Published: 28 Oct 2024

Enharmonic Tones

“Marc! What’s happening? Damnit!”

Okay so, I fucked up. I touched the one thing I was not supposed to touch or interact with in any way, and I not only touched it, but was holding a powerful alien artifact when I did. An artifact that almost wanted to make magic energy flow. And when it flowed, it all went out of me like a draining toilet at a Cajun restaurant.

“Marcus! The whole inside of the building lit up like New Year’s Eve in Sydney! What the bloody hell is going on?”

Instantly, magic energy swept through my body, right into the convoluted, corrupted pattern of magic overhead. That in turn sent a massive pulse of directed Quintessence into the massive tangle of lines of power around the stele. Power flared, and I felt instantly tapped out. My invisibility belt crackled and sparked as it literally blew up from the inside out, like some old fuse box pushed beyond its limits. I know because I immediately passed into unconsciousness. Briefly.

“Marc?! Answer me, boy!”

I woke feeling very much like a struck matchstick: my body felt dry and brittle, my head was on fire, and I could literally smell smoke and something like floral air spray from somewhere very close by. There was a constant ringing and buzzing in my ears and it took me a hot minute to realize where I was. I sat up and looked around, having to shake my head to clear the fog. It took another shake to realize that Meryl was shouting into my Bluetooth. Everything was suddenly fuzzy and diffuse, as if glowing brightly, but scattered by a mist.

“Oh shit,” I whispered. I don’t know, I may have shouted it in that moment. My head felt like the inside of a rung bell. I couldn’t have been out of it for very long, but already there were significant changes in how the air around me felt.

Somehow, I wound up under the glass case that held the jewelry, and that alone gave me a big worry. Every item in that case was pulsing with light. I don’t mean that I saw the enchantments laid upon them in ancient times; they literally glowed. And spewed out sweet fragrances, which were so thick in the air I almost passed out again. Something in the box was fairly spewing out thick, heady perfume, so much so that it left a mist in the glass case.

I crab walked out from under the case to see that the entire Stele of Amarna-Ka was glowing as well, pulsing gently. All of the glyphs were flushed with light and brightly colored, as if brand new. Almost plastic! As I got to my feet, I could see the Anubis statues, both fully restored to like new, had become active. And mobile. First one then the other stepped down off the large slab of pink granite that the stele sat on, and they seemed more graceful and sinewy than when in rock form. They turned and pointed their odd weapons at me in a threatening manner. Out in the great hall, the flashlights started moving in my direction, too.

“Marc! Marcus, boy! Get UP!” Meryl shouted into my ear.

“I’m up, I’m up! Oh shit!” I said as the Anubis statues moved in on me. Then a noise from the other room caught my attention. The disgusting guard ran in and played his flashlight over the statues. The shift of shadows caught the statues’ attention and they turned to confront the guard. Elsewhere in the museum, I heard the other guard screaming for his partner, dashing away from the sword room. I can imagine why.

“What’s happening?”

‘Yeah, that’s a… a really good question, Meryl.’ I actually remember thinking that as I looked around and took in all the chaos around me. Fire alarms were going off because fuck-all was happening all around us. I’m pretty sure those weren’t the only alarms going off, either. Every tangled power plug for magic items in the place had gotten the queen mother of all Quintessence jolts, and everything was active at once.

And you think your Thursdays suck!

“Shit, I fucked up.” As the Anubis statues rounded on the guard, I realized what had happened. “I accidentally set everything off.”

“You what?!”

“Meryl, I’m in trouble. I don’t know what to do.” I was on the verge of panic, yet oddly my voice remained calm. Then I realized that the guard was about to be attacked by the Anubis statues. I stood up and squared my shoulders.

“Don’t do anything hasty.” Even as he said that, I was pretty much ignoring him and doing something hasty. I reached inwards to my Forces and Matter Spheres and tapped them both pretty hard. The time for subtlety was over, I needed ice power.

