I dropped through the hole in the floor, landing in a crouch, and groaned as pain shot up my knees, through my aching bum and sore back, and into my shoulder. I gritted my teeth and stood, flicking a hand upward as I drew on my Mana again. A single, clear Force Spike formed in the middle of the hole. I concentrated, making sure that it was as clear as I could make it, then I staggered over to the door, barely casting a glance at the dilapidated hotel room with its single double bed and broken dresser.
Above, my pursuers crashed through the door and set off the ice spike sphere and the air sphere. One coated the air with dust and dirt, and the second sent shards of ice forming from the floor. I heard a shriek of pain, cut off as they stumbled forward. But I stumbled out the door and headed for the staircase, hoping to lose them.
I couldn’t even tell who was after me this time. The naiads? More of the orders? Not the fey. I’d killed a pair of their sidhe warriors as I was entering the building, and I didn’t think they had too many pursuing me. If my pursuers weren’t so intent on fighting one another—settling old scores in the chaos—they would have caught me already. As it was, my counter had switched over from a countdown to a positive number, three minutes and up. I’d passed my quest, just barely.
Ever since they caught up with me, I’d been running. Every trick in the book I had, and some that I’d come up with at the last moment, had been pulled out. I’d stood and fought, killed and butchered. Splayed their blood across a rusty playground, leaving corpses scattered by wind blades, and then hidden among the destruction to double-back. I’d drawn my pursuers into narrow alleyways and released traps to web them close. I’d burnt the trapped dhampirs. From the pursuing oni, I’d run and hid, allowing lycanthropes to smell the blood I’d planted on them, and let age-old rivalry take its turn.
And none of it mattered. I’d barely gotten more than ten minutes of rest. Constant wear had me down to four spheres. My Mana reserves, carefully husbanded, were less than a quarter full. The hotel had not been what I’d wanted to hide, but it wasn’t as if I’d had a choice. When the demon dogs howled, you ran—and those sidhe had used their black hounds to push me here.
And now, I was ducking between floors, trying to find a way out that didn’t lead to another fight. But there was none. Around the corner, I stumbled, only to find a tall, gangly troll staring at me. Behind him, in the shadows, a trio of creatures stood.
“You guys made it,” I said wheezily. I leaned against the wall, trying to catch my breath. The scream from behind me as one of my pursuers impaled themselves on my present barely elicited a twitch.
“You have run far. But you must know how this ends.” The troll’s voice was urbane, civilized. A big difference from the big, big fangs in its mouth.
I shifted a few steps away from the corner, putting myself closer to the troll, figuring I didn’t want to get yanked back.
“I want to know why you’re talking…” I said, cocking my head. I kept my hand low by my side as I formed a flame spear, building the container, position, and targeting options first.
“Because we have a question.”
“Shoot.” I inhaled further, then added, “Not literally.”
“Do you have your final wish?”
I froze, some incidents clicking into place. And then…
“Take him.”
I didn’t see it coming. Shades came through the walls and yanked me back, smashing the back of my head into the wall. The first blow sent stars through my eyes and made my spell matrix fall apart. The second blow brought darkness even as the roaring troll and the screams of my pursuers mingled.
***
I didn’t expect to wake up. After all, they were meant to kill me. End me, the ring goes away and the threat of Lily being used as a weapon was gone permanently. Waking up was a nice surprise in that sense, though the throbbing pain in my head reduced my level of gratitude.
If I was a hardened soldier, a spy, or one of those whisky-swilling detectives, I would have contained the groan. I would have tricked my captors about my state of consciousness and found a way to turn the tables. But I wasn’t.
“Do not attempt to use your magic,” a voice warned. A familiar British voice accompanied by the smell of formaldehyde. “The bracers we have layered on your hands will bring pain from the Mana you form.”
“Don’t think I could even if I wanted to,” I said, prying my eyes open. I groaned as pricks of light slammed into my head, forcing my eyes closed again. I stayed lying on the floor, letting the cold of the concrete seep into my aching head. “I think I’ll just stay here.”
