards the castle.

“What the hell was that about?!” Bay asks her son. “You storm off like that all of a sudden, do you have any idea what could happen?”

Thatch just smiles at her, scratching the back of his head. “Well,” he said. “I wanted out. It felt… off.” 

She rolls her eyes. “That’s why you just… sprinted out of there? Kid, you gotta think! There was police! What if you got shot?!”

I catch my breath and look over. Norman grumbles. “I’m with Bay. What’s so wrong with waiting a few hours, kids?”

Inu turns to him. For the first time, she looks a little angry. “Shut your mouth, dad. A few hours? Yeah fucking right. As if police shit ever takes ‘just a few hours’.”

He flinches at her words, then turns a little angry. “Don’t take that tone with me-”

“Or what?!” Inu demands. “The world is ending, dad. This isn’t a fucking joke. This isn’t a day where you can just sit it out and go back to work next week. Look at the sky. Look at it, dad. Look up.”

Norman doesn’t. He just gets red in the face. Angry. Jess lays a hand on his shoulder. “Back down, love,” she says. Her voice is calm. “I think they’re right.”

“We’re not kids,” Thatch adds. “We’re plenty adults.”

I smile. He says it almost with a pout, to the point where it becomes comical. But I back him up. “Norman,” I say, and the man’s gaze snaps to me. “We’ve killed two people in the last day.”

The words come out so calm that he freezes. 

“Thatch killed that policewoman. She used a skill on Bay, I’m pretty sure. A manipulative one. I killed an old man, who put an arrow through your daughter’s shoulder. We’ve all killed goblins,” I say. 

He swallows his retort. 

“The mayor? I don’t care. Police? I don’t care. I am not staying there. That was a deathtrap, waiting to happen. They try to lock someone down who isn’t with their family, think of that. Imagine you were in there, and your kids out here. With goblins. With whatever that shadow thing was.” I pause, taking a deep breath. Then I walk faster.

“I am not letting my friends die,” I say. “Not Inu or Thatch, not Opal or Sylves.”

If there’s a response, I don’t hear it, too focused on the path forward. On mana, on my skills. Humans are trouble. Unfortunately, Opal and Sylves are humans, too. 

I don’t mind, though. They’re worth the trouble. I will take care of it all.