But my first try didn’t work. I felt the Spheres, ever present in my mind, but I had no energy. I was still empty from having set off all the mess hanging over the entire museum. I started to panic, looking at the statues, moving on surprisingly silent feet, closing on the guard. I reached again and tried to push magic into the pattern. Blue-white sparks flickered at the end of my fingers as I tried it again. I could feel some energy starting to pop back into my body. Suddenly, the room temperature plummeted around me and I could sense the return of my powers.

I projected two streams of cold from my hands at the Anubis statues, encasing them from behind. To their credit, they did try to turn, but that only increased the build-up of encrusting ice on them. In less time than it takes to tell, they were both shrouded in ice.

But I was totally knackered. I was bent over my own knees, huffing and puffing, trying to recover. I’d never felt so drained.

The guard totally freaked out and started to turn and run, only to be confronted by a new player in the room. The seated stony guy had stood up as well when I flooded the room with power. And he was much bigger standing than sitting. At nearly twenty feet, he dwarfed the room. He looked right at the guard, bent low over the human and repeated, with a voice like a cement mixer, “Whadda you lookin’ at,” a dramatic pause, “peckah head?” Yeah, less a statement, more of a mimicry.

To say the guard shit himself is to belittle the art and science of shitting oneself. He literally stood there in his grossness and shit himself, fully and loudly, and promptly fell to his back, trying to crawl away while keeping eyes on the stone statue brought to life. A trail of brown muck trickled down his pants leg. I was plenty disgusted but managed to take that moment to duck into the other room. You know, the one Meryl told me not to dip into because of the mummy?

Here again, the artifacts glowed with unearthly light. The “boat” seemed to be fresh, made of flexible reeds, bound tightly with hemp, ready for a journey on the Nile… or the Charles. Whichever river was most convenient. The scwabti all were moving about, performing mindless tasks that suddenly seemed a lot more mindful. There were grave goods, more jewelry and day to day artifacts done up Egyptian style, all of them showing some smattering of gold or gemstones, all imbued with magical qualities.

Then I heard the mummy talk. Yes, talk. It moved from behind its own glass case and shouted something at me in Coptic. It followed the sentence in ancient Egyptian with a pound on the glass and pointing at me.

“Oh fuck,” Meryl muttered, “You woke the mummy,” in that flat monotone of his.

“Oh shit. He’s gonna suck out my organs and regenerate, isn’t he?”

“What?! No, where did you learn that?”

“Uhm, the Hom Dai curse, or something like that. From that Brandon Frasure movie.”

“Bloody’ Hollywood! Okay, since you’re using magic freely now, cast a translation on your ear buds.” Now why didn’t I think of that. Oh, because he’s the master and I’m just the idiot who got talked into pulling off this madness. The mummy continued to beat his fist on the glass case as I warped the ear buds with a combination Mind and Matter spell. It only took a second and the sound suddenly shifted in my ears to regular English.

“Behind you, you fucker of dogs, behind you!”

“Huh?” I said and actually turned to see the flashing eyes of the stone giant from the other room, moving in behind me. He ducked low to get from the Stele room into the boat room, standing to his full height. Smooth stone or not, armed or not, it was clear he took his job as a sentinel seriously. Plus, he looked right at me and his eyes flickered and eerie greenish yellow. “Oh, fuck my life.”

“No time, Mage! Use the words! Command the ka!”

“He means to use spirit magic to control the beast. It must have a soul trapped inside the stone.” Meryl seemed to be fumbling for something but I had to take action quick. The stone statue raised both its hands in a double fist and came right at my fragile little skull. I dodged, the tattered remnants of my invisibility belt snagging on one of the displays and knocking it over as I tumbled. His attack shattered another glass case featuring a fragment of old papyrus. As it lumbered to its full height in the crowded room, I got to my hands and knees, facing the thing.