“Unfortunately, that will not be possible. Now that you are awake, you will need to speak to the Council.” So saying, Bronislav picked me up.
The smell of rot and preserving liquids intensified while he hauled me to my feet. I could barely find my feet before he pushed me, mostly pulling me forward rather than letting me walk. The motion made my stomach lurch, and only discipline kept me from throwing up.
“Good. Do not throw up. I do not care to launder my clothing again,” Bronislav said. “The Council still has not increased my laundry budget. Even if they have increased their… activities.”
“I… thought you guys were good guys,” I whispered, not liking the implications of his words. As he dragged me along, the new skin along my shoulder ripped open and a slow trickle of blood wet my jacket.
“We try. But the Nun'Yunu'Wi’s dietary requirements are much stricter,” Bronislav said. “We do what we can with my connections. But so many people want open casket funerals that acquiring bodies—especially those that fit requirements—can be difficult. And the butchering…”
“I don’t really want to know,” I whispered. “Just. Can you guys not eat me?”
He was silent.
“Fuck,” I said.
In short order, I was brought to an all-too-familiar location. This time around, I was not left to stand but dumped onto a chair—an old school medieval-looking torture chair with restraining straps for arms and head. In short order, I was trussed up, though as I ran my fingers along the edge of the vinyl armrest, I realized something.
“This is a bondage chair!” I said. I mean, sure, it was great for restraining but I swear, if they hadn’t cleaned it off properly, I was going to complain.
My shock and sudden exclamation threw my careful control of my stomach into turmoil and I found myself lurching forward, only to be brought up against the strap holding my head still as I tried to vomit. Dry heaving, some of the refuse bubbled up my mouth and spilled down my lips before rushing back down, throwing me into another paroxysm of coughing and spitting.
“Free him. Let him vomit. Then clean him,” the Chair barked.
Bronislav was quick to follow his orders, releasing me to throw up then cleaning me up. The Nun'Yunu'Wi hissed and snapped his cane toward me, making my shirt burn off, along with the rest of the vomit. It cleansed me, though it scorched my skin too and left me screaming and thrashing, sending me into another paroxysm. Rather than wait for me to finish, another wave of magic flowed into me. This time around, I felt my head healing, my thoughts clearing. Surprisingly, the wound in my back and the blood that had escaped was not healed.
“I told you you should heal him. Mages are fragile,” the troll growled.
“We should have just killed him,” the Chair snapped. “We agreed to that. If the others learn—”
“They will not. Not even the Council can pierce my defenses,” the Nun'Yunu'Wi said, laughing a little derisively at the vampire. “You worry too much.”
“And you risk too much.”
“For the jinn, this risk is nothing,” the Nun'Yunu'Wi said.
“Enough. Let us get this over with,” the troll said. “Many saw our fight. Some might suspect.”
“Very well. Wizard.” When the Nun'Yunu'Wi saw that it had my attention, it pointed at my finger. “Use your wish and release yourself from your previous wish.”
“Or what?” I snorted at the trio. They couldn’t hurt me. Not directly. Even now, Lily protected me. Protected me from—
A crowbar came down on my arm with full force, cracking the bones. I screamed, thrashing about but unable to move much. Bronislav looked back at his masters after the strike, stopped only by a raised hand.
“Your wish protects you from us. But we have many of the appropriate ‘Level.’”
“Fuck.”
“Yes.” The Nun'Yunu'Wi leaned forward. “Save yourself some pain. I can heal you if you grow too damaged and you will repeat the pain. Again and again, till we get what we want. Why bother?”
“What—what do you want with Lily?” I said, doing my best to ignore the pain in my arm and the blood that ran down my back in fresh waves. Ignore the way I could tell even my normal Mana regeneration was being disrupted by the enchanted bracers. Ignore the welling feeling of helplessness.
“It is not your concern.”
A nod and another strike. Except this time around, Bronislav hit me twice, cracking an upper arm and a rib before he was called off.
Once I was coherent again, when the waves of pain had subsided, I looked at the Nun'Yunu'Wi. “What does the Council want? You do know the ring goes to one person only?”
