Andrew Rowe - Sufficiently Advanced Magic

It spun, swept my legs out from under me with a claw, and then jumped backward as I hit the floor.

And as I recovered, readying a gauntlet to block the next strike, it turned — and it ran.

Taking my sword with it as it passed through the wall.

My eyes widened. I… hadn’t realized that was possible.

Jin had recovered before I did, reaching down with a hand and helping me to my feet. “Good timing,” he observed. His breaths had slowed to an almost normal rate. “Patrick is dead. We solved the torch problem, but the creature came anyway.”

“What’s the solution?” I glanced at the torches. Only two of them remained lit, indicating one of them had gone out during the fight.

“They’re in matched pairs. Doesn’t matter which mana type you start with, but you need to light the match with the same type.”

And we’d tried to light two non-matching ones with fire, and failed the puzzle. That made sense. “Okay, so we’ve still got two lit with… what is that, lightning?” The two lit torches had some kind of crackling energy floating within them.

Jin nodded. “I do not know if we have enough distinct mana types for the two remaining pairs without Patrick. We had managed to ignite two pairs, but the creature ambushed him when he walked into the darkness to light the last.”

Ugh. “Did you try gray?”

He again nodded. “Doesn’t work.”

I frowned, thinking back to the poem.

Two to keep our bodies strong,

A pair to keep our hearts from wrong,

A final two to light the path.

Maybe the pairs had to be physical, mental, and, uh, light? I wasn’t really sure on that last one.

It was worth trying. I cautiously moved over to the nearest unlit torch and pressed my gauntlet against it. “Have you tried transference?”

“No.”

I activate the gauntlet, blasting the torch with raw kinetic force. The torch shook, cracks appearing on the surface of the glass — oops — and a flicker of light manifested within the orb.

Success!

“Looks like that one works. Do you know which one—,”

Jin was pointing to the other side of the room when I turned to look at him. There was a torch back there, sure, but that wasn’t what he was pointing at.

Eyes in the dark. My sword was still lodged in the creature’s side, the weapon’s icy glow illuminating a patch of frost that was still slowly spreading across the monster’s hide.

I cracked my neck. It was time to get my sword back.

I glanced at Jin. “You need a minute to reload?”

“I already did. That monster can make itself selectively incorporeal, though. If it sees me aiming, it’ll just go incorporeal to avoid most of the hits.”

Why wasn’t it going incorporeal to get rid of the sword, then? Oh, maybe the weapon being stuck in it meant the creature’s ability treated the saber as part of its own body? That explained how it managed to take the weapon out through the wall earlier.

“I’ll distract it.”

“Patrick said that, too.”

…That’s grim.

“Well, it sounds like he did… at least for a minute.” I drew my dueling cane with my left hand. I wasn’t as good at using it with my left, but I could manage, and the demi-gauntlet would interfere with using it in my right.

“True,” Jin admitted.

“Going left.” I stepped left and opened fire with the cane, feeling the sharp pull of mana through my hand. It was a familiar sensation, as invigorating as it was painful.

Only half of my blasts landed. I’d expected a rush, but it started leaping in a zig-zag pattern to avoid the assault, showing more intelligence than I expected. Spines descended from the air as it approached. I flicked the switch on the cane’s hilt, side-stepped, and deflected the first spine with the blade.

The creature hissed, the second spine missing me as it winced at the impact of a bullet against its side. I jumped over a sweeping claw, then danced back as it attempted to gore me, jamming my blade toward the bullet-hole that Jin had put in its skull. I missed as it continued to move, losing my grip on the cane as it impacted an undamaged portion of the skull. The weapon went flying to the side, further gunshots piercing the creature’s hide as it reared up on its hind legs.

I didn’t like the look of that.

I was already jumping to the side when it slammed its feet down and breathed fire in a vast arc, blasting nearly a quarter of the room. Even outside the main arc of the flames, my barrier still visibly manifested to protect me from the rising heat.

It was still spitting out the blast of incendiary breath when I rolled beneath it, grabbed the hilt of my sword, and pulled .

The saber’s blade was sharp, but I wasn’t pulling at the right angle to make a good cut.

I had something a little different in mind: cracking some ice.

I put my full weight into it as I pulled, feeling something give in the creature’s side as the section of frozen hide began break apart.

The creature howled, dragging me along the floor as it rushed toward a wall, one of its massive legs landing on top of one of mine with a crunch.

I slipped free, sword in hand, as a section of frozen hide gave way.

The creature, still solid, slammed into the wall a few meters ahead of me. At last, it lay still.

It was only in reflection afterward that I realized that I’d almost made the thing collapse on top of me… which would have brought a swift and uncomfortable end to my test.

As it was, I couldn’t feel my left leg, the one it had stomped on as it retreated.

“Jin…” I mumbled, a spark of cold surging through my leg, “Make sure it’s dead.”

He walked over to me, reaching out a hand expectantly. Nearly incapacitated by the spreading feeling of numbness, it took me a moment before I understood what he wanted.

Oh, right.

I flipped the sword around, offering him the hilt. He accepted it, walked over to the monster, and stabbed it a dozen times.

“Dead,” he pronounced, and walked back over.

I breathed a sigh of relief, pushing myself into a seated position.

“You going to get up?” he asked mildly.

“I’m not sure I can. Thing stepped on me while I was under it.”

“That was a stupid move.”

I nodded, wincing. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Worked, though,” he allowed. “And you gave me an idea.”

He walked over to one of the last two unlit torches and swiped my sword into the globe.

A moment later, the blue-white glow of frost manifested within the sphere. Jin smirked in satisfaction, moving to the last torch as I ineffectively massaged my leg.

Another flick of the blade — Jin clearly knew how to handle the thing — and the last torch was lit.

The cage in the center of the room rumbled, and then lifted, an unseen hook pulling it until it contacted the ceiling. The cage remained in place, hovering over the statue, but there was sufficient room to access the things within it now.

Jin walked over to me next. “The pain is in your head. Shake it off.”

“Uh, trying.” The best I managed was to push myself into a crawl, getting me a little closer to the statue. “Anything in there aside from the key?”

He shook his head. “No.” He looked down at me, sighed, and laid the sword down on the floor. “You’re no good to me like this.” He reached into a pouch at his side, withdrawing a flask, and then handed it to me. “Drink, it’ll heal you.”

I didn’t know if a healing potion would work on illusory damage, but it was probably worth trying. I opened the flask and took a drink. The liquid inside tasted foul , nothing like any healing potion I’d ever tried. I made a face. A whirring sensation started in my head as I handed the flask back to him.