“Any ideas would be great,” I shouted. The thing turned its baleful eyes my way over his shoulder. That seemed to have locked it onto me. On instinct, I blasted it with ice. Then there came a crashing sound from the stele room. Like the sound of ice crumbling away. I had a feeling that my troubles were about to increase by two Anubis statues.

“Okay, okay okay. Marc, use Spirit Sphere in conjunction with Matter Sphere. You should be able to pluck out the animating spirit and stuff it into some other object, preferably something without arms and legs.”

“Right!” I shouted, ducking another hammer-fisted blow. He missed smashing my chest in by inches, rending a section of wall beneath a sign reading “History of the Nile Valley”. I cast my eyes about for another thing to push the spirit into, provided I could even do such a thing, and I settled on a clay pot. It would have to do.

I stood and focused, feeling the Unicorn’s Gift tighten around my wrist. For some reason, I still had the Philosopher’s Stone clutched in my hand. I slipped it onto a finger so I wouldn’t lose it and prepared to use the Spheres. My vision swam for a moment, as the lumbering giant reached out for my head. It moved with astonishing speed for something that until recently had been several tons of docile, shaped rock. And then I locked into the spirit realm and reached for the animating spark inside the giant. It resisted, trying to literally move about inside the formerly rigid stone statue. But I managed to get my psychic grip on it before its very concrete grip could squish my brains out. With the struggling spirit in my grasp, I flung it into the clay pot, ordering it to stay.

The silence that followed was soon joined by a muffled clapping sound as the mummy applauded. “Good. Excellent. You have quelled the guardian.”

“Guardian?” Sigh, sometimes I can’t help myself.

“Yes, and do you always respond with a question?” he asked. I removed my head from between the guardian’s hands and stood back from him. I was about to address the mummy again when the two Anubis statues from the other room entered, holding their staff weapons out menacingly.

“Oh crap, I forgot about them.” I rapidly prepared to blast them with ice again, the Unicorn’s Gift pulsing comfortably on my wrist, almost purring. But the lead Anubis dropped to one knee in front of me, his staff held behind his left arm, his right arm going across his chest. The second one came and stood by his mate, doing the same. “Uh, what the fuck?”

“They await your command,” the mummy replied, as if speaking to a child, or a Pharaoh. I mean those guys were pretty much inbred a lot, so some mental defects had to creep into the bloodlines at some point, so he must have some experience. Wow, I know a lot of how things happened in olden times, it seems. Too many books, too many late-night movies on Netflix.

“My command? Why my command?”

The mummy actually brought his hand up to pinch the bridge of his missing nose. “Oh, tell me that Medjai have not fallen so far.”

In my ear, Meryl said, “Tell him he’s the son of a lame goat and a desperate jackal, and he has no room to speak.” I relayed the message. The room got as silent as a tomb. Which, in a way, it was. I could almost hear the ice I’d blasted the place with melting. Then the mummy burst out in dusty laughter… which is hard to do with no lungs.

“Meralin Thoth? Is that you? I see you’ve found your pants!”

“I’m not Meralin,” I said. “I’m his pupil.”

“A rather young one. I see. The teacher again finds a student. He is with you, somehow. Speaking to you through some artifice?”

“I guess you could say that. Uh, what about them?” I said, pointing the statues. It would be more than clear that they were not in the same position that they started with.

“Oh, they’ll wait for your command for eternity if they must. You returned the soul forge to power, thus they serve you as long as the soul forge stands or they are destroyed.”

“Whoa!”

“And how is the ole scoundrel these days? Has he given up chasing skirts like a young man yet, or is he plowing every ripe field he can get his calloused hands on?” The mummy actually turned its head as if to wink at me.”

“That answer is complicated and kind of gross. Look, can you watch these two for me. I have to get out of here and deliver this to Meryl.” I held up the ring and he visibly retracted, even in his glass box.

“So, that’s what this is all about. I knew something was odd about the patterns here. It all makes sense. The tricky bastard!”