My words made Roland shift, but the Nun'Yunu'Wi laughed. “Did you think to sow discord among us?”
A gesture and pain came. This time, four strikes. Not all of them broke bones, but the pain was so great, it took me long minutes before I could focus again.
“Half-measures. Let me cut him up. Once I eat his foot in front of him, they always break,” the troll was arguing with the Nun'Yunu'Wi.
“You know why cutting him will not work, Vallen,” the Nun'Yunu'Wi snapped.
“Oh, yes. You and your fear of blood.” Roland laughed, shaking its head. “How pitiful, to fear something so great.”
“As if fearing sunlight was any better—”
“My lords,” Bronislav spoke up, bringing the attention of the group back to me.
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll… wait,” I said, trying for a smile and failing. The pain continued to radiate, the pulses of agony taking away my ability to plan. If not for the last while of training, I probably would not have been able to even speak that much.
“Make the wish.”
I paused, considering. Make the wish. A wish. I could make a wish. Easy. Wish them gone. Wish them dead. Wish myself free even. Wish myself free…
“Okay,” I said, looking up. “I wish—”
Before I could finish, the Nun'Yunu'Wi gestured and Roland cracked me across the face, shattering my jaw. I screamed, the strike throwing me back against the chair and nearly tipping it over. Pain, so much pain. And then, blessed darkness once again.
***
The next few hours were memorable, but not for the right reasons. The beating continued, interspersed with healing spells. It took about three tries before I realized that the son of a bitch was reading my mind—or a close facsimile of that—so that every time I tried to use the wish for anything other than what they wanted, I got smacked around. And while Lily might guess at my desires, until I voiced it out loud, she couldn’t make it true.
I was no semi-mute hero, no tough-as-nails private eye or trained soldier. When I got tortured, I felt the pain and scream just like anyone else. If not for the last few weeks of training, I wouldn’t have lasted even ten minutes. If not for Lily’s notification, I’d have broken in twenty.
Active Quest: Last Till Help Arrives
Help is on the way. But it’s taking time to get organized. You will need to hold out from the torture and refuse to make the wish until help arrives.
Requirement: -0:01:38
Reward: Rescue Attempt
Failure: Your Death. Loss of the Ring. Potential Armageddon.
It was those words I woke up to each time I was struck. That clock dominated my view and focused me whenever they struck me, when I felt the shattering of another bone. It was what I clung to when the pain of healing swept over me and my jaw and shattered pieces of my body stitched themselves back together.
There was only so much that magical healing could do. Only so much battering a body could take before even magic lost its effectiveness. Each time they broke something, each time my body bruised and blood vessels broke, pieces were left untreated, unfinished. Shards of bone lay amidst healed flesh, hurting and grating with each movement, each pulse of blood. My nose, shattered so many times that I made boxers look handsome, wheezed with each breath. My jaw, cracked again and again, was distorted. And my mind…
Multiple concussions in short order meant I was thinking feebly, barely able to focus on a single thought. It was perhaps because of that that the Nun'Yunu'Wi could not read my mind any longer. When I could not focus on my own thoughts, how could another?
“Make the wish!” the Nun'Yunu'Wi insisted.
“Urgh… I…” I leaned over, my head freed from its strap after the fourth? fifth? beating to spit and throw up. I coughed and coughed again, throat both dry and wet with congealed blood.
My hesitation made Bronislav glare at me.
“Enough,” Roland said. “He is barely coherent. You need to let him recover.”
“I have healed him,” the Nun'Yunu'Wi snapped.
“Repeatedly. The human body cannot take such abuse,” Roland said.
“Oh, it can take more. Much more—”
“Screaming insanity is not the result we need. He must be coherent to say what we want him to say,” Roland said. “Give him a few minutes. If he is unwilling to continue, you can continue the beating.”
The Nun'Yunu'Wi stroked his hand in thought before he nodded. “Yes. A respite will make the agony afterward more pronounced.”
“How much longer?” the troll, wandering back with a haunch of meat, asked, glancing at my broken form as he flopped onto his oversized seat.