“Yeah, I’m sure you guys have a lot of catching up to do. But the guards have probably summoned help by now.”

“Oh yes,” the mummy said, lazily scratching his chin. “I should think with all the things brought to power around here, they shall be back with many others to attack you soon.”

“Right, so I got to get out of here and can’t have a couple of… of animated statues trailing me everywhere I go.”

“How strange. A Medjai should be allowed a proper bodyguard.”

“Trust me, it wont look good. Can you like, I don’t know, take command of them for a while?”

He seemed to ponder for a moment, then in wily tone of voice replied, “A favor for a favor.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, and promptly got Meryl’s voice buzzing in my ear.

“Marc, make no deals with him, just get out. Order the statues to guard the stele.”

“It means that I am lonely and wish for the comfort of companionship. I will care for your guardsman for a time, as long as you promise to return under the full moon’s light to tell me of this modern world. In return, I will tell you of the glory of Khem.” Later I figured out that Khem was the ancient word for Egypt.

“Alright deal.”

“Oh christ on a crutch, Marc!” Meryl muttered in disgust.

“Hey, this will mean a distraction,” I explained, holding my hand up to my left ear bud.

“I told you, he’ll talk your ear off.”

“And you don’t?” I could almost hear him fuming.

“Go now!” the mummy offered. “Through that chamber and beyond the kopesh should lead you to a way out. The way I was once brought in. I and your guardians shall be ready to beset those that rule this prison.”

“What if you are destroyed?”

“Then your duty to me shall be fulfilled and I shall have a glorious end in battle. Good fortune and good travels, young Mage. Tell your master that I said he is the son of a diseased harlot and a limp-dickedd camel. And I look forward to talking with him again,” he said, with what I imagine must be a smile. Old Mages are all pervs it seems.

As I was turning to leave, a massive spike of static flooded my earbuds. I panicked for a second and reached for my cell phone. But I had dropped it during my fight with the guardian. With a quick, annoyed use of Mind, I telekinetically yanked the phone from across the room and killed the connection to my ear buds. Had I done the spell wrong? I looked and saw that Meryl’s call had disconnected. I shut down the phone and looked up.

“Go now, student of Meralin Thoth. The enemy is closing on you. Make your escape while you can.”

“Thank you,” and I glanced at the name beside the case, “Melephos Tanarete.”

Again that explosive sound of mummy laughter. “Such learned men can get my name so wrong! In my youth I was known as Little Noh. You may call me as such.”

“I am Marc.”

“Well, make haste Marc. The jailers approach. May Seth obscure your path.”

“Until we meet again, Noh.”

Outside in the entrance hall, came a loud, impressive _crack-zap!_, as if from some anime handgun uncorking a blast at close range, all echoey and flat. Followed by the sound of a guard screaming. Three more quick snap-cracks issues forth, complete with the sound of debris flying. I was simultaneously very interested in what was making that sound and had a strong need to be as far from it as possible. I risked a look back into the main hall and saw several strangely uniformed figures with long guns up, moving through the museum, like soldiers searching out a building. Which, I mean, they kind of were.

When I say “strangely uniformed,” I mean that they were dressed all in black, with shiny flexible chest coverings, knee boots, and weird armor bits down the arms and legs. Very flashy, very high tech. I had the impression that these guys and gals were an odd mix of Imperial Stormtroopers and Power Rangers except only the working parts of both… minus the cool, evil helmet which they traded in for sharp military style caps.

And if they were using techno magic weapons… that means that these new enforcers were likely Technocracy. Or worse, aliens. Well, okay, I’m not sure if that would be better or worse, but equally bad. Mostly because I don’t know what I’d be dealing with either way. Still, those zap weapons were a mystery I could save for another day, and get my happy ass out of there like now.

It was time to activate some of my hanging spells. The belt was pretty much wrecked at this point and didn’t have time to repair it. I pulled some Quintessence and fueled a Forces pattern, and with a quick, twisting gesture of fingers, I activated my Armor of Obtenebration rote. The shadows of the room swirled and pooled around my feet as if liquid, and then flow around me like a second skin. It took only a few seconds, but the coverage was complete. I was covered in the inky blackness that seemed to dance on my skin. It wasn’t invisibility, but in the darkened halls of the museum, it didn’t have to be perfect to be effective.

Right, so I made my way into the area that Noh had indicated and found myself in the armor room… which was connected in a very intimate way to the sword room. But the swords seemed very interested in what went on in the hall beyond. I heard another percussive bark and the actinic flash of green light, as something screamed beyond.

The translation spell on my earbuds was still picking things up. Maybe the effects of the Stone had already warped the spell. Either way, I was picking up some kind of radio transmission.

“Sweep of the rear complete. No activity,” one gravelly voice said.

“Continuing to sweep the ground floor. One of the museum guards will need to be replaced. Gonked him by mistake. Oops,” said another, grouchy voice, with obvious ironic backspin. “Team two, beginning sweep of second floor.”

“Team four, roof is clear, proceeding to the AMC from the left wing.”

“Copy four, proceed with caution,” a female voice said. Something about her voice sounded different. “Team three, we have activated enchantments in the Egyptian room. Arm your stone breakers.”

“Copy that, boss,” the gravelly voice replied.

Somehow my earbuds were picking up a private, likely encrypted semi military channel for the museum’s secret police force. Cool! I could listen in to their attempts to trap me. But it sounds like they had at least four teams roaming the halls. Not cool.

I tip-toed across the armor room, giving plenty of room to anything that might go crash-boom if accidentally knocked over. It was kind of amazing to see that all those lines of power that had been tangled by decades of neglect and ignorance had been fired up and charged with energy. I have to admit to some adrenaline at the moment, so I would likely feel the sag of accidentally having burped out all that energy. I wasn’t as drained, but my own native Quintessence was taking its own sweet time regenerating

I got ten feet into the long rectangle of the armor room when one of the armored suits on a mannequin… moved! And then another. And another. Before I knew it, I was surrounded. I tried to move out of the way, but they wordlessly moved to intercept me, like slow, silent zombies, arms outstretched. It wasn’t long before they had me backed into a corner. Here I was, held captive by empty suits of medieval armor while high tech armored dudes were patrolling to take me out, “Call of Duty” style.

So I made to evade and try to limbo my way past them. You know, trusting speed and mobility to trump stupidity and position. But they moved their armored (and in some cases heavily armed) forms to block my path. Seems some of the armor sets featured spikes and even carried some flails and morning starts and maces and stuff. I tried to push through and discovered the hard way that they weren’t going to budge. My butt hit the floor and I had to scramble for my feet. I was trapped.

Then I saw a beam of light enter the Egyptian exhibit. The flashlight cast around the first room, finding it in complete disarray. I had to move quickly. They were only three rooms away, and all these mannequins had me perfectly pinned. Time to move some metal.

And then I had a thought. A scream and a few blasts from the rifle like weapons gave me an idea, even as it made me flinch with the loudness of it. I reached for the spirit in the clay jar and pushed it back into the stone statue. I couldn’t see the results, but the sounds coming from that room were suddenly much more energetic.

Now it was time to move some metal. I shifted my focus to Forces and pushed against the metal with a reverse polarity magnetic pulse. The armor suits shifted violently away from me, even as the zaps and flashed mounted in that first Egyptian exhibit room. As soon as the armor blew back from me like a popping soap bubble, I took off. All that fighting was bound to attract the swords attention and I didn’t want to deal with that. I found a door at the back of the room and popped its electronic lock with a subtle magnetic pulse and slipped into an ante chamber.

This was just a room built between rooms, for electrical maintenance. Like a secret passage but filled with pipes and wiring and air ducts. All the things I didn’t want to have anything to do with. But things that led to the outside. I was about to follow a pipe back to source when I heard the zing of the weapons pick up a notch. Not just in the intensity of the volley, but the number of them attacking. I just knew something had gone from bad to worse.