While they waited for me to recover and I played broken—not that that was a particularly difficult act—Bronislav picked up a new cloth and wiped me down. He had been doing that repeatedly, keeping me clear of blood from the occasional bone that popped out, the accidentally bit tongue or split lip. For all the brutality Bronislav had inflicted upon me, his touch was soft, gentle as he cleaned me. It was… nice. Comforting. I found myself leaning into his hands, seeking warmth. Comfort. It had been hours, hours of abuse and pain and now…
“He is tougher than I expected,” the troll said, glancing at me. “But I still think you should cut off a limb or two. Maybe the one in between—”
“We agreed that this is mine,” the Nun'Yunu'Wi said.
“I thought it would take an hour at most. Sooner or later…”
In the corner of my eye, I saw the clock counting down. Changing.
0:0:44
0:0:43
A flicker and the timer changed again.
0:0:11
“What? They can look all they want. But our people have shown that they do not know where we are. Or what we do,” the Nun'Yunu'Wi said. “There is no way for them to find us. My wards are—”
The Nun'Yunu'Wi never finished his words as he lurched backward as if he had been struck. Which, in a sense, he had been. His wards, the enchantments that protected this room from scrying and other forms of assault, crumpled like a beer can in a frat boy’s hand. A moment later, a portal opened, one that brought the light of day to the room, flooding it. Even before the portal had finished opening, a spear flew through the gap and slammed into the troll, pinning it to the wall. White fire—the flames of faith-based magic—burned around the wound and along the haft of the spear.
Roland screeched and threw himself away from the sunlight, bringing a jacket-filled hand up to his face as the vampire fled to the farthest corner of the room. Bronislav’s eyes widened, hesitating over who to protect, and was rewarded for his hesitation by a blast of force magic that carried him back.
Congratulations! Quest Completed.
Reward: Rescue Attempt!
First to emerge from the Portal was Alexa wielding a pair of wands I had gifted her. She kept them leveled at Bronislav, sending the Frankenstein spinning away as he burnt and was smacked around by the fire and force magic. The moment she reached me though, she dropped the spent wands to work on my bindings.
Behind Alexa was Caleb, staff leveled at the Nun'Yunu'Wi as spell after spell formed and fired. It was a blitz of light and energy, Mana forming along spell formulas at a speed that was impossible to track. Even as distracted as I was, I couldn’t help but note that Caleb was going with low-level spells instead of something more powerful.
“God, I’m so sorry, Henry! We tried to get here, but finding everyone…” Alexa said to me as she struggled to free me from the chair.
Everyone, to my surprise, included a tiny Pixie. Ela walked from the Portal too, her focus not on the others but the vampire. Instead of directly fighting him, she hurried around the portal with a bunch of mirrors, redirecting sunlight to trap Roland in his corner.
“It’s fine,” I said, touching my clouded head. I wheezed as I tried to breathe properly, then I looked at my ring. “Lily…”
The jinn popped into space right next to me, offering me a half-smile. “Hi, Henry. You got to go.”
New Quest: Escape!
Your friends have arrived. Now it’s time to go.
Time Limit: 00:02:11
Rewards: Freedom. Live for another day.
Failure: More enemies.
Rather than answer her, with both hands free and Alexa working on my feet, I turned to where Bronislav was picking himself off the floor. He’d looked better for sure, the majority of his shirt and jacket burnt off, exposed skin blackened and the stitching around his body torn. One entire flap of skin along his chest had slipped off, exposing blackened internal organs and copper wiring. But for all that damage, Bronislav was moving, dragging a lame foot over to us, the hated crowbar in hand.
I focused on the bar, then on Bronislav’s grinning, savage face. And then… and then, my mind blanked. I only came to when I felt Alexa shoving against my shoulder, screaming into my face.
“Enough, Henry! Enough!” Alexa’s voice was hoarse.
I blinked, and the break in my concentration saw the channeled Mana from my fingers die off. A smell assaulted my nose—not the piss and vomit, the blood that I had spilled, but the burnt smell of fat and skin, of crisped flesh. As Alexa retracted herself from in front of me, I saw the cause.