Like an idiot, I charged from the anteroom and followed the sound of the attacks. It seemed to be coming from the grand entrance hall. I risked walking into the sword room to watch from behind the wall of blades, looking into the entryway and the large stone staircase. Guards had taken positions and were firing from a kneeling position behind stone plant boxes, aiming their rifle weapons and laying down enough green zappy stuff to make a war movie proud. I stuck my head out to see what they were shooting at.

Meryl floated there, decked out in his armored pauldrons and flowing cape. He was glowing, even in his little boy form, and red energy gathered in his fists. He’d come to save me. And the Technocracy bad asses were not happy about it. Near where I was, two agents raised their weapons suddenly, as if trying to hold on to them from some massive force lifting them up. The two men suddenly sailed up into the air, lifted by Meryl’s unseen hand, and were flung against the staircase.

“Shoot him!” I heard the lady from the earbuds shout. “Use the Q Grenades!” Okay, that didn’t sound good.

“Right!” Gravelly Voice replied. I saw Meryl sink three guards who had rounded the corner on him into the polished marble of the floor, with a downward motion of his left hand. A neat trick, especially since the guards remained alive. Another guard leapt out, spraying his body shield with a burst of green lightning from his gun which Meryl quickly returned to the weapon, shorting it out but not injuring the man. He then caused a pipe to erupt from the ground, blasting the man back down the hall on a stream of water.

He was deliberately trying to prevent himself from outright killing them, whilst they showed no restraint towards him. I was baffled by this. But it gave me an idea. What good was it being the sorcerer’s apprentice if you didn’t perform some magic once in a while? Plus, I figured if my master was so willing to pull off some vulgar effects in plain view, it meant we were in full magic-believing company.

And so, covered in shadows, I passed through the wall of very animated metal, and joined the fray. I let the magic flow and with a quick mixture of Forces and Matter, gained control of all those swords as one, and directed them to form a wall around Meryl. I was still in a darkened area so I trusted in my shadow armor. Meryl was outright floating above the staircase.

The Technocracy guys with their zappers were suddenly faced with blades intercepting their bolts, angrily putting up a defense they’d been denied for far too long. Meryl was shocked by his good fortune but didn’t wait on it. He grabbed two guys telekinetically and hurled them face first onto the staircase. Almost immediately, tentacles of sticky… stuff, I guess the material of the stairs themselves, rose up and latched onto the men. The sticky spell that Meryl had mentioned. The odd echtoplasm of the spell pulled the men in and trapped them face down on the stairs.

Never underestimate the effectiveness of a sticky spell. Ought to be the third or fourth thing a Mage learns. Can’t do much attacking when you’re face down and stuck fast.

Meryl made his move and made a hand gesture, a jaunty salute. It was our signal to get out. He must have realized I was behind the swords and knew he would draw attention after himself by attacking and fleeing. Which wasn’t part of the plan, but we were making it up as we went. He trusted me to realize he was making a sacrifice run. He was buying me time, so I needed to spend it wisely. Time to get out.

Anyways, he floated towards the blown out front entrance, hovering over the shattered glass and concrete bits, casually deflecting zap strikes. Here and there he tossed a quick Forces shove that would have done a Jedi master proud. Basically putting on a display of how much he could have really done damage, but oddly enough showing a level of restraint that was epic. Meryl was just about to the glass wall at the front of the museum when disaster struck. Two small, shiny, metal spheroids no bigger than a baseball sailed out from two Technocracy guys’ hands and hit the ground near Meryl. And detonated, sort of

The whole room reverse exploded! There’s really no other way to explain it. The grenades sucked in all the free Quintessence in the room, along with small random debris, as if two giant vacuum cleaners suddenly turned on. All enchantments and spells instantly lost power. Meryl dropped to the ground, and covered his body with his armor’s cloak, which hid his tiny form rather well. He lay so, so still, despite the reverse rush of air flapping the end of his cape about.