A burnt husk, a charred corpse. Skin turned to ashes, fat bubbling and organs shriveled, bones and metal wiring glowing. Beside it, the puddled remnants of the crowbar.
“Did I do that?” I said wonderingly.
“We got to go!” Ela screamed, already perched next to the Portal.
Lily was beside me, echoing Ela’s words, a big flashing quest marker. I flinched, instinct making me grab and pull Alexa down beside me as my brain caught up with the answer.
Quest Failed: Escape!
Penalty: More Enemies!!!
The door leading to the room blew in. Reinforced wards, already weakened by our entry, were blasted apart. Ela, caught by the blast, was thrown through the opening she had been standing beside. The Portal flickered and slammed shut, the ritual holding it open disrupted on the other side. Caleb, caught by surprise, turned from his attack for a second—only to find the Nun'Yunu'Wi gone by the time he turned back.
As the wind and shattered remnants of the spell blew through all of us but for the jinn, it also destroyed and overturned the numerous mirrors El had laid out. Not that it mattered now that the portal was closed. Hugging Alexa, I rolled with the explosion, feeling barely healed old wounds and new ones bleeding.
Still, I was able to turn aside enough to see the doorway. To note the black hounds charging through only to be torn apart by the freed vampire. The pair of sidhe that strolled in, a pair of assault rifles to their shoulders, searched the room with precise motions, one of them targeting the troll that had finally freed himself and the other bringing its gun to bear on me. It fired immediately, only to have its bullets stopped.
Sidhe Lord (Level 184)
Out of Level attack blocked.
He snarled, stepping aside as he switched targets. “Knights. It’s your turn!”
“We’re coming, pagan monstrosity.”
A quartet of mortal knights came rushing through the door. They had no guns, instead wielding melee weapons, the various sheaths where they carried additional magazines already empty. There was a story there, but one I had no time to learn. Not when Alexa shoved me off and stood, snatching her short spear from the floor and facing the quartet.
“Henry!” Lily called to me, and even through the chaos, I heard the jinn. Through all this, she stood. Untouched. Untouchable. Bullets flew and curved around her. Magic broke against an invisible ward, leaving her and her clothing unstained. “There’s more coming.”
I closed my eyes, my brain still muddled. The never-ending fire of assault weapons in an enclosed room beat upon my ears, against my chest like the tiny fists of a puppy. The smell of death and decay pervaded the room, my skin and muscles on fire from the repeated attacks. And in their corner, Caleb and the Nun'Yunu'Wi dueled, their magic pressing against that sense too.
It was too much. Too much.
My friends were trying to rescue me. My family. People who had given up time and safety. And I’d failed them, failed to get out when we should have. We were trapped. And I had nothing…
“Kill him. Before he makes a wish.”
A spear, thrown at close range, was barely deflected by Alexa. It cut along my arm, tearing open a wound that I did not notice. Alexa, seeing me overwhelmed, fell back and pulled a sphere. She let it drop, and a small dome formed around me. A protective spell, one of Caleb’s. Too complicated, wasteful. But still more powerful than anything I could do.
But there was something strange there. Something… I cocked my head as I realized that somehow, I’d heard those words. In all the noise. I’d heard…
Even through the glow of the protective ward, I spotted the jinn. Lily offered me a half-smile.
A wish. Simple.
“I wish…”
What?
I didn’t know.
If I knew, I’d have made the wish before. To ask them gone? For what? Another day, another painful few hours. My enemies wanted me dead and would take it out on me and my friends if I wished their deaths. Their destruction. I had no time to come up with anything perfect, anything smart. No time to game the system, to figure out the right wording, the right way to do this. No time…
A wish. A single wish to make everything right. To fix… everything.
It was impossible. It always had been. That was why I’d never made the wish. How could a single wish fix anything? A single action? It can’t. Nothing can.
Because the ills of the world, of existence were greater than any single action, any person.
All you can do was hope. And trust. That those around you would do the best they could.
“That you had my wish to use as you see fit, Lily.”
A single wish. And trust. That was all there was. That was all there ever was.