But there were other effects. A loud, howling wind rushed towards the spheres, and objects rushed along with them. I saw all the jewelry from the glass case go sailing by, into the twin vortexes of the grenades, swirling around like a flushed toilet, their lights diminishing as they go. I heard the mummy curse and watched as a small army of shwabti figures went hurling into the breach, some trying to swim against the stream. Even parts of armor suits trailed off towards the grenades, some falling by the wayside as their magic was drained out. A pile of metal parts littered the floor with a loud clash of steel. A few of the swords suffered the same fate, clattering to the ground.

I was affected too. But whereas before the magic energy had left me to blast power into that tangled knot of hungry patterns, now I found myself more of a channel. The Philosopher’s Stone’s energy flowed from me like a river going over a waterfall, rushing out of the Stone and into my body, right into the twined vortices. I slid across the floor towards the weapons and managed to wedge myself into a door frame. It still took everything I had to hold onto that ring. It was really odd seeing my shadow armor flowing away from me like ink going down the sink.

As for the ring itself, it was clearly affected by the grenades. It was leaking power and still tried to fling itself into the magic eating holes. I closed my fist around it. Still, the rush of all that magic flowing through me, shedding off of me like the skin of a decaying orange, really knocked the wind out of me. With a monumental effort, I managed to outlast the storm.

The grenades effect wore out and there were grunts and groans around the entire downstairs of the museum. I heard on enormous fart from what must have been the disgusting guard, followed by whimpering. Someone on the staircase called out to his partners for a little help. Apparently when you’re stuck by a sticky spell, even if the magic ends, the effect of the material you’re stuck to rolling up and covering you remains. I’d hate to have those marble steps wrapped around my head like that, too.

Meryl, now appearing as the child he was stuck inside, got up, very gingerly, and tried to shake it off. But his young body didn’t have the strength to work magic yet. He was still a vessel refilling, like the tank after you flush a toilet. He tossed off another jaunty salute, although very exaggerated in its slowness, and ran, almost comically, through the destroyed facade of the building. With the long cape billowing out behind as he ran, Meryl shouted “Plan B!” A reminder to me to bug out and meet back at Public Gardens.

Several of the guards got up, assessing the damage, helping each other to their feet. Swords were strewn about the room, some of them stuck into the floor and walls, including one poor guy that nearly had his junk removed when a particularly aggressive gladius had plunged into the polished marble right between his legs. That was close!

“Fan out!” I heard one of the more experienced ones say. “There’s another mage around here, somewhere. You and you,” he said, indicating a few of his team. “On me. Let’s find that flying one, the kid. Move!”

Oh shit, they knew I was here?! I started to look for a way out, shaking my head to clear away the last of the weird draining feeling after the grenades went off. I actually looked to the air vents as a possible escape. I ran into the hallway and back towards the storage area. I figured it was far to late to be subtle. I’d just rip a hole in the wall until I felt strong enough to collocate someplace safer. “Hey, stop him,” one of the guards called after me but I didn’t stop or slow down. Some zaps sped by me, making me flinch and I had to make a dive into the back area.

Then my ear buds pulsed back to life and a simple message passed over the signal. A single word. “Duck!”

The back wall blew inwards, knocking me back over a packing palate with some modern art thing strapped to it. Knocked me a good ten feet and threw me to the ground, hard. But the blast had also sent shards of metal from the roll down door into the animated armors, pinning them to the floor and walls in some instances, bowling them over with the force of the blast in others.

As the smoke cleared, I started to get back to my feet and was greeted with a shadowy figure, towering over me as I barely reached one knee. He held out his hand and looked down on me, and with a glimmer in his eyes said, “Come with me if you want to live.”

Realization dawned on my like morning light breaking on a rocky New England coastline. It was Christopher James!

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